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He says, “I feel that I can be honest with you, Veth.”
She has to tilt her chin up to look at him. He’s wearing his own skin for this conversation. She’s rarely seen him disguised, because when they do all happen to be in the same place it is usually in the tower. “I should hope so,” Veth says. She hasn’t been drinking lately but she wishes she had one now, if only to see ease the burn of whatever he’s about to say.
Essek Thelyss has been drinking, and he rests his chin on his hands and peers down at her through half-lidded eyes. “I’m worried about him.”
There’s only one person he could possibly be talking about. Fuck, she really does want that drink.
“He’s fine.”
“He’s not.”
Veth bites back a retort that he shouldn't imply that he knows Caleb better than she does, even after all this time. Ridiculous. She swallows down her water, swallows the faint sting of bile and the heat of her words down with it. “Okay,” she says, finally. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
Essek sighs, massaging his temples. He looks…decidedly rattled. Five years on the run now, and the wear of it is starting to show. Not outwardly, but Veth is accustomed to reading wizard sighs and this is more sharp than the usual, I can’t find enough money for spell components and the rare book I want isn’t available in the library and I’m a wanted fugitive and can’t safely access arcane knowledge sigh. There’s an emotion behind this one that isn’t anger or guilt, and even after years, she knows he’s never quite known what to do about that.
“Essek,” Veth says after he doesn’t speak. “I asked you a question.”
He startles a little at her tone, but Veth is still a mother, and this wandering asshole of a drow she’s come to think of as…well…dammit, family she supposes, is desperately in need of mothering. Particularly the kind she provides, which is blunt advice and encouragement. Though less encouragement with him. He doesn’t need his own ego inflated anymore than it already is.
“I can’t help him,” Essek says. “Not with the Assembly. Not with..anything that really matters.”
Oh, so that is what this is about.
“And that makes you feel…?”
“We aren’t talking about my feelings.” And he actually honest-to-gods hisses at her, all bared teeth, narrowed eyes, and the faintest burn of magic in his retort because Essek is a powerful enough wizard that he leaks arcana when he’s not careful.
Veth flashes her teeth right back at him. It’s more smile than snarl but she puts sharpness in it, because if he wants to play this game then she knows where to cut. “Oh aren’t we? I thought we were being honest here, Thelyss.”
“We’re talking about Caleb—“
“And you’re fucking in love with him so that includes your feelings.”
He glares at her. “I’m trying to…I’m worried about him and I want you to know.”
“We’re all worried about him. He’s doing dangerous shit.” Veth drums her fingers on the table in a way that she hopes is irritating. Based on his twitching ears and clenched jaw she’s succeeding. Good. “Look, Essek. Your life is complicated. You can’t be there to support him all the time, and he knows that. He signed up for that. You’re making it work. Just knowing you’re okay is enough for him, alright? And none of us can talk him off of this path even if we wanted to.”
He sighs again, and it’s such a weighted thing she can almost feel it drop into her lap. “I’m still not..accustomed to caring.”
It’s been years, but she supposes emotions are a learned skill. “I know you’re not. You want my advice?”
He’s been looking at his hands, worrying a ring on his finger, but at that he does look up and he looks so sad she almost hugs him. Young, even, although he has a good century on her. “That’s why we’re talking, Veth.” It comes out in a whisper.
“Beau’s in the shit with him,” Veth says. “She could probably give you better advice.”
He tilts his head to the side, and she remembers him as they’d first met, suddenly, all dangerous glamour and raw ambition: a wizard playing the game well, blood and magic staining his hands. There’s a pause, a stuttering of breath, an almost-smile twisting his expression into something that looks like it hurts. Essek says, “Beau doesn’t love him like we do.”
And there it is. Veth feels something like tears burn and she blinks them away. “True,” she says, and it’s a little hoarse. She clears her throat. “He needs you to be there when you can,” she says. “And remind him that he’s a person outside of all of this, you know?”
Essek nods slowly. “Do you think this is…ah.” He bites his lip. Swallows hard. Tries again, “do you think he’s relying too much on…previous training?”
She has admittedly thought about this before too, but she believes in Caleb Widogast far more than she ever believed in a long-dead boy named Bren, so she says, “of course not.”
He looks at her for a long time. They breathe in the quiet. They’re the only ones still up: Yasha and Beau are in their room, Kingsley is passed out on one of the sofas, covered in cats, Fjord and Jester are destroying a section of the tower with paint—Veth can hear the faint sounds of hysterical laughter and cursing. Caduceus went to bed hours ago. Caleb is asleep, somewhere. Or, at least, he’s gone to bed.
“He’s tired,” Veth says. “You need to help give him a safe place to land, when you can.”
Essek nods again. “You’ll be there when…”
“When you’re gone? Of course. Always.”
He takes a long sip of his drink and grimaces like it burns. “I’m very glad he has you, Veth the Brave.”
“I’m glad he has you,” she says, and means every goddamn word.
She says, “I feel like I can be honest with you.”
Those are always dangerous words, coming from her, so Essek puts down his spell book and gives her his full and complete attention. “I should hope so.”
Veth Brenatto has been doing some kind of complicated alchemy that he doesn’t understand in the study room in the tower. A goblet is smoking faintly next to her, but she doesn’t seem particularly concerned. In the thirty years he’s known her, Essek has learned to trust Veth about most things. She really is an exceptional wizard in her own right. Her hair is gray now, and she’s cropped it short (“sliced the braids right off!” Yeza had whispered to Essek with a kind of hysterical laugh) but it suits her. She tucks a lock of it behind her ear and scowls at him over whatever she’s making. The fingers of her right hand are still curled into the somatic component of..something? He doesn’t recognize the spell and sits forward immediately. Is there something new she’s working on with Caleb that—
“Hey!” Veth says, snapping the fingers of her free hand. “This is the part where you say, ‘Veth, what’s wrong, how can I help?”
Essek does not take his eyes off the tangled arcana. “Veth,” he says, in what he will realize later is the perfect imitation of Caleb’s deadpan cadence, “What’s wrong, how can I help?”
She grins at him, a quick flash of something feral always behind her smile. After all these years she’s never lost that edge. Retirement had not exactly suited Veth Brenatto, which, he supposes, is why she’s currently making something that he is pretty sure might explode. “I’m so glad you asked, Essek Thelyss.”
She doesn’t use his full name very often. “Are you angry with me?”
She slams a fist on the table and he flinches. The somatic components of whatever the spell had been fizzle out with a sharp hiss. He smells burning wood. “Of course I’m angry with you, you fuck!”
Essek fully closes his book. “Veth,” he says slowly, and before he can even take a breath to say more she snarls over him, “you’re making a mistake.”
“I often am,” he says, still with a hint of bitter humor she usually appreciates. It does nothing to placate her now though. She’s practically trembling. “You’re going to be more specific.” He almost adds, and please step away from the explosives, you were trained by a wizard who specializes in evocation, but Essek has never been stupid, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Veth, thank the Light, does step away from the table. Unfortunately, she steps away from the table so she can get in his face. Essek could stop her, but when Veth is angry he has learned it is best to hear her out. She marches across the room to him, juts her chin up and bares her teeth at him. “You,” she says. “Are breaking our promise.”
“What promise?”
She pushes him in the chest. “To keep him safe.”
Oh.
Essek feels the impact of the words like she’s struck him, and because this is Veth, he does not hide his expression. He swallows hard. “It’s—“
“If you say 'it’s for the best' I will end you, right here, right now, Thelyss.” She really is upset; there’s an actual sting to her words, and his eyes stray to the dagger he knows she still keeps strapped to her side.
“I was going to say,” Essek whispers, because he doesn’t think he’s really capable of raising his voice into a normal volume without crying or screaming. “That it’s his choice. He—“
“He is a self-sacrificing asshole and always has been,” Veth cries, throwing up her hands. “Don’t you know this by now?”
He does. Essek takes a shuddering breath. “Listen,” he says, and when she rolls her eyes he puts his hands on her shoulders. She is trembling, and despite her age she’s strong; there’s muscle under his hands. He holds her fast. “Veth,” Essek says. “I love him. I will always love him. That is never going to change.”
“Then why—“
“Because he asked me,” Essek says quietly. “And as long as there is love there, does it really matter its form? You know more than anyone, I think, what it means to love him. You’ve loved him in a different way from me, for years. You’ve never stopped. Why would I?”
She glares at him. “You’re hurting him.”
“He’s hurting me,” Essek says. “But we’ve both had worse. And we will still love each other in the end. Friends are…” He doesn’t have the words. “I’ve always been his friend before anything else.”
She smiles, all teeth. “Always?”
Well, no. He gives that to her. “Not always, as you well know.”
She shivers under his hands, reaches up to pat his cheek. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“No you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.” She looks at him, hard. “I know you’ve been his friend for a long time, and then…well, more than that. Are you going to be able to do this?”
“Yes,” Essek says. “Being his friend has always been the most important thing. You know that.”
She sighs. “You were happy, though?”
It hurts, the way she asks it. Essek’s chest aches. “Yes,” he says. “We were happy. And we’ll be happy again.”
“Good,” Veth says, and that’s that. She turns her back and goes back to the table. “And now, because I know you’ve been fucking dying to ask me, I can show you what I’ve been working on.”
Essek joins her at the table, glancing down at the complicated script of her notes. “This is quite impressive, Veth.”
She smiles, a true smile of hers that is usually reserved for Caleb. “I know.”
Caleb finds them an hour later. Essek has been lost in the discussion that he doesn’t hear him come in, so when Caleb’s dry voice says, “I see you two have been busy?” He flinches.
Veth laughs at him. “Our favorite drow has been critiquing my spell-script.”
“Hmm has he?” Caleb’s voice is wry and warm. Essek has been avoiding looking at him, but he can’t anymore when he sounds like that, and he glances up.
Caleb’s hair is white now, and he’s clean shaven. He’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, sleeves pushed up to his elbows; there’s ink stains on his forearms too—he’s also been working. His eyes are bright when he looks at them, and Essek’s traitorous heart skips and starts. Veth presses her knee against his under the table.
“She’s come quite far,” Essek says when he finds his voice. “But still needs more study.”
“Good thing she has two excellent teachers then, yes?” Caleb offers him a sad, sweet smile. “But I wasn’t coming here to join in whatever this discussion is, although you must tell me later. Caduceus says dinner is ready. So come down when you’re cleaned up.”
“We’ll be there,” Veth says.
“Good.”
When he leaves, Veth turns to Essek. “This,” she says. “Is going to suck.”
Essek pinches the bridge of his nose. “I learned to be his friend when I didn’t understand what that even meant,” he says. “This cannot possibly be harder than that.”
Veth pats his arm. “Alright, hot boi.” She says. “I believe in you.”
He says, “You know I can be honest with you.”
It’s not a question—it hasn’t been a question in decades—so Veth just looks at him. They’ve escaped the claustrophobic care of the Clays and have wandered into a part of the wood that she is not familiar with. It feels reckless. It feels like just the right thing to do.
Veth has cried enough and although her throat is still sharp with it, she says, “I should hope so,” with perfect and careful control.
He laughs, because he knows their dance, and his is decidedly less controlled: it’s a wild, hurting thing and she lets the sound wash over her and burrow in her bones so she can save it for later when she needs a good scream. “I have lived a long time, you know,” he says. “I was perfectly content with my life before you all tore it apart.”
They both know this is a lie. If she were Beau, she might have called him on it. But Beau and Caleb are in the ground now, and there are so few of them left that Veth understands his anger and doesn’t push. “Well,” she says. “My husband would still be in prison, so.”
They’ve joked about it over the years, but it still holds a slight sting.
Essek sobers, swallows hard. “The problem with loving all of you,” he says eventually. “Is that you’ll leave.”
“You’re in too deep now, hot boi,” Veth says. “You can’t take it all back.”
This isn’t strictly speaking true, of course. She knows the power he holds in his hands. It hangs in the air between them for a moment.
“He wouldn’t want you to take it back,” she says eventually. “Even if it hurts.”
Essek buries his face in his hands, and she watches him tremble and breathe and cry, and something inside of her cracks just a little. Veth takes his hand, holds it hard enough that she thinks it could break, but he doesn’t flinch away.
“This is always going to hurt,” she says. “And it could have happened so much sooner, right? And it didn’t. Aren’t we lucky?”
He looks up, and she sees it in his eyes, all the echoes of past resurrection rituals, or broken bones and spent spells and echoing desperate screams over a lifetime of dangerous arcane study and the pursuit of good and terrible things. He worries with his teeth until it bleeds. “The luckiest,” he whispers.
She says, “I can be honest with you.”
Essek takes her hand, watches the stuttering rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Not long now, he knows. His fingers itch with the somatic components for time stop. “I should hope so,” he whispers.
She smiles at him, a bared-teeth, trembling, honest thing. “I love you, you know.”
Essek presses a kiss to her knuckles and says nothing at all. She knows, and after all this time, that’s enough.