10. Someone You Hardly Know

“Av?” Birger said. His brows furrowed and his mouth was a tight line.

Sachie crouched down. Her face wasn’t as severe, but her eyes went round with worry. “Avery?” She gently delivered a few smacks to his cheek, but the mage remained unresponsive, fixed in his position. Birger then scowled at Sachie, though his eyes were full of questioning and concern. She had no explanation for him… Unless… “Oh Gods…his magic must be tapped.”

This did little to reassure Birger. He gently laid Avery down and inhaled deeply, clearly gathering his thoughts. “What does that mean?”

“You know how he’s always going on about wells and vigor and reserves and such? How artefacts can sap your magic… Well, this artefact sapped his magic, and now he’s comatose.”

“Comatose!” Birger straightened. “How—why?”

She looked up at him and shrugged. “Beats me. If I could touch the orb without being knocked out, then he should’ve been able to as well.” Sachie considered Avery as she chewed on her upper lip. “Maybe coming back from the dead depleted his reserves. I mean, he hasn’t been able to keep his glamour up… He must’ve been in a weakened state since we left the inn.”

“Right.” Birger sighed. “So he’s not dead?”

“No.”

“And we can fix this?”

Before she could answer, Avery’s glamour poofed off of him, startling the two. Sachie cursed and quickly leaned over him, shielding him from Birger’s gaze. “Don’t look.”

“What?”

“Uh—just don’t look at him, alright?”

Birger was beyond irritated at this point. “What is it now?”

Sachie marveled at what little Avery’s magic had altered. Sure, his face was duller, with little patches of dry skin here and there, some freckles, a nick in his eyebrow, but… She gently pulled his lip up to check the gap between his front upper teeth. “His glamour dropped.”

“Oh… Is he… Is he hideous?”

“No. He actually looks the same.”

“Well then let me see.”

“NO.”

Birger backed down and sighed again. “Sachie, please, focus. How do we wake him up?”

“First, take this.” She offered the orb to him.

“I’m not touching that.”

Sachie rolled her eyes. “You’re not even magically inclined—”

Birger let out a sound like he was offended.

“You’ll be fine. Take it, will you?”

He reached for it, apprehensive. He only relaxed once he held it and remained unharmed. “Now what?”

“We need to find a healer. Someone who knows body magic, I think. Good, clean magic.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Sachie groaned dramatically. “A Shaman, fuck, even a Druid will do.”

“…What about a Potioner?”

She made a face like she was impressed. “Yeah. Do you know someone?”

“Yes. He’s in Thuringia, though—along the border of Urnia.”

“What? No. No way, we just left the north, Birger.”

“I don’t feel comfortable with Avery in this state… Do you have any leads?”

“Well, it’s not like I want him like this either. And no, I don’t.”

“Well then the Potioner, it is.”

Sachie frowned.

“This is kind of your fault.”

“What?” Sachie shot up. “This is your fault for abandoning us at the haberdashery! If you hadn’t, Avery wouldn’t have died.” She regretted it as soon as she said it. “Ah—”

It was a well-landed blow. Though Birger was a large man with an imposing aura, that was enough to stoop his shoulders and turn his glower into an expression of regret. “You’re right.”

“No. No, I’m not, Birger. That…was really mean of me. I—” She swallowed and looked down at Avery. She knelt and closed his eyes, but they snapped back open and Birger laughed, easing the tension.

“He really does look the same,” Birger said, eyes softening.

“Yeah…” But Sachie’s mind was already occupied—sifting through solutions. North. What a pain in the ass… How were they going to carry Avery? She looked around and remembered seeing a farm on the map, not too far from these woods. At the time she thought it would be a great place to sleep for the night; but now... “Can I see the map?”

Birger handed it over and she scanned their current location. “There’s a farm nearby.”

“Hm.”

“I have an idea. Do you think you can carry him here?” She pointed to a road on the map, close to the farm.

“Yes. What’s your plan?”

“We need transportation.”

Birger pursed his lips, fully aware that this plan involved stealing.

As if sensing his reservation, Sachie said, “I know, I know! But this is an emergency.” She readied herself for the endeavor. “Alright, remember, meet me here, and be prepared to ride out quickly, yeah?”

Birger grimaced as he watched Sachie part ways. He sorted Avery out so that he could deliver him to the designated area—a challenging feat given his body’s stiffness—but Birger figured out a way to carry him on his back. He had to take breaks every so often, gently lying Avery down in the shade, and stretching.

He considered the mage as he rolled his shoulders and swiveled his head side to side. “You’re a nuisance,” Birger said, but Avery remained silent, gaze dead, lips slightly parted. Birger crouched down and studied his face. “And why glamour yourself when you’re already beautiful?” Of course Avery didn’t respond, though Birger swore he saw a slight twitch of his upper lip.

The tender moment didn’t last.

Unnerved by his vacant gaze, Birger fashioned a strip of cloth to cover Avery’s eyes, carefully tying it behind his head to secure it. 

”There.“ Then, Birger’s curiosity possessed him, and he stuck his finger into Avery’s mouth, gently lifting his upper lip and revealing his gap tooth. Birger snorted. “Cute.”

Birger carried on, maintaining a brisk pace, but resting here and there when Avery began to slip or his arms began to ache. The walk was long but not impossible. Flat roads, a clear sky. Sachie probably wasn’t too far ahead. He worried, though he knew she could defend herself.

“You know what I want, Avery?” asked Birger, now tired of the sound of his boots treading an unpaved road and feeling uncharacteristically chatty. “After all of this? I want a cottage up north, past Ourense, at the edge of the world. I’ve been there once. Fell in love with it; the tundra, the sea, the surrounding mountains.” Birger grunted as he shifted Avery into a better position on his back. “You might like it. The quiet. The midnight sun and the long darkness. We could get a dog. I could bake and build, and you could do magic in peace.” Birger hummed at the fantasy, the idea of him and Avery nestling together, drinking warmed cinnamon milk and enjoying the treeless expanse. But the fantasy quickly dissipated as Birger felt his calf cramp up. He stopped to plop Avery by a tree.

“Though… I’m not entirely sure what you want,” Birger said through gritted teeth as he rubbed the tightness out of his muscle. He stared at Avery—blindfolded and stiff in his pretty clothes—and suddenly felt very sad. As if he would want anything like that. As if he could be content with me.

Quieted by his doubts, Birger scooped Avery up just as something slammed down onto the top of his head. Birger staggered and cursed, dropping Avery as he rubbed the impact spot. He glared up at the sky, then down at the source of his sudden pain, growling.

A book.

Birger forgot his ire, his throbbing scalp. He stared at the volume, lips parted, bewildered but mostly spooked. It appeared from nowhere, after all. He kneeled to touch it, hesitated, and then quickly flipped it over, jumping back a little.

A Galmian Glossary of Enchanted Armlets.

Birger’s face twisted with confusion.

Magic?

The air around them felt strange, then.

Definitely magic.

And another book fell from the sky. Birger dodged it this time, and it landed in front of him on its spine; the pages parted to display a diagram of the human body labeled with text from an unknown language.

Another book appeared in a poof beside Avery.

Then another.

And another.

All materializing from nowhere.

Each a book of magic: elixirs, summoning, an illusionist manual, and so on.

A coat poofed near Birger’s feet. Crimson. One of Avery’s. Then, a pair of pristine boots of fine leather toppled from a tree. More and more clothing appeared, surrounding them both. All ostentatious. All Avery’s.

Birger watched with a mixture of horror (at the amount of possessions) and understanding as Avery’s belongings appeared, then disappeared then reappeared once more. Birger smacked a book aside before it could land on Avery’s face. It all made sense. Avery wore an assortment of garments—they were repeated every now and then, but his collection was more than what the average person owned. Avery had an outfit for every occasion, an assortment of accessories for any ensemble, and he also read a lot. Birger often wondered how Avery could travel so light, and it all made sense now. Avery had clearly learned some sort of…storage magic. And now that Avery’s reserves were depleted, his storage couldn’t hold—though it tried.

It was a spectacle, and Birger knew he couldn’t help in any way, so he gathered Avery and carried on, occasionally turning to see if the possessions remained. Some did, but most of them disappeared, back into their unseen holdings. Strange.

“I thought mages weren’t capable of spatial magic…” Birger said, quickly walking. He was close to the rendezvous point and needed to make up for the delay. “Time,” he continued, “and spatial magic—unfeasible, or are they simply forbidden?” He smirked. Avery would know a forbidden spell or two or three... And though Birger was mostly ignorant to the ways of magic and their users, his love of magical trinkets and gadgets had made him (cautiously) curious. He could see the appeal, the hunger for more. Why settle for one school when there were scores of others? Why not reach for more? Forbidden or not.

His brother, Eyvind, however, was more than curious, and rather than content himself with magical baubles, he instead became enamored with the art of potion crafting and element-based spells. It was a setback for their parents. Birger—strong and formidable, but forever dreaming of the domestic. Eyvind—intelligent and diligent but distracted by magic (which their mother considered even more shameful than Birger’s maid-like interests). The two sons of a well-bred line of kings and warriors. Duds. Embarrassments. A waste of sperm. Not worth the pain they put their mother through. Verbatim.

Birger scoffed. Warring was the fools’ pursuit. The squandering of life and resources, and he was glad that he and his twin brother would no longer lend their bodies to the cause. Though, now…

The sound of Sachie hollering in the distance seized Birger’s attention. She was driving a two-horse cart. Sort of. The horses zigzagged down the road toward Birger, and he wasn’t sure if she knew how to slow the steeds.

“Well, now!” Sachie yelled and pulled the reins, stopping the pair of horses just short of trampling the men. “What perfect timing,” she sighed, dramatic. Her face and neck were flushed and sweaty.

Birger simply stared.

“Um—hullo? You think they just handed this thing over? Hurry the fuck up and get on already!”

Birger frowned but complied. He carried Avery over to the back of the cart, which was loaded with a variety of filled jars. He paused again, wanting (so badly) to know what was inside them, but instead got to work moving the jars aside and securing Avery down. Birger cocooned him with a blanket and then joined Sachie at the front.

“Is he situated?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t fly out?”

Birger snorted at the prospect. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Alright then, we’re off—northbound!” She jiggled the reins, but the horses remained unresponsive. “Ugh…” She handed them over to Birger, and he got the cart moving.

“I want to ask how you managed this—”

“Don’t—”

“But I won’t,” he finished with a wry smile.

“What.”

“Hm?”

“Why’re you smiling like that?”

“Like what?”

Sachie twisted up her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “Like I’m suspicious or something.”

“Suspicious?” Birger directed his gaze forward and she eased a little. “I was merely admiring your resourcefulness.”

“Right.” She leaned back and crossed her arms. “So who’s this Potioner you mentioned? A friend of yours?”

“My brother.”

“Brother!”

Birger smiled.

“Huh. I wonder if Avery will, y’know…”

“No, I don’t know, please elaborate.”

She elbowed him. “You know.”

He grunted. “Well, if his heart is that fickle, then they can have each other.”

Sachie laughed. “So jealous so easily!”

Birger grunted again.

“What’s up with you two anyway?”

“Nothing. We slept together.”

“Ew. Okay… That bad, huh?”

“No. It was amazing. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Thanks, Mom. So, it was amazing… What’s the issue, then?”

The cart rolled over a rock, jostling the jars. The two turned around to make sure Avery was still there. He was, and Birger grabbed one of the jars and stuck it between his thighs. He uncapped it and stuck two fingers inside. Pickled eggplant. Birger’s mouth watered.

“Well?”

“Why do you care?” Birger asked as he tilted his head back and dropped a soggy eggplant into his mouth.

Sachie frowned and then pulled a face as he chewed. “I don’t like when you two fight.”

“We’re not fighting. Avery’s just…” Birger didn’t have a word for it. Avery was just being Avery. Difficult…dramatic. He recalled Avery pouting and was struck with a pang of longing. “I guess I did something wrong.”

“Oh…”

“But I’m conflicted.”

“Oh?”

“I… I definitely have feelings for him, but I can’t help but sense that something is…off about him, like he’s hollow-hearted.”

Sachie went very quiet and very still.

Birger noticed, but he carried on, “It feels as if he’s keeping something from me.”

Though the two were side by side, Sachie felt as if she were now meters away. It was palpable, her discomfort, and that alarmed Birger more than Avery’s tepidness.

“I don’t like secrets. I don’t like dishonesty.” Birger glanced at Sachie, but her attention was fixed ahead.

“Avery does some stupid shit,” she said finally. “But I think it comes from a place of good. If he’s hiding something… I’m sure there’s a reason, nothing malicious. He’s very insecure, y’know? He really values how others perceive him. I don’t think he ever means to hurt anyone.”

Birger hummed.

“Avery’s a good person.” She sounded resolute, almost defensive. “He’s a good person, Birger.”

If only I were too, the two thought in unison.

Birger offered the jar of eggplants to Sachie. “I believe you.”