27.2 Fic: Where There's Smoke

Julius shut the door softly behind him in a vain attempt to minimize the disruption. Alé stirred, but didn’t turn to see who when he slipped under the covers. Erik would knock. Lydia was unmistakable. Always smarter than his temper gave him credit for.   The fire genasi shifted backward against him, and he exhaled, curling an arm over Alejandro's stomach, pressing his forehead into his shoulder.   Warm.   "Mm. You smell like-"   "Smoke, I know."   His teeth were on edge, but Alejandro was tracing the outer edges of the ink on his arms, melting tension under his fingers. He sighed.   "What's on your mind, amante?"   "Oh, my darling," the tension was back, "our little girl’s been through so much."   Alé’s fingers slid down his wrist, slipped between his own, squeezed. Calloused and burning. "Noticed that damn thing was off her leg. Your work, I take it."   He nodded against warm skin as dark as the room around them. "I had help."   "Who? The paladin?"   "The warlock."   Alejandro turned onto his back to look at him. His eyes were live coals.   "You're sure?"   "Yes."   "With what, you figure?"   He considered. The curse - if that was even accurate, on what was left of the tattoo's communication matrix was like little he'd ever seen. It didn't even act like Weave. Instinct told him the sooner he forgot it, the better. Intellect told him it was the closest thing he was going to get to explanation.   And then there was the caster himself.   Grim had taken off like a shot for her hiding place under the periodicals before the door even opened. Flashed him an empathic shiver of danger, of oncoming predation.   He'd hoped the boy would say the spell was already like that. Instead he'd paled at the realization someone had "listened."   'Did you know it was language, or did you just feel like it had to be?'   He'd known someone before who described magic as language rather than clockworks, puzzle pieces, threads, anything tactile. Who seemed more at home with esoteric oxymorons than academic jargon, who looked at him with a face as tired as it was doubtful at the idea of cooperative casting.   "You remember Isaac?"   Alejandro propped on his elbow, high alert. He remembered.   "I was talking about him with Keenstrider."   "What brought it up?"   "The kid."   Hm.   Alé continued, "he didn't say much, other than that he's a decent field controller, and a secretive little shit."   He filed this silently under continued similarities, alongside the pale-eyed casting and the dark circles that a night’s rest hadn’t relieved in the slightest.   Did this one also sing to the moon? Lulling some unknown hunter to complacency with a consistency that cared not for cracked ribs, split lips, roaring thunderstorms?   "You figure he's on the same hook?"   "I don't know."   Alé dropped onto his back. He watched him stare at the ceiling. His hair was flickering in erratic embers. Curling like wreaths of smoke.   It didn't matter, and they both knew it. Knowing what held the other end of Isaac’s line wouldn't have granted either of them the power to shield him from the dreams that split the cold morning air with panicked waking, any more than it could have kept him from leaving. Or being taken. That was still up for debate, as far as he was concerned.   It was a memory that chilled. Woken at second watch by the ranger. Reasoning that his pack was still there, his bedroll still laid out, his tent still pitched, surely he'd return soon. Then they could lecture him for abandoning a watch. Alejandro took over watch so Silva could hunt, her tracking was almost as keen as the wolf that walked beside her, but they both returned downcast.   ‘He’ll come back when he gets hungry.’   Waiting, failing to sleep and settling for campfire stories told only to fill silence. Cold dawn, salty with sea air, breaking over the absence. Waiting. Spiralling a wider radius. The point where they all had to admit he was gone. That they’d known from the start.   Alejandro was still bothered by it. So was he. But his own frustration was internal, an interrogation of "should-have"s. Hypotheses with no evidence left upon which to test them.   He remembered Isaac standing still after a flight, eyes pale as milk, arms and jaw slack, head tilted to hear some voice, some song? that no one else could. Alejandro had shaken him. Told him to snap out of it, "tell it to fuck off, for gods' sake!"   It was too easy to imagine the plea in Marwa's voice.   And who was he to blame her? Who had been the one to tell her injustice was a worse monster than any demon, autonomy a prize more valuable than any stone? Of course this was her reaction. Of course she’d wear the same frowning concern that had pressed creases into Alé’s face.   He couldn’t be prouder, or more scared.   A touch like gentle flame on his shoulder brought his mind to the present. A voice like embers brought him back into the room.   “Amor, this problem will keep.”   He wasn’t sure when he’d become the one watched. For all the heat of it, his gaze had always been hard to drop.   “There is nothing that mind of yours cannot solve, but it doesn’t have to happen tonight.” His hand was wandering back from his shoulder, calloused burning tracking across his back.   “¿Necesitas una distracción?” The trills of a trickster’s tongue. He let his breath out in a whisper.   “Si.”