Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cabin of The Southern Cross - their ship, their gate, their home - was comfortably warm, with lanterns lit in each corner providing a low, ambient lighting.  As Altheia pulled the door shut behind her, she looked up at Julian.  She could sense the restless energy of his aura, the magic that had risen up in him when he’d made the talisman under the stars, and it danced around him, like an invisible flickering flame in a draft.  His eyes as he looked at her were storm grey, with spider-thread flecks of mercury silver flickering through the irises, pupils small and focussed.  His lips were pressed together in a thin, determined line, and he squeezed her hand.

She knew he was nervous - so was she, nerves rising up and bubbling within her like a geyser trapped under ice.  Nervous that the ritual would fail, or that Julian would be hurt… worried that the ritual would succeed but that Julian might not like what he saw… terrified that those memories, despite his reassurances to the contrary, could change how he felt about her now.

But despite the nerves, the worry, the fear, he was determined to see it through.  And so was she.

She knew she didn’t need to ask, but it was important, it began the ritual.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

Without hesitation, Julian nodded.

“Yes.  Are you?”

Altheia smiled, without hesitation.

“Yes, I am.”

She reached up and threaded the fingers of her left hand into his hair - the right still held her sword, the Rising Tide - and pulled him down into a soft, slow kiss.  When their lips slid free of each other, he rested his forehead on hers, and they closed their eyes, just for a moment, a sigh lingering in the air between them.

And Altheia stepped back.  She’d thoroughly gone over the ritual more times than she could count.  She and Julian had rehearsed it, again and again, as far as they could without using the artefacts needed for the spell to work.  They knew, like the steps of a dance they’d trod a thousand times before, what they needed to do.

Resting a hand below his ribs as he folded at the waist into a half bow, Julian held the other hand out to her with a little flourish, and looked up at her with a quirk of his brow and a half-smile pulling on his lips.

“Shall we dance, Captain?”

Altheia couldn’t help but smile - this wasn’t part of the ritual, but she should have expected Julian to add his own embellishment.  She set her sword down, mirrored his move, and took his hand.

“I would be delighted.”

And it began.

Silence and solemnity settled over them, as they took turns undressing each other.  He lifted her coat by the shoulders, slipped it down her arms and hung it up on the hook by the door.  He bent so she could pull his shirt over his head, fold it neatly and lay it on top of the dresser.  Her shirt followed, and he pulled his fingers gently through her hair, smoothing it over her shoulders and down to the top of her breasts.  His belt next, then hers, rolled up neatly together beside their shirts.  His boots - she was well-practiced in unfastening the buckles by now - and then hers, put neatly together beside the door.  His trousers, and then hers, folded on top of their shirts.  Finally, their underwear.

Stripped down, bare before each other, they stood together, chest to chest, hip to hip, hands over each others hearts.  Skin to skin.  Basking, for just a moment, in each other’s warmth and light and love, their auras mingling between them, a rushing tide meeting a sheltered azure bay.

Altheia closed her eyes and pictured it.  Golden beaches, white cliffs, seashells in warm sand, still waters.  Their ship anchored in the bay, a rowboat pulled up onto the beach, the two of them laying together in a sheltered cove, entwined, safe in each other’s arms. 

Her heartbeat slowed; so did Julian’s beneath her palm.  The nerves settled.  When she opened her eyes, she saw their marks, compasses of light faintly glowing on their chests, over their hearts, just beneath the skin.  She kissed his, he kissed hers.

They turned to two silver chalices, taken from Altheia's collection on her dressing table and filled with water from the sea.  Julian dipped a soft wash cloth in one, and reverently washed every part of Altheia’s body.  And then she did the same for him, cleansing every curve, every contour, every part of him.  As she ran her hands up his back, his muscles rippled under her touch as a shudder ran through him.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“Sssh.”  She pressed her lips to his cleansed, dewy skin, tasting the sea salt.  “You’re doing wonderfully, love.”

Without drying off, they went to the bed, where two robes were laid out neatly in preparation.  Nothing special, simple gauzy bathrobes they’d borrowed from the palace, the same they’d worn on the night of the Masquerade when they’d cared for each other in the bath.  Now, Altheia stood behind Julian, and she slid the robe up his arms and over his shoulders; he did the same for her.  His was translucent chocolate brown, hers maroon, both with gold trim.  They didn’t tie the belts, but let the silky fabric drape over her breasts and his pecs, open over their hearts, revealing the marks.

The last part of the cleansing, next.  Altheia lit a bunch of incense sticks, the type of which she wasn’t entirely sure except that Asra had told her was the most effective he knew of for cleansing small spaces.  She walked around the room, the silvery trail of smoke snaking out behind her, filling the room with its heady fragrance.  Julian took the wards that Selina had given him, smokey quartz crystals with glyphs drawn neatly on their smooth surfaces in silver ink, and placed them around the room.

In the centre of the room, Altheia had drawn a circle in white chalk with a cross through it as if to mark the cardinal points of a compass, and Julian placed his last four wards at those points.  The bag of herbs that Muriel had given them was already hanging from a wooden beam over the centre.  Altheia saw Julian’s eyes flit to the coils of red rope and the box of relics set to the side; symbols of their past.

She finished by sprinkling sea water over a large pillow and placing it in the centre of the circle before blowing out the incense, letting the last of the smoke disperse in the air above.  Julian knelt on the pillow, grimacing as his knees popped; Altheia bit her lip to suppress a smile, and stepped into the circle to stand in front of him.  His hands slid from her ankles, up her calves, her thighs, over the curve of her hips, and rested in the dip of her waist.  He turned his face up to her, eyelids heavy, already settling under the magical energy that was raising up.

Altheia ran her fingers into his hair, smoothing it back with the last of the purifying sea water.  His pale skin glistened in the lantern light, his stormy lightning-flecked eyes were the most beautiful she’d ever seen them.  

“Remember these things,” she said, her voice low and soft.  “Put your trust and faith in me.  I’ll always be here, right by your side.  Whatever else you see and feel, let yourself go, and know that I’m here, you’re safe.”

Julian nodded.  His voice was hoarse as he replied, “I know, I will.”

“When I breathe for you, take my breath, breathe with me, take the air from my lungs and let me take yours back.  Just like when we were underwater in the Cups realm together.”  She couldn’t help a slight smile as she added, “No kissing!”

Julian pouted and batted his eyelashes, but said nothing.

“And… if it hurts…”

“No.”  Julian surprised her with the vehemence of his interruption.  His cheeks flushed and he bit his lip as if he regretted it, but with a slight shake of his head he fixed her gaze with his, and it was steely in his resolve.  “You don’t stop.  I don’t care if it hurts.  Not having my memories hurts.”

“Julian…”

“Theia, you…”  He scrunched his eyes up tight, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her when he spoke, and in a rush he said, “You did what you did because you thought I would hurt if you didn’t.  You don’t…”  His eyes opened and fixed on hers again, and his grip tightened on the flesh of her waist.  “You don’t have to protect me from the pain now.  I’ll endure it.  I didn’t choose to have my memories taken away.  Let me choose how to get them back.”

A faint whimper escaped Altheia’s closed lips and her eyes burned with tears she hurriedly blinked back. 

"Besides," Julian added, with a reverent kiss to Altheia's navel, "You'll be here, won't you?  Right by my side.  I'm safe, aren't I."

Altheia swallowed back an apology, gave a watery smile, and simply nodded.

"You are.  I won't stop.  Even if it hurts."

With a sigh of relief, Julian rested his forehead on her belly.  And Altheia stepped back.  

“Are you comfortable?”

Julian nestled his knees down into the pillow, settled back on his heels, and nodded.

Altheia took up the Rising Tide, her rapier, and slid her hand into the intricately woven silver threads of the handguard, fingers curling around the soft leather-wrapped handle.  Julian had bought the sword for her as a simple gift but which was, perhaps, an intrinsic link to their past - more than that, to her .  Whether he had known, subconsciously, or it had been a coincidence, they didn’t know, and perhaps never would.  

As she lifted it, the thin silver blade vertical between her eyes, she channelled her magic into it.  Slowly, she lowered the blade in an arc, so that the line from her shoulder, all the way down her arm and along the narrow blade, pointed at Julian’s left temple, that point where his memories were stored, from which the pain radiated every time they were triggered but couldn’t be free.

The amethyst crystal focus in its socket underneath the blade, close to her hand, shimmered violet, and the symbol that Julian had inscribed upon it flared in a silver glow.  It coursed along the blade in ripples of purpose.  Julian watched it, his face expressionless but for the determination in his eyes - that he would endure, come what may.

She lowered the point of the sword so that it touched the southern point of the circle, directly in front of Julian.  The chalk line of the circle made a sizzling sound, and then lit up.  Slowly, she walked in a circle around Julian, her sword energising the guide she’d drawn, raising up the spell with her magic, and his.  It was somehow… familiar, and unknown, at the same time.  Her magic she knew, his locked within the talisman, young and fresh as she drew upon it, eager to do her bidding.  And so it was a spell that she knew, and a spell that she didn’t; it was comforting and it was frightening and it was humbling.  It was hers, and his, and theirs all at once.

She felt her senses rise up with her magic; she could hear every one of Julian’s soft breaths, smell the salt water on his skin even through the incense, see the flutters of his eyelashes and the pulse in his throat.  She harnessed the energy like scooping seashells from the bottom of a rockpool, holding it close to her chest, feeling her heart swell with it.

By the time she reached the southern point again, and the circle closed with a snap and a flash of sea-green, Julian had relaxed, slouched under the heady oppression of the magical energy she’d raised as if beneath a comforting weighted blanket.  His eyes were lazy and slow as they moved to watch her, as she went to the box and set her sword down. 

Altheia looped the ropes over one arm, and with the other, picked up Julian’s old coat, the one he’d been wearing when they first met, when he’d broken into her shop, oversized and worn more like a cape than a coat.  It seemed a lifetime ago.  She held it up to her face and inhaled deeply, and with her senses heightened could almost smell the life he’d lived; the wooden beams and hempen rope of the ships he’d sailed, the earthy petrichor of the paths he’d walked, the spices and fabrics of the markets he’d browsed, the stale ale and smoke of the taverns he'd frequented.  The blood and disease and musty papers of the plague and his research.

But there was more, as she let the heavy fabric pass through her fingers.  Now, her magic could pick through the threads of it, feel the love that had made it a gift, feel herself .

Holding her breath to steady herself, she draped the coat over Julian’s hunched shoulders.

It was as if it were made of iron, the way that Julian crumpled under its weight; a weight that pushed him underwater, constricted his chest.  He’d been expecting it, and he closed his eyes, steadied and deepened his breaths.  That throb of pain, so achingly familiar, pulsed from his left temple, and with it came an almost-memory, something close to a flashback but not quite, a ripple of a memory, of a breeze and a laugh and gratitude, relief.

He slipped briefly away, brought back to himself by Altheia’s hands on his shoulders… she was there, just as she said she would be, just as he knew she would be, just as she always was.  

She stepped away, and he watched as she took the case of his old vielle from the box; the instrument they’d found, with a pennywhistle that had belonged to her, on their ship after raising it from the bed of the ocean in the Star’s realm.  She raised it up, and played a bar of a song he’d taught her.  It was a simple little ditty, but the melody wound through Julian like a maypole ribbon, and he closed his eyes again, letting the music lift him up towards a lilting delight, a feeling of elation and joy, and then…

The almost-memory smothered him, the notes became distorted, twisted, shrieking, and he grit his teeth so hard as to make a ringing in his ears, anything to deaden the noise.  With it, carried on the haunting refrain, laughter echoed, a pennywhistle distant and ghostly, a flash of red, licorice-dark hair sweeping around a flushed face as they spun in a dance.

The net of the Forget Me spell shivered, shooting out sparks of pain in warning.  Julian endured.

Altheia’s hands slipped under the shoulders of his coat, and took with them a rope, the first tether to the net of the Forget Me spell.  She wound it around his shoulders, knotted it, and then stretched it out to fix it with magic to the northern point of the cross drawn in chalk on the floor, behind him, where she’d lain the vielle.  Then, with her sword, she drew a line of magic; the northern point of a compass.

It was deeply unsettling, the way the physical tension of the rope seemed to wind its way into his mind, into his memories, and pull at the threads of the spell holding them back.  He could feel the spell resisting, tightening like a noose.

But when it settled, it was little more than a tension headache.  And Altheia’s kiss, as she bent and pressed her lips to the crown of his head, went some way to relieving it.  

He heard the soft pad of her footsteps on the wooden floor as she stepped out of the circle again.  He didn’t open his eyes, knowing what was next; he nodded.

It was a delicate fragrance; bergamot, vanilla and sea salt.  And yet it filled his senses so sharply that he gasped and flung his head back as if to get away from the jar of bath salts that Altheia had opened just beneath his nose.  But he couldn’t get away, it pervaded, and as the scent seemed to shoot through him like an arrow into his veins, setting his blood alight, it assaulted him with another almost-memory, just as it had when they’d found her salts in the clinic.  As if he were underwater in a perfumed bath, her face rippling and distorted above the surface, her voice muffled so he couldn’t hear her words, but he could feel her skin, her warmth, her love…

He couldn’t breathe, his ribs felt unyielding, wave after wave of flashes of the memory behind his eyes but it wasn’t enough …

And then a wrench on his heart, the memory of the smell made musty and sickly by hours upon hours of wear inside his plague mask, disguising the smell of death and disease but not quite , nothing could do that, not really… and the guilt, the heartbreak that brought a burn of tears to his eyes at the knowledge that they’d been hers , and he hadn’t known , and when the fragrance faded he’d simply thrown them away, the last piece of her that he had, but he didn’t know …

She was there, real and true, hands on his cheeks, words on her breath over his face, and they may as well have been in some other language for all he understood, but it didn’t matter, she was there and he was safe, despite the pain, despite that sense of drowning …

It ebbed, enough that he could swallow and nod, feel the press of her lips onto his.

The next rope, this time winding around his bicep, this time feeling like ivy and thorns, scratching and uncomfortable, but he endured, braced himself for the tension as she fixed it with magic to the eastern point of the compass she drew around him and placed the jar of salts there.  The magic coursing through that rope seared its way up his arm and wrapped around a thread of the Forget Me spell, and he winced as it felt like a hammer blow.

Still, he endured.

Seashells.  Barely a weight at all as Altheia placed them in a line, one by one, down his thighs, and yet they burned as if she’d held them over a fire.  And with them shot the strangest pleasure-pain, and it tightened on his throat, pricking at his skin like teeth, and he grunted as that same almost-memory that had struck him on the beach tore at him again, clawing at the net of the spell so fiercely that he yelped in pain.  It was a blur now, a distortion of pain and pleasure and he could feel his arousal stirring, because the seashells carried echoes of a time he’d laid upon the beach, with her, when the realisation truly dawned on him that he cared deeply for her, and she…

A wave of pain and confusion and an eddy of memories that weren’t quite memories at all, hit him square in the chest and nearly knocked him back, and it muddied the waters with the other memories that weren’t quite memories, and he fought them, tried to reach for them, but every time they shot lightning back at him until he sobbed and stopped trying.  

A rope was slipped under and around his right bicep, again and again, knotted and fixed to the western point of the compass she drew with the magic from the point of her sword, and as the magic coursed up his neck and found the net of the spell it sought to break, a hot ball of pain ricocheted throughout his skull, and Julian’s voice tore from his throat.

He thought he might slip unconscious.  But he didn’t.  He endured.

Altheia trembled as she cradled him.  She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and moved on.

North, the vielle, a distant echo of joy.  East, the bath salts, comfort and warmth.  West, sea shells, rising passion.  Five remaining.

Altheia turned to the north east, and here was the thin leather folio of papers, written records of their time together as doctor and apprentice.  Altheia’s apprenticeship contract.  Her dismissal.  Reports from Julian’s old office in the dungeon.  

She crouched in front of him, and he forced his eyes to stay open as she turned the pages for him to see, but the words were a jumble of nonsensical scratches of ink, he couldn’t make them out, couldn’t interpret them, as his head swam and each line upon the page felt like a hot needle searing into the veins of his wrists and up through his bloodstream, setting the net of the Forget Me spell alight.  The very air in his lungs seemed to burn, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t scream, stop, please stop… don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t…

Her warm hand around his wrist, a ripple of her magic like effervescent water, moving his arm gently behind his back.  A rope around his torso bound his arm, his hand resting on the small of his back, trembling with the agony of it as the tope tautened and the spell burned.

Julian could feel tears on his cheeks, hear Altheia’s voice, her lips on his neck, but he was lost underwater with streams of almost-memories, almost-voices, almost-faces, shadows and echoes and pain …

He endured.

He almost didn’t notice when she placed powdered void quartz in his right palm, except that it may as well have been hot coal, searing his skin and his bones and his blood, and there was a desk and the smell of musty old books, tender kisses soothing the sting of papercuts on the tips of his fingers, and a victory in the darkness, that medicine that he never had been able to remember how he’d come upon the formula, but now he knew, it had been with her, magic and medicine , her and him, and there was a flash of a blur of the apparatus, the smell as it burnt…

The agony was constant now, unrelenting, threads of magic viciously pulled so that they cut into him, into his very soul it seemed, and his heart burned and pounded, blood thundered in his ears, his throat was raw from his shouts of pain and his insistence, over and over and over that she mustn’t stop.

She took the crystals and put them at the north-west point, tied his right hand behind his back, and the pain at that tension almost did for him, and his head hung low, chin to his chest, sweat dripping from his forehead and he was certain, certain , that a molten rock had been pressed into his temple, fracturing his skull.

He slipped in and out of consciousness as Altheia held him, as she cried.  But he endured.

Two more, just two.

Julian managed to lift his head just enough, pry one eyelid open just enough, to see the gently glowing jade weed, that little magical plant he’d bought for Altheia all those years ago, abandoned on the dilapidated roof garden.

“No, no, I can’t…”

He sobbed as it crashed over him, a boiling wave that surged straight through his chest, submerged the net of the spell, but it wasn’t enough, it simply took hold with a pain so forceful it deafened him, crushed him, knocked the air out of him, releasing a stream of memories he ached to chase, the scent of the herbs, the cool of the breeze, the sparkle of the stars above, warmth in his arms, him comforting her and her comforting him, and now, now he couldn’t catch his breath, his vision grew black around the edges, just as she’d warned him it might, and he was drowning…

Her touch, her breath, her mouth fixed over his and prising his lips apart until she could seal them with hers, and it was probably only his exhaustion that restrained his instinct to kiss her, no kissing, breathe with me, breathe…

Her hand was over his heart, and the almost-her, the echo, was between his legs, and his arousal rose up as it must have then, and he didn’t know quite what to do with it, until her reassuring hum against his lips told him he didn’t need to do anything.  So he simply embraced it, a sliver of something to break up the pain.  His chest rose and fell against hers with every breath she took from him and every breath she gave back.

When he could breathe alone, they broke apart and she tied the rope.  Julian endured.

The last rope was tied loosely around his neck, fixed to the southern point of the compass on the floor, in front of him.  And she took out the last relic, the one that would hurt the most.  She knelt at that southern point.  It was the most important.  She unrolled it, a scroll of completely ordinary, nondescript paper. 

Her voice was hoarse, tight, as she read.

The pain was so much, too much, “ let me sleep” , but she didn’t stop, and he forced himself to listen, at least to take in some of the words, though he knew them by heart, could whisper without reading them, each a blow of an axe to his skull,

“...remain side by side… always.”

Always .

A maelstrom, memories that weren’t memories, voices with no words, echoes of laughter tormenting him, desire and lust seducing him, his screams in the distance, her cries somewhere, and she held him, she was there, warm and true, and he couldn’t hold her but she held him tight, as he was tossed from stream to stream of things he could almost remember, almost but not quite, until he couldn’t separate the past from the present, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

The ropes burnt like the Devil’s white-hot chains, around his shoulders, arms, thighs, torso and neck, and his head felt as if was crushed in an iron vice, tightening and tightening, while at the same time being torn to pieces, swelling until he was sure he would burst.

His throat was raw and ragged as over and over he called to her, to her echoes, indistinct words, regressing to his mother tongue, barely recognisable, barely knowing himself, who he was, where he was…

Her thighs pressed down over his as she straddled him, chest against his chest, mark against mark, arms around his shoulders, and then he was inside her, the arousal confusing but the focus relieving , her movements seeking purpose, raising the energy they needed. 

A voice from the maelstrom, her voice, her echo, her…

“Sex magic is some of the most powerful there is, second only to blood magic… ”

He gave into it.  He couldn’t move, bound to her ropes, bound to her spell, bound to her, and as the seas rose she was his beacon, his anchor, his safe harbour.

He reached for her words;

“Put your trust and faith in me.  I’ll always be here, right by your side.  Whatever else you see and feel, let yourself go, and know that I’m here, you’re safe.”

The pain didn’t ease, but it settled.  All-encompassing, all-consuming, ever-present, but still.  Julian’s consciousness began to slip, not into the void of sleep, but into that place somewhere between dreams.  He felt, then, how their love, their sex, the energy of life, would rise up, and up, and overcome the agony of the restriction of their past.

Because that love was their constant.  That was the stream that bound the now to the before, down which all that they were, flowed into all that they had become.

The ropes that Altheia had tied, the magic they represented, secured his body and freed his mind… her magic sought the ties of her spell from before , empowered by the magic of their gate, their ship, their guiding star, by them … and it raged angrily, twisting and writhing away from her, with Julian its powerless vessel unable to fight.  But there, glimmers of the memories, flashes of her, of a smile, of a word, I love you, a dizzying dance, burning passion, laughter and tears and torment, and all that they had lived and endured together, side by side, always.

Always.

Pleasure and pain never did burn so hot.  He endured.

Ice will cut all ties.

He heard the crackle of it, in the tips of her fingers against his temple, and for a moment it numbed the pain, but only for a moment.  

She took hold of her sword, freezing the blade with magical ice.  Strong fingers of her other hand gripped one of the ropes, the one around his shoulders, secured to the northern point of the compass glowing on the floor.

And she cut it.

Chapter Text

It was the hardest thing Altheia could ever imagine doing.  Little by little, Julian sank into the depths of his forbidden memories, and as his body shook and his voice grew hoarse, his cheeks were streaked wet and his breaths choked, all under the weight of her magic, and she couldn’t stop .  All she could do was take a pause after each step, to kiss him, hold him, stroke his hair, but after a little while she wasn't at all sure he was even aware she was there.  

Under the guidance of Altheia’s magic, Julian had slipped under the surface of his consciousness, sinking towards where his memories lay buried, entangled in her net, smothered beneath layer upon layer of her magic and the life that he had lived after her death.  In the descent, he placed himself further under her control, trusting in her.  Because he believed it was worth it.  He believed she was worth it. They , and all that they had been and would be, were worth it.

And for that, her spell gave him pain. He hurt because he chose to hurt, because she'd promised she wouldn't stop. It was the only way, to tear at the fabric of the net so that it pulled the memories apart with it, like cutting open an infected wound to clean it and set it to heal.  In the healing, they'd find themselves.

She repeated it to herself, over and over in her mind, that it was necessary, he would heal, it would be worth it.

But her throat constricted painfully, her chest hurt, her cheeks were soaked with her tears, and it was all she could do to focus, to recall what she had to do.   To tell herself it would be worth it .

As the ritual progressed, as all the ropes were tied that bound her to him, so her energy flowed around them, ebbing and flowing, catching Julian in its waves and sweeping him out to her depths, until his aura was dispersing into hers and she barely knew herself from him. 

She cried out when she took him inside her, held his shuddering body close to hers, when they were one; one body, one heart, one soul, bonded by magic and love from then and now, and her spirit slipped to that place between dreams, and found him there.

Julian, kneeling in an inky black pool within a circle that flickered with a pale light that threatened to sputter and die.  His long torso was bent in a curve that was almost graceful, and his head hung low.  But whereas in the physical, his body shuddered and trembled in pain, here he was calm, his chest rising and falling slowly with each breath.  The red ropes were taut, binding him to the circle, Altheia’s knots - sailing knots, that he had taught her - were neat and strong.

Between them, flowing from her heart to his and back again, something like a magical rope, like a sparkling stream, clear water, their bond that would never die.

But, reaching up from the darkness of the pool, were the arms of the Queen of Cups, and they coiled around Julian’s limbs until he winced in pain.  And rather than the indigo and midnight purple that Altheia recognised, they were translucent  and dark, writhing and cold, smothering not soothing.

The Queen of Cups reversed, Altheia realised, with a jolt of fear.  A representation of Altheia from the past, a version of her that had let her emotion overwhelm her, taken Julian's choices away from him, believing she knew best.  

Altheia took a deep breath to hold back her instinct to run to Julian, to cut him free, pull him back and away from his bindings.  She couldn’t do that, because dragging him away wasn’t what he wanted.  She had to methodically cut through the ropes, one by one, ignoring the grip of the dark Queen.  Her emotions couldn't get the better of her this time.

This isn’t love.  It was best that he forgot you.

The voice, rough and low, sent a cold ripple down Altheia’s spine.  

He didn’t hurt, then.  He hurts now.

She took a second breath, held it, and ignored the voice.  She had to focus, she couldn’t let her doubt, herself from the past, get in the way.

She followed the first of the ropes which in the physical she’d tied to the vielle they’d found in the ship, but here in the spiritual was holding back memories, memories of her .  She reached towards Julian’s throat, felt his pulse beneath her fingers, and followed the trail, seeking the thread she could pick apart.

But not just a thread this time, not one to pick apart, but the net, one to cut, to release the memories trapped behind.

With her other hand, she reached for her sword.  In the physical, it was steel.  Here, in the spiritual, it was her magic crystallised, it was ice.

Ice will cut all ties .

Pressing her lips to Julian’s mouth, Altheia cut the rope.

Ilya's plan was not, in fact, going to plan.  Even by his standards - which wasn’t the highest of bars, it must be said  - it was actually going horribly wrong.  

It was a classic - put on a mediocre showing at a card table, good enough to be interesting but bad enough that the other players would drop their guard; then go all in, and with the help of charm, banter, a good story and sleight of hand, win.  And with those winnings, be on his way and leave town before anyone noticed.

It had worked before; in fact it was his favoured means of acquiring funds since leaving his post as a battlefield medic.  But in Port Tremaire, the rowdiest town he could remember visiting, there were two types of players - merchants, and pirates - and he’d learnt the hard way that he needed to be somewhat selective with his opponents.  Merchants were tight with their money, wagering little unless they were confident of victory, but with a little patience could be whittled down.  Pirates were tougher, more likely to see through him, but the games were quick and dirty and they could be goaded into betting big.  But if they did spot a cheat, they were ruthless.  

Ilya had had his fair share of pirate opponents recently, and so had chosen a tavern away from the dock, near the houses rented by the captains of merchant vessels.  The early part of the evening had gone exactly according to plan.  His entertaining stories and freeness with coin had drawn quite a crowd.  Just after midnight, when he judged that everyone was just the right amount of drunk, he decided that the next game would be the last.

In that, he'd been correct.  

But as the merchant captain across the table from him raised an eyebrow and a smirk over her cards, and oh so deliberately lay down a queen of hearts to win the game, the voices of her crew rose up in raucous cheers, and Ilya’s heart sank.

He had one card left to play, and it wasn't the one in his hand.  But, even as he dropped the card with a flourish, flashed her what he was certain was his most dashing smile, and said “Very well played, Captain, bravo!” he knew it wouldn't work.  Still, one last valiant effort.  “Let me buy you a celebratory round.  White rum, was it?”

He started to get to his feet. The captain simply leaned back in her chair, casually crossed her arms over her chest and one booted leg over the other, and snared his gaze with her piercing sea-green eyes as her mouth curled in a smirk.  She nodded towards his chair.

“Sit back down, Doctor.  Time to pay up.”

Feeling a heat rise to his cheeks, he did as he was told.  Clearing his throat, his mind racing, he reached for the stacks of coins on the table in front of him, and carefully slid them towards her, hoping that she wouldn’t scrutinise them too closely in the dimly-lit, smokey air of the tavern.

He was wrong, and she was far too wily to let him get away with betting a stash of not-entirely-legitimate dubloons.  She leaned forward, and only a cursory glance told her what she needed to know.  

“Doctor, doctor, doctor,” she purred.  “Do you really think a merchant of my standing wouldn’t recognise counterfeit dubloons when I see them?  They’re not even good ones.”  She leaned back again, cocking her head to the side as she added, “That’s quite an insult.”

Her crew, standing around them or perched on nearby chairs or tables, hissed and murmured amongst themselves, loud enough so Ilya could hear.

“She’s pulled rank,” one of them said.

“Insulted!”

“‘e’s in trouble now.”

“Better run, doctor!”

Ilya nervously fiddled with his shirt; it hung half-open, but he soon realised that trying that tactic would probably only insult the captain further.  He pulled it closed.  “I’m sorry, I…”  He peered at her.  “I’m sorry, a merchant of your standing?”  With a nervous laugh, he added, “At the risk of continuing to insult you… who have I got myself in trouble with?”

An ‘oohh!’ of disbelief went up amongst the crew.  The captain held his gaze, an amused smile tugging at her lips - a smile like a viper might smile before striking.

“Would you please enlighten him, Maurice?”

The man standing to the left and slightly behind her - who, from the style of his long tunic and coat, Ilya had judged to be her first mate - grinned with barely-contained delight.

“Of course, Cap’n.  Doctor, you’re dealing with Privateer Captain Altheia Featherstone.”

Ilya blinked at the captain as she raised one eyebrow and tipped her head a little.  He closed his eyes, gave a dramatic groan and dropped his forehead onto the backs of his hands on the table.

“Oh god.  I’m done for.”

He knew all about the Featherstones from Mazelinka and the little correspondence he had with his merchant fleet-owning aunt Tasya, not to mention the tales told in the short time he’d been in Port Tremaire.  They weren’t a large family, but were among the most successful and influential in the port, with a large estate just outside the town.  

He also knew that the youngest daughter of the family had suffered losses when she’d been sailing with four of the family’s ships and been caught by surprise in a thick fog by pirates.  She got away, but not before they’d looted two of the ships and sunk another.  

Since then, she’d had one of the family’s older ships fitted out as a fighting privateer, with enough guns to put most pirates off attacking.  At first she served as escorts for her family’s ships, and then she’d taken it further, hunting pirates along the trade routes and intercepting smugglers, picking up bounties, and eventually becoming a privateer for hire.

And it would appear that it was that fiery youngest daughter of the most influential merchant family in Port Tremaire that he’d got himself in trouble with.

“Of all the merchants in all of Port Tremaire,” he murmured half to himself, “it would be the one that’s most like a pirate that I would lose to.”

Captain Featherstone paused, and then laughed.  “And yet you continue to insult me by likening me to a pirate.”

But from the tone of her voice, she didn’t seem very insulted.  When Ilya dared to look up, he was surprised to see a genuine smile on her face.  She necked the glass of rum on the table, then sighed with an amused shake of her head.

“Alright, enough.”  She held out her hand, palm up.  “Give me what you’ve got and we’ll call it even.”

“I, er… well…”  Ilya scratched the back of his neck, and grimaced.  “You see, I… I don’t have anything.”

“No?”  The captain raised an eyebrow.  She leaned to the side, stretched one leg under the table and nudged his bags with the toe of her boot.  “What’s in there, then?”

Ilya swallowed and gave another nervous titter of a laugh.  “Oh, you know.  Just some personal effects.  Clothes and such.  Nothing of value.”

“What’s that?”  She tapped the side of a hard case within the bag with the side of her foot.

Ilya stiffened.  “It’s a vielle.  But it’s not worth anything,” he added hastily.  “It’s quite old and battered.  A family heirloom.”

Altheia narrowed her eyes as she fixed him with her gaze, judging his honesty.  More than that, he felt the touch of magic creep over him.  Ah yes, he remembered, the fiery youngest daughter of the most influential merchant family in Port Tremaire, pirate-hunting privateer, was also a magician, a tidemancer.  Her magic felt like having a summer’s tide slowly wash over him.  It was a little disturbing and intrusive, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

Apparently believing him, she softened and sat back, her magic sliding away.  “Do you play?”

The question took him aback and he frowned.  “I can string a few notes together, yes.”

She ran the tip of her finger along her bottom lip, watching him curiously.  Then she smiled.

“Good.  You can pay off your debt entertaining us on our next voyage.”

Ilya stared at her for a moment.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Oh!”  Ilya sat up with a grin.  “I can do that.”

“Good!  That’s settled then.”  She smacked her palms onto the table so suddenly it made him jump, and got to her feet.  “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the ship.”  As the crew around her groaned, she waved off their protestations.  “You lot can stay.  Just make sure you’re back on board before dawn or I’ll sail without you.”  

The crew cheered and raised her a toast; she rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Maurice, make sure they behave, would you?  I don’t want to be held up by a trip to the jailor in the morning to bail them out.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

She looked around at them all then with a stern gaze and a finger raised in warning.  “But anyone complaining of a hangover gets weevils for breakfast!”

With that parting shot, she turned and lifted her long crimson coat off the back of her chair and pulled it on, then retrieved her tricorn hat from where it hung on a nail in the wall behind her.  Pausing only long enough to wait for Ilya to fling his coat around his shoulders and scrabble to pick up his bags, she strode from the room, her boot heels loud on the wooden floor and her coat swirling around her calves as she navigated her way around the burly sailors crowded into the hot space, narrowly avoiding two men falling to the ground in a brawl as she gracefully sidestepped them.  

She held the tavern door open for Ilya, and as they stepped out onto the street it closed behind them, leaving them in darkness with the noise of the tavern muffled behind them.

The captain stopped on the kerb, closed her eyes, turned her face up to the night sky and took a deep breath of the cool air.  On the exhale, she said,

“That’s better.  It’s so smokey and hot in there.  And loud.”  She opened her eyes and looked at Ilya for a moment before gesturing down the street.  “This way.”

She walked in a purposeful stride with her hands behind her back, and Ilya kept step with her.  He was still in something of a daze.  His plans often didn’t go to plan, which was partly why he so often found himself in Situations, but this had taken an entirely unexpected turn.  

But as his thoughts caught up, they began to whirl with the possibilities - and excitement.  The thrill of adventure, sailing into the unknown.  He was almost glad he’d lost that game.

He was a little surprised at the captain’s silence, as they walked together through the narrow streets of the town.  The air was fresh after a recent rainfall, the dark, wet cobbles glistened in the meagre streetlights.  The streets were quiet, a far cry from the noisy bustle of the day, shops and market stalls locked up, cargo safely aboard ships or piled at the dock.  Though, every tavern they passed - and there were a lot of taverns in Port Tremaire - had a glow in the windows and the sounds of laughing, singing and fighting drifted out onto the streets.

Every now and again, Ilya gave Altheia a sidelong glance.  He noted her hair in a tight braid reaching from underneath her hat down just past her shoulderblades, and powdered almost white… the straight bridge of her nose with a slightly upturned tip, her heart-shaped face and sea-green eyes that, when she turned once and met his gaze, gleamed in the moonlight beneath long lashes and a fringe of powdered hair.  And she wore a sword, an elegant silver rapier, at her hip.

“So, Captain,” he began, for although the silence was comfortable, he felt a need to talk to her.  “Where are we sailing to?”

“Vesuvia.  Word reached me of a smuggling racket that’s been operating out of a cove nearby.  I want to scout it out, make sure it’s not a threat to my interests.”

“And if it is?”

She shrugged.  “I’ll deal with it.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Smugglers are always a threat to someone’s interests.  If that someone is a rival, well, I can turn a blind eye.”

“Huh.”

When Altheia wasn’t forthcoming with how exactly she would ‘deal with’ the smugglers, silence fell between them again.  Until Ilya spoke again.

“So, Vesuvia.  That’s only a day’s sail, if my memory serves.”

“Your memory does serve.  It is.”  She gave him a half-smile, showing a dimple in her cheek.  “You sound disappointed.”

“Hardly!  My questionable skills with a vielle will only be needed for one day.”

“And perhaps a night.”

Ilya blinked at her, a flush rising to his cheeks at the suddenly sultry narrowing of her eyes.  She broke the gaze with a laugh.

“I’m uh, I’m sure I can manage that,” he managed to reply.

“Pleased to hear it.”

But, he realised, he was a little disappointed.  It had been a long time since he’d been at sea, and he missed it.

Altheia led them down some narrow steps towards the docks.  But halfway down, as they passed an alcove in the stone wall, a man jumped out at them from the shadows.  Ilya dropped his bags and pulled his knife, but Altheia was quicker, her sword in her hand and the point at the would-be thief’s throat in a flash and a ring of steel.  

She glared down the narrow blade for an agonisingly long moment, until the man dropped his knife so that it skittered down the steps with a metallic clatter.  Without a further word, but a flick of her head, the man scrambled past her and bolted up the steps.

Ilya stared wide-eyed, as with little more than a sigh the captain sheathed her sword, retrieved the knife and dropped it into her coat pocket, and gestured for him to follow her as she continued down the steps.

She’s magnificent.

“You seem like you’ve done that before,” he said, shoving his own knife back into his pocket and picking up his bags to hastily follow her.  “Does it happen often?”  

“Yep.”

Without elaborating further, they reached the bottom of the steps onto the harbour.  Several merchant ships were docked and more were anchored in the harbour, their bells ringing softly in the fresh breeze.  

“Does that have a name?” Ilya asked, as Altheia led them along the dock, winding their way around crates, chests and sacks piled up near the ships as their crew loaded them.

“Hmm?  Does what have a name?”

He gestured to the rapier.  “The sword.”

Altheia raised an eyebrow at him.  “No.  It’s a sword, why would I give it a name?”

Ilya scoffed.  “All the best swords have names!”

Altheia rolled her eyes with a smile.  “I suppose it’s not a best sword, then.”  

“It’s one of the finest rapiers I’ve seen.”  It was true - as he looked down at the sword secured to the belt at her hip, the handguard caught his eye; made of delicate silver, it had the appearance of ribbons - or streams, perhaps - elegantly turning and twisting around each other and around Altheia’s hand.  The blade was narrow and perfectly straight to a deadly point, sharp enough to pluck a cherry from a punch bowl.  “It deserves a name.”

Altheia chuckled with a shake of her head.  “Perhaps.  I’ll think about it.”  She leaned a little towards him, peering up at him; she wasn’t short, but thanks to him being so tall she was eye-level with his collarbone.  “Do you have a name?  I assume ‘Doctor’ is a pseudonym.”

“Almost.  I’m a doctor by profession.  But it suits as an alternative when I find myself in a, ah, situation where I’d rather not reveal my name.  ‘The Doctor’ has an air of mystery to it, don’t you think?”  His voice rose in a lightly theatrical cadence.  “A doctor of what ? they ask.  And then they stop caring about my name.”

“Are you in such a ‘situation’ now, doctor?”

He held her gaze for a moment as they walked.  Maybe this was his chance, he thought.  A chance for a fresh start.  Vesuvia was a nice enough city, he’d heard.  Mazelinka had a place there.  There were worse places to settle.  He didn’t care much for fate, but given his current Situation, perhaps it was time for fate to be kind to him for a change.

If he was going to settle, if he were to make a fresh start, then he needed to put his old life behind him.  And, attached to that life, was his name.  It wasn’t important to him, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken a new name to suit whatever city he found himself in. 

In that moment, he decided that Captain Altheia Featherstone, she who would sail him to his new life, would be the first to hear it.  And so with a grin and a theatrically flourishing bow, he replied,

“Doctor Julian Devorak, at your service.”

Altheia laughed.  “Do you always introduce yourself like that, Julian?”

“Of course.”  He cocked his brow as he straightened.  “Don’t you?”

She returned his smile.  “Maybe I should.  My hat would fall off if I bowed quite that low, though.”

“And we wouldn’t want that.  It’s a beautiful hat.”

“It’s good enough.”  She stopped suddenly, and gestured to a ship.  “Here she is.  Your home for the next day and perhaps a night.”

Julian stared up at the ship, and his eyes glided along the hull.  The ship was built from  dark-stained oak, and a wide red line was painted all the way along it on a level with the gun deck.  Her three masts reached up into the night sky, swaying slowly side to side with the movements of the sea.  He gave an appreciative whistle through his teeth.

“She’s magnificent.”  He turned back to Altheia with a smile.  “Does she have a name?”

“Of course she does.”  Altheia turned back to the ship with a smile that was both fond and proud.  “Vengeance.”

“How apt.  Very fitting.”  He looked up at the deck as they approached.  “She was razeed?”

Altheia looked both surprised and impressed that he noticed that the ship’s deck was a little lower than might be expected for a ship of that size, since the original top deck had been stripped away.  “Yes.  I needed manoeuvrability over firepower.  Pirate ships tend to be heavily armed, but old and slow.  Best way to take them out is outmanoeuvre them.  None of my family’s ships were suitable for what I wanted, so I took an old one and tinkered with it.”

The thought of the dread pirate Mazelinka being told her ship was old and slow amused Julian.  

“You’re familiar with ships and the sea, I take it,” Altheia said when she reached the ladder and gestured for Julian to go up ahead of her.  

Julian shrugged.  “A bit.  I have relatives with a merchant fleet, and another who’s a pirate.”

Altheia incredulously snorted a laugh.  “That’s an interesting mix of relations.”

“Oh there’s a lot that’s interesting about me,” he told her with a raffish smirk, as he hoisted his bags onto his back and started to make his way up the ladder.

“And I suppose you’ll show me all of it in a day, will you?”

“In a day, and perhaps a night.”

Julian winked at her, and she laughed and waved a hand to get him up the ladder.  As he climbed, he silently winced at himself.  What was he doing, dropping clumsy innuendoes like that?  He was lucky she was taking him aboard her ship at all - there were far more unpleasant ways to extract payment of a gambling debt than playing a vielle for a day and perhaps a night.

Hauling himself up onto the deck, he dropped his bags and turned to offer her his hand.  She paused, holding the rail, looking at his hand.  She didn’t need it, of course she didn’t.  But she took it anyway.

He didn’t let go immediately, even after she’d climbed over the rail and stood in front of him.  She looked up at him with a surprised but curious tilt of her head.  And she didn’t try to pull her hand back.

“Are you alright, doctor?” she asked, amusement colouring her velvety tone.

“I am, actually!” he said with a light laugh.  “Which is surprising, considering my uh, my situation .”

“And what situation would that be?”

“Being held captive by the infamous Captain Featherstone.”

“Infamous, am I?”  One corner of her lips lifted in a wry half-smile.  Still, she didn’t withdraw her hand.  

“You are, yes.”  Julian smiled against the back of her gloved hand as he pressed his lips there.  “And very gracious, to allow me to work off my debt instead of taking the clothes off my back.”

He noticed the faintest hint of a pink blush colour the sun-kissed ivory of her cheeks.  But she said,

“It was also very gracious of me not to rub your nose in the fact that you cheated , and still lost.”

Julian couldn’t help the devilish smirk that pulled at his lips and arched his brow.  He'd only known her a very short time, but he could already tell how sharp she was, and so the fact she'd noticed his cheat didn't surprise him in the slightest.

“And it was very gracious of me not to point out that you only won because you cheated.  How many cards do you have up there?”

Acting purely on a hunch and without warning, he slipped his long fingers up under her shirt sleeve, and found several cards secured to her wrist with bracelets.  

Altheia laughed loudly, genuine and bright, when Julian flipped the cards in front of her face.  

“Fine.  You caught me out.”

With a twist of her wrist she took her hand from Julian’s hold, her fingers curled around his instead, and she pressed her lips to the back of his hand.

He froze.  Tried to speak, but the words came out in a stammer and he clamped his mouth shut.  Her lips were warm, soft against his skin, and the touch sent little ripples all the way through him.

“A truce, then,” she said as she straightened, but didn’t release his hand.  “And you can stay aboard Vengeance to Vesuvia as my guest, if you like.”

Julian grinned broadly, and found his voice.

“I would like that very much.”

“Excellent.”

Their eyes met; Altheia’s smile was warm, her gaze curious.  Julian couldn’t look away from those sea-green depths; he didn’t think he’d ever seen eyes like them.  Her grip tightened around his fingers just a little, a fraction of an instant, before she released his hand and returned hers to rest on her hip.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Julian followed her across the deck, suddenly struck by the movements of her hips, the way her crimson coat cinched in at the curve of her waist and flared out over her hips and down to her calves; the very slightest swagger to her walk.

He blinked out of his thoughts when she stopped by the mainmast and craned back to look up all the way to the crow’s nest at the top, lit by a single small lantern.

“Jack!” she yelled, her velvety voice clear and carrying into the night.  “Anything to report?”

A man scrabbled to his feet and looked down at them with a salute.  

“Nothin’, Cap’n.”

“Good to hear.  This is Julian, he’ll be joining us as far as Vesuvia.”

“Right-oh.”

Julian raised a hand in greeting, but Jack had already sat back in the nest.

“Talkative fellow, isn’t he?”

“Never complains about a night watch, though.”  Altheia continued towards the rear of the ship, Julian keeping step.  There was a fondness in her voice.  “He likes to read, and the only quiet place on the ship is up there.  I’m not sure if it’s a watchpost or Jack’s personal book nook at this point.”

Behind the mizzenmast, the deck was raised up, with a door set into it, and a hatch at the centre of it.  Altheia hopped up the three wooden steps to the wheel; there, slumped against a barrel, was a large man, a sword in his lap, apparently fast asleep.  With an amused shake of her head, the captain nudged his leg with her boot.

“That’s Stev, our quartermaster.  He was supposed to be on guard tonight.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s guarding very much of anything,” Julian said, peering over the captain’s shoulder at the sleeping man.

“I’m not so sure about that.”  Altheia tapped the barrel with a forefinger.  “That right there is a barrel of brandy.  Watered down, disgusting, but it’s cheap, and when you’ve a long voyage ahead of you, it’s good enough.  Does well for cleaning wounds, too.  But I suppose you know all about that, being a doctor.”

A shudder ran through Julian at that, as his thoughts flew back to a time when, little more than a teenager, he’d begun joining Mazelinka on her voyages.  Along the way, he’d had his brutal introduction to amputations, assisting the ship’s surgeon.  If there was one thing he knew about watered-down brandy, it was that it didn’t get a man anywhere near drunk enough to deaden the pain of having a limb hacked off.  The screams bearing testament to that, still haunted his nightmares.  It was a little more effective at cleaning wounds, though.

“Julian?”

He was brought out of his thoughts by Altheia’s voice and a wave of her hand in front of his face.  He managed a smile.

“Sorry, Captain.  I’m tired.”

“Hmm.”  Her eyes tightened just a little as she held his gaze.  Reading him.  She smiled.  “Think you can stay awake long enough to join me for tea?”

Somehow, the thought of not joining her for tea was entirely out of the question. 

He followed her as she hopped back down the steps, and opened the door to the cabin, leaving his bags just outside.  Inside, Altheia gave a flick of her wrist and an orb of light appeared; with another flick, it floated up to the lantern hanging from a beam in the middle of the small cabin, and the light it cast across the cluttered space resembled a flickering flame. 

“Mind your head!” she called back.

Julian had already stooped to get through the door without hitting his head on the low beam, but he smiled his thanks, and peered around the room.  In the centre was a rectangular table with four chairs around it, a map laid upon its surface and navigational instruments set to the side.  A window stretched across the opposite wall, beneath which stood a comfortable burgundy-cushioned couch and a writing bureau with papers piled neatly upon it.  To the left stood a dresser, upon which were an array of boxes, jars and bottles, and in an alcove to the right, behind a partly-open heavy curtain, Julian could see a small bed.

Altheia cleared her throat and Julian’s eyes shot back to meet hers.  One brow and the corner of her mouth were arched in an amused smirk, as she loosened the gloves around her fingers.

“Lovely bed– I mean, room!  Lovely room.  Very cosy, has a lovely ambience.”

Altheia laughed softly through her nose.

“Make yourself at home.”

She gestured to the couch, and then turned her back on him as she pulled off her gloves and dropped them onto the table.  As Julian walked past her, behind her, he couldn’t quite take his eyes off her, watching as she unhooked her sword from its belt and lay it carefully on the table, and then deftly worked at the buckles on the belt and cross-body leather baldric before laying them beside the sword.  She took off her hat, and stepped away from the table to put it on a shelf above the dresser.  

“Just give me a minute,” Altheia said, brushing her fingers through her fringe to peel it away from where her hat had plastered it to her forehead.  “Take off your coat if you’re staying.”

“If… if I… ah… hmm?”

Julian attempted a display of nonchalance by setting his hand on his hip and leaning on the window frame.  Altheia laughed softly with a shake of her head, turning from him as she opened the buttons of her own crimson coat.  

“It’s just tea, Julian.  Relax.  I won’t bite.”

A faint shiver rippled down Julian’s spine.

“Relax!  Of course, I can relax.  The very vision of relaxedness, I am.”

She turned her head enough to look back over her shoulder with an arched eyebrow.  “Relaxedness?  Is that a word?”

“If it wasn’t, it is now.”

Julian did as he’d been bidden, and took off his overcoat.  As he watched Altheia do the same, he couldn’t help but notice the movements of the lean muscles of her shoulders and back underneath her shirt, the curve of her waist, and the way her black leggings hugged her hips, thighs, and–

She turned, and Julian quickly dropped his gaze.  With a flourish, he pulled his coat from his shoulders like it was a cape, and draped it over a chair before sitting down on the couch, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other and resting an arm across the back of the couch.

“It’s not easy to relax around you, mind,” he added.  When Altheia gave a quizzical tilt of her head, he continued, “You are my jailor, after all.  And I haven’t yet paid off my bail.”

That wasn’t true at all.  He was, in fact, already relaxing thanks to the warmth of the cabin that almost matched the warmth of his host.

Altheia laughed as she turned back to him.  “Your jailor? ”

“Yes!”  Julian gave a mischievous grin.  “A fearsome privateer marched me right out of that tavern practically at sword-point to imprison me on her dread ship.”

“That’s the story you’ll tell, is it?”

Julian shrugged.  “I might add six inches to your height, an ostrich feather to your hat, an extra sword and a fireball.”

He winked, and was delighted to hear Altheia’s laugh, clear and sincere.  “You’d better embellish your misdeed, then.  Imprisoning you on my dread ship under duress of two swords and a fireball is a little excessive for a card cheat.”

It was Julian’s turn to laugh.  “Ah, not for a dashing and fearsome privateer.  You wouldn’t dare cross her.”

“Dashing, am I?”

Julian looked at her contemplatively for a moment.  He couldn’t quite read her expression, but he was sure her cheeks had flushed ever so slightly pink.  He also wasn’t quite sure why he’d said what he’d said, and didn’t know if it would be wise to take it further, considering his potentially precarious Situation.  So he merely grinned, and replied,

“And fearsome.”

Altheia gave a smile he couldn’t quite read.  And then, to his surprise, she leaned back on the edge of the table with her arms folded over her chest and an almost sympathetic, suddenly serious look in her eyes.

“You’re not my prisoner,” she said quietly.  “You’re my guest.  You can leave… if you want.”

Julian blinked in astonishment at the change in Altheia’s demeanour as she gestured vaguely towards the door.

“No!” he said, his voice verging on something close to alarm that he’d somehow managed to upset or offend her - or both.  “I don’t want to leave.  Not at all.  In fact, I’m um… I’m quite enjoying the company of a siren, who hasn’t imprisoned so much as lured me here under the spell of her enchantment, with not a fireball in sight.”

Altheia rolled her eyes, the smile returning.  “I think I preferred the other story.”  She pushed herself away from the table.  “How do you take your tea?”

“I don’t, usually.  Do you have coffee by any chance?”  At Altheia’s disapprovingly-raised eyebrow, Julian hastily amended, “No?  In that case I take tea very black.  Thank you.”

Altheia watched him for a moment, a curious look in her eyes.  Then she turned, and went through a small hatch into what looked like a tiny galley kitchen.

“Black tea it is.”

Julian watched her go, holding his breath, and then exhaled heavily in something like disbelief and nerves.  It wasn’t that he was nervous or scared of her , exactly, but… he was enjoying her company.  And he’d like to enjoy it for a bit longer.  A day, and perhaps–

A night??

This night?

No she couldn’t just mean this night - it was a day’s sail if the winds were fair, and they weren’t setting sail until dawn, so if the winds weren’t in their favour and it took a little over a day, the night that was a perhaps would be the next night–

His thoughts were interrupted by Altheia’s bootheels as she stepped out of the galley and crossed the room towards him, carrying a small tray with a teapot and two cups, and some shortbread biscuits on a plate.  Julian watched as she hooked her foot around the leg of a low side table as she passed, and dragged it to the space in front of the couch.  He half got to his feet to help, but she shook her head.

“Stay there, I’m fine.”

“Er…”  Reluctantly, Julian hovered over the couch seat.  “I don’t want you to spill it…”

“Oh there’s nothing in it yet.”

“Oh.  That’s good then.”

Altheia set the tray down, and then to Julian’s surprise, she sat on the couch beside him - he’d half expected her to fetch another chair for herself.  As she leaned forward to the teapot, he caught a hint of her fragrance - a sweet warmth, something citrusy…

She scooped a measure of tea leaves into the pot, and then held her open hand a couple of inches above it, palm up.  As Julian watched in amazement, a sphere of water swirled into existence.  When it was large enough to fill her palm, she tilted her hand, and it poured into the pot.  Once more, and the pot was full. 

Julian stared incredulously, pointing.

“That… you, uh, you made water?”

Altheia shrugged.  “Something like that.”

“And that water, it… I’m going to drink it, yes?”

“I should think so, yes.” Altheia sounded amused.

Julian struggled to get his head around it.  He never could understand magic.  “It’s yours?  You made it?  Is it… magic water?  That you made?  Am I going to drink part of… part of you?”

Altheia tried to hide her laugh but didn’t quite manage it.  “No, Julian, it’s not like that.  There’s water vapour in the air all around us.  My magic simply harnesses it, coalesces it into water.  It’s easier at sea, there’s more vapour, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“I did have to spend some time figuring out how to take the salty taste out of it, though.”

“I don’t mind salt,” Julian said without thinking.  “Probably an unhealthy amount.”

Altheia simply smiled.  She curved both hands around the pot, and Julian felt a warmth emanate from them.  He gave a soft, incredulous laugh.

“And you heated it too, of course.”

“Of course.”  She replaced the lid, and leaned back.  “Let it steep for three minutes, no more or less.”

The couch was big enough for two, but not for much space between them.  They weren’t quite touching, but he could feel her warmth.  She smiled.

“Comfortable?”

“Very!” he said hastily.  “This is a lovely couch.  Very, uh… very soft, well-stuffed, not too soft or too hard...”

“Alright, don’t overdo it,” she laughed.  She twisted a little so that she could lean her elbow on the back of the couch and face him, resting her head on her hand as she looked at him curiously; he mirrored her position, but finding it hard to get comfortable with his long legs, ended up having to cross one over the other with his knee on the seat.  Altheia’s eyes flitted down to his leg, then slid up his body and back to his eyes.

Julian’s eyes widened.  Had he offended her with his leg?  “I’m sorry, I–”

He hurriedly uncrossed his leg, but so suddenly that he accidentally kicked the edge of the table, with enough force that some of the tea spilled out of the spout of the pot and a cup fell over.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!  Have you got a towel, I…”

“Julian it’s fine, please.  Relax.”

Altheia leaned over him and stood the cup up, then with a wave of her hand, the spilled tea was gone.

“You’re just showing off now, aren’t you?” Julian said with a half smile.

She held up her thumb and forefinger with a small gap between them.  “Only a little.  Now, will you please relax.  And yes, you can put your knee up on my couch if you need to.  Your legs are rather… long.”

Julian cleared his throat, feeling the tips of his ears turn hot.  “Ah, thank you.”

They both settled back, and Altheia pulled her legs up onto the couch, too, curled in front of her with her feet hanging off the edge.

“No boots on the cushion, mind,” she said.

“That goes without saying.”  He held her gaze with a smile, and then that smile slipped into a smirk.  “You’re taking a risk, don’t you think?” he said, lowering his voice.  “Letting a proven rogue into your, uh, cabin like this.”

Altheia raised her eyebrows.  “A proven rogue, you say?”

“I have knives on me, you know.  You saw one, I have others.”

“Oh?”  Altheia made a show of exaggerated disappointment.  “And there I was thinking you were just pleased to see me.”

“I am!” Julian said, too hastily, and then he stared in shock as he realised what he’d implied.  “Not like that!  I mean… not that I wouldn’t be pleased to see you like… like that , but what I mean is I’m pleased for your, ah, your company , and… you’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

Altheia couldn’t hold back her mirth, and laughed brightly.  “What should I be so afraid of then, rogue ?  These knives of yours?”  She gestured with her hand from Julian’s shirt pocket, down to his trouser pockets at his hips, and then his boots.

“Ah… maybe?”

“Have you ever used them for anything other than slicing an apple?  Cutting your way out of ropes, maybe a sack or two?”

Julian tutted.  “No sacks , no.”

“Ropes?”

“Once or twice,” he conceded.

“And what if I said I don’t believe you have any other than the one in your coat pocket?”

Julian couldn’t quite read the half smirk on her lips and sparkle in her eyes, where the flame from the lantern danced across the sea-green.  But the captain seemed in a playful mood, and so Julian dared to lean forward with his most sultry curve of lips, and say,

“You can search me.  If you like.”

“Can I, indeed?”  

Her eyes narrowed playfully and she held his gaze contemplatively.  Julian felt himself flush with embarrassment.  But he held his nerve.

“This is your ship, captain.  You can do whatever you like.”

He sat up straight and held out his arms to the sides with a flourish, bowing his head.  And to his utter surprise, he felt her hands on his shoulders.

He froze.  He could feel the strength in Altheia’s hands, open-palmed, as they moved from the base of his neck outward to the tops of his arms.  Her fingers, too, carried the tension of certainty, confidence, tightening a little on the muscles of his upper arms as they moved down.  She paused over his biceps with a squeeze, then moved on to his inner forearms.  Then to his wrists, and now her thumbs rested for a moment over the veins of his inner wrists, her fingers curled around them, as if feeling for a knife strapped there.

“Hmm,” she hummed thoughtfully.  “Nothing there.”

Julian didn’t dare raise his head.  He didn’t want her to stop.  Wherever she touched, a warmth rippled out across his skin like pebbles skipping over the surface of a lake, and he couldn’t tell if it was her magic, or simply her .

Her palms lay over his, fingers against his fingers, though not as long, arms still stretched out to the sides.  She leaned forward, and he could feel her breath moving through the hair around his ear.

“I can see you have nothing strapped to your chest.”

Julian huffed a laugh, and turned his head up just enough that his eyes could meet hers - they were close.  His eyebrow arched and one corner of his mouth lifted in a self-satisfied smirk.

“Like what you do see?”

Altheia released his hands and sat back, and now she didn’t try to hide her gaze sliding down Julian’s long neck to the chest exposed by his almost-open shirt.  She tilted her head a little, and after a deliberately agonisingly long pause, she looked him in the eye again.  She didn’t say anything, simply purred,

“Mmm.”

She reached out to his sides, and as her hands came to rest just under his ribcage, Julian shivered.  He tried to stop the quickening of his breaths, breathing deeply instead.  Altheia’s eyebrows twitched upwards and she bit her lip in amusement - at least, Julian thought it was amusement.  The fabric of his shirt bunched and shifted over his skin under her palms.  When she leaned forward to slide her hands around to the small of his back, her chest almost brushed his.  She reached up, up, and he felt her breath on his neck.  Her hands spreading across his shoulderblades, she said in a low voice.

“See, a real rogue would have a cross-strap here, and at least two knives, one for each hand.”

As she spoke, she drew a cross shape from Julian’s shoulder down to his waist, over his spine.  He let out a noise that was somewhere between a squeak and a grunt, but said nothing, nor did he move.

But when Altheia’s hands passed the dip of his oblique, above his hips, he squirmed and spluttered a laugh, his hands coming down to push hers away.

“Ticklish?”  Her eyes were bright with delight.

“A-a bit.  Just a bit.”

He cleared his throat as the ticklish sensation settled, and he straightened again, but couldn’t quite hold a straight face when Altheia said,

“Not very roguish of you.”  She returned her hands to his sides, careful to avoid the ticklish spot this time.  Her gaze locked with his, and with a mock sternness she said, “Stay still now.”

Julian swallowed back a whimper.  He was aware that his blood was rushing rapidly south, and he closed his eyes and willed it back north before she noticed.

It didn’t work.  How could it, when she was leaning so close, when her fingers brushed firmly over his belt, curving then over the belt and then between the belt and his body, and because his shirt was half untucked, he felt the backs of her fingers against his skin , and he wished he’d worn higher-waisted trousers, because when her hands lingered just below his navel he thought she must have noticed by now.

“Nothing there, either,” she said with a disappointed sigh, withdrawing her hands, but only so she could place them at his hips.

Julian scrunched his eyes up tight.  Focus on something else, anything else…

Her fragrance.  Now she was closer to him, he could make out the warm notes of vanilla , but the citrus eluded him still… not so sharp as orange or bitter as lemon, something delicate and fresh, oh and there was sea salt, too…

Her hands were at the crease of his thighs, fingers reaching to the opening of his pockets.  Of course she knew there couldn’t possibly be a knife there, she’d have felt it long ago.  But Julian was beginning to realise that she might not be looking for knives after all.

“Not so much as a flick-knife,” she said, her voice low and velvety.  

“N-no?  I must’ve… uh, maybe I…”

She straightened enough that she could meet his gaze, close enough that her breath skated across his flushed cheeks as she smiled mischievously.  Her hands spread across the tops of his thighs, her thumbs moving in a light caress, and she’d definitely noticed now.

Julian’s thoughts were caught in a vague space between panic and absolutely nothing, as one of her eyebrows arched, and she purred,

“Oh, there it is.”

For a moment, neither of them moved, or spoke, their breaths moving together in the hot air between them - But the fact that her cheeks were flushed did not escape Julian’s notice.  Just as Julian was scrambling to decide if he should move, or wait for her to move, or if perhaps neither of them would move at all and they’d just stay like this, Altheia’s hands slid quite suddenly down the length of his thighs and over his knees to the tops of his boots.  She slipped her fingers inside, and deftly retrieved both the knives strapped to his calves.  With a triumphant smile, she flipped both of them up into the air, caught them by the handle, and stuck them both point down into the wooden table.

Julian chuckled, lowering his arms to his lap and carefully covering his crotch with his hands - for what it was worth now .

“You er, you knew they were there the whole time, didn’t you?”

Altheia rolled her eyes.   “I didn’t come down in the last shower, you know.  They're there as a last resort in self-defence, and I'd bet you've mastered the art of drawing them with as much dramatic panache as possible.”

“Er…”

Julian flushed, scratching the back of his neck.

“I’ve met my fair share of rogues,” she continued. “And you , Doctor…”  She poked his chest.  “...are not one.”

“I’ll have you know I can be very dangerous when I want to be,” he said sulkily.

“Really?” she scoffed. “How many times have you used those knives?  Other than for cutting apples, ropes and sacks?”

“One sack!” Julian protested, barely holding back a laugh.  “One time!”  He sighed, giving in.  “I can look dangerous, though.  I’m tall–”

“I noticed.”

“...tower above most people, puff out my chest and draw knives from my boots with, what did you call it… panache, I can be quite imposing, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m sure you can.”

They both laughed, and the smile that Altheia gave Julian was almost one of fondness.  She leaned forward just a little, her hand resting lightly on his knee.

“So, Julian, thank you for the concern but no, I don’t think I’m taking much of a risk letting you into my cabin.”  She shook her head, amused.  And with a squeeze of his knee, she leaned towards the teapot, and tutted.  “That was longer than three minutes.  It’s stewed.”

They settled back on the couch, teacups in hand.  Julian wasn’t particularly fond of tea, but he was increasingly fond of his host.  They talked, about everything and nothing.  She listened to his stories, told him stories of her own, and they laughed.  They got through two pots of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits.

He barely noticed that any time had passed, until the ship’s bell rang to signal midnight.  Altheia sighed and set her cup down, stretching her arms up so high as she yawned that her shirt lifted out of her belt, allowing a peek of her midriff.

“This has been lovely,” she said as she got to her feet, smiling as she reached down and offered Julian her hand.  He took it and stood up with her.  “Bedtime now, I’m afraid, I’ll never hear the end of it if I’m not up at dawn with those scallies.  Get your coat, I’ll show you to your bunk.”

“Right, of course.  Thank you.  And thank you for the tea.”

He found himself squeezing her hand.  He held her gaze, and she didn’t move away.  Her eyes closed, briefly, as he leaned forward and gently kissed her cheek.  When he leaned back, she rocked up onto her toes and kissed his cheek in return.

She took a step back, looked at him with another smile, and then swept her coat up and onto her shoulders before striding from the cabin.  Julian took a deep breath as he pulled his own coat on, feeling the warmth of her lips as if they were still pressed to his cheek.  He exhaled heavily, and after a glance at the bed behind the curtain, followed Altheia out onto the deck, and then down the hatch below decks.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anywhere else to put you,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.  “Oh and mind your head, these beams are low.”

“I’m not picky,” he said as he followed her to the crew’s quarters.  “I can sleep anywhere.  Out like a light the moment my head hits a pillow.”

“Ah… I think we should have a pillow somewhere…”

The small room was lined with low bunks and several hammocks.  Altheia rummaged in a chest in the corner, and with an “Ah-hah!” pulled out a rolled up canvas, handed it to Julian and retrieved a pillow.

“Over there,” she said, pointing to a corner where Julian could see some hooks in the ceiling and wall.

“Ah.  Marvellous.”  Julian unrolled the hammock, stretching it out between his arms, and grinning with a child-like delight.  “I haven’t slept in one of these since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

Altheia crossed her arms over her chest, seeming amused.  “You know how to hang it?”

“Of course!”

He didn’t.  Or at least, it had been so long he’d forgotten, but he reasoned that it couldn’t be that difficult.

His reasoning was wrong.

Altheia leaned on her shoulder on the wall and watched, offering words of highly amused encouragement.  But after a few minutes of entangling himself in the canvas, hanging it up twisted, and cursing at it, he finally gave up and looked at Altheia pleadingly.

“Could you uh… could you help?  Please?”

She looked at him mischievously, as if she might consider not helping and letting him struggle on a bit longer.

Julian fluttered his eyelashes.  “Please, Captain?  Will you help this poor sailor hang his hammock?”

She burst out a laugh, and pushed herself away from the wall.

“Look, it’s like this…  Are you watching?”

“Yes, captain.”

Julian knew he was standing a little too close than he ought to, his chest barely brushing her back, almost leaning over her shoulder as he pretended to be paying attention to her.  He knew she knew he wasn’t paying much attention, and she didn’t seem to mind very much.  Nor did she move away from him, even when he found himself leaning into her neck, his nose close to the soft spot behind her ear, beneath the wisps of hair that had escaped her braid.

…until the powder in her hair tickled his nose, and he span just in time to sneeze in the opposite direction.

Altheia laughed and turned to face him as he turned back, and she ran her hand through her fringe and over the back of her head as she pulled a face.  “Horrible stuff.  I hate it.”

Julian raised his eyebrows.  “Then why use it?  In Port Tremaire, I’ve only seen– ah.  Yes, nobles and merchants.”

“Ugh.”  Altheia pulled a face of disgust, and put on an exaggeratedly well-spoken tone.  “Yes, one has to put on an appearance at social gatherings , you know.  Including stupid hair powder.”

Julian snorted a laugh.  “Yes, I see that.”

“I hate it.”

“I see that, too.”

Altheia sighed.  “I’ll have to wash it out in the morning.  I’m too tired now.”

“Goodnight then, Captain.  I’ll see you in the– well, it is morning, I suppose.  I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Julian flashed her his most charming smile, and turned to sit on the hammock.

“No!  Not like–”

Altheia reached for him but it was too late - sitting on the edge of the hammock made it spin, and Julian fell back, crying out and flinging his arms out to catch his balance, but instead grabbing Altheia’s hand; she tried to pull him back up, but his momentum was too strong, and with a squeal she was pulled on top of him as he fell onto his back on the floor.

For a moment Julian lay, dazed, limbs splayed every which way and one leg raised up and tangled in the hammock.  Then he noticed the weight on his chest.  It was Altheia, and she’d somehow ended up with one leg between his and the other on the other side of him.

Julian stared wide-eyed, horror flooding his chest, as Altheia pushed herself up onto her hands and looked down at him.

“Did I… did I really just…”

Altheia snorted a laugh.  “Yes, Julian, you really just fell out of a hammock and pulled the ship’s captain on top of you.”

“Oh.”  Julian lay his head back and closed his eyes, wincing at his clumsiness and absolutely mortified.  “Oh dear.  Altheia, I–”

He opened his eyes when he felt her hand on his chest and her body shake with laughter.  Her other hand rose up to cover her mouth, but he could still hear her muffled laugh, and it was infectious.  Julian laughed along with her.

“I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” she said when the laughter abated.  The fondness returned to her expression; and it didn’t escape Julian’s notice that she hadn’t yet moved.  “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“No.  I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

“Did you?”

Altheia gave a wry smile.  “You cushioned my fall.”

“So I did.  Lucky you.”

Lucky him .

And for a moment they stayed there, on the floor, simply looking at each other.  Julian found himself reaching up and resting his palm on her cheek.  And she nuzzled ever so slightly into his touch.

She abruptly got to her feet, and carefully disentangled Julian’s leg from the hammock rope before hauling him up.  With one squeeze of his hand, she stepped away.

“Don’t sit on it like that,” she cautioned.  “You have to–”

“Lie back, spread the weight, got it.”

“Yes.  Good.  Well then, goodnight, Julian.”  

“Goodnight, Altheia.”

She held his gaze a moment longer, then turned on her heel and walked away.

Julian watched her go, then sighed heavily and lay back on the hammock - carefully this time.  He looked up at the ceiling, listening to Altheia's boot heels on the deck above, her voice faint and muffled as she woke Stev up and told him to go to bed.  As Julian closed his eyes, he could see her smile, feel her lips on his cheek and her hand on his chest.  And as the gentle swaying of the hammock lulled him towards sleep, he lay his hand over his chest where hers had been, and mused that of all the Situations that losing a card game could have landed him in, this was by far the most pleasant he could have imagined.

Chapter Text

Like falling, but falling up, an invisible resistance pressing down on him, as if swimming up towards the surface of the ocean under a propulsion that was not his own.  He couldn't breathe and he thought his chest might burst, he could see nothing but stars in an inky void, hear nothing but his own blood thundering in his ears with his racing heart.

A sense of panic overtook him as he gasped for breath that wouldn’t come, drowning… but then her lips were on his, her hand was on his cheek, her body was pressed up against his and he was inside her, one with her, and she grounded him, brought him back; for a moment there was light, sea-green and silver, and then he burst through the surface.

A sound like the wind chimes in Altheia’s bedroom window sounded in his mind, and Julian opened his eyes.   His breaths were ragged once he'd convinced his lungs that he could in fact breathe, but he was struck by complete disorientation.  He wasn’t waking up in a hammock, but on his knees; still with the slight sway of the ship beneath him, the faint creak of timber around him.

“Breathe,” she whispered, “Breathe with me.”

Her hand was on his chest, her lips on his cheek.  His hands were still bound behind his back, preventing him from holding her, from putting his hand over her heart, but she was there, her magic rippling gently over his heart, and that was enough.

She sat back enough to look into his eyes, her own brow furrowed in concern, eyes searching.  And for a moment Julian was struck by the fact that it wasn’t the Altheia he’d just been with.  A few more lines radiated from the corners of her eyes, the curves around her mouth were a little more pronounced, the creases in her forehead a little deeper.  It was disorienting, when just a moment ago he’d been drinking tea with a younger her, one that was strikingly different but also the same.

It wasn’t enough.  He needed more, he needed it all.

He realised she was anxiously waiting for him to speak.  He took a deep breath to relax, and let it out with a shaky laugh.

“Did it work?” Altheia asked, barely above a whisper. 

“It did.  It did work.”  Julian smiled at the barely-contained delight in Altheia’s expression as she bit her lip to try to hide a smile.  “And the pain, it… hasn’t gone, but it’s less.”

Altheia breathed a sigh of relief, and kissed his lips with her smile.  “What do you remember?  Something connected to the vielle?”

Julian glanced at the cut rope that lay on the floor next to him, and then he looked behind him as far as he could, at the vielle the rope had been connected to.  He shook his head as he looked back at her.

“Not entirely, not all of it.  But I didn’t just get the memories back, Theia.  I lived it.  It was like the most vivid dream, I lived it, I walked with you, I heard your voice, I saw your smile, felt your touch…”

A lump rose up to his throat and tears to his eyes as the gravity of it sank in.  Their past, a part that they’d thought they’d lost, they had no idea of, and he had it back.  Speaking of it was like telling her about a dream he’d just woken from, except it was real, it was their truth.

Altheia’s forehead touched his, her body trembling with something between laughter and weeping.

“I know how we first met!” he told her.  “We were at Port Tremaire, and you beat me at cards, even though I cheated - but you cheated too.  I didn’t have anything to pay my losses with, and I didn’t want to give up the vielle, so you took me on your ship, said I could play to entertain you and the crew.  You took me to Vesuvia.”

Altheia gave a startled laugh.  “I did?”

“Yes!  Yes, we drank tea and you helped me hang a hammock.  And then I fell off it, and you fell on top of me.”

She laughed again.  “Sounds about right.  Is that all?  There’s nothing more?”

“No, that was it.  Falling asleep in the hammock is the last I remember.”  

Altheia looked down, visibly disappointed.  But Julian was, too.

“You were wonderful,” he told her quietly.  “A true captain.  I knew almost immediately that I wanted to spend more time with you.  And for some reason, you wanted to spend time with me, too.”

He gave a faintly self-deprecating smile, at which Altheia clicked her tongue.  

But Julian had noticed the energy around them had waned a little.  Altheia had noticed too, and she kissed him gently.  

“Let’s continue,” she said softly.  

She began the slow roll of her hips again, a shuddering moan under her breath escaping her as Julian hardened once more inside her, and he lowered his forehead to her shoulder, closing his eyes as the magic around them rose again.  

They would move on now, to the next relic, the next memory, another period in time.  One that would confirm what they already knew, that they’d been together before, during the plague, when she’d been his apprentice.

But Julian couldn’t take his mind off of the Altheia he’d seen from years even before that, of their hidden past, that which they’d never even contemplated, believing that her time as his apprentice had been their first meeting, their only romance.  Now, he’d seen her in her own element, a privateer aboard her own ship, her own self, master of all she surveyed.  This may be his only chance.

“I need more,” he said hoarsely, urgently, lifting his head to look into her eyes.  “I need all of it.  Send me back.”

“I can’t just send you,” she said under her breath, though Julian could see the thoughtful look in her eyes.  “That's not how it works.  The ritual said to cut the ropes, we have to move on–”

“Never mind the ritual,” Julian surprised her - and himself - by saying.  “There must be a way.  You have to try.”  He craned forward to press a kiss on her jaw and nuzzle her cheek with his nose.  “Please.  Please?”

“I don’t know…”  She looked at the cut rope, her brow creased and her mouth twisted as she thought.  Slowly her eyes turned back to his.  “Alright.  Think back to the last thing you remember.  You were getting into a hammock, right?”

Julian nodded, almost frantic with relief.  “I was laying there, listening to you… your footsteps walking back to your own cabin, I could feel your hand on my chest…”

The faintest hint of a whimper escaped her, though her lips were pressed together.  She looked down, and Julian followed her gaze to where her hand now rested over his heart, exactly as it had then.  Only now, the compass glowed, just as it did on her own chest.  

“That’s the connection,” she whispered.  “It always has been.”

“Always.”  

She hooked her left arm around the back of Julian’s neck.

“The compass, I think… I think it will guide me.  I can feel it.”  She held his gaze with those soul-searching, piercing eyes.  “Are you sure?”

No hesitation.  “Yes, Theia, please…”

“And… the pain?”

“It’s less,” he insisted fervently.  

“Okay… close your eyes.  Think back, focus.  Keep that image in your mind… no, not the image, the feeling.  It’s always been about the feelings.”

“You’re my morning star, Venera,” he whispered.  “You can guide me.”

“And you’re my rising sun, darling.  Light my path.”

Julian felt almost delirious with the way Altheia moved again, her magic rippling from her hand and over his skin, to his heart, and the other hand on the back of his head sent out more waves to seek that which he saw, what he felt, from before.

Eyes closed, he thought back to that memory, like thinking back over a vivid dream, the way she’d sat over him, hand on his chest as she laughed… the way he’d still felt her touch as he’d drifted to sleep…

With a deep sigh, he slipped back under.

Julian was woken with a start by a shrill, piercing whistle, cheerful shouts, and heavy footsteps rushing around on the deck above him.  He all but fell out of his hammock, catching himself at the last minute with a stumble.  He hurriedly straightened his shirt, untied his hair to run his fingers through it in an effort to neaten his auburn waves to at least look a bit less like he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, tied it back again, and then went to the hatch.

As he lifted himself up the short ladder and peered up out of the hatch, he was greeted by the sights and sounds of Vengeance’s crew hurrying about their duties; boots hitting the wooden deck, deckhands laughingly trading insults, ropes creaking as the last crate of supplies was hoisted up from the dock, and the rumbling swoosh of the great canvas sails unfurling.  Someone nearby was whistling a shanty.  The sun rising on the horizon cast a low golden light over proceedings, and gulls cried in the distance above.  The nostalgia caught Julian up in a buzz of excitement as they were about to set sail.  

Above the cacophony of sound, the Captain’s voice rang out, clear and commanding, and Julian turned to look up to the raised quarterdeck.  Altheia stood at the railing, resplendent in her long crimson coat and tricorn hat, her braid still powdered white, hands behind her back, eyes darting over the buzz of activity, nothing escaping her scrutiny.  Her first mate, Maurice, stood beside her, occasionally waving a deckhand over to pass on orders.  

She was utterly captivating.

Just as Julian was wondering whether to approach her, try to help or stand out of the way, her gaze settled on him, and she smiled brightly.  But then something beyond him caught her attention, and she scowled, hopping down the steps.

“Good morning, doctor,” she said as she passed, not breaking stride.  “Be with you in a moment.”  Raising her voice, she called, “Stev be careful with that!  You’re about to hit the capstan!”

Julian watched as Altheia helped guide the supply crate down onto the deck - without hitting the capstan, or anything else - and when it was settled she directed two deckhands to wind the winch back to the dock and pull up the gangplank, and send two others, with Stev and the ship’s cook, to take the supplies below decks.  She made one last tour of the deck, apparently ensuring all was to her satisfaction, before returning to Julian.

“Sorry for the rude awakening,” she said, though there was a quirk to her brow.  

He smiled.  “Morning, Captain.”  He tore his gaze from hers to look up at the sky, grey-blue dawn with charcoal clouds scudding in a breeze.  “Fair winds to be setting sail.”

Altheia pulled a face.  “I’m not quite so reliant on the winds as most, but I’d have preferred a southerly.”

Julian frowned slightly.  “What do you mean, you’re not so reliant on the winds as most?”  When Altheia gave a coquettish raise of her eyebrow, Julian realised.  “Oohh, this is a magic thing, isn’t it?  You’re showing off again.”

“You’ll see.”

With a smile and a wink, Altheia returned to the quarterdeck, then waved for Julian to join her.  “You’re my guest,” she told him.  “You can stand by my side, if you like.”

Julian felt a thrill rush through him.  “I would like that, very much.”

He did as she’d asked, a little awkwardly at first, not quite knowing how close he should stand, so after a minute of dithering he decided to stand perfectly still.  To his delight, he found that Altheia chose to stand as close to him as she could without hitting him in the face every time she pointed a command to a deckhand.

Altheia turned her attention back to the deck, as more sails were unfurled and supplies carried below decks - rather a lot of supplies.

“That’s, er… that’s quite a lot of food you have there, for a voyage of a day and perhaps a night.  Even for a return trip.”

“Oh, we’re not stopping at Vesuvia for longer than a day,” Altheia said, not looking at him.  “Nor are we sailing straight back to Port Tremaire.  I’ve got some smugglers to root out first, and after that, well… we go where the tide takes us.  We’ve got enough provisions for a month, two at a pinch, and I have victuallers in almost all the ports - and elsewhere.  I won’t be back to Port Tremaire or Vesuvia for several months, maybe a year.”

“I see.”  Julian tried not to let his disappointment show, and managed a smile.  “I’m lucky I caught you when I did.”

“Brought together by the tides of fate,” Altheia said whimsically.

Julian opened his mouth to ask if the tides of fate might allow him to stay aboard the Vengeance for a while longer.  Instead, realising how incredibly presumptuous that was, he decided to change the subject.  “Everyone seems very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed considering how much rum they got through last night.”  He gave her a curious look with a raised eyebrow.  “Would you really make them eat weevils for being hungover?”

Altheia gave a low chuckle.  “Doctor, I’d be failing in my most important duty if I let even one weevil into a ship’s biscuit.  And they know it.”  She looked over the crew again, fondness in her eyes.  “They work hard for me, they deserve a break every now and then.  Besides, Maurice’s whistle is punishment enough for a hangover head.”

With a sly smile, she nodded at the First Mate, and he obliged by blowing another long, high-pitched keening note with his whistle.  Watching several deckhands wince in response, Julian understood Altheia’s point.

Dawn still hadn’t fully broken, the sun only just peeking above the horizon, when the gangplank was lifted, supplies stowed and sails set full.  At Altheia’s signal, Jack - who hadn’t come down from the crow’s nest at all, as far as Julian could tell - rang the bell, and Altheia called “Weigh anchor!”

She turned to Julian with an enigmatic smile.  “You might want to stand back.  Why don’t you head for the bow?  You’ll get a lovely view out of the harbour.”

Julian dared to lift an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth in a smirk.  “True, true.  But if I stand back at the stern, I’ll get a lovely view of, well…”  He leaned forward to murmur in her ear, “You.”

She rolled her eyes, looked as if she might say something, but smiled instead.  Julian couldn’t help noticing the warm flush of her cheeks.

“Doctor, if I’d known you were such a flirt, I–”

Julian’s smirk became devilish and he winked.  “You still would have invited me aboard, don’t say you wouldn’t.”  Suddenly doubting himself and Altheia’s intentions, Julian quickly back pedalled.  “Unless… unless you don’t want… what I mean is, I won’t if…”

“You’re doing just fine.  If I didn’t want you here, you’d know about it.”  

Julian didn’t doubt that for a second.

He stepped back and watched as Maurice took the wheel, and Altheia stood just in front of it.  She held her hands together in front of her, pointing downwards at her feet.  She brought her arms up in a slow circle, raising up onto her toes, and as she did so a breeze rose up around her, growing stronger and whipping her coat around her legs and her braid over her shoulder.  Behind him, Julian heard the water begin to bubble and churn, and he looked back to see waves rising up from several metres away and washing up against the hull of the ship, pushing it forward.  The deckhands pulled in the last of the ropes from the moorings, and the Vengeance began to make her way smoothly towards the harbour mouth.

“Is she doing that?” Julian asked no one in particular, staring at Altheia’s back.  “Making the sea and… the wind?”

Maurice heard, and he turned his head.  “Aye.  She’s a bit special, that one.”

As Julian looked at the Captain, the way she stood firmly in command of her ship, of her crew, of the sea and the wind in the sails, ‘special’ was just one of many, many words he could think of to describe her.  But when they were out into the open water and her ship was set on its course, when Altheia turned back to Julian with bright eyes and a suddenly beautiful smile, he forgot every single one of them.

Hands behind her back, she took three steps towards him, boot heel to toe, and stopped mere inches from him.  Her smile was bright as she let out a breath, but the way she looked up at him was almost coy.

“And that’s why you’re not very reliant on the winds,” Julian said.  “You just…”  He made a fluttering gesture with his fingers.  “Make your own.”  He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head with a lopsided smile.  “Isn’t that cheating?”

She held up her hand with a little space between her thumb and forefinger.  “Only a little.”  She grinned, and then asked, “Breakfast?”

Julian nodded eagerly.  “Please, I’m famished.”

Altheia took a spyglass from her pocket, extended it, and held it to her eye, looking first straight ahead of them, and then to either side.  Apparently satisfied with their course, she gave a sharp nod, pushed the spyglass closed and dropped it back in her pocket, and turned to the First Mate.

“Maurice, the deck is yours.”  Turning back to Julian with another bright smile, she said, “Come on, we need to be quick.”

“We do?”  Julian followed Altheia as she hopped down the steps of the quarterdeck.  “What’s the rush?”

“I want to watch the sunrise.”  She paused, looked to her right, over the grey sea, as if she couldn’t make eye contact as she quietly added, “With you.”

“Oh!”  Julian’s voice was a little high-pitched in surprise, and he cleared his throat.  “That, uh… that would be lovely.  And yes, we’d best hurry, or we’ll miss it.”

He felt a rush in his chest, biting his lip to hold back a stupid smile.  This voyage, and his Captain, were turning out to be full of surprises.  Quite delightful surprises.  He almost wanted to pinch himself for the hundredth time, because the surprising Situations he usually found himself in were never quite this, well… delightful.

Glancing at Altheia, he saw her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh, and heard a quiet hum.  Then she turned, gestured to some steps behind the mainmast, and led Julian down into the lower deck.  He had to half-stoop to avoid the low wooden beams, but he didn’t mind in the slightest.  

As they passed some more steps leading down to an even lower deck below the waterline, Julian stopped to peer down.

“The orlop deck’s down there,” Altheia said.  “You could–”

She was interrupted by a gruff woman’s voice echoing up from the deck below;

“No, he couldn’t.”

“Kiri,” Altheia called down, rolling her eyes.  “Play nice.  Doctor Devorak is our guest.”

“Your guest,” the woman called back.  “Ain’t mine.”

Altheia sighed, putting her hands on her hips as she looked back at Julian.  “She’s the ship’s surgeon.  I was going to suggest you could take a look at her theatre, she’s just procured some new surgical instruments which I’m sure she’d love to show off to a like-minded doctor.”

She raised her voice towards the end of the sentence, purposely so that Kiri would hear.  All that came back from the depths of the lower deck was a non-committal grunt.

“I don’t think she likes me very much,” Julian mused, as he and Altheia walked away from the stairs.  “Usually it takes at least a line or two of conversation before that happens.”

“I don’t think she likes anyone very much,” Altheia replied.  “But she’s good at what she does.”

Altheia pushed open a door and led Julian into the galley kitchen; it was tiny, barely big enough for them both, with crates of food that had yet to be unpacked.  Julian noticed an open crate of lemons and nodded approvingly.

“No scurvy on this ship!”

“None, I’m happy to say.  That was Kiri’s doing.  Luckily I have a contact with a plantation that–” she flushed suddenly, looking away as if embarrassed.  “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear about all that.  Here, let’s see what we have…”

Julian wanted to hear everything, in fact.  He thought he could listen to Altheia talk all day about her ship, her crew, even her contacts at lemon plantations…

But he stayed quiet, hovering awkwardly in the doorway and watching as Altheia scooped bread rolls, cheese and fruits into a bag, and then filled a small bottle with water from a barrel and dropped a slice of lemon into it.

“We’ve got a few days yet before we’re down to salt beef and biscuits,” she said wryly.  “Come on.”

Julian followed her back out onto the deck and towards the bow of the ship, but rather than heading up to the bow as he’d thought, she slung the bag over her shoulder and started up the rigging of the foremast behind the sails.  She paused, looked back over her shoulder with an arched eyebrow, and asked,

“Can you climb, Doctor?”

Julian scoffed.  “Like a rat up a drainpipe.”

“That’s an… interesting analogy,” Altheia said, with a baffled raise of her brow.  

With a devilish smirk, Julian said, “Race you?”

And before the Captain had a chance to answer, Julian had jumped up into the rigging, and with a surprised laugh she clambered up the rigging alongside him.  It was close, but she got her hand up onto the yard arm before him and hauled herself up, then turned and held her hand out to him.  He didn’t need the help, and he knew she was making a cheeky point of winning rather than actually offering her help; nonetheless, he took her hand, and sat beside her, both hooking their feet into the rigging to keep their balance.

“What analogy would you use, then?” Julian asked, watching as Altheia took the bag from her back and put it on her lap.  

She shrugged.  “A cat up a tree, probably.”

“If you only knew how many cats I’ve had to help down from trees…”

“An advantage of being tall, I suppose.”  She offered him a bread roll.

“Oh yes.  Cat rescuer extraordinaire, that’s me.”

Altheia chuckled and gave him a sidelong glance.  “I’m sure there’s a joke about rats, drainpipes and rescuing cats somewhere there.”

Julian snorted a laugh, because the thought certainly had crossed his mind.  He winked at her.

“Several, I’m sure.  But I’m too much of a gentleman to tell them.”

Altheia leaned over to nudge his shoulder with hers as she laughed.  

They shared out the food, and then sat watching the sunrise as they ate.  This high up, they could feel the sway of the ship as it cut through the calm sea, feel the cool and salty breeze on their cheeks, hear the cries of gulls, the fluttering canvas sails, and the chatter of the deckhands below.

The ocean stretched out before them, unbroken.  They would turn soon to follow the coast, but for now there was nothing but sea to either side, glistening in the golden light of the rising sun.

Beside him, Julian felt the rise and fall of Altheia’s deep sigh, and he looked across to see a look of contentment on her face.

“I often watch the sunrise when it’s clear like this,” she said eventually, brushing crumbs off her lap.  “But… it’s nice to have the company,” 

Julian swallowed his mouthful of food.  She couldn’t really mean… could she?  Doing his best to act nonchalant, looking down intently at his hands brushing mostly-invisible crumbs off his own lap, he asked,  

“In, ah… in general, or…”

Altheia clicked her tongue and nudged his shoulder again.  “No, not in general.  I’m surrounded by people all day, every day.  I meant your company in particular.”

Julian’s mind went blank; he attempted to speak, stammered something incoherently, and shoved some cheese into his mouth as an excuse not to talk while he gathered his thoughts.  Only then did he realise what he should have said, but couldn’t say it when his mouth was full of cheese.

Altheia turned her head to look at him with a half smile curving her lips.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

Julian swallowed again and cleared his throat, finding his words.  “Ah, it takes more than that to embarrass me, you know.  I just, er… I’m surprised.  That’s all.  But as it happens, I’m enjoying the company, too.  Your company in particular.”

Altheia laughed softly.  Looking out over the sea, she rested her hands on the yard either side of her, her left hand in the very small space between her hips and his.  Julian’s eyes flitted down, looking at the back of her gloved hand.  Hesitantly, uncertain how she would react, but thinking that it seemed enough of an invitation she might perhaps react quite well, and that if she didn’t react well he could always pretend it was an accident and he hadn’t noticed her hand there, he looked back out across the sea as she did, and slipped his hand down to lay lightly over hers.  When she didn’t move, he dared to run his fingers over the backs of hers.  And when her thumb moved up to stroke the side of his hand, his heart skipped a beat.

They sat in silence for a time; as each grew more certain that the other did, in fact, like the touch, their fingers slid over and between each others’ in light caresses.  As if by some unspoken agreement, then, Julian lifted his hand just slightly, Altheia turned hers, his palm nestled against hers, and their fingers laced between each other.

“What will you do in Vesuvia?” Altheia asked after a while, her voice soft but surprising him with the question.

“I, er… well… I haven’t given it much thought.”  He gave her a sidelong glance and a raised eyebrow.  “I only knew I was going to Vesuvia a few hours ago.”

Altheia huffed a soft laugh.  “True.”  She looked down at their hands, and her fingers tightened very slightly between his.  “Where were you going?”  She turned her eyes up to his, a slight sadness in them.  “I don’t think you were going to stay in Port Tremaire.  That bag of clothes and vielle are all that you have, aren’t they?”

Julian frowned and looked away, suddenly ashamed.  He would have pulled his hand away, were it not for Altheia tightening her grip just a little, just enough to let him know he didn’t have to pull away or be ashamed.  He swallowed thickly.

“I don’t know where I was going.  I never do.  I like to travel.”

“Alone?”

“Mostly.”

Silence for a moment.  Then, “You don’t have a special someone?”

“N-no.  No, I don’t.”  He almost added, “Apart from the someone sitting next to me right now .”  Except that would have been far too forward.  Instead, he asked, “Do you?”

Altheia’s eyes narrowed just slightly and her lips twitched towards a smile.  “No.  I travel too much.  Never settled.  I’ve had someones, but none special enough to settle with, in any case.”

Julian wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing.  But he shimmied along just enough that their thighs touched.  He heard the very softest, slightest intake of breath from her.

After another moment of silence, he asked,

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

Julian nudged her side with his elbow with a smile.

“Something else.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you bring me aboard?  I find it hard to believe it was just to let me pay off my gambling debt with questionable vielle playing.”

Altheia snorted a laugh.  “I’m sure your vielle playing is wonderful.  And you haven’t got out of that, by the way.  But…”  She chewed her lip a moment, glanced at him, then looked away again.  “That’s not the only reason I brought you with me, no.”

Julian felt a heady rush run through him so fast it made him giddy.  Like a teenager whose voice had only just broken, he hoarsely squeaked,

“No?”

“No.  But you’ve stayed longer than I thought you would.  I enjoy your company a little more than I thought I would.”

“Huh.”

When Altheia didn’t elaborate, Julian turned his head a little, enough that he could look at her, see the slight crease of her brow, as she continued to look straight ahead.  As if fumbling for a distraction, she took a drink from the bottle of lemon water, but as the ship pitched a little to the side, some of the water spilled onto her chin.  She tutted as she put the bottle away, but before she could raise her hand, Julian leaned over, touched his fingertips to her jaw and swiped the water from her bottom lip and chin with his thumb.

Their eyes met, sea-green and storm grey, inches apart, reading each other and finding the verses they were looking for.

Without thinking, Julian leaned down and brushed his nose over her cheekbone, and then his lips over her cheek.  He heard her sharp inhale, saw her eyelashes flutter.  When she turned her head to look at him, the tip of her nose brushed his.  Her eyes dropped, a glance at his lips and back again.  He couldn’t help his eyes sliding down to her mouth, to see the slight part of fine, dusky pink lips, a dimple above the corner raised in a half smile as she waited.

Trying his hardest to stop his nervous trembling, and not quite managing it, Julian murmured,

“Can I… can I kiss you?”

Altheia gave a slightly incredulous laugh.  “Yes.  If you want to.”

“I do, very much.”

Still uncertain, as if somehow he could have misunderstood a very direct ‘yes’, Julian placed his kiss at the very corner of Altheia’s mouth.  Her lips parted and curved into a smile, and she turned just a little, enough that their lips touched but not quite in a kiss.  Her breath was warm against his skin as she said,

“You can kiss a little more.  If you want to.”

“I do…”

His eyes closed as her lips moved against his, drawing him into her kiss, and it was like a burst of light ignited within him, rushing through him and lighting up every part of him, the attraction so immediate and intense that he found himself leaning into her.  She purred deep in her throat, her free hand coming up to hook around the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his whole spine.

He was almost dazed and had to blink to focus on her when she pulled back, and she ran the very tip of her tongue along her bottom lip as if tasting him there.

“That was very nice,” she told him.

His voice a little high-pitched, the only words Julian could gather to reply were,

“It was.”

She gave a soft giggle, and leaned in to kiss him again.  With her lips still against his, her voice low and velvety, she asked,

“Are you cold?”

“No no, not at all.”

“You’re shivering.”

“I’m… I don’t know… am I?”

He couldn’t find words, so he kissed her again, and this time he reached across her midriff to rest his hand in the curve of her waist and pull her ever so slightly closer against him, her body delightfully pliant as she twisted at the waist to press her chest against his.  He only then realised his missed opportunity to suggest she could warm him up.  Which was probably for the best, he decided.

He suddenly had an awful feeling he might taste of cheese.  He’d stuffed his face with it just minutes earlier.  Like an idiot.

But if he did, she didn’t seem to mind, and Julian decided it was best not to overthink it.  Besides, his thoughts were rapidly vaporising, as Altheia deepened the kiss further, her tongue sliding past his lips.  

He inhaled deeply, breathing her in, her scent of vanilla and delicate citrus that wasn’t lemon, but the taste of lemon water lingered on her tongue, and he hummed against her lips.  He almost couldn't believe it was real, that any of this was real.

They were interrupted by a shout from the lookout on the mainmast behind them, and Altheia sat abruptly back away from Julian, snatched her spyglass from her pocket and looked out across the sea.  Shielding his eyes and looking in the same direction, Julian could see a ship on the horizon.

“Is that…?” Altheia murmured.  “It is!”  She snapped the spyglass back and dropped it into her pocket again.  “Shit!  It’s the Crimson fucking Serpent!”

Julian blinked out of his daze as his brain caught up with the change in atmosphere so sudden he could have got whiplash.

“Who?  What?”

“I’m sorry, we’ll have to finish this later.”

“Later?  What?  Finish what?  Altheia?”

But she’d already grabbed a rope and shimmied down to the deck, leaving a very bemused Julian to follow in her wake.

The First Mate’s whistle pierced the air loud enough to make Julian wince as he dropped down to the deck and looked around.  The Vengeance was suddenly a hive of urgent activity, with crew climbing up into the rigging to adjust the sails, or hurrying up the deck, the jovial banter gone and replaced with urgent shouts to each other.  The quartermaster was directing two men to haul a large box out of the hold; within it were weapons, and some of the crew began to hand them out.  

All of this while the ship’s Captain strode along the deck, giving out her instructions in a raised, commanding voice.  Not knowing what else to do, Julian followed behind her, dodging out of people’s way.  At Altheia’s command, the cannons on the deck were armed, and the gun ports on the starboard side of the ship were opened, with the cannons there being moved into position, too.  Despite the urgency, the rush and bustle, there was no panic, it wasn’t chaotic.  Everyone seemed to be well drilled and knew what they were doing.

Except for Julian.  One minute he’d been watching the sunrise and kissed by an incredible woman, the next minute that woman was apparently leading the ship into battle.  His thoughts struggled to catch up, partly still caught in that dreamy state he’d been in with Altheia’s lips against his.  And partly because he seemed to now be sailing into yet another Situation.  It seemed to him that quite a lot had happened in a very short space of time.   

And he had no idea how to navigate any of it.

Trailing after her as she jumped up to the quarterdeck to look through her spyglass once more and instruct Maurice on the ship’s bearing, Julian half wondered if Altheia had forgotten he was even there.  As he felt the ship begin to turn beneath them, heading directly towards the other ship, he hesitantly stepped up to the Captain’s side.  

“What’s going on?  What ship is that?”

Altheia glanced at him, then handed him the spyglass.  “The Crimson Serpent.”

“Ah yes, you did say that.”  Julian looked through the spyglass at the ship, seeing red sails and a figurehead displaying the eponymous sea serpent.  “The Crimson fucking Serpent, if I heard correctly.”  He handed the spyglass back with a wry smile, and was relieved to see Altheia huff a short laugh.  “Are they pirates?”

“Not the aggressive kind, but yes.  Her captain and I have something of a history,” she said tersely.  “He’s a nuisance.”

“The Vesuvian smugglers you were talking about?”

“Either that, or he’ll know about them.”

“He’s tacking towards us, Cap’n,” Maurice called.

“I see that, thank you.  Keep steady, the wind’s in our favour.”  She grinned suddenly.  “This’ll be fun.  I do love when he puts up a fight.  I wonder if he’s got himself a magician yet.”

Julian felt the thrill of adrenaline rush through him, but he was conflicted.  He’d had enough of standing on the sidelines of a battle for one lifetime.  And he certainly didn’t relish the prospect of watching Altheia get hurt - though he couldn’t deny finding the sudden fierceness of her incredibly attractive.  And then he felt guilty for doubting she could handle herself - he was very sure that she could - and guilty for having such inappropriate feelings at such an inappropriate time.

Altheia turned her head to look properly at him for a moment, and her expression softened.  She sighed, glanced up at the sails and, apparently judging that there was enough wind that they didn’t need any of her magic, gestured to him to follow her.

“Come with me.  We’ve got a few minutes.”

She hopped down the steps and onto the main deck, and then through the door to her cabin.  Julian followed her, but as soon as the door closed behind him she swept him into her arms and pulled him down into a passionate kiss.  He was so surprised that he didn’t respond immediately, but when she pressed her thigh between his legs he melted into her.  Between kisses, he managed to murmur,

“I have… absolutely no idea… what’s going on.”

Altheia couldn’t help but laugh against his mouth, but she entwined one hand into the curls of his hair while the other wrapped around the small of his back, pulling him closer.  After a moment they broke apart for air, and Altheia gave a breathless chuckle as she rested her forehead on his collarbone, her hands on his shoulders.  Her thigh was still pressing against Julian’s now very obvious erection, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to push against it.  His hands came to rest in the curves of her waist and he looked into the bright sea-green of her eyes as she reached up to tug affectionately at a curl of hair that had escaped the tie at the back of his head.

“Julian, I…”  She paused, bit her lip, looked down.  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Julian blinked down at her, struggling to form a thought, never mind words.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said eventually.

She lay her palm on his cheek.  “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine.  But you should go below decks, I think.  Maybe with Kiri.”

Julian, still very aware of Altheia’s lean thigh between his legs, her hand on his cheek and the other on his hip, her waist beneath his hands, grappled with what she was suggesting.  He shook his head, and gave a rueful burst of a laugh.

“I can’t… quite find words,” he told her.  “Or thoughts, actually.  But I… I don’t want to hide away.  I want to be by your side.”

Altheia tilted her head a little to the side, looking at him curiously.  For a moment, Julian thought she might insist he should go below decks, and he wouldn’t be able to argue with her - this was her ship, and a doctor belonged out of the way, really.  

But instead, she said,

“Alright.  But keep out of the way.”

And fixed her mouth over his in another fierce kiss, this time so deep that Julian accidentally knocked her hat from her head and it tumbled to the floor, and they both laughed against each other’s mouths.  When they finally pulled back, Altheia suddenly reached down and cupped the bulge of Julian’s confined erection, and his eyelids grew heavy with the lust that shot through it from balls to tip.

“That's for later,” she purred.

She pecked a kiss to his lips, another to his jaw and another to his throat, and then whirled on her toes to stride to the table where she’d left her sword, bending to scoop up her hat on the way.

Julian was left completely dazed, very aroused, and not really any the wiser about what was going on except that Altheia was now strapping her sword belt to her hips under her coat, apparently about to fight pirates, and leaving him on a promise.

He snapped out of it when she pulled his knives from where she’d stuck the points into the table the night before, and tossed them to him.  As he caught them, she said,

“Try and stay out of trouble, but if you get cornered then do that thing you were talking about.”

“Look incredibly dashing and menacing with flair and panache?”

Altheia burst out a laugh.  “Yes, that.”  

With her sword settled at her hip, she gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him into one more kiss, and then strode past him and out of the door just as the First Mate’s whistle blew once more.  

For a moment, Julian simply couldn’t walk… but after taking several slow breaths, he tucked one knife into his boot and the other into his belt, and followed.

Altheia had raised up her magic and filled the sails again, and the Vengeance was closing in on the Crimson Serpent.  

“She’s at full sail,” Altheia said.  “Maurice, do you think our friend is trying a bait and switch?”

“Could be,” the First Mate said.  “What’s your orders?”

Julian noticed the narrowing of Altheia’s eyes and the curve of her lips that was almost playful, but in the way a cat might play with a mouse.

“Chain shot.  Slow her down.  I’m in the mood to dance.”

The message was relayed down the gun crews and they loaded up the cannons.  Julian glanced at Altheia to see her eyes narrowed as she stared intently ahead, the raised quarterdeck giving a good view of the length of the main deck, over the bow, and across the sea to where the Crimson Serpent was cutting towards them.  He almost didn’t want to break her concentration, but curiosity got the better of him.

“What, uh… what do you mean, dance?”

Altheia’s eyes flicked to him in a sidelong glance, then focussed straight ahead again.

“I don't want to kill anyone,” she surprised him by saying.  “No amount of silks or fine furs is worth a life.”  She paused, and then one side of her mouth lifted in a wicked half-smile.  “But I do want those silks and fine furs.  Look how heavily she’s sitting in the water, that’s why she’s at full sail.  She’s got quite a cargo.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s water weight, though,” Maurice put in dryly.

Altheia snorted a laugh.  “True.  Alright, here we go.”  Her voice took on that commanding tone again.  “Take us past her starboard side, then hard over once we’re clear.”

They drew up alongside the other ship, and it didn’t escape Julian’s notice that the pirate ship was bigger, with more crew and more guns.  But he remembered Altheia’s words, that she won by the manoeuvrability of her ship, and her crew certainly seemed more disciplined, loading up their cannons faster.  At her command, they fired a round of chain shot, each with two cannonballs tied together with chains, and they whistled through the air before shredding through the sails of the enemy ship.

“Again!”

The second shot crossed paths with the shots from the Crimson Serpent, but most of their shots missed and landed harmlessly into the sea, and the jeers of the Vengeance’s crew carried across the small space between the ships as they drew almost level, because their shots had clipped the top of the Serpent’s mainmast, and it hung precariously, only prevented from falling by virtue of being caught up in the rigging.

“Hold fire and shorten sail!” Altheia called to the crew.

She leaned forward onto the rail of the quarterdeck as they drew level.  Julian saw the captain of that ship, who could best be described as big - tall, and broad with muscle, with a cutlass hooked to his belt and arms crossed over his chest.  

“Still haven’t improved your aim I see!” Altheia taunted.

“Don’t get cocky, Featherstone,” the pirate captain retorted.  “I’ve got a surprise for ya.”

A boy, no older than thirteen, stepped around from behind the captain.  He was slim, with tanned skin and wild flame-red hair, wearing an ochre coloured vest and loose trousers, cuffed just above some beaded anklets, that seemed to float around his legs, and a red asymmetrical sash was tied around his waist with the ends hanging down to the side of his right leg.   He seemed absurdly small standing beside the big captain, but carried himself with a cocky posture, hands on his hips.  

Julian glanced at Altheia to see her frown at the boy, then look back at the captain incredulously.

“And?”

The pirate merely leered at her.  The boy beside him raised a hand, palm up, and an apple-sized flame sputtered to life.

Altheia’s eyes widened as she hissed under her breath.  “Shit!  He did get himself a fucking magician.”

“A pyromancer,” Maurice said, his voice wavering with something approaching panic.

“Does he have the same morals as you about the whole… silks and fine furs not being worth a life, thing?” Julian asked, trying to keep his tone light-hearted.

“Julian, this ship is made of wood, canvas, hemp, tar, and barrels of gunpowder,” Altheia said through gritted teeth.  “All of which are very flammable.  A pyromancer is just about the worst weapon he could have.”

“Lucky for us that we have a powerful tidemancer, then,” Julian said with a measure of surety and a smile, hoping he didn't sound as nervous as he felt.

Altheia gave him another sidelong glance, but with a half-smile.  “True, we do.”  She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, turning to look at him fully.  “We’ve fought many times.  Neither of us have taken loss of life.  But that’s not to say he won’t try to sink us, and I’m a little too attached to my girl to lose her.”

“What do you think to that, princess?” the captain taunted, interrupting them.  “This is Bo.  I’ve told ‘im to go easy on you if you’ll sod off and leave us be.”

The boy flashed a smile and waved which, combined with the pirate calling her ‘princess’, seemed to have the desired effect of irritating Altheia.  Clenching her fists by her side, she narrowed her eyes before shouting back, “You’re trying to threaten me so I’ll sod off without a fight?  All I’m hearing is that you’re scared to face me, Wolf!”

She turned back to the sails and raised her arms, and Julian stepped back from the wind that gathered quickly around her before filling the sails so that the Vengeance picked up speed.

“Hard about!” Maurice called as the ship passed the Serpent, and then spun the wheel so they turned their broadside to the other ship’s stern.

The young pyromancer climbed up to the stern rail, and to the surprised shouts of Altheia’s crew, flung his flame towards the Vengeance.  But before it got anywhere near them, Altheia’s sword was in her hand and with one arcing sweep she effortlessly raised up a sheet of sea water in the space between the two ships, and the fireball dissipated with a hiss.

She held out her hand, and motioned towards herself with two flicks of her fingers as she smirked roguishly at the boy.

“Captain, I don’t think–”

But if she even heard Julian’s voice, she gave no sign of it, as she yelled,

“Come on then, Bo.  Let’s see what you’ve got.  Don’t go easy on me!”

Bo raised his hands in a graceful arc, drawing flames up between them, then span with an elegant grace and flung them across the space between the ships, to be quenched by Altheia’s water once again.

Vengeance was swifter than the Crimson Serpent, and once turned fully so they were on the same heading, began to draw up alongside her again.  Julian watched, completely dumbfounded and feeling utterly useless, as Altheia and Bo fell into a kind of dance; the pyromancer skipping along the deck, twirling and flinging fire, apparently aiming for the sails, while Altheia kept step, her rapier flashing in the morning sunlight and calling on the sea to rise up in waves, arcs and spouts.  Every now and again she’d shoot a shard of ice whistling across to the Serpent, to be melted by Bo’s fire.

The guns didn’t stop, though, and the two ships were rocked with each shot.  Large splinters of wood were flung into the air when a shot connected - more on the Serpent than on Vengeance.  But as Altheia and Bo moved in step down towards the bows of their ships, one shot - probably more by accident than design - struck a rail and sent one sharp piece of wood to embed itself like a knife in the thigh of one of the Vengeance’s crew and, to Julian’s horror, another to fly towards Altheia.  She turned just in time, and it shredded the sleeve of her coat at her upper arm, her brief cry of pain telling that it had cut into her arm.

Julian started towards her, but she shot him a glare, as if knowing he’d try to help her.

“I’m fine!  Help Renata!”

Julian nodded and crouched by the injured crew member, who lay groaning on the deck with two others around her.  One reached to pull the wood from her thigh, but Julian shoved him away.

“Don’t!  You could make it worse.  It has to be removed carefully.  If you want to help, get some of that brandy.”

“Who are you?” Renata asked through teeth gritted in pain, her tone coloured with suspicion.  “An’ ‘ow would you know anythin ‘bout wounds?”

“I’m a doctor, my name’s Julian,” he said, managing a reassuring smile and his calmest voice.  “You’re Renata, I presume?  Lovely to meet you, though the circumstances could be better.  You’ll be pleased to know I have plenty of experience with war wounds, did my apprenticeship on a battlefield with the finest of Prakra’s doctors.”

As he spoke, Julian removed his belt and made a hurried makeshift tourniquet tied above the wound to stem the blood loss.

“Aye alright, stop yer prattling,” Renata muttered.

But by then Julian was talking as much for his own benefit as for hers, as visions of the horrors of the battlefield flashed in the back of his mind, of amputations with no anaesthetic, and if he stopped talking he’d hear his own thoughts, they’d overwhelm him.  So he didn’t.

“Not a fan of brandy myself, I’m more of a rum man, maybe a bitter or five if there’s salt in it.  I’ve heard this stuff’s particularly disgusting, but should be good enough to clean a wound with.”  He took a bottle the crewmate thrust at him.  “Might sting a bit, hold still.”

Renata hissed as Julian poured some of the alcohol onto the wound, and then gave her the rest of the bottle to chug.

“Well done, you’re doing great.”  He got to his feet, and turned to the two crewmates.  “Two strapping young men like you ought to be able to carry her below decks, yes?  Kiri has some new surgical instruments, I heard, I’m sure she’ll be able to put them to very good use and have you right as rain in no time.”

Renata grumbled something that could have been a thank you, as the two men hoisted her up and hurried her below decks.  

Julian took a deep breath, closing his eyes and doing his best to block out the shouts and firing of the cannons.

Altheia’s shout caught his attention and he whirled back to face the bow.  Over on the other ship, the boy pyromancer had made a vertical circle of fire, and with a cheeky wave at Altheia, he bounded through - only to disappear…

…and reappear in a burst of fiery light right in front of her, and he waved again.

“Hi!”

Before anyone could react, he jumped up and grabbed her hat, then turned and bolted back towards the stern of the ship.  The sound of Wolf’s belly laugh, as well as cheers from the pirates, carried over from the Crimson Serpent.

Altheia’s face was thunder as she started after Bo.

“You little shit!”  

The boy ran, dodging anyone who reached for him, including Julian.  With a grin and a wave, he put the hat on his head and jumped up into the rigging of the mainmast.

“Hey!  Give that back!”

With barely a thought, Julian jumped up into the rigging after him, Bo’s laughter only serving to fuel him.  Just as the boy reached the crow’s nest, Jack the lookout leaned out and hit the top of his head with a book.  The boy yelped, but hauled himself up onto the yard and started shimmying across.  He made a circle with one hand, and what must have been a fiery portal appeared at the end of it.  Julian reached out and grabbed his foot just as he jumped through, and was pulled with him.

For just a few seconds, he tumbled through a hot, black void, and the next thing he knew he was rolling onto the deck of the Crimson Serpent, looking up to see Wolf towering over him, looking just as shocked as he was.

“What the fuck?”

“Er… Shit.”

Julian scrambled to his feet and pulled his knives, whirling to face the captain but not at all sure that any amount of flair and panache would help, as his thoughts struggled to catch up to what the hell had just happened.

Suddenly they stumbled as the ship ground to an abrupt, jerking halt and a cold air rushed over them.  Stunned, he looked towards the bow to see that the ship had run into a sheet of thick blue ice that coated the sea for several metres in every direction, and that Altheia was standing on the rail at Vengeance’s bow, holding onto a rope with one hand and her sword with the other, standing on the rail.  Julian’s heart jumped to his mouth and he started forward, noticing then that the Vengeance’s crew had moved away from the cannons and were readying ropes with grappling hooks.

“Enough games, you little shit!” she shouted over, even as Bo ran forward and flung fire down to melt the ice.  But Altheia must have been expecting that, and one arc of her sword brought a large enough wave out of the water that she could hit Bo square in the chest with it, quenching his fire and sending him staggering back.  Altheia flung a grappling hook over, and then swung gracefully across to the Crimson Serpent , dropping onto the deck, as all along the ship her crew followed her lead.  

The young pyromancer recovered to pull a knife and start to call fire to its tip, but Altheia gave an exaggeratedly irritated sigh and simply flicked it out of his hand with the tip of her rapier, sending it spinning into the sea.  Barely breaking her stride, she swooped down to pluck her hat from his head and place it on her own, and then spun to level her blade with Wolf’s throat, forcing him to come to an abrupt halt, cutlass in hand.

They stared at each other for an agonisingly long moment, Altheia breathing heavily but her glare unfaltering.  Bo started towards her, but Julian grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and though the boy scowled up at him, he didn’t try to escape, simply crossed his arms over his chest sulkily.

Altheia held out her hand then, and after another moment and then a heavy sigh, Wolf handed her his sword, handle first, in a gesture of surrender.  As she took it, he reached out and mussed her still-powdered hair.

“Alright, princess,” he said with a chuckle.  

“Fuck off,” she muttered, shoving his hand aside.

“You win.  I’ve got furs, booze, couple of exotic animals, couldn’t tell ya what they’re called.”

Julian could see Altheia still bristling at being called ‘princess’, but she didn’t falter.

“That’s why you’re sailing heavy?  Barrels of booze?”

“Eh…”  Wolf scratched the back of his neck.  “That, and we got a leak.”

Altheia laughed.  “I knew it!  Maurice, you were right!” she called to the First Mate as he swung over and landed on the deck.  “He’s taken on water.”  She looked back at Wolf as Maurice gave a mocking laugh.  “Alright, I’ll take the booze and half the furs.  It’s too close to the summer for them to sell well.  You can keep the animals, but take them back to where they came from.  Let them loose.”

To Julian’s surprise, the burly pirate captain actually bowed his head.  Altheia sheathed her rapier on one side of her belt, and the pirate’s cutlass in the other.  Doing so showed the wound of her arm, and Wolf gestured to it.

“Looks nasty, that.  Sorry.”

Altheia snorted.  “Don’t apologise, it’s not like you did it on purpose.”

She turned to Bo then, who wriggled in Julian’s grasp but stared at her defiantly.  She bent, resting her hands on her knees, so she was eye level with him.

“You don’t want this life,” she said, surprising Julian again, but this time with the sudden solemnity and almost sadness to her voice.  “And you definitely don’t want your magic to be the reason a ship catches fire and sinks, even if it’s by accident.  Go home.”

Bo stared at her with wide eyes for a moment, then nodded vigorously and bolted below decks.  Wolf followed, leading Maurice down to the hold, as more of Vengeance’s crew swung over with ropes to lash the two ships together and set gangplanks between them.

Altheia turned on her toes to face Julian with a little spring in her step, her eyes bright and fierce in victory.  Julian couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss anyone more than he did in that moment.

But her torn coat sleeve caught his eye, and he reached for it as she turned her head and lifted the arm to glance at it.  Holding her arm with one hand, he carefully peeled back a little of the tear with one gentle finger.

“It’s bleeding,” he muttered.

“It’s fine.”

He held her gaze.  “It might need stitches.  You really don’t want an infection.  Let me take care of it.  Please?”

Her eyes narrowed just slightly and she tilted her head a little.  Then her lips curved in a smile softer than he’d yet seen from her, and she nodded.

“Alright.  We’ll be here a while waiting for all the cargo to be transferred anyway.  Come to my cabin.”

Chapter Text

“I think you’ve got off lightly,” Julian murmured, as he examined the cut on Altheia’s arm.  “It should heal fine without stitches.”

Altheia was sitting on the couch in her cabin, and Julian had pulled up the chair from the desk to sit in front of her.  He’d helped her out of her coat, hoping the tear could be mended, but cut through the sleeve of the shirt up to the shoulder with a sweep of his knife.  He sat now, his own shirt sleeves rolled up, with her outstretched arm cradled in his hands; the cut up the inside of her upper arm was long, but it wasn’t deep, and had stopped bleeding.  

“Thank you, doctor,” Altheia said, and made to pull her arm back.  

But Julian tutted, and kept a hold of her.  “Oh no you don’t.  It doesn’t need stitches, but it does need a bandage and some salve.”

Altheia relaxed with a gracious smile and a slight bow of her head.  “Whatever you say, doctor.  I’m in your hands.”

The way she turned her eyes up to him made his cheeks flush, but he returned her smile.

“Yes, you are.  Now hold still, this might sting a bit.”

Julian reached down to the small medic bag at his feet that he’d retrieved from his belongings before meeting Altheia in her cabin, and rummaged around for a small pot and a roll of bandage.  

“You always carry bandages around with you?” 

Julian raised an eyebrow.  “I am a doctor, you know.  Wouldn’t be much good if I didn’t have the basics with me, now would I?”

Altheia chuckled.  “Ah, true.”

As Julian scooped a pea-sized amount of the strong-smelling salve onto the tip of his finger, he met her eyes.

“You didn’t believe I’m actually a doctor, did you?”

“In my defence–”

“You really didn’t!”

“In my defence, Julian,” Altheia laughed, “you were calling yourself ‘doctor’ as part of your bit while you were cheating at cards.”

Julian gasped and pressed his hand over his chest melodramatically.  “I’m hurt!  You wound me, Captain!”

Altheia leaned forward, close enough that her breath danced over Julian’s cheek.  “I’ll have to kiss you better then, won’t I?”

“What a good id–”

His words melted into a hum against Altheia’s lips as she did just that.  Her kiss was as warm as her smile, relaxed and easy.

“There,” she said as she pulled back.  “How’s that?”

“Better, but I might need a second dose later.”  He gave a smirk and a wink, making Altheia laugh.  “Now sit still and let me clean this up before you get blood on the lovely couch cushions that you wouldn’t let me put my boots on.”

As he turned to his task of gently smearing some of the salve along the edges of the wound - murmuring a ‘sorry’ at Altheia’s wince - Julian tried not to dwell on just how good it felt to be with her, how at ease he felt with her and she seemed to be with him.  He thought that being held up by the fight with the pirates and loading their cargo would mean that the perhaps a night almost certainly would be a night, and there might perhaps even be another.  And then?  

He decided not to think about the ‘and then’.

“Your hands are very steady,” Altheia said quietly, as she watched him work.

“As sure and steady as the sunrise.”

Altheia smiled.  After a moment, she said,

“I’m sorry for what I said.”

Julian paused and looked up at her in surprise.  “About what?”

“About not believing you were a doctor.”

He gave a dismissive wave.  “You don’t have to apologise for that!  I wouldn’t have believed me either.  There, all done with that, I think.”

As Julian screwed the lid back onto the small pot of salve and reached for the roll of bandage, he could feel Altheia’s eyes on him… not scrutinising, exactly, more… searching.  

“It must have brought back memories.  The fighting, I mean.”

Julian didn’t really know how to answer that, so he busied himself with unrolling the bandage and measuring it out.

Eventually, he managed to say, “Yes, a bit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.  I’m alright.”

Julian’s mouth dried, and he cleared his throat before focussing again on his task.  Then he asked,

“Why did you let him go?”

“Wolf?”  Altheia raised an eyebrow; Julian nodded.  She snorted a derisive laugh.  “What would I want a leaky old ship full of half-assed pirates for?  It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“But won’t he just go back to smuggling again?”

“Of course he will.  Me punching a few holes in his sails won’t suddenly make him change his ways.  He’ll lick his wounds and start again.”  

“But that’s… not good, is it?”  

“It is if I catch him again.”

Julian looked up again, startled.  And seeing her sly smirk, the penny dropped, and he barked a laugh.

“So what you’re saying is, you let the pirates do all the hard work for you.”

“Smuggling is awfully hard work,” Altheia said glibly.  “Listen, I’m not here for good , Julian, I don’t want to arrest anyone.  I’m protecting my family’s interests, and if fate so happens to drop a cut of my rivals’ interests into my lap, well, I’m here for that, too.”

“So the smugglers steal from your rivals, and you steal from them.”

“I prefer to call it liberating the goods.  But, yes, basically.  My family gets a cut, of course.”

“Only a cut?”

That surprised Julian a little; what surprised him more was the sudden change in Altheia’s eyes.  There was something almost wistful in the sea-green.

“Wolf knows better than to go for Featherstone goods.  Most of the pirates do, once they’ve fought me a few times.  They see my flag, they run or we play a little.  I don’t want to simply be a sword for the Featherstone Trading Company anymore.  I want…”  She sighed, and watched Julian as he carefully wound the bandage around her arm.  “I want something of my own.  Not much, just a ship or two.  Nothing big enough to trouble my family.  I’d operate in different waters; they might not ever even know.  And then I’d get my own little place, somewhere on the coast.  Nothing so grand as an estate, just a nice cottage on a cliff near a cove to anchor the Vengeance.  But to do all that, I need money.  My own money.”

“You’ve really thought this through,” Julian said.

“Mmm.  It’s silly, I know.”

Julian looked at her again to see her looking wistfully out of the window, across the sea.  She looked back at him when he said,

“I don’t think it’s silly at all.  Do you want to know what I’ve dreamed of?”

Altheia tilted her head curiously.  “Go on.”

He faltered.  It had been so long since he’d spoken of it that he almost didn’t know how to give it voice, and worried that she would think it foolish.  He gently smoothed the bandage over her arm as he stretched the last of it over her arm and twisted the ends.

“A boat!  My own little sloop.”

“And where would you go with it?”

“Anywhere, everywhere.  There’s so much world to explore.  I want to drink with pirates in every port town - no offence.”

“None taken! Pirates are fun drinking partners.  They know the best games.  They'll have you on the floor if you're not careful.”

“I'm nothing if not careful.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Ah you know me so well already.”

Altheia sniggered, then went on, “What else would you do with this sloop of yours?”

“I want to find treasures on little islands that aren’t on any map, even if those treasures are only seashells and sea glass.”

“ Only? ”  Altheia gestured with her free arm towards the shelves nearby, with its jars of seashells and glass smoothed by the ocean to look like blue, green or cloudy white crystals.  “They’re the best kind of treasure.  That, and driftwood.”

“Oh you can’t beat a good piece of driftwood.”  It delighted Julian not only to be able to speak to her about his dream without her thinking him foolish, not only for her to understand it, but to see her eyes light up and her smile brighten.  “That’s where the stories are.  Give me a piece of sea glass or driftwood, and I’ll tell you where it came from.”

Altheia laughed.  “You will?”

“I will!  You see that green piece near the top of the jar?”  He pointed with his free hand.  “Glass from a bottle that carried a message to a lost love all the way from Firent to the Strait of Seals.”

“They must have been very lost if they were at the Strait of Seals.”

“That’s why they had to send the message in a bottle, of course.”

“Oh, of course!  But then how did it end up on the beach near Macawi Port, where I picked it up?”

“A whale.”

Altheia blinked.  “A whale?”

“Yes.  A whale.”  Julian managed to keep his expression absolutely deadpan as Altheia stared at him, waiting for more.  Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he added, “And that’s all I can say about it.”

Altheia burst out a laugh.  “And what about that piece of driftwood?”

“That, my dear, is from the mast of a ship lured to the rocks by a siren’s song and wrecked.”  He sighed dramatically.  “A tragedy.”

“Very good!  That explains why I picked it up at the bottom of a cliff just south of Nevivon.”

As she laughed, Altheia leaned very slightly closer.  Julian could feel the warmth from her breath, saw the slow blink of her eyes as they slipped down to his lips and back again.

“That’s where I’m from, you know,” he told her.  “Nevivon.”

“Is it?”

“Yes…”

Altheia lay her free hand on Julian’s cheek, her gaze meeting his and her smile fond.  

“Are there sirens at Nevivon?”

“Er… not exactly.  Lots of seals, though, and a lovely lighthouse, have you seen it?”

“Mmhmm.”

She kissed him again, with a softness that sent warmth rippling through him, and he closed his eyes as he returned it.  She leaned into him to deepen the kiss, and he, forgetting he hadn’t tied off the bandage, craned up to meet her - but she pulled back, sucking her breath sharply through her teeth in pain as Julian accidentally brushed against her partially bandaged cut.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!”  He caught the ends of the bandage from where they’d loosened, and tutted at them.  “I’ll have to start again.  That was stupid of me, Altheia, I’m sorry, I…”

His voice trailed off as Altheia caught his chin with the fingers of her free hand and turned him to face her as she raised an eyebrow with a half smile.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”  She gave a flirtatious quirk of her eyebrows.  “Well, except for being completely irresistible.”

Julian blinked, and felt his cheeks and the tips of his ears burn as his heart leapt.

Irresistible?  

He searched his suddenly empty brain for something smooth, or suave, or at least funny in a charmingly self-deprecating way.  But all he could come up with was,

“Umm… Uh, really?”

He suppressed a wince at himself, disguising it with a nervous laugh.  At the very least, he could have told her he wasn’t as irresistible as her.  A terribly cheesy cliche, but better than a stammered  “Really?”

But Altheia bit back a smile, and simply hummed.

“Sorry.  That was a bit forward of me.”

“Oh no, it wasn’t!” Julian said in a rush.  “Well… alright, it was , but…”  

What the hell was he even saying?  

“It was?”  Worry flickered over Altheia’s expression.

“In this particular situation, yes, but only because of your arm, you see, so…”

Better, that was better.  He relaxed into a smile.  

The worry slipped from Altheia’s gaze.  “So?”

“Keep still and let me finish this, and then you can be as forward as you like.”

His heart raced and pounded against his ribs so hard he was sure she could hear it.  He turned back to the bandage, winding it carefully around Altheia’s arm again.  She stayed very still, very quiet, until he finished tying the knot and sat back.  She flexed her fingers and then made a fist a few times, and the strength of her fingers and the shift of the muscles of her forearm under lightly tanned ivory skin couldn’t help but catch Julian’s attention.  But the bandage held steady, and Julian gave a nod of satisfaction.

“That’s a sound knot,” Altheia said approvingly.  “You’re very good with your hands, aren’t you?”

There was a certain sultry playfulness in her eyes and the slight quirk of one eyebrow that brought a heat to Julian’s chest, and another kind of heat flickered much lower down in enjoyment of the praise - and anticipation of what Altheia was likely alluding to.

Swallowing back his nerves, he replied, “It’s ah, it’s quite an important skill in my, uh, my line of work.”

Smooth.  There was playing it cool, and then there was… whatever the hell that was.

“It’s important in my line of work, too.”

Julian’s eyes widened a little in surprise that she hadn’t just laughed at him.  “It is?”

“Mmhmm.  But I tie ropes, not bandages.”

“O-of course you do.  Of course.  Lots of… of ropes, and knots.”  His stomach turned somersaults as his mind raced but tripped over itself, hardly believing what he was hearing, whether she could possibly mean what he thought she meant, and certainly that he shouldn’t show that’s what he thought she meant, because if she didn’t then he’d look like even more of a fool than he was sure he did already.  “There are lots of types of sailing knots, aren’t there?”

“Lots.  I can show you, if you like.”

Julian just about melted, and felt his eyelids grow heavy at the thought of it.  He held both of her hands in his, feeling her fingers lace between his.  One corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile.

“That’s very forward of you, Captain.”

“Ah!”  She sat back, a flush coming to her cheeks.  “I’m sor-”

Panicking that he’d said the wrong thing and deciding that it might be best if neither of them spoke for a little bit, Julian cut her off with his mouth fixing over hers.  Her fingers tightened between his for a moment before she pulled one hand free, and as she leaned into him, deepening the kiss and finding his tongue with hers, she reached up and managed to untie his hair with just one hand.

As the loose curls of his hair brushed the back of his neck, Julian smiled against Altheia’s lips.

“Ah yes, that’s quite a skill.”

She leaned back again, just enough to look into his eyes, but he could feel the faintest tremor in her hand as she curved it around the back of his neck, sending a beautiful shiver rippling down his spine.

“Tell me to stop if…”

Julian blinked at her, completely baffled as to whatever he could be doing that she could possibly think meant that he might ever want her to stop .  

Her fingers twined into his hair and tugged gently, enough to move his head to reveal a long stretch of his neck.  Julian could feel his pulse quicken as Altheia ran the backs of her fingers over it, and he shivered and closed his eyes as she leaned forward to kiss him there.  Her lips were soft against his skin, her kisses tender as they travelled the length of his neck.  

He drew in a shuddering breath when he felt the sharp scrape of her teeth; at her questioning “hmm?” he mumbled something at least comprehensible as an agreement, if not a word.  

He wasn’t expecting her to nip at his skin, and the sudden sharp sting of it, just below his jaw, made him gasp.  She flicked the tip of her tongue over his skin, kissed just below it, and nipped again, a little harder.  The pleasure-pain shot down Julian’s neck, down his spine, straight to the growing swell between his legs.  If anyone had asked him an hour ago, he would never have said that being bitten could have felt good, and yet it did , and he leaned his head back further, opening up more of his neck.

Altheia obliged, indulging in little kisses, bites that grew increasingly harder, soothed by her tongue, and before long she was drawing out soft moans from between his barely parted lips as he closed his eyes.  

Just beneath his pulse, her teeth pressed a little harder, and then she was sucking his flesh between them, hard enough to bruise, and Julian let out a whimper at the pain and the pleasure, his hands moving almost of their own accord to her waist, to slip up under her shirt enough to feel the warmth of her smooth skin beneath his fingers as they pressed into her flesh.  

She gave a self-satisfied hum as she leaned back away from him, and Julian forced his eyes open and straightened up.

“That was– oh!”

He let out a startled laugh as Altheia gripped the shoulders of his shirt and tugged him up, turned him, and he flopped back onto the couch, lifting up his hips and shimmying across so he was laying along its length.

“No boots on the cushions, remember,” she said, her eyes narrowed playfully, her breaths heavy.

“O-oh?  Ah…”

Before he could think to take his boots off, she’d lifted his right leg up onto the back of the couch, and shoved his left foot off the couch entirely, leaving both feet away from the cushions - and his legs quite apart.  She knelt up between them, nudging his thighs apart further with her knees, and Julian groaned softly in the back of his throat as she deftly unfastened the front of his trousers, then bent over him, her hand sliding down his stomach.

“If I show you how good I am with my hands,” she said in a purr, running kisses up his jaw to murmur in his ear, “Will you show me how good you are?”

“Anything you want,” he breathed.  “You don’t have to–”

His eyes closed and he groaned as he bit his lip and arched his back up into her touch when her fingers slipped down his trousers to reach beneath him, her palm stroking the full length - and it really was at its fullest by now - of his erection, and he wanted to tell her that he’d do anything she asked, anything at all, she didn’t need to do anything for him first, or in return, or even at all really… but words failed him, thoughts failed him, because she was just as good with her hands as she’d promised.

She leaned down, holding her weight with her hand on the arm of the couch behind him, pressing her lips on his, and then moving kisses, nips and sucks down his neck as her strong fingers curled around his shaft and she stroked him gradually firmer, faster, occasionally reaching deeper into his underwear to stroke his balls and his perineum.  He tried his best to hold back but he was hurtling embarrassingly fast towards his climax, and pressed his fist to his teeth to try and muffle whatever sounds were stuttering over his tongue from deep in his throat.

She stopped and pulled back slightly, but with her hand still around him, and Julian couldn’t suppress a whine as she circled his leaking tip with her thumb.  It took all his strength of will to keep his hips against the couch and not buck up into her hand for the friction, but he wanted this to last as long as he possibly could.

The heat of desire had her sea-green eyes burning like a desert oasis as they indulgently tracked his body.  With her free hand she pulled his shirt fully open, and bit her lip as she took her time exploring the curves and contours of his shoulders and chest, the planes and crevices of his stomach and hips.  

She dragged her eyes back to his as she asked,

“Is this okay?”

Julian blinked in astonishment that she could even ask and gave an incredulous laugh.  “Yes?  Please…  Please don’t stop…”

With a pleased hum, Altheia bent and explored Julian’s body once more, but with her lips this time, and Julian closed his eyes as he submitted to her attentions.  Her kisses were hot and hungry, her teeth nipping here and there, and his cock ached in her barely moving hand.  Everywhere she touched, be it with fingers or lips or the tip of her tongue, a warmth swirled over his skin, an effervescence.  

Still, she kept him maddeningly at the edge, until he was whimpering and pleading with her in all but words.  Eventually, she leaned down and ran his ear lobe between her teeth before whispering,

“How do you feel about leather?”

He looked at her in surprise as she sat back again, one eyebrow arched and a positively filthy smirk curling her lips.

“I think I uh… I think perhaps…”  He watched as Altheia bent to retrieve her black leather gloves and slowly pull them on, making a show of wriggling into the fingers.  A rush of excitement spread through Julian’s lower half until he didn’t think there was much blood in his upper half at all, and certainly not in the part of his brain responsible for cognitive thought.  “I think I’m about to feel quite strongly about it.”

He tentatively moved his hands to her hips, almost thinking he was doing something wrong, something forbidden.  She lay her now-gloved palm over his sternum.

“Your heart’s racing,” she told him, her voice low.

Julian could barely think, but he managed to say,

“Is yours?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

Deciding to show off just a little, Julian deftly undid the buttons of Altheia’s shirt with one hand, and gave a triumphantly roguish grin and quirk of his eyebrow.  Altheia chuckled, and then drew in a sharp breath as Julian’s hand slid up from her hip, gliding over the curve of her waist and belly, and then up to nestle between her breasts.  Beneath her ribs, her heart pounded almost in time with his.

“Oh it is ,” he murmured.  “Your heart beats for me like mine beats for you.”

It was a whimsically romantic notion, but a look flickered over Altheia’s face that Julian couldn’t quite fathom.  

And then that sultry, heavy-lidded gaze came back, and she wrapped her fingers slowly around his erection again, the leather of the gloves creaking.  A shudder ran through Julian; the leather was a wholly different sensation to her skin; cool, smooth, less pliant, and it was heightened by that feeling of it being somehow sinful, forbidden, decadent ; that these gloves were not just clothing but were part of Altheia’s tools while she worked, were her armour , saw use as a part of her, and now she was offering their touch to him.

Her touch was sure and true, her rhythm purposeful and building him up again in a rush.  Julian couldn’t hold back anymore, he had to chase her friction and his climax, but he couldn’t , it was too soon.  

“Let me show you,” he grunted, his voice hoarse.  “My hands.  Please?”

Altheia nodded, a little frantically in a way that surprised Julian; and she knelt up, allowing Julian to unfasten the front of her trousers with one hand - earning him a purr of “Very good,” that almost made him come undone right then and there.  

She helped him pull her trousers down enough that he could reach his hand between her legs, and he let out a shuddering groan when he felt how wet she was as he slipped one exploratory finger between her folds.  He knew well enough to find his way around, but he didn’t know what she liked, or how she liked it, and that was important.  And so he paid attention to every shudder of her hips, every sharp intake of breath and half-formed word, every tiny shiver of the bead of her clit.  He slipped a finger inside her, and at her insistent moan and rock of her hips, he added another, and he revelled in the delight of being able to touch within her, to give her pleasure as she gave to him.  

It didn’t last long, then, with her grinding her clit into his cupped palm and him writhing beneath her as her strokes of his cock grew firmer and more erratic, and then quicker, but he held back for as long as he could, painful though it was.  Her body seized for a moment and she let out a choked cry as she clenched around his fingers, and as the orgasm crashed over her she fell down against him, her sweat-slicked chest pressed against his, and sucked hard on the flesh at the base of his neck, pulling it between her teeth in a love bite, and that finished him and he pressed his knuckles against his own teeth again to stifle his cries as he pulsed into her gloved hand, spilling out onto his stomach.

And for a moment they simply lay there, chests rising and falling against each other as they caught their breath, her mouth open and hot against his skin.  Eventually, Julian withdrew his fingers, rewarded with a soft groan from Altheia.  He wrapped both arms around her, holding her down against him, mumbling a “sorry” when he realised his hand on her back was wet with her, but receiving only a muffled sound of vague acknowledgement in return, because she didn’t care at all.  

After a while, when their breaths and hearts had slowed, Altheia chuckled and raised her head, looking into Julian’s eyes with a satisfied smile as she reached up and brushed a curl of hair back from his cheek.

“You are good with your hands,” she told him.

He returned her smile, tugging affectionately on a lock of hair that had come loose from her braid.  It was still powdered white, and with the sun coming through the window to the side of them it seemed to glow like a halo as he smoothed it back behind her ear.  He rather liked it.

“So are you,” he replied, and returned her tender kiss.  “Not that I expected anything different, mind.”

“Hmm.”

With a satisfied sigh, she lay for a little longer on top of him, twirling a curl of his hair around her still-gloved finger.  Julian found he didn’t want to move, but as the euphoria began to fade, so his body realised what an uncomfortable position it was in.

“My, uh… my leg’s gone numb.”

“Hmm?”  Altheia pushed herself up again and looked around to where Julian’s leg was still slung up over the back of the couch, and she laughed.  “Oh, sorry.”  

She kissed his inner thigh, and then pressed her cheek there, looking at his softening cock as her hand hovered over it.  With a faint glow and a brief pulse of warmth, his cum was completely cleaned from her glove and his stomach.  

“That’s a, er… a handy spell,” he said with a lazy half smile.  “If you’ll excuse the pun.”

Altheia snorted a laugh.  “I’ll excuse it, it was quite good.”

She slid around to sit on the edge of the couch and pulled Julian up with her, and sat with her head on his shoulder and his arms around her, under her shirt.  After a while, she said,

“Will you do something for me?”

“Your wish is my command,” Julian replied with a bow of his head and a half smile.

Altheia tilted her head a little as she smiled, and then asked,

“Wash this damned powder out of my hair?  That's a wish, not a command.”

Julian agreed immediately.  But as he made to get up, Altheia patted his shoulder to keep him seated, and fetched a large basin and a jug.  They knelt on the rug in front of the couch together but to his surprise, instead of letting him rinse her hair, Altheia first insisted on cleaning him, which Julian jokingly took offence at - though was painfully aware that he hadn’t bathed for a couple of days, and probably needed it.

But he soon came to realise that it wasn’t about the washing at all - or at least, not entirely.  The water in the basin was conjured by Altheia, warmed by her magic, and with her gentle yet assured touch and a washcloth, she made her way around Julian’s body.  He didn’t know if it was her magic or if it was just her that made his skin tingle and his muscles relax, whether it was the soap or her touch that refreshed him.  She cleaned him of his sweat and their sex, but more than that, she cared for him.  She hummed a slow sea song that he recognised but didn’t know the words to, her voice velvety and low, and Julian felt a weight come over him, a good weight, soothing him and taking him into her centre.  Moving him to an uncharacteristic silence.

His hands, particularly, she attended to with a kind of reverence, gently cleaning between each finger, spreading his palms and tracing each line, looking at them as if she were performing a sacrament over precious relics.  

And then she turned to his neck, to the bruises and marks she’d left there.  There was a depth to her eyes as, for a moment, she regarded them thoughtfully.  Her eyes turned up to his and held his gaze as she lay her hand on his cheek, fingers brushing through his sideburn.  He closed his eyes as she leaned forward and kissed each mark and bruise with tender kindness, soothing what remained of the sharp sting and dull ache.  

Without a word, she reached for the salve in Julian’s bag, and as she unscrewed the lid he suddenly felt that he shouldn’t need it for just a bite - it hadn’t even broken the skin.

“There’s really no need, I…”

His intention to quip that he’d had far worse and even been bitten by a warhound once, died in his throat as she fixed him with a look that left absolutely no doubt as to her silent instruction.  Julian subsided with a nod, and said no more as Altheia dabbed a little of the salve over one particular point on his neck, one that did particularly sting.

It wasn’t an injury that needed healing, he realised.  It was a part of him, however small, that she needed to care for.

“Didn’t know you had a pleasure point there, did you?” she mused with a hint of a smile, gently running a fingertip along the track her lovebites had made down his neck and shoulder.

He couldn’t do much more than shake his head and murmur, “No.  But I do now.  And I won’t forget it.”

She hummed a little, and continued on in silence.

When she was satisfied, she ran her hands down his neck, over his shoulders, down his chest and his sides, as if smoothing out a wrinkle in a sheet… and Julian let out a deep sigh, and smiled, almost moved to tears by it all.

And in return, he did as she asked, kneeling behind her and gently unwinding her braid, combing it out with his fingers, some of the white powder sticking to his skin.  It ran in white streaks and rivulets as he carefully poured water through it, peeling away the mask that had been a necessity when in town, and leaving the licorice dark waves cascading freely past her shoulders.  

He found himself singing very softly, a song about mermaids that he thought she might like; then realised he didn’t know all the words and made some up… and she laughed, because she did know the words, but she liked his version better.  

When he’d finished, he dried her hair with a towel, and she turned around on her knees to face him again, and now her heart-shaped face was framed by damp tousled waves of dark hair and a fringe over her forehead, giving a contrast to the sea-green of her eyes that brightened them as she smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

They sighed into a kiss, palms on cheeks and fingers in hair.  Julian closed his eyes as he rested his forehead on hers for a moment.  Suddenly, the thought of leaving her seemed unbearable.

With another sigh, a hum, and a kiss on the tip of Julian’s nose, Altheia got to her feet and hauled Julian up with her.  As they straightened each other’s clothes, she said,

“I’m afraid I need to do a round of the ship, check the cargo’s stowed away and give Wolf and his lot the shove.”  She glanced out the window, squinting at the sun.  “And then it’ll be time for lunch, I think.  And then …”  She turned back to Julian with a roguish grin and poked his chest.  “It’s time for my entertainment.”

Julian quirked an eyebrow.  “Do you mean to say that my hands weren’t entertaining enough for the past hour or so?”

Altheia laughed softly.  “Oh, they most definitely were .  But you owe me a ditty on that vielle of yours.  Show me how else you can be good with your hands.”

Julian could feel his cheeks flush, because the look that Altheia dropped to his hands was laced with desire.  She raised his hands to her lips, kissed first one and then the other, and looked at him from under her lashes in such a way that if he hadn’t known she needed to get back to work, he’d have brought her into his arms and showed her every single way he could think of that he could be good with his hands.  

As it was, he instead gave a low, sweeping bow, winked up at her, and said,

“As you wish, Captain.”

Chapter Text

Altheia gasped as her eyes came open.  In darkness, disoriented, her only anchor was Julian and she clung to him from her seat on his lap as he knelt there, hands tied behind his back, head bowed, eyes closed.

She wasn’t quite conscious, she realised; neither was he.  Suspended in that sliver between wakefulness and dreams, their spirits were bonded, hearts entwined.  Still they knelt in that inky black pool scattered with thousands of tiny pinpricks of light like stars.  Still, the dark arms of the Reversed side of the Queen of Cups writhed tentacle-like in the shadows outside the flickering circle of light.  Still, the red ropes held Julian on his knees.  

Altheia gently placed her hands on his temples, careful not to wake him, and closed her eyes.  She reached out with her magic, searched for him…

He was happy .  In his dreams, beyond this place, somewhere beneath the waves of his memories and the net of Altheia’s spell, he was living out a piece of their past, and it was making him happy .  She felt a strange kind of jealousy at that.  But she was there to guide him, to cut the ropes of the spell, nothing more and nothing less.

She was acutely aware, though, that he was inside her, she was in control of the ritual, of the sex, and with Julian’s insistence on retrieving more memories than they’d anticipated, it was getting more difficult for her to restrain herself, to hold back.  She couldn’t stop , but if she went too far she risked breaking the ritual altogether, like bursting a bubble.  

She kept telling herself it was just magic, it was a ritual, a means of raising up energy and that was all… but it wasn’t just that, it was their bond flowing in a clear stream from heart to heart and hip to hip, it was their love and their passion and desire for each other, always there, always present, always…

A shiver ran through Julian’s body and the faintest groan passed his lips, and Altheia fleetingly wondered if it was caused by her here and now, or the her from the past , whatever memory he was reliving.  Whichever it was, the sound was enough to push Altheia an inch closer to her peak, a peak she mustn’t reach, not yet.

The energy between them was raising up, too.  These memories were buried deep, beneath at least ten or more years of a life lived - a rather eventful life.  

He was better off without you.

Her chest tightened as the voice, a husky whisper, infiltrated her senses, not just her hearing, but somewhere deeper.  It was her voice.  And for a moment, she believed it.  

But it was wrong, she knew that, it was the dark side of the Cups Arcana, and of Judgement, too… taunting her inability to control her emotion, doubting herself, wanting to protect Julian but failing him… and she couldn’t fail him now, she wouldn’t, she mustn’t.  

The thread to these memories was stronger now, easier to find, easier to take a hold of with her magic.  She wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressed her forehead against his, and with as firm a grip with her magic as she could muster, she pulled on that thread once more.  She could almost physically feel the knot unravelling, the spell break apart, the memories released, and the recoil of it took her breath away like a gust of cold sea air in a storm.  

Altheia closed her eyes, whispered Julian’s name, and followed him.

The crescent moon hung low over the midnight-blue, star-speckled waters of the cove a few miles along the coast from Vesuvia’s harbour.  Vengeance was anchored in the deeper waters of the cove, and two rowboats had been hauled up onto the beach by the crew that had used them to land from the ship.  Altheia had led a sweep of the beach and the smugglers’ tunnel that led all the way out from Vesuvia’s Red Market - a market that, by all accounts he’d heard from the sailors, Julian had decided might be his sort of place - but had found no signs of the smugglers except a camp that appeared to have been abandoned for a few days.  The captain then led them a little way up the tunnel, lighting the way with an orb of magical light.  She didn’t want to fight if she didn’t have to, but the clamour she and her crew made sent whoever was lurking in the tunnel scurrying away, leaving behind two large crates containing bottles of rum - immediately setting the crew to cheering raucously before returning to the beach with their loot.  Altheia sealed up the tunnel with a sheet of magical ice which, she said, would last until morning, keeping any rogue pirates or smugglers away.

They’d dug a pit in the sand, lit a bonfire, brought food over from the ship.  And now Altheia, her small crew, and Julian, sat and ate and danced around the fire.

Julian was realising that the ‘perhaps a night’ almost certainly would be a night, and he was glad for it.  

Kiri, the ship’s grumpy surgeon, lightened up considerably with half a bottle of rum inside her, and she talked eagerly with Julian about her new surgical instruments, apologising profusely for not showing him earlier.  In return, he promised to teach her all that he knew on the virtues of leeches.  

The two of them were sitting together on the sand sharing a bottle between them.  A little way off, some of the crew were playing a sea shanty while others were singing along.  Altheia was with them, joining in with the bawdy song and spinning arm-in-arm in a dance with Maurice, flinging sand up with her boot heels.

“Why ain’t you dancin’?”

“Hmm?”  Surprised, Julian looked back at Kiri, and flashed a smile.  “Because I’m talking to you, of course.”

Kiri snorted.  “Ah you don’t wanna be sittin’ here talkin’ about hacking off limbs when you could be dancin’ with our lovely captain, now do you?”

Julian felt a flurry in his chest at the thought of dancing with Altheia, part from excitement but mostly from nerves.  He scratched the back of his neck.  “Ah, I haven’t drunk anywhere enough rum for that.”

With a cackle, Kiri poked Julian’s shoulder with her bottle.

“Don’t be daft, lad.”

Julian watched in a kind of fascination as the doctor tipped her head back and necked the rest of the rum in her bottle - which had been at least a quarter-full.  

“Tha’s good stuff!” she slurred.  Leaning close to Julian, her expression very earnest despite her wobbling eyes, she said, “Listen.  You got one night.  Now go and fuckin’ dance with her!  And then …”  She winked.  “Fuckin’ fu–”

“Kiri!”  Shocked, Julian clamped his hand over Kiri’s mouth before she could finish.  “That’s– I’m not– I don’t even know if she would …”

She shoved his hand away, cackled “She would!” and turned to bellow out the words of the bawdy song the others were singing.

And then Altheia turned to him, a smile on her face and a glow on her cheeks, and waved him over.  And how could he possibly refuse?

Julian took one last swig of rum, pushed the bottle a little ways into the sand, and hopped up to join the Captain.  

“I thought you were going to talk about arm amputations all night,” she teased, a little breathless after her exertions.

“Not at all!”  Julian grinned.  “We were also talking at length about leeches.”

“Leeches?”  Altheia raised an eyebrow.  As she did so, she slipped her hand into Julian’s palm.

“You don’t know what leeches are?”  He tightened his fingers around her hand.

She tsked, as her other hand moved to Julian’s hip, sending a shiver through him.  “I know what leeches are!  I just didn’t know they were interesting enough to talk about at length.”

“Well then, allow me to enlighten you!”  His hand settled in the curve of her waist.  His gaze locked with hers, seeing an incredulous look in her eyes and raised eyebrow.  “They have so many virtues and uses, and you can tell which is which if you look closely at–  Mmpf! ”

Altheia gripped his shirt and pulled him down to fix her lips over his, effectively silencing him.  Around them, some of the sailors wolf-whistled, some jeered, one loudly pretended to retch.  Someone threw a peanut at Julian’s head and it disappeared somewhere into his thick curls.

When she pulled back, she tapped the tip of his nose with her finger and grinned at him.  “Later!”

And then she span away from him, only for him to catch her hand and spin her back, laughing, into his arms.  

There were no steps to this dance, this connection with each other and the music and song belted out by the crew who played or sang or danced around them.  The sand made them clumsy as it slipped under their feet, and they tripped as their toes caught in it, and they laughed and held each other through each slip and stumble, pulling each other out of the way of others who were increasingly drunk as the crate of bottles of rum was depleted.  For their part, Julian and Altheia drank little, enough to lower their inhibitions, for Julian's nerves to ease, for him to enjoy every spin and touch and hold and kiss unreserved.

Coats were discarded, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, shirts untucked from belts and unbuttoned almost indecently far, skin gleamed with sweat in the hot glow of the firelight.  

At one point they danced a sort of parody of a tango, but as Julian twirled Altheia under his arm and made to dip her back over it, she caught him and dipped him instead.  He stared up at her in wide-eyed surprise and delight, and she was strong enough that she could hold him like that as she bent and peppered kisses up his neck.  He was glad for the heat of the fire as an excuse for the deep blush he knew bloomed on his cheeks.

He didn't know how long they danced for, but they didn't stop until their thighs ached and Julian's arms were sore from how often he'd lifted Altheia up and held her or span her round until they were dizzy.  Every time he touched her, every time she put her hands flat on his chest or curved over his shoulder, when her strong fingers pressed against his waist or hips as she pulled him close, and especially when he couldn't keep himself from stealing a kiss and she laughed against his lips, he wanted her more and more.

After a while, the musicians complained that the rum was running low and they hadn’t even had a bottle yet, and set down their instruments to take a break as they put that right.  Altheia grinned at Julian.

“Well, Doctor, time to pay off your debt!”

Julian winced.  He’d been hoping to avoid that, because his vielle-playing really wasn’t up to much.  But he couldn’t avoid it, as Altheia fetched the vielle from the rowboat and handed it to him with a playful glint in her eye.  

“You know,” he began, plucking at the strings of the instrument to test if they needed tuning, “I uh… I wasn’t being coy, you know.  I really can’t play very well.”

“I didn’t say you have to play well,” she grinned.  “Only that you have to entertain me.”

“ That , I can do.”

Nerves nearly got the better of him as he raised the vielle to his chin, to cheers from the rest of the crew, and it was probably only the rum in his blood that saw him through.  He looked Altheia in the eye as she stepped back from him, away from the dancing light of the bonfire, and he began to play.

The first few bars were horribly out of time and barely in tune, but no one seemed to mind.  Some even recognised it and sang along - also horribly out of time and barely in tune.  Very quickly, Julian settled into the music, carried by the singing and dancing of the others.  Altheia danced, too, and Julian’s heart felt light with joy as he watched her.

He finished one tune and launched immediately into another, but Altheia stopped, and he saw her gasp.  Thinking he’d done wrong, he started to change the tune, but she waved and mouthed “Don’t stop!” before retrieving her coat and fishing out a small silver pipe from the inside pocket.  Turning back to him, a gleam in her eye, she put the pipe to her lips and started to play.

Julian’s heart soared and he could barely contain his delight as the light, clear sound of the pennywhistle sang to him and danced with the sharper tone of his vielle, sometimes in sync and sometimes back and forth, as if they’d rehearsed many times before.  As Altheia spun and danced, her licorice-dark hair flew around her head, and the sash around her hips streamed in a flash of crimson against her dark leggings.

Eventually, exhausted and out of breath, they dragged out the final note and collapsed against each other, laughing as the rest of the crew drunkenly cheered and hollered.  

“What do you think, fellas?” Altheia asked in a raised voice once she’d recovered her breath, though her eyes never left Julian’s.  “Has the doctor repaid his debt?”

Most of them cheered, some heckled, one threw another peanut at Julian, this time bouncing off his forehead.

After rubbing his head and scowling in the general direction of the source of the thrown peanut, Julian turned back to Altheia and flashed a smile with a low, flourishing bow.

“Well, Captain?  Will that do?”

She tilted her head a little as she looked at him, eyes slightly narrowed and a half smile curving her lips.

“Almost.”

“Oh?”

Julian’s eyes widened in surprise, as he winced inside - the last thing he wanted was to disappoint her, but he was so tired he didn’t know if he could even lift the vielle for long enough to play anything more.

“Mmm.”

Altheia’s eyes flitted to Julian’s hands, as he’d noticed them doing several times as they’d played.  Then she took the vielle, placed it carefully back in its case and put it alongside her pennywhistle under a seat in the rowboat.  

“Come with me.”

There was only one unopened bottle left in the crate, and Altheia took it in one hand, Julian's hand with the other, and led him away from the group and the bonfire, into the shadows of the arch of the cove, behind some large rocks.  With a tired sigh, Julian leaned back on the rock.

“Ahh, nice and cool.  The fire was getting a bit–”

A grip on his shirt pulled him down into her fierce kiss, and with a muffled moan he wrapped his arms around her and held her so close against him that they were touching in every way they could, and every place they touched sent a ripple of pure pleasure through him.  Her hands moved over him with a desperation in their movements and their touch, short nails scraping down his chest and his scalp.  He gripped her backside with one hand and slipped the other into her open shirt, and a breathy moan escaped her open mouth against his lips.

He was a little surprised when she took his hand from her shirt and sucked his fore and middle fingers into her mouth, fingers traversing the delicate bones and taut tendons at the back of his hand, looking at him from beneath her lashes with a heavy-lidded gaze.

“I need your hand,” she murmured, her voice husky.

“Oh!”  Julian masked the surprise in his tone by attempting a sultry smirk.  “Lucky for you, I have two.”

She chuckled as she hurriedly unfastened her trousers and tugged his hand downwards.  He was more than happy to oblige, groaning softly when he felt how wet she was, and taking delight in the first sigh, the I want you , the way she gripped his shoulders and lifted a leg to hook over his hip, and rocked her hips to encourage his fingers inside her with a second sigh, the hitch that told him he had her.  

He held her backside with his free hand, holding her steady as her thighs trembled, and it wasn’t long at all before little high-pitched sounds of pleasure were passing her lips as she pressed her open mouth to his throat and mumbled,

“Pull my hair.”

“What?”

Julian was so surprised by the request that he stopped, and Altheia growled as she pushed against him, seeking friction.

“Pull my hair!”

She was almost frantic, and Julian obediently - if uncertainly - wound his fingers into the salt-coarse tangles of her hair.  He could feel she was close, as he started to stroke her again and her fingers dug painfully into his shoulders.  But he couldn't quite bring himself to pull her hair, until she hissed,

“ Harder!”

“But won't it… won't it hurt?”

“A bit!  That's the point!”

He wanted to do as she asked, but he didn't want to hurt her.  He tightened his grip on her hair, twisted the strands to entangle in his fingers, enough to tug on her scalp.  Just that sting seemed to be enough, and she moaned as she tilted her head back, revealing her neck.  On impulse, Julian bent and pulled the skin of her throat just a little between his teeth.  Altheia gave a gasping yelp, and then gasped into her release, shuddering against him and burying her mouth against the base of his neck, just beneath his open shirt collar, to muffle her sounds.

Julian withdrew his hand and wrapped his arms around her as she sagged against him, his back against the rock, and laughed quietly.  He bent to kiss her neck, breathing in her scent again… against the backdrop of sea salt was vanilla and that light, delicate citrus that was maddeningly out of his reach to place a name to.  

When Altheia had finally stopped trembling enough to hold her own weight, she placed her hands flat on Julian’s chest and pushed herself back just enough to look up at him.  She was all tangled hair and flushed cheeks and bright sea-green eyes, her mouth curved into an almost dreamy smile.  Julian arched an eyebrow and with a half-smile asked,

“Have I entertained you now , Captain?”

She laughed and nipped at his chin.  “Yes, you have.  Now what can I do for you ?”

Julian blinked.  It hadn’t even occurred to him that she should reciprocate.  True, his cock was straining enough that he almost worried for the seam of his trousers, enough to be almost painful, enough to primordially scream at him to seek release.  But he was perfectly happy, perfectly satisfied, just to see that look in Altheia’s eyes, and he didn’t want it to become a look of focus towards his pleasure.  Not yet, anyway.

So when she started to slide her hand downwards, he caught it, and drew her fingers to his lips.  She looked up at him with a slight confused frown.

“No?”

“Not now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”  Julian pecked a kiss to her nose, then reached down and picked up the rum bottle Altheia had dropped onto the sand.  “We can take this back to your cabin, though.  If… if you want?”

Altheia raised an eyebrow.  “Did you just invite yourself to the Captain’s cabin?”

Maybe the rum had gone to his head, maybe it was the lack of blood above his waist, or maybe simply that he was entirely at ease with her, but without missing a beat he grinned and replied,

“Yes.  Yes, I think I did.”

She smiled and ran her bottom lip between her teeth.  But her eyes narrowed just a little, and she took a step back so she could look at him properly, to fully hold his gaze.

“Julian, I know what I want.  I think you want it, too.”

“I do, very much.”

“I can’t give you anything more.  You have to know that.”

He knew.  But he couldn’t bring himself to think about it.

“I know.”

“When I say it’s just one night more, I mean it.”

Julian reached out with both hands and held Altheia’s hips, pulling her close.  

“Then let’s not waste any more of it.  I’ll take what I can get.”

“In that case…”  She brushed a kiss over his bottom lip.  “I’ll give what you can take.”

And so it was that a short time later, Julian found himself in the Captain’s cabin, in her bed , the bottle of rum half empty on the table beside the couch.  Altheia was on top of him, grinding against him, both of them with shirts open and her breasts pressing against his chest, her fingers entangled in his hair and her breaths heavy in his ear.  He raised his legs up either side of her, pressed her hips between his thighs to raise his hips in sync with hers, dared to slide his hands into the waistband of her trousers and, receiving a soft moan in response, down far enough to press his fingers into the soft flesh of her backside.  

Almost before he knew what was happening, through laughter and with some awkward wriggling and kicking, their boots and trousers were on the floor, and Altheia straddled him, rocking her hips back and forth, sliding her clit and her heat along his erection, and it took every ounce of his self-control and willpower, and then a little more, not to climax when she pressed herself flat against him and nipped his neck, and said,

“I want you inside me.”

Her husky voice alone, never mind the words, made him leak a little, and he had to close his eyes and press his hips down into the mattress to prevent himself thrusting up into her as he struggled to pull his senses back.

“I don’t… I don’t have any… I didn’t expect, you see, and er…”

His voice trailed off as Altheia sat up slightly and wrapped her hand around his erection, and a warm wave of magic rippled down his shaft.  Julian grunted in surprise, and then laughed nervously.

“What… what was that?”

“Just a protection spell.  Is it okay?  I can remove it, but then we can’t– oh! ”

Her words faded into a groan and her eyelids slid closed as Julian slipped inside her, just past her entrance, and with a shiver she sank down and took his full length.  

Altheia gasped at the stretch, and for a moment they were still as they adjusted, as they fit together as one, until Julian was sure she was comfortable and pulled her down into a kiss.  When they moved, they moved together, and Altheia guided them in a rhythm as if their hips were carried on the ebb and swell of a tide, lifting them up and up until Julian was on the brink of tipping over the crest of a wave; before slowing, lowering them back; and he let himself be carried by her for as long as he could, until it was too much for either of them.  Then the rhythm faltered, became desperate, with hungry open-mouthed kisses traversing each other’s lips and jaw and throat, hands restless and seeking, and it wasn’t long before Altheia gave a strangled cry as she hit her peak. All Julian could think as he felt her clench around him, as she bit into his shoulder and her body shuddered against his, as she whispered his name , was that he must be dreaming, it couldn’t be real, he couldn’t be so lucky.

But it wasn’t a dream and luck had nothing to do with it, and when he reached down to circle her clit with his fingers, his other hand gripping her hair and pulling as hard as he dared, her body seized and her wordless voice stuttered, as her orgasm gripped her with an intensity that soaked him.

There was no holding back after that.  She held him through the most dizzying of climaxes, bodies hot and slick with sweat, completely lost in each other.  He gripped her waist and closed his eyes as he hit his climax and ecstasy shook his body like none before; and her magic, that protection and more, served to push him even higher.  As the warm daze of the afterglow washed over him, he buried his nose under her ear and his lips in the curve of her neck as he whispered her name, breathed her in.

And as the delicate citrus in her fragrance was enhanced by her heat and his sharper senses, the name of it that had eluded him for so long suddenly came to him, and he chuckled softly against her skin.

It was bergamot.  Her fragrance; vanilla, sea salt, and bergamot

In a rush he was bursting through the surface once more, out of the depths of subconscious and the past, back with her, the her of the now , and she was gasping ragged breaths in his ear and he was struggling on the surface… he’d climaxed, he knew, and he gasped a sob because he shouldn’t have… but his stream of consciousness was unsteady; somehow he was holding her as they basked in the afterglow, tangled in sheets on her bed… but in the now he was bound on his knees on the floor, and his senses were overwhelmed and every place she touched him sparked, and he thought he might burst out of his skin.

But Altheia was his constant, his past and his present, his before and his now , and he closed his eyes and breathed in her fragrance; bergamot, vanilla and sea salt, the same now as then, until the she of the past faded and he was with the she of the present.

She clung to him, arms over his shoulders, face buried into his neck, and as his senses returned he could feel the wetness on the top of his thighs from her orgasm, and the way he ached within her from his own.  Julian blinked his eyes open, and his vision for a moment was bleary.  His arms were still tied, shoulders aching a little now but not yet uncomfortably so.  As he pressed his lips to Altheia’s shoulder, his eyes looked beyond her.  It looked like they were still in her - their - cabin aboard the Southern Cross.  But it was different , dark and distorted, as if deep underwater.  He was kneeling in a pool of inky water, black as midnight and sparkling with thousands of pinpricks of light like stars.  Around them, a ring of eight dark purple, tentacle-like arms, one at each compass point, slowly writhed upwards, and beyond that ring a murky serpentine form circled them like an ouroboros.  In the shadows beyond, a pair of amber eyes were trained on them.

They looked like the Queen and Knight of Cups, but… different, somehow.  More foreboding. Wrong .  There was no mirth on the Knight’s lipless mouth, slightly open and baring jagged teeth.  No kindness in the Queen’s amber eyes in the darkness.

A shiver ran through him and he buried his face into the crook of Altheia’s neck as he whispered,

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”  Her voice was a barely audible croak.  She leaned back, a frown bringing her dark eyebrows together.  “Why are you sorry?”

“I… I shouldn’t…”  He glanced down, where there wasn’t even a paper thin space between them, then back at her eyes, her beautiful sea-green eyes shimmering in the darkness with her magic.  He felt… confused.  Like he’d been jolted awake from a very vivid dream.  Like he’d failed.

He saw Altheia blink back tears, her hands sliding to his biceps as she closed her eyes and shook her head.  

“It’s not your fault.  I was…”

Her voice drifted away as she looked around them.  Her mouth twisted a little and her eyes narrowed in thought.  She looked back at him, and she smiled.  She smiled .

“It’s okay.”  She held his face between her hands, tenderly kissed his lips.  “How’s the pain?”

Julian frowned.  He’d barely noticed it.  A pounding headache, yes, a crushing weight over his chest, but… but it was better .  

“It’s eased,” he told her.  

“It’s working.”  Altheia bit her lip in barely contained delight.  “You see all this?”  With a tilt of her head, she indicated the room and the images of the minor Arcana around them.  “We’re not awake yet.”

“We’re not?”

“No.  No, this is… somewhere between.”

Julian looked warily around, at the dark watery shadows.  

“I… see.  I think.”

“No you don’t.  But it’s okay, you don’t have to.  Follow my voice.”

Julian nodded.  His confusion certainly hadn’t eased, but he felt safe .  Still…

“Hasn’t the energy gone?” he asked.  “The whole reason for doing this… this type of, ah, ritual, wasn’t it…”

“Sex?”

Julian actually blushed.  “Yes.  We, ah, well I , I… I can’t .  Yet.”

“I know, love, it’s okay.”  She planted kisses on both cheeks, fingers combing through his hair.  “Tell me what you saw.  The memories, of you and me.  Everything.”

So he did.  He told her again about how she took him aboard her ship after catching him cheating at cards, but she was cheating too.  He told her how she’d searched him for knives, how he’d pulled her on top of him when he’d fallen out of his hammock.  How they’d shared breakfast and their first kiss sitting atop a mast watching the sun rise.  

She listened with an eager smile as he told her how they’d fought the pirates, how she’d won without hurting anybody, and released them after taking just the cargo she wanted.

“Fiendishly clever of you,” he added, unable to keep back a proud smile.

She gave an odd kind of smile, almost sad, and then nodded for him to carry on.

So he told her about how he’d dressed a cut on her arm, and been rewarded with the chance to touch her, and for her to touch him… and he felt her slightly tense, and saw the slight drooping of her eyelids and flush of her cheeks as he described it.  

“We talked for a while,” he told her then.  “You told me your dreams.”

“Oh?”  Altheia’s voice was uncharacteristically toneless.  “What kind of dreams?”

Julian hesitated.  “What you wanted for the future.  Are you sure you want to know?”

She pursed her lips for a moment as she thought.  Eventually she nodded.  “Yes.  Tell me.”

Julian wished his arms weren’t tied, that he could brush back the white locks of hair that fell across her cheeks as she looked down.

“You wanted to strike out on your own.  Just a ship or two, you said, operating far enough away that it wouldn’t interfere with your family’s business.  And then…”

The tragedy of it suddenly sunk in.  Somehow, he’d been so absorbed with his memories, and of them , that he hadn’t thought of her .  He’d heard the Altheia of ten years ago talk to him about the things that she’d wanted for herself.  And the Altheia of the now, his Altheia, was right here with him, after losing it all.

“I need to know.”  Her voice was little above a whisper as she turned her eyes up to meet his.

“You… were going to buy your own place.  Not a grand estate, just a little cottage on the coast.”

Altheia gave a sad smile and closed her eyes, nodding to herself.  

“That would have been nice.  Didn’t quite manage that, did I?”

Julian managed to gather himself, and nudged her nose with his as he smiled.  “Not yet.”  

“Ah.  There’s still time, I suppose.”

“That’s right.  Now let me tell you about the party on the beach.  You’ll like this.”

Altheia’s eyes widened with delight, and Julian was relieved to hear her laugh when he told her how they’d danced and played together on the beach.

“So I really could play, and… retained the memory somehow.  The pennywhistle we found here really was mine.  The tune we played together then… was it the one I remembered when we found it?”

“Yes!  That explains it.”

“That’s what I was hoping for.”

Julian moved on to tell her how she’d dragged him away from the party because she wanted the use of his hands - “ Not much has changed there,” she said, making him blush - and then she’d taken him to bed in her cabin.  A shiver ran through her as he described it to her, and he felt her shift slightly on his lap.  

“I see now why you came,” she said, her voice ever-so-slightly husky.  She trailed kisses down his neck, and her right hand came to rest over his chest.  “We should continue, I think.  What do you want?”

“I want it all.”

Maybe she was surprised at how immediate his answer was, because she sat back a little and met his eyes with hers, and with a note of warning in her tone she told him,

“We need to raise the magic up again.”

She rolled her hips a little, enough for Julian to understand what she meant.  But he was already growing hard inside her, and he gave a quirk of an eyebrow.

“ Oh no !  I need a beautiful woman to make love to me.  How awful.”

Altheia playfully smacked his shoulder, but the humour in her eyes faded as she looked into his eyes again.  

“Julian–”

“I know, I know.  It’s not… it’s not that .”  

“Are you ready?”

“Always.”

She nodded, kissed each cheek, his forehead, the tip of his nose and his mouth.  And she began to move once more.

Altheia watched as Julian closed his eyes, slipping once more under her spell.  It was difficult to maintain now, and she was tiring.  She had to try and hold back her emotion, she knew.  But hearing Julian talk about their past, about a version of her that she didn’t know, recognise or identify with, to see that look in his eyes and the curve of his smile, to know that the memory had brought him to climax…  

She was jealous .  And it stung.

She couldn’t think about that now, though.  If she didn’t focus, if the spell broke while Julian was under, it could hurt him, or worse.  She squeezed her eyes tight shut, pushing back tears, swallowed the painful lump in her throat.  Placed her hands over Julian’s temples, her forehead against his.  She sought that thread again, caught it, and with a ripple of warm magic, guided Julian to it.

Chapter Text

“So the Queen rose up from the ocean depths, and gave Valetia a pearl made out of her own tears, and that pearl became a beacon so she could watch over all ships and sailors?”

“Yep.” Altheia pointed up at the sky again, at the brightest star in the constellation of the healer. “There it is.”

“Huh.” Julian, laying on his back on the quarterdeck, his head on Altheia’s lap, looked up at the star. It was one of the three in the constellation that made up the ‘belt’ of Valetia. The remaining ten stars made the vague shape of Valetia’s body and head - the figure had no legs, which Altheia put down to the healer standing waist deep in the sea. “So is she watching over us now, then?”

“I suppose she is.”

They fell silent, content just to look up at the dark sky and infinite stars. Julian wasn’t particularly comfortable laid out flat on his back on the wooden deck, but having Altheia’s thigh for a pillow under his head, and her fingertips tracing light, idle circles on his exposed chest, made up for it.

Earlier, the navigational instruments and charts in Altheia’s cabin had caught Julian’s attention, and as she’d finished getting dressed he’d nosed around, resisting the boyish urge to pick things up and fiddle with them, and embarrassed himself by proudly announcing when he recognised something. He’d come across a small book, the leather of its binding well-worn from frequent handling, filled with tables of numbers; a nautical almanac, Altheia told him, used for navigating by the stars. Fascinated, Julian had taken her up on deck and asked her to teach him how, but they soon ended up simply sitting together, looking up at the stars and telling their stories.  

“Do you use it to guide you?” Julian asked. “That beacon star, I mean.”

Altheia was silent for so long that Julian wasn’t sure she’d heard him, and he tilted his head back to look up at her. To his surprise, she was looking down at him, the faintest hint of a thoughtful smile tugging at her lips. Eventually she said,

“She has a way of leading me home.”

“To Port Tremaire?”

Altheia chuckled, and stroked back the curl of hair that the wind blew across Julian’s eyes.

“Sometimes.”

Julian’s lips parted to ask where home was at the times when it wasn’t Port Tremaire, but closed against Altheia’s as she bent and kissed him. He suspected she was deliberately shutting him up from asking more questions, but he didn’t mind at all, reaching up to rest a hand on her cheek. He was painfully aware of how little time they had left together.  

He closed his eyes with a contented hum when their lips parted and Altheia straightened. Her right hand returned to Julian’s chest, the left into his hair, fingers catching on the tangles of his curls, short nails lightly scraping his scalp in a way that was soothing to him, no sound but the gentle lap of the sea against the ship’s hull, the clinking of rigging against the masts, distant laughter of the crew finishing their party below decks.

Julian didn’t realise he was drifting to sleep until Altheia was poking his shoulder with a soft, amused “Hey!”. He looked up at her sleepily.

“Sorry.”

“Maybe we should go to bed, hmm?”

The way she tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow with a hint of a smirk left no doubt as to her intentions, and Julian felt a rush in his chest - as well as something else stirring much lower down.

“Whatever you say, Captain.”

He sat up, and took Altheia’s hand as she got to her feet before him and helped him up. But before they could move, they turned at a slightly slurred shout.

“There ye are!”

It was Kiri, remarkably upright and coherent for someone who’d put back as much rum as she had.

“Kiri?” Altheia said, “What–”

“Not you,” the doctor said with a dismissive wave, leaving Altheia visibly taken aback. Julian suppressed a chuckle. “You.” She stopped in front of Julian and poked his chest as she looked up at him. “Listen. Ye’ll prob’ly be gone before ‘ah wake up tomorrah. So ah wan’ed te say te ya, if ya’ever need a reference, tell ‘em to come te me.”

“A reference?” Julian frowned down at her. “What for?”

“A ship’s surgeon, o’course.” Kiri crossed her arms over her chest. “The way you ‘andled yerself and the injured, and the cut on our dear Cap’n’s arm, well, you’re a good ‘un. Might be on tae somethin’ with those leeches, an’ all. Any ship would be lucky te have ye. Don’ ya think, ma’am?”

The bewildered smile that Altheia was trying to hold back, became something softer, and she glanced up at Julian.  

“Yes, they would. Very lucky indeed.”

Julian scratched the back of his neck and felt his cheeks flush, embarrassed and excited by turns, because he never would have dreamed of becoming a ship’s surgeon even a day ago, and yet now it felt… right.

“I don’t know about that…”

“Are ya doubting my credi… credibititty, crediliby–”

“Credibility,” Altheia put in helpfully.

“Yeah, that.”

“No! No that’s not what I meant at all! I’m sure you’re very well respected and any ship’s captain would take your word.”

“Oh we have very little to do with which doctors get assigned to us,” Altheia said. “The college of surgeons will send us one, on recommendation from the ship’s previous doctor.”

Kiri grinned at her. “As if ye wouldn’a taken me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

But there was affection in Altheia’s eyes. The doctor barked a laugh.  

“Anyway,” she continued, turning back to Julian. “Ah mean it. Ye could set up a clinic in Vesju- Vessu… o’ver there.” She gestured in the vague direction of Vesuvia.  

“A clinic? Me?”

“Waste o’ yer talents, mind,” Kiri sniffed. “Not sure how much call there is for arm amput.. amppato… Cuttin’ arms and legs off. They migh’ like leeches, though. Fancy an’ that.”

Julian didn’t know what to say. For once, his tongue froze and didn’t even stutter. He never would have imagined running his own clinic.

“I’ve heard things when I’ve been ashore,” Altheia said. “I’ve only been there twice before. There’s a wonderful tavern in the south district, by the way, I forget the name… something Raven? You should try it, it’s almost as good as the Merry Ninetails in Port Tremaire.”

“Stupid name if ye ask me,” Kiri snorted. “Ain’t never been a merry cat o’ninetails.”

“That’s the point.”

“The cat might be merry,” Julian considered. “The person on the receiving end probably isn’t.”

Kiri tsked.

“Anyway,” Altheia continued, “my point is, I’ve heard that healthcare is somewhat lacking, and the new Count hasn’t shown any signs of improving it. I’m sure you’d be very welcome.”

An involuntary shudder ran through Julian - one thing he hadn’t considered was that he didn’t have any particular desire to live in a city run by that particular Count. Even so…

Kiri suddenly yawned loudly, stretching her arms into the air until her joints cracked. “Well, that’s me. Off tae bed. Don’ forget wha’ ah said.” She grinned broadly at Altheia and gave a clumsy wink. “Don’ go gentle on ‘im. Reckon he can take more’n he looks like.”

“Kiri!”

“And you!” She poked Julian’s chest again. “Give ‘er a good ‘un.”

“Kiri!”

“‘ave fun an’ be careful! All sorts o’ nasties abou’ these days, the things I’ve seen on people who weren’t picky, you don’ seem the type but ye never can tell–”

“KIRI!”

“Alrigh’ alrigh’ I’m goin’.”

With a backwards wave, the doctor turned and shuffled away down the deck.

Julian gave a bewildered laugh and watched her go before turning to Altheia. She had her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with embarrassed laughter.

“Oh my god, that woman.” She shook her head and looked up at Julian with a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry.”

“I like her,” Julian said with a grin. “And she’s not wrong either. I’ve seen some things that would turn your stomach.”

“I… don’t need to know.”

“Ah. No, no of course not.” Julian winced at himself. If there was a worse topic of conversation to be had before sleeping with someone, this would be it. “I, er… sorry. But just so you know, I don’t… at least, I’m fairly sure I… oh god. I’m making this worse the more I talk, aren’t I.”

Altheia laughed. “Yes. Be quiet.”

She pulled him down into a kiss, and Julian’s distressed embarrassment melted away.

“Just to reassure you,” she added as she pulled back and took his hand. “The spell? It’s good against… well… that, too.”

“Oh good! Not that I think you… or I…”

“Julian…”

“Right, be quiet.”

“You know,” Altheia said, as she and Julian went hand in hand down the quarterdeck steps, “you really should think about what Kiri said.”

Julian winced. “I, er… I’d rather not right now.”

“Not that! I mean what she said about being a ship’s surgeon, or having your own clinic. I suppose you’d have to work at another clinic first while you settle.”

“Do you really think I can?”

“Do you really think you can’t?” Altheia stopped with her door on the cabin handle, and looked up pointedly at him. “Julian, I don’t know you well enough to say whether or not you can run a clinic,” she said. “But I know that you care. People like you and trust you. And you did do a very good job of treating my arm.”

“Oh, that was nothing…”

“If the only thing stopping you is thinking that you can’t do it,” Altheia said, holding his gaze. “Then that’s no reason at all.”

Julian didn’t know what to say, or what to think. So he kissed her deeply and leaned into her so that the door opened under their weight and she stumbled backwards into the cabin with a laugh. He didn’t stop there, keeping their lips locked as he kicked the door shut behind him with his heel and walked Altheia backwards towards the bed. Her hands worked hurriedly at her shirt buttons, her shirt falling to the floor just as the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed. Julian pulled his own shirt over his head, and shivered when Altheia put her hands on his chest. But instead of pulling him back onto the bed, she pressed up against him. Her slightly narrowed eyes held a smouldering but playful sparkle.

“What can I do for you?” she purred, kissing his shoulder. “Anything.”

Julian couldn’t do more than stare down at her, and he certainly had no idea what to say, what to ask for, even what he wanted, because he would take anything she gave to him. He managed a nervous laugh.

“I er, I don’t know. Anything, you can do anything.”

Altheia chuckled, looking at him thoughtfully. “There must be something.” 

“Well…” Julian’s heart raced not just from arousal now, but nervousness. Because there was something, but he didn’t know how to ask, he was embarrassed, worried about making her feel uncomfortable or laughing at him for asking something so silly…

“What is it?” She kissed his shoulder and slid her hands around his lower back, humming to herself as she spread her fingers over the planes of his muscles.

“Could you, er…” He knew this would be his only chance, for something that had played across his imagination several times since they’d met. He cleared his throat, and in a rush asked, “Could you wear your hat?”

“My hat?” She looked a little surprised.

“Yes. Please?”

“That’s easy enough.” She tilted her head to the side a little, almost curious, as she looked up at him again. “And then?”

“And then… well…” His smile became raffish. “Ravish me.”

Altheia laughed in surprise. “I’m sure I can manage that. Wait here.”

“Oh I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere, I assure you.”

He watched as she crossed the room, hypnotised by the sway she put into her hips. She picked up her hat from the desk, put it on her head and tipped the brim to look up from beneath it with a sultry gaze as she turned back to him.

“Well?”

“Oh, captain…” Julian breathed, almost involuntarily, and dropped down to his knees. As she walked back towards him, her dark hair spilling out from underneath the crimson hat and over her breasts, her sea-green eyes smouldering and her fine, dusky pink lips curved in a half-smile, Julian thought that he would do absolutely anything she asked of him.

When she came to stand in front of him, Julian sat back on his heels, hands on his thighs, and looked up at her. She bit her lip, smiling. But when Julian didn’t move, the smile became something else, something uncertain. She threaded her fingers through his hair, catching on the tangled curls, looking down at him almost contemplatively. He slid his hands up the outside of her lean thighs, settling at her hips, long fingers pressing against her flesh. He felt as if he was waiting for her command.  

“You don’t have to kneel for me, you know,” she said, a twist of a smile to her lips.

“But I want to.”

The words came out before he even knew they were there, and he clamped his mouth shut too late. But he’d said it now. And it was true, he did want to kneel in front of her, to do whatever would please her. It was agonising, this need to be told what to do for her, what to give over to her, what part of him she wanted to take. His synapses prickled with anticipation, eager to jump at her command.

Her eyes widened a little in surprise. And then there was a sudden shadow of vulnerability there. It surprised Julian, that she, who was so self-assured, so confident in command of a ship and its crew, should feel uncertain of accepting his submission.

He closed his eyes, his lashes brushing the soft skin of her belly as his lips pressed a kiss there. He felt the low thrum of a burst of a slightly nervous laugh. Her fingers moved through his hair again, brushing it back so she could see his face as he turned up to her.

“And what should I do with you?” she asked, a question that felt partly rhetorical, sounding out what he meant, what he wanted, what she wanted.

“Well, that depends.” He arched an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting to match. “Am I your guest? Or… am I your prisoner?”

He waggled his eyebrows and she gave a startled laugh, left in absolutely no doubt what his preference and intention was. She tilted her head curiously.

“You trust me?”

“Altheia, I… I know I've only known you a short time–”

“A night and a day is shorter than short,” she quipped.

“Even so, I feel… I feel safe. With you.”

That admission surprised Julian almost as much as it surprised Altheia, judging by the look on her face.

“Safe?”

“Mmm. Don't ask me to explain it, I can't. But it… feeling safe, it's… rare. For me.”

He swallowed thickly. As the silence lingered on, Altheia's fingernails absently scraping lightly over his scalp, he began to wish he could take his words back.  

“Sor–”

“If I’m going to take you prisoner,” she interrupted, her voice suddenly husky in a way that made Julian ache, “I’ll need to tie you up, don’t you think?”

“Yes! Yes, please, do that.”

“You’re not supposed to want to be tied up,” she said, trying to hide a laugh.

“O-oh of course.” He cleared his throat. “Oh no, please don’t tie me up, that would be awful, I’d hate that, whatever you do please don’t do that.” He grinned up at her laugh. “How’s that?”

She held his head between her hands on his temples, and bent to brush her lips over his, her dark hair cascading around him, coarse with sea salt and the smell of bonfire smoke and rum.  

“I’ll get the rope.”

The next couple of hours passed in a blur of pleasure, a haze where Julian felt safe, protected, needed, wanted. Altheia tied his hands simply behind his back at first, then bound his arms, and with every coil of the rope around his torso Julian felt himself slipping somehow outside of himself. The agonising need for release that he couldn’t even reach for was potent, the loss of control somehow freeing in a way that should have been paradoxical, and yet made all the sense in the world.  

Playful at first, as if she really were a dread captain and he her captive, it quickly became far more sensual, as Altheia settled into using Julian in the way that he wished. She stood over him, tugged on his hair to turn his face up to her, and took her pleasure from his lips and tongue and, unexpectedly, the bridge of his nose. Julian closed his eyes and was completely lost to her, attending to her the best that he knew how under her guidance, only sorry that he couldn’t use his hands, too. He barely remembered to breathe, and perhaps he wouldn’t have taken a breath at all if she hadn’t nudged his head to the side every now and then to remind him.

She gave herself to him, and took what he gave up to her. There was a vulnerability in the way she accepted his submission, his trust, as every coil of rope binding Julian’s arms bound him to Altheia just as much.

By the time Altheia’s legs shook so that she braced her weight with her knees on Julian’s shoulders and her hands gripped his hair in fists, as her gasping breaths deepened and quickened and were given voice, Julian was at the peak of his own bliss, and when she rode out her orgasm over his face, when he belonged to her and her alone as the sole source of her pleasure in that moment, he was pushed over into ecstasy, and the rush of intense pleasure was all-consuming and he almost wondered if he lost consciousness.

Then she knelt with him, she kissed him, held him, laughed with him, told him how wonderful he was, how pleased she was that he’d climaxed because she wanted him to feel pleasure, too, dispelling his shame before it even had a chance to surface.  

She slowly untied him, one coil of rope at a time, leaving his hands for last, and he whimpered as she took that rope away, too, because now he was unbound from her and he felt it as a loss.  

That feeling didn’t last, though, as she cleaned them both with a washcloth and warm water - she could use magic, she said, but this was nicer - and it was. She applied salve and kisses to the areas on Julian’s wrists and ribs where the rope had chafed a little. She talked softly, she hummed a tune under her breath.

Julian didn’t speak. The energy required for speech, even for thought, was subdued by the comforting warmth of the afterglow, and he didn’t want this feeling to end.

He was no stranger to sex, he knew he could be desired. He’d even had relationships before, the kind that could actually be called relationships and not just casual sex, fleeting though they may have been. And he knew, too, that he had a tendency to fall too fast, too hard.

But this was different. The care that Altheia showed him, the tenderness, was different. It was effortless, it was inherently her. That she would take control in a way that he liked, that he needed, but took care that he never felt lesser than her. She took what she was sure he was willing to give, and no more. And she gave what he was willing to take.

And after, when the passion ebbed away, caring for him, soothing him, raising him back up to meet her, came naturally, without thought. It came from her empathy, from her wanting simply to be close to him, however they could be and for however short a time.

As they curled up together under the blanket for the last few hours of the night, Julian knew that if he could ever love, if he could ever be loved, it would be with her.

Julian and Altheia watched the sunrise from their perch on the top yard of the ship’s mainmast again; this morning, though, the sun was barely visible through the clouds, a patch of pale light gasping through the tumultuous grey. The wind was brisk and fresh, especially up on the mast, but it had lessened since the ship had dropped anchor in the shelter of Vesuvia’s harbour.  

But they weren’t watching the city. Below, they heard Maurice directing the crew to offload some of the cargo while Stev checked off the manifest; Altheia had people in Vesuvia who would sell the goods they’d commandeered from the Crimson Serpent, and send the money on to her agents in Port Tremaire. The dock was a hive of activity with two other ships being loaded, wanting to set sail when the tide turned. Julian and Altheia, though, were sat facing the bow, back out to sea, past the island that lay a little to the east. His arm was around her back, and she leaned her head on his shoulder.  

They’d only slept for maybe three hours. Julian didn’t want to waste what little time they had; neither, it seemed, did Altheia. He'd fallen asleep with her in his arms, and woken to her kisses on his neck and her hand on his inner thigh.

By the time they emerged, Maurice had already taken the ship to the harbour, and he and the crew enjoyed teasing Altheia about why she was rising so late.  

Julian didn’t want to leave.

But it had to end. Eventually, Altheia’s shoulders rose and fell under his arm in a resigned sigh. He squeezed a little tighter, as if he could hold her back, halt the inevitable.  

“We need to sail when the tide turns,” she said as she straightened, breaking their contact.

“I know.”

Julian had watched the tide markers painted on the harbour wall. The second of the yellow lines was beginning to show, as the sea began to withdraw. 

“Julian…” Altheia took both of his hands in hers. Suddenly, she was someone different, not the captain of her ship, not a privateer. She couldn’t look him in the eye. “You asked me if I was taking a risk bringing you onto my ship. And you know… I was.”

“Oh?” Julian was surprised. “I’m really such a rogue, am I?”

Altheia chuckled. “No. When I felt you in the tavern, your aura… with my magic. I knew…”

She stopped and looked away. Julian touched a finger under her chin.

“What?”

“It’s what I do.” She was almost talking to herself. “When I’m at port. I like to spend a night with a man. And I always say, just like I did to you, it’s just a night.” She gave a wry smile as she glanced at Julian. “Or in your case, a day and then a night. Sometimes they say they’ll see me next time I return, and sometimes that’s true. But I never… But with you I felt… and that was the risk.”

She sighed, as if frustrated with herself - both for saying too much, and for not being able to say what she wanted to. Julian squeezed her hand.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I… think so.” He gently tilted her chin up, and her sea-green eyes met his, tendrils of dark hair blowing across her sun-kissed ivory cheek in the brisk breeze. He held her gaze. “I want to see you again. I do. I have to.”

“I like you, Julian,” Altheia said in a hurry. “A lot, actually. But I belong at sea.”

“I know that. But you’ll come back to Vesuvia sometimes, won’t you?”

“No more than once a year. This journey will take me several months, and then I’ll likely need to stop at Port Tremaire for a while and deal with… ugh.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll settle in Vesuvia, I’ll set up a clinic. I’ll go to this tavern you mentioned, the ‘something Raven’, and one day I’ll hear tales about how the dread Privateer Altheia drove out another band of smugglers.”

She snorted a laugh. “Will you?”

He dared to kiss her smile with his. “Yes. And if I’m very lucky, I’ll find you at the something Raven, and you’ll out-cheat me at cards…” He laughed when she poked him in the side with her elbow. “...and you’ll bring me aboard to entertain you for a day and perhaps a night.”

She gave a small, sad smile. “What if I have a man in every port?”

“Then I’ll be your man in Vesuvia.”

“Even if it’s only for a day and perhaps a night once a year?”

“Even then.”

Her breath hitched in her throat, and she hid it by pulling Julian down into a kiss. He held her close as the kiss lingered, their lips moving in a soft caress, a farewell.

They reluctantly broke apart at the keening sound of Maurice’s whistle. With a sigh they leaned their foreheads together, held hands, Julian’s thumb stroking the back of Altheia’s hand.

“That’s it, then.”

He tried not to let his voice choke.

“Yes.” With a deep breath as if steeling herself, Altheia leaned back. “I’d better make sure they’re behaving themselves. And you should get your things.”

Julian nodded. One more brief kiss, and then together they shimmied down the rigging to the deck. The ship was noisy and crowded as the crew got the ship ready to sail.

“Hurry, before they raise the gangplank.”

Altheia held Julian’s gaze for a long moment, squeezed his hand, and then turned and strode down the ship towards the bow, red coat swirling around her calves, calling orders as she went.

Julian turned and went back to Altheia’s cabin, his heart heavy in his chest. He brightened as a mischievous idea came to mind to leave a surprise for her, something to remember him by. He found a pencil, and opened up the nautical almanac on her desk to the title page.

He paused as he thought of what to write, something that she would see every time she opened up the book that she could use to navigate by the stars. With a whimsical smile, underneath the title Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, he wrote,

 May the stars guide you

 Yours always

 - J.

“Doctor! Time to go!”

Julian turned at the shout from the door, closing the book and dropping the pencil. It was Maurice.

“Of course, I’ll be right there.”

He flung his coat around his shoulders, hoisted his bag onto his back, and followed Maurice to the gangplank. Altheia was standing there, watching him impassively, but she smiled as he reached her.

“All set?”

“I think so.” Julian swung his bag down to the deck, and with a theatrical flourish he pulled out his vielle case, dropped to one knee, and held the case out as if offering up a sword in supplication. “Captain Featherstone, please accept this as a token of your victory over me.”

She laughed in astonishment. “What?”

“It’s yours. You won it fair and square in that card game.”

Altheia smiled, taking the vielle from him and grabbing his wrist to pull him up to his feet.

“Idiot,” she said with affection.  

“Guilty.” He returned her smile, and then reached up to cup her cheek with his palm. For that moment, they may as well have been the only two people on the ship. “Thank you, Altheia. For a wonderful day and perhaps a night… I won’t forget it.”

“And thank you for the entertainment.”

“I’m nothing if not entertaining.”

“You’re a lot of things.”

“Mostly good?”

“Mostly.”

They shared one more smile, one more squeeze of each other’s hand.  

Julian stepped back and gave a deep, flourishing bow, looking up at Altheia with a wink.

“Farewell, Captain.”

And Altheia, just as theatrically, pulled her hat from her head and held it to her chest with one hand, the other arm sweeping out to the side as she crossed one leg in front of the other and dipped in an elegant bow of her own.

“Farewell, Doctor.”

As Julian walked to the gangplank, he was startled by a long keen of Maurice’s whistle, and cheers and shouts from the crew in farewell. He had no idea how to feel or what to do, and so he offered one more sweeping bow to the whole of the crew, walking backwards down the gangplank until he nearly tripped off the end onto the dock, managing to right himself to more cheers, and present himself in a smart salute.

Altheia’s eyes were on his as the gangplank was pulled back. Suddenly she ran, jumped across the narrow gap and collided with him hard enough that he stumbled back a couple of steps as he caught her. Her arms wrapped around him so tight the air was squeezed from his lungs, and he dropped his bag to the ground and held her back just as tight. He buried his nose into her hair behind her ear, breathing her scent; vanilla, bergamot and sea salt. Her body rose and fell in his arms in a deep, shuddering breath.

It was too short a time until they were interrupted by an urgent shout;

“Captain!”

One more tight squeeze and she stepped back. One more brief glance, a watery smile, and she turned and ran. She had to leap over the widening gap from the dock to the ship as it began to pull away.  

Julian stood and watched as Altheia strode to the quarterdeck, jamming her red tricorn hat back onto her head. He watched as she raised her arms, as her coat billowed around her as the wind and the waves obeyed her command. He watched as the Vengeance’s sails filled and she pulled away. He watched as some of the crew came to the stern rail or climbed up into the rear mast’s rigging to wave goodbye; he waved back. He watched as Altheia turned to him and waved; he blew her a kiss; she pretended to catch it and put it in her pocket.

He watched as the ship reached the harbour mouth, as the crew returned to their duties. He watched until the ship became so distant that all he could see of Altheia was a speck of red, standing at the quarterdeck rail, until eventually she turned from him and went back to her duties, too.

Julian watched until the ship had moved out of sight, disappearing behind the island beyond the harbour’s mouth. And he stood there for a little while more. Until it all seemed like just a dream.  

Eventually he turned and headed back down the dock, towards the city of Vesuvia, and for the first time, out of all the towns and cities he’d visited, he felt a sense of purpose. He knew what he wanted, and he’d do it. Because Altheia had believed he could. Because she’d made him believe he could.

One year later, the Vengeance sailed into Vesuvia’s harbour. She sailed back out again, with Julian aboard, for one day and perhaps a night. He thanked the captain for her recommendation to visit the Rowdy Raven, because he’d found he fitted in very well with the eclectic patrons there. He’d worked out of the tavern’s back room until he’d saved enough to rent a small building he’d turn into a clinic. It needed a lot of renovation, mind, but he’d made many friends amongst the people of South End who were willing to help him.

He told her that once he was set up, his next goal was to save up enough to buy that sloop he’d dreamed of, and then he could sail alongside her. She’d laughed at that, but she didn’t tell him not to.  

She told him how happy she’d felt in her heart when she’d found his note in her almanac, and she’d thought of him every time she used it.

They danced and played together again - she still had his vielle, and he left it with her again. She promised to keep it for next time.

They didn’t sleep much. They said farewell again; he promised he’d remain her man in Vesuvia.

Another year passed, but the Vengeance didn’t return. None of the sailors, pirates or smugglers that Julian spoke to knew anything more than rumours. Some said that the Vengeance had been caught by a sea monster and sunk, her crew drowned. Some said simply that Captain Featherstone was recalled to Port Tremaire by her family, her ship absorbed into the merchant fleet and renamed. Whatever the truth, Julian eventually resigned himself to never seeing her again. But he never quite stopped hoping that one day they would sail together again.

Chapter Text

One by one, the ropes were cut. One by one, the threads unpicked. One by one, each memory he'd lost was returned.

The Knight and his Queen, the river meeting the sea, different but the same, separate and entwined.

The pain was different now, it was something more, something primal, something raw.  He would endure.

“Doctor Devorak, your new apprentice is here.  Doctor Devorak!”

“Yes, yes.  Thank you so much.”

With a vague wave of dismissal, Julian turned his focus back to the jar of leeches in his hand.  They were running worryingly low, and looked as if they needed feeding, and he had so much he needed to do.  Not only were they short on leeches, but almost everything else, too.  He’d have to take a trip to the market, but he still had patients to see and an amputation to perform.

He put the jar back on a shelf, turned back to the table and started to scribble a note.  So lost was he in his thoughts that he’d forgotten his new apprentice, until she suddenly ducked down into his field of view and caught his gaze.  He shot upright.

“Oh!” he exclaimed.  “Hello!”

The flash of recognition took him by surprise, and was so unexpected, so unlikely, that he found himself staring stupidly, barely believing his own eyes.  As if that heart-shaped face, amused pull of one corner of her mouth into a half-smile creasing a dimple above it, and arch of an eyebrow, weren’t enough for him to recognise her, then those eyes, a sea-green he’d never seen before or since, would have left him with no doubt.

But one stark difference was her hair.  Still reaching beneath her shoulders, still licorice dark at the back and crown, but it was woven back into a braid, and with it twisted white streaks from the front - the fringe over her forehead was white, too, opalescent.

Nonetheless, it was her.  It was Altheia.  

Julian’s heart jumped and raced almost painfully, and his head whirled with so many thoughts, so many questions, that his speech stalled.  

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in Vesuvia, though.  It had been some years ago, and he’d been wandering round the market in the centre of the city, somewhere he very rarely went since setting up his clinic in South End.  He almost hadn’t recognised her at first, as he watched her browsing a stall of magical items.  At first he’d felt a pang of hurt - he’d been expecting (or hoping, really) to see her once a year as she sailed into port aboard her ship.  But she’d stopped coming, and all he’d heard was rumours that her ship had been attacked by a sea monster and sunk, or that she’d had to return to her family’s business in Port Tremaire.  He’d chosen to believe the latter, but hadn’t dared to return to Port Tremaire to find out for sure.  But he never stopped hoping that he might one day hear from her.

So, seeing her there, in Vesuvia without having contacted him, did sting.  Even more so when he’d noticed that she was with someone else, a magician to judge by the bright and gaudy clothing.

And then Altheia had turned, and made eye contact with him.  Both of them froze, staring at each other in shock.

He’d taken a step forward; she’d turned back to the magician, and together they’d walked away.  Altheia had shot one look back over her shoulder, and then disappeared into the crowd, leaving a very hurt and crestfallen Julian behind.

Not one to give up easily, Julian returned to the market several times, until he saw her again.  He told himself that perhaps she hadn’t recognised him, and that if he could just manage to get close, to talk to her…

But when he’d seen her again, and got closer to her, it was the same.  She’d bitten her lip, something sorrowful creasing the space between her eyes, and it almost seemed as if she might come to him; hopeful, Julian had started to approach her.

She span, and ducked into a fortune teller’s tent.

Julian felt his heart drop from his chest.  He left the centre city market, and never went back.  

But Altheia never quite left his thoughts.  He agonised over why she didn’t want to see him.  What had he done wrong?  Or was it simply that she’d found this other person, and didn’t have the heart to tell Julian?  

Whatever it was, she was now here, standing in front of him in his clinic, offering herself as his apprentice. Despite everything, Julian’s heart hammered in his chest.  When Altheia rather formally held her hand out to him, it was a moment before he registered, and took it in his.  The touch, the memory of how that very hand had touched him all those years ago, made him giddy.

Stupidly, all he could manage to stammer was,

“Y-you’re…

“Altheia.”  She cocked her head.  “Don’t you remember me?”

“Of course!”  He almost forgot to release her hand, until she gently pulled it back.  “I could never…”  He cleared his throat, trying to compose himself, but it was difficult when he didn’t know what the hell was going on.  “I saw you at the centre city market once or twice.  With that magician.  He, ah… are you his…”

“I’m not Asra’s anything,” she replied coolly.

Julian almost sighed in relief. “But… you are…”  Hesitantly, afraid of sounding stupid, he asked, “A magician?”

“I am.”

The response surprised and saddened him.  He’d seen her use magic, in control of the sea and the wind, but it didn’t make sense that she’d leave that behind to read fortunes at a market.  She wasn’t a magician.

He laughed a little, stalling as he tried to wrangle his thoughts around what was happening.  Altheia, whether privateer or magician, couldn’t possibly want to be his apprentice.

“I’m sorry, I thought they said you were my new apprentice.”

“I am.”

“But.. you’re…”

“A magician.”  She looked at him pointedly.  “A good one, as it happens.”

Right.  She obviously didn’t want to talk about her past.  About their past.  Julian nodded to himself, as he pushed all the things he wanted to say, and all the questions, firmly back down, and then scrabbled for something to say.

Coming up short, all he could blurt out was, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why come here?  I can’t pay you much, you know.”

“My shop’s been doing well.  I can afford to not be paid for a while.”

Her shop?  Julian felt his jaw drop in shock, and promptly closed his mouth again.  It was, he supposed as his mind whirled, a branch of trading, a step on from trading at sea.  But he simply couldn’t imagine her behind a shop counter all day.  What was it she’d said to him, years ago?

She belonged at sea.

And yet she was here.

“As to why,” she continued, breaking into his thoughts.  “There’s a disease spreading throughout the city, isn’t there?  You put out a notice requesting a new apprentice to help with the workload.  And here I am.”

He tensed at that reminder of the disease they were beginning to believe was a plague.  It was certainly true that he did need new apprentices, and the why didn’t matter.

“Alright.  What skills do you have?”

It felt a little silly to ask, when he already knew.  But if she really wanted to sign up as his apprentice and not talk about their past, he’d be best treating her like any other apprentice - albeit one he’d spent a day and a night with, on two separate occasions, and whose dusky lips he suddenly found his eyes resting upon in a way that most definitely was not appropriate for a doctor to his junior.

She seemed a little surprised at the question too, and paused as if considering her answer.

“I can use a little healing magic.  I have some experience of treating minor injuries, too.  And I know a little something about preventing illness.”

Julian cast his mind back to the time he’d spent with her on her ship, and remembered how she’d made a point of procuring lemons to stave off scurvy amongst the crew, and as much fresh food as she could to keep them healthy.  He guessed she would have needed to stop contagious diseases spreading, too, as with so many people in a confined space, any disease would spread like wildfire.

“Good, that’s good.”  Julian managed a smile, but he didn’t miss the haunted look cross Altheia’s expression.  “Come to the market with me?  We can, um… talk.  On the way.”

“About my duties?”

“Yes.  That, too.”  He straightened; whatever was going on with Altheia, he couldn’t let it affect his work.  “Wait here, I’ll get my coat.  Take this.”

He handed her his list of things he needed from the market, and went into his office.  For a moment, he leaned back on the door, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths.  He had to treat her like any other of his apprentices, if she was serious about it.  This wasn’t at all how he’d imagined their reunion, though, and he didn’t like it at all, however competent she may be.

He dragged his hands down his face as he let out a sigh, then he shrugged into his coat and went back into the larger room.  Altheia was looking at the paper, one eyebrow raised incredulously.

“Can you read this?”

“Of course I can!  Let’s see…”  He took the paper back and frowned down at his scrawl.  Hearing a huff of a laugh from Altheia, he made a show of pretending he couldn’t read it at all.  “This says… well.  This one here is…”  He tilted the paper at an angle, and Altheia laughed again.  “...something leeches?”  He dared to look up, and saw her smile.  “Ah, never mind.  It’s in my head anyway.”

He crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the direction of the bin; it missed.

“Doctor Devorak, I-”

He winced.  He hated being called that by any of his apprentices, but by her… it almost hurt.

“Please call me Julian.”

She nodded, the faintest of smiles touching her lips, but with a sadness to it.  “I… okay.  Julian.”

He flashed a smile and held her gaze for a moment.  Then he switched to being a doctor, because he did have a lot to do, and truth be told, he really did need an apprentice.

He showed her around the clinic and told her about the patients he had there, including the one whose foot he would be amputating as soon as he’d procured the correct leeches to apply after the surgery.  Altheia remained mostly silent but attentive.

Outside, they cut a brisk pace to the market.

“Do you know South End at all?” he asked her, trying to keep his tone casual.

“Not really.  I’ve… mostly avoided it.  Since…”

She met his gaze briefly, then looked down.  

“Since you came to the Rowdy Raven with me?” he blurted out without thinking, remembering the last time they’d got together, a year after she’d first carried him to Vesuvia.  They'd spent an afternoon at the Raven, and a night aboard the Vengeance. He'd had a wonderful time, of course, and thought that she had, too.

“Mmm.  Yes.”

Julian laughed a little.  “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten who I am.”

“I could never.”

She looked at the paving beneath her boots as she walked, determinedly not looking at him, as if hoping that he’d forget what she’d just said.  And so Julian decided to ask no more about that, but he couldn’t just say nothing, and so he chattered about whatever came to mind - nonsense, probably, but it seemed to put Altheia at ease.

At the market, Julian went around the various stalls picking out the things he needed, and chatting to people he met along the way.  It was a needed distraction.  If he dwelled too long on his memory of Altheia, captain of her ship and master of all she surveyed, his heart hurt for whatever had happened to land her here.

After they’d bought the leeches he needed, he turned and offered her a smile.

“Coffee?”

He quirked an eyebrow, offering a teasing half smile as he remembered she only drank tea.  It had the desired effect, at least to some extent; she gave a wry half smile.

“Tea?”

A little while later they were seated at a corner table in Julian’s favourite coffee house.

“It hasn’t been open long,” he explained to Altheia, as he took a sip of his coffee; and then winced, because it was still too hot.  “But they have the finest roast, and it’s mixed with hazelnut, I think.”

“From Venterre, I expect.”  Her voice was monotone, quiet, as she stirred her tea.  “I used to trade shipments of it.”

Julian nibbled on a biscuit to disguise the fact that he didn’t know how to respond to that, because Altheia didn’t seem much like she wanted him to respond at all.

“So, ah… how are you feeling so far, hmm?  About the clinic, and… well…”

He wanted to say “About me.”  But managed to hold back.

She arched an eyebrow.  “I don’t know yet.  All we’ve done so far is run around a market.”

Julian snorted a rueful laugh.  “True.  Sorry.”  He became the doctor with his potential apprentice again.  “I can train you in everything I need you to know.  But what I need from you is a, uh… a commitment, of a sort…"

His voice trailed off as she turned her eyes up to him and carefully said,  “I can’t make a commitment yet.”

“No, of course not.”

“But you can rely on me.”  

She held his gaze, leaving him in no doubt that she meant that truly.  And he believed her.  She took another sip of tea, looking down at the shortbread on her plate as she poked it with a spoon.  

“Altheia, I–”

“I’m sorry for avoiding you.”

Julian was a little taken aback by the sudden apology.  He hadn’t really expected her to admit that she’d been avoiding him, and he didn’t know how he felt about it.  He cleared his throat and looked down.

“It’s fine, no need to apologise.”

“Well, I’m sorry anyway.”  She sighed, and still couldn’t look at him.  “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Like what?”  Julian leaned forward across the table, trying to catch her gaze.  “Do you mean your hair?  I think it’s beautiful.”

She gave a slightly bashful smile.  “Thank you.  But no, I don’t mean that.  Not just that.  I mean… all of it.  Me… landlocked.  Living with a magician.  Not like that,” she added hastily, and Julian tried to keep his relief from his expression.  “Asra's a friend. A very close friend, and he's very dear to me, but it's nothing more than that. I mentor him.  I…”  She looked at him then with a genuine smile and one eyebrow raised.  “I’ve only ever had one man in Vesuvia.”

Julian spluttered something like a laugh.  “I see.”

“I can’t tell you everything now.  But you asked why I want to be your apprentice?  It’s because… because it’s you.”

“It’s me?”

Julian realised how stupid that sounded, but it came out before he could stop it.

She poked his arm with her spoon and smiled.

“Yes.  There’s a disease spreading, people are leaving the city, but you… you’re here.  You’re helping.  I want to help, too.  Help you.”

Julian’s heart thudded in his chest so hard he was sure she could hear it, as she took another sip of her tea.  Not knowing what else to say, he said,

“Thank you.”

They finished their drinks in companionable silence.

Something nagged at him, though.  Something seemed off.  The change in her hair was obvious, though Julian supposed her hair was simply whitening naturally, if unusually.  More than that, something he couldn’t quite place his finger on.  She wore leggings and a white blouse but there was no red sash, no long red coat, no hat.  She was neat and well-presented, he realised, not untidy and dishevelled with spirit and the sea air.  She was quieter, there was more shadow than spark in her eyes, the corners of her mouth didn't reach so high when she smiled.  She’d lost her fire, her passion, her spirit.  Where was the confident privateer, the self-assured ship’s captain, the proudly defiant daughter of a powerful merchant family?  What had happened to her?

As they headed back to the clinic, Julian tried his best not to brush hands with her; it was difficult, she was so close he fancied he could feel her aura, and caught the faintest fragrance.

“How do you feel about amputations?” he asked suddenly.  

Altheia raised an eyebrow.  “They're not exactly my favourite thing in the world, but I'm not squeamish about them, if that's what you're asking.”

“You’ve seen one?”

“Two.  One was a foot, the other a forearm.  I assisted…”  Her voice wobbled and she paused, that haunted look crossing her eyes again.  

“On your ship?  What was the doctor’s name, ah… Kiri!  I liked her.  Quite the character.”

“Yes.  She was.”

Was? 

Julian glanced at her, but her eyes were fixed straight ahead.  He decided not to ask.

“Well, how do you feel about assisting me?”

It seemed such a strange thing to ask.  He couldn’t see Altheia as anything other than the proud ship’s captain.  Still, knowing she’d assisted her own ship’s surgeon made it a little easier.

“If I’m to be your apprentice,” she said with a slight arch of an eyebrow, “I ought to do what you ask of me, no?”

“Yes, true, true.  Speaking of which, I need to sign you on before we do anything else.”

“Of course.”

Back at the clinic, Julian prepared the anaesthetic mixture for the patient he would be operating on, and gave it to one of the nurses before leading Altheia to the room at the back of the clinic that was ostensibly his office, but some time ago he’d moved a little bed into the room and slept there most nights.  He tossed his overcoat onto the bed, and then bent to pet his old hound dog, as she wandered from her pile of blankets to greet him.  

“This is Brundle,” he explained to Altheia, and smiled as she crouched to scritch the dog behind her ear.  “Daft as a brush, but I wouldn’t have her any other way.”

Brundle sniffed Altheia’s hand, huffed, and went back to her blankets.  

“I think she likes you.  Now then, let me find your paperwork…”

Julian slipped into the role of doctor and apprentice, pushing all he knew about Altheia from his mind as best he could.  This wouldn’t work if he was anything other than professional.  He rummaged through the mess of paperwork on his desk and in a drawer, eventually finding a thin file with a blank contract.

“What’s this?” Altheia asked, peering around his shoulder as he shoved some papers to the edge of the desk and set the file open on it.  

“Your contract.  Formalities.  You agree to undertake such tasks as… and I agree not to give you tasks that… hmmhmm… death or injury… but otherwise waive responsibility… etcetera etcetera.”

“I see.  So… I should do everything you ask?”

Her voice was deliberately low, and Julian swallowed, not looking at her.

“Exactly that.  And I promise not to ask you to do anything that would, well, kill you.  Not that I ever would!”

She laughed softly.  “I’m sure.”

Julian dipped a quill into an ink pot and held it over the space on the paper for his signature.  He hovered there for a moment.  There was also the unspoken understanding that with the contract came a power imbalance, that she was under him - so to speak - and that it could be seen as inappropriate, an abuse of that power, for anything to happen between them.

He glanced at Altheia, wondering if he should mention that.  Her eyes turned up from the paper to his gaze.  

“Everything okay, doctor?”

Julian forced a smile.  Nothing about Altheia’s demeanour suggested she wanted to rekindle the passion of eight years ago.  How silly of him to think so.  She was here to help him as a doctor, nothing else.

He looked back to the contract, and scratched a ~J.  He handed her the pen, and as she leaned over to sign her name, her hand brushed his, sending a warmth across his skin.

Julian hurriedly shoved the contract back into the drawer, along with his feelings.

All his focus was on the surgery, then, and Altheia was just like any other apprentice.  Amputations were almost second nature to him, he’d performed so many during his time as a battlefield medic, and the poor diets of people in South End meant that they were often taken by infection or gangrene more than they should be.  But there was only so much he could do for people with little money.

But every now and again, an amputation would bring back horrific memories and he’d be back in a battlefield, the screams of the injured and dying all around him, people he couldn’t save, and even those he could save by cutting off a limb to seal a severed artery, he had to do without anaesthetic.  All these years later, he could still hear their screams.

And sometimes, like now, he could hear the man beneath his knife screaming.  He wasn’t, of course, he was deeply asleep.  But the sound in Julian’s mind was piercing.  As he worked, he rattled through a story from his travels, talking to his nurse and to Altheia, anything to keep the screams buried beneath the sound of his own voice.

As soon as he’d finished the stitches and had nothing left to focus on, the terror overcame him, constricting his chest and making his hands shake.  Leaving the others to finish up, not wanting them to see him like this and mumbling an assurance that he was fine, he stumbled outside and into the alley between the clinic and his house.

He leaned back on the clinic wall, turned his face up and closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing and the trembling in all his limbs, searching for happier thoughts to cling to but coming up short.  

He heard the clinic door open and close, soft footsteps come to a stop near to him.

“Are you okay?”

His eyes snapped open at the quiet voice.  The setting sun cast a golden hue over Altheia’s features as she looked at him, sympathy in her sea-green eyes as she leaned back on the opposite wall.  

“Oh, yes.  This happens sometimes.  I’ll be fine.”

The arch of her eyebrow and slight narrowing of her eyes told him she didn’t believe him just as surely as if she’d said it out loud.  She slid along the wall until she was directly opposite him, toe-to-toe.

“You’re shaking.”

Silently cursing himself, he forced a smile and tried to suppress the tremors - to little avail. He needed her to go, to leave him, to not see him break down, he couldn't calm himself when she was there and he couldn't hide it for much longer.

“Mm-hmm, yes, but it’ll stop.  You can go, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to leave you like this.”

Of course she wouldn’t.  He remembered how she cared for him back then, her inherent empathy.  Still, he should be better than this, she shouldn’t see, not when she was supposed to be his apprentice… how could she trust him to teach her if he couldn’t even hold himself together?

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted again.

Ignoring him, she pushed herself off the wall and took Julian’s hands in hers.  He drew in a deep breath at the touch, of her warmth, and that little pulse of magic that felt like a summer’s tide washing over him, soothing him.

“Er, what…  Um…”

She smiled faintly, took his hand and placed it flat on the centre of her chest.  He could feel her heart beating against his palm, rhythmic and steady.

She slid her own hand up beneath his shirt, against his skin, up to his chest, over his racing heart and the heavy rise and fall of his chest with the quick breaths he still couldn’t control.  Her gaze was firm, steady, but her smile was soft, her touch warm.

And she said,

“Breathe with me.”

His eyes came open in the darkness once more.  In the shadows beyond their spell circle, he saw the avatars of the reversed Queen and Knight of Cups lingering in the ship’s cabin, which itself appeared as if underwater, but… it was less oppressive than it had been, the pain was less, and their images wavered.

Julian felt just as he had in that memory, racing heart and quickened breaths and trembling body soothed by Altheia’s touch.  She was here now, of course she was, and her hand was on his chest, over his glowing mark, the compass.  He nearly wept.

“I see us,” he whispered.  

He found that the rope binding his arms had already been cut.  He didn’t know how or why, Altheia was in control, and he didn’t need to understand.  All he needed was to feel her heartbeat.  Her mark, the compass, flared and glowed under his touch when he rested his palm there.  The pain had eased significantly.  

Altheia didn’t speak, perhaps not wanting to disrupt Julian’s stream of memory.  He closed his eyes as her forehead rested against his.  And he slipped back under.

Chapter Text

Despite telling himself that he wouldn’t treat Altheia any differently from his other apprentices, Julian couldn’t help but give her preference for the assignments that would keep her closer to him, explaining it away as him needing to keep a closer eye on her than the others as she settled in.  Fortunately, she was proving to be an adept medic, attentive to his teachings and putting them into practice with care.  Her natural empathy certainly helped with the patients.  And she never complained even when he put her to the more menial tasks.

He was almost dismayed that they got along so well, because it would have been a lot easier to maintain his position as her superior if they hadn't.  Getting to know each other, they slid into a natural dynamic of good humour and lightly teasing banter.  When they had to be separated for any length of time, he found he missed her.  It was strange how he felt somehow safer simply by being in the same room.  Her smile, the sparkle of her sea-green eyes, the dimple at the corner of her mouth, her teasing, brightened his darkest days.

And some of those days were very dark indeed.  The clinic saw a stream of patients with this new disease, which was beginning to become known as the Red Plague.  The symptoms were horrifying - in the later stages, the sclera of their eyes would be blood red, and veiny streaks of crimson would spread across gaunt cheeks and emaciated bodies.  And there was no cure.  Whatever Julian tried, it seemed to be luck more than anything purposeful on his part that determined whether a patient lived or died.  All he could do was soothe their fever, numb their pain, and when all hope was lost, keep them sedated.

He barely slept, falling into his bed long after midnight and tossing and turning fitfully, his mind racing too fast to let him slip into anything like a deep sleep.  As his four apprentices grew in competence, he began sending them out on house calls and errands, barely leaving the clinic himself between treating patients and attempting to formulate medicines.  His brightest apprentice, Selina, proved to be adept with the alchemy, and he was grateful for her.

But it was Altheia that he drew ever closer to, who he began to rely on for support and strength.  Still, despite the time they spent together, she never talked about her past.  They never talked about those two nights on her ship.  It seemed to Julian that she was here to make an entirely fresh start, as if she’d never been a merchant or privateer at all.  He hoped that talking about his own travels might coax her into bringing it up, but even when he mentioned passing through Port Tremaire, she did nothing but offer a tight smile and change the subject.  Julian certainly didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but he did hope that she’d open up about it when she was ready.

One evening, he was taking a rare break from paperwork in his office, sitting with Brundle and talking out his thoughts as he often did - the dog was a good listener.

“There must be something I’m missing,” he murmured, his mind turning over the failure of his latest batch of medicine.  “This is beyond me, old girl.  Maybe I could reach out to Doctor Satrinava.  I wonder if they returned to Prakra.  I could send a note to the palace, I suppose.”  He huffed a laugh.  “Imagine, a backroads doctor like me thinking I could write to the Prakran palace!  But you’re right, there’s no harm in trying.”

Brundle nudged his hand and he resumed petting her.  He sighed.  “And what about our new apprentice, hmm?  What do we think?  Can I tell you a secret?”  The dog licked his fingers.  “I like her.  A lot.  Sometimes I think she likes me, but she’s my apprentice, and as hard as that still is to believe, I can’t approach her in that way, even if I thought she might want me to. And I don't know that she does want me to. I do remember her saying she couldn't give anything more, but—"

He jumped to his feet at the sound of someone at the door clearing their throat; absolutely mortified, he stared wide-eyed at Altheia.

“Oh, hello!  I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”  He could feel his cheeks flush hotly.  “How, uh… how long have you been there?”

He couldn’t read her expression as she stepped into the room, and couldn’t tell if she’d heard what he’d been saying.

“Not long.  I brought Brundle’s dinner.”

“Thank you, you can leave it there if you like.”  He set his hands on his hips, then down to his sides again, then shifted his weight, trying to appear nonchalant and not managing it at all, wishing he knew whether she’d heard him so he could will the ground to open and swallow him up.  “You may as well go home for the day, there’s not much else to do and it’s getting late.”

“Hmm.”  Altheia set the bowl down on the floor.  The door closed behind her as she took a step forward to Julian, tilting her head a little to the side.  “And who will bring your dinner?”

“Nobody!”  Julian was aghast at the suggestion.  “I wouldn’t dream of asking–”

“So you’ll get it yourself?”

“I usually do, yes.”  He felt a little sheepish at Altheia’s amused curve of lips.  “At some point.  Sometimes.  But I don’t eat much, so–”

To his surprise, Altheia sighed, picked up his overcoat from the bed and tossed it over to him.

“I’m taking you for dinner.”

Julian spluttered and stared, almost in a panic.  

“Y-you… no, I could never–”

“Yes, you can.”

She closed the gap between them, giving him a look that he really couldn’t argue with.  The hairs on the back of his arm rose up when she rested her hand there.  

“You deserve a break, you deserve to be treated well.  And you need to eat.”

Julian took a breath to speak, to argue in what he knew was futility.  She silenced him with her finger on his lips.

“No arguing.”

His next breath came with a shiver.  His thoughts raced a thousand miles a minute as he looked down into her eyes, seeing the sudden slight change in her expression, a barely noticeable widening of her eyes and parting of her lips as if she was surprised to find herself so close, touching him.  But that same thing that had driven their passion years ago was now sparking between them again, and it took every fibre of Julian’s being, every ounce of his self-control, not to give in to it.

And yet… he wanted to spend time with her.  Needed to.  Whether or not he deserved a break and to be treated well… he wanted to.  With her.

All he could manage to hoarsely say was,

“No arguing.”

He caught his bottom lip between his teeth as Altheia pulled her finger away, only to slide her hand around the back of his neck, sending a shiver rippling down his spine and back up again.  Her eyes didn’t leave his.  He tentatively set his hand in the curve of her waist and barely suppressed a whimper at the touch, at the faint tremor he felt run through her.  His hand fit there as if her waist was sculpted just for him.  

Her gaze slipped down to his lips; Julian bent close, and brushed his nose against her nose, then her cheek; and then her hand was on his waist, their bodies were touching, and she craned up to meet him as their lips touched.

The sudden spark was so intense that Julian all but gasped and pulled back.  Altheia didn’t move, her lips parted, touched his again, tentative and unsure.  And again, and again, presses of lips a little firmer each time.  Julian’s head felt light, he could barely think, vaguely aware that they shouldn’t… but when he looked into her eyes again, watched them close as her lips parted to caress his once more, there was no question.  

He drew her close against him as she wrapped her arms around him, and it was as if they hadn’t been apart, as if that one day and perhaps a night had been only yesterday, not years ago.  Her fingers entangled in his hair, the other hand on the small of his back holding him against her, and he couldn’t stop a soft moan escaping him as the kiss deepened, as he swept his tongue over hers and felt her trembling gasp.  He inhaled deeply, drawing in her fragrance, and it was as he remembered; vanilla, bergamot and sea salt.  Years ashore could not steal the sea from her veins.

He was almost afraid to release her, as if he’d find that his sleep-deprived state had imagined it all, or that she’d realise her mistake and pull away, leave him again…  But when they did part, it was only so she could smile fondly up at him, her hands resting on his shoulders.

“So… what about this new apprentice?” 

“Ah!”  Julian grimaced, deeply embarrassed.  “You heard?”

She pressed a kiss to the base of his neck.  “I did.”

“Well, uh… the new apprentice is… hm…”  He dropped kisses on Altheia’s lips, cheek, throat, shoulder.  “Very attractive.  And…”  More kisses, on her other cheek, other shoulder.  “Very, very good at kissing.  But I knew that already.”

She laughed against his lips.

“Is that so?”

“Very much so.”

He drew her in to another close embrace, this time with no hesitation, no uncertainty.  Just a simple desire to be close, to touch, to hold.  His nose pressed into her cheek and his fingers tightened on her waist, and she responded in kind.

They parted with a sigh and a smile.  

“Well, doctor,” Altheia purred, "the new apprentice very much would like you to approach her in that way."

"I think the new apprentice beat me to it."

Altheia chuckled, and tugged affectionately on a lock of Julian's hair that had curled on his forehead.

“And now the new apprentice wants to take you for dinner.”

“I’m too busy.”

He moved to kiss her again but she blocked him with her hand over his mouth, laughing.

“No more kisses until you’ve eaten.”

Julian pouted, making her laugh again.  “Fine. Where are you taking me?”

“Do you like lobster?”

“Love it.”

“Good.  There’s a lovely little place down by the docks that serves lobster and a great coffee.  So I’m told.”

“What a treat!”

Altheia rocked up onto her toes to peck a kiss to Julian’s mouth, and then turned towards the door.  But Julian reached out to take her hand, and pulled her back around to face him.  He tucked some stray strands of white hair back behind her ears.  He almost couldn’t quite believe that she was here, with him, offering to take him to dinner.  

“Thank you.”

“It’s just dinner.”

“No, no it isn’t.  You know it isn’t.”

Because it wasn’t just dinner.  It was Altheia caring for him, not just making sure he ate properly but getting him out of the office, the clinic, out of himself.  It was just what he needed - a distraction from it all.  She was what he needed.  She simply smiled, shrugged, and led him from the room.

"That lobster really was wonderful," Julian said, adding with a sidelong glance at Altheia as she walked beside him, "so was the coffee. You should have tried some."

Altheia smiled and bumped his hip with hers. "The juice was fine. Though I much preferred the rum at the Rowdy Raven."

"I noticed." Julian grinned. "You drank enough of it."

Altheia gasped as if offended. "Are you accusing me of being a drunkard, doctor?"

"No, no, not at all. But I did have to stop you dancing on the table."

Altheia tutted. "I told you, the table looked perfectly sturdy."

"I wasn't worried about the table so much as you falling off it," Julian said. Then he leaned down close as he added, "Or were you trying to distract me from the fact that you were cheating?"

They'd been playing cards, and, true to the tradition of the night they'd first met, both of them had cheated.

Altheia pouted. "No! I was caught up in the moment."

"Uh huh."

"I was!"

They looked at each other, and burst out laughing. Then continued on in silence for a while, simply wandering the streets at a stroll, in no particular direction. Julian looked down at their feet as they walked; both a little wobbly from the rum, but after walking together to the market so often, he'd learnt to shorten his stride slightly, and she'd lengthened hers, so now their steps were perfectly synchronised. They were walking so close to each other that their hands brushed every now and again; Julian didn't dare to try to hold her hand - surely that was too forward, too presumptuous, and he didn't want to make her feel awkward or embarrassed, not after they'd had such a lovely evening, it would be a shame to end on a sour note…

As if reading his thoughts - and wanting to silence them — Altheia's fingers slid into his palm. She looked up, almost coyly, and Julian took her hand, so that their fingers intertwined.

After a little while of walking in a comfortable silence, Altheia sighed.

"It's getting late, and we've got another busy day tomorrow. I should probably go home to the shop."

Julian had to hold his breath to keep from sighing — not just because he didn't want the evening to end yet, but because that reminder that she had a shop now, not a ship, was just so… wrong.

He couldn't quite hide his disappointment as he said, "Oh yes, of course. Of course you should. I'll walk you." But he couldn't quite bring himself to turn to head in the direction of the shop. Emboldened by the fact that Altheia also didn't turn or stop, he dared to suggest, "Or… we could… walk some more? Maybe? If you want to?" When Altheia turned her eyes up to him, Julian suddenly worried — again — that he'd been too forward, more than what she wanted. He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "You don't have to, obviously, but I—"

"Be quiet, Julian."

For a moment he panicked, a cold feeling pressing at the base of his skull… until he saw her smile, and she released his hand only to slide her arm under his coat and around his waist.

"Oh! Right, yes, I can do that."

He still couldn't quite bring himself to believe that any of this was real, and didn't quite know what to do with his arm, until Altheia gently said,

"You can put your arm around me, if you want."

"I do want! I'll do that."

"You will?"

She seemed amused. Julian curled his arm around her shoulders, and then dared to kiss the top of her head.

"Yes, I will. See?"

Altheia laughed softly, her arm tightening around his waist as they continued to walk.

"I see! Well, since we're staying out late, where shall we go?"

"How about the beach?"

Altheia hesitated for just a moment, a shadow flickering across her expression. Then she grinned up at him.

"Good idea. To the beach!"

It wasn't the best evening to be sitting on the beach, with the sea breeze a little too brisk to be comfortable, and it was an even worse evening for stargazing, as charcoal grey clouds scudded across the dark sky, obscuring even the moon. But none of that mattered, as Julian lay with his head pillowed on Altheia's lap, and told her stories of the stars. He told her, too, the one that she'd told him, about Valetia and the beacon which became the brightest star in the constellation of the Healer - not because he thought she might have forgotten it, but because he wanted her to know he'd remembered it. He remembered that evening on the deck of her ship. And she said she liked hearing him tell it, in any case.

All the while, Altheia's fingers threaded through his hair, catching occasionally on a tangle and smoothing it out, short nails scraping lightly on his scalp.

There was only one thing tarnishing the contentment that made Julian's heart warm in his chest. The reason that Altheia was here at all.

The Red Plague was spreading at pace. Somehow, Julian had allowed his work, the business of treating people, obscure the dreadful truth of it. That there was no cure. That almost everyone who came to him died, despite his best efforts. That every day, more came than the day before. It was beginning to settle heavily over him in a way he could not ignore - he could lose everyone he cared about. Including Altheia.

Then there was the fact of why she was there at all. What happened to her ship? What happened to the person she'd been living with here in Vesuvia? How did she end up there at all?

Well, that made several things, really.

Partially, though he found it hard to believe, she was there because of him. For him. He couldn't ask that of her. But he realised that they were at a crossroads. There was still time for her to leave. But if they were to get more involved…

"What's wrong?"

Her voice, though soft and low, almost startled him from his thoughts.

"Nothing! How could anything be wrong?"

He took her hand, kissed her palm, and lay it on his chest, lacing their fingers together.

"You're not a very good liar."

Julian snorted a laugh. "Not good enough to hide from you, at least."

"So? What are you thinking about?"

Julian sighed. There wasn't any point trying to hide it. It wouldn't do any good anyway.

"You."

"Me?" She sounded surprised, but cautious, as if she didn't want to encourage him to say more.

"Yes. Can I ask you something?"

He felt her tense just slightly. "Go on."

"About… the magician you've been living with."

"His name is Asra."

"Asra, yes. You said that there's nothing between you, in… in that way."

"That's right. Besides, he's left Vesuvia."

"He has?"

"Yep. Before I joined the clinic, in fact. He was afraid of the plague and didn't want to stay."

"Oh." Julian didn't quite know what to say to that. "That's understandable, I suppose. I'm not sure that I would stay if I wasn't a doctor."

"I think that if you weren't a doctor, you'd find one to work with. Perhaps become their apprentice."

Julian heard the wry smile behind Altheia's words, because that was exactly what she had done. "Ah. Maybe so."

"Besides, Asra was always leaving. He'd go away for weeks at a time. Never let me go with him. So it really didn't surprise me that he left, and who could blame him. What did surprise me was that he asked me to go with him this time."

"But you didn't… because…"

"You know because."

"Mmm." She'd wanted to help, he told himself. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. "Can I ask something else?"

Altheia chuckled. "It's the evening for questions, is it?"

"It seems that way." He took a deep breath, almost afraid to ask, fearing the question would push her away, but he had to know. "How… why… did you wind up at Asra's shop at all?"

"It's not his shop," she said primly. "It's mine." Her other hand brushed wayward locks of hair from his eye; he looked up to see a shadow across her eyes. "You haven't asked before."

"No, well, you didn't seem to want to talk about it, and it wasn't really any of my business."

"Is it your business now?"

Julian bit his lip and looked away. "Ah. No. Probably not."

"It could be."

He looked up again. "Could it?"

"What do you want?"

Julian sighed. "What does it matter what I want?"

"It matters now."

"I want…" You, he thought. But he couldn't say it. Because if he said it, if he heard her say it back… he knew he couldn't let her go. So instead he said, "I want another drink, that's what I want."

Altheia clicked her tongue and sharply raised her legs so that Julian tumbled off her lap with a surprised "Ow!" The pebbles and seashells were sharp under his hands as he pushed himself to sit up.

The beach… the shells…

"Fine, don't tell me."

Altheia sounded embarrassed and started to move away, but Julian grabbed her hand in a panic, looking into her eyes in earnest as he blurted out,

"If I tell you, you'll stay."

She frowned, confused and a little frustrated, it seemed.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I like you! Really like you! A lot!" So much for not telling her. Julian felt his heart opening up and he couldn't stop it. "But I don't want you to stay to be with me."

Her eyes widened and her jaw slackened in surprised disbelief. Her fingers tightened ever so slightly around his hand.

"You like me, but you don't want me to stay?"

"I do! Or… I would, under any other circumstance. But this isn't any other circumstance, there's a plague, and you could have gone with your friend, you could be safe, but you're here…"

"You're not making any sense."

"Do I ever?"

"What do you want?"

"I can't be so selfish… It doesn't matter what I want, what matters is you."

I was selfish… so selfish…

Altheia gave up with a frustrated growl.

"Will you just listen?"

Julian bit his lip and nodded. Altheia's voice and gaze were firm, as she held Julian's face between her hands.

"I'm staying. You need an apprentice—"

"You're not—"

"And I want to help," she went on, as if he hadn't spoken. "I have to. I'm not going anywhere, whether we're together or not."

Julian froze, his eyes widening in shock. Altheia seemed almost as surprised as he.

"To- together?" Julian's mouth went dry, his heart jumped so hard it hurt. "You mean… together, together?"

Together… always.

Altheia laughed softly. "That's what I mean, yes. If you want?"

"I do! I do want, very much."

His heart raced so hard he thought it might burst from his chest, belly full of butterflies, so giddy he could barely control a laugh. Altheia smiled fondly, and kissed him. A tender, gentle kiss.

Just as Julian leaned into the kiss, Altheia pulled back. That shadow came across her countenance again and she looked down.

"You might not say that if you knew."

Julian couldn't think of one single thing that would make him not want to be together with her. But he held his tongue, except to say,

"If I knew what?"

"You asked how I ended up at the shop. You shouldn't have let me avoid answering, by the way." She gave a half smile and poked his arm, and then closed her eyes. Her hands clasped together, and she spoke in a rush. "There was an.. accident. No, not an accident. We were attacked."

"The ship?"

"Yes. By some… thing. I don't know what it was. Something in the sea. I tried to fight it. I wasn't careful enough. My magic… rebounded on me. It nearly killed me."

Julian dared to lay his hand over her clasped hands. "You don't have to tell me."

She nodded, seeming grateful. "No one could heal me. My magic was too powerful, apparently." She gave a bitter little laugh. "But my aunt knew more about healing magical injuries than anyone else in my family. So I came to stay with her. The shop was hers. I recovered eventually, thanks to her. Then she got sick, and I stayed to help with the shop. And then she died."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It was a long time ago."

"You didn't want to go back to Port Tremaire?"

"It's not that I didn't want to… I don't know. I couldn't face it. And then I met Asra, he moved in, and… well. It was an easy excuse, I suppose." She sighed heavily, and turned her eyes to Julian almost fearfully, as if what she'd said could have changed anything that he felt. It hadn't.

He reached up to tuck the white strands behind Altheia's ears.

"And the accident, your magic… made your hair white?"

"It did. Ice will do that. It's like a scar, I think."

Julian smoothed Altheia's white fringe between his fore and middle fingers.

"I think it's beautiful."

She smiled, tilting her head a little.

"You do?"

"I do! It shows how strong you are. And what you survived."

"I survived myself, huh?"

"Isn't that the hardest thing, sometimes?" He held her gaze, and then broke the somber mood with a wink. "And at least you won't need to powder your hair for those high society gatherings, hmm?"

Altheia burst into a laugh. "That's true. But I don't want to go back to Port Tremaire. I don't want to go with Asra. I want to stay here. With you." She leaned close, and her words were punctuated by little kisses, to his lips and cheek and jaw, her hand on the side of his neck. She leaned back, and in her smile and eyes then was something of the Altheia he knew, the shadow gone. "I like you, Julian. Really like you. A lot!"

Julian found himself grinning stupidly.

"You do?"

Altheia laughed. "Yes!"

"Oh well, in that case…"

Julian dropped onto his back, pulling Altheia down on top of him so that she let out a surprised squeal before settling between his legs as he bent his knees up and wrapped his arms around her back, holding her close.

For a moment, her expression turned serious as she held his gaze, eyes dark in the meagre light, white strands of hair drifting over her forehead in the breeze. Her voice was low and she spoke gently, but sounding out each word very deliberately, as if to be sure he heard and understood.

"No one lives forever, you know. However short our time may be, I want to spend it with you."

No one lives forever… how right she was.

Julian swallowed thickly and nodded. In that moment, all he knew was that he felt the same. Thoughts of plague, hopelessness and fear evaporated, just for a moment, as Altheia committed to a deep kiss and warm embrace.

Here… it was here…

It made sense now. The difference in her. How could someone go through all of that and not be changed? How could losing everything she'd worked so hard for, the ship and people she'd loved, not steal her fire? How could holding herself responsible not break her spirit?

Julian didn't know how to heal her. Maybe he never could. She'd carry the scars with her forever. But he could care for her, like she cared for him. Make her feel wanted, needed. Because he did want her, need her. Still giddy and warm from her words and her embrace, and realising that she'd made it clear she didn't want to talk anymore, he knew very well how to distract her.

"Do you remember…" he murmured between kisses, as the passion grew. "Those, uh… the pleasure points… on my neck?"

He winced at himself - of all the things he could have said, of course his mind was empty of anything else except something so forward and probably inappropriate. But he felt Altheia's lips curve into a smile against his.

"Mmhmm."

And then her kisses were travelling beneath his jaw, down his neck to the pulse just beneath the skin of his throat, and she nipped at him there with her teeth. Gently at first, and then a little harder and a little more, and Julian couldn't help but close his eyes and softly moan at the pleasure-pain, of his flesh sucked between her teeth hard enough to bruise, the seashells and pebbles beneath him scraping the back of his neck and scalp so that they stung, and he lost himself to her entirely.

A beautiful pain. I remembered, on the beach, it was here… but didn't we run?

They were interrupted by a heavy drop of rain landing on Julian's cheek, another on his eyelid so that he flinched back, and as Altheia sat up her nose wrinkled in reaction to a raindrop landing on it.

"Don't mind that," he said, trying to pull her down again. "I don't mind a little rain."

Altheia looked up. "I don't think it's going to be a little rain."

She was right. Mere moments later the sky opened and the rain began to fall in a torrent. They scrambled to their feet and ran back up the beach, laughing as they very quickly became drenched.

It rained! That's why we ran.

"Come to the clinic," Julian said, raising his voice over the noise of the rain hammering against the street paving and rooftops. "It's closer than your shop."

Altheia didn't need telling twice. Together, hand in hand, they sprinted through the streets of South End, dodging puddles and jumping over rivulets of water that streamed through the deepest cracks between the paving, not that they could have got any wetter than they already were. It was exhilerating, somehow, to be running with her, laughing, racing hearts shooting adrenaline through their limbs.

They reached the side entrance of the clinic, and Julian turned to look at her, through the rain that fell between them. White hair was plastered to her forehead and cheeks, her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, smile broad and laugh infectious. He leaned back on the door and pulled her into a deep kiss, and she pressed up against him, taking his breath, fingers pulling at his sopping wet hair, and as his hands moved over her he delighted in the way her wet clothes clung to her skin beneath his touch.

"It'll take a while for your clothes to dry," he murmured between kisses.

"Mmm. I expect so. I'll have to borrow one of your shirts."

"Of course! And I insist you stay the night, I'm not having you go home in this weather."

"Thank you!"

"But I, er… I only have the one bed."

"I know."

"I'll sleep in the chair."

Altheia laughed. "No, you won't. You'll never get comfortable with your long legs. I'll sleep in the chair."

"Absolutely not!"

"Well then, we're at an impasse." Altheia's lips moved to the soft skin beneath Julian's ear, making a beautiful shiver run through him. "If I won't let you sleep in the chair, and you won't let me sleep in the chair, we'll have to share the bed, won't we?"

"It looks that way, yes. It…" His voice broke off for a moment in a slight whimper as Altheia nipped the skin beneath his ear. "It's a very small bed."

"I know. We'll have to sleep very close together."

"Very."

Altheia leaned back again, looking up with that expression in her eyes that told him she was serious. "I need you to know… for all that I said back then, that I couldn't give you anything more than a day and perhaps a night… it's different now. I want something real with you. For however long we have."

Julian nodded emphatically. "So do I."

He pulled her into another kiss, warm and giddy and utterly disbelieving that any of it was real. That she, who he'd dreamed about often since they'd parted years ago, was here, with him.

"Julian?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you think you can open the door now?"

"Oh! Oh yes!"

Laughing, he turned and fumbled with cold hands for his keys and unlocked the door. He found towels and two spare shirts, they dried each other off and warmed each other up, and found that there was just enough room in the bed for the two of them.

We were together.

Two streams of consciousness, one atop the other; one, the memory, surging and frothing and churning as it broke through the spell that had bound it like a river bursting through a dam, the magical net now cut; the other, the now, trying to catch it, to watch, to feel. And he did. It was quick, like a dream that flashes in and out of existence, but unlike a dream they stuck with him. Days and weeks lived in a moment.

Where there had once been almost-memories, where reaching for them was an insurmountable struggle against a riptide from which he couldn't surface, now he broke free, he chased the memories and he caught them.

It was confusing at first, placing the memory with the moment he'd almost remembered, on the beach, when trying to catch it had brought on a kind of seizure and debilitating pain. But he held on, guided by Altheia's thread, and the streams merged and slowed and flowed together as one.

When he opened his eyes again and saw her, eyes closed as she worked her spell, aura warm and bright around her, Julian's heart ached. Because now he knew some of her past, more than she did. But his heart swelled too, with love and a kind of happiness that transcended anything he'd felt before, and it was pushing any pain away.

"It's working," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't stop."

He could sense she was struggling now, as she nodded but didn't open her eyes. Now wasn't the time to tell her, he knew. He became aware that he didn't know how much time had passed, and that the stars could be moving out of alignment.  

"You're okay?" Altheia asked. Her fingertips were on his temples, and Julian could feel the welcome intrusion of her magic.

"Yes," he told her. He brushed his nose and then his lips across her hot cheek. "Are you?"

She made a non-commital grunting sound low in her throat. "The bath salts next."

Julian nodded. And as Altheia unpicked another thread of her Forget Me spell, he chased the memory, and this time he caught it.

Chapter Text

Vanilla, Bergamot and Sea Salt

Julian didn't think that he'd ever felt so bone-deep exhausted since his days as a battlefield medic. But after one particularly long, dark day, he sank to the floor of his office, leaned back against the bed, and let out a deep, heavy sigh. Brundle shuffled over to him, and he managed a tired smile as the old hound dog licked his hand.

"We lost Cora today," he said quietly, past the lump in his throat. Cora had been a good friend of his, and he'd had to watch her succumb to the Red Plague, able to do little else than ease her suffering. "There are four children in the ward. Theo's shown a little improvement, but I think the others…"

Brundle whined and dropped her head onto his lap. Julian ran one of the dog's floppy ears between his fingers and palm over and over; the soft, velvety fur was comforting.

There was so little else to comfort him. But there was Brundle, and there was Altheia. She was by his side as often as she could be, as often as he'd let her… but just recently, the thought had grown on him that she wasn't safe, and that thought festered until he began to try to push her away. Every time he went into a patient's home, he asked her to wait outside. She didn't listen, of course. She knew full well he was trying to protect her, and she wouldn't let him do it. When he needed her, she was there, always.

He didn't want to need her. Not like this, anyway.

"Where's the cure, Brundle?" he murmured. "There must be one. There must be. And if there's not… I can't keep her here. It's not safe. I don't want to lose her…" His voice choked at the thought of Altheia not being close to him. "…but I can't let her… not for me. I can't be selfish."

But I was.

As if on cue, the door opened and Altheia poked her head around, casting her eyes about for a moment before she saw him. She gave no sign that she'd heard what Julian had been saying to Brundle this time.

"Why are you sitting on the floor?"

Julian shrugged. "Brundle's here. Brundle, say hello to Altheia."

The dog managed a huff in Altheia's general direction.

"Hello to you, too," Altheia said with a quirk of her eyebrow, as she stepped fully into the room. She was holding a plate of food and a mug of coffee. "Here, you should eat."

"I'm not—" He subsided with a sheepish smile at her raised eyebrow. "Thank you."

Altheia cocked her head a little to the side as she looked at him with sympathy. "It's been a long day."

"Yes. Yes, it has. A long day in a series of long days."

She regarded him for a moment longer before setting the plate and mug onto the desk, and then came to kneel between his outstretched legs. She gently held his face between her hands.

"I'm going to take care of you. And you're going to let me."

She spoke softly but firmly, in a tone that Julian couldn't argue with. He offered a tired half-smile.

"Do I get a choice?"

"None at all."

She brushed a tender kiss to his lips, then got to her feet and held out her hand to haul him up. She held his hand as she led him from the office and down the corridor to the small bathroom, and Julian smiled a little that the bath was already filled. Julian was a firm believer in the restorative power of bath salts, especially when they came from his hometown of Nevivon - and so he was delighted to see that Altheia had lined a selection up on the edge of the bath for him.

Altheia turned on the ball of her foot with her hands behind her back to look up at him with a smile that was almost coy. "Well now, doctor. Which would you like? Something relaxing? Something that smells nice?"

"Hmm." Julian picked up the small bottles, one by one, and held them under his nose. Rose, lavender, kelp, chamomile and tea tree… and on the end, a little blue bottle that didn't quite match the others. He held Altheia's gaze as he unstoppered it and held it to his nose; she tilted her head a little, curiously. Rich and sweet, tangy and fresh; a sea breeze.

"How about…" he said, "something that smells like home?"

It was her fragrance; vanilla, bergamot and sea salt. Julian noticed her bottom lip catch between her teeth as if she were trying to hide a smile.

"Home?"

Home… that's why the reaction was so strong here. Her fragrance… feels like home.

Julian smiled over the rim of the bottle. "These are yours, aren't they?"

"Yes!" She seemed pleased that he'd noticed. "They're relaxing, and smell nice."

"Just what I need." Julian sprinkled a generous amount into the bath and swirled the water around with one hand, breathing deeply as the aroma carried up into the steamy air. Behind him, he heard Altheia lock the bathroom door. And Julian decided that for a while, all the pain could stay on the other side of it.

"Get in, then."

Julian was a little surprised that Altheia turned her back to him, and started to roll up her shirt sleeves. Obediently, he undressed and slipped into the bath. The hot, fragrant water was almost immediately soothing. Altheia fetched a wash cloth from the linen cupboard, and turned back to him with one of those smiles of hers.

"Lie back." When Julian hesitated, she added, "I did say I'd take care of you, and I meant it."

"Right! When you put it like that, who am I to argue?"

He did as she asked, laying back in the water up to his neck, though he was so tall that he had to bend his knees up, or else let his long gangly legs dangle over the edge of the bath, which seemed much less dignified.

Altheia crouched down beside him, and made massaging, circular motions across the back of his shoulders. He could feel a trickle of her magic, too, penetrating just beneath the skin, just enough to help relax him. It worked; he could feel the tension ease beneath her hands.

Julian sighed and closed his eyes as he murmured, "You shouldn't be doing this."

"Oh?" Altheia's attentions worked down Julian's arm, and crossed to his side. "And why not?"

"I shouldn't need taking care of."

"Maybe not. But you do."

Julian didn't need to open his eyes to hear the smile in her voice; he snorted a laugh.

"True."

He lay in silence as Altheia made her way down one thigh and back up the other, and he could feel each muscle unwind beneath her strong fingers and assured touch. When she reached his hips, she settled her hand gently in the dip of his pelvis and very slightly raised a brow.

"Can I?"

Julian opened one eye, one corner of his mouth lifting in a wry half smile.

"You've been there before, my dear. You don't need to ask."

Her eyes widened just slightly and she spoke almost under her breath.

"What did you say?"

Julian frowned. "That you don't need to ask?"

"No no, not that." She shook her head, a slight glow blossoming on her cheeks. "Never mind."

Her hand moved down between Julian's legs, but even as a delightful shiver rippled through him, he realised what she'd meant.

"I… called you my dear, didn't I? I'm sorry, shouldn't I? It just came out…"

Altheia smiled softly, but didn't look up at him. "No, it's fine. I liked it, actually."

"Oh! Good! That's good, then."

Julian closed his eyes again as Altheia's ministrations with the washcloth moved between his legs, but he managed not to rise to her - though it took a concerted effort on his part - because that was not her intent. She was simply caring for him.

Her hair caught his eye; one white streak had slipped from her braid and hung down past her shoulder to skim the surface of the cloudy water, curling in on itself and shimmering in the dim light like a crescent moon reflected in the ocean.

Julian couldn't help but squirm as Altheia passed the ticklish spot in the dip above his hip, and she smiled an apology. And when her hand reached his chest, she stopped. Her palm lay over his heart, her fingers spread across his sternum, just under the surface of the bath water. She leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on his bottom lip, and he sighed in contentment.

"Your heartbeat's steady," she told him quietly, and brushed her nose against his as she sat back. Before Julian could respond, she got up and went to the head of the bath. "Just your hair now."

"Very thorough, I see."

"I'm nothing if not thorough."

Julian ducked under the water to wet his hair, and then lay perfectly still as Altheia gently washed his unruly curls, and then massaged his scalp with her fingertips in slow circles. Julian closed his eyes drowsily.

"Why are you doing this?" he murmured.

"I told you. I want to take care of you."

"But why?"

"Because, well… it's nice. Being close to you like this."

"Is it?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

"No, I don't suppose you would. And it is nice."

Julian sat up and twisted at the waist so he could take Altheia's hand and kiss her fingers as he looked up at her with a grin. "Your turn."

"My turn?"

Julian parted his legs as far as he could and patted the surface of the water between them.

"Get in."

Altheia raised an eyebrow. "Is that an order, doctor?"

Julian knew her well enough by now to know she was teasing him. "Maybe it is, my dear apprentice."

She chuckled. "Alright then. When you put it like that…"

Julian looked away as Altheia undressed, and then she was slipping into the water in front of him, her back against his chest. There was just enough room for the two of them, though some of the water sloshed over the edge of the bath.

Julian took his time, moving the washcloth and his hands over her body, exploring her curves, the smoothness of her skin, the occasional bump of a scar. Altheia sighed and sank lower into the water.

"This is nice," Julian said, echoing Altheia's words.

"Is it?"

"I wouldn't— ah." Julian bent to nip Altheia's ear as he realised she was teasing him. "Point taken."

When he reached the dip of her pelvis, he asked for permission as she had done; and she replied as he had done, with a smile. But when he reached between her legs, she took a hold of his wrist to keep him there. He took his time, with gentle circles of his fingertips over her most sensitive place, dipping inside and out again, and her breaths became gasps and began to carry the faintest high-pitched sounds, her body trembled and pressed back against him. He wrapped his other arm around her and rested his hand on her chest, caressing her breasts and feeling her heart quicken beneath his palm.

Her climax was low and long, she gasped his name, nails digging into his arm, and he buried his nose beneath the damp hair clinging to her neck, breathing her in, until she melted back against him with a contented sigh. Julian didn't need anything more than that.

They stayed like that for a while, until eventually Altheia sighed and sat up.

"We should get out. The water's cold."

"Is it? I hadn't noticed."

"Of course not, I was laying on you."

She turned and splashed a little water in his face; Julian sputtered and splashed her in retaliation. They laughed, he pulled her into a kiss, and then she got out of the bath, reaching out a hand to help Julian. Silently, they dried each other, and dressed. As he was doing up Altheia's shirt buttons, Julian said,

"Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me."

"Too late, I just did." He smoothed out the shirt fabric over her shoulders and held her gaze. "You're, uh… you're much more than an apprentice to me. I'm not… I'm not above you, or your superior, when we're like this. You know that, don't you?"

She tilted her head a little as she looked up at him. She must have known, but he felt he needed to say it. And she asked,

"What are you, then?"

"I… well… I'm your…" Julian could feel his cheeks grow hot, suddenly not knowing quite how to answer, without sounding too presumptuous. When it came to him, he cupped her cheek with one hand and held her gaze with earnest. "I… I'm yours."

I was hers… and she was mine.

He saw a flush on her cheeks, not just from the heat of the bath. She gave a low laugh and nuzzled his chest. "Of all the men in all the ports in all the world…" She turned her face up to him, with an affectionate smile as she brushed the backs of her fingers over his cheeks. "It's you. You are mine. And I am yours."

You were mine, and I was yours.

…Altheia?

"You're mine?"

He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice, and Altheia laughed. "Yes, it looks that way."

I'm here.

Julian didn't know what else to say. So he said nothing, and pulled Altheia into a close embrace. Whatever horrors they may face as the Red Plague progressed, they would face them together.

Always.

Sanctuary

"Promise me you'll see the vision."

"What vision?"

"How I see it, uh… in my head. It's not quite finished yet. You have to imagine that it is."

Altheia laughed. "I'll do my best."

The last few weeks had seen Julian and Altheia working tirelessly to find a cure for the Red Plague, whilst still running the clinic as best as they could. Julian had lost one of his apprentices just a few days ago to the disease, and it had thrown him into a crisis that overwhelmed him with his failures, failures that were costing lives, and his guilt at keeping Altheia close to him burned hotly in the pit of his stomach. Every time he thought he could ask her to leave, she stopped him, even if it was unknowingly. He wasn't strong enough. And so he stopped trying, simply grateful to have her. The reality was that, their relationship aside, he needed her help with his patients and his research.

As some measure of distraction, Julian had begun working on a small garden of sorts, on the roof of the clinic. At first he'd intended to use it to grow ingredients for his medicines, but one clear night as he'd been looking up at the stars, he'd been reminded of the night on Altheia's ship. And that thought led to him to working on the garden as a little place of sanctuary for her, and perhaps for them to spend some time together.

He wasn't quite ready to reveal it to her, but earlier that evening his failure to find a cure had got hold of him and he'd snapped at Altheia; he felt terrible about it, but she'd persuaded him to take a break and show her the garden.

And so it was that the two of them now climbed up the ladder onto the flat rooftop of the clinic. The garden itself was contained within low walls in a square, with one side - the side that faced the sea - open. Altheia cast a small orb of magical light to float above them, as they quietly crossed the roof to the garden.

In three long strides, Julian darted in front of her and, as Altheia rounded the corner, he presented the garden to her with a flourish.

"Here it is! Remember it's not finished yet."

Altheia's eyes widened and her jaw slackened as she took a couple of slow steps forward, her gaze sweeping left to right and back again across the small space.

The walls of the small garden were lined with pots of various sizes, with different types of plants and herbs. There was a bench at the very back. And lining the walls were strings of colourful bunting of the kind that were sometimes strung between the masts of ships, triangles of colourful cloth spaced along a thin rope, which Julian had acquired from the dock and which he was certain — almost certain, anyway — had been thrown out by their previous owner.

"Oh! I nearly forgot…" Julian whisked the weatherproof wax tarp off of a pile of large pillows. “So you can be comfortable if you wanted to look at the stars… with me… or…"

Julian's voice trailed away and he bit his lip anxiously as Altheia looked around in silence.

"Do you… do you like it…? Don't say that you do if you don't!"

"Julian, it…" Altheia interrupted herself as something at the back of the garden caught her eye, and she walked over to the corner and crouched by it. "Jade weed? Did you grow this from the seed I got you from the shop?"

Julian grimaced. He'd mistaken an alchemical formula and thought that he'd needed jade seed, when it was actually jade weed that he'd needed. He was certain it wasn't magical, even after learning that Altheia sold it in her shop of magical goods. How could a plant be magical?

"I did! I couldn't let it go to waste. It sprouted very quickly, I couldn’t believe it."

"Yes, jade will do that."

Altheia's faint smile was illuminated by the gentle glow of the plant, the jade light making the sea-green of her eyes sparkle like gemstones. She held one of the leaves on a forefinger and stroked it with her thumb.

"You know…" she continued quietly. "Jade weed can survive for years, even untended. Every other plant in this garden could wither and die, but this one would live on, undimmed."

"Huh. I didn't know. That's probably for the best, I’m not much of a gardener."

Altheia laughed softly as she got to her feet, turned and wrapped her arms around him. Julian sighed in relief and returned her smile.

"Thank you, Julian. It's beautiful. All of it's beautiful. And yes, I would love to look at the stars. With you."

"Good! Good, I'm glad…"

Altheia raised up onto her toes to kiss him, her lips soft and their movements slow, and Julian held her close. But her body began to tremble under his hands, her soft whimper vibrated against his lips, and then a breath came as a gasp - no, not a gasp, Julian realised in dismay, as Altheia put her hands on his chest and pushed herself back… a sob.

"What's wrong?" He tried to hold her shoulders as she backed away, but she shrugged him off. "I'm sorry, Theia, it's too much isn't it? Or not enough? I shouldn’t have… I should have waited—”

"No, no, Julian it's wonderful…" Altheia looked down, hugging herself with one arm and pressing the other hand over her eyes as she turned from him, her voice tight with emotion she struggled to withhold. "It… I don't… Julian, I don't deserve it! I don't deserve you!"

She started back towards the ladder at the corner of the roof, but Julian reached out and grabbed her arm at the elbow.

"Wait! What do you mean? Of course you deserve it, it's a little garden, you deserve the world!"

Altheia didn't resist as Julian pulled her back against him, though she didn't turn.

"I don't… I really don't."

"Why not? Theia, talk to me, please!"

Altheia hiccuped back another sob and took several deep calming breaths, and Julian was relieved to feel her lean back against him and accept his arms wrapping around her. He kissed the top of her head, and waited.

Eventually she calmed. Nodding almost to herself, she stepped away from him again, but only to say,

“Alright. I'll tell you. And then I'll go.”

"What do you mean you'll go?"

"You'll want me to."

"No I won't!" Julian was horrified at the mere suggestion of it.

He followed her to the pile of cushions, and sat beside her. She drew her knees up to her chest and held her arms around them, looking out across the streets of Vesuvia. The clinic was on a slight hill, and the view led down to the beach, the silver horizon of the sea, and the dark island upon which stood the Lazaret. Grey clouds were gathering in the sky above them, and the breeze was chilly.

Julian wasn't sure whether to put his arm around her, or prompt her to speak, and so in the end he sat with his legs outstretched, ankles crossed, and his shoulder just brushing hers, enough for her to feel him, to lean on him if she needed.

It was a few minutes before she spoke. Eventually, she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself.

"I haven't spoken about this before, not properly. Not even to my aunt, or Asra."

She paused, taking more deep breaths; Julian waited.

“The ship,” she continued. “What happened to it. What I did.”

Julian nodded. "You said the ship was attacked by something, and it nearly killed you."

"Yes, but that's not the full story."

Julian had known that much. He'd never asked her, because he was sure she didn't want to talk about it; whatever had happened, it had left her traumatised. Besides which, they'd been swamped with work at the clinic.

"Go on."

"It was at night. One minute the sea was calm, and the next… something burst out of the sea. It was a ways from us, but it was big, and sent wave after wave buffeting into us, so big I thought we would capsize. I don't know for sure what it was… maybe a kraken. It was monstrous."

Though her voice was almost monotone and matter-of-fact, Julian felt the tremors running through her. He gently placed a hand on the small of her back; she leaned ever so slightly closer to him.

"It had these… tentacles, I think," she continued, narrowing her eyes and staring into the distance as if she could see it there. "Some of them as long as the foremast. It struck the ship twice; the second punched a hole in the side. It was above the waterline, so it wouldn't have sunk us. Maurice took the wheel, said he could get us away. So I used my magic, it was supposed to fill the sails, you know…" She glanced at Julian; he nodded, remembering seeing her do that when he'd been on the ship with her — “I’m less reliant on the wind than most,” she’d said then. “But I was so… angry. And I was scared. And my magic, it… whipped up a storm."

Like she did when she left me… She raised a storm, and froze the sea.

Julian found himself holding his breath as he waited for Altheia to continue. It was clearly - and understandably - a difficult thing for her to talk about.

"It wasn't enough for us to simply run from it," she said. Her hands were clasped together over her knees so tightly her knuckles turned white. "I had to fight it. I threw ice magic at it, and it worked! A tentacle that was wrapping around the bow froze, and shattered. But the storm angered it, I think. It angered me. An ice bolt struck its eye and froze it. I should have held back. But I didn't. The next spell ricocheted off the frozen eye like a pebble off steel. My own magic acted as a shield, and a counter spell."

"Oh, Theia…"

Julian slid his arm around her back, pulling her close against him. She stiffened for a moment, and he worried that she might resist his comfort. But she leaned into him, and he rested his cheek on her head.

“I don't remember much after that,” she said. Her voice was a little looser now, as if relieved that she'd spoken the worst. “A blast of freezing air and ice that was so cold it hurt like thousands of little knives. I was… frozen, I think. I couldn't move, or even breathe. The ship pitched to the side, and then… everything went dark.”

“How did you survive?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Maurice managed to get me into the boat and away from the ship as she sank. Some of the others made it, too. Some of them went down with the ship.”

Julian’s throat tightened as he thought back to the crew that he’d met and spent time with. “Kiri?”

Altheia nodded. “Yes. She was belowdecks. But Jack made it. Remember him?”

“The lookout with a book nook in the crow’s nest? How could I forget.”

“The top of the mast snapped and he managed to cling onto it until we were picked up.” One corner of her mouth lifted in the faintest hint of a smile. “He managed to save one of his books, too.”

Julian smiled. “Good for him.”

But his heart ached for Kiri, for all the others, and for Altheia most of all.

“And would you believe, it was the Crimson fucking Serpent that picked us up?”

“The pirate ship?” Surprised, Julian cast his mind back to the fight that Altheia’s ship had got into. “What was his name, it was some kind of animal?”

“Wolf, yes. Do you remember Bo?”

“The boy with the fire magic? That Bo?”

“That little shit, yes.” Altheia’s smile was almost affectionate, if sad. “His magic saved me. My heart stopped, apparently.”

Julian held her a little closer. “I’ll have to buy him several rounds at the Rowdy Raven when I see him.” He took a deep breath and held it, as his mind processed everything that Altheia had told him. But he still couldn’t see any way that she could possibly believe he’d think badly of her. “So… they took you back to Port Tremaire?”

“Yes. Bo could keep me alive but he couldn’t… well, I couldn’t move, or speak. I was in agony. No one could break the spell but me, and I was in no state to do it. But my aunt had a remedy that could reverse the effects, so I stayed with her. It was months before I fully recovered. And I was too ashamed to ever go back to Port Tremaire. I couldn’t face them. My family, or the families of those of my crew that were lost.” Her eyes were wet, and she wiped them with the back of her hand as she sniffed. “Well, that’s that. Now you know.”

She has no idea how brave she was, how strong… she still is.

“Thank you for telling me. Theia…” Julian rested a gentle finger under her chin and tilted her head slightly to look at him, and now he could see the deep sorrow there, the sorrow that had crushed her spirit and quenched her fire. “I don’t think any less of you.”

“You must do.”

“Why must I?”

“Because… it was my fault! I lost my ship! I should have gone down with the ship, not Kiri or any of the others, I was the captain, I couldn’t defend her, I fucked up and I should be dead!”

Julian wrapped both arms around her then and held her back close against him, relieved only that she curled towards him, turned her head to nuzzle against his chest as he planted kisses on the top of her head, and she choked back tears.

“But you’re not dead,” he said quietly, stroking her hair. “And it wasn’t your fault. Altheia…” he interrupted as she took a breath to protest. “Did you summon that kraken?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then how can it be your fault?”

“I shouldn’t have fought it. I should have controlled my magic. I was too angry, too scared, too hurt…”

“Not your fault,” Julian said firmly. “There’s no guarantee you could have outrun it. Did you or did you not kill it?”

“I… did.”

“If you hadn’t killed it, if you’d tried to escape, it could have caught you anyway and dragged the whole ship down, killing everyone. And it would have still been alive to take other ships, too.”

“You don’t know—”

“Neither do you.” Julian spoke firmly; he had to make her believe him. “Maurice, Jack and the others are alive because of you. Your ship, and those who went down with her, were killed by that kraken. Not by you.”

“You really don’t think badly of me?”

“Of course I don’t! How could I? You’re so brave and so strong, and you’re here with me. We’re in this together, you and I. I need you. I love you.”

The words slipped out before he even knew they were on his tongue. For a second he panicked that he’d said too much, that he’d push her away, that his timing was terrible - and it was terrible timing, but that didn’t make his words any less true, and he couldn’t take them back now. He didn’t want to take them back. Still, he felt his cheeks flushing.

Altheia said nothing. She didn’t move, except for her fingers curling into the fabric of Julian’s loose shirt. Eventually, she all but whispered,

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do. Every word. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

He meant it with all he knew how to give.

It was a long moment before Altheia straightened, and Julian loosened his hold on her so she could lean back and look at him. Instead, he curled his fingers under her jaw and caressed her cheek with his thumb. Her hand rose up to rest over his. And then she smiled.

“I love you, too.”

“You do?” Julian’s eyes widened in shock, his heart leaping so hard it hurt as his stomach swirled with butterflies. “Really? You don’t have to say that, I mean, I understand if you don’t feel that way about me, you—”

“I know I don’t have to. But I do.”

“Are you sure?”

Altheia laughed. “Yes, I’m sure! I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

She pressed her lips against his in a tender kiss. He closed his eyes, tasting the tears on her lips, brushing their trails from her cheeks with his thumbs.

They each breathed a sigh as they parted, and he rest his forehead on hers, nothing between them but their mingling breaths and the cool breeze. He felt giddy, almost dazed, as he looked into her eyes and brushed back a white wisp of her hair. She tilted her head a little, her gaze flitting over Julian’s features as if seeing him for the first time.

“Thank for you all of this, Julian.” Her voice was low and sincere. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before. I feel safe here. With you.”

Julian felt his cheeks flush and his smile broaden. “Good! That was the idea.”

“It was a very good idea.”

“It was, wasn’t it? I don’t get to say that often about my ideas.” He couldn’t stop grinning stupidly, nor stop looking at her, and he thought his heart might burst. “Let’s stay up here for a bit.”

“I’d like that.” Altheia pecked a kiss to the tip of Julian’s nose. “Tell me a story.”

“A story?” Julian brightened. “I know lots of those. What kind of story would you like?”

He shifted the pillows so that when he lay back he was half-sitting, and Altheia lay over him, her cheek on his chest as if she wanted to listen to his heart.

“I don’t mind.”

“Have I ever told you about the time Brundle found a message in a bottle washed up on the beach?”

“You haven’t! What did it say?”

“Now, now, that’s jumping ahead.” Julian settled down into the pillows, his arms wrapping around Altheia. “The story begins at the beginning.”

There weren’t many places of safety anymore, not with plague slowly smothering the city; the very air seemed a miasma of disease and death. Julian knew they wouldn’t be able to spend anywhere near as much time in the roof garden together as he wanted to - for all they knew, this could be the first and the last time. But he intended to make the most of it while he could, and for a little while there was nothing but him, her, and their little sanctuary on the rooftop.

Chapter Text

The rising sun cast its golden glow over the still, calm waters of the bay of Vesuvia as five little rowboats made their way back to the docks. To a casual onlooker, they could have been fishermen coming back from an overnight fishing trip.

Julian sat at the prow of the little boat. Three other doctors, all wearing the strange beaked plague masks, were with him. They weren’t on their way back from a fishing trip. They were returning from a five day stint at the Lazaret, the island hospital where plague victims were now being taken and treated. The beauty of the golden sunrise upon the water belied the dark shadows of the island and the dark Lazaret looming behind him, the salty sea air that he was so fond of now choked with smoke from the furnaces. Bodies were cremated with no ceremony now. And there were so many.

Five doctors had made the trip out. Two would not be returning, lost to the disease and fed to the furnace. Julian glanced at the empty seat beside him. His junior, Serah, a bright girl from Prakra who’d joined him after hearing about his clinic from Nazali, was one of those who would not be returning. He closed his eyes briefly. It was hard not to blame himself.

Forcing his eyes open, Julian turned his head and looked towards the dock. A small group of people stood at the end of one of the short piers, waiting for their loved ones to return. Julian was perversely glad that Serah’s family were in Prakra, so there was no one for him to deliver the devastating news to. Just sympathetic words on a letter, words that he’d written so often by now that he could probably do so in his sleep.

As the boats got closer to the dock, his eyes anxiously scanned the faces of those waiting there, dread beginning to rise up in him, though most of the people there wore masks of some kind. But then one pulled her mask off, her eyes beneath a white fringe met his, and she smiled. Julian breathed a sigh, blinking back tears of relief.

He leapt off the boat as soon as it pulled up alongside the dock, nearly tripping in his haste, and pulled off his mask as Altheia fell into his arms. They held each other close, bodies shaking with emotion and relief, attempts at words fragmented; she nuzzled his chest and he planted kisses in her hair.

He bent further, burying his nose against her neck and breathing her in. She’d left a little bag of her bath salts in the bottom of the ‘beak’ of his mask, partly to disguise the smell of the disease and smoke, partly so that he could take a little piece of her with him. But the fragrance wore off after a few days. Now she was here, in his arms, warm, and he breathed in her subtle but comforting and familiar fragrance - vanilla, bergamot and sea salt.

Altheia pulled back just enough to look up at him, to run her fingers through his hair and push it back from his face, her piercing sea-green gaze flitting over his features.

“You’re okay?” she asked, half a whisper, as if afraid of the answer.

Julian nodded, and left a kiss on her cheek. “I’m not sick. No symptoms at all, promise. You?”

His practiced eyes darted over her features, looking for the slightest sign of the disease. To his unmeasured relief, the sclera of her eyes were white, though dark circles borne of exhaustion hung heavily beneath them, her skin was clear, her breaths unlaboured, and her forehead cool as he brushed the backs of his fingers over it.

“I’m fine. Just tired. Very, very tired.” She managed a slight smile. “But I’m better now you’re here. Let’s get you home.”

They clasped each other’s hand and interlinked their fingers as they hurried through the streets towards the clinic. The air itself seemed to carry a red-tinted miasma, and reeked of sickness and death. Julian pulled his coat collar up against his mouth and nose as best as he could; Altheia did the same with her scarf.

Carts stood at every corner; some filled with bodies, some with the sick near death, all headed for the Lazaret. Julian watched as two undertakers swung a body up onto those piled up in their cart, but there were already too many and it fell back down, taking two others with it. The undertakers looked at each other, sighed, and started off with their cart, leaving the bodies on the ground.

Where once he would have been horrified, Julian was somewhat jaded to such sights now. He could hardly blame the undertakers for leaving the bodies behind. They were exhausted, working long hours at a grim, thankless task.

Red beetles scurried brazenly across the paving of the streets and up the walls of buildings. Their numbers had been slowly building up, and at first they were easy to squash underfoot. Then it seemed as if for every beetle stamped on, another two would appear. By the time anyone linked the incursion of beetles to the spread of the Red Plague, it was too late.

It seemed an age until they reached the clinic. Julian’s legs felt heavy with exhaustion as he dragged himself up the steps and leaned on the doorframe as Altheia took her keys from her pocket.

“Doctor Devorak.”

Julian and Altheia both nearly jumped out of their skins at the thin, rasping voice behind them, and spun to see a strange person unnervingly close to them. Their skin seemed to have a green tinge to it, whatever hair they had was wrapped up in some kind of white headcovering so it looked like horns wrapped in bandages, and they wore a white surgical uniform.

“Yes?” Julian managed to say.

“Come with me.”

Julian glanced at Altheia, then looked back at the other person. Confused, he frowned and said, “Sorry?”

They rolled their eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Did I stutter? Come with me.”

Julian suddenly recalled who they were. He’d seen them once, at the Lazaret. “You’re Quaestor Valdemar, aren’t you?”

“Very observant, well done.”

A cold feeling spread from the base of Julian’s skull down his spine. He didn’t know much about the Quaestor other than that they were the head physician at the palace and were leading a research effort there, and that it was their suggestion that the quarantine hospital of the Lazaret should be built. He’d heard rumours that they experimented on plague victims, even practicing vivisections. It was said that they came to the Lazaret only to pick patients for their next experiment, and took the living as well as the dead for their research.

“And… you’re saying you want me to go to the palace?”

They tilted their head at an unnerving angle. “That is what I’m saying, yes.”

“Why do you need me?”

“I’ve run out of doctors.” They sounded irritated now. “Come along now.”

“What do you mean you’ve run out of doctors?” Julian asked.

“They get sick, they die, I need more.”

“Oh.”

Julian recoiled. He didn’t quite know what to say to that. It was true, of course; plague masks could only do so much to protect them, and he knew many had died. But there was something bone-chilling about the emotionless monotone of Valdemar’s voice, their unflinching eyes.

He felt Altheia bristle beside him.

“He’s not going anywhere,” she said firmly, eyes narrowing in the Quaestor’s direction.

Valdemar’s eyes flicked towards her, then back to Julian. “Is there a problem, doctor?”

“He’s exhausted,” Altheia spoke up before Julian could say anything. “He’s been at the Lazaret for a week. He’ll be no good to anyone if he doesn’t get some rest.”

“Excuse me!” The indignant exclamation burst out before Julian could think. But he relented with a huff when Altheia turned her eyes to him and arched an eyebrow to challenge him to say otherwise. He couldn’t, she was right.

Valdemar stared at Altheia for a long moment; Altheia glared right back. Eventually, the Quaestor sighed.

“Fine. Tomorrow morning, then. I’ve still got some test subjects to prepare, and plenty enough assistants for that. They’ll be ready when you join me. Early, so they’re still fresh.”

Julian decided not to think about what exactly that meant.

“Oh, and bring a magician,” Valdemar continued. They fixed their eyes on Altheia again, and then pointed a spindly finger at her. “You. You’ll do.”

Julian panicked; if the rumours about Valdemar’s research were even half true, he didn’t want Altheia to be a part of it, he couldn’t let her.

“Why, uh… why do you need a magician?” he asked, stalling as his mind whirled to think of a way to stop them from taking Altheia.

“Some people think the cure could be magical.” They gave a contemptuous wave of their spidery hand. “There are plenty of books in the library she can read to keep herself occupied.”

“She can’t,” Julian said, “I need someone to run the clinic, you see, and she—”

“What use is a clinic if all your patients are dead? Hmm?”

“I…”

Julian subsided. He didn’t want to waste anymore time on an argument he couldn’t win.

“I’ll be there,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow morning.

“So will I,” Altheia added, and she slipped her hand into Julian’s. He tightened his fingers around hers.

“Of course you will.”

Julian and Altheia looked at each other briefly; when they turned back, Valdemar had vanished.

“Who are they?” Altheia asked, as she unlocked the door and Julian followed her inside.

“The head physician at the palace,” Julian said, but his voice wasn’t much more than a mumble. “They’re researching a cure for the Red Plague.”

“Oh?” Altheia took Julian’s hand and led him not to his office, but towards the bathroom. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. From what I’ve heard, their methods are, well… less than ethical, shall we say.”

Altheia led him into the bathroom and closed the door behind them, turning to him and slipping his coat from his shoulders.

“Do I want to know what that means?”

“No.” Julian stood still, simply watching as Altheia untucked his shirt from his belt. “It’s just rumours anyway.”

“I see.”

Julian ducked down so Altheia could pull his shirt over his head. He breathed a trembling sigh and closed his eyes as her hands moved over his body. “I’ve missed you… your touch.”

“So much so, that you’re going to let me take care of you, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. Julian smiled.

“Do I ever get a choice?”

“Nope.” Altheia turned to the tub, and beneath the glow of her hands, warm water began to coalesce in a sphere hovering above it. “But you haven’t argued once. This is progress.”

“My dear, I’ve learnt how futile my arguments are.”

“Good.” Altheia gave a warm smile. “It’s about time.”

Julian slid into the warm water and closed his eyes as Altheia tended to him. He’d missed her and her touch far more than he could put into words. He handed himself over to her as she washed the sweat from his skin and the stench of smoke and ash from his hair.

But nothing could wash away the sorrow creeping over his heart. With both of them in the palace, he’d have to close the clinic; he couldn’t expect Selina to run it alone. Everything he’d worked so hard for… the clinic, the nurses, the apprentices… all gone. He’d even sent Brundle away, his beloved dog; but at least she was safe, aboard a ship heading for Nevivon.

All gone, except for Altheia.

I should have stopped her then. I should have sent her away. She could have gone to Nevivon with Brundle.

I wouldn’t leave you.

…no. You wouldn’t. I… loved you for that. I still do.

Freshened up and dressed in clean clothes, they scraped together some food and took a late breakfast on the roof in their little garden, their sanctuary. Many of the plants had withered with no one caring for them, but the jade weed looked healthy, still with its soft, magical glow.

“Do you think…” Altheia began once they’d finished their food.

“I try not to.” Julian grinned as he interrupted.

She smacked his arm playfully. “I was just going to ask… do you think that if I tied you up, I could stop you from leaving?”

Julian’s breath hitched and he felt his cheeks grow hot. And when Altheia quirked her eyebrows and gave him that look, he breathed a soft groan.

“If I have to think,” he murmured, leaning forward to brush his lips over her cheek, “and I have to tell you my capability for thought is rapidly vanishing, by the way, but if I could think, I’d think it’s worth a try at least.”

Altheia fetched the coils of red rope that they kept in the corner of the walled garden, and had Julian kneel upon the pillows she carefully arranged. What began as something playful, became something sexual, and then became something else, something more. With each coil of the rope around his wrists, his ankles, binding his arms to his torso and criss-crossing in diamonds like a net around his chest, Julian sank further into Altheia, beneath a comforting haze. With every practiced knot, with every run of her finger between rope and skin so that nothing pinched, with every whispered affirmation, Altheia bound him a little more to herself.

She straddled his lap, draped an arm over his shoulder and entangled her fingers in his hair, pulling enough to make his scalp sting; her other hand reached down between them and stroked him to hardness. Her lips pressed kisses to his shoulder and neck, whispered in his ear; her teeth tugged on his ear lobe and scraped along the thick muscle between neck and shoulder, nipped lightly at the soft skin over his pulse. He closed his eyes.

Julian belonged to her, then. He was hers, and she was his. The horrors of the plague, the terrors of the Lazaret, the ever-pervasive sickness in the pit of his stomach that he might lose her to the disease… all of it melted into the humid air of the garden. The helplessness of having no control over the plague and how to cure it, replaced by a choice to hand over all control, all agency, to the woman he loved and who loved him. Her entire focus was devoted to him, and he was entirely lost in her waters.

He came to his senses only enough to ask her to kiss him, once. He whimpered against her lips as she carried him over into his release.

In the blissful somnolence of the afterglow, he was content to simply watch as Altheia unpicked all the knots and unwound all the rope, softly humming a slow sea shanty. When she’d unbound his wrists, she examined them and raised them up to her lips to kiss the red mark the ropes had left. She cleaned him, dressed him, cared for him, and led him back down the ladder to his office.

“Not a squeak of protest,” she said, half in warning and half amused, as she guided him to the bed, pulled off his boots, and sat beside him as he lay back.

Awash in Altheia’s safety and comfort, the only words Julian could speak was a murmur of “Thank you” before his head sank into the pillow and he closed his eyes.

She caught him every time he shot awake from a nightmare; she soothed him with her fingertips against his scalp and her whispers in his ear; she held him through every sob that wracked his body. Whenever he needed her, she was there.

The palace library was vast, shelves lining every wall from floor to vaulted ceiling. While Altheia turned a circle on her heel, looking around with wide eyes and her mouth forming an almost perfect ‘o’ of awe, Julian spotted some desks underneath a stained glass window in a far corner. Books and papers were stacked neatly upon them, along with fresh paper and quills.

“That must be where we’ll be working,” he said. But as they crossed the floor towards the desks, something nagged at him. “There’s, uh… there’s no one else here.”

“Oh?” Altheia looked around, at the empty recliners and armchairs scattered about the library. “That’s odd. Maybe we’re early.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

Julian couldn’t shake that feeling of unease. But he allowed himself to be distracted by the books piled on one of the desks; the top one was a compendium of maladies of the four humours. And he allowed himself to be even more distracted by Altheia, as he turned his head to see her leaning onto the other desk; she’d opened one of the books and flipped a page open curiously, but her back was gracefully curved to push out her backside in a deliberately provocative way. She pretended not to notice as he sidled up behind her, but she couldn’t hold back a smile when he eased up close to her, running his hands up her sides to her shoulders, down her arms, and interlaced their fingers. She turned her head back just enough that he could see her smile.

“We’re never going to get any work done, are we?”

“Mmm.” Julian nuzzled his nose and lips into the warmth of Altheia’s neck below her ear, breathing her in. “My dear, you’re standing over a desk that just so happens to be just the right height for me to ravish you upon.”

Altheia gave a low, husky laugh, pushing back against Julian’s crotch. The seriousness of their reason for being there hadn’t escaped them, and neither were really so easily distracted. But it was nice to enjoy the closeness, to pretend, if even for a moment.

“You're incorrigible.”

“You’re late.”

They both nearly jumped out of their skin at that thin, rasping voice close behind them, and they spun to see Valdemar standing unnervingly close. Neither of them had heard the Quaestor approach.

“Quaestor Valdemar!” Julian exclaimed, his heart pounding from the fright, as he took a step away from Altheia. “Where did you— sorry, I didn’t hear— never mind, good morning, how are you?”

Julian didn’t quite know how to act around the Quaestor, unsure whether to stand casually with his hands on his hips, or draw himself up a little taller with his arms by his sides, and so he fidgeted somewhere between the two.

Valdemar fixed him with their red-eyed, unblinking stare. It almost seemed as if they hadn’t noticed Altheia at all.

“Are you rested? I don’t care, but pleasantries don’t hurt. Come with me, your test subjects await.”

They started to turn, and Julian saw that a bookcase had opened up behind them, revealing a dimly-lit staircase leading downwards. The fact that he hadn’t heard the bookcase open, nor Valdemar’s approach, was deeply unsettling. And that wasn’t even to mention the ‘test subjects’, whatever — or whoever — they were. Every fibre of Julian’s being screamed at him not to go with them. He swallowed thickly.

“I, uh… I don’t understand. Test subjects?”

Valdemar turned back to him and steepled their spindly black-gloved fingers in front of them with a disapproving sigh.

“I suppose you want an explanation, do you? Very well. Those stairs lead down to the palace dungeon.”

“The dungeon?” Altheia exclaimed. “Are we under arrest?”

Valdemar gave a slow, owlish blink in Altheia’s direction, as if noticing her for the first time.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have no interest in the Count’s laws, or in locking people up for violating them. No, it’s simply unfortunate that some inhabitants of the palace — well, all of them — find my research a little… distasteful. So I’ve confined myself to the dungeon. Out of sight, out of mind, yes?”

There was something about their tone that sent a shiver down Julian’s spine.

“Why would they… well, what’s distasteful about your research?”

“You understand the importance of dissection, yes?”

Julian nodded. He’d performed plenty of dissections and autopsies, during his own training and when teaching his apprentices. Diagrams in books were all well and good, but nothing beat seeing the real thing in person — so to speak. He was also well aware that doctors working at the palace had been carrying out autopsies on the bodies of plague victims to try and understand how the disease worked.

Valdemar curiously tilted their head in that unnerving way of theirs. “And you’re not squeamish, are you, doctor?”

“No, no, not particularly. But I can understand why other people in the palace might find it… well, distasteful.”

“Quite. And yet they’ll be pleased enough for a cure, no matter the means of arriving at it.” They looked past Julian at Altheia. “You, magician. You like books, yes?”

Julian felt oddly aggrieved at Altheia being called a magician. She was so much more than that.

“She’s not—”

Altheia raised an eyebrow at the Quaestor. “You want me to read books?”

“Exactly so.” Valdemar gave an almost dismissive flick of their spidery hand. “There’s plenty here. Come along now, doctor.”

They took a half turn towards the open bookcase door, but turned back when Altheia took a step forward alongside Julian.

“No, no, not you. Magic has no place alongside science, wouldn’t you agree, doctor?”

“I-I, well I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Julian stammered, because while he was in fact inclined to agree with the Quaestor, his gut instinct warned him that there was more to it than that.

Altheia crossed her arms over her chest. “If you really believe that, why call me here at all?”

Valdemar gave a long-suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of their nose.

“Questions, questions. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood." From the look they shot at Altheia, Julian certainly had no wish to see them in a bad mood. “The Count insists that I look for a magical cure.” Their tone dripped with disdain at the very notion. “He’s wrong, but I don’t have the time to argue the point. So I keep up appearances. You will read your books, and take your notes, and I will be the first to applaud you if you find a cure within those musty old tomes. Now, have you finished with your questions?”

Altheia’s glare was frosty, but she remained tight-lipped, and nodded.

“Good. Enough time has been wasted already.”

Valdemar disappeared down the stairs. Julian and Altheia glanced at each other, and he saw the worry in the crease of her brow. He squeezed her hand, steeled himself, and followed the Quaestor.

I don’t need to see this again… please, please…

It was a struggle now. The spell was powerful, and the more Altheia unpicked it, the faster it began to unravel and the less control she had over it, like a spring uncoiling under its own momentum. The tightly-woven net of magic holding Julian’s memories back began to tangle, as the memories of her, those that she’d locked away, flowed faster and faster into the memories he hadn’t lost.

The words of the Queen of Cups came to her, muffled as if she were under water, the words she’d heard in her dreams;

Ice will cut all ties. In the light of your sun, listen, listen, hear the sea.

But her sun was exhausted beneath her hands, his light flickering, sputtering like a lamp that was low on oil, a candle with the wax melted all the way down. He trembled, shaking his head from side to side.

Altheia couldn’t hear the sea. As the threads of her own magic, Forget Me, unravelled and tumbled into her hands placed on Julian’s temples, she began to see them, too. She panicked, tried to fight back, but she couldn’t, because if she did, if she broke those threads, the memories would be lost forever. In desperation, she let her ice magic free, she followed the magical bond she had with Julian, that which they’d forged with their vows, as the old spell crumbled and fell apart like a ball of wool dropped and tangled at her feet. She stemmed the tide of the released memories as best as she could, finding to her shock and horror that she could see them too, she was being drawn in to living them beside Julian.

The avatars of the Queen and Knight of Cups, just outside the spell circle, began to brighten. She knew what she had to do. She followed the riptide of the memories of her, warm and bright and intrinsically her. Only she could follow them. And she took Julian with her.

By the time Julian emerged from the dungeon, it was full dark, and he was exhausted. He was surprised to see Altheia there, but he was desperately grateful that she was, and she jumped up from her seat to meet him as he sank into the nearest chair.

He had no energy to do anything other than sit with his elbows on his knees, head hanging low, trembling, trying to gather his thoughts. Altheia crouched down in front of him, between his knees, guided his forehead to her shoulder and wrapped her arms around him.

“Are you okay?”

Before he could answer — not that he knew what his answer would have been — a voice rasped from behind him,

“Of course he is.”

Valdemar had followed Julian out of the stairway. Altheia shot to her feet and whirled to face them.

“Will you stop creeping up on me?” she snapped.

“He has an office, a bed, and sustenance,” they said tonelessly. “What else could he need?”

“Why does he need a bed?”

“I offered a gurney, but he preferred the bed. He’ll be here for a while. There’s much to do and no need to travel between here and the clinic when he can be perfectly accomodated.”

Julian felt sick at the reminder of the Quaestor’s pointy-toothed grin, their attempt at humour, as they’d gestured to a metal gurney that he’d just performed an autopsy on. Pools of blood hadn’t yet been cleaned from the shiny metal.

“What did you find in those books of yours?” Valdemar asked. But before Altheia could even take a breath to reply, they gave a dismissive wave of their hand. “Never mind, I don’t care. Small talk is exhausting, I don’t know how you do it.”

“How long will Julian be here for?” Altheia demanded. Julian could hear her voice wavering; he closed his eyes.

“Theia, don’t. It’s alright.”

“Until he finds a cure, or he dies.” Valdemar spoke entirely matter-of-factly. "And you will return here and read your books every day until a cure is found, or you die. And if either of you die, you will be replaced. It’s really very simple.”

“Why do I have to stay in the library reading books?” Altheia asked contemptuously. “I’m an apprentice doctor, you know. I can help Julian.”

A cold feeling seized Julian’s heart, intensifying as Valdemar hesitated.

“There’s no need,” Julian managed to say. “There are plenty of assistants.”

He looked away when Altheia turned her glare on him. It was true, there were plenty of others in that dungeon. All were haunted by the horror of the things they had seen and done. He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that look in Altheia’s eyes. He couldn’t put her through it. So he was horrified when Valdemar replied,

“Very well. If I lose another assistant, I will call on you. It couldn’t hurt for him to teach an apprentice to take his place when he dies. The pool of doctors is beginning to dry up.”

“No!” Julian spoke up in a panic. “There might be something in the books, it could be magic.”

Valdemar clicked their tongue impatiently. “Argue amongst yourselves. I really don’t care. If I need her, she will come. Goodnight, magician.”

“Can he come back tonight to get his things?” Altheia asked. Julian heard desperation in her voice, saw it in her eyes. He clenched his fists to stop the trembling in his hands.

“If you must.”

With that, Valdemar was gone, the bookcase sliding shut behind them.

Julian couldn’t control the trembling in his limbs, the fear that surged through his veins with each beat of his heart. He let Altheia help him to his feet, put her arms around him, steady him. He held her close, drew on her strength, steeling himself for it to be the last time.

“You’re exhausted,” Altheia murmured. “I don’t think we’ll find a carriage to take us back to South End at this time of night. I’ll make us a portal.”

Julian had known that Altheia could cast portals, and he also knew that they were the most tiring kind of magic for her. He’d been resistant to using them himself up to now, preferring to walk a long distance rather than risk being lost in a twisting nether somewhere between. But now he was so tired, so lost in his thoughts and fear, that he couldn’t argue. He let her lead him to a corner beneath a pillared archway, and watched as she cast her portal, drawing a sigil in blue ice against the stone of the library wall. There was a beauty to it, like a glittering whirlpool full of stars, a feeling like seaspray against his cheeks.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to be lost there.

Altheia clasped Julian’s hand tightly, and together they stepped through the portal.

That portal we found… it really was hers.

They emerged onto the rooftop garden; Altheia had set the exit portal a little too high, and they tumbled onto the tiled roof. Julian was almost too exhausted to get up, and so he simply sat there, cradled by Altheia’s arms and comforted by her lips in his hair.

But he steeled himself for what he had to do. He couldn’t let her witness the things that he had seen, the things he’d had to do and would continue to do. Even worse, he couldn’t let her do the things he’d had to do.

Eventually they went back to the office. Altheia began to rifle through the papers on Julian’s desk.

“Those notes you took from my book might be of use to you,” she muttered. “And the formula for that medicine we made. It only soothes the early stage symptoms, but it might be the foundation of a cure, you could try to build on it, Valdemar might know… oh, here’s that list of leeches you found effective against the fever and sores, you should—”

“Theia, darling…”

“Hmm?”

She seemed to stubbornly avoid looking at him, as if she knew what that resigned tone of his voice meant.

“Please… stop. Stop.”

Julian gently but firmly took her hand and turned her away from the desk. She looked up at him, fear hidden in the depths of her eyes.

“Julian…”

“Listen to me. You have to listen.”

Altheia leaned back against the desk. Julian rested his hands on her hips, his forehead against hers.

“The things I saw in that dungeon, the things they made me do…” Julian couldn’t speak it; Altheia’s squeeze on his shoulders told him he didn’t have to. She could guess. “I can’t let you see that. I can’t let you assist me to do those things.”

“I need to be close to you.”

“No.”

Altheia lifted her chin defiantly. “You need me.”

“I…” He bit his lip, shook his head. “I need you to be safe. That’s what I need.”

“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” she retorted, her voice tight with something close to anger.

“You don’t understand, it… I just can’t. You’ve already been through so much.”

“Don’t you dare,” Altheia said through gritted teeth, tensing beneath Julian’s hands. “You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t do, and you definitely don’t get to use my past against me.”

“I’m not! Can you just… Please, Theia, please trust me on this.”

Stricken, Julian stepped back. The overwhelming burden of his responsibilities, the things he was supposed to do but couldn’t, the things he shouldn’t have done but did, came crashing down around him. The sense of impending loss, of his clinic, of Altheia, of everything and everyone he held dear, crushed him.

“You don’t need to bear this burden alone, Julian.”

“I do, I do. I’m a failure, I don’t deserve you…” His chest constricted, he started to reach for her, to hold her in his desperation for her to listen, to understand, but he pulled back and turned to pace the room instead. “I don’t know where the plague is coming from. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how it spreads, I don’t know how to stop it, and I don’t know how to cure it.”

“Nobody does!”

“If I wasn’t such a failure of a doctor, I would have found the cure by now, Valdemar wouldn’t be doing those things, and I wouldn’t be losing you.”

“Stop it! I’m not leaving you alone.”

Julian’s heart was racing, he could barely catch a breath, his head span. Altheia reached for him, grabbed his arm, turned him to face her.

“Breathe,” she told him firmly, as she had so many times before, resisting his feeble efforts to pull away. “Breathe with me, Julian.”

She placed her right hand on his chest, over his heart. With a faint whimper, he did the same, the palm of his hand resting over her heart, feeling her steady pulse, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

“Breathe with me,” she said again, softer this time. “That’s it. Nice and slow.”

He felt her hand warm with her magic, the ripple that gently passed from her hand to his heart, and through his veins.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

“Isn’t that for me to decide?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t think it is.”

“I’m not leaving you. Who’ll do your paperwork if I’m gone, hmm?”

The fabric of Julian’s shirt bunched beneath Altheia’s fingers as she clung to him in denial of what she knew was coming.

Julian choked back a smile.

“I won’t let you come to that dungeon with me.”

“You can’t stop me.”

She looked up at him defiantly. But Julian’s mind was made up. He steeled himself as he stepped back from her, went around her to the desk drawer, rummaged amongst the apprentices files until he found hers, put it on the desk, opened it to the last page.

The breaking of the contract. The dismissal paper.

He picked up a pen, dipped it in ink.

“Julian, don’t!”

She grabbed his arm, turned him to face her, hooked both hands around the back of his neck.

“Theia…”

“We’re in this together, remember?”

Julian wavered. Looking into the shimmer of her sea-green eyes, seeing the tremble of her bottom lip, feeling the shiver in her body, he wrapped his arms around her, pressed his mouth over hers in a desperate kiss. She clung to him, pressed up against him, and he couldn’t let her go, he needed her by his side, always.

But the horrors of the dungeon wouldn’t leave his mind’s eye. He couldn’t let her anywhere near it. Even more than that, he couldn’t bear for her to stay in Vesuvia any longer, where it was all but a certainty that one or both of them would succumb to the plague. His nightmares were haunted by the faces of those he couldn’t save; their red scleras, emaciated bodies, protruding red veins, rasping death rattles. And the thought of seeing Altheia like that…

He pulled back.

“Please don't…”

He steeled his resolve. Picked up the pen. Signed off with a J.

It was the right thing to do... but it hurt.  It hurts.

It meant nothing, really. The contract between doctor and apprentice had ceased to hold any real weight between them long ago. And he certainly was under no illusion that Valdemar would care one iota — if they wanted to bring Altheia in to assist Julian, a lack of a contract wouldn’t stop them.

But the symbolism of it was everything. And she knew it, too.

For an eternity he simply stared at the page, fighting the burning in the back of his eyes and the ache of his heart. Part of him wanted her to refuse, to insist that the dismissal was meaningless and she wouldn’t leave his side, no matter what.

If she had, I would have been selfish enough to let her.

Eventually, she picked up the pen. Julian watched, frozen, as she signed her name with shaky lines. A numb feeling at the base of his skull spread down his spine and out to every extremity, as Altheia turned her eyes up to him. Hurt and anger battled within them, tears pooled in the sea-green gaze, Julian’s countenance a hazy reflection on their surface.

She dropped the pen with a finality that made him wince.

He wanted to apologise, he wanted to hold her, to not let her go, take all his words back, but he needed her to be safe, he needed her to thrive, he… he needed her. But he had to let her go, he had to.

“I’m not giving up on you,” she told him, her voice tight as she tried to keep it from wavering. “I’m not going to find Asra, I’m not going to get on a ship, I’m not fucking leaving. I said we’re in this together — I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t mean it. I’ll stay away, if that’s what you want. You won’t be my—”  Her words caught in her throat, she squeezed her eyes tight shut; one tear escaped, and she swept it irritably away before looking up at Julian again.  “You won’t be mine.”

His heart ached. He couldn’t look her in the eye.

“But I’m yours,” she continued shakily. “Always. Call for me, and I’ll be there at your side in a heartbeat.”

Julian knew that if Altheia said one more word, if she stayed there a moment longer, he’d pull her into his arms, he’d apologise, keep her close forever. But he had to let her go, he had to.

Barely able to raise his voice above a whisper, he said,

“Please go.”

He couldn’t look at her, but he could feel her eyes on him, and it was all he could do not to fall to his knees in despair. And then she turned on the ball of her foot, her red coat swirling around her calves, and left, leaving Julian crumpling to the floor behind her.

Chapter Text

Julian stared down at the piece of paper on his desk, blinking bleary eyes to make the writing clear. He could barely read it in the dim torchlight of his office deep in the palace dungeon, and his eyes were sore and tired from lack of sleep and dehydration.

It was a report. An entirely unremarkable set of numbers of deaths, known infected households, patients sent to the Lazaret, all listed by city district. There was a small inventory ledger of supplies at the clinic, his clinic.

Unremarkable, except for the hand that it was written in, and Julian traced the signature at the bottom with the tip of one trembling finger.

Altheia.

She hadn’t left Vesuvia. She hadn’t gone to find Asra, or got on a ship. Despite his best effort to push her away, she’d stayed. With him. Or at least, as close as she could get, as close as he would allow. She was at the clinic, using it, with Selina, as a base. Theo, the boy who’d recovered from the plague and taken a love of leeches, was with them, too. All of them doing the best that they could to fight the disease, treat the infected or send them to the Lazaret, while Julian was stuck in a prison working in vain on a cure.

It hadn’t been long since he’d sent her away, only a few days. But it could have been a lifetime. He missed her terribly. When he lay down to sleep and closed his eyes, he could see her fierce green eyes, the dimple above the corner of her mouth when she smiled, the arch of her expressive eyebrow, hear her say his name at the tail end of a laugh, smell the sea salt in her hair.

He hated that he’d hurt her. However much he told himself, over and over, that it was better for her that he sent her away, that she’d be safer the further away from him she was, it didn’t change the fact that the tears in her eyes had been his doing. His words had put them there.

Julian pictured where Altheia’s hand would have rested as she signed her name. He lifted the report to his nose, and fancied he could smell the leather of her glove upon the paper.

“You fool,” he muttered, though he could have been talking about either himself or Altheia. Both, probably.

With a heavy sigh, Julian dropped the report into a drawer as he got to his feet, deciding to head up to the library for a stint reading the books that had been left on his desk, for whatever good it would do.

Outside his office, he hurried past the large chamber where Valdemar carried out their research. It was quiet now; the Quaestor had gone to the Lazaret, and the other doctors were resting. Rest didn’t come easily to Julian.

He had very little concept of time these days, so wasn’t particularly surprised to find the library in darkness, only the faintest light from the moon penetrating the stained glass window to paint the floor in pastel splashes of colour.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Julian looked about for a lamp; but his gaze was drawn to the alcove where Altheia had cast a portal not so long ago, to take them both back to the clinic when Julian was so exhaused he could barely stand. On a whim, he approached the wall beneath the elegant arch, and was surprised to see a faint blue glow on the grey stone. He remembered Altheia holding his hand and leading him through the portal that swirled like an eddy of the ocean.

He cautiously lay his hand on the stone. It felt oddly pliant under his touch, dipping beneath his hand like a firm mattress, and sent a ripple of magic a little way up his wrist. He was far from knowledgeable about portals, and had no idea how to use one, if he even could. But his thoughts were dark and the thought of going back down to that dungeon filled him with dread. Even knowing that Altheia’s desk was behind him, where she’d spent time studying, and that it hadn’t been touched since he’d sent her away, was almost too much to bear.

He remembered that the portal had taken them to the clinic roof, the little garden, their sanctuary. He found himself longing for it more than anything in the world; to lay on the pillows looking up at the stars, and think of her, when she’d lain there with him.

Julian pressed against the stone again, and this time felt as if he were reaching into a fast-flowing stream of water. The thought of being lost in the nothing was terrifying; but the thought of going back into that dungeon, even more so.

He glanced back over his shoulder, as if Valdemar would suddenly materialise there and stop him; considering the number of times they’d crept up on him, he was half expecting their staring red eyes to be inches from his face.

Julian pushed against the wall, and all but fell into the portal.

Seized by the cold, twisting stream of magic dragging him down into darkness like a riptide sucking him down to the bottom of the ocean, Julian panicked. He had no idea where to go, how to get there, and he flailed in the infinite darkness, feeling as if he was crying out but soundless in the void, and he couldn’t take a breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t move in any purposeful way…

…and just as he grew certain that he would either die or be lost in the twisting nether forever, a strong hand gripped his wrist tightly. He reached out his other arm, and a hand grasped that one, too. Three firm tugs, and he was pulled out of the nothingness…

…and tumbled out into the balmy night, crying out as he fell a few feet onto the tiles of the clinic roof, feeling himself land on top of someone, and he recognised her yelp as he half-scrambled, half-rolled off of her, she scooted away from him, and with as fierce and surprised a glare as he’d ever seen, Altheia exclaimed,

“What the fuck, Julian!”

Julian stared at her for a moment as he caught his breath, then flopped onto his back with a groan and closed his eyes. All he could manage to utter was,

“Oww…”

“Ow? Is that it? Ow? I’ll give you ow…”

Julian turned his head and opened one eye to see Altheia stumble to her feet, hands clenched by her side.

“You… you bloody idiot!” she all but yelled. “What the… what the fuck!”

She seemed utterly lost for words in her exasperation as she growled and spun away from him. Julian couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Hello? You scared the shit out of me, you asshole! I should push you off this bloody roof.”

Julian closed his eyes again, holding back a laugh but not a smile.

“I’d deserve that.”

“Dammit, Julian!”

She spun back to him again, and in her frustration picked up a pillow and threw it at his head. Julian raised his hand just in time to bat it away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am! Really. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“That’s not what you should be sorry for!”

She threw another pillow at him, but this time he caught it and threw it back. His throw was feeble, and Altheia looked down at the pillow as it hit the shin of her boot, then looked back at him with one eyebrow raised. But before she could speak, Julian managed to push himself to sit up as he said,

“Why are you here?”

“Don’t turn it around on me! If I hadn’t been here, you’d still be stuck in the portal. Which, by the way, was the single most stupid—”

“Yes, it was stupid, and I’m an idiot. I know.”

He leaned back on one hand as he looked up at her. She crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her finger on her upper arm, and glared at him. But the anger had faded.

As the shock wore off, the reality struck him. By some inexplicable twist of fate, Altheia was here, in the clinic roof garden, at the exact moment as he’d decided to fall into a portal. Not only that, but she’d somehow sensed him and managed to grab him, to pull him through to her. He could still feel the strength of her hands holding his.

The longer he looked at her, the more he wanted to pull her into his arms, the more he wanted her to hold him, the more he realised that jumping into that portal wasn’t the most stupid thing he’d done.

After a moment, Altheia sighed and reached down. Julian took her hand, and let her help him up. She took a step back, gently scrutinising eyes flitted over his features, and her demeanour softened.

“You look tired.”

“I’m alright,” he lied. He gave a rueful half-smile. “Thank you, by the way. For pulling me out of… wherever it was I’d got stuck.”

“You’re welcome.” Altheia cleared her throat and started to turn away. “I should go.”

“Wait!” Julian reached out and grabbed her wrist; she turned back. “You didn’t tell me why you’re here.”

Altheia looked down as Julian released her hand. She’d tied her hair back into a high ponytail, the white streaks stark against the dark as they were pulled back above her ears. Her white fringe, and some stray strands that had escaped the tie, shifted across her forehead and cheeks in the breeze. Julian longed to brush those strands aside. Instead, Altheia irritably shoved them away and looked back at Julian in a kind of defiance.

“You haven’t told me why you decided to throw yourself into one of my portals.”

Julian crossed his arms over his chest. “I know an attempt at deflection when I see one. I’ve asked twice now, you don’t get out of answering that easily.”

Altheia glared at him for a moment, then sighed. Her brow furrowed in sadness.

“I wanted to give you something.”

Julian’s eyebrows raised; he hadn’t been expecting that kind of response. “Oh? What kind of something?”

“A gift. For the Heartsong festival.”

Julian’s consternation at that was two-fold; first, that he’d forgotten it was Heartsong, and second, that Altheia hadn’t forgotten and, despite what he’d done, despite pushing her away, she wanted to give him a gift. He groaned softly.

“Heartsong’s today? I’m so sorry, I forgot, I…”

She raised an eyebrow and a sad smile.

“Don’t be sorry. You’ve got no reason to give me a gift. You finished with me, remember?”

“Oh. Yes… I did, didn’t I.”

“Yes, you did. But I’d already ordered this weeks ago, and it was only finished yesterday. I didn’t know whether or not to give it to you at all, but I didn’t want to waste it.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Actually, it’s not any good… I got the measurements wrong, I think.”

“What measurements?”

“Your, uh…” Altheia made a vague gesture towards Julian’s arms and chest, serving only to confuse him further. “All of them.”

“Huh.” Julian frowned and peered around Altheia, but couldn’t see any such gift. His curiosity got the better of him. “What is it? And that still doesn’t explain why you’re on the roof.”

“I was going to use the portal to bring it to the library,” she said, still looking almost everywhere else but at Julian’s eyes. “I thought I’d leave it on your chair by the desk. Rather than, you know… give it to you.”

“Huh,” Julian said again, feeling stupid but unable to gather his thoughts. “You wanted to give me a gift, but not give it to me?”

“Yes.” Altheia finally met his gaze with a frustrated huff. “It’s the Heartsong festival, Julian.”

“Oh? Oh!” The penny finally dropped. “Ah, I see. You ordered… something… as a Heartsong gift, and then rather than let it go to waste you still wanted to give it to me, but you were going to leave it for me to find? So it wouldn’t be a Heartsong gift.”

“Well you’re making it sound stupid,” Altheia grumbled. “But, yes. Basically.”

“Huh.” Julian set his hands on his hips, tapped one finger thoughtfully on his belt, and then a grin slowly lifted one corner of his mouth. “If you’d been half a minute earlier, we’d have passed each other in that portal.”

Altheia snorted a surprised laugh. “Like ships passing in a… twisting nether.”

Julian chuckled. “Yes, exactly.”

They shared a fond smile. Altheia was the first to look away again.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have tried to bring you a gift, let alone one for Heartsong. You ended things with me, and I should have stayed away.”

“Theia…”

“But I know how terrible it is there,” she hurried on, as if Julian hadn’t started to speak. “I worry about you, you know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. Signing your initial on a piece of paper couldn’t change that.”

Julian swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling ashamed.

“You should hate me.”

Altheia rolled her eyes. “Of course you’d say that. But I don’t, I never could. I thought that maybe leaving something for you might cheer you up. At least a little.”

“Well… You being here has cheered me up.”

Altheia looked up at him with eyebrows raised in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course.” Julian suddenly realised what he’d implied, and that Altheia probably wouldn’t want him to say that at all. He chuckled nervously. “You saved my stupid backside from being trapped in a twisting nether for all eternity.”

“True.” Altheia held his gaze for a moment, and then stooped to pick up a package neatly wrapped in plain gift paper. “I suppose I should just… give this to you now. If you want it. Not as a Heartsong gift, though,” she added hastily. “Just… a gift from a friend.”

Her voice choked just a little on the word ‘friend’. Julian wanted to tell her she was much more than a friend, but he’d already hurt her enough. He was doing the right thing for her, he told himself, by keeping her away, away from the dungeon, away from the plague, away from him.

He took the gift, and pulled the paper apart, shaking out the bundled up garment inside. And his eyebrows shot up as he grinned in delight.

“A coat! Oh, it’s beautiful… and so thick, it’ll keep me warm on the coldest nights I’m sure! And is the lining red satin? It is! Altheia, this…” Seeing her slight grimace, he frowned. “What?”

“Well… remember I said the measurements are wrong?”

“Oh?” Julian pulled the coat over his shoulders, shoved his arms into the sleeves, and then burst out laughing. It was much too wide for his slender frame, and the sleeves were far too long — even with his arms outstretched his fingers didn’t reach the ends. “Um…”

“I’m sorry, it… it’s even worse than I thought. I’ll take it back…”

Altheia reached for Julian’s arms, but he pulled back. He couldn’t hold back his delighted smile.

“You absolutely will not! It’s mine now.”

“But it’s far too big!” Altheia laughed. “Look at it!”

Julian flapped his arms and the ends of the sleeves flopped about like birds wings. Altheia’s laughter was bright and infectious.

“It would be too big if it was a coat, but it’s not,” Julian declared, shrugging his arms out of the sleeves and then slinging the coat around his shoulders with a dramatic flair. “It’s a statement piece.”

He waggled his eyebrows as he struck a pose, with the coat draped off his shoulders and hanging down his back like a cape.

“You’re ridiculous,” Altheia said through laughter.

“Nonsense. I’ve always wanted a cape.”

“How will it stay on your shoulders like that?”

“Fair winds and a dose of luck, I imagine.” Despite everything, his euphoria dropping his inhibitions, he took hold of Altheia’s hands and pulled her close. “I love it. Thank you.”

Her laughter faded to an affectionate smile, as she tilted her head a little to the side. “You’re welcome.”

Julian looked down into her eyes, tucking a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear, still holding her hand.

“I’m sorry, Theia. I was an idiot.”

“Yes, you were.” She poked his chest. “Portals can be dangerous, especially—”

“No, no, not that. I mean, also that, I was definitely an idiot then, too. But I…” He stroked her hand he held with his thumb. “I was even more of an idiot to push you away.”

She squeezed his hand. “It’s alright. I understand.”

“Do you? I’m glad someone does, because I don’t.”

“You did what you had to do. And I did what I had to do.”

Julian’s voice caught in his throat as he said, “You… stayed.”

“I did. I set up portals all around the city, near the other clinics and most heavily infected areas. Not that there are many clinics left open, mind you.”

“That’s how you compiled those reports?” Julian stared at her in awe. “By yourself? Using portals?”

“Yep. I do what I can, where I can. It's never quite enough though, is it? Painting crosses on doors, soothing fevers and putting bodies on carts. And then I write down the numbers, and send them to you.”

The distant, haunted look that cast a shadow over her countenance was one that Julian knew well. He also knew how draining the portal magic was for her to cast.

“You’re incredible,” he told her quietly, sincerely.

She shrugged modestly. “I try.”

“You shouldn’t have stayed. You were supposed to leave, I told you to go.”

Altheia arched her eyebrow and put one hand on her hip. “Did you really think I would?”

Julian spluttered a laugh. “I should have known. You’re too stubborn.”

“Stubborn? Says Doctor-refuses-to-accept-help-Devorak?”

“Ah.” Julian rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish smile. “You’ve got me there.” He dared to hold Altheia’s hands again, but couldn’t quite look her in the eye. She had a freckle in the hollow of her neck, he noticed. “Do you think you can forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” She gave a quirk of her eyebrow. “You're allowed to be wrong sometimes.”

Altheia pulled her right hand away, but only so she could rest it on Julian’s chest, over his heart. Julian closed his eyes, and his breath came as a shuddering sigh as he did the same, feeling the steady beat of her heart under his palm. He felt it quicken as he tentatively bent to brush his lips over her cheek in a whisper of a kiss. He felt her fingertips press a little harder against his chest when she turned her face up to him, her lips parting against his. He felt the shiver in the rise of her chest as he pressed his lips against hers in a kiss, uncertain at first, afraid she might push him away.

But she didn’t. Instead, she returned his kiss with a tenderness he could never have thought he deserved, and he made a soft noise of relief against her mouth. It was like coming home.

She let the kiss drop, and looked up into his eyes.

“Don’t,” she said, in quiet warning tinged with fear. “Not if you don’t mean it.”

Julian groaned in dismay “I do, Theia. I do mean it. I do…” He kissed her again, his fingers curling around the back of her neck, his whole body trembling. “I do, I do…” He spoke in whimpers between kisses, desperate for her to believe him. “I do mean it… oh, Alteya, I do…”

She pressed up against him, gripping the lapels of his coat to pull him further into her kiss.

“Are you saying you want me to come back?” she half-whispered, her lips a hair’s breadth from his.

“Yes, that’s all I want.”

“Don’t push me away again.”

“I won’t.”

“Do you promise?”

Julian nodded fervently. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst from his chest, and he was giddy with elation. She was here, she was here, she was his and he was hers, he was hers.

He kissed her again, and again, and then pulled back just enough that he could look down at her as she turned hopeful eyes up to him, and he said,

“Let me show you something to prove it. If… if you'll have me?”

Her smile was broad. “Well that depends on what you show me, doesn't it?”

“Would you perhaps… maybe, uh… would you like to… to stay? Not here at the clinic, I mean… my house.” He felt suddenly embarrassed, as if there could possibly be something embarrassing about asking a woman with whom he'd already spent several nights to stay with him. Before Altheia could answer, Julian looked away. “Ah… sorry. I'm sorry. That's selfish, isn't it?”

Altheia snorted a laugh, but as she rested a hand on his cheek, he could feel the faintest tremor of… nerves? He found that hard to believe, and yet… there was something deeper in his request to spend the night in his bed, in his private home, not the clinic office. She knew it, too.

“Is it selfish of me to say that yes, I would like to stay with you? Very much.”

Julian smiled down at her, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest. Maybe they could be selfish, just for a little while. “Well if it is, let's both be selfish.”

They climbed down the ladder and went through the side alley that ran between the clinic and Julian’s house next door.  Julian wasn’t really sure why he hadn’t invited Altheia there before now, except that it just hadn’t felt right to be there himself.  Since the onset of the Red Plague, his office in the clinic had been ‘home’, and Altheia had joined him there.  It was almost as if his real home was somewhere to return to once his work was done, once the cure had been found and the plague was over.

But he found himself now at his front door, with Altheia just behind him.  And as he rummaged in his pockets, he realised that he found himself there with no key.

“Ah,” he muttered, turning sheepishly to Altheia.  “I think I’ve left my door key in the clinic… and the clinic door key in my coat pocket — my old coat, that is — and my coat is at the palace…”

With an amused shake of her head, Altheia fished into her inside coat pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, jangling them in front of Julian’s face. 

“Good thing I still have my keys then, isn’t it.”

Julian grinned as he followed her back down the alley to the clinic’s side entrance.  “Of course you do.  Where would I be without you?”

“Still stuck in that portal, probably.”

Julian barked a laugh.  “You’re right, I would.”

As Altheia turned to the door, Julian couldn’t help wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing his chest against her back and burying his lips and nose under her ear so that she laughed. 

Julan was grateful that they didn’t have to go through the front entrance, which would have taken them past his examination room where he had talked to patients and treated minor ailments before the Red Plague struck; then through the wards that had become filled wall-to-wall with people deteriorating and eventually dying to the disease, and he was quite sure that the stench of sickness and death, the sight of all those people simply withering away with nothing he could do to help, the sounds of their rasping breaths and eventual deathrattles… all would haunt him to the end of his days. Then they would have made their way through the preparation rooms, where he had trained his beloved apprentices, where he had grown closer to Altheia. Now, with the clinic no more than a base for Altheia and Selina to work from as they gave up trying to treat people here and travelled the city doing little more than collecting reports and easing the suffering of people in their homes, all the examination rooms and the ward were empty and dark, and the apprentices were all dead or gone.

But the corridor from the back entrance to the clinic was dark, nondescript, and could have been in just about any building in the city.

Once inside the office, Altheia leaned back on the wall and watched as Julian rummaged around in his desk drawers.

“Where is it, where is it…” he muttered to himself, starting to feel ridiculous and very conscious of the time they were wasting.  “I’m sure I left it here…”

“We could just stay here,” Altheia suggested.  “I don’t mind.”

“Well I do mind,” Julian said, closing a drawer and turning to the bookshelves.  “The thing I want to show you isn’t here, it’s at the house.”

“You actually do want to show me something?”  Altheia sounded genuinely surprised.  “I thought you just wanted to fuck me.”

Julian spluttered and nearly choked on air, a hot flush immediately rising to his cheeks.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to… to do that, I do, obviously…”

“You do?”

“If… if you want to?”

Altheia simply smirked and arched an eyebrow.

“Good, good, that’s… good.”  Julian flustered.  “But no that’s not the uh, the thing that I…”  Suddenly hearing Altheia’s quiet giggle, he shut himself up, turned to face her and planted his hands on his hips.  “You’re teasing me, aren’t you.”

“A little.”

Julian tutted and snagged Altheia by the belt, pulling her against him.  He kissed her smile, and as the kiss deepened and he felt the faint vibration of her hum against his lips, he nearly picked her up to toss her onto the bed.  Instead, he pulled back, and tapped the tip of her nose with his finger when she pouted.

“No matter.  Come with me.”

They went back outside again, but this time Julian led Altheia round to a window at the back of the house.  He fiddled with the latch and found it was just as he’d left it, and pulled the window open.

“There we are!” he said with a flourish.

Altheia raised an incredulous eyebrow.  “Are we breaking into your own house?”

“Yes, yes we are.”

“You leave the window open because you forget your keys often, don’t you?”  Altheia’s voice was coloured with amusement but her expression was one of fondness.

“Maybe.”  It was true.  “Come on then, ladies first!  Don’t worry, I’ve got you if you need help.”

Altheia pulled herself up onto the ledge with ease, and as she clambered through the window she discovered that Julian’s “got you” meant squeezing her backside, whether she needed help or not.

“I can’t see a thing!” she called when she was halfway through, looking a little ridiculous with just her legs hanging out of the window.  “What am I about to fall onto?”

“Er… should be a table?  I think?”

“You don’t remember what your own house looks like?”

“I’ll hold your legs and lower you down, you’ll be fine.”

“Is this just another excuse to touch my backside?”

“Maybe!”

It was, and he did, but he did eventually hold onto Altheia’s legs as she dropped through the window.  He followed through, much less gracefully, and tumbled onto the floor. 

“Ow!” he exclaimed, for the second time that evening, as Altheia hauled him to his feet.  “Ah, I moved the table, didn’t I.”

“I guess you did.”  Altheia reached around and spanked Julian’s backside. 

“Ow!  Again!”  He smiled a little sheepishly, deciding not to tell her about the spark of arousal that shot between his legs at that.  “I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.  Now, where are the lights…”

 Julian went ahead of Altheia into the small living room, lighting two lamps along the way.  Turning back to her, feeling oddly nervous, he smiled and gestured towards the room with a flourishing sweep of his arm.

“Welcome to my humble abode.”

Altheia stepped towards the middle of the room, looking all around her, and turned on her heel. 

“It… isn’t what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

Altheia replied only with a hum.  She went to one of the many shelves upon which were haphazardly crowded an eclectic collection of trinkets and ornaments.  Many of them had some kind of connection to ships or the sea. 

“You’ve got quite a collection here,” she said.  She picked up a seashell, a small conch with pale blue swirls, looking at it in delight as if it were made of gold.  “This is beautiful.”

“That’s one of my favourites,” Julian said with a smile.  “You can have it.”

Altheia returned his smile.  “Thank you. It’ll look lovely in my collection.”

“You collect seashells?”

“Mmm. Among other things. They remind me of home.” She turned back to look along the shelf. “Why do you collect things?”

“The thing I like most about Vesuvia,” Julian said, “is all the different people that pass through.  Ships come here from all over the world, and traders, too.  If I see a merchant from somewhere I haven’t been, I try to pick up a knick-knack or ornament, or jewellery or pottery, anything that catches my eye, really.  One day I’ll travel to all of those places, and buy an authentic piece.  I even started to mark them on a map, see…”

He hopped over to the empty fireplace, above which he’d tacked a map, feeling an excitement rush through him at being able to share this, his dreams, with Altheia, as she came to his side, looking up at the map curiously. 

“You’d want to go to Venterre before Firent,” she told him, tracing the line on the map with her finger. “You can catch the trade winds that way, and get there for spring if you want a sea lily, that's when they're at their best.  I’d go to the Pearl Isles in the winter, the summer’s far too hot.  Oh and be careful around Hjalle, they have pirates and a big smuggling operation there.  Or at least, they did…” Altheia’s voice trailed away and her gaze upon the map turned wistful. “…when I used to sail there.”

“And I already know what trouble Port Tremaire can be,” Julian quipped, nudging her arm with his elbow.

“Oh yes. If you’re not careful, you could lose a game of cards to a merchant captain and end up taken hostage.”

Julian returned her smile, but she didn’t look away from the map, and the wistful look turned sad despite her attempt to put humour into her words, recalling how they’d first met.

“Do you miss it?” Julian asked quietly into the silence.  “The sea, I mean.”

“Every day, with every beat of my heart.”

He remembered how she’d told him, years ago, that she belonged at sea.  She couldn’t commit to a relationship with him, she said, because she couldn't settle in Vesuvia.  And yet she’d been stuck ashore for years.  Julian was filled with a sudden longing to do whatever he could to get her back to sea, to her ship, her home.

He tucked her hair back behind her ear, giving him an unobstructed view of her profile.  “You can come with me.  I’ll need a captain, and you can protect me from pirates.”

Altheia chuckled.  “Oh?  We’ll buy a ship together, will we?”

He knew she wasn’t entirely serious, but Julian couldn’t hold back his excitement.  “Yes!  Yes, we will.  We’ll go adventuring together, you and I, to every port in all the world.”

“Fill our ship with trinkets and treasures and cross them off your list like an elaborate scavenger hunt.”

“Exactly!  And we’ll come back and open our own shop called ‘Trinkets and Treasures’, and sell all the things we found.”

The sadness left Altheia’s eyes and she laughed with delight as she turned to him.  “Trinkets and Treasures.  I like that.  What shall we name the ship?”

Julian gave her a sly look.  “Well… they do say the luckiest names for a ship are female, begin with A and have seven letters…”

Altheia laughed loudly.  “Nobody says that!”

“They do!”

“Even if they do, you are not naming a ship after me.”

Julian pouted, and the pout turned to a smile against Altheia’s mouth when she kissed him. But something behind him caught her eye, and her lips slid from his as she looked past his shoulder.

“Is that…?”

She walked past him to the alcove beside the chimney breast, where there were more shelves with a collection of maritime navigational tools. But she wasn’t looking at the compass, barometer or octant - her eyes were fixed on the model ship that took pride of place. She stared at it, wide-eyed, jaw slack.

Julian sidled up to her, a little nervous for a number of reasons, but mostly because…

“It’s… my ship.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Isn’t it? It’s the Vengeance.”

She’d recognised it. Which was good insofar as it meant it was an accurate replica, and that was important, but now… Julian couldn’t quite tell what she thought about that.

“It is,” he replied carefully. “I had it made as soon as I could afford a good craftsman. Well, he was an apprentice, I couldn’t quite afford a full craftsman, but I was lucky, he was very talented.”

“Yes, he was. It’s very detailed. Even down to the rigging. Did you order this from memory?”

“Oh yes. But it was easy to remember. I dreamed about it every day since you left.” Julian cleared his throat, realising he was on the verge of rambling. “I told you my dream, didn’t I? To one day buy my own ship and adventure around the world.”

“You did.”

Altheia’s voice was low and she didn’t turn her gaze; Julian hurried on.

“Well… this is it.”

Narrowing her eyes slightly but not turning, Altheia said,

“A model of my ship?”

“Ahh… sort of? I just… I liked to look at it. And dream.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s stupid…”

“It isn’t.” Altheia ran a gentle finger along the hull of the ship. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“Uh… yes, yes it was.” Julian panicked. How could he have been so stupid, to think for one moment that she would want to see a model of her ship, the ship that now lay at the bottom of the sea, that she blamed herself for losing… In a rushed, desperate bid to rescue the situation, he went on, “but it isn’t going how I hoped it would, so we can skip straight to the part where you fuck me on the bed I also wanted to show you, if you want.”

Altheia finally turned and stared at him, and for a moment Julian thought she would turn around and leave. Instead, to his immense relief, she burst out laughing.

“Oh there’s plenty of time for fucking. I want to hear about your dream first. And why does it look like my ship.”

Julian knew that Altheia knew exactly why his dream looked like her ship. But she wanted to hear him say it. And he wanted to tell her. He slipped an arm around the small of her back as he came up close to her.

“I could never stop thinking about you. Every time I went to the docks, I hoped I’d see your sails in the harbour. I’d keep an ear out at the Rowdy Raven, hoping I’d hear word of how Privateer Featherstone broke up another smuggling ring. Eventually I tried to move on, tried to be with other people, and they were very nice — most of them — but the problem was that they weren’t you.” He paused; Altheia turned her head and leaned back into him. “When I finally accepted that you weren’t coming back, I got restless. Wanderlust, you could say. I only stayed in Vesuvia as long as I did so that you’d know where to find me. If you ever did want to find me.” He gave a soft huff of a chuckle. “Little did I know you were here all along.”

“Julian…”

“It’s alright.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Anyway, I couldn’t possibly afford a ship. But I could just about afford a model. And then, whenever I bought something new and marked it on my map, I’d imagine sailing there on that ship.”

“My ship.”

“Yes. Your ship. With… with you.”

It felt good to finally say it, as if a weight that had been sitting over his chest all these years had finally been lifted. He breathed a sigh, then closed his eyes as he waited for Altheia’s response, dreading that she’d tell him he was being ridiculous, or that she’d never have wanted that with him, that he’d ruined everything with her, tainted his dreams, by voicing his whimsy.

Altheia turned, rested a hand on Julian’s chest and reached up with the other to the back of his neck. She didn’t look up straight away; when she did, her eyes shimmered like malachites in a pool with the tears she held back.

“I would have loved that.”

“Really? You would?”

It shouldn’t have been so surprising, really, but Julian had never quite dared to hope that his dream could become real; and she stared at him as if amazed that he could find it so surprising.

“Of course I would,” she said on a laugh. But as her arms slid around his waist, her smile took a sadness to it. “If things were different.”

“Well…” Julian combed the fingers of one hand through Altheia’s hair, while the other hand slipped around her to rest on her lower back. He refused to let sadness take hold, not tonight. “I say there’s still a chance. The plague won’t last forever, and when it’s gone we’ll get a ship, and we’ll sail to all the places on my map and back again.”

As they looked at one another, they knew how hopeless that was. The Red Plague was relentless and merciless, and with Julian confined to the dungeon research facility they would rarely see each other. It was more than likely that one or both of them wouldn’t survive. Both were acutely aware that this could be the last time they were together.

And so they made a silent agreement. For tonight, they could dream.

“I didn’t think I’d ever go to sea again,” Altheia said, her voice low and contemplative. “I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I convinced myself that a career change from merchant trader to shop keeper wasn’t so bad, and I was happy being Asra’s mentor and friend. But now I think… I think maybe, with you… maybe I could. Maybe, when the sea calls, I can answer. With you.” She shot him a glare of mock warning. “And don’t you dare say ‘really’.”

Julian shook his head with a burst of a laugh.

“I wouldn’t! Alright, I would, but I won't. In fact…” The idea came to him even as he spoke. He took both of Altheia's hands and raised them to his lips. “Maybe, if you’ll be the captain of our ship, I should be your apprentice.”

“Captains don’t really have apprentices.”

“Make an exception. For me. Pretty please?”

He waggled his eyebrows and Altheia laughed.

“Well alright then. But we ought to sign a new contract first, don’t you think?”

Julian grinned and gave a deep bow.

“At your command, captain.”

Julian led her towards his desk, underneath the front window. It was cluttered, and as he shuffled papers around he muttered under his breath,

“I should have some blank paper here somewhere…”

“I see your personal desk is just as tidy as your office,” Altheia teased.

Julian tsked. “I know exactly where everything is, thank you. A-ha!”

He pulled a piece of paper out of a messy pile with a flourish. As he fished around in the drawer for a quill and ink, Altheia took the paper.

“Is this a shopping list?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, so it is. Only on one side, though.” He took the paper back, turned it blank side up, and dipped the quill in the ink. He hovered over the paper. Altheia sidled up beside him, peering around his shoulder with her hand on the small of his back.

“How was it worded?” There was humour in her voice. “Something about how I had to do everything you asked, wasn’t it?”

“Ah yes! Exactly right. Let’s see…” He started to write the words as he spoke them, concentrating on writing as neatly as he could. “I, Julian Devorak, agree to do all that Altheia Featherstone requires of me…” He paused, then added. “And more.”

“More?” Altheia grinned. “Like what more?”

“Anything.” As Julian turned and handed the quill to her, it suddenly felt like so much more than a joke of a contract between them. “I’d do anything for you, Theia.”

Her fingers brushed his as she took the quill. She hummed to herself and quietly said,

“This is where I waive responsibility for death or injury from you doing something silly I didn’t tell you to, isn’t it?”

Her words carried humour, but there was something else in the undertone of her voice. As if she, too, felt the something more.

“Uh yes, yes I think it is.”

Julian leaned back from the desk just far enough that Altheia could slip in front of him, quill poised over the paper. Julian rested his hands in the curve of her waist, his chin on her shoulder, pressed his chest against her back. She turned her head back just enough to ask,

“Mind if I change it?”

“Whatever you like. You’re the captain. I’d rather you didn’t change it so that you can order me to do something that might kill or injure me, though.”

Altheia snorted a laugh. “Indeed. Well then…”

Julian watched the lines trail from the nib of the pen, from Altheia’s heart, through her veins, to her delicate hold on the pen, flowing into ink and the lines and curves on the paper. She wrote slowly, with silent deliberation, care, and purpose. Julian’s heart fluttered and skipped, a lump came to his throat and he swallowed hard against it.

Finishing the line with a firm full stop, Altheia leaned back. She spoke the words she’d written;

“And we agree that we will remain side by side.” She leaned forward again to write one more word, and as she finished it said, in a quiet but firm tone, “Always.”

Julian could barely catch his breath. He opened his mouth to ask if she was sure. But he knew she wouldn’t have said it if she didn't mean it, much less written it.

She made to sign her name, but before she could, Julian took the quill from her. The word spilled from his heart, through his veins, to his trembling hand, into the ink as it flowed onto the page with silent purpose;

“Always.”

He signed his name. She signed hers.

She carefully lay the quill down with a finality that made a warmth rippled through Julian. Like so much else since they’d met, something that had started as something playful had become something more, something real.

And this, this signing of something like a vow, something so simple, was suddenly everything.

Their arms wound around each other, and Julian looked down into the shimmering sea-green of the eyes of a fierce sea captain, she who commanded ships and the sea and the wind, she who earned the respect and love of ship’s crews and pirates, doctors and patients alike, she who could heal and soothe with empathy and care, she who devoted herself to him as friend, confidante and lover, she who was beautiful and strong both inside and out, spirited and scarred, fighter and flawed, imperfectly perfect. She who was his. And he was hers. Always.

‘Always’ might not be long in these dark times. But it was enough.

He bent and kissed her, and she rocked up onto her toes to meet him. Beneath his arms, she shuddered with each breath, and he tasted the salt of her tears, two rivulets that coursed down her cheeks and mingled with his own on their lips.

When they parted, Altheia looked up at him with a smile, her hands sliding back down his arms to hold his hands, shrugging her shoulder up to wipe her eyes with her coat sleeve. Julian smiled down at her, rested his forehead against hers. And they laughed. Soft, quiet, disbelieving.

Julian was the first to move. He turned back to the desk, found a ribbon that must have bound some letter or other, rolled their promise into a tight tube, and tied it with the ribbon. He turned back to Altheia and bopped her on the head with it, making her laugh a “Hey!”

“You keep this, captain,” he said with a grin, “so you can throw it at my head if I go wrong.”

“Oh I think I can come up with far more interesting punishments,” she said with a quirk of one eyebrow that made a heat rise to Julian’s cheeks. Her smile turned affectionate as she took the paper, ran a finger contemplatively along it, and kissed the knot of the ribbon. She carefully placed it in a drawer.

“Keep it here,” she said. “Keep it safe. Whatever happens, we'll always have this.”

It was bittersweet, this promise, this commitment, they made to each other on the night of the darkest of Heartsong festivals. Outside, the air was red with miasma, thick with the stench of sickness and death and smoke from the Lazaret's furnaces, haunted by the cries of those who had lost the people they loved the most. But here, within these walls, surrounded by dreams of a future on the open sea and a promise sealed with a ribbon and a kiss, Julian and Altheia embraced, talked, sang, loved, through the night.

Until the dawn came, and stole their Heartsong away.

Chapter Text

She held his head with her hands on his temples. His eyes shot open with a gasp. They were still in that realm between, he realised, between sleep and wakefulness, but it was different now, brighter, and the dark pool they knelt in was filled with glittering pinpricks of distant stars.

Finding his arms free from the ropes, he placed his hands on her temples, too. He could feel the mark on his palm flare with warmth, his magic responding to hers, and between them the gold of the compass on his chest illuminated the dark along with the turquoise blue of hers.

She looked at him in surprise, he nodded, hoarsely whispered,

“This is it. The end. I feel it.”

It was so close, so close he could feel the memories there, the last of the magic holding them back by a thread. One last push, one last throe of agony. And they had to do it together, it couldn’t just be her magic breaking her spell, it had to be his magic too, catching the memories and healing the wounds, hers as well as his.

He felt Altheia’s resistance, she didn’t want him to hurt, it had to be her magic, she had to do this, unravel the mistake that she had made.

Julian held her gaze as strongly as he could, and with every bit of strength and surety as he could muster in his tone, he said,

“Trust me.”

Altheia hesitated for just a moment. And then she hiccuped and nodded in return.

And then they were both lost in a torrent of memories, of pain, of heartbreak, but they were together, side by side, and the last thing they both heard and said before they succumbed to the inky depths was;

“I’m with you.”

Had it been days? Weeks? Without leaving the research facility in the palace dungeon, without a window to see the sunlight or the moon, Julian lost all concept of time. He slept only when exhaustion claimed him, when he could no longer keep his eyes open, but even then he slept fitfully and woke often.

He wasn’t even permitted to go up to the library now, but books were brought to him at his request. Of the four humours, blood was the key, he was certain. He experimented with leeches to varying degrees of success, persuading Valdemar that he was better working on the already-dead than the still-living that Valdemar acquired from the Lazaret. But they were growing impatient, and it was only a matter of time.

The only thing that gave him any reprieve, any sense of an outside world at all, was Altheia. Every one of her daily reports he held as a precious treasure. She visited when she could, creating a portal in Julian’s room, though she could never stay for long.

Sometimes she tied him, constraints that freed him from responsibility, from himself. Sometimes she made love to him, sometimes they desperately sought that moment of blissful release. Sometimes they simply held each other. Every moment was sacred.

But portal magic was taxing, he knew, and as time went on Altheia set up a whole network throughout the city. Julian found it harder and harder to justify taking her time and energy when she should be resting. And so he began giving her more work to do, mostly paperwork, work that allowed her to sit and read through her spellbooks or write up his research notes into something more legible. Every time he assigned her such a task, she gave him that look that told him she knew exactly what he was doing. But she did as he asked with little argument, perhaps believing that doing so would ease his mind. And she was right.

But oh how he missed her.

Until a day came - or night, he didn’t know - when she surprised him with a visit, without using the portal. She snuck in through the door in the library. He pulled her into his office, closed the door.

“What are you doing here? Valdemar might see you.”

She kept two paces away from him, stepping back when he stepped forward. Julian knew something was wrong, she didn’t look him in the eye.

“I love you,” she mumbled. “You know that, don’t you?”

Julian frowned, his heartrate picking up.

“Of course I do,” he managed to reply. “Altheia, what—”

“Say you love me,” she said, her voice shaky, hands clasped tightly in front of her. “Say it! It’s important.”

It was Altheia’s voice, but… it wasn’t.

Julian reached forward and held her shoulders before she could move back. She tensed under his hands, still didn’t look up. She felt… wrong.

He panicked. Was she sick? Was this her last goodbye?

“Altheia, look at me, please…”

She whimpered and looked away. “I—”

He curled a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to him. For a moment, seeing the white sclera, he was filled with relief, but then… something flickered across her face. The sea-green of her eyes was a little bluer than he remembered. They were still, they didn’t search his features or flick to his lips or soften when they met his gaze. When she forced a smile, no dimples curved around the corners of her mouth. There was no freckle in the hollow of her neck.

He didn’t feel her.

Julian stepped back, shaking his head. “What’s going on?”

A sob escaped her, and the illusion of the glamour spell flickered and faded. The dark hair with its white streaks became blonde, the crimson coat became a navy-blue apprentice’s uniform.

“Selina?”

Julian felt his heart fall from his chest. He knew what Selina would say even before she spoke it. He shook his head as if he could dispel her words, as if that would diminish the truth.

“She wanted to make sure you knew she loved you! She needed… she needed you to be sure that the last words you said to her…”

Selina broke down in tears.

“Where is she?” Dread rose up as a flood of nausea in the pit of his stomach. “Where is she? Not the Lazaret…”

Selina shook her head. “No, she’s still at the clinic.”

Before she finished speaking, Julian had already left.

Up the stairs three at a time, sprinting through the library and the palace halls, out onto the street. He didn’t stop, didn’t think, only her name.

She can’t, she can’t be, not Theia, not her, not her, please please please…

He ran, through the dusk-dark streets of South End, past undertakers and carts and bodies on the ground, he ran, until his shins and thighs ached and his lungs burnt with each ragged breath, and when he thought he couldn’t run anymore, he found it in him to run faster, each stride taking him closer to her, refusing to believe it, he couldn’t be too late, she couldn’t be… not yet, not before…

The clinic, the steps in one bound, hand on the door, a movement out of the corner of his eye, he span.

And it was her, it was her, on the ground next to a cart of the barely-alive bound for the Lazaret.

No, no, no no no NO!

On his knees, pulling her up, gasping sobs racking his body, tearing his lungs, cold dark in the periphery of his vision. The sea-green dull in the centre of red. Crimson streaks like tears of blood on her cheeks. White locks of hair and fringe clinging to the sweat on her temples and forehead. Cheeks gaunt, white shirt hanging off a skeletal frame. Lungs gasping as they fought for each breath.

“Let… me… go.”

A rasping voice, and Julian shook his head wildly, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.

He held her tight against his chest, he rocked back and forth on his knees, and he was sorry, so sorry, he loved her he loved her… he knew she loved him, it was okay, she’d be okay, he was sorry…

The undertaker approached, and Julian savagely twisted away, held Altheia — his Altheia, she was his, and he was hers, always — held her possessively, they couldn’t take her, he wouldn’t let them, not there, anywhere but there.

They shrugged. They didn’t care. She was just another plague victim to them. But Julian held his world in his arms. And his world was fading away.

He buried his face into the curve of her neck, inhaled, but her fragrance was of disease now, that horrendously familiar stench that had persisted and permeated Julian’s thoughts and nightmares, but now it was her, it was her… but there, there underneath it all, an undertone of the sea. Nothing could steal that from her.

He held her back and looked down. Her red eyelids shivered, barely open. A trace of a dimple as she managed a smile, the freckle in the hollow of her neck shining with sweat, her pulse fluttering beneath the skin of her throat, her arms finding their way around him.

She was his, now, always, always, even if always was moments.

He scooped her up, and he knew her weight, he’d picked her up many times before, to dance, to playfully swing her around, drop her onto the bed… but now, now he nearly stumbled as he put too much force into rising to his feet, because now her emaciated frame weighed nothing at all.

By instinct alone he carried her through the dark shadows of the empty, lifeless clinic, what little he could see was tear-blurred. Kicked open the door of his office, lay her gently onto the bed, the bed they’d shared so often, held each other close through every nightmare.

Except this one.

This nightmare that would never end.

His head pounded and he could barely catch a breath, from exhaustion, from despair, from agony. Brushed her hair gently aside, kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her dry lips, held her hands tight. Her eyes opened sporadically, her mouth made movements as if attempting to find speech, until she found the word;

“Sorry.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m the one that should be sorry, not you. I could have done more, I should have, I should have sent you away, I should have been here, how did I not know! I could have, I could have… something, there might have been something, you shouldn’t…”

But there was nothing he could have done, he knew. She knew. She’d stayed away so he wouldn’t have to see her like this. She’d sent Selina to him, pretending to be her, so he’d never doubt that the last words they said to each other were words of love.

Last words… last… no, no, no…

He knelt on the floor, he held her, her frail hand made its way to the back of his neck. And then she rasped,

“I… yours…”

The sobs tore him apart, he could barely breathe or think, but Julian held her face, blinked rapidly to clear the tears so he could see her, and fiercely told her,

“I’m yours, and you’re mine. Always!”

“Al…ways.”

She closed her eyes. Her forehead was clammy against his. Her ragged breaths were fewer and further between.

And then she managed to gasp,

“Water?”

“Of course, of course, I’ll get you some, wait there…”

What a stupid thing to say, where would she go, she could barely move, and this one thing was the little he could do for her.

But maybe there was some medicine, somewhere, anything, something to ease her breathing or the pain, anything.

Julian darted haphazardly from cupboard to cupboard in the ward, in the examination rooms, in the prep room, in storage, but there was nothing, not a drop of medicine, not a dried herb that he could crush into something, anything.

A sound, a soft thud onto wooden floor.

“Theia?”

He ran, the office door was open, bed empty, he turned frantically. She was at the end of the hallway, hunched on the floor, barely staggering, nearly at the door to the alley.

“Altheia!”

His boot heels loud on the wooden floor echoing off the walls, she fell against the door, it opened, cold panic, the door shut, where was she going? he called her name again, reached for the door handle, so cold, come back!

STOP!

I can’t!

He flung the door open, a spark in the base of his skull, ice in his temples, a shot of darkness, of vanilla, bergamot, sea salt, a flash of lightning, wind chimes in a cold sea breeze.

Julian stepped out into the alley. He blinked and looked around. Frowned to himself. What had he come out here for?

A soft sound drew his attention - a woman, crumpled onto the cobbles of the alley. She managed to raise her head a little, enough to look at him. Enough that he could see that she was in the very end stages of the Red Plague.

A weak, sad smile touched her cracked lips. Tears glistened beneath dark, sunken eyes.

For a moment, he thought he recognised her.

I’m… I’m so, so sorry…

He sighed. She was probably a patient of his. He used to be good at recognising faces, remembering names, but there were so many now, and he was so tired he could barely remember his own name.

He stood in confusion for a moment, trying to remember why he was even there at the clinic in the first place.  He was supposed to be at the palace. Was he dreaming? Sleepwalking?  No... Selina had called him here for something, hadn't she?  His temples throbbed. He rubbed his eyes and dragged his hand down his face.

He shook his head and turned his attention back to the sick woman on the ground. Her eyes closed and she fell limp against the cobbles as Julian approached. He knelt beside her, gently pulled back white strands of her hair and pressed his fingers to her pulse point, but it was so weak he barely felt it. He knew there was nothing he could do. Still, he went through the motions.

“I’m Julian. I’m a doctor. What’s your name?”

You weren’t mine…

Alteya, please!

Chapter Text

They held each other as they drowned. Through the agony of the final breath, the devastating guilt, the heartbreak of the love that was lost.

The inky pool in which they knelt in this place between realms rose up around them, the sound of wind chimes triumphant in the distance. The serpentine spectre of the avatar of the reversed Knight of Cups, the constricting arms of the Queen, closed in around them. But they brightened, their visages returning to humour and kindness and love. Their threatening oppressiveness become a comforting embrace.

The compasses on Julian and Altheia’s chests, over their hearts, flared. That one missing point, that which pointed to the south-east, flickered into being.  His, golden; hers, silver-blue.  It was done, and they were whole, home, as one.

They held each other as they burst through the surface. Through the gasp of a new breath, the healing of old wounds, the love that had been between them then and returned to them now and would always be.

Naked and vulnerable, one and complete, each other’s sun and sea and safe harbour. They held each other.  Whispers of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry", "We'll be okay", "I love you", "I'm yours and you're mine."

The red ropes that had bound Julian, the physical representations of the threads of the Forget Me spell, dissipated, and with them went every last thread of that magic, and every last memory burst forth.

A dance of ice and steel.

Ice will cut all ties.

In the light of your sun, listen, listen, hear the sea.

The sea, the sea, the open sea.

It hurt, all of it. They wept until their eyes stung and they’d exhausted every last tear. Their muscles ached from the physical exertions of the ritual. Throats were sore from the cries. Hearts hurt.

But it was done. Julian remembered - the love, the laughter, the pain.

And Altheia - through their bond, she remembered, too. The love, the laughter, the pain.

The desperation of that last moment, the act that had shaped the years that followed, the belief that it was for the best, and it hurt so damned much. Black silence.

Something of who she was, what she had been. Nothing from before that day and perhaps a night. Nothing of the accident, or anything that had happened in those intervening years. But everything that Julian knew of her, she knew, too.

It would take time, but they would heal.

They held each other, until Altheia forced herself up. They were a mess of sweat and sex and residual magic, but she managed to retrieve her sword, so exhausted that it scraped across the floorboards of the cabin as she dragged it towards herself, held it in two hands, and the talisman that Julian had made flared and the magic trickled forth to close the circle.

They knelt together on a fresh rug, washed each other, grounded themselves and the remaining magical energy with a small meal of root vegetables. They barely spoke, each processing what they had seen and felt and endured. But nothing needed to be said.

They made it to the bed, and Julian held Altheia tightly, hands on her back and in her hair, lips on her throat, a leg over her hips, whispers on her skin. As if afraid that if he let her go, he’d lose her again.  But the shared marks over their hearts, the contentedly glowing compasses, bore testament to a bond that was unbreakable.

He would never leave her again, never push her away, never let her down, he promised. He would hold her through her pain, not try to shield her from it. His burdens were hers, shared.

She’d never leave him again, never push him away, never make him forget, she promised. She would hold him through his pain, not try to shield him from it. Her burdens were his, shared.

He was hers, always was, and always would be.

She was his, always was, and always would be.

They slept.

And it was done.

She dreamed. The Daughter of the Sea, almost complete. A compass star to point the way. A beacon to guide her. A sword to fight with. The light of her sun by her side. A safe harbour to hold her.

She dreamed. An elephant-headed figure, Judgement. A throne upon basalt columns rising up from the ocean. Two paths, one ascending, one a dark descent.

The rest of her self to find. A Fool to return.

She dreamed. Shadows of the eternally-burning Lazaret, undying, the bed of a dried ocean.

You don’t belong here. Your life is not your own.