Nowhere Else

  All he could see in his mind was the split second between when Em had called after him and Moriya had stepped in to intervene.

  Desperation. Panic. Fear.

  All he could think of was what Em had wanted to say before he had gotten pierced. Was he going to call him his student? His son?

  You take away the one I love, I take away yours.

  Like all his other memories, the sentence sounded rehearsed as it was forced through bloody, smiling lips. Em loved him, didn’t he? He loved him. Those words he had always hoped for, the words he had always been waiting for, they had been said to him once. When Em had asked Theo whether he’d like to go back to his family. And then…never again. Not when he left for the Academy, not when he begged him to come back in writing. Not once.

  It’s because he no longer loves you. If only he could get him to say it again. Please him. Do what he wanted. Maybe he would say it again.

  Now, of all times. Not directly, not even to him. But it counted, didn’t it? He loved him.

  “You’ll be okay.”

  He turned to Moriya, who was ascending the stairs by his side. “What?”

  The spark of emotion faded, but Theo could still feel the slight warmth behind the words. “I said, you’ll be okay.”

  “…Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  In the silence, they continued to walk up to the top floor, where they stopped at their class’s door.

  “You’ll be okay too,” spoke Theo quietly, eyes falling on the deadpan professor for a second before bashfully averting his gaze.

  “Hm?”

  “N-nothing.”

  Theo undid the seals and pushed open the door.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” complained a tiny figure sitting by the couch, cards in hand as she scrutinized a card on the table and held a single finger up to the door.

  “It’s a Water 2. That means you can—” Faris explained from the couch on the other side of the table.

  “I know, I know!” pouted Chel, pushing up her glasses with a hand as she examined her own cards. “Here. I’ll, um, here’s my…Wind 5?”

  “Uhh.”

  Cracking a smile for the first time since the conversation with Em, Theo walked over to the table and examined the cards on the table. They were playing simple Fairakarta—it hadn’t occurred to Theo that someone as studious as Chelsi hadn’t learned.

  “Yeah, you can’t do that,” Faris tried to break it to her in the nicest possible manner, bending over to pick up the card and hand it back to the physician.

  “W-what? Why not? It says here on the card that…that…” She squinted at the text on the card that had been handed back to her. “If it’s used against a Water 5 or lower, the opponent is forced to place a random card from the trash into the pile. If the card does not abide by the Fairy’s rules, then the opponent’s turn is skipped. If it does abide by the Fairy’s rules, then the opponent may proceed with their turn.”

  Without the heart to interrupt Chel while she was reading, Faris gave Theo a wry glance, to which he responded with his own knowing grin. “We’re not playing that type of Fairakarta. We’re just doing the simple version where only the element and card number matters, not the text.”

  “Buh,” contested Chel, furrowing her brows, “Why do they have it there? Clearly that must be the intended purpose, no?”

  “You guys went out?”

  All heads turned to Moriya, who stood at the end of the table with a serious look on his face.

  “Yeah,” nodded Chel innocently. “We went out for a quick bite—I brought you back a pastry.”

  Though her reasoning seemed fair, Moriya had a dark look on his face. “I don’t need to remind you what happened last time, right?”

  Chel, not letting the professor’s seriousness ruin her cheerful mood, defended herself. “You don’t need to remind me. It was only last Circle, when it was far less peaceful. There’s no way Emrys would try to pull off what he did last time.” She then turned to Faris and smiled. “And HQ is great! I love it here; everyone’s so friendly to sorcerers. Faris was with me, too! I showed him around and stuff.”

  While Theo started off somewhat understanding the professor’s annoyance, the gears in his mind came to a skidding halt by the end. He blinked several times, furrowed his brows, not sure if he had heard the words correctly, and then turned to Faris. “W—”

  The caster met his eyes briefly before darting back to his cards.

  “W…what?” squeaked Chelsi, watching Faris suspiciously try to hide behind his cards.

  Theo turned to Moriya next, whose look had also neutralized.

  “I no longer need to reprimand you,” began Moriya evenhandedly, picking up the small paper bag at the end of the table and peeking into it. “You clearly already have a massive gap in your knowledge to deal with.”

  The physician’s face turned pink, her jaw dropping. “What?” she repeated, looking from her partner to her tactician and then finally to her not-very-well-hidden caster. “How—are you from here, Faris?”

  Faris lowered his cards and shook his head hopelessly. “You never asked. Most people know by my eyes—well, eye.”

  “T-there—” Chel sputtered. “There have been plenty of people throughout history with violet eyes! It’s…it’s the Faluntides, for Graces’ sakes!” She threw her cards at Faris at the first sign of a laugh beginning to erupt from the taciturn noble. “How dare you! Sixteen Circles, and not a peep! For me to respect you not sharing, and then find out this way—I can’t—I can’t!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” chuckled Faris, shielding his face as Chel stood up to pick up the cards from the table to throw at him.

  “How could you! And I thought we were friends! A fellow historian!” She then turned to Moriya. “And you! You knew, too! Even before your dumb soul-killing!”

  “Hey, I didn’t know you were invested.”

  “Invested!?” balked Chel, switching targets to assault the professor now. “Invested!? We’ve spent decades watching over them; they’re our family, of course I’m invested, you dummy!”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Even Theo and Moriya were laughing by the time the third-year physician sat back down in her seat, arms crossed and knees tucked up against her chest as she faced away from the three. “Harrumph!” she proclaimed sulkily.

  “Okay, don’t sulk,” Moriya sighed, walking over to her and patting her on the head. “I’ll take you out walking around town.”

  Her head snapped up immediately, eyes beaming. “Really?”

  There was a pause as the professor turned to Theo. “I can’t help but feel like I’ve been played for a fool.”

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” sang Chel, jumping up from her seat and bolting straight to her room before peeking back out quickly to say, “Theo, get your binding book! Gotta do everyone all at once!”

  “Ah, yes.” He had completely forgotten about the weight on his shoulders. The chat with Em…it had all passed by so quickly. To leave it at that, to have come all this way for those precious few minutes—there was an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.

  Stepping over all the cards on the floor, Theo headed over to his room and set down his bag before making sure that his most important books were still on him—his pocket tome, Moriya’s tome, Em’s tome, and finally, Ty’s Tactician’s tome.

  I hope…I hope he wasn’t right.

  Lighter now, Theo headed back out and knocked on everyone’s doors before returning to the main area to help Faris pick up all of Chelsi’s card-weapons.

  “Are you planning on visiting home?” he asked quietly as he handed a sizable stack of cards to Faris, making sure his voice was low now that the rest of the students were waking up.

  He didn’t meet his eye. “There’s no point. I told you what happened.”

  “…Do you want to come home with me, then?”

  In the middle of straightening the cards, Faris paused. “You can go yourself. You’ll be with Em. There’s no need to stay in pairs when he’s there.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Why, you want me to?”

  “Yeah.”

  Another pause. “Fine.”

  * * *

  Hands in his pockets, waiting for carts to pass because it had taken him until almost noon to get everyone ready, Theo briefly locked eyes with the stoic Faris. “Where did you go for breakfast with Chel?”

  “‘Route by Fortuna.’”

  Surprisingly, Theo recognized that name. “Isn’t that a bakery? What did you guys get?”

  “It is. Chel ordered a pastry sandwich for herself and one for me. And coffee.”

  Theo smiled and crossed the street, stealing another glance at his classmate. He had forgotten that the caster liked coffee just as much as Ty did. “I was about to say—you don’t really like sweets. But that’s interesting. Maybe I should try it one day.”

  Faris’s expression was undecipherable as he walked alongside him. “She seemed happy. The food wasn’t bad.”

  “And the coffee?”

  “Better than most places.”

  Theo took in the nice, big houses around him now that they were further from the city center. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked,” he mumbled contemplatively as they rounded the corner at the end of the street, heading toward the western side of town. “Do you have a favorite food?”

  Faris stopped.

  At first, Theo thought something ahead had startled him, but there was nothing when he looked, only people going about their day down the street. By the time he turned to ask his classmate what was so shocking about his question, however, he had already resumed walking.

  “…Stewed hare.”

  Jogging up to catch his aloof expression, Theo answered incredulously, “Hare? Don’t tell Selene. She’d never forgive you.”

  “Her Circle of Graces diet is ridiculous.”

  “Fish, fruit, grains, and vegetables…” listed off Theo absently, trying to think of anything else he had seen her eat.

  “Egg.”

  “Oh, yes. Like from the inn.”

  They fell silent as they continued to walk, passing by other residents of the area dressed up in their fanciful, frilly attire and muted tones. They were in the wealthy part of town, after all, and though none of the people he passed looked familiar, he wondered whether they knew Faris.

  “Yours is pudding, right?”

  Theo let out a surprised chortle. “Did Ty tell you that too?”

  “No, it’s just that you’d make pudding whenever it was your turn to cook.”

  “Yeah?” Theo could not help laughing. He did not realize that anyone had paid attention—pudding was really the only thing he could think of to make for his classmates, and it had always been finished, so he never thought to change. “Did you like them?”

  “The plain almond one was good.”

  “Not too sweet for you?”

  “No, it was perfect.”

  “Yeah?” Theo focused his eyes down the street, feeling bashful. “When we get back to the Academy, I should make some for you,” he added quietly with a smile.

  Crossing over to the other side of the road into a community of fancy houses and large estates, all with lush green grass on their lawns and giant manors that looked far too excessive for how many people usually dwelled within, it was Faris who broke the silence this time. “Did you get to talk to Emrys, like you wanted to?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you get your answer?”

  Theo looked at the beginnings of a house with white fencing. Green grass went up a gentle slope before arriving at a large, two-story estate with deep blue, pointed roofs. Gray-white brick surrounded a plethora of windows so clear you could see your reflection in them. At the center, where the entrance was, an even larger window spanned up to the second floor. Under that, a square overhang supported by two brick columns shielded two deep blue doors. A simple sandy path led from the porch to white gates by the sidewalk, connecting the outside to a home that he, even now, never truly felt like he deserved.

  “I did,” he whispered.

  “What was it?”

  He lowered his gaze and took a deep breath, stopping to look left and right again to cross the street when his eyes met his classmate’s.

  Why are you still here, then?

  Because there’s nowhere else.

  The one who had saved him, the proof of her existence, it was—

  “Just because someone saved you doesn’t mean the rest of your life belongs to them.”

  He could see it in his one remaining violet eye, the moment the words registered. How much it hurt him to hear the answer from someone who knew of his pain. How much it hurt to remember the ghost who would not return, the one he had tried to repay in blood, the one to whom he could not reciprocate the unconditional love she had for him.

  “I’m sorry,” followed up Theo softly, tearing his eyes away and crossing the street over to the other side, where he stood in front of a grand, white gate and whispered secret words.

  He had almost expected it not to work when he applied pressure onto the cold iron, feeling relief wash over him when it gave way.

  “Nice house.”

  Theo smiled weakly, the words from earlier still weighing heavily on his mind. “I can’t imagine what yours looks like.”

  “Excessive is what it looks like,” grumbled the caster furtively as Theo closed the gates and headed up the path to the front entrance.

  He found himself hesitating as he stood in front of the door, wondering whether it was the polite thing to do to knock or let himself in with his key.

  “Gonna knock?”

  “I…don’t know. I have the key. But Em’s probably not going to be home, so it’ll…just be the maid.” Theo regarded Faris with a face full of conflict, who reciprocated with a look that seemed to say, Are you kidding me?

  Thankfully for him, instead of voicing his disbelief, Faris spared him and simply let out a sigh before leaning forward to rap his knuckle on his door.

  Knock, knock, knock. As quick as Theo’s pounding chest.

  The door unlocked after what felt like an eternity, and Theo locked eyes with an older woman who could have passed as a grandmother dressed in a simple blouse and long skirt. A set of towels was in her arms.

  “Theo,” she breathed, eyes wide. “I was not expecting you.” And then, turning to Faris, her eyes widened even more. Her mouth dropped. “Or the…the Faluntide child? Those eyes, I could not forget.”

  “Hi, Nie. Is…um, is this a bad time? We were passing by, and I wanted to visit.” Theo squirmed in his spot, not realizing that she’d recognize Faris. It had been a long time ago, when they were children. A single meeting. A few sentences that were not lost to time. “If not, then—”

  “What are you talking about?” she exclaimed, backpedaling so she could make room for them to enter. “This is your home! Come in! I was just getting some fresh towels out.”

  “O-oh, thank you.”

  “No problem at all,” smiled Nie sweetly, looking the boys up and down after closing the door. “Have you both had food yet?”

  “Uh,” began Theo, wincing because, like at the Academy—and much like Emrys, now that he thought about it—he had always tried to skip meals despite the maid’s pleas. With Faris also here, there was truly no escape.

  Not a second passed before Faris seized the opportunity to expose him. “He hasn’t eaten all day.”

  Nie gave the defeated, sickly child a stern look. “You don’t say.”

  “We’ll have lunch later, okay? Go finish whatever you were doing first,” sighed Theo as he took off his shoes and started ascending the beautiful and polished wooden winding staircase near the main entrance, wearily calling after his classmate when he noticed he wasn’t being followed.

  He began on the top floor. Admiring the large window above the front entrance first, where he could see the street in front of them, the lush green grass, the pearly white gates that had once cemented his childish belief that he had been saved and sent to some kind of mythical, heavenly place. How it was so well taken care of had always been a source of mystery to him as a child, and as he grew up, he slowly realized that it was not just the maid, but a sprinkling of Em’s magic that had kept it so pristine.

  “I’m not boring you, am I?” Theo spoke in a low voice while leaning on the dark wooden railing.

  “Not at all.”

  He walked down the hallway next, past a plethora of guest rooms that were rarely ever used, past paintings that were barely ever appreciated, to the very end, where his bedroom was in the leftmost corner. The door was painted a beautiful emerald that reminded him of the boy he had forsaken, offset by walls the same deep blue as the front door. There was no nameplate on it, nothing showing that it was lived in or any different from the other guest rooms—he was, after all, an ephemeral passerby in the long history of Emrys’s life.

  He took a deep breath, stilling his heart as he stepped into his room.