Soren #3
Cain is already at the door. He returns a minute later with a glass of cool water and a wet cloth, which he uses to gently wipe the sweat from Aven's forehead.
The domesticity of it is jarring, this ancient predator and this tactical mountain of a man, fussing over a twenty-six-year-old bartender who just had a spiritual meltdown.
It looks dangerously close to a household, if a household could be assembled out of bad coping mechanisms, old magic, and men who don't know how to leave each other alone.
I make tea because that's what Vera always did after magic went wrong. Mine tastes like boiled leaves and panic, which Aven informs me is less a beverage and more plant-flavored punishment. I tell him his palate is spiritually underdeveloped and set the mug closer anyway.
Ira spends the next ten minutes cleaning the floor.
He doesn't complain. He doesn't even make a face.
He just does it with the same methodical precision he uses to ward the shop or dismantle a threat.
I watch him, feeling a strange, tight ache in my chest. He protects what he loves by caging it, and right now, his cage includes a bucket, a mop, and a quiet patience I never knew he possessed.
Aven eventually sits up, clutching the water glass like it's the only thing keeping him on the planet.
He won't look at any of us. His face is flushed a deep, embarrassed red, and he's staring fixedly at a knot in the wood of the desk, tracing the grain with his eyes as if it were a map out of this room.
"I'm sorry," he says, his voice barely a whisper, thick with the residue of the spirits and the sickness. "I didn't... I couldn't stop it. They all came at once. It was like a dam breaking and I was just a pebble."
"You don't apologize for a flood, Aven," Cain says, his voice like silk over gravel.
He's sitting on the edge of the desk now, close enough that his knee is brushing Aven's arm, offering a silent comfort.
"You just learn to build a better dam. And we'll help you build it. Stone by stone, if we have to."
Aven finally looks up, glancing at me with a look that's so raw it makes me want to look away. "I failed. First lesson, and I nearly checked out. I'm a liability."
I stand up, walking around the desk before he can fold any further into himself.
I touch his hair first, giving him a second to pull away.
He doesn't, so I pull his head against my hip, my hand tangling in those messy curls.
He smells like the shop, incense and dust and a hint of the mint tea I made earlier, but there's a metallic tang underneath that reminds me how close we came to losing him.
"You didn't fail," I say, my bossy tone returning because it's the only armor I have left to protect him from his own self-loathing.
"The teacher just underestimated the curriculum.
I gave you a graduate-level exercise on your first day.
We're going to try again tomorrow. Only we're going to do it at a pace that doesn't involve me having to replace the carpet. "
Aven lets out a long, shaky breath, leaning into me just for a second, letting his weight rest against me before he pulls back, trying to reclaim some of that defensive sarcasm that keeps him sane.
"If you use the word journey or spiritual awakening, Soren, I'm moving back to the bar.
I mean it. I'll sleep on a pile of cocktail napkins and tell the spirits to talk to the hand. "
I laugh, and this time it feels real, reaching all the way to my tired heart. "Deal. No journeys. No awakenings. Just very boring, very repetitive indexing. It's going to be the most exciting filing you've ever done. You'll be dreaming of Dewey Decimals."
He shakes his head, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You're a lunatic. You know that, right?"
"I'm an Essren witch with an excellent wardrobe and a library that currently thinks I'm a hack," I correct him, smoothing his hair one last time.
"Now go upstairs. Ira's going to make you eat something bland, probably toast that tastes like cardboard, and Cain is going to stare at you until you fall asleep out of sheer self-consciousness. I have a library to apologize to."
I watch them leave. Ira goes first, his hand resting briefly, heavily, on Aven's shoulder as they pass the threshold.
Cain follows, a protective shadow that seems to swallow the light around him, his eyes never leaving Aven's back.
Aven looks back at me once, a quick, uncertain glance, before he disappears into the hallway, his steps still a little heavy, a little unsure.
Once the door clicks shut, the silence in the library changes instantly. It's not the judgmental silence of the books anymore. It's something heavier. Something hollow. The air feels thinner, as if the spirits took a piece of the room with them when they were forced back.
I turn back to the mahogany desk, my eyes landing on the spot where Aven went blank.
The energy there is still jagged, a lingering static that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
I reach out, my fingers trembling as I touch the wood.
It's cold. Bone-deep cold. A reminder of the void he almost slipped into.