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Jester is awake.Everything is blurry, everything is...is familiar. Hasn't she been here before? Lying in the dark, the ground hard and cold beneath her, her whole body aching? What happened then?Remembering is too hard, and besides, she would rather be asleep again anyway. Her neck hurts, but that will be gone in a moment, so will the pain in her head, it will all be gone, and when she wakes up again she can tell Caleb how —Caleb.With a gasp, Jester drags herself half upright. Her temple throbs. When she touches the side of her head she can feel something crusted thick in her hair. Blood, or mud, it doesn't matter.Caleb matters.The last thing she saw — she puts a hand over her throat, trying to keep calm, to think back — the last thing she saw was his blood in the snow, and someone in long robes that looked too thin for the weather running towards them, with a hand outstretched and cruelty in their face, and Caleb was unconscious, or — and there was a strange light around him that made everything else seem dim even though it was morning, and he was so still —Okay. This isn't helping at all. Better to get your bearings, Jester thinks, and she sits up a little further.There isn't much to see, even once her eyes have adjusted to the darkness. A small cell, stone walls. Completely empty except for her. A heavy iron door to her right. Across from the door, to her left, a wall of iron bars, vertical from ceiling to floor. The space between them is narrow — so narrow, she sees at once, that even Nott would have trouble squeezing through. Jester herself wouldn't stand a chance.Beyond the bars she can see another cell that looks identical to hers, but mirrored, with the bars on this side and the door further away. A distance of a few feet, perhaps, separates both cells. And lying in the far corner, coat missing, where he would be invisible but for her darkvision —"Caleb." Jester scrambles to her feet, ignoring the pain that flares up all at once from different limbs. She limps across her cell, gets as close as she can, grabs two iron bars and presses her face between them. "Caleb!"He's not moving, and she can't see his face; he's lying on his side with his back to her, and she realizes that she can't tell, not at this distance, whether or not he is breathing."Fuck," she cries, and he doesn't move at that either. Language, little sapphire. Her mother's laugh echoes in her memory — or is it a memory? Is she really all alone? Stop and think. You can do this. "Not if he's dead, Mama," she hears herself say out loud, voice breaking, "not if — "
Yes, you can. Think. You are not alone.
Her knees feel weak. She steps back, makes herself kneel down, makes herself look away. For ten long seconds she makes herself look away at nothing but her own hands clasped in her lap. Then she takes a deep breath and feels for her belt.It's still there. Oh, god, it's still there, her silver holy symbol, they didn't take it from her, whoever they are — Focus. She holds it in her hands, and immediately the familiar shape of the metal, the clink of the little chain, instills her with something like peace. How many times has she done this? Nothing is different, even if she is in this dark place, even if her friends are gone. It is nothing she has not found her way out of before. Running her thumbs over the contours of the symbol, as much for comfort as out of reverence, she bows her head, eyes shut, and prays to the Traveler.Nothing happens.For a moment she isn't sure what's gone wrong. It's not like anything should have happened, after all — she's not trying to cast a spell, just to meditate. Her magic is tapped dry, or it was when she was taken captive, and whether or not this is the same day — who knows how long she has been unconscious — she will still have to prepare before she can do anything. This is what she does every day: she communes with the Traveler, asks him for what she needs, and receives his blessing.That's what's wrong. She's asking him, and he isn't saying anything back."Oh, no, no no no…" Jester squeezes her eyes shut tighter. Maybe she just wasn't praying hard enough. She speaks aloud this time: "Please, Traveler, I need to heal Caleb, and I need to get us out of these cells — please give me what I need, give me the curing of wounds and the breaking of doors, give me the touch of life, let me rescue us just as my friends have rescued me so many times…"But there's no answering warmth, no green smile in the darkness. Just silence.He's left her — that's all she can think. He's just left her.Angry, hot tears well up faster than she can stop them. "Okay, well, fine," she shouts, getting up off the floor. "Fine, I'm strong. I can do it myself."Her cheeks are wet, and her nose is running, and fuck that. She wipes both with the back of her arm and grabs one of the iron bars in front of her. Caleb's prone form is still motionless, and with desperation coursing through her veins Jester braces her feet and pulls as hard as she can.She pulls for a while. Eventually, her feet are slipping in their own sweat on the stone, and her palms are raw, her elbows and shoulders on fire. She has injured herself in her efforts, but the iron bar hasn't even started to bend.Blinded with pain, Jester lets out a final scream of frustration before letting go and sinking back down to the floor. Traveler, please... Her heart is thudding against her ribs. She feels sick. Please. You have to be here. This is the worst — we have never been so — A sob is building up somewhere inside her as she crouches over, clutching her holy symbol, lips moving as she whispers whatever orisons and incantations she can think of, but that's all it is, it's just silver and her lips moving, and she doesn't know what to do, and she doesn't understand — "Don't bother."Her eyes fly open. He is awake, facing her over his shoulder. "Caleb," she breathes, relief flooding through her. She drops her holy symbol and leans forward onto her hands, ignoring the pain in her palms as she does so. "Oh, fuck, are you — ""Anti-magic field." Caleb rolls a little further onto his back and points to the ceiling, and for the first time Jester catches sight of a dark stain on the front of his shirt. "Somewhere up there. None of our spells will work.""Shut up, are you hurt?" Shit, he's so far away. "You're bleeding, you need to — ""No, no, this is old." He lifts up the bottom of his shirt and she sees bruising, plenty of dried blood, but he's not lying, there's no open wound."I thought you were dead," she exhales, keeping one hand flat on the floor for its grounding cold, "you looked like you weren't breathing, I thought…"Now a tiny smile lifts the corner of his mouth, though it doesn't meet his eyes. "Not dead. I promised, didn't I?"
"I'll just never die then." His lips on her knuckles, stubble scratching her skin.
"Is that a promise?"
Can he feel her heart pounding against his back? "Yeah, it's a promise." One caress of his thumb before he lets her hand fall. "Hold me to it, ja?"
Jester's throat is tight. We're keeping that promise now, are we? she nearly says, but Caleb's eyes are so tired. His bottom lip is split, and there are burn marks on his hands — small injuries their captors didn't bother healing.(It doesn't matter. He is alive. When the Traveler can hear her again, she will thank him without stopping for a day and a half. She won't even sleep.)"I'm sorry," she says instead, meaning: I'm sorry you're hurt, I'm sorry we're here, I'm sorry any of this had to happen.Caleb just turns away from her, facing the corner again. "Ja. You should have run."Is…?Something hot crawls over her skin, taking her breath with it.Is he angry with her?For a moment she feels like she can't move. Then she gets closer, right up to the iron bars, and — "Hey. Hey. Look at me."He doesn't."Caleb. We have to talk about this.""We really don't," comes his reply from the shadows.If she thought she'd wanted to pull apart these bars a minute ago, then now… "Are you just going to sit there and ignore me? Really? Is that what we're going to do?"His voice is flat. "We are not going to do anything. There is nothing to do."Fuck, she has never seen him like this. She has never seen him like this. "Caleb," she tries, hoping gentleness will reach him, "we don't know where we are, and we have no magic, so we have to figure something out, okay? We have to communicate, and we have to make a plan for how we're going to escape."Caleb laughs. In over a year of traveling with him, Jester has heard Caleb laugh many times — not as many as she would like, but more and more often these days — and she knows the different shades and flavors of his laughter as well as she knows just about anything. She knows how he sounds when he's drunk, when he's embarrassed, when he's playing a part, when he's trying to diffuse the tension in a room, when he's trying to be serious but everyone else is having so much fun he can't help but be dragged in — and she knows the private little laughs to himself, the ones he thinks she doesn't hear, when she's just said something that tickles or charms him just like it was meant to.This laugh is ice, and it chills her to the bone."Caleb," she begins, feeling out of breath again, but he cuts her off."We are not going to escape." He says it casually, as though it's obvious. "As for where we are, of course I cannot be sure, but you know who is holding us here. I told you."He did tell her, but she wouldn't have — she hadn't thought — "How can it be them?" she blurts out. "Wouldn't — ""He can scry on me. He saw that I was about to kill myself, and he alerted his people. They are everywhere, that should not be a surprise."She'd been meaning to say, wouldn't they just have let you die?, but, well, she doesn't get to say anything, apparently."If you had run when I told you to, and not come back for me, you would not be in this mess," Caleb continues, still facing away from her, his voice still terribly calm, "but there is no turning back time, so I suppose you get to be a part of this too. And that's all there is to talk about."He draws his knees up to his chest and goes quiet.Jester is stunned. Too stunned to be as furious with him as he deserves. She is almost — almost —For the first time she is glad that their cells are separated, and as soon as she has this thought she wants to hit herself in the face.*They have been sitting in dead silence, without even the faint drip of water or the distant howl of wind that Jester would have expected to hear in a dungeon, when there is a sudden scream of rust against metal, and in one moment both of the doors open.Jester freezes — she's been massaging her aching arms as best as she can — and then stands up. Her heart is in her mouth. "Caleb."She sees him stir, though he doesn't rise. "What? What happened?"Oh, god, he can't see. It's pitch black in here, and he's not a tiefling, he hasn't been able to see this entire time. "Where's Frumpkin?" she asks stupidly, thinking of the cat's bright yellow eyes."He's — I didn't — What's happening?" Caleb repeats, and Jester realizes that he sounds afraid. She swallows. "Just — the doors opened."Caleb starts, and then he's sitting, actually scrambling back into the corner, his back against the wall, feeling it with one hand. "Keep talking," he says hoarsely."That's it, Caleb." His fear is frightening. "They just opened. No one's there.""Both yours and mine?"How does he know…? "Yeah, but no one's there," she repeats. "Caleb. It's okay."He's glancing back and forth, his eyes searching the darkness like he does when his mind is working rapidly, like he would if he could see. "Don't do anything. Don't — Jester — ""I'm not doing anything," she assures him.There's a pause over several seconds, and then she hears him mutter, "Fuck." "Hey, listen." She gets close to the bars again. "It's a trap, right, obviously, but that doesn't matter, it's a change. It's — what does Fjord always say? It alters the playin' field." God, she feels stupid, but maybe a stupid joke in a stupid voice will help Caleb cope. He's shaking his head, though, and she can hear his breathing growing ragged."Look, I'm gonna try to look outside — ""NO!" he shouts, rocking forward and stretching out a shaking hand. "No, don't move. Jester?""Not moving. I'm not moving." "Verdammt, verdammt, er will es wieder machen, er wird es ihr antun…" Caleb mutters in a dark string of Zemnian, too fast for her to understand even if she recognized any of the words. She sees him press his hands over his eyes, and then he goes very still. What the fuuuuuck, Caleb. Jester clears her throat, feeling more and more like she's the one in the dark here."Jester?""Yeah?""Maybe…" He's lowered his hands again. "Maybe that was a good idea. If there is still nobody there. Just to peek out and check.""Okay," she says slowly. "I can do that."She's almost to the door, feeling an absurd urge to tiptoe, when he says her name again, and something about it makes her pause, actually stop walking and turn around.He looks like he's in pain. He looks like he's about to break down. And then it hits her that in the moment, just as she had forgotten he wasn't a tiefling, it hasn't occurred to Caleb that she can see him. She has to lick her lips — her mouth has gone all dry. "What the fuck is going on?""Nothing. You need to leave," he says, but like he already knows it's too late. "Leave, Jester.""I'm not stupid.""I did not say you are — ""You really want me to walk out this door, don't you."That's enough. Caleb puts his face in his hands."What happens when I walk out this door?""Nothing," he repeats, voice low and muffled. "You'll be fine. I doubt the anti-magic shell extends much further than this cell, you will be fine to cast your spells. Maybe there is a way out."Jester feels the pit of her stomach falling like a floor crumbling beneath her. "And what about you?" she asks very softly. "What happens to you, when I walk out this door?"He doesn't answer.Fuck everything. This is all too much. It's all building inside of her again, all the panic and bewilderment and fury and the pain in her head, and in her arms, and Jester thinks she has earned the right to sound a little hysterical when she grabs those fucking iron bars again and shouts, "What happens, Caleb?" When he finally speaks again, he leans his head back against the wall with a sigh, and all the fight has gone out of him, or it would have, if it had not already left him long ago."I helped him with this, you know," he says heavily, waving an arm in the darkness. "It was not my idea, but he made — he let me help set it up, choose who to put with who. It was part of my training. Always traitors to the Empire, of course. Bad people.""Oh, Caleb," she murmurs."It has been a very long time but I should really have recognized it, you know." A bitter smile twists his mouth. "Different in the dark, I suppose. And we did not use cells, we used…" He swallows. "Doesn't matter. The point is to break people, you see. Torture is clumsy — with the body, I mean — and people really fear loss more than anything.""What happens if I walk out that door?" Jester repeats, but she already knows the answer.Caleb shrugs. "I die," he says simply.
end of chapter
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She lets his words sink in for a second, lets them have the proper weight they deserve before she dismisses them, and then:
"Fuck that," says Jester. "How do we escape?"
Caleb hits the back of his head against the stone wall, gently, but not so gently that Jester doesn't wince. "I told you, we don't. This is Trent Ikithon, Jester."
"And I told you — " yesterday? The day before? — "Trent Ikithon is not a god."
"No. No, he is not."
That's something, that's progress. "So there must — "
"Gods are capable of mercy."
"Damn it, Caleb — !" She wishes she could pass through these bars and slap him in the face. "We are not going to die here. This is
just
like before, you are being
ridiculous — "
"You have not listened to a word I have said!" Caleb gets to his feet, stumbles a little in the dark, but finds his way swiftly to his side of the bars. Now that he is closer, with only a few feet separating their cells, Jester can see bruises and half-formed scabs on his arms, on his neck, on the side of his face. "I have been trying to tell you who these people are, and you will not
listen,
and it is...sweet, Jester, that you do not want to give up hope, but you are confusing hope with...with a chance, with possibility."
"You are confusing it with foolishness," Jester shoots back.
She sees him falter, sees him start to form a reply, but then his shoulders slump, and he ends up mouthing something to himself that she cannot hear.
"You know I can see you, right," she points out.
The first hint of anything like a real smile crosses his face, all too briefly. "I wish I could see you."
"Yeah." A lump rises in her throat. "You should see my face, I'm really mad."
"I'll bet you are."
"Biggest frown ever."
"Wunderschöne,"
he murmurs, and his eyes are closed, like he's imagining it.
Jester doesn't need to understand Zemnian to know what he means. She curls a hand around one of the bars of her cell. "Let's get out of here, Caleb. Let's beat them."
He opens his eyes, presses his forehead into the bar in front of him with a sigh, or a groan, she's not sure which. "I wish we could,
liebling."
Once, in another world, he told her that that word meant
blueberry,
but that was one of his little lies, Jester knows now, those lies they have both been toying with since...she doesn't know how long.
Her grip on the bar tightens. Long enough. She is not going to lose him.
"Help me understand." Traveler help her, he's too fucking far away. "If I walk out that door — which I'm not going to do, by the way — what
exactly
happens?"
Caleb presses his forehead even harder against the bar; it's going to leave a mark. Like those scabs and bruises, the ones Jester isn't sure came from their captors. "I don't know. Specifically. It could be...They will not send someone in to physically do it, it's a spell, it will be disintegration, or something like that. Beyond any resurrection magic, that is the point, otherwise…" He holds up his hands: otherwise, why would they care?
"Yeah, that's…" Jester bites her lower lip, discards about five or six ideas she was going to suggest. "Okay. And this spell…"
"Has already been cast. Like
die kleine hütte,
and we are already inside."
"And it pops when one of us leaves."
"You could say that, ja."
Jester's stomach churns. "So if you walk out, then I die. Both ways."
"Both ways." Caleb bumps his head against the bar again.
"Please don't hurt yourself, Caleb," says Jester quietly, an ache in her chest. "I need you here."
"This helps me to be here."
"It hurts
me."
He pulls back from the bars, grimacing, like he's fighting an invisible force. "I cannot see," he says slowly, deliberately. "I do not know where I am. I need...something. To...hold onto."
It won't work, she knows it won't, but Jester cocks her head ever so slightly and does the
thing
in the middle of her brain right between her ears; and if the Traveler were near, she would see her duplicate shimmer into being right next to Caleb, behind the bars, right where he could…
But it doesn't work. A daydream, as usual.
"You can hold onto me," she finds herself saying instead.
Caleb says nothing.
"Hold onto me." Jester reaches her arm through the bars — it's impossible, it's too far, but she does it anyway. "Here, hold my hand."
"Jester…"
"I'm right here. Hold my hand."
She sees his right hand close slowly into a fist, like he's threading his fingers through hers.
"Not too tight, I scraped my hand pretty bad on the bars earlier, be gentle."
He laughs, or whimpers, she's not sure which — everything is contradictions with this man whom she — she — well, whatever the case, he is still holding her hand in the darkness, and she could swear she
feels
it, his skin against hers, calloused and soft at the same time.
"There." She's not going to cry, she's fine. "You just...you just hold on. And we will solve this."
They stand like that for a while. Caleb brushes one hand across his eyes a few times, pinches the bridge of his nose. His other hand stays at his side, obeying, holding on, and Jester sees his thumb move, stroking invisible fingers.
Finally she speaks up, when it is starting to become too much to bear. "Okay, so we can't leave, not that way." The gaping doorway looms behind her, its presence almost palpable, like feeling someone watching you from the back of a room. "There's no other way out, there's no vents or anything in the ceiling, right?"
"Even if there were, it would be the same," Caleb exhales, flexing his hand. "Think of it like the bubble, like I said."
She'd expected that, but, well, it was worth asking. This is worth asking too. "What if we tried to walk out at the same time? Count of three, or something?"
"Ah…" Caleb runs his hands through his hair, rubs his face a few times, scratches at his forearms. "That is — that is risky, we would…" He shakes his head. "I do not think we could do it. It would be a matter of seconds, of less than seconds…"
"But it's possible."
He holds up his empty hands. "I don't know, Jester. I did not create this spell, he did. We could time it perfectly and walk out together and...explode, for all I know."
"Well, shit."
"Yeah."
They stare at each other, or Jester stares at him and Caleb stares where her voice is. Jester bites her lip, thinking about loopholes, technicalities, everything she knows about arcane magic, which is really very little, but this is her whole thing, isn't it? She worships a trickster god. She can trick her way out of here. She just has to poke, and prod, and find the weakness, the one thing that slipped someone's mind, the one place where they underestimated a childish, cute little girl, and…
Caleb is laughing.
It's a real laugh this time, even if it's frayed around the edges and falling apart. Jester covers her mouth with her hand. This is insane, this is...this is Caleb laughing in the dark, like he's broken through a thorny wall and found the sea on the other side.
"Shit," he repeats, wrapping one arm around his waist, getting his breath.
"Scheisse,
we are fucked." He leans against the bars, facing her. "I am so glad — I am
so
— I hate that you are here, but I am
so glad,
Jester."
She knows exactly what he means. All kinds of things to say in return float around in her head, in her heart, and it takes a minute to settle on one. "It's nice to see you smiling."
His smile has grown very soft. "You saved my life, you know."
"Yeah, I know."
"Couple of times."
A little twist of warmth curls inside her. "Yeah?"
"All the time."
They are on the edge of something, trembling. Jester eyes the precipice, takes a breath —
And the doors slam shut.
Immediately Caleb turns away, almost violently, and Jester thinks: he has heard that sound before, that heavy slam. He's heard it in his nightmares.
She can't blame him: she's going to be hearing it in her nightmares too, for the rest of her life.
"Anybody come in?" Caleb asks in a harsh whisper, pressing himself back against the wall and craning his neck around towards the door that he can't see.
"No." Jester glances behind her at her own cell and door, but there's nothing. "It's still just us."
Caleb sighs, sinks down to the floor. His hands shake. "You need to know that they are going to leave us here." That deadness, that exhaustion, is back in his eyes. "We will have no food, nothing to drink. They will open the doors a few times a day. We get to make a choice, but they get to tell us when."
"You need to know that we're not making that choice."
"I know." He's lying. "But those are the rules. I am just telling you."
"Fuck the rules," says Jester, but her voice sounds small and hollow even to her.
*
The doors don't open again. Jester is lying on the stone floor, as close to the bars as she can, with her cloak bundled up under her head as a crude pillow. They didn't take her cloak. They didn't really take anything, she considers, just her faith, and the touch of anyone's skin. Generous of them. Really, very kind.
Sleep is the top of a mountain she can't climb right now, so she just rests, lets her thoughts drift. The Iron Shepherds put them all in manacles, she remembers, and the ogres stripped all their clothes off, so this isn't so bad, is it? This is just a matter of waiting.
Caleb won't admit it, but things are not entirely without hope. The Mighty Nein are still out there, their family, and she knows that they are looking for both of them. They don't have much to go on, it's true, just Jester's footprints away from camp that morning, following Caleb's trackless steps, and then what must be a harrowing scene: ash, melted snow, scorched rocks, and possibly a dead dragon.
But there's more than that, surely. The mages who ambushed them must have left some traces of their presence. Magical residue, something like that, some lightning-like pattern on the earth that could only have come from some particular spell.
Something.
Caleb would be able to figure it out. Would any of the others? Jester shifts uneasily; her hip is beginning to ache against the hard floor. Fjord and Caduceus are like her: their powers come from their patrons, from relationships, not from study. Beau
has
studied, has made it her mission to oppose the Assembly wherever she finds it, but it's not like the mages left a note,
Cerberus Assembly was here,
and even if they had — where the hell are they?
They are everywhere,
Caleb said. He and Jester could be somewhere in Rexxentrum, they could be outside of the Empire, they could be buried in a cave deep under the ocean for all she knows. Teleportation spells must be the easiest thing in the world for mages like these. Caduceus has tried scrying on them by now, without a doubt, but can the Wildmother see them here if the Traveler cannot? Can any divine sight penetrate this magic-suppressing field? How long can...
She doesn't realize that she's fallen asleep until that
sound
wakes her up again. The doors are open.
"Jester," Caleb warns in a low voice from across their cells.
"Yeah. I'm here." She sits up stiffly. Every muscle in her body hurts. Just lifting a hand to brush the grogginess out of her eyes is almost impossible. Her head aches, and her mouth is dry, and the bare stone floor has chilled her to the bone.
A glance at the opposite cell reveals Caleb back in his corner, sitting with his arms wrapped around both knees. He doesn't look like he has slept at all.
"Ngh...how long has it been?" Jester mumbles.
"Not long." She can barely hear him, he's speaking so quietly. "Eighteen hours since they took us, but that is not counting the times I have been unconscious. Still, we are probably still on day one."
"How can you be sure?"
There's a silence before he replies, "I am only one day hungry."
Jester wonders idly what it would be like to wrap her hands around Trent Ikithon's throat and squeeze as hard as she can.
Save that for later,
she tells herself.
That is not your job right now.
That, when it comes, will be easy; this, right now, needs all of her attention.
"I think I'm so hungry I've skipped past my stomach growling," she says lightly, forcing a wry grin into her voice, "and now I'm just in that weird place where it's like, I know I
need
food, but mostly I just feel like I'm floating or something."
This is supposed to be a joke, to make Caleb mutter
ha
and say that she would be even more of a menace if she could fly, something like that, but instead his face darkens, and both of his hands close into fists.
God damn it, can't you ever say the right thing? Does he need even more to worry about?
Disappointment and shame creep across her skin like a blush. This is supposed to be what she's good at.
Caleb
is supposed to be what she's good at.
Maybe she's hungrier and more exhausted than she thought. Eighteen hours. She wonders what it's like to starve.
Suddenly Caleb stirs — the smallest bit of light comes back into to his eyes, and he puts a hand to his hip, feeling for something. Jester sits up a little straighter.
"Ich habe vergessen,
they didn't take it." Caleb removes an object from the faded leather belt he always wears. It's a drawstring pouch, no bigger than Jester's hand.
"I don't think they did take very much from us," she begins, just for the sake of saying something, "besides my axe, and my backpack, and —
oh my god."
Caleb has taken a piece of licorice out of the pouch.
"Holy shit,"
breathes Jester, and yes,
now
her stomach is growling.
The shadow of a smile has returned to Caleb's face. "It's just the root, not the candy, and there isn't much," he says apologetically. "I threw away most of my spell components, when — ah, but this slipped my mind, I think. I was a bit...preoccupied."
"I am so glad you were worried about dying,"
she gasps, and then claps a hand over her mouth.
"Ha." Is that a grin? "Your support means everything."
Jester watches, relief and fascination mingling hot in the base of her throat, as Caleb carefully removes the rest of the licorice from the pouch, followed by —
fuck the Traveler,
that's molasses, that's a big thick blob of molasses wrapped in wax paper, she can
smell
it from here, and if Caleb were next to her right now she would kiss him
full on the lips.
"I'm not sure…" He is frowning slightly. "I can't see, and even if I could I don't think I should just try to throw it to you. If I miss we can't get it back."
"Tie it to something."
"I don't have anything to — "
"You have a shirt!" Oh, god, she's
salivating,
parched as she is. "Just, like...pull out some thread, or tear off a strip or something!"
"You are trying to get me shirtless, Lavorre," says Caleb, straight-faced — but he does also take off his shirt.
This is not something Caleb does often, and Jester allows herself a moment to be
deeply angry
that she is both too distracted by the prospect of something to eat, and too wounded by the sight of the bruises and old blood all over his ribs and stomach, to appreciate what's happening. Caleb is not athletic: he is slight, skinny even, nothing like the men in her smut books, but he is
Caleb;
and so, even if for no other reason, the entire Cerberus Assembly now owes Jester a
serious debt.
It takes a while for Caleb to rip enough material out of the already-ragged hemline of his shirt, but eventually there are a few strips of cloth long enough to tie together. He loses track of things a few times in the dark, and Jester has to remind him
— a few inches to the right — no, you moved, it's behind you now —
until finally they have something like a cord or a string, and Caleb ties one end to the component pouch.
He's crouched on his side of the bars, about to try tossing it through to Jester's side, when she clears her throat. "Caleb."
"Jester."
"You did only put half of it back in the pouch, didn't you?"
Irritation, then resignation flit across his features. "I...thought you could take half, and then I would pull it back."
"Uh-huh. You wouldn't, like, accidentally drop your end, and get it lost where you couldn't reach it or something."
"I would never do that," he smiles ruefully.
Jester gets as close as she can, squints hard through the darkness to be sure he's really taking his half of the tiny portion of food out for himself, no tricks or sleight of hand. "It must be hard, being so predictable all of the time," she teases, wishing he could see just how
coy
she's being right now, her tail flicking flirtatiously back and forth as she leans against the bars.
"I am only predictable to you." He's closing the pouch again, and she's pleased to see a handful of licorice root and half of the molasses on the floor by his knee. "To the rest of the world I am a total mystery."
"Oh,
so mysterious."
"That's me." Caleb stands up, still smiling, thank god. "Hey. Catch."
After a few tries, the pouch finally lands close enough that Jester can stretch her arm through the bars and grab it. Adrenaline hits her, almost turns her stomach, as soon as her fingers touch it, and she has to force herself to be slow, to sit down and open it deliberately, before she takes a single piece of licorice root out and puts it in her mouth.
"I
fucking love you,"
she sighs at the first bite, and she isn't sure whether she's talking to Caleb or the Traveler or maybe to the licorice itself, which is strange and strong and bitter in a way she didn't expect, but right now it's the best damn thing she's ever tasted.
She hears Caleb laugh behind her. "Save some of that. Ration it for later."
"Yeah…" She closes her eyes, chews as slowly as she can, letting the rich, aromatic flavor fill her mouth like a rainstorm, until there isn't anything to do but swallow. And then it's gone.
That's all she gets right now, she tells herself. That's enough.
It's not, but it is when she turns around and sees Caleb, who hasn't touched his half, who's just sitting and leaning against the bars next to his ruined shirt, and
god,
he is sweet, if this weren't a question of life or death she would just be warm all over instead of brimming with something between anger and anxiety like she is now. She knows exactly what he's doing, because it's exactly what she would do, if there really was no hope left.
"Caleb." He stirs slightly at her voice. "You have to eat."
For a moment she's convinced he's going to try to tell her he isn't hungry, or he's saving it for later, but he only says
hmm,
reaches down and takes a bite of licorice.
"Thank you," sighs Jester.
He's looking ahead into the darkness at nothing, his expression blank. "You know it won't last," he begins.
"I know that."
"It's not even about the food." His right hand flexes open and closed a few times. "How long can we go without water — three, four days? Five?"
The thirst that she has been ignoring wakes up at his words, and Jester swallows, tries to push it into the background once more.
"They might give us water, just a little bit," continues Caleb, and now it sounds like he's talking to himself as much as to her, working things through as best as he can. "Stretch it out. We tried that once. More time to watch her starve. Maybe even give us some light at the end, let me see how bad it is."
"Hey."
She swallows again, wishing the taste of licorice hadn't vanished so quickly. Her stomach is still roiling, waiting for more, and she doesn't know how to put it to sleep again. Is this the first time she has ever been this hungry? No, that's absurd, it's one day, she has gone without food for one day before, she must have, during all of their trials and adventures.
But then she would have had the Mighty Nein with her, would have had Nugget and Sprinkle, would have had a job to do besides sitting in the dark and enduring and keeping up Caleb's spirits. Would have had the spark of the Traveler's presence, would have had her magic. Jester thinks she could bear just about anything if she had all of that, but here? Emptiness, and boredom, and absence? With no end in sight?
The point is to break people, you see,
echoes Caleb's voice in her memory.
And people really fear loss more than anything.
She looks over at her cell doorway, still open, nothing but a dark hallway to be seen on the other side. And then she looks at Caleb's, exactly the same, and somewhere out there is the edge, the boundary, of this spell, just waiting to be crossed. An ending.
"Hey," she repeats, louder than she needs to, probably. She can't stop blinking, it's like there's something in her eye. "Caleb."
"I am here."
"Our friends are out there." Jester clears her throat. "They are looking for us. They're smart, and they're resourceful. They will go to other people — we have allies, we have favors that can be called in, we know powerful people."
"Liebling…"
"I know what you are going to say, but they don't have to take down the whole Assembly, they don't even have to kill Ikithon, they just have to get us out of here." Saying it out loud is filling her with a strength she didn't know she had left. "All we have to do is wait, and have faith in them. Beau and Fjord and Nott and Caduceus and Yasha."
"And Nugget."
"And — " Her voice breaks, half a sob and half laughter. Tears, that's what she was blinking away before, and they roll gently down her face. "Yeah. Exactly. And they're gonna find us, and we don't have to figure out what we'll do after that, not right now. So you need to tell me — "
She fixes her gaze on him, even though she knows he can't see her, willing him to sense it anyway.
"You need to promise me that you are going to eat, you are not going to try to sacrifice yourself, you are not going to keep telling me to walk out the door, and you are going to survive."
"I cannot promise you that."
Rage, helpless, wells up in her throat. "You are not being — "
"I can't promise you that, Jester, but — "
" — fair," she spits through new tears. "Do you
want
to die, is that it?"
"No."
"You
sound
like you want to die."
"I want to live. I — " She can
hear
him forcing his voice to stay low, stay steady. "I have
been
wanting to live, so much, more than ever, over the past — " He catches himself audibly. "But this is not the point."
"This is
exactly
the point," insists Jester, "this is — what the fuck else would the point be, Caleb, you are trying to make me let you
die,
I'm supposed to be your
healer."
Her tears are flowing now, her nose is starting to stuff up and run and make her voice sound
stupid
like some
little kid,
and her cheeks are hot, and she hates this, she
hates
it, and it's his
fucking fault.
"Jester. You know I — " Caleb turns towards her, just slightly, his left cheek pressed against a bar. "This is about me, it is not about you. They don't care about you. They only care that
I
care about you. If you walk out, you have a chance."
"You're
guessing — "
"Let me finish. Me, they will not let go so easy. The point of this is to punish me. It is not to extract secrets, or to make me betray a cause." He is speaking rapidly now,
professionally,
she thinks, just conveying information, like he's been taught; but it's not enough to hide the sadness in his words. "That is what we would do, we would take two people who mattered to each other — close friends, family members — and they had to watch each other waste away, or convince the other to run and let them die, or they could stop the suffering, just stand up and say, yes, I will tell you what you need to know, I will give you that name or draw you that map, and then — "
Caleb stops to take a breath. In that moment, from somewhere Jester can't see, both of the doors are pulled shut with a resounding
clang.
"Fuck."
Caleb stands up abruptly and starts pacing, the heels of his palms shoved over his eyes. "Fuck. Fuck."
"Caleb," Jester begins, but she doesn't know how to continue, and his name hangs in the air of her cell, alone.
" — But that is not what they are doing to me," he barrels on, giving no indication of having heard her. His hands have left his face, strayed down to his shoulders, and he is rubbing his arms as if to stave off the cold. Jester wonders, with a pang of worry, whether taking his shirt from him for a few bites of licorice was worth it. "This is not interrogation, this is retribution. So no matter what happens, I do not get out of here alive."
Now he stops, and for the first time in several minutes he looks toward Jester, and a thought flies out of the thin air to land like an arrow in her chest:
I might never see the color of his eyes again.
Everything in her darkvision is shades of black and white, even her own skin. She thinks she might be sick.
"You must understand this. I know it is hard. But it is not a choice between which one of us lives and which one of us dies."
Everything she has to say catches in her throat. "You have
no idea
how much I — "
"It is a choice between both of us dying, slowly, in pain, or a quick death for me. No suffering. Knowing that you have a chance, however small. Because I am not walking out that door, Jester."
"Caleb, just — "
"So here's what I will promise: we will wait for our friends, we will not give up hope. I will not argue with you. I will have a little bit to eat." His eyes, grey in the darkness, are full of unshed tears. "But we will do this for one day, and then we have to talk."
She has nothing to say. She wonders if she hates him.
A few moments pass, tense as iron, and then Caleb swears in Zemnian and stumbles back into the far corner, lowers himself heavily to the floor, his face turned towards the wall. There's a smear of molasses on his bare foot, from where he was pacing blindly across his cell. It's meaningless, and absurd, and horrifying, and Jester turns her back to it, presses both hands against her mouth, and she doesn't cry, and she doesn't scream, and she doesn't care.
end of chapter
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
One, two, three, four, five...
The worst part is the passage of time. She can't grasp it, feel it running through her hands like a length of ribbon, the way Caleb can — and she isn't going to lie here and keep asking him what time it is. But with no windows, no sun, she's beginning to feel like she's going mad. Has it been five minutes since she last stretched and rolled over onto more cold hard stone, or half an hour? Has it been half an hour, or half a day?
Caleb isn't speaking to her. She's not going to speak first.
So she tries counting to herself, under her breath, first in Common, then in Infernal, switching back and forth by tens, by hundreds — until the cell doors creak open again, and she loses her count somewhere in the two-thousands, and has to start over.
One, two, three, four...
The doors are probably the worst part, actually. Jester has begun to imagine huge, heavy eyes on the top of the entrance to her cell, glowering at her above a gaping mouth.
You could just run out of here,
they taunt her.
Run while you're still strong. Run to food and drink and sleep and warmth.
It's not that she's tempted, just that they are pulling
so hard
at her whole body, like she pulled on those iron bars...earlier today, or yesterday, or the day before. And just as she starts to imagine what it would be like, running through a long hallway, magic coursing through her limbs again, forcing her way out to fresh air — that's when that big mouth slams shut.
You had your chance,
it seems to leer at her.
Too bad.
"Go fuck yourself," she mutters, but of course the door is just a door, and her words hit it harmlessly and fall to the ground like a bird flying into a window.
Jester fiddles with her holy symbol, presses it to her heart. It's cold like the rest of her cell, but it doesn't take long for the heat of her skin to warm it up. This is the focus for her magic, the prism through which her god channels his power, and it's the shape of a door opening onto a new path. She will
not
let this prison turn that symbol into something from a nightmare. They have taken many things from her, but they do not get to take that.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…
The worst part, actually, has to be the hunger. It lies coiled in the pit of her stomach at times, only to strike like a viper when she doesn't expect it, twisting her insides, biting her everywhere. And the thirst, the thirst is almost enough to make her cry out loud. With them both comes the lightheadedness, and the trembling, and the
weakness,
draining her until she is sure she must already be asleep.
But she isn't, and
that's
the worst part. It's impossible to sleep. Every way she turns, every way she tries to curl up, there is a bruise now, and her cloak is not enough to cushion her against the stone. Even if it was, that would not stop the cramping in her arms, or the pounding in her head...
...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…
...or the ache of her bladder. No, this is definitely the worst part. Fuck the Cerberus Assembly, they didn't even give them buckets, not even a drain in the floor. Jester has been trying to block this out for hours, but things are reaching a crisis point, and finally she has no choice but to pick the furthest corner of her cell and sacrifice one long sleeve ripped from her dress to try to keep things contained there. It's humiliating, or it should be, except she can't afford the luxury of humiliation right now.
At least Caleb can't see her. She wonders how he's doing — but they're still not speaking, so she can't tease him about pissing out the door the next time it opens, or how she'll totally turn around and she won't peek, fingers crossed, he can absolutely trust her in this total darkness, obviously, Caleb.
That's the worst part, she realizes. Not talking to Caleb.
She licks her dry lips and presses the backs of her hands against her eyes, because she can't cry, because it's a waste of water.
How long can we go — three, four days? Five?
She shoves aside the memory of Caleb's voice and pretends it's the Traveler counting with her instead.
One, two, three —
"What are they doing right now, do you think?"
At the sound of his voice, the cold, the pain, the smell of piss, the hunger, the thirst all cease to matter. It's relief welling up behind her eyes now, not despair. A grin spreads across Jester's face.
"Probably they resurrected that dragon," she replies, so eager to move past that awful silence that she isn't totally sure what she's saying, "and, like, they trained it, and now they're on their way flying here."
"Mein gott.
That would be a sight."
Caleb is sitting with his back against the bars, facing away from her, but she can hear the smile in his voice. He has his legs stretched out in front of him, almost like he's relaxing.
YOU are a sight,
she thinks. "I bet Nott probably has the reins."
"Nott?" Caleb huffs. "She is afraid of heights. She is almost definitely stuffed into a bag and tied to the saddle at her own request."
Jester giggles. "And Fjord wishes he were too."
"If anyone is...driving...the dragon, it will be Yasha, no?"
"Oh, absolutely."
The bars are digging into the bare skin of Caleb's back, Jester sees, but it doesn't look like he's doing this on purpose; he doesn't look like he's even noticed.
"And what'll we do when they get here?" Something in his voice has gone very tight — the smile is gone, or has frozen into a mask. "Once we escape, I mean."
Jester swallows. Her throat is so dry that it hurts.
"Jester?"
"After we've beaten them, you mean. The Cerberus Assembly."
"Yeah, yeah."
"We'll…" She folds her hands; the trembling is back. "Uh. We'll go to Nicodranas. Maybe we can buy the Mistake back."
"You want to be sailors again?"
I want to be warm again,
she thinks, but she says, "Sounds good, right? Seagulls, and the wind from the ocean? And the sails flapping around?"
Caleb is silent for a long minute, and then he says quietly, "I'm sorry for yesterday."
Yesterday.
"So am I," she returns, and that's all they need to say.
She folds her hands tighter.
Yesterday.
One, two.
*
Jester read a story once, a long time ago, when she was still just a kid, about an explorer who traveled through a hundred lands, posing as a bard or a dragonslayer or a magician.
The Adventures of So-and-So,
she can't remember his name, but it was
good.
Good enough to read and re-read, sprawled amongst the pillows on her bedroom windowseat, the plush curtains closed around her, late at night when she was supposed to be asleep in bed.
More than once, as she has looked back fondly to that part of her life, she has wondered whether or not that book might have inspired the first spark of desire in her heart to leave home, to see what was the big deal, after all, about the wide world.
Right now she remembers the chapter where So-and-So got his heroic self marooned on a desert island, and the thrills she felt at reading all those descriptions of his trials and suffering. No shelter from the elements?
So he used his wits to fashion a tent from palm branches and driftwood, and lo and behold, So-and-So protected himself from the winds and the rain!
No food, not even a coconut to be found?
With a crude knife chipped from a stray beach stone, So-and-So was able to whittle a simple fishing spear, and thus, after many long hours, he taught himself how to catch fish from the shallows.
Nothing to drink?
Surrounded on all sides by poisonous salt water, the clever So-and-So realized that all the beautiful seashells dotting the sandy shore could be turned upside-down to catch the rain when it fell, and in this way he was able to stave off his thirst long enough to await rescue.
There was never anything, not in that book or in any of the others, about how it felt when your mouth turned to cotton fluff, how your throat slowly dried out until swallowing hurt, how dizzy you got, how your head ached and your heart raced and your skin felt all strange and stretched. Brave Sir So-and-So never lay for hours with his arms wrapped around himself as hunger pangs racked his body. He always just sat and thought for a few minutes, and then came up with a brilliant solution —
because, dear children,
all the epilogues to those kind of books would proclaim,
all you need is common sense, elbow grease, and to never ever give up hope, and you can survive whatever life throws at you!
Jester shivers in her cell. The shivering started a while (six hours? thirty minutes?) ago, and now it won't stop.
The books should talk about this, she thinks. There should be pages and pages of this stuff: how to decide which position will hurt the least to lie in on bare stone, how to deal with that feeling like you're going to faint but somehow you can't and it just goes on and on. Kids should know what they're getting into, she thinks, when they leave home.
The Traveler could have warned her — he knows about this stuff, it's in his name, isn't it? — but he never did. Maybe he didn't think he would need to. After all, he can't see everything, must not be as powerful as she once thought, because one little anti-magic spell is apparently enough to shut him out.
Every time this thought crosses her mind, Jester stops, wearily, and tells it to turn around and go back where it came from. She's not being fair. How many times has she been this close to giving up, and how many times has he failed her? Never, not once. He's faithful, this god of hers, even when she isn't. He's given her a very long story to live, with just the
best
twists and turns, and he's given her people that —
god
— people that are
worth this,
people that, even if she dies here in this cell, will have been worth every second.
Every second.
So she sings, a little bit, while her throat doesn't hurt too much, and she reminds Caleb that they need to have a few bites of molasses and licorice root every now and then. She prays, even if there's no answer. She sneaks glances at Caleb's bare shoulders, at the shape of his waist. She thinks about her Mama's laughter.
She holds on.
*
"You know what's weird?"
"What's weird?"
"I think I miss the sky most of all. Like, more than food, even."
She hears Caleb clear his throat — they're both hoarse and raspy and awful by now. "That's not weird."
It's the end of their second day — not that she has asked, but it
has
to be by now, at least — if it hasn't been even longer — and they're out of what little food they had. Jester has, anyway, and she can't see anything left in Caleb's cell, so either he is out too, or he's hiding what he has left, because as long as he's the first —
Nope.
She bites her lip hard, and the pain makes a good shield.
Nope, nope. Something else.
Right now she is stretched out on her back, cloak pillowed under her head, trying to give some relief to her cramped limbs. It's not helping much, but if she shuts her eyes while they talk, she can pretend that Caleb is lying right next to her, even if his voice is too far away.
"I miss the sun," he continues after a moment. "And, you know. Seeing."
The doors are open right now. Jester is lying as far away from hers as she can, nearly pressed up against the bars. It has become important,
so
important, to refuse to acknowledge their surroundings in any way, or even to use certain words, like
time,
or
wait,
or
choice.
"I miss Nugget." Jester has been daydreaming about doggy kisses, about being bowled over by a warm whirlwind of fur and paws and wagging tail. "And Frumpkin. He's been so cuddly lately. He could go back and forth, and keep us both warm."
"I sent him away," Caleb murmurs, and Jester opens one eye to watch as he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "Before I left, you know."
"Away, like — away-away? For good?"
"No, not for good, but...I didn't want him to...be there, I suppose."
She understands. She wouldn't have wanted Nugget there either.
"I was trying to protect you all." His words are rough, and low, too, like cinders in a fire. "I took the necromancer's stone with me, you know — stole it, I suppose. I was hoping dragonfire would be hot enough to destroy it, but…"
"Shit." Jester opens both eyes and turns her head to look at him.
"They
probably have it now."
"Ja, well, there were a lot of bad decisions that morning," Caleb mutters.
"I still haven't forgiven you, you know."
A creak of a smile in his voice now, like a door half-opening. "I know, Jester."
Call me
liebling
again,
she thinks, letting her eyes drift shut. What was the word he used before?
"Wunderschöne,"
she mouths silently.
Caleb might be wrong. He's rarely wrong, but it's possible: the doors might just be doors, the spell might be something totally different. It's possible they could both get up and walk out of their cells and they would be fine. Well, still in the hands of sadistic maniacs, but alive.
Or, sure, maybe one of them dies, but it's not irreversible, Caduceus can cast a resurrection spell once they're all safe, and there's no harm done.
Ende gut, alles gut,
said Caleb once. He's just guessing, really, he knew these people
so
long ago, their methods could be totally different now, and maybe this whole thing is just to play tricks with his mind, to make him paranoid, freak him out.
It's
possible.
Jester rolls over onto her side, ignoring the pain, and stares down the black iron bars in front of her face. How far apart are they spaced, really, she wonders? She's always been awful at reckoning inches, miles, anything like that. Carefully, she traces one hand across her ribcage, her hips, the span of her shoulders. How much more would some broken bones hurt? How much strength would it take — how much strength does she have left?
People really fear loss more than anything.
She stumbles back from this, loses momentum.
People fear pain, too,
she thinks; and, unbidden, the images and sounds rattle through her mind:
the forest before dawn, tree trunks like black iron bars —
the crunch of snow —
Caleb's face as he stands in front of that fucking huge dragon, tear streaks freezing to his cheeks in the cold —
Caleb's face as he stares at her, dumbfounded, on his knees in a mess of mud and slush —
Caleb's face, as he reaches for her, just before everything goes to hell.
A quick death. No suffering. Knowing that you have a chance.
She inhales sharply, and rolls back over.
One, two, three.
end of chapter
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jester drifts.
She's lost track of how many times the doors have opened and closed now. Some of those times have been dreams, and she's not sure which ones. It's getting easier and easier to sleep. The stone floor is not so bad, anymore. Caleb has been sleeping, too, which is good, right? He has to keep up his strength.
The hunger isn't quite so bad anymore either. Or the thirst. Or, maybe that's not it, exactly — maybe she's just not quite so much
here
anymore. Some part of her must have escaped, and is wandering off with the Traveler, wherever that place is, secret and nowhere and everywhere and obvious, the place his laughter comes from all around her whenever she pleases him. They drift together, Jester and that laughter, and so really, the hunger and thirst can't be that bad.
"You know, Caleb," she finds herself saying one day — no, it's the same day, what is she thinking? They haven't been in here that long. Just three breakfasts. That isn't so bad either.
She forgets what she was going to say, and he must not have heard her, so it falls away like the rest of things.
Sometime later she is driven up onto her elbows with a hiss, as a stab of pain erupts in her back. It's gone as quickly as it came, just another cramp, but for a few seconds she is excruciatingly
present.
"Hey, Caleb," she calls, and this time he stirs in response. "You know what, you should probably go. I'll be okay here."
There's a long stretch of silence, and she almost fades away again, but finally she hears him say, "I'm not doing that."
He sounds terrible. She cranes her neck to get a good view of him where he's lying half slumped against the wall — he looks terrible, too. His eyes are sunken, his stubble is starting to grow out into an uneven beard, his three-day-old bruises are dark and hideous. It's hard to tell with just her darkvision, but he looks too pale. Too skinny, as well.
He looks, in short, like he's starving to death.
"Mmn." Jester has to lay back down; the room is spinning. Cell. The cell is spinning. Something like a moan escapes her lips.
"Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine, I'm...just great, Caleb." She grits her teeth at another sudden cramp in her abdomen. "I'm good. But, you know, it's been a day, I think. You said we would wait a day and then we'd talk."
His reply, when it eventually comes, is heavy. "Let's wait a little longer."
She can do that, she thinks. Good idea. Just a little longer.
She drifts.
*
"I was lying to you before," comes Caleb's voice out of the darkness.
Jester opens her eyes with effort. They're sticking shut, these days. Today. Recently.
"What were you lying about?" she croaks.
"We have been here a little longer than I said." He is speaking so slowly. "A little longer than three days."
"Oh," is all she can say.
"They kept you unconscious, at first, but they talked to me. Did some things. I don't…" His head lolls a bit against the stone. "I don't remember everything. They healed me afterwards. Had to be alive for this."
"I'm sorry," Jester murmurs. "I didn't know."
Caleb takes a few slow breaths, and then adds, "I just wanted to make sure there was nothing left unsaid."
It's a good start, and it's enough for now. Jester closes her eyes.
*
They have been lying in dead silence, without even a faint drip of water or a distant howl of wind, when there is a sudden scream of rust against metal, and in one moment both of the doors are open.
"Jester."
He says her name so softly, like it's a blanket he's holding up to his skin against the cold.
"I'm here," she says. It's all she can say.
"You know, when someone is dying, and they ask you to do something, you have to do it, right?" Caleb's voice is hoarse and cracked with thirst. "Like a dying wish. You have to honor it."
Stop it,
she thinks, but she can't speak.
"It's been three days. And I'm dying."
"We can hold on," Jester says, "we can make it — " but her throat can barely get the words out, and she sounds pathetic, and her head is reeling in circles, and she has no tears left to cry.
"They aren't here,
liebling,
and we are out of time."
It takes a minute, through her dizziness and the burning of her muscles, to sit up and wrap both arms around the bars in front of her, almost like a hug. "I'm not leaving you here alone," she pants. Why can't she catch enough breath? "Just because you are — just because — you don't get to make this decision for me, Caleb Widogast, it's not
fucking fair — "
"It's not fucking fair. And it's your decision."
"Then I'm staying with you." She swallows a wave of nausea. "We'll die, we'll just die a normal death, and Caduceus will find us, and he'll resurrect us, and everything will be fine…"
Every word, as Caleb forces it out, sounds like breaking glass. "They will destroy our bodies. There will be nothing left to resurrect."
He's right, he's right, thinks Jester, but they can't give up, they can't, they can't.
Traveler, hear me,
she prays, deep inside —
you're the god of doors and cages, please —
"Please, Traveler — " she chokes, but she's half bent over the next moment, stomach cramping, and instead of begging all that comes out of her mouth is a low groan.
"Beschütze sie, leite sie,"
whispers Caleb, and,
"Lass sie mir vergeben,"
and then, "It's time, Jester."
The pain is passing, at least in her stomach. But it will be back. She realizes that she is sobbing. Her throat burns and her dry eyes sting.
"Say the words," she manages to get out.
"What words?"
"With the dragon." Her tongue feels sticky and hot. "You said when you left camp that morning you were going to say goodbye — in the bubble, you told me you had words you were going to say. To me. Say them now."
He's very quiet.
"Dying wish, Caleb," she gasps.
She gives him a few heartbeats, then a few more, watches his right hand curl into a gentle fist, hears him sigh; and then when he says it, it isn't a declaration, it isn't a confession or a revelation — it's just Jester and Caleb.
"I am in love with you," he says, and then after a pause: "That was all, really."
Jester stands up — she has to hold onto the iron bars with both hands, but she stands up. There's a rushing sound in her ears that she can't shake.
She takes a deep breath. "I'm going to kill them."
"Jester, if you feel at all the same way, please walk out that door — "
"I'm going to," she says, "but I want you to know: I'm going to find them, and kill them, and I'm going to kill him last."
"Just...live."
"I promise," she tells him, and she means it, she does promise, because she can't kill Trent Ikithon unless she lives, and that's just all there is to it. The world has narrowed to encompass just two facts, that Caleb loves her and that she is going to kill Trent Ikithon, so she'll turn around in a moment, and she'll walk out that door, and she'll live.
But first there's something she has to do. It's getting harder to concentrate, and her heart is racing unevenly in her chest, but she makes herself get down on the floor, and with clumsy fingers she unties the rope of cloth strips from Caleb's old component pouch. Step one.
She gives herself a minute to catch her breath, and then removes her silver holy symbol from her belt, ties one end of its chain to the knotted cloth. Step two.
"Here," she calls to Caleb, too tired to come up with anything better, and she throws the symbol across the darkness between their cells.
It hits an iron bar and clangs to the floor, falling short. Gritting her teeth so hard it hurts, Jester pulls it back, picks it up again, throws it again.
This time, by luck or fate, it passes through the bars. "Grab it," she says, clutching her side. "There, to your left."
Caleb fumbles on the floor for a moment, until his fingers brush the cold silver, and he picks it up.
"I want you to have it." She doesn't know how to explain. She hopes she doesn't have to.
"Oh, Jester…" He touches it, traces the engraved surface. "You need this,
liebling,
you have to — "
"I don't need it. Don't argue, Caleb. And I'm coming back for it anyway. Keep it for me, for a while."
You have to stand up, my little sapphire,
urges her mother's gentle voice somewhere, but it's too far away, and she's too tired, and besides, she has to focus, remember what she has to say.
"I'm gonna come back for you, and for them. And I'll find the others."
There's something else, she knows there is, she's forgetting something important. She digs her fingers into her palms, and she looks at Caleb for the last time, at his beautiful face, beautiful even now.
It comes to her then. "Oh. And I love you."
Caleb's voice is raw. "I love you."
That's everything, then. Jester staggers to her feet, one hand on the wall.
"Just stay open another minute, okay," she says to the door, and it obliges her. It's almost friendly-looking now.
She takes a few steps, pauses. Doesn't look back.
Then she walks out the door.
It's light out here, she thinks, pleasantly surprised — she hadn't realized, it had looked so dark. But everything's lit up now. The floor and ceiling, and her hands, and her whole body, lit up like the dawn, like fire —
For a split second, she can hear Caleb far away behind her, screaming her name. And then the pain hits, and she is coming apart —
end of chapter
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They pull him out of the dungeon.
Caduceus gives him everything he has, every drop of the Wildmother's power that he can summon. Nott watches the golden energy pass from his huge hands into Caleb's broken body, again and again, until there is enough color, enough breath in him, that the worst danger is past.
"You're going to be fine," Nott tells him through her tears, again and again, but she knows nobody believes it, not even her.
They take him somewhere safe, it doesn't matter where, and Beau makes him eat, practically force feeds him until Nott drags her away for a moment and reminds her that
maybe she should go easy on the torture victim,
and after that they leave it up to Caduceus. Somehow he always finds the right words.
Besides, as he tells them later, gathered in the other room while Caleb sleeps, sedated — besides, when it's this close of a call, you shouldn't really eat much to start with. Get your body used to things again. Drinking's the important part, he says. Caleb hadn't resisted the sips of water they'd given him when they found him in that pitch-dark room, or just now, before they put him to bed.
He hasn't resisted anything so far, except for the food.
This is what scares Nott.
Fjord is pacing back and forth, fingering the pommel of his falchion, and nobody has had the courage to say anything to him yet. It's Beau who gathers them, brushing vaguely at her tears as she does so, like she keeps forgetting that she's crying, and she makes them sit down in the few chairs she's pulled together, Yasha stony-silent, Caduceus with his head in his hands.
Nott follows last. She's being pulled in a dozen different directions at once, and it's slowing her down, like one of Caleb's spells, like dunamis, like grief.
"We've — " Beau clears her throat gruffly. "We've been here before. Not the first time. You brought her back last time, Cad."
Caduceus won't meet her eyes. "It's different this time."
"But you're — this is your thing. This is what you do." Beau leans forward, every muscle in her body tensed, like she's about to throw a punch. "I know that there are spells that can do this, Cad, there's fuckin'...true resurrection shit, we've seen people do it."
"I don't know those spells yet."
"But we've
seen
people do — "
"There are also spells that can stop that from happening."
Nott has known Caduceus for a year. She has never heard him interrupt anyone before. It shuts Beau right up, and she just gapes at him, her fists pinned to her sides.
Fjord is still pacing. For a few moments, his heavy footfalls are the only sound in the room.
"Remember what Caleb said," adds Caduceus after a minute, softer now, and Nott winces at the memory as fresh tears well up in her vision.
Beau's breath comes in like a hiss. "It doesn't matter what Caleb said. He's wrong."
"We don't have any reason to believe — "
"He's fucking wrong!" Beau shouts, springing from her chair. "He's — we just dragged him out of a goddamn torture room, he's half fuckin' dead, he doesn't even know where he is! Why are we listening to him?!"
No one says anything.
With a scream of frustration, Beau punches the wall as hard as she can. Her fist goes through the wood, leaves a splintered hole, and she pulls back, blood streaming from her knuckles, chest heaving like she's just run a mile.
Yasha stands up. "Come on," she murmurs. "Come walk."
She puts an arm around Beau's shoulders, and for once, Beau doesn't shrug it off; instead she seems to shrink, like she's gone somewhere else inside, and lets Yasha start to lead her away.
"No one is leavin' this room until we know what we're doin'."
Fjord is standing in front of the door. He has stopped pacing, holds one hand on the wall next to him, looking at no one. Yasha and Beau stop too, and Caduceus sighs, lifting his head for the first time.
"Fjord," he begins —
"No one," Fjord repeats. "Until we know how we're bringing her back."
There's nothing.
Caleb's words, barely audible, raw from screaming. The only thing he has said since they found him.
No. There's nothing.
Nott takes it from her belt, the small bag that used to hold Beau's throwing stars, now filled with dust. Not ashes, exactly, it's been explained to her, just...remains. Not a body. Not even her clothes.
She wonders how it felt. They don't even know what happened, really — can't know, until Caleb chooses to tell them.
She hopes it was quick.
"We're so fucked," gasps Beau, and her shoulders are shaking with grief. Yasha pulls her into a tight hug.
"We can go to Yussah. In Nicodranas." Fjord is counting off on his fingers. "We can talk to the Gentleman, he's got connections with some powerful folks. Hell, they still owe us over in Xhorhas, even if they won't get involved directly."
No one speaks.
"What I'm sayin' is, we have
options,"
Fjord insists, and his hands are
trembling.
Nott thinks of Caleb's face.
"There's one place we can go," she says quietly.
Everyone turns to look at her, and it's almost too much. She thinks of Caleb's face, and she holds Jester's remains close to her heart.
"It's not…" She gulps. "It isn't...a good place. But I just…"
Caleb's face, white in the near-darkness. Absolutely nothing in his eyes. No fear, no pain, no sorrow.
No. There's nothing.
Nott the Brave takes a deep breath, and she tells them.
fin