Get My Story Straight
Someone knocked on Will’s office door.
He glanced up, startled, from the ream of ‘uber-important’ Assembly paperwork and their implied Makari bungling that someone had elementaled to his desk that morning, just because they felt like it.
On a SATURDAY.
But Will always got up a while before dawn, anyway.
He was never able to take any more of the nightmares past four thirty in the morning.
Yet, he had been absolutely startled.
And even though seventeen years had passed since the Third Mage War-
unexpected noises, big surprises, awful nightmares,
(even though the nightmares had stopped being any surprise)-
any of that would make him jump.
Put him on his guard.
Pull the mental sword out of its sheath.
Mentally prepare to begin drawing upon his power.
Mentally prepare to fight.
Even a knock on his office door.
Especially a knock on his office door.
The second worst thing he had ever learned had been precluded by a knock on his office door.
The death of a student.
Jericho’s death.
All the rest, he had seen happen himself.
All the rest, he had allowed to happen himself.
All the rest, he had witnessed his failure himself.
In person.
“Come in,” Will tried to say in a scary-Master sort of tone, but there wasn’t really much of a need.
He doubted it would bother the three people who walked through his door, anyway, when he saw them.
Three of the only four of his students who were still alive.
When all eight of them should have been happy and alive.
Living.
Breathing.
Loving.
Knowing each other.
Not dying at the age of twelve by your brother’s accidental hand.
Not being strangled to death with air magic that you probably might’ve helped your murderer learn and practice.
Not bleeding out from a thousand different wounds on the ice.
Not- whatever Constantine had done. To himself.
To Callum.
And it was almost too painful,
thinking Constantine’s name.
Thinking Jericho’s name.
Thinking Declan’s name.
Thinking Sarah’s name.
But it had to be done. Will had to think of them. Otherwise the world might forget.
And that couldn’t happen.
Never.
If the world forgot them, it might repeat Constantine’s mistakes.
The Fourth Mage War.
Will might repeat his mistakes.
And that couldn’t happen.
Tamara was the first person inside the room, looking around in surprise at how messy his office was. Which it was. Whenever Will told himself that today was going to be the day he cleaned everything out, burn the paperwork, mop the nasty stone floor, excise the ghosts, he always found himself a hour and a half later prank calling various random minor Assembly bureaucratic jerks on the ether phone, or going with Aaron, Tamara, and Call to fly over to places like New York City or DC on a hastily planned weekend trip, exploring odd rumors of things like reported sightings of a gigantic bronze dragon flying all around over the Bermuda Triangle or a chain of freak sewer gas incidents in Brooklyn. Tamara, as usual, walked in with her head held high, and her two long braids swinging down her perfectly straight back. And even though it mostly wasn’t his business, and he was perfectly okay with it, Will had recently seen her holding hands with Celia in the Refectory and Gallery. He tried to tell himself that it was just because he was her teacher, and that it was good to have a sense of open-mindedness, which was unfortunately something the Assembly, and by extension, the Magisterium and the Collegium, needed much more of.
But it was too late to pretend he didn’t care.
Even though he had cared,
so much,
twenty seven years ago.
And they were all dead,
except for Alastair.
And Alastair might’ve wanted to be dead.
Might’ve been, for all Will could figure out,
for twelve years.
Alastair didn’t talk to him once for
twelve
years
after the
Cold Massacre
until Callum’s Iron Trial, and he was-
And it was all Will’s fault.
Will had championed the hope of a secret cave in the ice, where the young, old, weak, and sick, could hide out for hopefully as long as possible. Not a cave in the ice that Constantine knew of and where within two hours, that became the mage world’s equivalent of 9/11. Even worse, seeing how the proportion of people killed to people who knew them was so much greater. The East Coast government of mages was a pretty tight-knit group. Most everybody knew everybody. It was always like this, with only one or two kids in ten thousand on average possessing enough magic to pass the Iron Trial across the entire world. Which made the pain so much greater. So much sorrow and loss, so much more multiplied.
And it all was Will’s fault. His idea. His choice. His fault.
Everyone’s pain.
Especially Will.
Especially Alastair.
Alastair, who had ‘sheltered’ his son in the worst way, turning him into a cynic who believed that mages and the Magisterium were monsters. Who hated the Magisterium himself, for the death of Sarah. Who probably hated Will for the death of Sarah. Who didn’t seem to know that Will hated himself for the death of Sarah. Hated himself for the death of Constantine. Hated himself for the death of Declan. Hated himself for the death of Jericho. Hated himself for the Third Mage War in entirety. Every single death was Will’s fault.
Every drop of blood.
He might have as well have killed them himself, the good it would do them, the dead. Because of Will’s failure to be a teacher, the only thing Will had ever wanted to be.
Alastair, who walked into Will’s office, with maybe not a happy grin and a wave, but- willingly, at least. That was a start, Will supposed. He had gradually started to see more and more of his former student, ever since Call’s Iron Trial and the memorable unbagging of Constantine’s head in his Copper Year. Mostly at explanations with the Assembly about what he had talked to Master Joseph about, and the dead woman, Tisdale. What her part was in it, especially being a mage who had actually, permanently, left the Magisterium. Her death was Will’s fault, too.
Once, he had actually had a pretty long, actual, conversation with Alastair, at a Assembly party, two years ago, much more than a few words in front of four Copper Years that were all pretending to not be eavesdropping but were straining their ears anyway or a shouting match at the Hangar, being eagerly watched by the Rajavis and dozens of other people, before it got interrupted by a bit of action. Live action, in fact. If Call and Aaron hadn’t been there…
Call was the last person to slightly limp inside, and shut the door behind him. Will was slightly disappointed and confused. Where was Aaron? Where was Havoc?
Havoc had probably been left behind in his room, but Aaron was not really the type to stay behind. And neither of them were ever more than a few steps away from Callum. Havoc seemed to be mostly friendly to everyone, but it was undisputable that Call was his master. He seemed to always sleep on Callum’s head, seeing how Call went to breakfast looking exactly as if a gigantic wolf had slept (and, on occasion, drooled) on his black hair-but Will was bald. What did he know?
Aaron was a bigger problem. The two Makars/counterweights were always together. Best friends.
Constantine and Jericho had been best friends.
Closer than brothers.
Aaron and Call’s relationship seemed to almost be exactly like that. The same level of closeness. But it looked like to Will that there might be something more in their bond. Teachers notice more than students think. At least, Will hoped that was true.
One time, he had hoped that it was truth that Constantine didn’t know where the cave was.
One time, he hoped it was truth that Sarah lived.
One time, he hoped it was truth that Joseph didn’t manage to get the Alkahest.
Every
time, he was
always
wrong.
All this ran through Will’s head in the few seconds it took for three of his four students to walk into his office. “Yes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
A moment’s pause. Call took a limping step forward. “Master Rufus- We- I-think it’s WAY past time you know who I am.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Of COURSE Will wouldn’t tell anybody.
It probably would’ve been a bit of fun to mess around and pretend he was completely insulted by all three of their concerns that he would,
but another one of his students was gone.
And that wasn’t any fun at all.
And it couldn’t be forgotten with a lie.
And if he was truly honest with himself,
he had suspected the bigger truth for quite a while.
A twelve year old.
The Iron Trial.
Maybe the first time ever that he had been close enough to Call to look him in the eyes.
Eyes as gray, hard, and cynical as iron.
A twelve year old.
Distinct
Winter storm
Quelling hurricane clouds
gray
only one other person he had ever known with eyes
that exact
precise
shade
temperament
FEELING
Master Marcus used to have a saying:
The eyes are the windows to the soul.
soul.
In the last few weeks before Master Marcus had been Devoured,
his irises
had been engulfed in
fire.
And Will had watched it happen.
And Will had let it happen.
They didn’t say that.
But Will knew it was the truth.
And Marcus was a monster now.
If necessary, Will could not hesitate to
put him down.
Constantine had accidentally killed his own brother.
Will had let him be corrupted and separated away from the world by Joseph.
Never given him a chance to heal.
Just fester.
He had killed ten thousand more after that.
And then, somehow, somewhere, somewhen,
at the Cold Massacre,
or,
thirteen years later,
he had been
amputated.
And Will had watched it happen.
And Will had let it happen.
Call’s soul had been sucked from his body and replaced with Constantine’s.
For twelve years, he hadn’t had
a single friend
besides Alastair.
And then he did.
Tamara and Aaron.
That much was obvious.
He couldn’t lose them.
Will knew exactly how he felt
because he KNEW exactly how he felt.
Will would not let another one of his students die.
It would not happen.
He would not watch it happen.
Because it would not happen.
Will would not let it.
It could not.
Aaron Stewart would not die.
And Callum Hunt, not what Joseph wanted Call to be as Constantine, would
live.
Will would do everything he could to ensure that that would happen.