21. The Assignment #2
The boy’s expression flickered between nervous and curious. Half the time, he stared at Caelum in confusion and intense interest, like he was studying an esoteric text, or a complicated alchemical formula. He didn’t hide that, either.
He didn’t hide anything in those intent blue eyes.
“You aren’t going to hurt me.” The kid sounded relieved, and almost surprised. “You’re actually afraid for me. Is that because of Leda? Your not-friend?”
A sick feeling rose in Caelum.
He could have punched himself in the face for mentioning her.
What the fuck possessed him to talk about her at all to this kid?
Now Arcturus would never let it go, and Caelum couldn’t even blame him for that.
Of course he’d look for something familiar in here, something safe.
Who was safer than the person who’d basically raised him?
The person who protected him from everything that might have hurt him after their parents got murdered?
The kid wasn’t a moron. He, Caelum, was the moron.
Suddenly, he could barely look at the young mage.
“So Leda’s a soft spot,” the boy said, his voice quieter. “Why, if you’re not friends? Why do you care about her so much?”
Caelum could only shake his head.
He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it exactly, other than wanting the young mage to stop talking.
He closed his eyes, tilting his head back as he fought to make his mind blank, or at least as empty as possible.
When that didn’t work, he tried to distract himself with other things.
He wondered what time it was. Had the attack hit the news?
Would Leda have heard about it yet?
Who would have told her?
Forsooth? One of her friends?
Alaric?
He winced at the pain that rose in his chest.
He’d told her she would hate him.
He’d fucking told her.
Not that it mattered. The fact that he’d warned her didn’t make him feel better in any way.
She’d asked him to leave with her. Right before he’d done this, she’d shown up inside his father’s house.
She’d somehow figured out how to phase and she’d come here, of all places, and tried to convince him to leave.
She said she came for his mother, too. She might have found his mother first, if he hadn’t felt her magic and gone looking for her.
But that was more than his system could take.
He turned his head, and bent over in a sharp convulsion, right before his stomach emptied itself on the stone floor. He couldn’t stop it.
He couldn’t do anything but endure it.
He heaved again, and again. He heaved until there was nothing left but pain as his back and abdomen clenched violently.
When his body finally stopped, he leaned his head back against the wall, gasping.
He’d forgotten all about the kid.
Then, suddenly, he was there, holding something in his hand.
It was a metal cup. Full of water.
Caelum didn’t think. Honestly, he couldn’t make himself say no to it, not even if he’d wanted to.
He took the cold metal from those pale fingers and raised it to his lips, downing the contents in a few long, blissfully-relieved swallows.
His throat burned so often down here, he barely noticed until it was gone.
When the boy took the cup from him and returned to the bucket by the mossy wall near the door, Caelum could only feel an intense gratitude that made him feel even guiltier.
He drank the second cup just as fast.
He usually only got water when they let him out.
Occasionally they would unchain him down here, and he’d dunk his whole head and mouth in that bucket, and drink until he couldn’t drink any more.
The bucket sat there all day and all night, full, enticing, under a trickling fountain coming from the moss-coated wall.
The bucket slowly filled and filled until it overflowed, and all Bones could do was watch it drain into the stone floor.
His chain wouldn’t let him reach where it was, so watching and listening to the steady trickle was its own form of slow madness.
Some nights, it was a form of torture.
He would have killed for someone to give him a cup of water some of those nights. He would have offered them a finger, or a new scar.
But now they’d made him dependent on the kid for that, too.
The thought brought his bile up again.
Anubis’s heart, his father wasn’t subtle, was he?
It was so transparently obvious what they were doing, but there was an inevitability to it, too, a sick genius Caelum couldn’t deny.
He had no one in here. No one.
He could pretend he didn’t need anyone, but that was a lie.
He needed the kid, and not only for cups of water that tasted like liquid fucking ambrosia. The kid needed him, too, or he would eventually. Malefic would shove them together and then his father would have another thing to use against him.
But even that wasn’t all of it.
The reality was, Caelum didn’t need to know Arcturus personally. That would make it worse, but him being Leda’s brother was already enough. He would have protected him anyway. He had protected him, from Sirena, from Orrin out in the field.
He’d wrapped his magic around him and warded all of them off.
The kid wouldn’t remember that, but Malefic would.
Malefic would definitely remember. Caelum was quite sure his father had been absolutely delighted when he saw.
So yeah, it was already too late.
Caelum couldn’t even lie to himself about doing the noble thing.
There was no noble thing in this. Pushing Arcturus away now would just be an added cruelty.
There was nothing kind or virtuous in denying the kid any comfort he could in a hell he, Caelum, had visited upon him.
Maybe for the same reason, he grabbed the kid’s arm when he came back the third time.
“Thanks,” he said, looking up at those oddly familiar eyes.
The kid smiled, his expression heartbreakingly open.