Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jonah likes mornings.

He likes waking up before the sun rises and watching the light slowly illuminate the gray Bastillian street below his bedroom window at the top of the house. He likes waking up after the sun rises and feeling its light and warmth already on his skin, teasing him for sleeping in. He likes waking up with the sun, as though he and it are pulling the world out of darkness together for one more glorious day.

Jonah likes waking up. He likes it very much.

When it isn't a holiday or a weekend, Jonah usually wakes with the sun. He washes up and dresses himself, then heads down to the mess hall for breakfast with the two dozen or so children under his care. He nimbly steps around forgotten toys and late children still pulling on their jackets as they rush down. He lets Yacinda steal the sweet in his pocket; that's why it's there. He reminds Richard to put the brake on his chair before pressing any of the buttons on the lift. Jonah himself takes the stairs, two at a time if he's feeling especially light.

The children are all of them orphaned, gifted, bastards, or odd — even in life, Jonah's benefactors note wryly, he collects the fascinating. Jonah insists he will take in anyone in need if he has the beds to spare. But he knows he would not be surprised if some lingering magic led particular birds to his roost.

At the door to the mess hall, while he watches the children settle at the tables, Jonah listens to Gian's morning report, the assortment of grumblings the head house parent has built up since last night's bedtime. Emma has finally learned a new word, and it's not a good one. The boys in Room 4 snuck out for a joyride, and they took Richard with them this time. Mingzhu stayed up late reading chemistry books, and Gian couldn't decide whether to confiscate them. Graham had the nightmare of Whitecliff again.

Jonah nods, agrees to speak to the children who need it, and lets his eyes settle on the boys of Room 4. When he smiles, they duck sheepishly, and Richard pretends to be absorbed in trying to fork running yolk onto his toast, but Faisal gamely grins back.

Gian visibly shudders. Jonah doesn't mind. He used to; he's been told that his smile is cryptic as ever, no matter how warm or kind his intentions. He's since learned, though, that it has a way of making people honest. It's immensely useful in Bastillian, especially when running a house like this one.

Jonah likes breakfast. He likes today's plate of runny eggs on toast with smoked fish and slightly bitter greens. He likes his coffee with cream and three lumps of muscovado. He likes the fresh Bastillian peaches, sliced but with the skin left on; he likes to feel that slight fuzz brush his lips when he takes a bite.

He cannot savor it all today, though there is good reason. Today, they have guests.

The carriages pull up at around 10:00. Angelo Ruvolo, the Marquess of Bastillian, arrives at a quarter to. Empress Emily Kaldwin, Grand Consort Shay Wyman, and Royal Protector Corvo Attano arrive on the dot. And Duke Luca Abele — the one they've decided to keep, anyhow — is 20 minutes late, but only because he stopped in the market to get everyone honey cakes.

Jonah greets them all on the steps with the same smile and leads them inside. The Empress herself is on his arm as he shows his guests how he spends their money.

Here are the classrooms, where each child has their own desk covered in butcher paper to accommodate the inveterate vandals and doodlers among them. At this hour, the under-10s are practicing their multiplication tables. Lord Attano exchanges a sneer and a nod with Gian, the stocky former Whaler seated atop the teacher's desk. Marquess Angelo quizzes the children on Serkonan history, then chides Jonah for the embellishments he seems to have passed down.

Here is the big kitchen, where the over-10s are having their cooking lesson; they make everyone lunch once a week and will be happy to serve the guests today. Jonah assures them no one has been poisoned just yet. Duke Luca compliments the sauce on the chicken pastel. Lord Attano tries and fails not to frown at the former Howler teaching a stunted girl knife skills.

Here is the library with its soft couches and warmly lit desks. There are the shelves with the recently donated collection from Aramis Stilton. Marquess Ruvolo questions and Lord Attano admires the cushioned reading cubbies built in, one as high as six feet off the ground. Children, Jonah reasons, will climb anything; he might as well make sure they're comfortable. He notes how the Empress struggles not to smile.

Here is the sickroom with an adjoining clinic. This is Nurse Levi, and this is Dr. Philips, trained at Addermire under Dr. Hypatia herself. They are setting the bones of one of the boys from Room 4. Jonah briefly wonders how he managed to get into an accident between breakfast and now, but Dr. Philips is currently talking the boy through his anger while they prepare the cast, so the visitors don't linger.

Here is the back garden, still with the fig and peach trees planted when the house belonged to a Bastillian courtier, but with some of the shrubbery cleared away so that the children can run free. Swings hang from some of the tree branches, and someone's pet terrapin pokes its nose out of the lily pond.

There is also a clearing where, Lord Attano notices with a frustrated noise, another former Whaler is hanging up wooden practice swords. The house is an island of peace in rowdy Bastillian, but Jonah, the other adults — and sadly, many of the children — know how important it is to be able to protect oneself.

Lunch is pleasant, if a bit stiffer than usual. The children are on best behavior, though Jonah has to stop a food fight from breaking out by smiling at precisely the right child (Emma) in precisely the right moment. The Empress, the Marquess, and the Duke discuss seriously the candidate teachers for the house: one from the Academy of Natural Philosophy who knows machines, and one from a forger's workshop in Caulkenny who knows the arts. Wyman deflects a house parent's questions about which branch of their family Jonah comes from; they are more successful than Lord Attano at fending off the children curious about the Blade Verbena.

Jonah agrees to accompany the party as they leave the house for a scheduled tour down the Bastillian high street, toward the market. He needs to pick up things for the house anyway, and his benefactors are so rarely in town.

Even without the imposing Lord Attano in their party, and even without the knowledge of additional guards watching from the roofs and mingling in the crowds, Jonah feels perfectly safe in the open. Whether it's his association with the nobles, his friends in a few gangs, his reputation as a carer for Bastillian's least, the faint chill in his boyish and innocent air, or just the lingering memory of his face from the time before, Jonah Foster Wyman has become something of a respected local figure, one to handle with care. This leaves him quite free to enjoy the market — and Jonah loves the market.

Bastillian's climate is more similar to Dunwall's than to Karnaca's, but the stalls are still fragrant and heavy with the fruits of Serkonan summer. Jonah lifts a ripe, rosy peach to his nose and resists pressing the fuzz to his cheek. At one stall, they sample spiced Saggunto chocolate, and the Empress places an order for Dunwall Tower. At another stall, the Marquess upbraids the vendor for poor sanitation. At yet another stall, Lord Attano slips a bottle of Orbon rum into Jonah's bag, for later. The weather is wonderfully sunny, and a small troupe of buskers is playing.

Jonah returns to the house alone, in time for the library hour. He reads aloud to anyone who will listen. Afterward, he gently lays the child that has fallen asleep in his lap on one of the couches, and then he walks quietly from shelf to shelf. In the course of quietly asking the children what they are reading, what they are interested in, what they are looking for, he always manages to winkle out the worries, secrets, and dreams that need his attention. He knows they see him as many things: a brother, a father, a host, a teacher, a friend, or, for the odd few, a memory of a god. A trusted keeper of a house where they feel safe, cared for, known, even loved — that is the best he hopes for.

After lights out, Jonah ascends to his room at the top of the house. He pretends not to hear the post-curfew giggles as he goes, though he makes a signal knock on Gian's door to let him know Room 4 is up to something again. He straightens up his own quarters, lights a lamp, sets out the rum with some sausages, cheese, and fruit, and then settles himself on a couch with something from the library. He is three tales into these collected pre-colonial myths of Saggunto when he pretends not to hear or notice his guests returning.

Emily drops in through his skylight just seconds before Corvo emerges from a window, and she crows at beating her father tonight. She is the one who breaks the seal on the rum, and she drops onto the opposite end of the couch almost before Jonah can pull up his legs to make room. Corvo pulls over a chair and sits so he can lean forward on the backrest and immediately begins picking at the sausages and cheese.

Now, they tell the stories and good-natured yet well-aimed barbs they can't trade in good company. Jonah and Emily bat the latest rumors about Corvo back and forth — his week-long stay at Stilton Manor, his frequent visits to Addermire, his dinner with a certain top Howler, his canal ride with the Marquess — until one of Attano's tells reveals which one is likely true.

Emily complains about the latest Dunwall court intrigues: how salty old Anna Pendleton keeps her claws tight around the conservative bloc, how Wiles Roland ought to be prime minister but rubs everyone the wrong way, how Wyman would have been phenomenal at the job if marrying the Empress hadn't ended their political career.

Corvo maintains his silence for the most part, offering Emily supportive grunts or making noises of protest when the conversation turns to him. When he does speak, it is to ask about Jonah.

Does he have enough help here at the house? Is there anything he needs? What's this he's heard about trafficking starting up again in Bastillian? Have those damned scouts from the Abbey come knocking again? Is he sleeping all right?

Jonah is happy to report that, yes, he sleeps just fine.

Is he still sleeping alone? Emily wants to know, impertinent as always.

Jonah feels heat flood his cheeks before he avows that no, he does not always sleep alone. And he leaves it at that, because he knows his friends have their own ways of fishing out names and stalking down truths, even without his cooperation. He suspects one or both of them already knows the most important ones.

Corvo's bare left hand stretches and clenches slightly, and the conversation turns dark and low. The marked are marked no longer, but the Void seems to have stabilized of late. For the first time in five years, for but half a minute, Emily entered it during a recent sleep, and it smelled of lemongrass. What are the mutterings of the Oracular Order? What do the remaining witches claim? Does the Void rule itself now as pure chaos, or has a new avatar replaced the Outsider — and will they now be subject to its whims?

Does he — has he — would Jonah have any idea, what's become of the Void?

Jonah shakes his head and cannot help a rueful smile. Since coming down from Shindaerey Peak, he has neither heard nor seen anything of the Void, and he is glad of it. He does still like the sound of whalesong, though.

He steers the conversation back toward happier things, trifles that matter much less than the matching crinkles at the corners of his friends' eyes when he manages to make them laugh. He tries not to glance at the clock, lest it sadden him with how late — or early — it is getting. They are his siblings, his parents, his hosts, his mentors, his students, his friends, and, though they will deny it to the end of their lives, his former acolytes and his icons forever. They are also the crown of an empire with a very, very busy schedule, and he misses them already.

Finally, Jonah advises them on the best routes to take back to the Marquess's Manor. Unseen, they might avoid fueling more rumors — that Corvo was really here to visit another one of his bastards, for instance, or that Emily is having an affair with her consort's distant cousin. He does ask them to steer the boys of Room 4 home if they happen to see them. He promises to visit Dunwall soon and that he will come in through the front door.

When he is alone again, Jonah sinks tiredly, contentedly onto his bed. A sliver of lightly salty cheese dissolves on his tongue, and he empties his glass. Laughter still echoes in his head. His heart is full and warm, like the sun. Unafraid, he sleeps soundly. He knows that, soon enough, another morning will come.