Chapter Text
Hal stood in the middle of the living room, in his house on the hill in the Rookery, and felt as if ten years had passed in the last two days.
He’d managed a quick nap during a lunch break at the Round, but anxious thoughts and the noise of construction all around him had kept him from staying asleep for long. Fortunately, he didn’t have to field any excuses to his theater troupe about his unusually poor condition – he had a built in excuse, after all. Thjazi’s death meant that Hal was in mourning, and no one would question a mourner on their lack of sleep and generally disheveled bearing. Such things were expected after a death in the family, especially if the mourner and the deceased had been close.
They had been close, once. Him and Thjazi. Sure, they had drifted since Thjazi had taken up his uncouth “profession” and begun spending more and more time away from the city. Still, Hal always had some level of surety within him that he still knew his brother, that his brother still knew him, that they were as close as family could ever be. Distance dulled, but didn’t erase, not in Hal’s mind.
But these last two days had done nothing but show that the gulf between them had expanded much further than Hal had ever thought. Thjazi’s exploits had gone further than even Hal could have predicted. And now, he was gone beyond the veil into death, as far away from his brother as could ever be possible.
Hal blinked.
The orange light painting the walls signaled that it was now sunset. He blinked again. Did he eat anything? He was supposed to have gotten started on supper since he’d gotten home. How long had he been standing there in the living room, lost in thoughts and lack of sleep?
Before he could answer himself, there was a knock on the door.
The knocks were focused. Too polite to be any of Thjazi’s rougher colleagues, or any of Shadia’s friends. Was it someone of station? Was it the Halovars, come seeking their missing scion after he had absconded in the dead of night? Was it the Tachonis, come to eliminate the last of the witnesses to the massacre of House Davinos?
They knocked again. Three polite raps.
Hal was too tired to be afraid.
He opened the door to find himself face to face with Arcane Marshal Azune Nayar.
Hal had only known the man in passing as one of Thjazi’s acquaintances, prior to the funeral. Someone he could name and recognize, but had barely spoken a dozen words to. But over the last two days, Azune had been one of the many people present during the events that forever changed Hal’s life. The shared experience wove a bond of fragile trust between them, as both had promised to stand against the Sundered Houses alongside Bolaire and Murray. It hadn’t yet been a day since that promise had been made, and yet, Azune strode into the house with the careful poise of a respect years in the making, rather than mere hours.
“Halandil,” he said, his striking sunset eyes flashing with concern. “You look exhausted. Were you able to get any sleep today?”
Hal reached up to rub his neck and found his shoulders and upper back stiff with stress. “I managed a nap at the Round,” he replied. “It wasn’t enough. You?”
“I made it back to the Brethren Hall early enough that I could adjust the scheduling slightly. Gave myself the lunch and afternoon shifts so I could catch some sleep in the barracks in the morning.”
“Hopefully Murray finally got some sleep.”
“She did,” Azune assured him. “I checked up on her once I had a chance after my normal duties and patrols.”
Hal wondered how anyone could have the dedication to the job that Azune did and still be functional after all that had happened in the last two days. He wondered if the worry peeking through on Azune’s face was evidence of hidden struggles of his own. “Long day, Azune?”
“After last night? I almost want to call what happened today peaceful. At the very least, it was predictable. Einfasen is doing exactly what we expected him to do, but my own position is relatively safe for now.” Azune cast a glance over his shoulder. “But the others weren’t so lucky.”
Hal’s eyes darkened. “Is it as we feared?”
“Murray attended the new dean’s inaugural speech. Dean Keplenvaisreck is an obvious sycophant of the Lords-Advisory. Her speech was all about fluffing up the importance of the Lords and how their influence will bring the Penteveral to new heights. About what we expected to hear, but of course, Murray is up in arms over all of it. She got another harsh talking to in the Dean’s office afterwards.”
Even though Hal had only properly met the woman two days before, he already had enough of an understanding of her character to imagine just how volatile that meeting had been from Murray’s end. “I might need to offer that woman elocution lessons just for her own sense of self preservation, if nothing else.”
Azune nodded knowingly. He had known Murray for a lot longer than Hal had, and was likely imagining the same barely restrained tirade spilled out in a harsh dwarven accent. “There is also the matter of the Archanade,” Azune added.
Hal blanched. The Archanade. Bolaire. The mask. His brother. Another tidal wave of unspooled thoughts and tangled emotions from the last forty-eight hours washed over him. Outwardly, his legs shook, hopefully handwaved by Azune as a tremor of exhaustion. With great effort, Hal managed to form a coherent sentence from his chaotic mind. “Then… That tour of Bolaire’s this morning?”
“Went exactly as we expected it was going to.” Clouds had settled upon Azune’s sunset eyes. “House Cormoray is moving on the Archanade. Bolaire sent me to fetch you, so we can get everyone up to speed. Murray’s already there.”
Bolaire sent Azune to fetch him. Bolaire wants you there. Something about that sentiment plucked a lyre string in Hal’s heart. A friend in need. An easy task to focus on that could draw him up and away from his spiraling thoughts. When he spoke next, his words came out clear with an actor’s practiced confidence. “What exactly do you need me for?”
“Bolaire has an idea. Something we can do to get a better read on the situation. Together.” Azune lowered his voice and murmured to Hal, “Bring anything you’d need if you were expecting trouble. It seems like we’re going to go looking for some.”
The Liar’s Blade was already on his back before Azune finished his sentence. “I’ve got everything I need. I’ll leave a note for Shadia. Let’s go.”
“A break-in at House Cormoray,” Hal repeated incredulously.
Bolaire tilted his head coyly. “Not at the manor itself,” he corrected. “But rather, their well-hidden and much oversized underground storage facility, designed to contain dangerous magical artifacts.”
The man had his chin resting on the backs of his interlaced fingers. An unfinished goblet of red wine rested on the edge of his desk. His posture, his tone, and the presence of his favorite drink made everything about this scene deeply familiar to Hal. It was a near-perfect recreation of the dozens of moments he and Bolaire had spent together discussing literature and the arts at their favorite cafe in the Rookery. Looking upon this scene summoned a great ache in Hal’s chest, for with the events of last night, those moments with his friend now felt so far away. Now he knew that even back then, his friend had been more than he seemed to be.
Bolaire wasn’t a man who had been accidentally cursed by a magical mask. Bolaire was the mask. A magical mask that had been created as a weapon to slay a goddess during the Shapers’ War. A weapon that had decided it no longer wanted to act as such, and now sought to live a life of his own, separate from the role he was designed to play. A living magical relic that, by his own admission, took for himself the bodies of other humanoids in order to continue to exist.
An eccentric man, a museum curator, Hal’s best friend. A living mask, a dangerous weapon, an arcane parasite. A generous patron of the arts, and one of Thjazi’s dealers in black market magic. And now, possibly, Hal’s own co-conspirator against the Sundered Houses, alongside the Arcane Marshal Azune Nayar and the Penteveral mage Murray Mag’Nesson.
It was all too much for Hal to make sense of.
So much had happened in the last two days, with Thjazi and Thaisha and Thimble and Occtis and the Round and, and, and, that Hal had barely had any time to process the revelations about his friend’s true nature. There were dark truths that welled from Bolaire’s revelation last night – things that went unsaid about his nature as a living magical object, and about Thjazi and their dealings in the darker layers of Dol-Makjar – and Hal had no room in his head or his heart in order to keep them. Even now, he felt like his insides were stuffed with emotion and thought, overfull and numb. He felt almost as if he were watching his three companions from far away, himself a spectator rather than standing alongside them on the stage.
Murray slammed both palms onto Bolaire’s desk. “How the hell do you even know about this, Bolaire?! Is this a ‘takes one to know one’ kinda’ deal? Do all y’all artifact hoarders know about each other’s secret vaults?”
Bolaire crinkled his nose in disgust. It had always been strange to see the porcelain mask move and fold like skin, and it was all the stranger now knowing that the mask itself was more or less Bolaire’s true body. “Please – don’t lump me in with those uncultured fools. My secret vault contains artifacts that are far too dangerous for the general public to handle. I contain and care for my charges with the delicate hand of an archivist. My aims are preservation and study, not the amassing of firepower for personal gain.”
“Well then, tell us what the hell is going on! What the hell is House Cormoray doing with a secret magical warehouse?”
And so, Bolaire went on to explain his findings:
House Cormoray was believed to be harboring a significant magical weapons cache, leftover from the Falconer’s Rebellion. It was a stockpile of magical weaponry that could easily outfit a small army, if intel was to be believed. While perhaps a bit less overtly threatening compared to House Einfasen’s militia or House Tachonis’s frightening necromantic magic, it wasn’t something to scoff at – especially now that they were sniffing around the museum, seeking to seize part of its collection for their own.
Azune had a faraway look in his eyes that wasn’t unfamiliar in the last few days, yet unlike Hal, he remained present and focused on the discussion at hand. “Again, Bolaire. How exactly do you know about this weapons cache?”
“… A little fairy told me.” Hands steepled in front of him, Bolaire let out a heavy sigh. “Thimble gave me the information as a tip from Thjazi, months ago now. At his behest, I was slowly acquiring information to find out more about what was down there, as well as seeking a means of entry.”
Blue sparks flickered dangerously in Bolaire’s deep eye sockets. “Thjazi himself was close to finding a way to get inside, and was keeping me apprised by way of Thimble along the way. Combined with the research I’ve done on my own, I’m fairly certain I know enough to get us down into those vaults.”
The mention of his brother was enough to draw Hal back into the conversation. “And why would Thjazi include you in something like this, if you and he were so against one another?”
So against one another that you let an elf assassin into the city, hoping she would “take care” of my brother for you.
Another thing Halandil had yet to process. His best friend had wanted his younger brother dead.
He almost didn’t even remember Bolaire admitting to it, even though it had been no more than a day since he’d heard the words. There hadn’t been enough time since then to even consider how the hell it made him feel. Even now, the thought slipped back under the fuzziness that still stuffed his head, and its implications remained distant and unable to affect his current situation. For now, those words may as well not even exist. He could stand here in Bolaire’s office and speak to him as a friend without any of the contradictions breaking him – so long as his mind stayed wrapped in that protective dissociative fuzz.
“Because part of my job as his blackmailed confidant was to be his on-call artifact expert.” Bolaire pushed at the papers on his desk bitterly and huffed backwards in his chair. “Once Thjazi realized the scope of what House Cormoray was stockpiling down there, I think even he realized he couldn’t deal with that on his own. I have no proof of this but my own intuition, but I believe, once he was ready to infiltrate that place, that he intended to leverage my assistance in doing so.”
Murray’s eyes went wide. “You’re sayin’ Thjazi was gonna’ ask you to help him pull off a heist?”
Bolaire sipped dismissively from his wine glass. “As I said, I have no proof. But I see no other reason why he would have chosen to inform me of Cormoray’s dealings otherwise. If not for that, then your guess is as good as mine. No – better, I suppose.” He gestured to Hal with the goblet. “You knew your brother better than anyone else did.”
These last few days have proven otherwise, Hal thought to himself. He tried not to let himself feel the anger towards his brother that he had been ignoring since the night of the funeral. Much like with Bolaire, Hal couldn’t process the many aspersions cast upon his brother in these last two days. The protective fuzz blocked those accusatory barbs from sticking in his thoughts, from drawing blood in his heart.
Instead, he asked: “So, why are we going in there?”
Bolaire turned to him. “House Cormoray are the ones planning to seize the effects of the Lloy Wing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the House with a magical weapons stockpile are the ones seeking to take custody of the Pariah Blades. My belief is that they likely already have dangerous artifacts on hand – things that go beyond mere leftovers from the Falconer’s Rebellion.”
“And you want us to get eyes on what they have, so that we know what we’re up against,” Azune caught on.
“Precisely.”
“So… A heist?” Murray looked so excited that she could break out into clapping at any moment.
“No, Miss Mag’Nesson. Not a heist. We’re not going there to steal anything.” Bolaire straightened again in his chair. “Anything actually worth stealing is going to be under significant magical protection – and stealing from the vaults merely alerts the House that someone is moving against them. No, we’re just doing reconnaissance. Just to see what they have.”
“Aw, you’re no fun,” she pouted.
“And you’re not a thief,” Bolaire snapped. “Pray, don’t let my own blackened fingers tarnish the rest of your reputations with my distasteful activities. Now that I’m no longer Thjazi’s lapdog, I don’t intend to make a continued habit of those crimes.”
Hal took a step back, stunned by icy tone in Bolaire’s voice. He still wasn’t sure what to think of the sorts of things Bolaire claimed that Thjazi made him do, but at least in this moment, it was clear that Bolaire did not think kindly of the endeavors.
A small part of him felt a surge of guilt. His own brother had been blackmailing his best friend. Had it truly been bad enough that Bolaire thought sending Vaelus after him was the best course of action? How desperate had Bolaire been? Just what had Thjazi made him do?
His best friend had wanted his younger brother dead. His younger brother had been blackmailing his best friend. Two of the people he cared for most in the world had hated each other behind his back, and neither one had ever breathed a word of it to him. Two figures danced and battled beneath the spotlight in his head; Hal blinked, and once again, he felt far away from the stage.
Murray, undaunted by Bolaire’s outburst, tapped her quill-nail on the desk. “Are you sure there ain’t any other reasons you’re so keen on going down there, Bolaire?”
Bolaire crossed his arms and tossed his head in a way that jostled his long red curls. “I haven’t any idea what you mean, Miss Mag’Nesson.”
“I only mean to say, if House Cormoray is takin’ an interest in collecting god-killing weapons, that it stands to reason that they might already have some down there.” Murray leaned forward onto the desk, bringing her face as close as possible to loom over Bolaire. Her voice darkened: “And just last night, we learned that you are a god-killing weapon.”
Bolaire narrowed his eyes. “Not anymore.”
“You sure? ‘Cause I mean, you told us yourself that you have a bunch of brothers and sisters out there that ain’t never been found. Other god-killing masks like yourself. You sure we ain’t goin’ in there for you to look for your missing family?”
Bolaire’s charcoal black lips pressed into a thin line. Though his voice did not show anger, the increasing brightness of his eyes belied his rising temper. “If anyone of my… ilk, were to be found in that basement, then I highly doubt Thjazi would’ve wanted me anywhere near it. He wouldn’t have wanted me making friends.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he thought he could trap you down there with the rest of your siblings and throw away the key.”
A mirthless laugh. “I would not discount that possibility.”
“Whatever Thjazi did or didn’t want doesn’t matter right now.” Azune’s clear voice shook the pair from their angry staring contest. “He’s not here, and we’re the ones who have to decide whether or not this plan is a good idea.”
Bolaire sat back and sipped at his wine again. “I’ve already said my piece.”
Azune nodded. “And if this is something we want to pursue, I think now will be the safest time to do it. Word hasn’t spread too far about the attack on House Royce yet, and House Cormoray hasn’t been able to take anything from the Archanade for now. They won’t have any reason to think they’ll be targeted so soon after Tachonis attacked Royce. With the other Houses starting to make their moves, Cormoray’s defenses are only going to get stronger as time goes on. Now is going to be the safest time to break in.”
“I still think it’s a heist.” Murray was not quite sulking. “We’ll just be stealing information instead of sweet loot.”
Something in her pouting voice drew Hal out of his fuzzy mental haze. It was just childlike enough to trigger a twinge of dad instinct from him. “If calling it a heist is helpful to you, then call it what you will. Words have power, and can shape your perceptions of reality if you let them.” He caught Bolaire’s eye and noticed a tiny, lopsided smile rise on porcelain lips.
“And you, Hal,” Bolaire asked with a hint of hope. “What do you think?”
Lots of things. But I don’t have time to think any of them.
“I think going up against the Sundered Houses is the stupidest thing I’ve ever agreed to. But also, I hate being in the dark.” Hal couldn’t help but feel a surge of foolhardy energy. He was mad at his brother, mad at his friend, and mad at the world. The idea of going out and doing something about it filled him with a giddy sort of recklessness that would’ve suited Thjazi much better. “So I say, let’s go out there and do ourselves a heist.” Bolaire and Azune both groaned, while Murray cheered, both fists in the air.
“Wonderful.” Bolaire drained the last of his wine glass and stood. “Then let’s be on our way.”