Archive of Our Own ^beta

Contrary to what the staff of the Archives believe, Jonah Magnus, currently known as Elias Bouchard, does not spend all of his time watching the employees of the institute. There’s many other things that require his attention, and watching them floundering at statements or handle things they can’t possibly understand, while entertaining, is not a productive use of his time. At seven in the evening, however, he spares some time to cast an Eye around the Institute. He’s watching Sonja in artifact storage lock up for the night when he abruptly Knows to look deeper in artifact storage.

He Looks at the area that’s caught his attention, and for a moment there’s nothing, and then there’s a flash of light and a man appears. He has red hair, is wearing a long, well-worn coat, and is fundamentally wrong.

“Scheisse,” the man whispers, runs his hand through his already messy hair, and looks around. He makes some motions with his hands, and then there’s a rippling effect and he looks around once more, his eyes growing wide. “That’s…” he stares at a wardrobe that’s an artifact of the Stranger, tilting his head in confusion. “That’s a bad armoire,” he says, then continues to look around.

And then he looks directly at Jonah. He shouldn’t be able to know that Jonah is Looking, and he definitely shouldn’t be able to see where he’s Looking from. He’s touched by the Eye, but not nearly enough to make any difference to Jonah. The man makes more motions with his hands, and this time nothing happens.

“Scheisse!” He says, and tries again. Jonah wonders what he’s trying to do. When nothing happens after the third try, the man flips Jonah’s sight off and puts on a pendant that he pulls from inside his coat. Then, he stalks through artifact storage, looking at everything with a highly analytical gaze. When he gets to the shelf of Leitners, he stares at them for such a long time that Jonah thinks he’s going to read one. But then he shakes his head, mutters something in German, and moves on.

He wanders the institute for thirty minutes, deftly avoiding any lingering employees and recasting the spell—for that is what it must be, Jonah Knows—every ten minutes. And then he reaches what Jonah Knows is an entrance to the tunnels. The man looks around, stares straight at Jonah again, and slips into where Jonah cannot follow.

——————

There is someone else in the Archive.

Jon knows he’s being paranoid, knows that he saw everyone leave earlier, but he keeps hearing footsteps and faint muttering as he walks through the stacks, looking for anything that could be related to the Unknowing or even the Stranger or I Do Not Know You or the Circus or anything.

Maybe he should go to sleep. Martin told him to, before he left. That was three hours ago.

But he can’t sleep, because the world’s ending and he needs to know and there is someone else in his Archives.

He abandons all premise of research when he hears a muffled thump. He grips the handle of his cane, prays the soft clacks don’t alert the intruder, and goes off towards the sound.

As he passes by one aisle, he sees a faint glimmer of light. He looks towards it, and sees four globules of light, hovering in the air in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, illuminating a strange man. He looks taller than Jon, although that’s not necessarily a feat. He has red hair, and is wearing a coat that seems purposely dirty. The strange man is muttering to himself in something that sounds like German, and he scans the labels on the files with alarming speed.

“Hello?” Jon starts. The man’s head whips up, and all the globules flicker for a half second before the man makes an offhand motion and they reappear.

“Hello,” he says, with a moderate German accent. “Am I bothering you?”

“What?” Jon says, and the man starts to reply, but Jon cuts him off, his pulse thumping in his ears. “Wait, no, hold on, who are you? How did you get here? What do you want?” Jon takes a small step back. He really doesn’t want to get kidnapped again.

The man just smiles, and continues to speak in a calm, soft voice. “Oh, I apologize. My name is Caleb Widogast. I am not entirely certain how I got here, and as for what I want, I only want to find a way back home.” Jon has, frankly, no idea what to say to that, and just stares as Widogast looks at him with a patient expression. He tries to take comfort in the fact that Widogast doesn’t seem to be violent, and doesn’t seem to want anything with Jon specifically, although the way the man’s eyes look over him, like he can read Jon like a book, is incredibly disconcerting.

“Well, the Archives are closed and also not open to the public, but there is a cot in document storage you can sleep on and we can see if we can get you back home tomorrow,” Jon says eventually. If this man is out to get him, better Jon knows where he is than not, and if Widogast truly means no harm, then he won’t…wander into artifact storage or something.

“Of course,” he says, and walks over to where Jon is standing, the globules following. The walk back to document storage is quiet and tense, the only sound their footsteps and Jon’s cane. Jon watches Widogast and Widogast seems to be watching everything else. He seems very calm, not nervous at all. Jon wonders if it’s because Widogast is just naïve or if he thinks he’s the most dangerous thing in here. Jon hopes it’s the former.

Once they reach document storage, Widogast curls up on the cot without so much as a word, taking books and supplies out of surprising pockets of his coat and lining them up above his head before folding up his coat and using it as a pillow. Jon makes his way back to his office, and just pillows his head on his arms.

Jon wakes to the sharp rapping of someone knocking on his door.

“—Jon, are you even awake?” Jon hears the tail end of Martin’s question, and groans. “Jon!”

“What?” Jon grabs his cane from where it was leaning against his desk and stands up, yanking the door open and startling Martin, who stands there poised to knock again.

“There’s a strange man in document storage who is saying that someone that looked like you told him that he could sleep there last night and that we would help him?”

“Widogast!” Jon gasps, all vestiges of sleep leaving his mind as his brain throws images of last night into his mind’s eye. He pushes past Martin, walking as fast as he can into document storage. Widogast is awake, unfortunately, and seems to have collected all of his belongings and put them back in his coat. Pity. Jon would have loved to inspect the books. Widogast is currently standing in the back of the room, with Basira and Melanie in between him and the door. Both of them have weapons out, Basira’s gun aimed squarely at his chest, and Melanie’s knife pointed in his general direction. He stands there with his hands up, but has a small smile on his face that completely contradicts the palpable tension in the room.

“Oh, hello again!” Widogast says when Jon bursts into the room. “Hopefully we can get this sorted out now.”

“Shut it,” Melanie hisses, and to his credit, Widogast does. “Jon, this strange German man is saying he met you last night and that we would help him?”

“Yeah.” Jon runs a hand over his face. “I was doing research late last night—”

“I told you to sleep!” Martin interjects.

“Yes, sorry. Anyway, I was looking in the archives, saw a light that wasn’t mine, and found him. He said that he didn’t know how he got here, and was trying to find out how to get home, and I mean, he doesn’t look dangerous!”

“So you said he could sleep here? Really?” Basira says.

“Well, at least this way I knew where he was and we didn’t have someone unaccounted for running around the archives!”

“That’s a good point, actually,” Basira relents. “But we still have to figure out what to do now. We have other problems, like the Circus, and Elias, and the fact that someone can apparently sneak into the Archives without us noticing.”

“If I may,” Widogast starts, looking towards Basira, who gives a nod. “I didn’t sneak into the building, if that’s what you’re worried about. I arrived in a room full of what seemed to be magical artifacts, then found an entrance a series of tunnels. I’ve been down in those tunnels for a few days now, and was caught my first night venturing out of them. There was also a strange shape shifting creature in the tunnels. It’s dead now, I’m sorry if it was there for any particular reason. I don’t mean any harm to you or yours, and genuinely only want to get back home. If you could point me in the direction of any research on inter-planar travel, that would be appreciated, if not, I am perfectly capable of staying out of your way and doing research on my own.”

Once he finishes, Jon could’ve heard a pin drop. Then—

“You killed the Not-Them? All on your own?” Martin says in a small voice from the doorway.

“If that is what you call the creature that tried to kill and impersonate me, then yes.” Widogast says.

“You’re sure?” Martin asks.

“Disintegrating most of the body and then burning the rest of it to ash makes me pretty certain of it’s demise.”

“Oh.” Martin’s voice sound higher than normal, and Basira, who was relaxing her arm, snaps it back up to its previous position.

“And what’s stopping you from burning the rest of us, right now?” Basira asks.

“Other than the fact that I am no longer a murderer? I doubt I could hit any one of you without you creating a few new holes in my body, and I do not wish to die today.”

Jon ignores the ‘no longer a murderer’ part, and decides that this was not the most important problem on their long list of issues.

“Alright. Basira, Melanie put your weapons down. We have bigger issues, and we’re wasting time. Widogast, you can stay and research. Let’s get to work, everyone,” he says with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

“Thank you,” Widogast says, finally putting his arms down and pulling a book out from his coat.

“Hey!” Melanie says, pointing her still not put away knife at him. “Any funny business, I put this in your throat.”

“Of course,” Widogast says, still smiling, and Jon suddenly knows by the look in his eyes that this man could’ve killed the Not-Them. Jon leaves them to figure out arrangements, and goes back to his office. He needs to get some work done today.

Widogast’s assimilation into the office goes surprisingly smoothly. Tim, predictably, hates the new addition, complaining to Martin loudly enough that Jon can hear it in his office. If Widogast is bothered by it, he doesn’t say anything.

This goes on for two days. Widogast proves to be a frantic researcher, devouring statements and academic papers and science fiction with reckless abandon, and scribbling strange diagrams and equations in one of his books. He starts to help out with the research for the Unknowing, too, combing the archives with seemingly endless patience. Elias, surprisingly, does not appear or seem to notice.

On the third day, however, everything changes. It’s midmorning, and everyone is working, when there’s shouting, clattering, and then footsteps running down the stairs. Jon, who’s standing at Martin’s desk, talking about the Salesa statement, looks up to see a dark-skinned woman in blue robes bursting into the Archives. She gets through the door, and nearly to Jon’s office, before she skids to a stop. Melanie and Baisra are already on their feet.

“Who are you?” Baisra says, drawing her gun. The woman looks at it, then settles into a practiced fighting stance. “What do you want?” The woman looks like she’s about to start shouting, or at least throw a punch, so Jon steps forward.

“I’m sorry, the Archives are off-limits to the public, unless you want to give a statement?” He says.

“What? No, I’m looking for someone, and I think he might be here,” the woman says, looking about like her friend might appear out of the woodwork.

“That doesn’t tell us who you are, though,” Melanie says, her voice low, knife out. The woman looks at it, then at her, then straightens up.

“Expositor Beauregard Lionett, of the Cobalt Soul. I’m looking for—” she cuts herself off as she stares at something behind Jon. He glances behind him to see Widogast, coming out of the break room, who looks up, sees her, then goes paper white.

“Scheisse,” he nearly whispers, then turns and walks quickly back into the break room. When Jon looks back, the Expositor is staring at the door with a furious expression on her face. She takes another look at Basira and her gun, shrugs, and bolts towards the door. Melanie makes a grab for her, but she dodges her hand and is into the break room in seconds. Jon follows, not wanting another dead body, and arrives in time to see the Expositor gripping Widogast by the labels of his coat.

“What the fuck, Caleb,” she’s saying. “What the fuck did you do? And where the fuck are we?”

“Beauregard—”

“No, don’t you Beauregard me, man.” She gives him a little shake, and Jon is torn between wanting to help Widogast and not wanting to get punched. “I have been wandering around this city for a week, and thank Ioun they speak Common, and I know it’s because you were fucking around with magic, which you promised to not do without Essek, not since last time, and—”

“Beauregard, you’re scaring them.” Widogast is looking at Jon, and behind him, and Jon glances to the side to see Basira with her hand on her gun, Melanie’s knife out, and Martin looking in with terror. Tim comes down the stairs, walks past the door to the break room, and looks in.

“I don’t know why I fucking bother,” he mutters, then turns and goes into the main archives. The Expositor looks at them all, sighs, and releases Widogast.

“Right,” she says. She scans them all with a gaze that seems to look right through Jon, then glares back at Widogast. “Explain.”

“I would like an explanation as well,” says Elias from behind Jon, causing him to startle.

“Elias—I didn’t hear you come down, what, um, what do you need?” Martin manages to get out. Elias just pushes past him and Jon, going to stand in front of the two strangers.

“And who the fuck are you?” the Expositor says, fixing Elias with a glare that, if looks could kill, would have spelled out doom for them all.

“Elias Bouchard. I run this Institute, and would like to know why two people who should not be in my Archives are.”

“Do you really have to do this in the break room?” Tim says from the office, leaning so that he can see the break room through the door.

“This shouldn’t take more than a minute,” Widogast says, and his voice is deeper and more dangerous than anything Jon has ever heard. “Expositor Lionett and I, Caleb Widogast, are from another plane, or dimension, if you will. I am a wizard, and was experimenting with the spell Plane Shift when something went wrong and I unintentionally transported myself, Beauregard, and possibly a few others to this plane. We don’t mean any harm, and only wish to find any of our other friends that may be in this plane and find a way home.”

“That doesn’t explain why you are here, specifically, though.”

“I appeared in a room in this building filled with magical artifacts, and then hid in the tunnels until venturing out to do research on how to get home and being found.”

“And you, Miss Lionett? Did you appear in Artifact Storage as well?”

“It’s Expositor, and no, I didn’t. I appeared in the middle of a street, then spent a week finding the place that had both books and magic, because I knew that’s where Caleb would be. Is that explanation satisfactory?” Both the Expositor and Widogast are staring at Elias with venom, keeping their words clipped and precise.

“I suppose so,” Elias sighs. Then he turns and looks at Jon and the rest of them, still standing in the entranceway. “I hope this doesn’t distract you from the more important matters.”

“No, of course not. We’ll get back to work now,” Jon says, and lightly pushes everyone back out into the main room. He can hear the Expositor and Widogast whispering frantically in the break room in a language he can’t recognize, but does his best to put it out of his mind as he heads back to his office and pulls out a statement about Hill Top Road, and begins to read.

——————

Caleb, despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his being here, likes the Archives. He knows there is something very off about this place, of course—a cursory detect magic when he arrived showed that all the objects surrounding him were filled with unidentifiable magic, the likes he had only seen in Aeor, as well as a shroud of divination magic and a scrying orb that made him glad he had his amulet on him. But despite all of that, despite the creature in the tunnels and the hostile atmosphere, he loves the search for knowledge, for knowing, that permeates the air. Beau, however, does not.

“I don’t like this,” she grouses in Undercommon as Elias Bouchard leads the rest of the staff out of the break room. Caleb doesn’t miss the glares that Melanie and Basira sends at his back, or the resigned and slightly scared looks on Jon and Martin’s. Tim just looks annoyed and bored, as always.

“What part of it?” He mutters back in the same language. “The being in a different plane part? The new people part? The not knowing where Yasha is part? The man that reminds us of Ikithon and Da’leth being in charge part?”

“All of it, man, but right now, especially that last one. I don’t like Elias or his lackey.”

“His lackey?”

“The little one. With the cane.” Beau starts pacing around the break room, spinning her staff.

“Jon? No, they all hate Elias. They can’t do much about it, though, as far as I can tell.” Caleb doesn’t say that he thinks that they could do something about it. That he wants to do something about it. Beau knows him well enough to hear what he leaves unsaid.

“Fuck!” She says, this time in common. “I didn’t want to have to work while I was trapped in another fucking plane. Caleb, when we get back, you’re teleporting Yasha and I wherever we want to go, you understand me?”

“Crystal,” says Caleb, feeling himself start to smile. It’ll be nice, he thinks, to try take down someone who isn’t the head of the government.

“Hey. New people.” Caleb looks to the door to see Tim leaning on the doorframe.

“Yeah?” Beau says, leaning on her staff.

“I would leave. Get out of here, as fast as you can. Not just this…dimension, or whatever, but the Institute. Nothing good has ever come out of this place.”

“Solid advice. However, I’ve decided that while the nerd figures out how to get us back home, I’m gonna help you deal with that boss of yours. Not the scared one, the other one. Elias,” Beau says.

“Yeah, well, the last time someone tried to do that, Basira got stuck down here with the rest of us. He knows things, can tell what we’re doing—” at this, Caleb watches Beau pull out her own amulet and put it on. “—and if he dies, we all do. So it’s hopeless. Just leave while you can.”

“I have yet to be stopped by someone calling a situation hopeless,” Caleb says. “How about this—if we can’t figure out how to deal with Elias in a week, we’ll leave.”

“Fine.” Tim barks out a sharp, sarcastic laugh. “It’s your funeral.” With that, he turns and leaves. Beau turns and stares at him.

“A week? Really? It took us months to deal with Ikithon properly, and that was with the Soul!”

“It’ll be fine. I only said we had to have a plan in a week, not to totally dispose of him.”

“I hate you sometimes, you know that?”

“I know.”

Caleb wants Essek. Or Veth, or even Astrid and Wulf. Someone who could help him think through whatever variation of plane shift brought them here, so that he can figure out how to get back. He sits in the break room, or document storage, or even once in the tunnels, paper spread around him and arcane equations running through his mind, and he wishes someone else was here to help him get past this one block, this final rune, the last somatic so that he can get back home.

Beau, for all her griping at the beginning, falls into the patterns of the Archives with a passion that she normally reserves for hunting down connections to Da’leth or other Cerberus Assembly members. She works through the organization of all the files, slowly sorting them by date, or name, but not reading them, at the request of Jon. He says that he didn’t know what would happen if they started to read them, and for once, Caleb doesn’t want to find out. (That’s a lie, of course he does, but he’s had enough experience with manipulation and mind control and strange Eye powers gained from reading strange texts to know when to stop.)

So Caleb works on his spell, and Beau files and teaches Melanie and Basira to fight, and Elias comes down nearly every day to just watch. Apparently, this is not normal behavior, and Caleb hopes that it’s because the amulets are working. He hopes. There are entirely too many similarities between this situation and Lucien to for him to be entirely comfortable.

It takes two days for Elias to make any sort of move. Caleb’s expecting it, obviously, he knows how people like Elias think. That doesn’t make the dread that comes when he asks Caleb to speak with him in his office alone any less potent. But Caleb doesn’t want to make whatever is to come any worse than it has to be, so he follows.

Caleb makes inane chatter as they walk up to his office, about the Not-Them in the tunnels and his slow going spell. Once they reach the door, he lingers behind a second, then quickly, quietly, casts detect magic.

The first thing he notices is that all the divination magic coating the institute leans towards Elias. The second is that there is a thread of magic, reminiscent of the Tether Essence spell, flowing from Elias to something in his desk and back out to the depths of the institute. The third thing is that Elias’s entire body, but especially his eyes, are glowing with necromantic energy. Caleb stutters for a second, but then falls right back into discussion of his spell as Elias—if that was even his name—pulls a piece of paper from the drawer, already glowing with dunamantic energy.

“Your spell might go faster if you had the full power of an employee,” Elias says, and Caleb suddenly remembers what Tim said about being trapped here as he watches the thread of magic flowing from Elias to the paper. “It’ll give you access to more resources outside the institute, at least, and you have proven yourself to be quite the asset down in the Archives.”

Caleb thinks for a second about the knowledge that being an official member of the institute would gain. Then he thinks about Elias, and Trent, and Ludinus, and all of the other powerful men in the worlds that gain their power through pretty words and tricks and signatures on a piece of paper, and he laughs.

“I’m flattered,” he says, and he is, because he was able to seem such a non-threat that Elias thought he would be able to trick him into selling his soul to the Eyes for a second time. “However, I do, unfortunately, have several other things on my plate, and must regretfully pass on your offer.” He smiles at Elias, that pointed, small smile that he normally only reserves for Ludinus, these days.

“Hm,” Elias says, and then there’s a static in Caleb’s ears and he knows that Elias is doing something, but he can’t stop it. “I wonder—” The static grows, and Caleb wishes he’d had the foresight to cast mind blank. “Oh, yes.” Elias sits back in his chair, looking satisfied, but waiting for Caleb to make the next move.

“I would appreciate it,” Caleb says, shaking the static out of his ears, “If you stayed out of my mind.”

“Do you think that little amulet stops my gaze?” Elias says, talking over the end of Caleb’s sentence like he didn’t even hear it. “I’ll admit, it was a handy trick in the beginning, but now, you’ve spent far too much time in my Institute. I can See you, now.”

”Is that supposed to scare me?” Caleb is scared, a little bit, but he’s not letting Elias see that. Outwardly, at least. “Intimidate me into signing your little death contract? I’ve had worse.”

“You have,” Elias sighs. “And that wasn’t supposed to do it all on its own, no. You’re far too good for that, Bren.”

“How—” Caleb says, but he knows how, Tim told him and Beau, that Elias knew things about them, and so of course he would know that.

“You know how. I know all about you now, Mr. Ermendrud. About your old friends, your teacher, your parents.” At this, there’s a sharp spike in static, and Caleb’s mind is filled with the familiar scene of smoke, fire, and screams. “You haven’t told them yet. Of course you haven’t, you’ve already gotten lucky eight times before. And you like it here, like seeing what things could’ve been like. What they won’t be like, once I’ve told your secret to everyone in that basement that you try to hide from me.”

“You couldn’t—” Caleb gasps out, only tangentially aware of his body as his mind is consumed by fire in a way it hasn’t been in years.

“I could,” Elias says, sounding so smug that Caleb wants to rip his undead eyes from their sockets. “Do you want to see?” Another spike of static, and Caleb can see the Archives in his mind’s eye, all of them looking on with horror. Elias’s voice still cuts through the image, although Caleb is only barely aware of his body gasping out sobs. “Did you possibly think that they would still like you once they knew that you killed your own parents? I could make them feel how they felt, in the end. That horrible burning, that fierce pain, the desperation as they called out for a son that set the fire. I could show them every soul you ever killed and make them realize that you are the worst monster here.”

“No,” is the only thing Caleb can think to say as the image of everyone that he’s met over the past couple of days—Basira, Melanie, Tim, Martin, Jon—convulsing on the ground in phantom pain and looking at him with such fear and anger fades. “No, don’t.”

“But I won’t,” Elias says, and Caleb’s breath catches in his throat. “Not yet, anyway. Think about my offer, will you?” Caleb continues to cry, but his mind abruptly stops at that statement. Of course, of course this was the game Elias was playing. It’s the game all of them played, eventually, the underhanded threats and meaningless shows of power. And Caleb has had enough.

“If you think,” Caleb starts, and he swears he can hear Elias’s smirk drop, “that this has done anything but strengthen my resolve to never sign that piece of paper you are sorely mistaken.”

“I’ll head down to the basement, then,” Elias says, standing up. Caleb stands to match him, and while Caleb is not the tallest member of his friends by a long shot, he still is able to tower over Elias.

“Go ahead, then,” he says, keeping his voice light for now. “I’ll stay up here and remove that insurance policy you’re so fond of.” The detect magic hasn’t faded, yet, and the threads of magic still shimmer, practically asking to be dispelled.

“You can’t,” Elias says, and he sounds nervous.

“Can’t I?” Caleb lets some danger into his voice now, shrugging old practices on like a well-loved coat. “You’ve been inside my mind. You’ve seen what I can do. This meeting is over, Elias.” Caleb turns around and heads out the door, leaving Elias sputtering behind him. He can still feel tears on his face, and he’s walking with a determination that he hasn’t felt since the Vergesson heist. He knows how they were going to take care of Elias, and if it all went well, they were going to do it soon.

——————

Tim fucking hates his job. As soon as Caleb followed Elias up the stairs, Jon disappeared into his office with a statement, and then another random man came down the stairs and just…started talking. He said his name was Caduceus, or something equally strange, and then asked if they wanted any tea. And now Tim’s alone in the office, pretending to research whatever statement this is while Martin and Basira and Melanie are just talking to this guy who, for all intents and purposes, should not be here.

“Hello?” A deep voice says, causing Tim to jump in his seat.

“What the—What do you want?” He asks, not surprised to look up and see Caduceus standing there with two steaming mugs.

“I just wanted to offer some tea.”

“I said I didn’t want any.” Tim goes back to pretending to work.

“I’ll just leave it here then. It’s very good, from my home. I believe that this blend is a Casala.”

“A what?”

“Casala. We have a number of generations. They were textile merchants.” Caduceus is gently smiling, like he’s thinking of a fond memory, and not talking utter nonsense.

“What on earth do you mean? Is this a person?” Tim looks down into the mug, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It smells very good, though.

“Not exactly. My family and I run a graveyard, and they are all buried there. This is the tea that grows from their graves.”

“I’ve heard weirder,” Tim says, though even for this job, that was weird, and drinks the tea. It’s good. Caduceus takes this as a cue to sit down in a spare chair he’s pulled up, studying Tim in silence. After about six solid seconds of this, Tim speaks again. “Can I help you?”

“You know, they’re worried about you.”

“What?”

“Your friends.”

“They’re not my friends. I mean, I don’t hate them all, Jon’s the worst, but I hate this place and they do nothing to help.”

“Hm.” Caduceus takes another sip of his tea.

“Oh, don’t do that. There is something fundamentally wrong with this place, and the rest of them don’t even seem to care, and they all want me to be nice to Jon, but he stalked me and potentially murdered a dude and has done nothing to help us! I mean, sure, he got eaten by worms and is worried about the potential murderer but you know what? So am I! And they don’t even seem to care! And there’s this fucking circus, and nobody seems worried about it because there’s these new powerful people and aren’t they so cool but the world is going to end in like two weeks and I’m not losing anybody else to a stupid stranger circus!”

“Well, I can’t bring back whoever you lost.”

“My brother. Danny. I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this.”

“I’ve been told that I’m just that kind of person. I can’t bring back Danny, but I think you should talk to them. Jon, especially.”

“They won’t care. They don’t care.” Tim glares off in the direction of the break room, where the others’ voices still spill out of.

“Try them. Suffering along alone may seem like the best or easiest option, but it’s always the worst. Trust me on that.”

“I, heh.” Tim looks into his almost-gone tea, and thinks about all the looks that Martin and the others gave him that he thought were resentment or annoyance, but now realizes they were probably worry. “I actually think I do.”

“Good.” Caduceus smiles at him, and for a second, Tim thinks that it might be ok.

Naturally, that’s when everything goes to shit.

——————

Melanie is having the closet thing she has to a good day in this terrible job, sitting in the break room and gossiping with Basira and Martin as she drinks some of the best tea she’s ever had, when the screaming starts.

“What the fuck!” Tim screams, completely drowning out whatever Beau is saying—when did Beau get back?—causing both Melanie, Basira and Martin to run through the doors and into the main Archives. Jon has apparently done the same thing, and the three of them converge on Tim, who’s fallen out of his chair, and Beau, who’s hugging a strange cow-goat-man with pink hair.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” Jon says.

“Oh, I’m Caduceus Clay,” Caduceus—really? She had just met Caduceus, and he looked perfectly normal then—says, extracting himself from the hug and holding a hand out for Jon to shake. “I’m a friend of Beau, and Caleb, if he’s here.”

“Yeah, he’s here,” Beau says. “He’s in a meeting with Elias right now. Oh, speaking of Elias, put on your amulet right quick, he’s got eyes.” Melanie watches as Caduceus brings out the same amulet Caleb and Beau have and putting it on.

“I’m sorry, but do you know if any more of your friends came with you? I want to know if there’s going to be any more surprise visitors,” Jon says, sitting down and leaning his cane against a desk now that the action has finished.

“What, you can’t just Know?” Tim snarks as he stands up his own chair.

“There’s no need,” Caduceus says. “I was the last one in the radius of the spell.”

“Oh, good. Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to finish recording.” Jon starts standing up, but then there’s footsteps stomping down the stairs and echoing through the hallway and they all whirl around to the doorway to see Caleb standing there.

“Tunnels,” he says, his face streaked with tears and his eyes blazing with anger and determination. “Now.” He pushes past Basira and Caduceus, barely sparing the latter a glance.

“What happened up there?” Beau asks, which causes Caleb to turn around and glare some more.

“Elias can’t hear us in the tunnels, correct?”

“Yup,” Tim says.

“Then we’re going to the tunnels.” His voice leaves no room for argument, and so Melanie shrugs and follows him to the trapdoor.

Once they’ve all made it inside, Caleb sinks down against the wall and closes his eyes, breathing deeply and looking like he’s trying not to cry. He runs a hand through his hair, and snaps his fingers, causing an orange cat to appear in his arms. He buries his fingers in the cat’s fur, staring into space. Melanie watches as Beau sits down next to him, just barely in reaching distance.

“You conjured a cat,” Jon says, sounding surprised.

“This is Frumpkin,” Caleb says, almost monotone and rote. “He is the best cat.”

“Course he is, Caleb. What happened? Are you alright?” Beau asks.

“He was meeting with Elias, right?” Melanie says. “He probably did the same mind trick that he did with me.”

“He did,” Caleb says, his voice somewhere in between hoarse from crying and simmering with anger. “He showed me…things I would rather not see, terrible things, and then threatened to show all of you as well.”

“Shit, Caleb, what—” Beau’s stance shifts slightly, to be more aggressive, and from the corner of her eye, Melanie can see Basira step forward as well, positioning herself between Caleb and Martin and Tim, in line with Jon and Melanie and Caduceus.

“He called me Br—by my name, Beauregard.” It’s barely a whisper, but it echos through the tunnels, as does the reactions. Beau and Caduceus’s faces both settle into a familiar anger, Tim has a bored apathy that Melanie echoes, Martin looks confused, and both Jon and Basira look curious.

“I’m going to kill him,” Beau mutters.

“Not if I can get to him first,” Melanie replies.

“You’ll both have to wait until I finish explaining,” Caleb says, still quiet, but less fragile. “During the meeting, I figured out how to remove the binding that holds you to Elias and the institute.”

“What?” Basira says, taking a step towards Caleb. “How?”

“The actual magic of the binding is very similar to a spell I know well, so with enough time, I will be able to dispel it.”

“That’s oddly fortunate,” Jon says. “Especially because you seem to be hiding something.”

“Leave it,” Beau says, standing up so that she’s in between everyone and Caleb. Caduceus shifts as well, moving to sit down next to Caleb, who’s stiffened at Jon’s comment. Jon nods and takes a small step back, the clunk of his cane echoing through the tense silence.

“No, I have questions too,” Basira says. “What did Elias threaten to tell us? And does it have anything to do with the fact that you apparently have another name?”

“Basira,” Martin says, stepping up to try to put a hand on her shoulder, but she ducks out of the contact.

“What can be so bad that you refuse to tell us?”

“Basira, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beau has a hand on her staff, and Melanie can start to feel that anger rising up inside her.

“No, I don’t! And that’s the problem! Listen, if you tell us now, you won’t have to worry about Elias telling us at the worst possible time.”

“No.” Caleb stands up, his cat moving to his shoulder, and steadies himself on Beau. “What he showed me is irrelevant to the current situation, and I have already dealt with the threat.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“And I can trust you because…?”

“Basira, that’s enough,” Jon says, but Basira’s face only grows darker.

“No, Jon, listen. How much do we really know about the people we’re letting stay in the Archives? Almost nothing! This could all be one of Elias’s plans, or some sort of trap. He could be a murderer, or some sort of spy—we can’t trust him!”

“We seem to be trusting Daisy just fine,” Martin says under his breath, but not quietly enough, because Basira whirls around to face him, and starts sputtering, and then Jon is yelling and Tim is saying something and all Melanie can focus on is that fact that the man that has given Melanie the most hope in months currently looks like he’s going to throw up and Melanie wants to do something with all the anger boiling insider her veins so she pulls out her knife and throws it into the wall behind Martin’s head.

“Enough!” She shouts, and everyone stops and looks at her. “Who fucking cares what he’s hiding, Caleb’s offering us a chance to kill Elias, and I’m not going to let your paranoia block that chance. And when has Caleb ever given us any reason not to trust him? The man’s a professor, for fucks sake.”

“Thank you, Melanie,” Caleb says. “And Basira is correct, I am not telling you everything. But know this: I have had enough with people messing with my mind and manipulating me, and so I will do everything in my power to help you rid the world of this Elias. If that’s even his name.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Jon asks.

“That’s the other thing I saw with the detect magic. Your boss is dripping with necromantic energy.”

“Wait, Elias is a zombie?” Tim says, somewhere in between joy and disbelief.

“Something close to one,” Caleb says. Frumpkin hops off his shoulder, and winds his way through Melanie’s legs before heading towards Jon. “In my experience, this shouldn’t make it any harder to kill him, because none of you are magic users.”

“This is the best news I’ve heard all week. So, what do you need to do so that we can kill him?” Melanie asks, already relishing the thought of her knife sinking into his stupid, all seeing eyes.

“I just need someone to distract him and get him out of his office so that I can dispel the affect. Then, whoever wants to do the actual violence should be good to go.”

“How on earth are we supposed to distract him? He’s omniscient.” Basira says, still sounding skeptical.

“Not when he’s doing his creepy mind thing, he isn’t,” Melanie says, going to take her knife out of the wall. “I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s an option.”

“I actually have an idea,” Martin says, gazing out into space like he’s seeing a plan play out for him like a movie. “How do you all feel about arson?”

——————

The next few days are full of planning. Not just for dealing with Elias, but also for the Unknowing, which to Beau’s understanding is a world ending circus show that she thinks Molly would’ve loved. Daisy, another unwilling member of this group had shown up a couple of days before, and nearly shot Beau before Basira stepped in. Jon, Tim, Basira, Daisy, Caleb and Caduceus have been planning for the last few days, locked in either Jon’s office or the tunnels, discussing extraction plans and spells and explosives. Frumpkin has decided he likes Jon, and it’s a common sight to see Jon curled around Frumpkin as he takes a Caduceus-mandated nap. Beau, Martin, and Melanie are supposed to make the Archives run like normal, which is causing Beau to dredge up forgotten knowledge from the Soul that she would have preferred stay forgotten.

The afternoon before they leave, Basira pulls Beau aside into the tunnels.

“I need to talk to you,” she says.

“About?” Beau leans on the wall, and summons the uncaring attitude that she sported all throughout her years in the Soul.

“Caleb.”

“Not this again,” Beau sighs. She can see Frumpkin behind Basira, eyes glowing in the way that means Caleb is watching. She signals for him to leave it, and thankfully, he does, wandering back towards the main office.

“Listen. I’m putting my life in his hands, and out of the three of you, I feel like I trust you the most, so. Can I trust him?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure about that. He may be hiding something from you, too, you know.”

“He’s not. Listen, Basira,” Beau stands up straight, looking Basira directly in the eye. “I have known Caleb for years at this point. I know all of his dirty laundry, and he knows all of mine. I have trusted him with my life and he he has not yet failed me, so believe me when I say this: he will get you home safe. Understand?”

“Yes.” Basira actually looks reassured at that, and turns to go.

“Wait,” Beau calls, and Basira turns around. “Stay safe, and good luck out there, alright?”

“Thank you,” Basira says, and then she’s gone.

That night, nobody wanted to sleep, so Beau digs a bottle of her dad’s wine out of the haversack Yasha gifted her for their first anniversary, and they all pile into the break room to wait for their friends. After an hour, Melanie suggests that they play sleepover games, which leads into her explaining truth or dare to Beau, and them all getting steadily drunker and more tired as they play.

“Martin, truth or dare,” Melanie says, on their who-knows-how-many round.

“Dare,” he says.

“I dare you to…kiss Jon on the cheek when they come back,” Melanie says, causing Martin to flush entirely red.

“What—why—Melanie!”

“Because you have a huge crush on him, that’s why!” Melanie says, sounding very pleased with herself. Beau thinks back to every interaction between Jon and Martin she’s seen, and smiles.

“I think you should, too,” she says. “Y’all are just in the pining and oblivious stage. It reminds me of Caleb and Essek when we were in Rosohna. They danced around it for nearly a year and a half before they finally got together.”

“Wait, Caleb has a boyfriend?” Melanie says, truth or dare seemingly forgotten in favor of new information.

“Yeah, and he’s even more nerdy than Caleb is,” Beau says. “When we first met him, gods, we were trying to get our friend’s husband out of the prison Essek was in charge of, and Caleb flirted with him as a way to get fancy dunamagic knowledge.”

“You broke someone out of prison?” Melanie asks.

“No, Caleb gave them back a priceless artifact that we had found in the sewers of Zadash and in return we got Yeza back. We also got the Xhorhaus because of that. Those we good times.”

“I am very confused,” Martin says, but seems to be happy that the conversation has moved away from him and Jon. “You found a priceless artifact in a sewer?”

“It was a bit more complicated than that. So, Essek actually stole it from the dynasty—that’s the country he was a part of, the one who had captured Yeza—first, and gave it to the Cerberus Assembly, who are all various degrees of terrible wizards, and then the Dynasty sent someone to go steal it back, and then we watched them fail and get killed by the crownsguard in the sewers, and then it would’ve been over exept Caleb is a sucker for anything shiny and magic so he stole it back from the crownsguard and then we kept it in the bag of holding for a few months until we made our way to the dynasty to get Yeza and he gave it up to prevent all of us from going to prison.” Beau takes a big sip of wine.

“That didn’t help at all,” Melanie says, then starts laughing, which sets Beau off, and then all three of them are giggling like idiots when Caleb, Caduceus, Basira, Daisy, Tim, and Jon appear in the break room, a little haggard but no visible injuries.

“You’re alright!” Martin says, jumping up and running to hug Jon, who nearly falls over and drops his cane with the force of his hug. “I was so worried!”

“I found a bottle of wine,” Beau says as explanation.

“Evidently,” Caleb says, sitting down next to Beau on the couch. “Is there any left?”

And if Elias is angry at them for spending the rest of the night drinking in celebration of the fact that they survived, against all odds, he doesn’t say anything about it.

——————

Martin thought that the day they were going through with the plan should’ve dawned special, or felt different, but it was completely normal, save for some slight nausea. He went to the Archives as normal, made tea as normal, and did research on statements as normal. Everyone else also acted the same, the only thing that seemed to be different is the amount of tension in the air.

Although, even that felt a sickening sort of normal.

Everyone—well, almost everyone—leaves like normal. The girls say, loudly, that they’re taking Beau on a ‘girls night out’, and Tim leaves promptly at 5. Martin stays, though, as do Caduceus and Caleb and Jon. Once Tim texts Martin that he’s in position at the nearest tunnel entrance to Elias’s office, it’s go time.

“Good luck,” Jon says to Martin before he and Caleb climb down into the tunnels to meet Tim.

“You, too,” Martin says, and bites his tongue back against all the words he doesn’t have time to say.

“Stay safe, friend,” Caleb says to Caduceus, who merely claps him on the shoulder and smiles. Then, Caleb and Jon are in the tunnels, and Caduceus and Martin make their way to Jon’s office, a pile of statements, and a lighter.

Martin settles in Jon’s chair, Caduceus in a spot by the door, and the tape recorder clicks on.

“Are you listening? Good.” He takes a statement out of the pile. He thinks he catches an I in the name, maybe an L, but hardly glances at it before he’s setting it on fire and tossing it in the wastebasket. Then the next one, and the next, until there’s three statements burning and a sharp knock at the door.

“Martin. Martin, open the door,” Elias says, and Caduceus goes completely still.

“Sorry, Elias, I can’t hear you. There’s a—” he glances at Caduceus, still frozen, “door, in the way.”

“Martin, I do not have time for this.”

“Then make time.” He sounds confident, the thinks (he hopes?), but his heart is beating faster than ever.

“Unlock this door. Now.”

“I thought you had a key?” There’s another thump at the door, then he hears the footsteps of Elias stalking off. Martin lets out a sigh, then lights another statement on fire.

——————

Jon watches from around the corner as Elias burst out of his office, then a minute later, come back, grab a key, and stomp back towards the Archives. Tim picks the lock on the door, and then they’re in. Caleb immediately casts something, the goes for a drawer in Elias’s desk.

“I need ten to fifteen minutes,” Caleb says, then promptly sits on the floor with a stack of paper and one of his books open.

“Right, then, boss,” Tim says, although the boss sounds almost like an insult. “What’re we looking for?”

“Anything that could give us more information or is proof that he murdered Gertrude or Leitner,” Jon says, sitting down to get off of his bad leg, and looking through the available papers on the desk. “Or you can just trash the place, I don’t mind.”

“That sounds good!” Tim says, sounding genuinely happy, then starts pulling books off the shelves.

——————

Jonah Knows that the Archives are up to something. He knows this because he Knows that Tim stayed around the Institute after leaving today, and that Daisy seemed a bit too exited to be going out for drinks. But then Martin had started setting statements alight, and while it is an obvious distraction, it is an effective one.

“What are you doing?” He asks as he opens the door into the Archivist’s office.

“Is that not obvious?” Martin says, dropping another statement into the bucket of burning ones.

“Tell me what you’re doing, and why.” He lets a little compulsion slip into his words.

“I’d just thought I’d drop a couple of ideas into the suggestion box,” Martin says, cheekily, and grabs another statement. “Turns out my suggestion is, you know,” he sets it alight. “Fire.” Jonah sighs, and tries very hard to not rend Martin’s mind from his body.

“And yet you’re not setting the whole Archives alight, so I’m assuming that this is, what, a distraction?”

“Maybe. But you’re here, aren’t you?”

“Did Jon put you up to this?”

“You think I’m doing this for him?”

“No. It’s just the sort of half baked scheme he’d come up with, and I am well aware that you’d do just about anything for him.” Martin sputters at that, and Jonah lets him, content to let his indignation run its course.

“Is it so hard to believe that I hate you as well?” Martin says after he composes himself.

“No, just harder to believe you’d act on it.” But Martin’s anger, now that’s he’s focused on it, is a swirling, dangerous thing. Maybe he’s underestimated him in the past.

No matter now. Martin’s going on about how he doesn’t get to be angry, and Jonah couldn’t care less, so he interrupts.

“Maybe this is just a waste of time.”

“Maybe, you know what, maybe it is.”

“Well, that puts me in a difficult position.”

“Good.”

“You may want to turn the tape off, Martin.”

——————

“Finding anything?” Tim says, methodically ripping out pages in some journal while Jon goes through Elias’s desk.

“Maybe.” Jon digs through the final drawer, a pile of important and non-important papers beside him.

“Caleb, are you done yet?” Tim asks.

“Five more minutes, danke.” Widogast is still seated on the floor, making quick movements with his hands while his eyes graze over their employment contracts. Jon opens the final drawer, takes one look at it, and nearly shouts in delight.

“Tim. Tim, look at this.”

“Can’t I destroy a man’s office in peace? What is it?”

“There’s a bunch of tapes in here, and look, this one’s covered in blood.” It was dried, but obviously there, specks scattered across the casing.

“Shit. You gonna play it, boss?”

“Yeah.” There’s a tape recorder on Elias’s desk, and Jon pops the bloody tape in.

“…go out and see the world for himself,” Elias says from the tape.

“He might die,” says a different voice, stuffy and pretentious-sounding, Leitner.

“It’s always a danger. Almost always.” Elias speaks up again.

“Elias, it doesn’t have to be like this—” Leitner’s voice cuts off with the distinctive sound of something hitting flesh. Something metal sounding drops to the ground, the door opens and closes a few times, and then—

“Sorry, I’ve been quit for five years now, but th– oh. Oh god… I need to…” Jon’s own voice comes out of the tape, sputtering, and then abruptly cut off as the tape ends. Jon stares at Tim in silence, the only sound Widogast’s quiet muttering.

“That was Jurgen Leitner,” Jon says. “And that was Elias murdering him.”

“Well, fuck, that’s it, then?” Tim says, running a hand through his hair. “Caleb finishes his wizard shit, the girls murder Elias, we give that to the police if they give us any trouble, and then what? We’re done?”

“I think so—at least for—Tim, you could get out!”

“I definitely am! Gonna go get a normal job, one without creepy gods or murders or bosses who stalk you—” he cuts of, shooting a quick look at Jon.

“I’m sorry, Tim, for everything,” Jon says, and he really is, for the skepticism, and the stalking, and the disappearing, and all of it.

“Fine. I don’t forgive you.”

“That’s completely understandable, but, could we try to be friends again?”

“You know, that’s what Caduceus told me. Said to try to talk to y’all again.”

“He might’ve been right?” Jon says, and watches Tim stalk to the other end of the office, slam a fist on a decimated bookshelf. “Please, Tim, we could at least try.” Tim gives out a great, heavy sigh. “I miss you.”

“Fine. We’ll try. But if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

“Thank you, Tim,” Jon says, and gathers up the Leitner tape, the other tapes from the drawer, and all other relevant papers into one pile.

“Caleb. How much longer?” Tim says, sounding marginally less angry.

“One moment—done.” And then Jon feels it, feels something in him snap, and he looks at Tim, who’s face breaks out into a vicious smile, and he knows he feels it too. “The contracts no longer bind you to Elias. The girls are—scheisse, let me message Beau.” Widogast pulls out a wire, makes a few motions, then whispers into it. “Sarsaparilla. Go fuck him up. Aim for the eyes.”

“Shall we go, then?” Tim says. “I’ve already spent way longer in here than I ever wanted to.”

“Yes, agreed,” Jon says, gathering tapes and papers in one arm so he can use his cane with the other as he leads the way back down to the archives.

——————

Jonah stands in front of the Archivist’s desk, Martin sitting behind it, and watches as the tape recorder clicks back on.

“Pity. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

“What, like with Melanie? Or Caleb? Just that perfect bit of information to leave me a wreck?”

“Yes.”

“Do your worst.” Martin looks very brave. It’s impressive, for someone who Jonah knows is really quite scared.

“Your mother—” Jonah starts, then stops abruptly when a hand taps his shoulder.

“Excuse me,” a low voice says, and Jonah whirls around to see a…firbolg, the Eye tells him, standing there, looking unbothered by the proceedings.

“Who are you?” Jonah Asks.

“Caduceus Clay, maker of very fine graves. Oh, that is unpleasant.” Clay only seems mildly displeased at the compulsion. Interesting. No matter, Jonah has more pressing concerns.

“Well, the Archives are closed to the public at the moment, so please leave.” He turns back to Martin. “Your mother. She’s always been… difficult, hasn’t she. You take care of her for years, feed her, clean up after her, and now, with her condition degrading even further, she is the one that asked to be moved into a home. To have it left to the nurses. She’s the one that refuses your visits.”

“She’s always been—” Martin stutters out. The poor man is almost crying already, and Jonah’s not even done.

“Strong-willed? Stubborn?”

“Excuse me,” Clay says again, but Jonah is far to deep to pay attention to him.

“No. No, Martin. You know the reason. Your mother simply hates you. You just don’t know why. It’s not your fault, though I know that isn’t any consolation. Just bad luck, really. How old were you when your father left? Eight? Nine? When your mother began to sicken, and he decided he was done with you both. Not old enough to remember him with any great clarity, especially when your mother refused to keep any pictures of him. She never recovered from that betrayal. He just tore her heart right out and took it with him.

“The thing is, though, Martin. If you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like… All you have to do is look in a mirror.”

“Excuse me.” Clay’s voice is louder, this time, and accompanied with a hand on his shoulder that yanks Jonah around to face him.

“What do you want?” Jonah snaps out. It’s not impossible to finish his work on Martin now that his concentration’s broken, but it will be difficult, and he has other things to do.

“To give you a gift.” Clay is not scared of Jonah. Yet.

“Really?”

“Yes. Because I believe it has been a long time since you’ve gained it, I will give you the gift of perspective.” Caduceus shifts, ever so slightly, so that he is standing between Jonah and Martin. A futile gesture, but a noble one nonetheless. “You have gone on your far-to-long life believing that you have all of this power, when really, you have nothing.”

“I have nothing?” Jonah says. He doesn’t mean to get riled, but it’s been a long day and he deserves an outburst. “All of this—this building, these people—they’re all mine!”

“You have nothing,” Clay says, his face calm, but his eyes blazing with anger, “because all of the power you have is gained from fear, and power gained from fear is no power at all.”

“You know nothing of power,” Jonah says, pushing into Clay’s mind, finding a life filled with disease, abandonment, worry. “That corruption you face? That ever-encroaching sickness? That is power, and that will always win in the end. Fear will always win in the end.”

“You’re wrong,” Clay says, simply, like he’s stating a fact. “If you had cared to look a little further, you would’ve seen that the we are fighting the corruption, and winning. But you wouldn’t look for that. You never look for that, because you are a foolish, desperate man who only preys on the weak like a scavenger.”

“I am Jonah Magnus—” he says, and Martin gasps, but he can deal with that later. “I have not survived for two hundred years only to be insulted by a being who knows nothing of this world and our ways!”

Clay is silent, after that. Just watching Jonah, studying. If Jonah didn’t know better, he’d say Clay was Looking. Martin’s sputtering behind him, probably still reeling over his identity.

“I pity you,” Clay finally says. “You have come so far in search of knowledge, and have lost what little humanity you ever had along the way. You say I know nothing, but I know far too many that have willingly lost themselves in search of power, and you are exactly like all of them near the end. Desperate, scrambling for what little you can reach, only going for assured victories. You are a sad, hopeless little man, and I’m sorry that you’ve been made to believe that the best way to gain power is actually no way at all.”

The contracts binding the Archives staff to Jonah break.

It’s sudden, it’s blinding, and it sends Jonah on a mad dash out of the Archivist’s office. When he reaches the stairs, however, he’s stopped by Basira, Melanie, Daisy, and Beauregard, standing on the steps and all holding weapons.

“Hey, Elias,” Melanie says, her knife gleaming. “Guess what?”

“Get out of my way,” Jonah snaps.

“I can kill you now!” She half-sings, and then they charge.

——————

As soon as Elias—Jonah—whoever—runs out the door and Martin feels something in him releasing, he crumples to the floor and sobs. Caduceus rounds the desk and kneels down on the floor with him, enveloping Martin in the warmest hug Martin’s ever had, and lets him sob into his chest. They stay there for who knows how long—long enough for Martin’s sobs to turn into half aborted hiccups and for the sound of fighting in the other room to fade.

“When you’re ready, we should go check on the others,” Caduceus says. Martin says nothing, but slowly stands up and lets Caduceus guide him out of Jon’s office.

Elias’s body is on the floor at the foot of the stairs, and there is so much blood. Martin stops at the doorway, just staring at it. The body is covered in slashes, forming bruises, and a bullet hole. His-it’s eyes are just bloody sockets. Caduceus has no such reservations, and walks straight up to the body and the fighters surrounding it.

“Is anyone hurt?” He asks, starting to pull something out of his little bag.

“A couple of bruises, nothing serious,” Beau says, sounding completely unfazed about the blood splattered on her robe.

“I doubt the man knew how to throw a decent punch,” Melanie says, wiping blood off her knife. Martin edges into the room, and sits down in his chair before he gets sick.

“I’ll run a prayer anyway,” Caduceus says, and quickly counts something before sitting and starting to chant under his breath.

“Thanks, Caduceus,” Beau says, also sitting down. “Give it ten minutes, and we’ll all be good,” she says to Basira, Daisy, and Melanie. “Caduceus is the best at this stuff.” Then there’s footsteps on the stairs, and everyone shifts to be slightly more on edge, until they hear the distinctive step-thunk of Jon’s cane. Then Jon himself appears, with Tim and Caleb close behind. Tim and Jon stop short at the sight of the body, but Caleb continues down to where Beau is, gingerly picking around the blood.

“Nice work. Did you have fun?” He asks, making a quick motion with his hands then nodding. “All the magic is gone—he seems quite dead.”

“Excellent. And yes, I did have fun. It’s been too long since I really beat something up.” Beau makes no move to get up, but Caleb sits down on the floor next to her, snapping Frumpkin into existence and giving him a few stritches before Frumpkin wanders off to rub against Jon’s legs as he makes his way to sit next to Martin, dropping a pile of papers and tapes on his desk.

“Soul novices don’t count?” Caleb says, his tone light, seemingly oblivious to the exhausted and tense energy that’s passing through the archives staff.

“Nah. I’m not allowed to kill those.” That seems to satisfy their craving for morbid conversation, though, because Caleb just nods and leans against Beau. There’s silence, except for Caduceus’s praying and the occasional drip from the body.

“We need to…” Martin starts, then has to stop to remember how to speak. “We need to do something with the body.”

“Right,” Jon says, then immediately looks at Basira. “Any ideas?”

“We can put him in the tunnels,” Daisy says. “Nobody ever goes down there that’s not in this room.”

“That sounds good,” Jon says. “But how are we going to…I certainly can’t carry it.” Martin shudders at the thought of picking up their dead boss’s bloody body, and by the looks of everyone’s faces, they are as well.

“I can do it,” Caleb says, grunting lightly as he stands up. He makes a few motions with his hands, then Elias’s body floats up beside him. “Although I would like one of the ladies to come just in case I drop it.”

“I can,” Daisy says, stepping up to him. “I don’t faint at the sight of blood.” Caleb smiles quickly at that, a sharp smile that Martin thinks he wasn’t meant to see. Then, the two (three?) of them make their way into the tunnels, leaving Martin, Jon, Tim, Melanie, and Basira with two people from a different dimension and a puddle of blood.

——————

It’s been two weeks since Caleb, Beau, and Caduceus have gone missing, and Essek hasn’t tranced for two days. He’s been working on the spell Caleb left behind, the strange version of Plane Shift that almost has Essek worrying that Caleb’s attempting time travel again, but lacks the correct runes for that. The closet Essek (and Jester, with her knowledge of Plane Shift) can figure is that is that Caleb was trying to plane shift without an anchor rod. It’s dangerous, reckless, idiotic, and so very much like Caleb that Essek can’t help but think that it might actually be a good idea.

He really needs to trance. But he can’t, not when he’s just figured out how to finish the spell and is now able to find Caleb and bring him back home. He shoots a quick message to Jester, telling her where he’s going and that he will be back. Then he grits his teeth, focuses on Caleb and Beau and Caduceus, and casts the spell.

He lands in a room, in puddle of something warm and wet, looking down the barrel of a gun. He’s floating in a second, and in the next sending the gun flying across the room. He goes to cast something—he’s not sure what yet—on the dark skinned woman in a headscarf that was holding the gun, but then feels a hand on his arm and whirls around to see—

“Beau?”

“Essek, man, they’re friends, calm down.” Beau looks like she’s been in a fight—slightly bloody, sweaty, and with a satisfaction on her face that’s just barely masked by concern and confusion. Essek, falling off the adrenaline of the spell, categorizes the rest of the situation.

He’s landed in some sort of office. There’s desks, piled high with files and some sort of metal contraptions, with strange lights that make his eyes hurt. He’s landed in a puddle of blood, which is the most normal thing about this situation. He quickly prestidigtates it clean.

There’s a number of people in the room—Beau, of course, then Caduceus (thank light) in the corner, finishing a prayer. Then there’s the new people, friends, Beau has said. There’s the woman with the headscarf, who has retrieved her gun, and another woman with blue hair and a knife. There’s a three men, one who looks angry but strangely happy, standing apart from everyone, then two men sitting at the same desk, one with long dark hair with streaks of grey, and the other who looks like he’s been crying. They’re both petting a very familiar looking cat, and it’s only when Frumpkin looks up at Essek and purrs that Essek realizes that Caleb’s not in the room.

“Where’s—” he turns to Beau.

“Caleb’s hiding the body,” Beau says. “He’ll be back in a minute.”

“The body?”

“Hold on—” the man with long hair says, glancing towards Beau and then towards someone behind Essek. There’s a faint sound, almost between a scratch and a hiss. “Who are you? How did you get here? What do you want?”

“I am Essek of den Thelyss,” Essek says, almost by rote. “I used a modified version of Plane Shift to get here, and I want to find my friends and go home.” As Essek finishes, he lets out a breath and registers that he didn’t make the decision to say anything. He makes a sweeping motion, and the man who just controlled-compelled-him lifts into the air with barely a thought. “What did you just do to me?” He says, watching the man sputter and try to clutch at nothing.

“Jon!” the man petting Frumpkin says, standing up.

“Put him down,” a steady voice says, and then there’s a click and a cold pressure on the back of his skull.

“Not until I know what he did,” Essek says, tightening his grip, causing the man—Jon, apparently—convulse. If these people have mind control, or something like that—were Beau and Caduceus really this calm? Was Caleb really hiding a body? Whose blood was Essek standing in—was he standing in Caleb’s blood?

“I don’t want to kill another person today,” the woman with the gun says. “So please, put Jon down and we can talk about this.”

“Essek,” Caduceus says, standing up from where he was praying. “Put him down. We can explain.” Essek glances to Caduceus, and then to Beau, who’s in fighting stance, glancing between Essek and the others. Essek puts Jon down.

“Thank you,” the woman with a headscarf says. “We should do introductions if we’re going to explain. I’m Basira.”

“Tim,” the man leaning in the doorway says. He’s not moved at all during the excitement.

“I’m Melanie,” the woman with the blue hair says. She has a knife out.

“I’m Martin, and the one you just nearly killed is Jon.” Martin is glaring at Essek like he actually killed Jon. Essek is too tired to care.

“I’m sorry,” Jon rasps, his voice hoarse. “I can…compel people to answer my questions sometimes. I didn’t mean to do it. It wasn’t exactly my choice.”

“You’re forgiven,” Essek says, because Caduceus is staring at him with that stare that can level mountains. And because he can hear a very familiar voice with a Zeminan accent talking about next steps approach down the hallway.

Caleb appears in the doorway, alive, smiling, and talking with a woman with short blond hair, and Essek’s heart just about stops. Caleb stops as well, staring at him from the doorway, looking like he’s seeing a ghost.

“Essek,” he breathes, and then he’s pushing forward and his arms are around Essek and Essek nearly falls over with his hug.

“Don’t ever do that again, Caleb Widogast,” he says into Caleb’s shoulder, and even though they’re in another dimension and surrounded by people of questionable loyalties, everything is perfect for just one second.

——————

Jon watches Widogast embrace the man that just nearly killed him, and has a mild existential crisis. By the time he’s made the decision to table the crisis until he has a moment to breathe, Essek—Thelyss—has broken the hug, and is staring directly into Widogast’s eyes.

“What,” he starts, sounding almost angrier than he had when Jon had compelled him. “In the name of the Luxon we’re you thinking?”

“Essek—”

“Don’t Essek me, you were gone for two weeks! Two weeks—do you know how worried we’ve all been? I haven’t tranced in days—”

“Schatz—”

“I’ve been working on the spell you left, I thought Veth was going to kill me—don’t ever disappear like that again!” At this, the Expositor lets out a snort, which Thelyss apparently heard, because he whirls around to face her. “You don’t get to laugh,” he says, and her face sobers immediately. “Yasha was pacing for days, you worried her so much. She’s on a trip with Kingsley right now, because she needed to keep her mind off things. And you—” he swings around to face Caduceus, who’s smiling softly, and abruptly stops his tirade. Jon looks at Basira, who seems torn between laughing and shooting Thelyss. “I had to tell your family you were missing,” he finally says, but doesn’t sound nearly as angry. “Calliope was ready to throw herself into the astral sea to go find you when I told her what happened.”

“I thought it was pronounced calli-op-ie,” Tim says, and looks straight at Jon. He knows they’re both thinking of the tape and Sasha.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Calliope,” Caduceus says. “But I will call her that, she’ll hate it.”

“So, are you going to actually explain why you’re here, or are you just going to yell at our friends?” Basira asks.

“I finished the spell,” Thelyss says, matter of fact. “They got here through a spell malfunction, I finished the spell, and cast it to find them. I plan on taking them back home, although I think I need to trance first.”

“Fine,” Jon says. “They’ve been sleeping in the tunnels. You can all stay there tonight, and then you can leave in the morning.” Thankfully, Thelyss nods, and is led towards the tunnels by the Expositor with promises of explanations. Once they all leave, the Archives are left in a suffocating silence. Jon briefly mourns the loss of Frumpkin before turning his mind to the situation at hand.

“Alright,” Melanie says. “What the fuck do we do now?”

“We go home and never come back to this hellhole again,” Tim says. Jon groans and puts his face in his hands.

“You can, but someone needs to figure out who becomes the head of the institute.”

“Not it,” Melanie instantly says. “And I bet Elias has a contingency plan so a new spooky head is probably on their way.”

“I am operating under the assumption that we actually accomplished something here, Melanie,” Jon says, not wanting to think about the fact that they might all get shuttled under a new supernatural overlord. “And someone needs to run the Institute.”

“I’ll at least take a look at it,” Basira says.

“Basira? Really?” Daisy asks, looking at her incredulously. “We could get out of here for good and you want to become the head?”

“It’s interesting, Daisy. And this way, I get to control it. I’ll ask Rosie for help on all the non-weird stuff, of course.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s run the Institute for years now,” Martin says from his place beside Jon. His voice has stopped shaking, thankfully. When Jon had first came down the stairs and saw Martin’s face all red and blotchy, like he’d been crying, he thought that it was good that Elias was already dead, because Jon would’ve done something stupid.

“True,” Basira says. “I’ll see you all tomorrow, then?”

“Not me,” Tim says. “I’m out.”

“You’re not going to say goodbye to Caleb and them?” Martin asks.

“Oh, alright. One more morning. Then I’m never setting foot here again.”

“Right. Goodnight, then, everyone,” Jon says as they all wander up the stairs to their homes. Once he’s alone in the Archives once again, he sighs and curls up on the cot in document storage to try to sleep.

He prays that the nightmares don’t come. They do anyway.

——————

The next morning, Martin is actually exited to go to work, which is a strange concept. When he walks down the stairs into the Archives, everyone is already there, including Tim, which is a surprise. Caduceus is talking quietly with him, and Beau is drilling Melanie, Basira and Daisy on what Martin assumes are some sort of fighting stances. Jon’s sitting at Martin’s desk, which nearly gives Martin a heart attack, but he’s just petting Frumpkin and listening to Caleb and Essek explain something that has to do with a lot of gestures and diagrams.

“Martin’s here!” Tim says, catching Martin’s eye and waving.

“Alright, then,” Essek says, walking over to the middle of the room. “Give me ten minutes, and then we can go.”

“So this is it, then,” Martin says, and tries not to sound too put out about it. He likes them all, even though this has been the most stressful week and a half since the worms.

“Not necessarily,” Caleb says, almost absent mindedly as he watches Essek cast. “Now that we know the spell, we can theoretically come back whenever.”

“Wait, really?” Tim says, looking almost happy. “Cad, you gotta come back to bring me more tea. No offense, Martin, but this is the best tea I’ve ever had.”

“None taken,” Martin says, relieved that this isn’t the last he’d see of them. “It’s hard to compete with dead people tea.” Caduceus just smiles and nods.

“And I’m sure Jester is going to want to meet you all as well—oh my gods, you’re going to love Jester,” Beau says, routinely checking her bag.

“Everyone loves Jester,” Essek says, then stands up from where’s he’s drawn a large circle on the ground. “Everybody ready?”

Then there’s a lot of saying goodbye, and waving, and a rush of light, and a silence. And just like that, they are alone in the archives once more.

“Alright, I will see you all not here,” Tim says, brushing his hands off. “Melanie, shall we leave through the front door or the creepy tunnels?”

“Tunnels,” Melanie says. “There’s that exit right by that coffee spot that I’ve been meaning to check out.”

“Spooky to the very end, I like it. See you never, Magnus Institute!” And then Tim and Melanie leave as well, leaving the silence somehow more oppressive than before.

“We’ll then,” Basira says, seemingly the first to recover. “Jon, shall we go explain the situation to Rosie?”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” a voice says, and they all turn to see Peter Lukas, of all people, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll be taking over as head of the institute for the time being. Elias’s orders, I’m sure you understand.”

“What? Who are you?” Jon says, static ringing in Martin’s ears.

“Peter Lukas, and if you could refrain from compelling me, Archivist, I’d be most grateful.”

“And why should you take over? Don’t you have a boat, or something?” Basira asks.

“Well, yes, I do have a boat, or something, but I’m doing this as a favor to Elias, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that you letting me run things will stop the end of the world.” Lukas, while sounding friendly, looks like he would rather be anywhere else. Martin looks at Jon, who’s staring at Lukas like he’s trying to read his mind. Maybe he is. “So I’m here, preventing the apocalypse, and running Elias’s little pet project. I’m going to need some help with that, I think—Martin, was it?”

“Yes?” Martin says, glancing at Jon’s fallen face before facing Lukas.

“You’ll help me with the day-to-day stuff, right? Elias said you were good at that.”

“He did?” Martin thinks his voice must have gone up an octave, and he can’t believe that Elias ever said anything good about him.

“He did! Now, do you want to help me save the world or not?” Lukas’s coat seems to be leaking fog. Martin glances over to Daisy and Basira’s practiced neutral faces, and Jon’s expression of anger and fear.

“Yes, alright,” Martin says, and tries not to feel like he’s just made a mistake.

“Excellent!” Lukas slings and arm over Martin’s shoulders—he is radiating cold—and guides him up the stairs and into Elias’s former office, which is inexplicably trashed. “Oh, don’t look so worried, Martin,” Lukas says, sounding much happier now that they were away from everyone else. “You’ll be able to work much better up here, alone.”

“Really?” Martin asks, already missing the Archives.

“Yes, really. So cheer up! This’ll be fun!” Lukas starts humming and putting books back on the shelves, and Martin wonders why he was ever exited to come into work today.