Chapter Text
Beldaruit, smoking a medicinal pipe, his hair swirling about him like mist, smiled at Olruggio from the cover of Which Witch. “A Sage’s Secrets for Looking Good in Old Age!” shouted the headliner. Featuring witches of fame and notoriety, the popular gossip rag gleamed inside of a glass newsstand. Double rows of those newsstands stretched down Kahln’s cobbled street, copies and copies of Beldaruit smiling coyly at Olruggio as he passed. Which Witch sold faster and harder than steaming griddlecakes, as evidenced when Tetia slotted a five-copper into a stand, cranked the handle, and collected the latest issue from the open mouth. She grinned at Olruggio, then raced down the lane after Qifrey and the other girls.
Yet they could no longer be considered simply girls. Over the last few years, Coco and Agott had bloomed into flowers and were frequently chasing boys away from each other. Tetia had grown long and lanky, her powerful athleticism on display as she quickly caught up with her peers. Richeh looked like she had hardly known a growth spurt, but the intelligence in her eyes spoke her age. As the rest of Kalhn’s townsfolk slipped around them, some boy gave himself whiplash when rubbernecking in Tetia's direction. He quavered as Olruggio roasted him with a glare.
Qifrey stopped in front of an A-frame cottage down the street. A huge hole, large enough for the group to waltz through, gaped from one of its walls. An old, stooped crone emerged onto the steps. “Thank the unicorns that you’ve arrived.”
“Thank you for allowing your house to be used as a teaching demonstration,” said Qifrey. The girls and Olruggio gathered behind him.
When Olruggio had been a teenager, he and Qifrey had built an A-frame cottage just like the one before him. The clay tiles, the creamy stucco walls…even the huge hole. The joint project had been part of a common evaluation for older apprentices. Their first attempt had made use of some mismeasured seals, resulting in one side crumbling to pieces.
But back then they had been students. Now they were the masters.
“Girls, observe,” said Qifrey. A pre-prepared heap of ground limestone and sand lay on the ground near the hole, enough to repair the house. He pulled out his wand, as did Olruggio.
Together, they began turning the raw materials into stucco: drawing, Qifrey added water, mixing the rock and sand in a giant, spinning ball. Then he sealed the hole with the muddy mixture. His measurements were so precise that no excess bled from the crevice. As he held the stucco in place, Olruggio seared seals into the ground, heating the stucco so that the water slowly evaporated. The two witches worked in fluid sync, not needing to look at each other to assess progress.
After the stucco hardened and cooled under a magically induced breeze, the wall appeared good as new. The apprentices ooh-ed. The old crone clapped. She had been too aged to bend down to do the work herself. Olruggio felt pretty proud too, and so did Qifrey from the way he squeezed him on the shoulder.
Qifrey turned to the girls. “Over the next two months, you’ll be working on an A-frame, except you’ll build the cottage from scratch yourselves. You’ll work as a team under my guidance. If you pass the evaluation, you’ll be cleared to work on the properties of people in our region.”
“Yes, Master Qifrey!”
“Alright alright!”
“Yeah yeah yeah…”
Then the girls began running off to the courtyard they’d picked out to hold lunch. A couple of them zipped along newsstands, pausing to buy penny books before flying off with renewed vigor.
Qifrey sighed, smiling. “They’re growing up.”
“Soon enough we’ll have an empty nest,” Olruggio said, missing them already. He rubbed Qifrey on the back. “We’ll carry on fine, just you and me.”
In the courtyard, Qifrey spread their lunch across a patio table. A fountain trickled in the backdrop, and down the lane they could see the crown of a silverwood—the roof of the Starry Sword.
Tetia had the latest issue of Which Witch spread across her plate. Since her drinking flask and a sandwich occupied both her hands, she turned the pages with her elbow. She perked in surprise as she arrived upon the “Lonely Singles” section. “Master Olly, you’re in the bachelor’s column!”
Olruggio’s bite of bladecarrot salad almost went down the wrong chute. Coughing, he said, “Burn that crap!”
Qifrey seized the issue with glee. He barked a laugh and turned it so Olruggio could see. “Look, someone drew a portrait of you!”
The portrait was obviously somebody’s fantasy. He bags underneath his eyes were missing, and the semi-constant dark rings around them had been transformed; instead of looking like he was stressed and needed sleep, he smoldered like a dark and broody Lord Byron.
Olruggio seized it before Qifrey or anyone else could read the entry. He caught a glimpse of his stats: Olruggio of the Torch—Contraptionist. Heat Meter: Fever-Inducing. Net Worth: Ezrest Castle. Lives: In the Middle of Nowhere. He sputtered, appalled.
“Actually, I’ve seen your name in the magazine at least a dozen times now,” said Tetia with too much calm.
“One day I’m going to be featured in Which Witch,” said Richeh.
Drawn by a sense of masochism, Olruggio’s eyes flicked down the column to a small blurb: This flame is sure to melt you in all the right places. His gruff exterior hides a truly sensitive soul. Only one point of contention: he may not be single…
What? Olruggio thought. He turned the page.
Qifrey smiled back at him from the parchment, each penstroke bleeding enigma and allure. He had been drawn without his glasses and angled so that his good eye seduced the reader. His bangs curtained his left side in a windswept frond. His stats read: Qifrey—Atelier Master. Heat Meter: Steam. Celeb Connections: Beldaruit, Wise in Teachings. Lives: In the Same Middle of Nowhere.
Don’t let this elusive master of water slip through your fingers. Dogged by rumor, this witch is more mystery than man, and there’s nothing more tantalizing than a puzzle. He and his Watchful Eye are practically connected at the hip, but they’ll be in this column until we see a ring on it!
More words followed, but Olruggio could not read them. White noise had flooded his ears, which were also smoking fiercer than any of his spells. His nose nearly bumped the book gutter as he hid his face in the magazine.
“Are you alright?” said Qifrey.
Olruggio showed him his profile. Qifrey immediately began to writhe.
“Can I have that back now?” said Tetia.
Qifrey ripped the issue out of Olruggio’s hand and rolled it up in a crushing grip. “This magazine is hereby banned under our roof.”
The girls glanced around the courtyard. Richeh said, “But we are in Kalhn.”
“Doesn’t matter!” He raced off in the direction of a public toilet.
Olruggio stood and slammed his palms on the table. “If anyone has any more contraband, hand it over!”
Agott was stony-faced. Then she dug into her bag and pulled out a second copy.
Olruggio grabbed it and sprinted in the same direction that Qifrey had run.
He found him in the washroom’s lone stall, shredding the issue over the toilet, hurling the strips into the nethers of space. Olruggio squeezed inside, locking the stall behind him. “They had another one.”
Qifrey took it from him and set to shredding. “Poison!”
Despite the ridiculous nature of the column, the violent shredding stung. A clandestine romance with Qifrey was something Olruggio dreamt about when he fell asleep with a spectre-tree scented candle alight at his bedside. “Do you really need to rip it up like that? Why not just throw it in whole?”
“Some people are able to reach into the void and retrieve things they’ve dropped,” said Qifrey. “One time Beldaruit told me that he dropped his communicator into the toilet and all he had to do was reach into it with a special glove and retrieve it before it drifted away.” He hissed. “This profanity must be destroyed.”
Destroyed. Hopefully that wasn’t how he’d react to any potential romantic spark. Olruggio coughed. “You’re not embarrassed by me are you? By the… insinuation?”
Qifrey ceased obliterating the issue. “What? No. Why would you think that?”
“This is a little—” Olruggio mimicked the wild shredding “—much.”
Qifrey dropped the rest of the issue into the toilet and faced Olruggio. “I could never be embarrassed by you.”
Olruggio pointed into the void. “Then what gives?”
Qifrey ran an exasperated hand through his hair, his cheeks pinkening. “It’s just so—so—” He bit his lip, unable to say anything further. “And to think the girls almost read it.”
Olruggio had a stinking suspicion that they could and would easily find another copy, especially now that they had transformed into heathen teenagers. He could imagine the giggles in the dead of the night, the furtive glances between study sessions. If anything, Olruggio and Qifrey might have made the magazine more tantalizing by running off with the copies.
Yet there was a bigger problem than their students. Witches had a nose for controversy, and some readers might take note that Qifrey was an atelier master and his BFF Olruggio was the Watchful Eye. Their initial partnership had raised brows back when they’d first moved out to the Downs together. Heightening suspicion could even lead to an inspection. Olruggio grimaced. The last person he wanted to grill him about his secret love for Qifrey was Edgelord Easthies, king of rigidity.
As if reading his mind, Qifrey’s expression softened. Reaching high, he batted the golden tassel attached to the fire witch’s cap. “If there's anyone with whom I would embroil myself in scandal, it would be you.”
Olruggio felt himself heating up all over again. “W-what? You wouldn’t care?”
Qifrey continued with an airy wave, “The way I see it, marriage is hardly different from what we already have. I cook, I raise the kids, you bring in the money. It’s only because we live in the middle of nowhere that Easthies doesn’t drop in on us every week.”
Olruggio thought about it. He thought about it really, really hard. A permanent furrow could have dug itself into his forehead.
Someone banged on the stall door. “Hey! Only one person per stall!”
Qifrey shouted, “We are having a sensitive conversation!”
The water witch twirled Olruggio’s long, silk ribbon around his finger. “I don’t think it’s unusual that people might think we’re involved. We have a pretty special relationship.”
They knew few other witches who had exchanged tassels. To do so was an oath for life. “I guess so,” said Olruggio. “That magazine is so annoying though! How do they even know how much money we make?”
“They probably snoop on our tax information.”
The door rattled again. “The toilet is for toilet business only!”
Qifrey’s eye glinted. Mischief lurked in its blue depths. “I’m not embarrassed by you, Olly. I’ll prove it by getting us out of that column.”
There was only one sure way to escape a bachelor’s column, and the magazine had already hinted at it. It took everything Olruggio had not to blow up like a firecracker.
On the contrary, Qifrey radiated cool confidence. “Give me your hand.”
Olruggio gave him his palm, which was damp from giddy thoughts and anticipation. Qifrey pulled off one of the fire witch’s link rings, rubbing it to a fine polish. He presented it before Olruggio like it was tailor-made jewelry and not something they used to dry each other’s hair. “My dear Olly, will you marry me?”
Olruggio prayed for strength; he needed it since his knees were buckling from delight. He was about to get fake-married to the love of his life with a toilet as witness! The last part was not ideal, but he stuck out his hand anyways because few things were better than Qifrey putting a ring on his finger.
Qifrey slotted the ring with such tenderness that it could have been real—a real proposal, a real bond. Especially with the way his hand lingered, his gaze rising and locking onto Olruggio with quiet adoration. Then he extended his own hand, expectant. Olruggio pulled off his second link ring and slotted it. What else was he to do, except maybe kiss Qifrey first. Kiss him long and deep.
“Hey!” The door rattled.
Qifrey admired the ring on his elegant finger. Then he squeezed past Olruggio and popped open the shuddering stall. The man outside stiffened as if he hadn’t really expected them to emerge. He clutched a copy of Which Witch.
Qifrey flashed his ring. “We are done.”
The witch’s jaw slackened. Recognition dawned across his face. His braided tassel swayed in front of his nose. He looked deeper into the stall and spotted Olruggio, his jaw dropping further.
Qifrey grabbed Olruggio by the wrist. Together, they pushed past the stranger. “Have a good day,” said Qifrey.
Olruggio followed him in a slight daze, but at the last moment he had the mind to smirk and wave, his matching ring gleaming.
They walked slowly back to the girls, basking in the glow of shared mischief, knowing no rush of time. Qifrey let go of Olruggio’s wrist, though they still walked close enough to bump shoulders.
“Word will fly on the wind,” said Qifrey. “We’ll have nothing to do with Which Witch anymore.”
Olruggio smiled, feeling a little too smug. Even as Qifrey gave him back his ring, it was imbued with the heat of his skin. Olruggio replaced it on his forefinger and threw his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “They won’t pen another word.”
Oh, he was wrong. So very wrong.
**
Incessant bellsong pierced through Olruggio’s nap. While the comfort of the library couch and Qifrey’s classroom voice could usually stave off the larger world, the ringing drove through the atelier with greater and greater impatience, rousing him.
“Are they trying to deafen us?” Qifrey raised his head from where he’d been helping the girls balance their first experimental models. A tiny A-frame was held together by his and Richeh’s fingers, trembling with the need for glue.
Olruggio shoved himself into sitting position, his spine cracking. “Want me to get that?” he mumbled.
“Could you, please?”
Olruggio yawned as he headed to the atelier antechamber. They hardly got visitors out in the Downs. Maybe it was an angry client who was dissatisfied with Olruggio’s work and had now come to pester him. He was getting more of the hoity-toity crowd lately.
The ringing was nearing battering-ram power by the time he reached the front. Whoever had come would not leave without attention. Grumbling, Olruggio turned the knob. Sunlight pierced his eyes. “Don’t you know that’s rud—”
“Mister Olruggio! Mister Olruggio of the Torch!” A diminutive witch blanketed in enormous purple robes bounced on the step. With her bird-bone wrists and narrow shoulders, she was more of a coat hanger than a woman. “I am Hevena, staff writer and romance connoisseur for Which Witch. I’ve heard about your recent proposal to Qifrey. Many congratulations! Might you answer a few questions?”
It took several moments for her words to compute. A hundred responses flurried through Olruggio’s mind, but he only managed to say the most pressing one: “How…did you find us?”
Hevena pulled an XL-sized guidance orb out of a pack attached to her hip. Inside floated a plaster cast of a facial print. Olruggio stared at it, eyes widening. Was that…his chin, scruffy beard and all? And the ear had a perfect impression of a tiny firerose earring. Qifrey had given that to him for his twenty-fifth birthday…
“About a week ago you had passed out on the sandbank of Great Hall baths and left behind this remarkable piece of trace evidence,” said Hevena. “A member of our research team coincidentally was also using the baths and preserved it once you left. With that, it was only a matter of time before your place of residence was discovered. Beautiful house! Charming taste!”
“C-coincidentally?” A cold fear began to spread through Olruggio's gut. “Are you sure?”
“We are everywhere. Would you like to read about yourself in the latest issue?”
Before Olruggio could protest, an open magazine was thrust under his nose. It was not the bachelor section but an article in the betting pages. The words jumped in front of his eyes.
FIRE AND WATER MAKE STEAM! Magic never had more chemistry as prince of the pyre and lord of liquid seal the deal!
A reliable source confirms what we have all predicted—Olruggio and Qifrey are more than just friends. This source has told us that witch society’s most controversial ship got hitched in a Kalhn public toilet no more than a week ago. Does void plumbing have emotional significance to this couple? Though our source only caught a glimpse, it is suspected that their matching rings could be joined to form a seal. Winning bets climbed into the quadruple digits!
“Winning bets?” said Olruggio.
“Yes,” Hevena chirruped. “We hold betting games of various sorts. A game on whether you and Qifrey were together ran six months ago. We sold so many tickets, which participants will be cashing in on just about now. Flip the page to see the next one.”
All of Olruggio’s prior grogginess evaporated, replaced by rising horror. He flipped the page.
He was met with a portrait of Qifrey and him beneath the altar of a silverwood. They were hugging and drowning in each other’s eyes.
When will the ceremony be? Winning bets are determined by guesses closest to the date!
- Summer Arrowlights
- Autumnal Firemoon
- Midwinter Brightstars
- Spring Beltane
Send in tickets via telescriber, accompanied by a five-copper stamp.
*Only adults may participate.
“Give me a hint,” said Hevena with a conspiratorial smile.
Witches tended to be nosy and had the loosest lips, or at least the ones in Zozah couldn’t shut up about other people’s business. But betting money on someone’s relationship was a little extreme. Olruggio snorted. “You wanna know something? Take a look at this!” He waved his left hand—and its bare ring finger—in her face.
Hevena paused for a moment. “I see.” She smiled foxily. “Hiding your engagement status from your young students!”
“No!” said Olruggio. He could have keeled over. “You have the wrong idea—"
Qifrey entered the antechamber. “What’s going on?”
“Mister Qifrey!” Hevena marched past Olruggio and into the atelier. “Which witch proposed?”
“What?” Qifrey said like he’d already forgotten.
Olruggio grunted. He arched a brow in the telepathic communication only possible between two pseudo-married besties. You know, the toilet business.
Qifrey’s eye widened fractionally. Stars, I thought that would sate their appetite! What should we do?
Olruggio bit his lip. I don’t know! This was your idea!
Qifrey pursed his lips. Tell them they got the wrong address and that we’re just lookalikes.
Olruggio glared. It’s too late for that. I already responded to our names.
Qifrey jutted his chin. Okay, then let’s tell them we’re LARPers and we wear magical celebrity masks all of the time. His nostrils flared. ALL OF THE TIME.
Hevena watched their exchange with intense interest. She scribbled a frenzy of notes onto her parchment pad.
After a few more facial twitches, Olruggio said with a final crease of the brow, Okay, ready. He turned to Hevena and said in his deadest voice, “GO AWAY.”
He took her by the shoulders and shoved her out the door.
That was the end of that.
Or so they thought.
**
Tetia raised the latest issue of Which Witch above her head, her pigtails bouncing. “I win! I win the bet!” She stuck out her open palm, waving it amongst the other apprentices. “Pay up, ladies!”
Coco, Richeh, and Agott coughed up six months of savings, but it was the happiest loss of money they’d ever experienced. When Which Witch had published their previous betting game—"YES OR NO? QIFREY x OLRUGGIO <3?”—the apprentices had decided to join the fun. They already knew that their teachers were an item. That was obvious considering how often they got lost together in the hills during their private walks, their conversations carrying them to uncharted distances. Therefore, it wouldn’t have been a proper game if the girls all bet the same thing—a complete and utter YES OUR TEACHERS LOVE EACH OTHER—so they each cast unofficial bets amongst themselves on when their teachers would be outed. Tetia had guessed the closest date, just a week shy of when Which Witch announced their engagement.
Coco clasped her hands together. “I’m so happy for them! They really do share something special.”
Agott tossed her curls and stuck her nose in the air. “I always found their games of Seismic Spells to be overly long and strangely intimate. It was only a matter of time.”
“They were so moved by each other’s portraits in the last issue that they ran off to finalize things,” said Richeh, nodding. “A smart choice, especially before anyone else butts into the picture.”
“What are you saying?” said Tetia. “Master Qifrey and Master Olly are made for each other! I can’t imagine them being with anyone else.” Utterly disturbed by the possibility, she clutched her head and shook it violently. Her pockets jingled as her dress swayed.
“What should we say to them?” said Coco. “A mere ’congratulations’ seems so rote and unworthy.”
“Well, we are a major part of their lives,” Agott said. “Obviously we should do something… major…”
**
Meanwhile, in Olruggio’s side of the atelier, the two adults met to find a way to escape the snake pit of their own design.
“We should take a long vacation,” said Qifrey. “Maybe the Equus Hills? It’s only got mountains and lakes and is guarded by flesh-eating pegasi.”
”That will never work,” said Olruggio. “When we come back those leeches will be swarming the atelier, bloodthirstier than ever.”
”But I think leaving will give it time to die down. Or maybe they’ll find someone else to prey upon.”
”I don’t know. Tetia said that she saw my name published around a dozen times already. They obviously treat us like a gossip gold mine.”
Qifrey flopped into Olruggio’s hammock, his hair mussing against the pillows. The moon dribbled onto him, making him glow with its silver magic. His expression slumping, he stared up into the skylight. “For a society with so many secrets, our folk really love to talk.”
Having been a subject of intense interest all his life, Qifrey had developed rock-hard armor against gossip. However, Olruggio could spot the clench of his jaw when others insinuated anything about the girls and their care, the whitening of his lips when anybody disdained Olruggio or their friendship. While it pained Olruggio to be one of Qifrey’s vulnerable areas, it also warmed him to know he was deeply cherished. The hammock creaked as he joined Qifrey in its rungs. “Hey, whatever happens, I won’t let them say anything bad about us or our family.”
Qifrey rolled over to face him. “Thanks, Olly, but sometimes I think it’s no use moving out here. They always find something to talk about.”
The small space had them pressed up against each other. Olruggio didn’t mind, as it made it easy to card through Qifrey’s hair. “What they really should be talking about is how you lavish the girls with their favorite baked sweets and how you carry me to bed when I’ve had too much to drink. They don’t know what a fine person you are.”
Qifrey’s eyelid drooped as nails dragged over his scalp. He dropped his head on Olruggio’s shoulder. “If y’say so.”
He sounded unconvinced, so Olruggio continued, “I know it’s hard, but just remember that if it would make you happy, I’d track down everybody who ever said anything bad about you and ban them from my client list.”
“But then you’d never have any more clients.”
“Not true. All those assholes would beg me to reaccept them, and I’d then make them apologize to you.”
“Mmm’kay…”
At some point they fell asleep. When a crick in his neck awoke Olruggio, he found Qifrey nestled under his chin, an arm slung over his chest. The fire witch also found that he’d drooled into Qifrey’s hair. He wiped his mouth, not feeling particularly embarrassed. That emotional response went away after he’d repeatedly drooled in Qifrey’s hair dozens of times over the years.
“Hhhnnn…” Qifrey said, squirming closer. The first time Olruggio had ever drooled on him, he’d had just laughed and said it’d wash out.
When they’d talked in the toilet stall, Qifrey had been right about at least one thing. They were already married, and had been for a long time. A man who let you drool in his hair was your husband, no matter what he wore on his finger.
**
If they didn’t give anyone any information about themselves, there was no way they could make it into the next issue. Olruggio was certain about this as he was certain his ring had looked great on Qifrey’s finger.
He walked the perimeter of the atelier, remembering the golden gleam of the jewelry against the water witch’s creamy skin. Remembered how Qifrey had admired it, even though it was just a link ring. Remembered how his friend had looked at him with such warmth.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory. He wasn’t used to having such saccharine thoughts. He became his gushiest when moaning over Qifrey’s sweet cheese tarts, which the water witch sometimes baked to just hear Olruggio’s raw and unbridled praise. But moaning over food was natural. Everyone did it, including if the food was bad. He didn’t have to deal with the true nature of his tender heart, so tender that its ache spread through his bones. So tender that hope for something more with Qifrey was a barbed wire, sinking in its hooks.
He shouldn’t fixate on falsehoods. The ring had been nothing but a ploy. That was all it had been, and all it would be. If he let it go, its memory would fade with the fleet winds.
He rounded the corner, approaching the garden. A shocked gasp rose up from somewhere in between the rows of spicegrain and erbe. He peered through the greenery to see the girls crouching together amongst the stalks, their plates of honey, nut-butter, and bread forgotten in the soil.
“No way!”
“Is this how they’ve gotten down to being lovey-dovey while we’re around?”
“I dunno. It seems too farfetched.”
“I’m talking in general, not the written tra—"
Olruggio stood at the edge of the garden, hands on his hips. “Girls.”
They rose, smelling of tea and the bright, sharp accents of pepper. They glanced at each other before Tetia surrendered the issue. “Is this why you’re always grimacing?”
Olruggio scanned the feature.
A SECRET LANGUAGE OF LOVE: Orufrey is peak monogamy!
During a chance visit to Qifrey’s atelier in the Naakiwan Downs, a reliable source witnessed the pair of the moment in the throes of a covert romantic exchange. A dialect of crooking lips and arched brows, it was clearly created so the two of them could have discreet conversations in the midst of others. Since no one else can butt in, it’s monogamy at its most exclusive!
After hours of diligent work, a romance expert has translated their conversation for readers…
Olruggio (eyebrow arch): Qifrey, you look ravishing today.
Qifrey (eye widens): Stars, Olly, I look like this every day! What are you going to do about it?
Olruggio (bites lip): Nothing for now, regrettably. The press is here.
Qifrey (lips purse): Tell them they got the wrong address. After that you can press me into the sheets.
Olruggio (smoldering glare): They’re as good as gone. But I don’t think your idea will work.
Qifrey (chin juts): Okay, then let’s tell them we’re LARPers and we wear magical celebrity masks all of the time. (nostrils flare) ALL OF THE TIME.
Olruggio (more twitches, crease of the brow): Okay, ready. (turns to witness) GO AWAY.
*Disclaimer: some ideas lost in translation.
Olruggio’s breath came in harsher and louder pants, his back bowing under the weight of his fury. He throttled the issue in his fist. “I’m grimacing all of the time because of this magazine!”
Agott shrugged. “Told you guys.”
Tetia tapped her foot, unwilling to back down. “But some of it is real, right?”
The next heated pant died in Olruggio’s lungs, turning as cold as a ghost. “Uhh…”
“I’ve noticed you and Master Qifrey share a variety of small, silent smiles.”
Olruggio jerked upright, trying to recover some semblance of dignity. “It’s not what you think! We can just read each other very well because we’ve known each other for a long time!”
“We know that,” said Richeh. “But what are you saying to each other?”
Olruggio bristled. “These conversations are between me and Master Qifrey.” He thrust a finger back at the library window. “Back to studying, all of you!”
**
That night, Olruggio barged into Qifrey’s room at the soonest availability. He shook the crumpled issue. “Qifrey, we’re in trouble! At least half of witch society has seen this, including the girls.”
“The girls?!” Qifrey was dressed in his sleeping clothes, his glasses set aside on the nightstand. He hunkered close to the pages, straining to read in the half-gloom. His jaw slackened. “Stars, that tiny woman is a menace!”
“It gets worse,” said Olruggio. “The bottom lines—they’re an exact quote of what we were actually saying! To an extent, others can actually decipher our, you know—” He waggled his eyebrows.
Qifrey ducked underneath the glowlamp to finish reading. Breathless, he said, “How did she do that?”
“Forbidden magic, probably. Regardless, our communications have been compromised. We need a new code.”
“Like finger tapping?”
“No, that’s too easy to figure out. Let’s just use different facial tics. Ones we’ve never used before.”
“Good idea.” Qifrey chucked the issue onto his desk and took a seat on his bed. “We can try out some new ones right now.”
Olruggio grabbed a chair and pulled it over. “Okay, I’ll go first.” He rolled back his shoulders, his lip crooking into a slanted smile. Hey.
Qifrey leaned back, hands on the mattress. His head tilted so that moonlight spilled over his collarbone. Hey.
Olruggio trailed a languid hand through his beard, letting his lips part. What did you have for breakfast today?
Qifrey tilted his head further with a sigh, exposing the white of his throat. Scrambled eggs on rye.
Olruggio ducked his chin, his eyes darkening with heat. No hot sauce?
Qifrey silvery lashes fluttered. We’re out of hot sauce.
Olruggio lounged in the chair, imperious as a king. Didn’t think you could eat your eggs without hot sauce. You’re, like, addicted to that stuff.
Qifrey turned, his good eye glowing blue-gold in the lamplight. I was crying internally with every bite. His bangs curtained the other side of his face in an elegant sweep.
Olruggio shivered. Qifrey’s half-lidded gaze pierced him, seized his heart and pumped it to a fervent beat. Looking at his friend, he saw the portrait in Which Witch, except now it was in the flesh, dressed in pajamas and staring him down from a bed. All of his words ran for the hills, including what to say next about the hot sauce.
Qifrey pouted. Are you okay?
“N-no! I am not okay!” Olruggio pitched forward, shaking slightly. Sweat budded under his collar. He thrust a finger at Qifrey. “Whatever you do, don’t make that face around anyone! It’s dangerous!”
“What? Why? How?” Qifrey got up and looked in the mirror. He made the face. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“That’s because…” Olruggio swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat. “Because you’re seeing it through your own eyes.”
“Then will you tell me what you see?”
An impending heart attack. “I—I can’t describe it. Just trust me.”
“Okay, I trust you,” said Qifrey, though he tilted his head in puzzlement. “Maybe we should stop for now and figure more things out tomorrow.”
We should stop forever, Olruggio thought, at least until we get married.
Then he remembered that they already sort of were.