Willem
Out in this desolate place. He filled a bath with it full to the top in moments. And it came out warm.
“There is metal for it to run from a spring under the ground. It passes over the hearth in one long circle, gets warmed by the hot brick and comes out here,” he said.
More magic that was not magic.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” Elias said, and started to lather. “Wait, Brogan gave me a gift for you.” He tossed the cloth into the tub and crossed the room to get it from his things.
Willem held out his hands for it, without turning around, smelling it deeply as Elias handed it over. Elias sank into the tub while Willem unwrapped it.
“Hm!” Willem sounded pleased, and Elias heard the un-wrapping of paper. He looked up to find Willem sitting with a pile of sweets in his lap. Caramels and butterscotches, chocolates, too.
“Brogan is interesting,” Elias remarked.
“Everyone is interesting,” Willem said, popping a caramel into his mouth.
He beamed and quickly opened another. He stood and made his way to Elias’s bath.
Elias grew nervous and contorted to preserve his modesty, but Willem did not even look below Elias’s eyes.
He pressed the caramel to Elias’s lips so he would not have to touch it with soapy hands.
Elias shook his head. He had never eaten such a thing and had no intention of beginning now. Just because it might not kill him did not mean he wanted to spend a day unconscious with a man he did not trust.
Willem shrugged and brought the caramel to his own mouth, cramming it in with the other.
“It is unusual for sweet people not to eat sweet things,” he said.
Elias blushed and didn’t respond. He scrubbed himself harder.
When he was finished, Willem was there with a large warm sheet.
He wrapped it around Elias like a clean, light snowdrift and lifted him out of the bath.
Elias scrambled for a second, then just went limp to allow it.
Willem was monstrously strong, like Alain. Probably more so, as he was bigger.
Willem placed Elias on the couch so his feet did not have to rest on the dirt floor while they were still wet. Then he did something that made the water drain to nowhere as Elias watched with a little fear.
Suddenly, he looked up and to Elias. “Hmm . . . ,” he said.
Elias blinked back at him in confusion. Then his chest hurt and malaise swept over him. He gasped and pitched forward, catching himself on the couch’s wood armrest. He felt immediately ill and kind of weak. Definitely not back to his normal self but definitely in a way connected to enchantment.
He slammed his eyes closed and plucked his string, sending over anger and confusion. Victor immediately replied with a burst of pleasure and a strange impression. Like he was trying to send an image using the wrong medium. As if he was singing underwater.
Elias didn’t understand. He met Willem’s eyes in terror.
Willem turned off the water and rushed to his side, grabbing Elias’s chin to look at him hard.
“Ah,” he said. “It is okay.”
He returned to the bath.
“Is Victor dying?” Elias panted.
Willem removed the weird brown shift he was wearing to reveal the most frighteningly muscled physique Elias had ever seen.
“He was and is not anymore,” Willem said. “Brogan borrowed some of what you have taken from him to keep him with us. For the journey to Yaroslav’s home.”
Elias groaned angrily and sent Victor back a wave of irritation. Then followed it with exasperation. After another moment, he pushed what he hoped was some kind of greeting to Brogan. He wasn’t happy, but he was thankful.
Willem leaned over and made a closing motion with his hand. The thread stopped midvibration, and Elias crumpled with relief.
“How—?” he started.
Willem shrugged and got into the tub. He ducked his head and popped back up. His dark hair slicked by water made his ears stick out. He looked funny.
“It is interesting that your tether looks like the string of a cittern,” Willem said.
“I didn’t make it that way; Alain did.”
Unlike the other alchemists, Willem did not react to that name. He also hadn’t reacted to the sight of Elias’s chest or back, which in hindsight was more unsettling than if he had.
“He did not,” Willem replied, rubbing himself with soap. “Your soul decides. I wonder how Victor’s end presents to him. Your end gives you a lot of control, you know. Perhaps his makes him helpless. . . .”
Elias did not like that thought.
“Do you have strength yet to stand?” Willem asked.
Elias did. “It is just as if I worked in the field and then stayed up all night,” he said.
“Would you like to wash my hair?”
What a strange question. Without it being put to words, Elias would not have thought of such a thing. Much less if he actually wanted to do it. Even slimmer the chance that he would mention such a desire to a stranger.
“I . . .”
Willem leaned over the edge of the tub and let his terrible, bulging arms hang. “You have the hands of a father who knows how and the eyes of a man who misses it.”
“I am not a father; I do not have children,” Elias said immediately.
Willem closed his eyes. “Strange,” he murmured. “You have the heart of one.”
Oh. This was how Willem and Brogan were the same.
Elias struggled to his feet. He crossed the room to get a chair then returned to Willem’s side. The alchemist of currents leaned back, trusting and pliant.
“Come now, little butcher,” he murmured. “Make me new.”
Elias gritted his teeth at being referred to so but put work to the task. He slid his hands over the crown of Willem’s head and then brought the soap to his ends.
Brogan and Willem both spoke in vague statements to fish out details.
Both knew secrets from a single look. Both used words to devastation.
Elias was glad he’d visited Brogan first, so he knew how this whole thing worked.
Willem seemed to be better at it than her.
“I used to do this for my sisters and my mother would do this for me.”
Willem hummed. He spread his arms over the width of the tub, back muscles rolling like water.
“Braiding is small magic,” he said. “Protection and love.”
“How much of this even is magic anyway?” Elias asked boldly. “Most of it seems like science untimely, ripped from the future by gifted men. Always existing within the realm of possibility.”
Willem shrugged. “I would not know. It is none of my business,” he said unhelpfully.
Elias huffed. “You remind me of your sheep, willful and cheeky.”
Willem smiled again, turning around to meet Elias’s eyes.
“You remind me of a crow, impulsive but wise,” Elias admitted quieter.
“Do you come to me seeking wisdom?” Willem asked. “Your knives sleep—so long it has been since they’ve seen the sun.”
Elias drowned himself in the deep brown of Willem’s gaze longer than was probably polite. “What do I have to pay for it?” he asked.
Willem pulled his hair over his shoulder, combed through it with his fingers. “All wisdom untimely requires payment in despair,” he said with a curious frown. “But that’s a currency exchanged between you and fate, not you and me.”
“I paid Alain in kisses,” Elias said, trying to get to the point, but Willem interrupted him.
“You gave Alain compassion, and he gave you a gift. So long has that man been starved for touch, he would shorten his life for the one who noticed.” Willem wrinkled his nose. “He stinks, though.”
Elias smirked. “Of blood, I know.”
“You do, too, but not so bad. Brogan must have washed some of it away.”
Elias dried his hands on the sheet he’d brought from the couch. “Alain also smells like flowers. What do I smell like besides blood?”
Willem rose halfway, dripping into the tub, and caught Elias by the shoulder. Elias tried not to flinch as Willem rubbed his long nose up his neck, then pulled back. God, alchemists were so strange, all of them.
But Willem shrugged, unimpressed. “You smell of pine, horse, and wool. Old tears and new sweat. Like sheep meat and ice, faintly of turnip. Frustration, anger, death, potential. You smell sweeter than when you first came in.”
“Sugar sickness.”
Willem nodded, understanding. He stood, unselfconscious, and stepped onto the floor. Elias handed him the sheet still damp from use.
“Hm. We shall eat and then go to sleep, and before you dream, I will ask questions.”