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Chapter Text

“Maybe he won’t wake up at all… it’s been ten years.”

Philip was looking at the ceiling.

The ceiling of the large cave was stone and uneven, strewn here and there with the remains of stalactites. As carefully as possible, stalactites were thoroughly cut off from the ceiling, which was crumbled by time and hardworking but not very skillful hands. The ceiling, covered with dozens of round runes, was quietly flickering in the twilight.

They’re called glyphs, he thinks.

“It seems he woke up, though,” someone behind his head said carefully.

Philip rested his head against the stone where he was lying (which was just a stone, by the feel of it, and not something softer). He arched his neck, throwing his head back. Upside down in front of him stood a group of humans wrapped in cloaks. A bright ball, warm as a small sun, burned over their heads, casting sharp shadows with rough creases on their faces. Shadows wrapped around the cloaked figures, obscuring their silhouettes. Philip twitched his lip and rolled over. His body was obeying him quite well, considering it was laying there motionless for a decade. And the figures took a normal position – head on top and feet on the floor. And upon closer inspection, they weren't humans.

“And now what?” arose a reasonable question.

Philip tilted his head to his shoulder. This made the group of young nonhumans tense up.

The human girl, the only human among those present (apart from Philip himself), yelped and jumped back, dodging the blade that pierced the floor next to her.

“Ah, there you are,” she sighed in relief, pulling her staff out of the air. “I was starting to get worried for a second.”

Philip was smiling, returning his sharply elongated hand back to him from where it hit the floor. The blade at the end of his palm quickly split into five clawed, green fingers. He looked at his other hand. It quickly flowed from a normal human shape into a new form. Philip casually swung, sending shards of stone flying and witches scattering as a long green whip lashed the stone floor between them.

Philip flowed down from a high oblong stone (what is it, he wondered, a pedestal? an altar?) and straightened up to his full height. No, not full yet, though. He can get taller. So that the horns will scratch the ceiling. There were five staves, pointed towards him. Philip swung again the long thin blade on his snaking hand.

“You said he would be weak after sleeping for so long!” the dark-skinned boy yelled at the human girl, with a wave of his hand building a wall in front of her, through which Philip could not aim to strike.

“Do you see him transforming into his full monster form? And do you see any giant fireballs flying at us? You’re welcome!” she yelled in response, running out from protection of the wall and dodging a new wave of Philip's hand that had become a whip again.

Fireballs, Philip thought. A good idea, indeed.

His arms came back to him, tightened, and shrunk back to their normal shape. He put forward his palms, evoking a sensation in his memory, after this long-long sleep cloudy like milk. Wanting to give form to magic dissolved in the air. He felt the natural language of the islands, carved on his hands in strict order, light up familiarly. And…

Nothing.

In front of him, as he remembered it, a fireball should have appeared, but ... it didn't happen. Needles of magical energy pricked his skin, and he knew that glyphs were now burning red under the sleeves of a gray shirt that was once probably white. But the magic didn't obey him.

Suddenly his wrists were wrapped up by green vines almost as flexible as his own hands, which could become either a blade or a whip at his will.

Spark!

Something beat loudly in his temples, and it was not blood for sure.

Spark!

He lay on the floor, pinned down at the throat by a pair of crossed staves.

It hurt, a heavy blow to the back of the head, ringing in his ears, and it seemed that his hands and feet were frozen into the stone.

“Okay, it really wasn’t that difficult.”

“You bet! Don’t you remember the state they left him in when they imprisoned him here?”

The state he was put in here Philip himself did not remember. But he quite clearly felt how hard he had taken this little fight. His body was shackled, like a numb limb, cottony and pressing, and everything swam before his eyes.

“Well, I almost got scared when he heard about the fireballs and took it as a call to action.”

“But the magic-suppression cuffs work,” Luz replied smugly, putting her hands on her hips.

Ah yes. He does know her name.

“Luz,” he said out loud, tasting the name. The first word in, how long did they say? Ten years? A very long time… so long that his tongue burned, almost losing the ability to move from the lack of use.

Luz froze, looking down at him. Looking with narrowed pupils, with an unreadable expression.

Philip licked his iron flavored lips, and her eyes caught the movement tenaciously.

She put her foot on his chest, Philip exhaled with a chuckle, and Luz leaned closer.

“So you can talk,” she said flatly, “and not only wave your claws.”

Philip was looking at her, squinting lazily. For some reason he wanted to sleep.

“But we'll talk another time.”

With these words she harshly stepped on his face, and the world sank into darkness.

And then, as always happens after sleep, Philip opened his eyes.

~

Another time, seeing a stone ceiling with glyphs above him, Philip lay motionless for a while, getting used to the sensations. His body was incredibly weak.

The attempt to get up made the ceiling spin, sparkling and glittering, showering stars on him, leaving him lying with his head thrown back and gasping helplessly for air. When he was able at least to turn over on the side, leaning on his elbow, he met the eyes of a tense, wary group of boys and girls. This time a young basilisk was with them.

“Hello, children.”

The words escaped before he had a chance to think about them. Escaped easily, as if these lips had not been silent for ten years, escaped meaningless: these “children” all bore the tired eyes of grown up people. But he always had such a role here. He needed to call them kids and act condescendingly. Otherwise, the game wouldn’t work. It's like when he and Caleb play witch hunt. Caleb laughs nastily and makes faces, pretending to be a witch with all his might. This is how Philip is now playing... who is he playing?..

“Hi, Belos,” Luz was smiling. Her smile had become not just cheeky and boyish, as it was before, (not that he could remember “before”) but something else too, something Philip in this reality had cultivated in his own smirk for years.

Philip shifted on the rock and saw how all the witches jumped at the same time. The girls clenched their fingers on their staves, ready to fight. One guy (Philip frowned a little, trying to figure out where he had seen his face) even pointed the head of his palisman, a red crested bird, in Philip’s direction. The basilisk seemed to squeak softly, hiding behind Luz, who remained motionless.

He tried to straighten up again, but the arm beneath him gave way. Swallowing in large gulps of air, trying to kill the lump of nausea in his throat and dispel the dark spots that unfolded before his eyes, Philip carefully lay down on his stomach, resting his head on a pleasantly cool stone.

“Sorry, but last time it was impossible to talk to you,” Luz's voice came from the darkness.

“Why would I talk to you?” Philip breathed out on the verge of a whisper, in the gap between heavy breaths.

“Maybe this will interest you?”

First, the soft clatter of the wood against stone broke into his perception. Then his eyes caught a blue gleam. His gaze slightly cleared and determined that a small twig lay nearby. The hand reaching out to grip the twig tingled, and the feeling crept like a vine along his arm at the familiar sensation. Sparks ran through his fingers. This was a tree charged with magic.

“Are you luring me?” Philip asked sarcastically.

“While you're acting like a wild animal, how else can you be treated?”

This was not a completed palisman. But it was still pure, living magic. And his stomach twisted with a howling hunger, and his temples pounded, as if his head was about to burst. The damn basilisk didn't leave a drop in him. Even after ten years of sleep he had more strength. Enough to turn his hands into blades, to get back on his feet. Now he barely had the strength to break a thin branch of the palistrom in half. And for a moment the world was covered with a veil of greenish smoke he breathed in through his nose.

“Be a good monster, and you will get another one,” and Luz (he now saw her clearly) accepted another stick from one of the witches. Philip couldn't help but glare at it greedily, making Luz lift one corner of her lips.

Well, he may be a good monster. It does not contradict the rules of the game. He is also a clever monster after all.

Philip finally managed to lean on his elbows quite steadily. He did not take a look at his guests. All his attention had to be focused on not falling back. It was only the beginning, but at least in this position he was no longer swaying.

“We have some questions and we want to hear answers.”

Philip closed his eyes, listening to the state of his body. Such a tiny piece of magic was quickly absorbed without a trace, but it seemed to become a little better. Like a drop of oil was added to a rusted clock.

“Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you,” Luz said harshly, striding towards his lodgment.

She grabbed him by the jaw, forced him to look at her, lifting his head, and his mouth opened a little involuntarily under the fingers pressing on his cheeks.

“I said I want to hear answers,” she caught his eye.

An attempt to turn away did not bring results. As well as an attempt to free himself from a rough grip. Philip's lips tightened into an annoyed line.

How dare she?

Philip felt anger seething in his chest. How dare she?! Doesn't he deserve at least some respect? At least the respect he had always shown to his enemies. He understands mocking superiority. But did Belos humiliate someone, just to humiliate? Philip narrowed his eyes. He doesn't have magic now, but...

He tossed his head and licked the fingers that were digging into his face.

“Ah!” Luz springed back, releasing him, shaking her hand in disgust. Her palm, however, remained as dry as Philip's mouth. “Belos, what the hell?”

His head fell back on his hands. Philip giggled. From the side his laughter must have resembled a strangled cough. Or as if he’s shaken by sobs.

Yes, Belos would never allow himself such behavior, of course. But Philip couldn't allow himself to be treated like that. And he acted the best he could. As he used to. It worked for Caleb too, who was already too old and was afraid of licking and spitting like it was fire. In a play fight where Philip was still physically losing to his brother, he always had this final argument, this last trump card.

“I dare you to try it again,” Luz began threateningly.

“Next time I’ll take a bite,” Philip promised, looking up at her calmly.

Luz clenched her fingers into a fist.

“Listen, you...”

“I won’t listen,” Philip finally sat up. The cave this time remained standing still. He was now looking away from Luz and started to explain to her in a measured voice, “It was you who came to me. You have come to question me.”

But is that how you ask for help? If they really needed to talk to him, it was at least not very polite to suck the last drops of energy out of him with a basilisk, and then as if he were a dog, generously throw him a stick to sink his teeth in.

However, he probably also should have at least said “hello” before swinging his blade over their heads. But for some reason he was sure at that moment he should attack. For some reason it was right.

“I just won't listen to you.”

Luz clenched her jaw.

“Probably,” Philip added. Stroking his chin mockingly, as if deep in thought, he held out his open hand.

“We shouldn't follow his lead,” the dark-skinned boy said, watching Luz hesitate.

“But there is some truth in his words,” objected the bright-haired girl. “He can no longer harm us. In this condition. We can’t just beat him into submission, right?”

“Why not?” Luz asked. Asked in a pragmatic way, without a bit of sadism. She was simply interested in the practicality of the method.

“I doubt he can be forced into cooperating by threats,” said the boy, who still aimed his cardinal staff towards Philip.. “And I doubt it’s even possible to cause more pain than his curse does.”

Philip smiled at the corners of his lips. Wow, someone here, besides him, knows how to use his head.

Luz hesitated for one moment more, but with a sigh she handed him a palistrom stick. Philip weighed the branch in his hand, hesitating before breaking it.

“And what do you require from me?..”

“Think of it as a prepayment,” Luz was looking at him, scowling.

Philip chuckled to himself. Under such conditions we can talk.

A hot wave gushed through the body along with the magical mist that poured into his nose. The numbness that was gripping the muscles before, now was gone. And for some reason the cold came. He wanted more.

Philip licked his lips. Sliding off the lodgment he got to his feet quite steadily (only now discovering that he was barefoot). Ignoring the way everyone but Luz fled away from him, he took a step towards her. The girl looked up. If he came too close, the kid would have to breathe into his chest. Philip tilted his head slightly to one side.

“Shall we sit?”

Luz agreed and got down to the floor first. The girl next to her, the one with bright hair, readily took off her cloak and spread it on the stone surface. Luz nodded to her gratefully as she sat on it, settling next to the girl. Philip, with nothing but his own shirt (sleeves pulled up to the elbows, revealing bracers of brushed, blue-tinted metal engraved with glyphs) and pants (roughly cut off above the ankles), sat down straight on the floor, his hands on his bent knees. The others exchanged glances and sank down to the floor in exactly the same way, forming a semicircle around the lodgment and Philip, who leaned his back against the stone.

Philip and Luz were finally looking at each other almost equally, neither looking down on the other.

“You wanted me to look into your eyes,” he said quietly. “Well, now I'm listening.”

Luz looked at him with a strange gaze, with a slightly embarrassed expression, as if all her former bravado and confidence suddenly disappeared somewhere when it was time to speak on equal terms. And it seemed to him that she was again the little girl who once… who what?.. Oh, God, what is with his memory?

“You were right, we came to ask you some things.”

Despite the implication of her words, (that she, the hero, now needed something from him, the villain) Luz kept the confidence in her voice with dignity. She even spoke in a somewhat condescending manner. “And, probably, it does not make sense to voice our request right away. So first, will you help us at all?”

“So you actually want more than just answers for your questions? This was what you said earlier,” Philip singled out the main thing from her words.

Luz twitched the corner of her lips in displeasure. She probably didn't want to give him the gist of their request before he'd set the fee.

“Who sets the price without knowing the goods?” he said. “It makes sense to voice what exactly you need.”

Luz shook her head.

“Let's be honest, it’s very easy to turn this situation around,” Luz said. “A few minutes ago you lay in a semi-conscious state. You could quickly become the one asking for help.”

Philip squeezed his own wrist with his fingers. Bone-chilling cold was slowly growing from the inside of his guts.

He eloquently arched an eyebrow, staring at Luz with a bored look. She chuckled and shook her head at his silence.

“No, of course you wouldn’t ask for help. Even if you were dying. But let's imagine for a second that you need a certain service,” Philip pursed his lips at this word as the girl continued, “and the payment would be a certain service for us in return..”

“You know what I would ask for.”

“I can guess,” Luz nodded excitedly, as if she was pleased just to get an answer.. “Let's haggle? First, we offer you the opportunity to stay awake every day–”

Philip laughed. His laughter was offensive and harsh.

Luz looked at him in surprise.

“No. That doesn't count,” he said. “You need to wake me up so I can help you. Other offers?”

“We are allowed to enter your mind without removing the sleep spell,” Luz began threateningly, frowning.

“And you have tried it already, of course,” he countered.

This would indeed be the safest and most convenient option. What could he have done to them while staying under the - Philip glanced at the glyphs on the floor that traced the circle around where he woke up - the sleep spell, obviously? Even his mind would remain much less dangerous, cut off from the outside world. Maybe there, in the depths of his mind, he would also remain asleep? He didn't know how exactly the spell worked. The circuit on the floor was unfamiliar to him. And so, for some reason, they chose not to do this, but to communicate with him face to face.

Surely they must have realized that I would react something like this, Philip thought, looking at that place on the floor some distance away where the blow of his blade-hand had left a large scratch in the stone.

The conclusion suggested itself:

“You didn't get anything. And now you're here,” Philip finished, nodding to himself. He smiled coldly. “Offer a fee, girl.”

There was silence for a while. Nobody interrupted them, leaving any negotiations to Luz. The witches’ gazes only slid from her to Philip, as if the phrases of the conversation were a ball that two humans tossed between them, which their small audience eagerly watched.

“The palistrom wood is still in short supply,” Luz began again after a pause. From her voice Philip sensed that this was not entirely true, but not a blatant lie either. “But we are ready to give you as much as you earn. According to the value of your help.”

Very streamlined wording. And besides…

“Firewood only fuels hunger.” He clenched his stiff fingers into fists. He was already freezing as if he had a severe fever. Where did this cold come from, damn it, why does it only get worse with a semblance of satiety? “Without those sticks, I would be useless. It's not a payment, it's a necessity.”

Luz was looking at him yearning. There was one last option.

“We can bring in more wood…”

“Palismans,” he said firmly. “This is my requirement.”

And he got up, putting an end to the conversation. A little more time, and he would no longer be able to hide the shivers that struck him from the cold (hunger).

Luz looked back at her friends.

They got up almost simultaneously, moving away from Philip to gather closer to the high doors streaked with magical printings, and there they began to whisper. Philip could snatch some phrases. "It was better than I thought." "He's surprisingly accommodating, actually, well... for him." "He's just not desperate yet, maybe he's forgotten what it's like to live with hunger for weeks and months." Philip didn't want to stay here. He was increasingly pierced to the bones by a pulling cold.

The blond boy, who reminded Philip of someone he knew pretty well, had left his cloak on the floor.

The cloak turned out to be surprisingly cozy.

He hadn't been on the Boiling Isles in a long time... but it seemed to him that cold-weather clothes were almost never needed here before, especially a woolen cloak lined with fur like this one. Wrapping it tightly around his body, he lay down where he’d found himself twice before now (...or was it more? What’s with his memory?) lying in this cave after the gaps of darkness between dream and reality. To prevent his legs from sticking out from under the edge of the cloak, he had to pull them to his chest, almost curling up into a ball.

The vile cold did not go away, but it became softer on the lodgment, as if he could feel calmer now. And it even began to seem that he could smell the scent of his home – freshly cut wood under Caleb's hands.

He just wants to wake up.

“Has someone seen my cloa- Uh, hey! That’s actually mine!”

Philip didn't move. His consciousness began to gradually float away. Reality was becoming less and less clear. He closed his eyes, and there was nothing left under the darkness that covered him. Just a voice that added in confusion:

“Okay, you can keep it...”

~

Philip opens his eyes and sits up abruptly on the bed.

“Caleb!” he jumps up, running to the bedroom door. “Caleb, I had that dream again!”

The curtains, illuminated by the morning sun, are blown by the wind from the half-open window.

Chapter Text

Philip was looking at the ceiling.

The ceiling was high and stone again, the glyphs on it were blinking in the dark.

Not again, Philip thought, closing his eyes heavily.

For some reason, he woke up alone. If you can call it "waking up" at all. Staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, Philip started to slowly recall where he was.

It was impossible to find when it all began in a pile of vivid but entangled childhood memories. Philip could say "this has been going on for as long as I can remember", but... “Since he can remember,” how long has that been? The question is not easy. One day he just realized that if he had a dream, it was a continuation of the dream before. It's always the same scenery, the same characters. It’s a strange, alien world similar to biblical Hell. And Philip himself, for some reason, is the king of this hell. There is a monotonous everyday life on the way to some oh-so-very important goal. There is the mask he always wears: the mask of an old man with a tired face.

And recently (for months? years?) this dream has always started the same way: with a twinkle of the stone ceiling.

Ever since the dream moved wholly and completely into the cave, it became limited by its walls, the walls of his stone prison, everything that happened before had become hazy and blurry. It is a steady certainty inside him: there was something before the cave, and there was a lot and for a long time. Only now his memory failed him. Somewhere on the periphery of consciousness, there were sensations, sounds, names (Luz… Luzura… he remembered this name for four hundred years…) all flashing quickly, getting lost in the haze of the distant past, entangling with each other. If normal memories are a dense forest, then Philip's memories when he found himself in this cave resembled a scorched field extending to the horizon. Or rather, in defiance of their total desolation, a few trees remained. Crooked and dried they could grab you with their branches and seemed ready to devour you*. And Philip now remembered quite clearly only a few awakenings on a stone bed in a cave. However, a day ago (the sense of time here also failed, but he assumed that no more than a day had passed since the last meeting with his jailers) waking up on it as if for the first time for some time, he did not understand at all where he was.

He didn't even right away remember who he was fighting and why.

It was a little frightening. How cloudy everything here was, how hunger brought the darkness before his eyes, and how his own memory, smeared, decayed, like an old picture, was rippled with white spots here and there. He could clearly see, as you can only see in reality, every line of the drawing on the ceiling, every chip in the stone vault. But everything seemed so unreal... In a dream it often happens like this, you don’t remember everything, there is only a strong feeling of what you should say and what to do. Sometimes someone even speaks instead of you. It’s like your body is a doll, and you are nothing more than an observer in it. And you are supposed to be happy or frightened only at the right time, when it's especially frightening. This cave was perfect for a nightmare. Somewhere here, he knew with the same instinct, the inner knowledge of an observer in a dream , there is an enormous door with a complex magical seal. It cannot be opened from the inside. There is a huge stone hall, but there are no columns anymore for a long time, and there is no longer a table constantly littered with papers. There is no podium on which stood a door with a huge eye on it. Just a dark cave. And in the darkness there is nothing but a lonely stone bed. You cannot get out, cannot see the exit, not even a hint of a gap in the walls. And to top off the cozy atmosphere, this heaving, endless feeling of hunger. Painfully familiar feeling. The pain of his “little outbursts” now gnawed his whole body. It seems to him a feeling that haunts him for eternity. For all that eternity that he remembers himself, that he does not remember himself... Hunger is so terrible because it has no boundaries. It becomes over time only more and more terrible, more and more powerful. Yes, in any nightmare there is always an incomprehensible fear and unrealistic monsters.

But the strangest thing in this dream of his: it’s him who is the monster here.

Philip slowly, as he did last time, turned over onto his side and sat up. However his own body would not now allow sudden movements. Disgustingly helpless and weak. His head was spinning but only slightly. He found it acceptable. When compared to the darkness of fainting gathering before his eyes, his current condition even seemed promising. He was still a little chilly but that was a good sign. Much worse would be a dull numbness throughout his body, an absolute void that meant that the basilisk was sucking on his magic again. It’s not a great choice between nauseating chill or the feeling of your own flesh spreading over the stone, unable to hold its shape in the absence of energy, but at least it's good that there is a choice.

With stiff fingers, Philip squeezed the edges of the cloak that remained on his shoulders. He closed his eyes, catching his breath. It's just a dream. It doesn't matter at all whether he will spread like a goo or tremble in a fever. Although he doesn’t want either, the main thing is that the dream should stop. It all will end as soon as he wakes up...

His still-bare foot touched the floor uncertainly. Philip let the cloak fall beside him and pulled himself away from the lodgement. Cautiously he sank down, immediately crouching, trying to breathe slowly and not raise his eyes to the unsteady walls that seemed to float around him.. His heart, or something in his chest that had replaced it in this strange body, only superficially resembling a human, beat faster and the pulse was shaking him with a roar, taking breath after breath from him. I just got off the bed. Calm down already, Philip internally scolded his weak body. He was sitting like that, palms on the floor in front of him, until his desperately pounding heart decided that running somewhere right now was not necessary and that it could beat more quietly. With difficulty, exhaling through his teeth, Philip knelt down on all fours. And started to crawl slowly.

If only one of the kids saw me now, he thought with amazing indifference. Somewhere on the periphery of consciousness Belos stirred discontentedly. He was sickened by the mere thought of someone seeing him in such a position, in such a pitiful state. Though maybe it was Philip who was sick of the incredible physical feat that he was now performing. He was out of breath as if he were running a marathon instead of carefully stepping one hand after the other in turn with his knees as he crawled away from the lodgement to the circle outlined around it. To the mighty spell scraped in the stone of the floor.

Somewhere out there, on the border of his available memories, knowledge loomed.He (a dangerous creature? the local "main villain"?) was locked in a prison for a long ten years. He, who was superior in strength to any witch, was by some miracle overthrown and imprisoned in the most remote, most protected place furthest from the cities.. In a place where even the feet, hooves and paws of the most sophisticated adventurers now do not set foot. After The Day of Unity happened (almost ... apparently, it was prevented). The Day when...

This memory even had a picture. That same cave, the table with papers and mechanisms. Door on the podium. Girl with glyphs.

You are such a hypocrite!

Philip even froze for a few long moments, considering the memory.

The day he almost succeeded at… something very important.

Until this day everything is in a blur. And after… there is only this cave.

Where he is locked up forever. He is locked up! It’s even funny. What kind of chains could be reliable for someone whose physical form is fickle and whose limits of magical potential are far beyond those of ordinary witches?

As he suspected, the drawing around his lodgement turned out to be a seriously improved sleep spell upon closer inspection. Expected to keep him here motionless and unconscious, it included, like many complex spells, all four elements of pictogram magic. The basis of a large circle, several dozen times intersected by smaller circles, was four glyphs on the four cardinal points. And in order to activate the spell it was necessary to activate each of them. His hand touched the fire glyph first.

Philip overcame the quarter of the circle to the next large glyph like he was climbing the Knee. If his body were capable of perspiring he would probably be soaked. If it were more human-like, it would be hot. But he was more and more seized by that vile feeling of numbness that woke him up last time. No, Philip thought, frightened, trying to crawl faster on his trembling hands. No, just not that. Anything but being left completely without strength and without an active spell! He was terrified at the thought that he would simply be stuck in a body unable to move, suffocating from lack of magic. He didn't know if he would wake up at all then. Would he return to the reality, interrupting this nightmare?

But still, no matter how hard he tried crawling on his stomach, no matter how much distance he overcame to the third large glyph, Philip realized that he would not get to the last one. He only now felt that his hand seemed to hurt. It seems to be the left hand. And that was the only thing he still felt. And he could still see at least some things through the red fog seething in his head, if perhaps only at arm's length.

He managed to activate three glyphs before his strength left him completely. It vanished abruptly and immediately, and he lay down on his face in the same place where, while still struggling to keep himself on his elbows, he had put his palm in the center of the ice glyph.

The dull aching left hand was right in front of his eyes. A little above the metal bracelet, that was more like a bracer, his shirt was soaked with fresh greenish-brown stains.

Ability to see left him soon, following the last of his strength, leaving only a viscous darkness, pulling him deep into the swamp. There was nothing there, no body, no consciousness. Thank God there was almost no pain either. Only some fragments of sensations. Scraps of his sick mind. But they also gradually faded into darkness. It was not a dream, but everything that existed has turned, merged into one echoing continuous oblivion. And in this oblivion he swam, having neither the strength nor the will to escape to the surface. Almost without his own self that could desire it. Maybe this is how death really feels. When you seem to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller. So far away, there is no one left to even observe their own thoughts from the outside. Until you totally fade away. Becoming a part of this endless cold emptiness. It felt like an eternity had passed. As though time itself seemed to have stopped its course and disappeared with him.

But it turned out to be an illusion of perception. Because he soon realized that somewhere far away or maybe even close by — he sensed distance even worse than time — something still exists. Or rather someone. Someone timidly touched his cheek, which seemed to have ceased to exist along with the rest of his body. He seemed to have heard at some point how the darkness was seething with worried voices. And then a soft golden light illuminated this darkness. It was then warm in his chest. And Philip was able to unstick his sandy eyes. And see through the open window above the bed a piece of the morning sun.

~

“This time I was alone actually,” Philip languidly spreads colorless porridge on a plate. He knows that it is tasty, despite the bland appearance, but for some reason he has no appetite. He's a little nauseous.

He drank a glass of water in the morning and his stomach ached as if there had not been a drop of dew in it for several days. And Philip is afraid that porridge will not be able to satisfy his hunger, that he will only feel pain again. He wants something. He cannot understand what exactly. But it's not like there's plenty to choose from on the table.

“And what about your friends? Have they gone somewhere?”

“We are not friends,” Philip replies patiently. “I'm the villain. It seems,” he shrugs uncertainly. “I don't think I agree with this.”

“Well, then you are not,” Caleb looks at him calmly.

In front of his brother is a plate just like his own except that there is less porridge on it. Philip wants to shift half of his to Caleb so that he eats breakfast instead of him. Next to both of them in identical wooden pots is slightly yellowish tea. Philip has a mint leaf floating in his tea.

“Probably not,” Philip agrees, frowning down at the porridge as if it is personally responsible for the fact that he dreams of all sorts of nasty things at night. “It’s just that they all look at me like… I don’t know.”

They look at him like he’s a leper. Perhaps that would be embarrassing, but there, in the dream, everything is not real. Why should he care what non-existent witches think about him?

“Are they heroes themselves?” Caleb asks, scooping porridge from his plate with a spoon. Philip enviously follows the spoon with his eyes. Caleb eats with demonstrative appetite, licks his lips deliciously, pleased as a cat. Philip decides to give porridge a chance.

“There is a human girl there. She is very heroic,” Philip offers without thinking.

“Do you like her?” Caleb, like a hunting retriever, quickly grasps what is in his opinion the most important part of Philip's story, seizing the opportunity to ask his brother about his attitude towards girls.

Philip, without hesitation, launches porridge at him from the spoon he’d readied for his mouth. He doesn't hit the mark however. His brother, who easily dodged the throw, has had too much experience of sharing meals.

“I don't remember the others in particular. Oh, there was also a basilisk!”

“Basilisk? What is that?”

“They drink magic. That's how these witches were able to get me to listen to them. Without magic in my body, I can't change its shape by will. In general I have difficulty with moving. And on my hands there are some bracers that interfere with the glyphs on my skin.”

“Okay, I see,” Caleb says, and it’s clear from his tone that he understood nothing. Philip rolls his eyes. “And what about that girl?”

“Just a girl,” Philip grumbles. He looks thoughtfully at his plate for a long time before adding, “I feel very lonely there. I always felt like I was in hell, where there were only monsters around. And then she came. She is the only human there.”

Caleb surprisingly does not comment on it. He listens to him carefully. Philip shakes his head.

“Oh, there is another strange guy. I mean- he's normal. But for me to look at him somehow... I don’t know. It’s not unpleasant, but he causes too many feelings. And usually I don't feel much.”

“Oh?” Caleb props his chin in his hand. “And how do you like this guy?”

“Caleb!” This time Philip is indignant. “That's enough!”

Caleb chuckles contentedly and Phillip ponders throwing the spoon at him this time. A spoon flies faster and more accurately than porridge. And it would loudly click him on the forehead. And…

Looking at his brother's forehead with a white strand of hair falling across it, he feels a sudden deja vu.

Philip blinks, slowly looking at Caleb in surprise. Caleb raises his eyebrows questioningly.

“Wait, he's the spitting image of you!” Philip points his finger at his brother. “How did I not realize this right away?”

Caleb is silent and looks at him strangely. Philip seems to have upset him in some way. Or at least seriously disturbed him.

“Only the eyes are different... I think…” Philip frowns and rubs his forehead. “I can't remember.”

Pain seems to shoot through his head as he tries to see Caleb's eyes, and Caleb quickly looks away.

“So he looks like me?” Caleb sighs softly, looking down at his plate.

“Well... I think…” Philip for some reason is no longer sure.

The conversation subsides itself and both brothers finish their breakfast without appetite in a strange silence hanging in the air.

After breakfast Phillip guiltily picks up the porridge he’d thrown at Caleb from the floor. He is ashamed of the stupid childish impulse for some reason, ashamed first of all before the porridge itself and not before his brother.

Chapter Text

His head was lying on something soft and, oddly, did not hurt.

Philip stared at the stone ceiling, as he always did after waking up in the cave. The ceiling was not in front of him though, and his eyes rested somewhere on the side, where it smoothly rounded and the same countless patterns of circles of different sizes intersected by each other descended from the ceiling, flowed onto the wall. They were almost imperceptible where their cold bluish glow was drowned out by small balls of light floating in the air near the walls. As from the fire, a circle of light diverged from a group of witches surrounded by these balls, dispersing the twilight of a huge hall.

The visitors settled down, as before, on the floor, and quietly talked about something. Their speech, like the whisper of flowing water, shimmered against the backdrop of a blissfully empty consciousness, now free from thoughts. Philip looked indifferently at the wall above their heads while the world filled him, slowly flowed through his eyes and ears, and appeared under the pads of his fingers and bare feet as cold stone and a leather cloak. It was hard under the shoulder blades, but not too hard. Not like on a bare rock. And he was covered, pressed down, with a piece of thick fabric. The darkness and emptiness were illuminated with softly burning light glyphs. Smoothly and almost imperceptibly, as if reluctantly, his semblance of a heart began to beat, breaking the moments into takts. And the lungs took a new, unnecessary breath. And his unblinking gaze focused on the guests.

I'm still here

Philip moved slightly, shifting the edge of the cloak that covered him, and his body responded with amazing ease. It only hurt with sudden movements. Surprisingly, he had quite a bit of strength. He might even be able to get to his feet and walk a few steps without collapsing from exhaustion.

The kids huddled in a circle near the wall and ate some fruit. Two boys were sitting facing him.

No, it’s still strange to be Belos. Who are “boys”? It’s he, Philip, who is a “boy.” These two are at least “young people”— well, “young witches.” One appears to be even older than Caleb. Or not... Probably almost the same age. That one resembles him just like one snowflake to another. A wrong reflection, in an almost good, but still slightly crooked, mirror. Not amalgam and glass, but a silver tray polished to a shine. Philip should probably remember his name...

Not-Caleb glanced his way as Philip sat down. He watched, squinting his eyes, as Philip calmly, without making a single sound that could distract the girls sitting with their backs to him from the conversation, threw his legs off the lodgment and carefully squatted down.

Quietly stepping with his arms and legs, without straightening up, Philip walked along the floor towards the children. Not-Caleb carefully watched his focused movement as he approached the group sitting in the corner of the cave. The dark-skinned boy sitting next to him also noticed Philip and opened his mouth to say something, but his friend stopped him, grabbing his hand and not taking his eyes off Philip. When he was already very close, Philip left his legs a little behind, leaned on his knees, stepped on the floor with his palms, and, stretching out like a long straight stick, reaching forward his left hand, which was shooting with pain, he grabbed the last apple lying on the towel near Luz. Several children already had apples in their hands, half-eaten. The boys watched mesmerized as he, silently again, returned to his place on the lodgment, sat down cross-legged, and pointedly rubbed the apple against his shirt. Which, however, was in vain. His shirt turned out to be terribly dusty.

Luz at that moment reached back, fumbled with her hand, felt the towel, turned around, and looked at the empty space in confusion. Then she looked up.

Staring directly into Luz’s eyes, Philip bit into the apple with a delicious crunch.

“So you woke up,” she stated, outwardly showing no emotion about the theft.

Philip was chewing intently. The sensations were strangely unusual. As if he hadn’t eaten porridge literally this morning (even if it was not here and not with this mouth).

“I see you feel better.”

Wow, it turns out you have eyes, Philip thought, rolling his own.

“So palistrom wood is enough for you,” Luz narrowed her eyes, slightly twitching the corner of her lips at the expression on his face.

Philip took another bite from the apple.

“I hope you’ll be more pliable this time.”

The rest, like last time, were silent. They probably agreed in advance to leave the negotiations to their leader. And for Philip, they all, except, perhaps, a copy of his brother, somehow merged and faded into the background because of this. Like cardboard decorations on a stage where only the main actors are illuminated by a pair of spotlights. In the light of one, standing in front of him is a girl who has risen from the floor, slightly theatrically placing her hands on her hips. The other blinds Philip’s own eyes, cutting him off from the space of the dark cave with a circle of light.

“So you just will remain silent?” notes of irritation spilled into Luz’s voice.

“You didn’t ask a single question,” Philip said, swallowing and shuddering slightly at the unusual sensation of food going down his gullet.

“I asked it now!” Luz objected.

“I will,” Philip muttered.

Luz put her cupped hands to her nose and inhaled sharply. Then exhaled, closing her eyes.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” she suggested, smiling peacefully. “Are you in the mood to play “question and answer”?”

All this time Philip looked at the walls of the cave, the apple in his hands, his own nails (which, by the way, needed care, so like the rest of his body though). But after that question, he slowly raised his head and looked into Luz's eyes.

“Okay,” he said after a pause. “I'll play.”*

And tilted his head slightly to the side.

Luz winced.

“Not the very beginning,” she laughed nervously.

Philip looked at her without blinking. Luz inhaled again and exhaled:

“You're not going to make this any easier, are you?”

What was she even waiting for? He actually has no desire to talk to any of them at all. The respect he shows for her, as the only human here besides him, is the maximum he is ready for.

“Okay, he agreed to play after all,” the girl standing on her right hand touched Luz’s elbow. She, Philip noticed not for the first time, did not stray far from Luz, and was always somewhere near her right shoulder. In order to place her palm on it in time or intertwine her fingers with Luz’s.

By the way, they all stood up, like a silent support group, and were drilling Philip with varying degrees of derogatory glances. Someone, however, looked rather with investigative curiosity. And someone, with eyes similar to his own, only of a bright magenta color, seemed to be trying to dissect him alive. What do you have inside, under your skin, Philip? Show me your secrets.

“Question,” Luz closed her eyes, “what is your attitude towards me?”

Philip straightened up, pulling his leg bent at the knee to his chest. Just like that right away? Does she have any easier questions?

“You are my enemy,” he began slowly, not taking his eyes off Luz, and trying to answer also to himself honestly. “You interfered with my mission. My whole life's work has gone to waste, and you had a hand in it.”

Luz responded by holding his gaze calmly and confidently. And she listened carefully, as if she was really trying to hear. Finally showing respect.

“But you are human. And you were a child. I can understand the mistakes.”

He spoke as he felt. But the words rolled off the tongue completely on their own. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember what kind of life's work Luz had thwarted for him. Speaking about this, he felt offended and annoyed. But there was no picture to find in his head to support the vague sensations. Only one was clear and bright, with him in this cave, the big-eyed door next to him and Luz on the opposite. And all this seemed to be somewhere very close to the words about “mission” and “life’s work.” It was like he could pull a string and...

“Neutral-negative,” he summed up.

“So neutral or negative then?” Luz muttered.

“This seems like an honest answer,” the girl tugged Luz by the sleeve of her sweater.

“Now is my question?” Philip asked.

“Is this what we agreed on?” Luz was surprised.

“A question-answer game involves questions from both sides.”

“Then you just asked yours,” Luz chuckled.

Philip raised the corner of his lips.

“After which you asked yours,” he agreed. “And I answered it. Now my question.”

Luz shook her head vaguely, which he took as “okay, whatever”.

“What are you doing here? Uh-pup-pup-!” Philip raised a warning finger, stopping Luz who was about to open her mouth, “If you answer something like: ‘we’re standing, sitting, eating apples,’” he bit the apple again, “we’ll finish here.”

It was Luz’s turn to fall silent. If she wriggles out of this like last time, Philip thought, squeezing the apple with his hand, which was again aching plaintively in the area above the wrist, we will also have nothing to talk about. But Luz seems to have chosen the strategy of honesty this time.

“We need your knowledge. It's far from certain that you have what we need. But we decided that it was worth the effort,” she smiled slightly, “of being in the same room with you for a long time.”

Philip remained silent. This was already something. At least she spoke directly and honestly. But if the answers continue to be so vague, they will never get anywhere.

Luz seemed to be thinking the same thing, because her next question gave more information than all the answers she had sparingly muttered before:

“What do you know about parallel worlds crossing?”

Philip froze, the apple not reaching his mouth. He stared at Luz with wide eyes.

For some reason, it was easier with knowledge, with facts. Easier than with events. When he talked about his "mission", he didn't really know what he was talking about. He didn’t remember how he got into this cave, or what happened to him before. At least, he didn't remember it right now, when he didn't need to remember. But as soon as he heard Luz’s question...

“Demon realm and… human realm?”

Like a treasure box, a huge library opened to him. All he had to do was think “the border between worlds, a portal,” and it was as if the pages of a book were flickering before his mind’s eye.

“Yes,” Luz didn’t pay attention to the fact that he broke the question-answer order. She looked at his face excitedly.

Philip stared ahead, blinking slightly in surprise. What did they manage to do while he was gone?

“I know this has happened in the past,” he began. “More precisely, there was a clash in the past. Thanks to it, conjunction between our worlds is possible in general. Like two celestial bodies” — Luz looked at him in surprise, as if she had not expected to hear such words from him — “two worlds collided, and holes formed in the fabric of both. This was billions of years ago. And over time, the gaps healed, and the worlds pushed each other away. And yet, they remained too close for a long time. Therefore, when the Titans appeared, with their blood filled with magic, this blood, spilling out, began to corrode the fabrics of the worlds. And passages were formed. The passages, like threads, connected the worlds and began to keep them from diverging, and to stretch the border between them, making it thinner. Due to the tension of the border, which only intensified as it thinned, the worlds began to come closer. By now the situation in this essence was more or less stable. There are no more Titans left nor their blood.” — at these words Luz exchanged glances with the company, which did not escape Philip’s notice — “Almost all passages were closed. The rapprochement seems to have stopped. Pinpoint punctures lasting a minute or several could not continue and aggravate this process. But, for example, creating a stationary portal means creating a strong passage, a fairly strong connection. If such a portal worked for many years in a row, it could cause the worlds to come closer together again.

Philip fell silent, listening, and in a matter of moments after the last words were spoken, the deafening silence that fell upon him filled the entire cave. Only the pain beating in his hand like alarm signals was breaking this silence. It seemed that even the hearts of the listeners froze in fear, in realization. And then he asked his question:

“How long did you keep the portal open?”

Much to his surprise, for the first time, it seemed, in the entire time they had known each other (even the time that he could barely remember now), Luz looked embarrassed.

“You don’t have to answer,” he muttered.

If the situation was already so dire that someone decided to turn to him (and for the inhabitants of the Islands to turn to Belos himself for help! for some reason it seemed unthinkable to him), the portal had to function continuously for ten years. Approximately the entire time that Philip apparently lay here.

Luz took a deep breath and clenched her fists.

“So will you help? This is in your interests too, right? You seem to care about the human world.”

“What does movement look like?” Philip ignored the question.

“What?” Luz raised her eyebrows.

“You have noticed changes in the world,” Philip explained patiently. “Which world?”

Luz narrowed her eyes. It seemed that she’d decided to calculate every word she said to him.

“First,” she said evasively, “you answer.”

Phillip smiled coldly.

“So, in the demon realm.”

Luz clenched her teeth. And Philip nodded with satisfaction and continued:

“It’s not what you asked, but I’ll explain something. When two worlds merge, it will not be a literal merge. It is impossible to simply mix two parallel spaces. Of course, some parts may replace each other or actually get mixed up, about ten percent from both worlds. Otherwise... it really does look like a collision of planets — probably not even planets, but clusters of stars. The world is an entity more rarefied in space than a monolithic rock. Part may be destroyed, less than a third perhaps. But everything else... The rest will most likely remain intact — of course, if the fabric of the world is strong enough. If one world is noticeably more fragile than the other, the second will practically not suffer at all while it destroys the first. And which of our two worlds is more corroded by the blood of the Titans, you and I understand.”

And the silence was once again deathly. Until Luz looked up at him, the expression made Philip's eyes widen in surprise. And she said the last thing he expected from her:

“Please…”

Philip looked in disbelief into the huge eyes filled with pain and prayer.

“This is very important... I beg you... Philip.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“You beg?”

She called him by his real name. And she looks at him like this...

“Do you really think this will work on me?” he asked skeptically.

Luz ran a hand through her hair with a sigh.

“It was worth a try.”

Philip chuckled to himself. It might have worked once.

Please… Philip…

He clenched his teeth involuntarily and closed his eyes.

Yes, he fell for it once. He wanted to believe her so badly then... Was there still a coven mark under the bracer on his wrist as a consequence of his trust?

Philip looked up at Luz with a dark gaze. Led it over the whole company. Under this gaze, the witches tensed slightly, but Luz anyway remained calm.

“Let’s sum it up,” Philip kindly suggested, throwing the half-eaten apple from one hand to the other. “I have to help save the world of witches — who, by the way, I hate. I will have to spend a lot of time and effort on this. And in return,” he began to bend the fingers on his increasingly aching left hand, “I get: a happy opportunity to spend time in this wonderful place, in a tired, sick body, every moment of which is permeated with unbearable agony; a chance to prolong this miserable existence, humiliating myself for a pile of precious sticks; and your pleasant company. Have I forgotten anything?”

“You forgot that we will wake you up, forcing you to spend time in this agonizing body until you agree,” Luz smiled.

As she quickly dodged, a fist slammed into the wall next to her, splashing green dirt around it. Philip grabbed the contracting hand, clenching his jaw with a crunch. The apple rolled across the floor at the feet of the witches, who had their staves ready.

“Of course, you won’t get rid of our pleasant company so easily,” Luz added, with her inherent fearless dementia coming closer.

Philip glared at her from under the strands of dust-grey hair that had fallen onto his forehead.

“And the longer you stay here, the more your condition will depend on our mercy,” the toe of her boot casually picked up the broken sticks lying near the lodgement.

Obviously, with these sticks, yesterday he was taken out of that deplorable state in which he was smeared on the floor from lack of strength. A state from which, despite the amount of palistrom wood next to his bed, he was still not far away. Like water from a wave, like a heart from blood, he felt somewhere behind a thin, invisible, intangible veil, like the fabric of the world, a seething emptiness ready to fall on him. Ready to cover him headlong and drag him into the darkness of eternity. And every movement, every attempt to take control of the curse, wasted precious crumbs of strength. And the moment was approaching when he would again be lost in the darkness of unconsciousness. Philip was breathing loudly and quickly, wheezing, and he himself was ashamed of how weak he was. One short-term transformation, a change in the shape of just one hand, and he is ready to spread across the stone.

“You have learned to negotiate from a position of strength. But,” convulsive sighs made it difficult to speak, words had to be squeezed out between them, “you just have to learn what compromise means. I voiced my only requisition last time.”

“You don’t deserve compromise,” Luz retorted harshly. She again, as on her first visit, looked down at him, who was hunched over and out of breath. “And there is no need for it. I've been fussing with you for too long, instead of voicing an ultimatum: either you help us or you won't get another drop of magic. At the same time, you will be regularly awake in order to fully experience the delight of your condition. Perhaps I'm too kind. So for now I’m offering you a choice and feeding you for free.”

“Doesn’t your smart independent plan,” Philip hissed sarcastically, making Luz wary, “require me to remain capable?”

“You are capable enough as long as we give you the palistrom. What could happen?”

His hand fell to the floor with a squelch.

“For example, this,” Philip nodded at it.

The witches, standing a little further, were looking at all this with indescribable emotions. Caleb's copy covered his mouth with his hand in horror.

“Understood,” Luz answered without expression, looking at the hand.

Then Philip vomited an undigested apple onto the spreading puddle of mud from the remains of his own hand. And he himself slowly, feeling the numbness that was gripping him again, fell onto his side.

Like last time, the golden-green light that illuminated the seething darkness helped him to wake up, not in a cave but on the bed.

~

His mentor had taught him not to use his left hand long ago. The pastor from the only church in their commune taught reading and writing to some interested children, and, despite the strange status of Philip himself and his brother, two street children, assessed the boy's progress as more than tolerable. Many children who had parents and a much less precarious position in their small commune did worse than Philip in school. So the pastor was even more upset that Philip, of all the children the one whom he was ready to begin introducing to spiritual texts and the subject of church service, turned out to be cursed. Not for a long time in their commune had children been born left-handed, prone to witchcraft and the influence of evil, but an orphan with good abilities for studying science who arrived from outside, much to the pastor’s regret, turned out to be just that. The pastor's heart was full of sadness for the unfortunate child, and he was determined to save the innocent soul from the influence of the devil. Whenever Philip worked with him, the pastor beat him on the hand until he could no longer use it to hold a spoon or a pen. Philip eventually got used to writing with his right hand when, as a result of one of his classes in church, he had to wrap his left hand in splints for a month. Until the fracture healed.

It was not the first time for him to use only one hand.

You don't need two hands to pick apples from the ground and put them in a basket.

“There is no help in this house,” Caleb sighs feignedly, climbing onto a simple, stocky homemade stool, from which it is more convenient to reach the branches of an apple tree, heavy with large ruddy fruits, stretched high.

On the hill the sun is bright, the grass shimmers under it in waves. The tree branches sway lazily. The wind is strong this day.

“Come on, come on, work, pleb,” Philip says, holding him by the leg, while Caleb stands with his bare feet, choosing a stable position on a stool that sways slightly on the ground uneven with roots. “It’s not for me to climb the tree after them. Which one of us is the emperor?”

Philip receives a light flick on the forehead from Caleb, causing him to shout an offended “hey!” and jump back, rubbing it. And he leans over, reaching for an apple.

“Your Imp’rial Ma-a-ajesty,” Caleb manages to make an elegant curtsey right on the stool. “Wouldn’t you be so kind, sir, to start picking up apples already? And not just throw them at your humble servant.”

Philip lowers his hand and looks at the apple clutched in his palm. With a sigh, he throws it into the basket instead. Caleb had not yet recovered from his curtsy, one leg still dangling in the air. The stool under him creaks dangerously.

They collect fruit until the sun rises very high. From grayish-pink in the dawn rays, the grass becomes brighter and brighter, greener. Together with the stool, Philip and Caleb move around the tree following the shadow, like two reverse sunflowers. The backs of their heads look either at the small house below, or at the forest on the other side of the hill, dry, as if scorched, with black bare trees. Philip sits more and more on the grass, propping himself up with one hand, looking at his brother’s back, soaked with sweat. When his brother begins to irritably bombard him with apples, he gets up and collects everything that fell on the grass. He carries a heavy basket in one hand towards the house, pouring apples into a large, slightly lopsided tub under a canopy. The other hand dangles on his chest in a sling.

Philip is lying on the grass. He doesn't whine, but his stomach growls loudly when it's time for lunch. Caleb looks back at him, looking sideways out of the corner of his eye, the shadow of thick branches, a pattern of leaves and rays of the sun falling, cutting his face in half. Caleb steps down from the stool with an apple in his hands, and Philip rises to meet him. Caleb waits, not moving, and Philip walks closer to him. The brother looks at him, then wipes the apple with his palm. Its peel is red, without a single yellow spot. Phillip sinks his teeth into it while Caleb holds his chin with his fingers, carefully handing him the apple with his other hand. A drop of juice runs down his chin.

The feeling of hard pulp in the throat is strange. Philip almost feels sick. It's like he hasn't eaten an apple for years and years.

“And how did you manage? If it weren’t for your hand, everything would have been collected already.”

Caleb is again at the stool, reaching out with his hands to the sun in the gap of the branches, pulling down the red spots with the glare of its rays on the sides.

Philip looks somewhere away.

In the dream, he doesn’t remember how, but apparently he somehow turned not very lucky. He had never experienced waking up in the morning and discovering that he couldn’t move his arm from hellish pain, either from a dislocation or a fracture. But he didn’t seem surprised at all. He looked blankly at the aching limb and thought, without much emotion, that if it hurt so much, under the sleeves of his nightgown it was probably covered with cadaverous spots.

When examined together with his brother, nothing too terrible was discovered. Only dark purple-yellow bruises encircled his arm in stripes across his elbow.

“It's all witches.”

“Witches are not to blame for all your misfortunes, Philip,” comes an instructive voice from somewhere in the tangle of branches.

For some reason, Philip feels like he's heard this before.

“No, I mean the ones in the dream.”

A blond crown peeks out with interest from a heap of leaves.

“I tried to hit that girl and my arm fell off.”

“Instant karma,” Caleb mutters under his breath.

“They don’t let me eat,” Philip folds his free hand on his chest, offended, over the one tied in a bandage, trying not to disturb it too much, but to express indignation with his entire posture. “They say I have to help them save the world first.”

“Maybe you should help them.”

“They came to ask for help, but they do it without respect!” Philip is indignant. “They're coercing me!”

“Then don’t help,” Caleb summarizes calmly. “Why should you care what happens to a non-existent world in your sleep?”

Philip looks down at the bandage in which his left hand rests. It hurts, as if it is ready to fall off. Just like in a dream.

“What if this is not a dream?”

“What if you are actually an ancient emperor of a fairy-tale world, imprisoned by witches and demons in a cave in the skull of a long-dead local deity?” Caleb inquires with deadly seriousness.

Philip laughs nervously.

“Well, yes, what if?”

“What would you do then?“ asks Caleb, for some reason not supporting his laughter. He still doesn’t look at Philip, plucks apples from the branches, stretches higher and higher.

The sun sways through the branches in the light wind.

Pieces of light falling between the leaves lay on Philip’s cheeks.

“I would have killed them all then.”

~

A guy with white hair broke a palistrom branch for him, supporting him by the back of his head, like giving a glass of water to a sick person. Philip took a deep breath, rolling his eyes. From the hungry groan that pierced his body, with which he inhaled yellow-green smoke through his nose, he arched into convulsions on a long stone. It seems to him that the smoke smelled of honey and resin. He was cold. His body was trembling violently and seemed to prick with needles, like a stiff limb. Last time, his left arm also became stiff and fell off below the elbow.

He was pounding for a long time, as if in a fever, either dragging him into a dark thick nothingness, then allowing him to open his eyes wider, breathe in more air, the quiet light of the glyphs on the ceiling, the quiet conversation nearby, and catch the gaze of attentive magenta eyes looking at him with a strange expression. The owner of the eyes sighed every now and then, reached down somewhere, and handed him another branch, helping him inhale the viscous yellow smoke with the taste of honey. He pressed his trembling body by the shoulders, sitting next to him on the lodgment. For some reason, not-his-brother did not leave him a single step until Philip fell with difficulty into a heavy muddy half-sleep.

He finally woke up, wrapped in two cloaks at once. He lay there for some time without moving. His head was empty. The cold lurked somewhere in the tips of his fingers, in bony ankles, and the air around him smelled of honey and resin, like on the edge of a forest in summer. And his body seemed like cotton wool, but for some reason it was still alive. His stubborn old body, choosing even now to remain on the verge of no life at all. Descending from the lodgment, Philip saw the floor littered with fragments of branches. If his dream replicates reality, why are there no apples this time, he thought.

He was alone in the cave.

For some reason he wanted to sit on the floor. To wrap himself tightly in one of the cloaks, pull his knees to his chest. To stare at the opposite wall, at the pattern of glyphs on it, and think about nothing. Counting down the moments until he will return to summer, under a tree swaying in the wind.

Luz returned without company and sat down next to him, pushing aside a pile of sticks with her foot in a low soft boot, leaning, like him, with her back on the stone lodgment.

Philip did not waste energy on greeting, did not take his eyes from the wall opposite him. The elbow that remained from his left arm, looking like a melted candle, lay on his bent knee. The other hand, palm up, lay relaxed on the floor. With cold detachment, he realized that a little more delay, and he would no longer be able to lift it on his own.

“I hope you're worth it.”

A piece of wood fell into his hand. It was a palisman. In the form of a frog.

“You’ve grown up,” said Philip, looking at the palisman in his palm.

“It’s all thanks to you. Satisfied?“ Luz said without looking at him.

It seemed to him that the brave young girl, whom he hardly remembered, would have rather given her own life than the life of a small magical animal.

“No. It’s upsetting,” Philip replied. And crushed the palisman in his fist.

~

“Hello. What is your name?”

“Kwa,” the frog answers laconically.

Philip looks at him intently, squatting down.

“Good name... Where are you from? I haven't seen any animals here before.”

“Kwa,” says the frog, after a moment of thinking.

“That’s how it is,” Philip lifts his head. He looks at the sky for a while with slight surprise. Then he looks down again.

“Come with me? I'll introduce you to my brother! He will be happy, we haven’t met anyone here for a long time.”

The frog is silent for a while. Then he says, casually and carelessly:

“Kwa-kwa.”

Philip beams, picking him up from the grass and, carefully pressing to his chest, carries him from the edge of the forest to a house not far away, by the field. In the direction, where on a low hillock a large apple tree spread its branches, full of red fruits.

Chapter Text

This time the cave was somehow brighter. One could even say it was cozier.

“Sure, why not... great place for a picnic, picturesque view.”

The bluish glow of the glyphs on the ceiling and walls was overwhelmed by the warm sunlight of dozens of tiny glowing spheres.. The cave somehow immediately became noticeably larger. Almost perfectly, unnaturally round, this stone dome rose high overhead to where the individual glyphs of the complex, weaving enchantment for protection could not be seen, where they merged into zigzags, circles, constellations... Even there, right under the ceiling, balls of light were now floating. And the cave seemed to breathe lifefully.

For some reason, Philip remembered how the little girl, looking at him with rapturous admiration, lit such a light for him for the first time.

Wasn't it in this cave...

“The view... Oh, yes... You can watch forever how the fire burns, how the water flows and how the defeated enemy suffers.”

The admiration in present-day Luz's eyes has diminished.

“You always feel the romance of the moment,” cooed the girl sitting next to her in response to Luz’s words.

They already habitually settled down against one of the walls on a cloak laid on the stone floor. It couldn’t be said that they noticeably distinguished each other from the rest of the crew, depriving others of attention, but there was something special in their close position, in a simple touch of shoulder to shoulder.

They seem to be very good friends, Philip thought.

“I propose to implement Amity’s idea about a picnic,” Luz raised her voice slightly. And without hesitation, she reached for the bag lying nearby on the floor.

That's how Philip found out that her friend's name is Amity.

(And somewhere in the depths of not so long ago memories, stirred images of witches with green hair and a purple abomination dressed in mechanical armor.)

Small colorful containers began to appear from Luz's bag. The witches, who were scattered around the cave for some reason, were drawn to the source of appetizing smells. Even Philip’s nose involuntarily twitched with interest. Amity and Luz were the first to take a portion of who-knows-what, handing the bag to the dark-skined boy who approached them. He also took out a container, opened it, and sighed in the smell of food so deliciously that Philip himself could have salivated. If his strange body secreted saliva or sweat. At least something other than sludge-like slurry.

For a short time the bag stood aside, unnoticed, until the last members of the small team returned from the farthest corner of the cave.

“You could take away your cloaks already,” the girl with glasses whispered to the blond guy squatting next to her.

The blonde ruffled and slightly frowning, glanced sideways at Philip, who was comfortably settled on his lodgement with both cloaks. He had folded one cloak several times to sit on it – it became a little more comfortable to sit on this makeshift pillow. In the second, he had wrapped himself up as usual, although he no longer felt the cold. In fact, he felt surprisingly good. He, of course, knew how short-lived this well-fed happiness was. How soon it will turn into a new attack of hunger, shaking the body and, perhaps, involuntarily transforming into mud flowing from the bones. But now, for the first time in a long time, he was full and airily. He was sitting, wrapped in a cloak that smelled too familiar to him for some reason, and felt a semblance of peace.

“At least one?” the girl suggested.

Without raising his head, Philip grabbed the edges of his cloak tighter, ready to defend his property.

The boy waved hand at him.

“I have piles of these cloaks.”

“But it was your favorite…”

“Doesn't matter. I'll find a new one.”

“The emperor is robbing his people,” joked the dark-skinned boy, on whose cloak the girl with glasses was sitting. “He takes away the last shirt.”

“Luz, it looks like we’re out of sandwiches,” the blond boy said, rummaging in the bag in confusion.

“I’m sure mom made one for each of us,” Luz frowned. She crawled over, squatted down next to him, and shook out all the contents of the bag. Then a theory formed behind her eyes. She looked up and saw Philip, still sitting on his lodgment as if he’d never left, looking at her thoughtfully in response. And chewing a sandwich.

“And he also takes the last crust of bread,” the dark-skinned guy, who obviously considered himself very witty, stated dejectedly.

“Oh damn, Belos! No! You're going to throw up again, you idiot!”

Luz jumped up from the floor, ran up to Philip and pulled the bitten sandwich out of his not very tenacious fingers. Then she took away a container with a red lid. She sighed and stared at him.

“Don’t you dare throw it away,” Philip warned.

“What?” she raised an eyebrow. “Is it because your saliva is toxic and the soil will be poisoned by it for decades ahead?”

“No. I have no saliva,” Philip answered. “Don’t waste food.”

Luz raised the other eyebrow.

“Time and effort were invested into it,” Philip explained. “It would be disrespectful to just throw it away.”

Luz grinned in surprise.

“Okay. Whatever,” she said. “It’s unexpected to hear something like this from you…”

Philip was watching as she put the sandwich into a container and put it in her bag.

“I’ll make sure someone finishes this,” she vowed.

Philip didn't really believe her.

Behind Luz, a girl with glasses offered half of her sandwich to the once-again-robbed guy, who was strangely staring at Philip. He turned a slightly stunned look at her and automatically accepted the sandwich. For some reason, Philip did not feel any remorse for the way he privatized either the clothes or the food of the unfortunate fellow. Maybe it was an external resemblance to Caleb... He was accustomed to putting on his brother’s jacket or shirt, finishing his lunch (It often happened that Caleb himself gave Philip his things – which Philip gladly wore out – or passed food from his plate to Philip’s if his brother remained hungry.)

In a small flash there surfaced a strange memory of him clutching his brother’s jacket and crying into it. Either this vision was from reality, or perhaps it was from a dream...

Luz's eyes suddenly looked at his hands, which had fallen loosely onto his crossed legs after she had taken the food from him. Both of his completely intact hands.

“I see you’re back in both-hands business,” she muttered under her breath, returning to the bag near the cloaks and taking something out of it.

Philip felt the urge to rise up towards her. She approached him almost solemnly. And when she silently spread her palm forward, he silently gave her his completely new left hand, exactly copying to the scar and every bend of the glyph circles the one that had fallen off recently. He looked down at Luz from his full height, standing tall. .

The bracer that recently fell off along with his hand was covered all over with glyphs and made of an incomprehensible metal, on the surface of which blue flickers were running like reflections of light. There were spikes on the inside of the bracer. The spikes were long and thin enough, with small hooks and notches at the end to stick tightly into the bones.

So that’s why it’s impossible to slip out of them during transformation.

“What, doesn’t it hurt?”

“Compared to a curse?” Philip watched as she snapped the bracer on his hand. “Like a weightless kiss.”

Luz sighed, as it seemed to Philip, with slight envy of his pain threshold.

“You just have never rotted alive, girl,” he patted her on the shoulder. “But there’s still more to come.”

Luz glanced at him from under her brows, to which Philip smiled subtly.

He shook the new thing before his eyes. His hand was completely restored. This has always been the case in the last couple of centuries: any damage healed without a trace, but all the scars inflicted before his body learned to regrow limbs with such careless ease — the pattern of glyphs, the broken nose — were restored as painstakingly as an old childhood fracture, still sometimes aching. And the magical mark, the Emperor's Coven sigil, was preserved. As if this sign didn’t even notice that his hand was missing for some time. This mark, however, melts into more than the physical body. But now, like half of the glyphs on his hands, it was covered by shackles. If you don't remember their purpose, the pair of bracers on his thin wrists actually looked quite beautiful. The unfamiliar, but judging by appearance, precious metal was engraved by the delicate hand of a jeweler or carver, turning a glyph pattern into a work of art. In his real life Philip could not afford anything like this. And he probably never will be able to. Yes, his magical shackles were beautiful in some way.

However, they were reminiscent of the golden gloves that hid his arms almost to the elbows, hugging them tightly, and together with all the emperor’s attire did not leave a single centimeter of skin visible to someone else’s eye. Protecting either him or the creatures around him. Complementing the exquisite outfit and completing the carefully constructed “mask” of his entire image. Hiding the remnants of his humanity from all the Boiling Islands.

Philip pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, wincing and squinting, vigorously massaging his dry eyelids. His head that day was already buzzing with uninvited memories.

It began to seem that he almost truly felt like this “Emperor Belos.”

This very emperor whose hands need to be shackled in bracers that block his magic. Who can be brought to a half-dead state before you decide to feed him. An emperor whose presence in the world of the living is disgusting for every livebeing, but unchangeable, as the essence of things. The one for whom it is nevertheless worth sacrificing a sentient being. Because his life suddenly became worth as much as the whole world.

And so they came to him to ask for help. To ask about his knowledge. Ask to save the world of witches. And he truly enjoys how long he manages to drag out time until there is at least some concrete answer on his part to this cry for help, and how unbearably frustrating it makes, judging by Luz’s look, every second of their stay in the company of each other.

He felt a gaze boring into his cheek from the side.

“Are you going to help us?”

“Who starts negotiations like that?” Philip rolled his eyes. “Neither ‘hello’ nor ‘how are you, Philip’?”

“This is a continuation of what has already begun,” Luz objected. “And, as I see, you’re doing well.”

“Arms and legs are intact,” Philip agreed, bowing his head.

Probably, until next week, no green stripes will appear in the place where once a long time ago (not in this life) his arm was broken. Previously, he needed palismen often. Previously, when he used his magic to his fullest, the curse was spreading through his body like leprosy in a matter of days, causing him to shudder in attacks and leave dents and clods of dirt on the nearest walls. He cannot cast magic while wearing bracelets. And there is no point in wasting energy on transformation. Perhaps he will feel tolerable for a relatively long time.

For him, who woke up here a few days ago, having spent much less time awake, even a period of a week would seem relatively long.

“At least you're not falling apart, so... say thank you,” Luz grumbled, putting her hands on her hips.

Philip glanced at her.

“So,” she put two folded forefingers to her nose, “I get the impression that you understand the language of power well. But let's try to start with words. Do you realize on whose side the power is now, so to speak?”

Philip first looked at her, then at the witches who were still sitting, watching them with curiosity.

Is even she serious? These children may be strong for their age.

But…

But, and this occurred to him even at the moment when he opened his eyes today with one hand free from the bracer, clenched it convulsively into a fist, feeling each glyph with his skin. Not much magic is needed, skillfully, to get rid of the strangely relaxed strangers in his presence. How easy it would be, being full of strength now (he felt almost funny at what a deplorable state felt “full of strength” to him now), to kill his impolite guests. They even thought of bringing a basilisk only once. Somehow they relaxed. It's kind of a shame. It's humiliating to be so underestimated.

Oh, he’d thought ‘there is no point in transformation’ too early.

“A question just occurred to me,” Philip folded his index fingers, raising his hands to his face, in a gesture that copied Luz’s movement, and pointed them in her direction. “Why are you here?”

Luz raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t I tell you about…”

“No, I'm asking why are you here? You are basically children. How did it happen that you were sent to the monster’s lair? Have you no mentors or elders who are better suited? This is an extremely controversial strategic decision.”

Luz lowered her eyes somewhere to the side.

“I see. They have nothing at all to do with this initiative,” Philip stated without surprise.

This is just a smart independent plan of a young, self-confident girl.

Luz was glaring at the wall.

“I understand why Miss Noceda is here,” Philip reasoned thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling and addressing no one in particular, “but what, I wonder, were the others thinking?”

The witches looked at each other.

“Should we have let her go alone-?” the girl with glasses asked rhetorically.

“-so that she would do Titan knows what-?” Amity picked up.

“-and during the negotiations destroy the most guarded prison on the Boiling Islands, perhaps along with its prisoner?” said not-Caleb.

“Hey.”

“It’s a compelling argument,” Philip agreed.

“Hey!”

“But when you’re all together,” Philip looked at the calmly sitting witches, “you’re not even afraid of me at all, right?”

The witches looked at each other again. Only not-Caleb tensed a little, placing his palm on the shaft of the palisman lying next to him on the floor. Philip raised the corners of his lips.

Again his hand was on Luz’s shoulder, still standing close to him. She didn't even flinch. Just like before, when he patted her with the hand she had just put the bracer on. It seems that bracers seemed like a panacea to them. It seemed like they’d already forgotten what had happened in that cave instead of the first attempt at negotiations. No, really, they relaxed. How could they? He just must take advantage of this.

He was smiling casually at the gloomy girl, placing his fingers on her neck. And watching with pleasure how her eyes were widening.

“If you reach for the glyphs,” he soulfully looked into them, so large now from the sudden fear, very diligently but unsuccessfully hidden in the depths of the wide dark pupils, “I will see.”

One of his fingers had already turned black and was sharp at the end. Philip pressed, barely, allowing a small red bead to emerge and fill at the tip of his claw. Luz's eyes were flickering with blue and yellow highlights.

“And if you reach for the staves,” Philip dropped casually.

The witches froze in stretched poses. Amity even pulled her hand away from her palisman. Luz's palisman was also lying next to her.

“And don’t get up, please,” Philip added softly. His finger gently ran down the thin skin. There was a red stripe left on it. Luz took a shaky breath. It looked like she was afraid to blink. As she was looking into Philip’s calm, unblinking eyes.

“Don’t you think,” Philip exhaled, leaning closer to her, “that talking about the position of power in your situation is... presumptuous?”

Luz was shaking slightly. And Philip felt as if he was repeating some old, long-written script. He had some kind of slight déjà vu. Maybe this... this memory, where he holds her suspended, clenched in a huge monstrous fist. She wasn't afraid of him then. Children know how not to fear for their lives. But nearly-adult Luz already knows what he is capable of. She must remember how the dry stone crust constrained her body.

And this memory was also in this cave. Why does he remember this so often? All that he remembers about the door with the bird's eye, about Luz in his hands, happened in one day, right? What is so important about this day...

“Philip,” she squeezed out, calling him by name in her trembling voice, and Philip’s own eyes widened, and the hand on Luz’s throat involuntarily tightened, making her sob in horror. But she swallowed and repeated, more firmly, although still very quietly, almost in a whisper, “Philip. Look to your left.”

Philip tilted his head slightly. It could have been a trick, but...

He squinted his eyes. And saw that there were more people in the cave. Exactly one more completely unnecessary creature was here now.

“I didn’t notice,” he exhaled, twitching his nose and raking his gaze over the figure of the young basilisk. “I didn’t hear a sound…”

The basilisk was real. Alive. With magic you can hide yourself from view, mask the sound, but you can’t fake the smell. And crawling towards the group on her tail, out of breath either from the rush to overcome the distance between them, or from fear for Luz, the basilisk smelled correctly, like a real basilisk. Scales and magic. How did he not sense it? Because of the distance, perhaps... The cave is large, and the walls themselves in the Titan Skull radiate magic so loudly that it is easy to miss the small magical creature against the general background. But what a shameful mistake.

“The mastery of illusion,” the dark-skinned boy waved his palms in the air, with a nervous, crooked grin. “Let Luz go.”

They all were sitting in front of him, not having time to jump up before he ordered them to stay in place. Unless it was not-Caleb who took a strange squatting position, with his fingers on the floor, as if preparing for a race or a jump. And he was glaring at Philip with a look that contained so much hatred... They all were looking at him like that. Looking from below. And with those looks they could burn someone alive. Maybe some witches really can do this, it’s magic after all. The basilisk also froze at a respectful distance. But even so, she would be able to drain all the strength from Philip till the last drop. Leave him lying helplessly on the floor again, falling apart piece by piece.

And the worst thing is, as he knows now, being completely exhausted he would never be able to wake up at home. He would stay here until someone had the grace to give him some palistrom energy.

“Hmm,” Philip turned his gaze back to Luz. “This is an argument in your favor, but the situation is again a stalemate.”

Luz licked her lips.

“If,” Philip slightly tilted his face towards her, causing her pupils to tremble, “she starts drinking me... you know how quickly my claws grow?”

The claw on his thumb defiantly rested its tip against her throat. Her pulse was beating so desperately under Philip's fingers...

“If,” Luz sighed again and closed her eyes, trying to suppress the trembling in her voice, trying to stop choking, “if she drinks your powers, it will mean that that palisman died in vain. But if you kill me before that happens, you won't achieve anything. That’s not your goal, is it?”

“How do you know?” Philip raised an eyebrow.

“If it were… you would have killed me already. Right?”

Philip clicked his tongue.

“Touché.”

And just as calmly as he had been doing everything before, he lowered his hand from Luz’s neck.

She recoiled from him as if from fire falling into the arms of Amity, who instantly jumped up to her, and coughing convulsively. The girl with glasses and not-Caleb jumped up with staves in their hands, shielding them and Luz with their bodies. The guy was shaking so much with anger that Philip, watching them with boredom, thought for a moment that he would snap and hit him first.

“I know this is a stupid question, but,” Luz swallowed, rubbing her throat, “can’t you build cooperation honestly at all?”

“I thought he would do that.”

”Who?”

“Belos” Philip wanted to say. Belos would do something like that. Sooner or later. He doesn't respect treaty breakers, but he respects witches even less. He forgot what it was like to be honest with people. But he remembers very well how Luz violated the previous agreement. If only Philip himself could remember this...

He had to remain silent. Here he is Belos. It would be strange to talk about yourself in the third person. This would completely ruin the game. He is already underplaying, perhaps, as the great universal evil.

“Don't attack!” Luz managed to suppress the trembling in her voice quickly. “We need to settle all this peacefully. Am I right, Philip?”

Philip grinned at this. And Luz's expression became so pleasantly irritated.

And instead of answering, he lunged, aiming overgrown claws at the guy with white hair, like his brother’s, at his crimson (not as they should be... terribly wrong!) eyes.

He was thrown back by a powerful blow from a huge tight vine. He toppled over onto the logement on his back, with a terrible crunch, it seemed that everyone should have heard it, with a deafening flash that covered his ears, either pain or...

He definitely went blind and deaf for a couple of moments, or more, or it didn’t happen at all, it was just that his dream, this terribly stupid dream, was interrupted after his back bent back at an unnatural angle. But later, when his vision was restored and he found himself on the floor, in his body, as if divided in half after the blow, he felt only the upper part. He propped himself up on his elbows and saw Luz. She looked into his eyes and resolutely stepped on the large fire glyph that completed the ring of the spell around the lodgement. The spell ring flashed. Philip managed to think that he had calculated the reaction to his actions correctly.

How predictable you kids are, after all.

The world around him became hazy and melted away.

Chapter Text

His brother has been grumbling at him all morning. Calling him an “actor” and a “little manipulator”.

“You’re not six years old, Philip, you know we have work to do.”

“But I really can’t stand up!”

When Philip falls out of bed, trying to force his suddenly unruly legs to straighten, he is unable to get up from the floor on his own. Caleb rushes towards him with real fear on his face. And at first he doesn’t know what to do or how to help, freezing in indecision. Philip is lying on the floor and trying to move his legs. It doesn't turn out very well.

“My back hurts,” Philip whines as his brother picks him up.

How can you work in such a condition?

Caleb brings breakfast - a plate of boring porridge - into their cramped bedroom with two narrow beds. From the open window the apple tree can be seen, the harvest from which they will have to postpone today. On grayish curtains that have not been washed for a long time, fluttering in a light morning draft, yellow sunbeams run back and forth. The sun is already shining in full, and Philip is lying in bed. Incredibly late. The last time this happened... Oh, he doesn’t even remember when. Maybe when he caught some kind of infection at the market in the village, and spent three days with a fever, covering his pillow with snot. It’s much better this time, of course. He just can't feel his legs. If he doesn't try to move them, he can imagine that his brother simply allowed him to have a day off. Philip tries to hide it, but internally he is very pleased. Especially when his brother flits around so anxiously, either with herbal ointment for his back or with a mug of mint tea. And he doesn’t go anywhere, only sits next to him, on his bed. That's the most important thing, to have Caleb around. Philip hates being alone.

“You’re an unlucky boy,” his brother pats him on the head. And then smiles reassuringly, “well, no worries. Maybe it's from fatigue. You'll lie down for a day and you'll be as good as new.”

Philip rubs the top of his head against a gentle palm. He really feels very tired. It was like he hadn't slept at all. It was as if he had been unloading the same baskets of apples all night. And every night for a whole week. Perhaps this is all because of his dream?

“Oh, oh, you know, you know what I dreamed about today?” he looks up at Caleb with glinting eyes from under his hand.

He excitedly retells the dream, especially proud of the moment where he played his role so well he really flicked the noses of those smug children. Where he showed himself to be a real Belos! Menacing and creepy. Although he is a little embarrassed by how, while retelling the dream, he understands and feels all the motives and emotions of Belos as his own. As if this is not a game at all... He, however, wisely keeps silent about falling on his back in the dream. Already in the middle of the retelling, remembering how it had ended this time, he realizes that this detail might frighten his brother, how the trauma in the dream affected reality. Philip, of course, likes it when his brother pays so much attention to him, but why scare him again? He doesn't want to worry him even more. Caleb just calmed down...

“Well, it turns out they defeated you!”

“Ha,” Philip snorts, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his nose. “It is not a victory if they thereby delay achieving their goal.”

“And what is their goal?”

“For me to help them. I can't do that while I'm here. It will take them a while to wake me up again.”

“But still, they turned out to be stronger,” his brother urges.

Philip blushes with indignation.

“Yeah, of course! They were just lucky! Actually, I gave them a head start when I allowed them to put a bracer on me... That’s it!”

“Then why didn’t you attack them until they put the bracer on you?”

“It would be too easy,” Philip says arrogantly. “I might have to kill them all. Even Luz.”

“Even?” Caleb smiles thinly.

“I don’t want to kill a human,” Philip shrugs. “Even if it's just a dream.”

He is silent for a while.

“Moreover, I’ve still achieved my goal.”

“What was your goal?”

Philip looks at Caleb in surprise. And shrugs again.

“To come back here, of course.”

The next day there is fire in the east.

This happens periodically. Caleb says someone careless leaves a fire unextinguished, and it flares up easily, consuming acre after acre of dead trees. Philip often watches these fires while sitting on the porch of their house. The sky is covered with a thick veil of black smoke and red reflections. And Philip watches the dying forest indifferently, even distantly. This time he is joined on the porch steps by a slightly frightened frog.

You can endlessly watch the fire burn.

On such days, Caleb goes into the forest, leaving Philip at home. Sometimes he manages to extinguish the fire. He returns smelling of smoke and smeared in ash and for some reason, still very sad. It’s as if he feels sorry for every burned tree.

He brings pictures that have decayed over time in charred frames and lowers them somewhere into the basement. Some of the frames are simple, wooden. They could have been planned by Caleb's own hands. Others are covered with peeling gilding.

The forest has been burning systematically and irreversibly for ten years now.

On such days Philip usually has a severe headache in the evening. Caleb says he is suffering from smoke inhalation.

~

Big cave. It seems as if he has been here before.

It happens, you feel déjà vu, but you can’t understand what caused it.

“Hey. He woke up…”

Woke up is a big word. God only knows how hard it was for Philip to open his eyes. How hard it was for him to even just look at the dark silhouette of the boy standing right in front of him who’d announced his awakening. How it was like an electric shock that pierced his stiff muscles as soon as he moved. He felt sick and tired.

“Of course, he woke up,” a voice rang out, clear and far too bright for such a dark cave. Their tone was unctuous and did not portend anything good.

His gaze focused on a second thin figure, silhouetted against the background by a dim source of light, snatched from the surrounding darkness, rising in the distance from the floor where several people sat in the halo of the same light, now confidently walking towards him. To the stone he was lying on. Is this really a stone? What a wonderful place to sleep. Something is laid on it, of course, but...

To top it all off, he was also tied up. The strangest thing was, it was as if by the stems of some plants, thick and surprisingly strong, around his hands.

The owner of the ringing voice approached, and it was a short girl a little older than his brother. With very angry eyes.

“How can you not wake up when someone is calling you so insistently?” she tilted her head to the side. “Right?” The lilting, sticky-sweet words felt like unfamiliar fingers gently playing with his hair, a grim pantomime of comfort that all but promises the opposite.

Philip moved his shoulder, which was shooting with pain. He looked at both people standing next to each other, a boy and a girl. They both looked at him with equally disappointed expressions on their faces. They frowned very similarly, as if they were brother and sister.

“I hope you slept well,” the girl raised the corners of her lips. The boy was silent.

Ignoring him, Philip finally looked straight into the girl’s eyes (as much as it is possible to do when you are lying tied up on your side and your interlocutor is standing next to you, piercing you with a gaze from top to bottom.) But he looked at her so directly, as if they were standing opposite each other, their eyes were on the same level. And she felt the directness of his gaze. And she winced.

“You can probably sleep peacefully, having let several days of negotiations and concessions under the worblock’s tail?”

To say, not to say?...

“I’m not sure-,” the voice, hoarse from sleep, seemed to rub his dry throat, making him choke. Philip swallowed hard. “I'm not sure I understand…”

The girl leaned towards him, and Philip instinctively tried to move away.

“You forced me,” she hissed, “to sacrifice a palisman. And for what?! Just for Vee to have to drink it all away again? All the power of his soul, wasted! You brute!”

And she hit him on the cheek. Widely, backhanded. Philip was even slightly knocked back into the stone. It wasn't painful, though. It was completely imperceptible when compared to...

Philip groaned as his body twisted in spasm, in a convulsion, as if turning him inside out and then back, as if threads were attached to his skin from the inside, stretched to the limit, connecting it with the insides that had contracted with hunger. And every cell of his body screamed. These screams made Philip ill. It was already dark in the cave. Either there was truly very little light, or his vision had failed him, but after a spasm that shook his whole body, the world completely swam before his eyes.

What's going on...

“Don't pretend you die. I didn't hit you that hard.”

What's wrong with him?

“Oye! Do you hear me?”

Philip glanced nervously at the girl.

At the complete stranger who was speaking to him as if they were old friends. Except for the slap in the face and her general unfriendly attitude, of course. And next to her was this guy with blond hair, who Philip was also seeing for the first time, but for some reason his eyes clung to him every moment. And someone else was nearby. Philip heard their whispers, sensed, in some inconceivable way, the movement of air and the “smell” of something that had no smell in the usual sense, but for some reason he sensed it. Only, because of the darkness, he could not see anyone except the two before him. He was in some kind of huge cave. With strangers who were clearly angry with him. Tied up, immobilized. Strange ropes tightened themselves around his wrists and ankles painfully, as if they were alive. Was he kidnapped or... And a nasty little trembling began to beat through his body, although he was not cold, no, but for some reason he was now trembling, and this seemed to foreshadow new spasms, twisting his body with unbearable pain. And he almost felt sick from this trembling, and from hunger, and from the colored spots floating before his eyes, but... But it’s all so strange. He had never felt anything like this. He’d never experienced such pain even when he broke his arm. He had never seen such (or, to be honest, any) caves. The cave, huge, perfectly round with a luminous ceiling. And now he’s suddenly somewhere, it’s unclear where and... This can’t be true, right? After all, he fell asleep in his bed, Caleb was next to him, and he cannot imagine how he ended up in some strange cave and why he was surrounded by these people here. And he had never felt so bad in his life. This is not real… is it? He fell asleep in his bed, right? What happened before he woke up here? That day, the forest was burning for a long time and... And suddenly Philip realized with horror that he didn’t even remember how or when he fell asleep.

Is this all real? Or is this a dream? In a dream it often happens that people you have never met in reality are talking to you about something that has never happened.

Lord, let this be a dream...

And so he again felt a ball of pain curling up deep inside, clenching and unclenching like a pulsating beating heart, and beginning to fill everything it reached. Oh no, not again, please... His face probably expressed fear too clearly, because the girl furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

“What... what's wrong with you?” she looked at him perplexedly, and as if she didn’t know what to expect.

“It hurts,” he whispered.

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

The girl blinked. She exchanged a look with the boy standing next to her.

“I thought you said you were used to it? Is it worse now?”

Philip didn't answer. He closed his eyes, which were stinging in pain. He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

How can you even get used to this? And how could he have told her this if he’s just seeing her for the first time.

No, this is definitely a dream. In a dream such absurdity is all over the place. You just find yourself in some situation out of nowhere. You’re even sure deep inside that you remember exactly how you got here and who all these people are. You even automatically answer their questions, as if you know what they’re talking about. And for a while you may actually know what to answer. Only this time, for some reason, Philip didn’t know.

And the unknown is always scary.

“If it’s because of hunger, it’s your own fault,” the girl pursed her lips, crossing arms over her chest. “Why did you let down our trust? We could have agreed normally.”

Yes, it would be good to know what to say in response.

“I don’t know,” Philip answered honestly, looking at his wrists tied with plants.

He was wearing some kind of bracelets. From what he could see, they were metal trinkets of the kind he could never afford to wear. And on his trembling hands there were some drawings. Strange drawings made with long-healed, deep scratches. And the hands were not his own.

What the hell?

“Let me go,” hysterical notes poured into his voice.

And the wave of fear that began to arise somewhere in his chest only rose higher from the sound of his own voice, as if he only now began to hear himself through the noise in his ears. His voice was dry, broken by age. It sounded completely different.

He jerked his hands, tightly bound by the green stems, and this made both the guy and the girl recoil at the same time. The guy picked up a staff, which it turned out he was clutching in his hand, and quickly put it in front of the girl, as if instinctively protecting her. Are they afraid of me or something, Philip thought. And for some reason this made him feel very uneasy.

“Let you go? Seriously?” The girl was surprised. Then her voice became angrier, “What, so you can turn into a horned monster again and attack us?”

Turn into what?!

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale...

For some reason he couldn’t breathe in again. The lungs just suddenly refused to do what they were designed for. And his chest seemed to rise and fall, but to no avail. It was as if the air around had disappeared, leaving only emptiness, which Philip convulsively sucked in through clenched teeth. A trembling, now large, as if he was being rhythmically beaten by someone invisible and inexorable, was already shaking his whole body. He tried to breathe again, but again he failed. He fecklessly opened his mouth, trying to swallow at least a little air, but it simply did not want to fill his lungs. It just stayed right here, very close, without ever getting to where it needed to be. Not wanting to become his breath. And that’s when Philip became truly scared.

And just like that, with his mouth open in horror and his eyes wide, he looked at the people in front of him. At a now very nervous boy, heavily clenching his fists, who suddenly reminded him of someone he knew well. At the girl staring at him in shock.

“Please. I’m scared,” Philip breathed out in a broken whisper. It took all his strength to even make the air come out of him in the right way for words to sound.

Both the guy and the girl appeared shocked by his words for some reason. And they looked at each other again, completely confused.

The next moment, when he curled up into a ball on the stone bed, pulling his knees towards him and hiding behind his tied, trembling hands, the girl began to frown incredulously, as if she was thinking about something. As if she was trying to look right through and see what was inside him. Then it seemed to dawn on her. The sympathy left her look.

Her face suddenly became hard and she grinned.

“It's even funny. Are you returning to old methods of manipulation?”

Philip twitched.

Stop pretending to die, you little manipulator

“Well, it worked once,” she said matter-of-factly. All the tension and indecision seemed to leave her when she realized something for herself, and decided to go with this understanding to the end. She placed one hand on her belt. “But don’t you think this is too much? Even I’m not buying that.”

The guy next to her kept his eyes wide open and with constricted pupils on Philip. Even in the twilight of the cave they were bright magenta on his pale face. Pale, either by nature or by the sight before him.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Philip muttered dully between breaths. He breathed loudly and often, trying to restore lightness to his breathing, but his chest was squeezed as if in an iron grip.

The girl nodded with feigned approval.

“As always, an incomparable actor.”

Philip involuntarily shrank even more.

This is a dream, this is a dream, was beating in his head. She repeats Caleb's words exactly. It's just a dream and he just needs to wake up. Wake up until...

It was hurting again. His body, already twisted with fear, was again convulsed, crushed by a fit of hungry howl, forced to groan out loud, even though there was barely enough breath for a groan. Philip closed his eyes. Enough. Please stop. Don't beat so loud. His desperately pounding heart was drowning out his own hoarse sobs.

Help, somebody. Stop it. Somebody, please, at least somebody...

“Caleb,” he dropped involuntarily, straining his lungs burning with fire, feeling his eyelashes getting wet. And out of the corner of his eye he saw that the guy flinched.

Philip lifted his head. And understood. The guy was the spitting image of his brother. Only the eyes were confusing, but...

“Caleb,” Philip helplessly scanned the face of the guy who looked so much like his brother, “Caleb…”

He clenched his teeth and looked away.

Philip whined and buried his nose in his bound hands.

No, of course it's not him. It's just a strange dream. And the copy of his brother seems to be here to mock him. Stands, clenching his fists and looking at him in a daze, speechless, and doing nothing. Shielding the girl next to him, as if trouble should be expected from Philip. Hot tears of resentment ran down his cheeks. Why does he need this? Why won't he stand up for him- for Philip? Why won't they help? He is so hurt and scared...

The girl sighed impatiently.

“We have what you need, you know what we need. Maybe stop complicating everything?”

“What do you need?” he squeezed out, sobbing convulsively.

“A portal. The unification of worlds” harshly, like hammering into nails, and irritably, as if she was tired of repeating the same thing.

“I don't understand…”

“If you agree to help, you will receive a palisman,” the girl continued, as if not hearing him.

“Don’t understand,” Philip wheezed.

He was terribly sick from pain.

The girl's face became unnaturally calm.

“I see you’re going to play for time til the last?” she asked the question in an even tone.

Oh, if only he weren’t in such a panic, maybe he would have noticed how hard it was for her to feign indifference.

Philip clenched his teeth and fell silent. He was now shaking not only from fear, but also, it seemed, from anger and resentment. Why, why don't they believe him? Who do they even take him for? What does he need to say so they help him cope with this pain that is eating him up from the inside?

“Fine. You don’t have to rush,” the girl smiled sparingly.

And then turned away.

Philip became wary. He swallowed with difficulty the thick lump that had formed in his throat. It seemed to him suddenly that cold, slippery mud was filling his lungs inside.

“Luz,” the guy croaked heavily, “it seems to me... it seems to me that he’s not playing..."

“Have you ever caught him pretending once in your entire life?” she answered him, frowning.

“No, but... this... this is not like him…”

She bit her lip. She looked into Philip’s tear-stained face. This girl, Luz, seemed to have doubts. But...

“Let’s go,” she said shortly, clapping the tense guy on the shoulder and nodding at him reassuringly. And everyone who was in the cave began to stir.

“No,” Philip’s eyes widened, “wait!”

The girl disappeared from his view. Philip looked with despair at the copy of his brother with alien eyes.

“Don’t leave me like this, please,” he begged.

The guy silently, diligently not looking in his direction, walked around the lodgement.

Philip turned his head.

“Don't leave me!”

The guy was following Luz. Several more people joined them. Everyone was heading towards the wall, where, when Luz ran her hand along it, a passage opened, momentarily blinding Phillip with a bright white light.

“I'll just die here! My God, please help me!”

He was out of breath and could barely mutter his desperate request. Maybe that's why no one heard him. They began to leave the cave one after another without looking back. From within, pain spread like a hungry monster along the nerves, appearing on the skin as droplets of cold, slimy dirt.

“It's too painful for me!” Philip was shaking again. “Please!”

It was as if he had burst. Either fear overwhelmed the pain, or emotions gave him strength for a while, but his voice rose up as a scream to the ceiling.

Not-Caleb's back trembled from each of his screams, as if from a hit.

He screamed so loudly that his ears were numb to the sound of the cave screaming back.

Until he realized that he was left completely alone. Until he felt a sickening feeling of hunger creeping up his throat. His insides spasmed, curling up in knots.

Then he was twisted with pain again.

He vomited green liquid several times, and he was screaming in horror, not understanding where it came from inside him, and began to choke again. At some point, black claws grew on his hands, and Philip cried, feeling this terrible something, like a disease, spreading all over his skin. He stopped screaming when this- something crawled up to his face. Because the scream became like the roar of an animal. How many attacks there were, twisting his limbs from their joints, shaking his bound body, before emptiness and darkness came, covering the walls with blue glyphs on them, he could not say. How much darkness and emptiness was there? No less than eternity. It was again that familiar viscous eternity, that familiar dull nothingness. At least there was no more agony in him. But the emptiness did not bring absolute peace. And then once it was broken by a familiar voice. The voice, it seemed to him, of the person dearest to him in the world. They seemed to shake him by the shoulders, and they called him and called, they called him by name for a long time desperately, but he could not emerge from the inky darkness. He didn't particularly want this anymore. Sometimes, plunging somewhere very deep, Philip felt some semblance of peace. But in one moment the darkness was illuminated by a familiar golden-green flash.

It's Caleb shaking his shoulders. And then he hugs him for a long, long time, pressing him to his chest and rocking him to sleep, like a little child. “Hush, hush, Pip,” he wipes the tears from his cheeks and tries to calm down the large tremors that beat Philip’s small body. He listens patiently as the sobs subside, without releasing his embrace for a second. Never allowing himself to shout or hit, even when Philip's hysterics resumes for the second and third round.

“Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go, please,” Philip wheezes, his voice broken from sobs.

“I’m here, little one, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t go, don’t leave me with this, don’t leave me…”

Just not again, Philip thinks, dropping tears onto his brother’s shirt. If only everything would really end.

Caleb's palm cups his face, his thumb gently stroking his tear-stained cheek, and Philip can focus on the feeling, clutching at it until he finally believes he's awake. That he is not alone. And Caleb is next to him. And there is no pain or darkness here. Only the brother who holds him tightly in his reliable hands. And he won't let go for anything.

Philip says something in a broken voice, and Caleb answers him, something calming. And Philip cries again, closing his eyes and trembling. Caleb can only hug him and continue to say something, no matter what, his voice alone is a hundred times better than emptiness and silence, where there is no voice.

He doesn't remember what he dreamed. What scared him so much. But this feeling of loneliness and loss remained. It’s heavy, as if he is so many years old, much older than Philip actually is, than a person can withstand, than this whole world exists.

Just the thought that Caleb might disappear causes him to shake again, as if in a fit, causing him to choke on his own tears, squeezing his chest in a painful spasm. He thinks that if he had woken up alone, if Caleb hadn't been there at that moment, he would have lost his mind. His thoughts are still there, in the inky darkness, and the only thing that keeps him on the edge of reality is Caleb's warm hands. And in the end he just helplessly quietly whines on one note, looking ahead with wide open eyes.

“This hasn’t happened to you for a long time,” a quiet sad voice and fingers in his hair. “It's all the fire. You inhaled too much smoke.”

Philip lies on his brother’s chest, exhausted and devastated. Everything around seems gray. His face is streaked with tracks of dried tears and devoid of any emotion. And the gaze from under half-lowered eyelids looks somewhere very far away.

~

They pick apples all day.

Philip gets tired very quickly and sits on the grass most of the time. He and Caleb came up with a game. Brother picks an apple from the tree and throws it down, and Philip’s task is to catch the apple. Philip catches it with one hand, then catches it in the hem of his shirt. Then he carries the basket down the hill. The basket weighs heavily on his hand, and Philip, just in case, doesn’t look at what hurts so much under the sleeve of his loose shirt. What if there are greenish bruises across the elbow again.

He is completely exhausted today. While he descends and while he rises, more apples manage to gather on the grass under the tree than he can carry. Philip expresses a brilliant idea to make an apple pool. He demonstrates it in practice, trying to crawl on grass covered in the red baubles on his stomach. It turns out to be hard and uncomfortable, but he does not intend to give up. He suggests throwing apples into the pond behind the house. Caleb looks skeptical. So does Fred.

“But just imagine! You are sitting on a water lily, and there is a sea of apples around!” Philip says enthusiastically.

“Kwa,” a frog, sitting on one of the pyramids Philip made from apples, comments doubtfully.

“That’s what I told him too,” Caleb’s voice comes from the branches above.

“Food is always at hand,” Philip doesn’t pay attention to him.

“Kwa-kwa.”

“You still have to get used to it,” Caleb sighs. “He's always like this.”

“And you don’t need to wash the apples,” Philip adds, looking at his brother over shoulder.

“Like you’re washing them at all,” Caleb snorts.

And then he says “ouch!”, almost falling off the stool, having received a whack on the butt from a large apple.

When Caleb looks back for his assailant, Philip runs down the hillside laughing wildly, followed by the frog's gaze. The frog turns to him, and he and Caleb look at each other for several long moments. Then they roll their eyes in the same way, exchanging understanding nods.

Philip returns to the hill with a little knife. He squats down near the red pyramid, where the frog is still perched, and peels the apple.

“Fred and I discussed the pool issue,” Caleb says in a matter-of-fact tone.

He sits on the grass, leaning his back against a wide, rough trunk. Due to the smoke covering the sky with a shroud, it is a little cloudy this day. But lonely rays of the sun sometimes break through the gray clouds. One of them falls right on the top of Caleb’s head, finding a path to it between the thick apple branches.

“We can fill the tub for apples with water.”

Philip jumps up and blinks interestedly.

“Was it Fred's idea?”

“Yes. He’s not too enthusiastic about yours, to throw apples in his pond.”

“Oh, so this is your pond now, right, little guy?” Philip gently strokes the frog with his finger, giving him a piece of apple.

The frog silently chews, giving him a narrowed look with the expression ‘which of us is the little guy here’.

“Well, okay, a tub is a tub,” Philip shrugs. He rubs the remaining half of an apple on his shirt.

Suddenly, his brother, who approached him unnoticed, snatches it from his hands.

“You ate more apples than you collected, Pip.”

“I am hungry! Give it back!”.

Philip jumps up and tries to reach Caleb, who has raised his hand high.

Caleb laughs. Then he gently places his hand on the back of Philip’s head. They look at each other, eye to eye, as Caleb hands him the apple. And he allows Philip to bite it.

Another time, while slicing an apple again, Philip accidentally leaves a scratch on his finger. For a long moment he looks at the red drop swelling on the skin. The way it slowly flows down. And he feels a cold sweat.

The scratch on his finger reminds him of the drawings on his hands from the dream.

And in the evening he carefully examines his hands, which are now much smaller than they were in his dream. Caleb, seeing this, plays a clapping game with him. And Philip looks at his own hands, placing them on his brother’s wide palms, intertwining his fingers with him.

“Caleb,” he grips the hem of his brother's shirt, forcing him to linger after they've already said goodnight to each other. “Promise... promise that you will wake me up…”

“He-e-ey,” his brother sits down next to him, on the edge of the bed, and Philip eagerly scurries into the offered embrace, “it was just a dream, Pip, baby. What are you so afraid of?”

Philip hides his face in his brother's chest as he strokes his hair, running the soft strands through his fingers.

“I'm afraid I won't wake up.”

Chapter Text

A large cave, illuminated as if by the sun from the door of a portal. Two humans and a battle, a clash of two non-intersecting truths.

“I have just enough Titan blood for one more trip. Please. Come with me. I want to save you.”

A face distorted with a curse and a prayer.

“You're such a hypocrite. You talk big about protecting humanity, but after everything you've done, you're barely human yourself.”

You talk to me about humanity, but you choose the side of the witches.

“I do pity you. These monsters have warped your sense of reality. Perhaps it'd be merciful to put you out of your misery.”

A petrification creeps over the girl’s body. This is humane, he thinks, at least to save her soul.

~

He desperately gasped for air, sensing the water running down his face like a stream.

The awakening was abrupt. He was literally torn out of the unsteady remnants of sleep by a bucket of cold water. And, before he even had woken up, he was scared. To him this bucket seemed like a waterfall. It seemed like a huge wave covered him completely.

For a moment he believed that he was about to drown.

It turned out to be just a small bucket. It slammed its wooden bottom, landing on the floor near his face. Philip quickly breathed raggedly, his eyes fixed on this bucket and someone’s legs in short boots nearby, painted in black and yellow spots by the twilight and dim light from somewhere on the side.

His hands were tied behind his back, and he lay on the floor, resting his cheek on the wet, smooth stone.

Drops of water rolled down his face from his heavy hair. Water dripped from the tip of his long nose and hit the puddle that had flowed from him. The water soaked his shirt, and it stuck uncomfortably to his body. The surface of the puddle reflected glyphs from a nearby wall. He looked up from the floor slowly, painfully difficult. His head was pounding terribly. It was as if something important had been torn out of it, and the rest had been mixed thoroughly and shaken for good measure.

The legs belonged to a short girl. The face, impassive, like a mask, gray and cold in the twilight, seemed familiar to him. This is a girl who... who...

His thoughts were tossing and turning heavily. At first he could not understand where he was. But the cave seemed familiar to him. He knew that the drawings on its walls were called glyphs. He understood that he had been here for a long time. This was not the first time he had seen this girl.

Not right away, but he realized that he remembered her name. Luz... Luzura... A small ball of light, lit for him four hundred years ago.

And here, as if someone ran his hand over dirty glass (or shook off dust from an old picture... or rather not dust, but ashes), he clearly remembered how he was holding this girl in front of him, squeezing her in his fist. Although then she was much smaller. And then, as if hooked on this picture, another memory, how his palm, with sharp black claws, lies on her neck. How those huge eyes look at him with fear. Now she looked completely different. Standing over him, tied up and lying on the floor. And there was no hint in her gaze of unnecessary emotions. Nor any emotions at all.

Philip closed his eyes for a moment. This is a dream. He's here again. After what he did last time (attacked her, seems? attacked Luz), it's no wonder he's tied up. But why is his head so heavy? And his body seems to go numb. It looks like he's about to lose consciousness.

He heard some movement and looked up at Luz again.

She waved her hand. Philip's gaze jerked to the side, snatching another figure from the darkness. It was a girl with bright hair, and she handed Luz some stick. Luz squatted down, causing Phillip to instinctively move away. Or rather, try. There was someone else standing on the other side of him. His back met legs that were solid, like columns, and someone’s staff hit the floor near his throat and stood up like that, hinting a threat. Philip froze.

Luz twirled the branch in her hands. Philip watched her with a slightly unfocused gaze as “palistrome... magic... power” slowly and reluctantly emerged in his head. He swallowed hard. And he realized that he had no power left at all. His vision went dark for a moment. He seemed to be on such a fine line between complete exhaustion and...

He was ready to go beyond this line at any moment. Only after one blink.

Golden-green smoke illuminated his face. It was absorbed almost by itself, through his nose, skin, and mouth open in a greedy breath. Philip almost choked on the warm, sweet smoke that poured onto his tongue. Inhale, exhale. A sip of fresh water would be less sweet for someone dying of thirst. His vision brightened slightly. The terrible numbness throughout his body began to subside.

He was expecting some words. For some reason, he was waiting for persuasion. He had a strong feeling that Luz should ask or demand something from him.

But this time she was silent. She didn't even look at him.

She simply rose from her haunches and walked away, clutching a broken stick in her hands. The one standing behind also moved away, the staff at his throat disappeared. Philip saw out of the corner of his eye that it was a stocky girl with glasses. They both disappeared somewhere out of his sight. Philip was slightly confused.

So what was it? Is this how negotiations are conducted? No, they undoubtedly managed to spark his curiosity, of course...

Philip began to stir. His body still obeyed with difficulty, but he pulled his legs closer to him, trying to rest his knees on the floor and rise. His attempts were stopped by thin stems growing from the floor, which entwined his body and pressed him back, preventing him from escaping. Philip twitched a couple of times. He strained his hands tied behind his back, trying to tear the plants. But he did not have enough strength for this.

It was uncomfortable to lie there. It was hard on the stone, it was cold in this hungry body. He breathed slowly and evenly, trying not to tremble too noticeably from the chill that gripped him. When he woke up, he was on the verge of exhaustion. He needed the strength that the tiny branch of palistrom gave him. This was enough for him to stop his limbs going numb. But it wasn't enough to feel good. He wanted more. He exhaled muffledly, trying to curl up into a ball. Of course, this would not have saved him from the cold, but he wanted to cover himself with a familiar-smelling cloak, which had replaced his blanket on the stone bed for the last few days.

At some point, a heavy, sharp ball of pain from hunger began to swirl inside him. Just a sliver of strength, and that was enough for his strange body to begin demanding more. Philip clenched his teeth heavily while this ball scratched and scraped in his stomach with its clawed paws. But soon the strength from the tiny branch that Luz gave him ran out and Philip went limp on the stone floor in his green bonds. And his body again began to tremble with unreal cold.

He lost track of time when his trembling passed, when his body became numb again and his consciousness began to dissolve into dark nothingness. If he could still feel emotions by the time this state came, it would have been fear. Because to lie like this, without the ability to even move, in complete powerlessness, and as if from the outside watching how less and less of you remains in you, is... unforgettably scary. But they turned him on his side by the shoulder and gave him sweet smoke. And he began to breathe loudly and frequently, closing his eyes in momentary bliss.

Luz and, apparently, that strong girl were nearby again. The latter held his shoulders while Luz broke the second stick near his face. Philip inhaled greedily, feeling a sweet shiver rolling through his shoulders and arms. But later, when Luz picked up the third branch, he tensed slightly.

Philip thought he guessed what they wanted to achieve. And he began to resist.

It turned out that the girl with glasses was nearby for a reason. When he tried to turn his head away from the next branch given by Luz, to twist and get away from the smoke coming out of it, the girl grabbed him by the throat and the back of his head. And he involuntarily inhaled such a sweet aroma, such a gentle smell of power, which dissolved without a trace like luminous smoke in his pupils. Then they released him and left him lying on the floor again.

After this amount of palistrom he almost felt good.

He was somewhere on the brink, on the golden mean between complete exhaustion and “you can live”. On the very brink where at any moment his own body will begin to eat itself out of hunger. But not so weak that he can’t sleep, probably.

It was hard on the stone. Each of his bones turned sharp and protruding, as if on purpose. He was lying half-sided, almost on his stomach. It was more convenient this way so that the hands tied behind his back wouldn’t go numb. With each breath, the shirt, which had become tight in this position, was pulled stiff over his chest. And the floor kept preventing him from taking a deep breath. His pelvic bone somehow rested exceedingly awkwardly against the hard stone. He felt with his cheek how unnaturally smooth the floor in the cave was. But these were all such little things. He had something to compare it with. Next to the tremors of that terrible insatiable hunger, all this discomfort now seemed almost blessedly quiet. The calm before the storm. Philip understood that hunger would come very soon. His only chance to avoid attacks of pain was to fall into a saving sleep.

Stillness and measured breathing did their job. His eyes closed, and his mind began to sink into a calm slumber, habitually moving away from his sick, half-dead body. The harmonious nervous breathing of five non-humans and one human stopped reaching him. It seemed as if he was in bed. It was like someone was holding his hand. And between dream and reality, already both here and there, all that was left was to take a step...

Reality splashed him with a bucket of cold water. This one reality he liked least of the two. He twitched, breathing loudly and blinking rapidly.

Luz stood over him with a bucket. Drops slowly fell from its rim and hit a puddle on the floor. Philip looked at Luz with wide eyes from under the wet strands that had fallen onto his face.

“Your way of avoiding responsibility is terribly infuriating, you know?”

Philip swallowed, looked down at her legs in front of his face, gasping for breath.

“But this time I won’t let you just run away. No sleeping spell. No sleep at all. Not until I hear from you what I want.”

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. The abrupt awakening made him afraid.

“Did you think it would be difficult to understand why you attacked me?”

Philip was silent and looked forwards. His heart beat loudly in the chest, counting down the time until the fit.

Now he understood what was happening. And he shuddered with horror.

Oh no, he certainly won't be allowed to just fall asleep this time.

“Did you find it laughable? The way we ourselves were forced to put you to sleep and leave again with nothing. You're having fun, right? Trying my patience?”

Philip began to breathe faster and heavier again. He involuntarily shrank and twisted his neck at a strange angle. This feeling in the depths of his stomach, he already knows, will develop in half a minute into a series of spasms and knock all the air out of his lungs. Making him grind his teeth in pain.

“Well,” Luz glanced over his tense body. “Let's see how patient you can be.”

Philip tried to catch her eye. She didn't allow it.

“Causing more pain than your curse does may be almost impossible.”

Philip coughed, spitting out the dirt flowing from his throat onto the floor in front of him, squeezing into a ball and trying not to choke on it.

“But I can let your curse consume you,” Luz said, looking from under half-open eyelids somewhere completely away from him.

She spoke terribly indifferently for her heavy words.

“This... this is inhumane,” his muffled whisper could barely be heard.

It's not like he was trying to appeal to anyone's conscience. It’s not that he hoped to reach anyone with these words. Witches shouldn't care about this. And Luz... Luz knows too well what it is to be a human in the demon realm. She saw how Philip himself realizes the concept of “humaneness”.

No, he doesn’t remember when and how, and who he was for this girl before, but... he just knows. She may have learned humaneness from him.

She didn't even bother to respond to his words. She just turned away.

“This is inhumane,” Philip repeated quietly.

Luz, with her back turned to him, clenched her fists heavily.

Philip took a deep breath. He exhaled. He tried to breathe again. And began to convulse.

His attack passed within a few minutes. It left him lying on the floor, panting and afraid to move. And realizing that this is just the beginning. Several stems that held his body lay in pieces nearby. Philip closed his eyes.

But what an elegant solution, he thought distantly. Of course, why torture a person if you can simply not alleviate their suffering.

And how long can this last? Until I say “I give up”?

Philip grinned to himself. As if in response to the question, he shook his head slightly. Stubbornness is all he has left. You will not get it.

The second time, with his tossing in the heat of the attack, he broke some of the bonds and found himself facing the opposite wall. And saw, after he was able to catch his breath and blow the hair off the forehead, all the company. Nobody was looking at him. Everyone was hiding their eyes. Philip smiled to himself again.

He was bent in half from hunger again and again. He tried, breathing deeply and often, pulling his legs tied at the ankles closer to his stomach, to somehow relieve the pain inside, growing with each new spasm. The pain came in waves, throbbing and flaring up. One, his whole body is shaken by trembling. Two, the muscles tense as if they were ready to tear. At the third spasm in a row, overlapping the previous ones, superimposing on them, he could no longer hold back a short painful exhale through his teeth. Some strangely tremulous pride forced him to remain silent and endure for a long time. But, probably, after a few hours he eventually began to moan out loud. He understood this, not hearing himself because of the ringing in his ears, only because he saw by chance, opening his eyes as if burned by the heat of his torment, how the witches began to tremble with each new attack of his, how Luz’s fists clenched in time with his sighs, with her evil look at the wall in front of her.

And yet, they approached him again, after many, many hours, and again forced him to inhale smoke from a broken branch, when the attacks weakened and came to naught, when he tried to fall into the unsteady oblivion of exhaustion. Philip began to struggle, and now he was held by two people: a girl with glasses and a basilisk that had taken the form of a human. Luz grabbed him by the jaw and practically shoved the stick into his mouth. And goosebumps of short-term pleasure rolled through his body as the smoke was absorbed into his palate. And he already hated the taste of palistrome resin, which now meant: in half an hour it would hurt.

Oh, that was terribly painful. It hurt more every time.

He could no longer move much; any movement felt like a lightning strike on his exposed nerves. But when an attack came, the body tensed up by itself, and he rested the back of his head on the floor, clenching his teeth and closing his eyes tightly, arched and froze like that for long minutes, only shuddering violently when a new wave of pain came.

And he fell to the floor again, breathing loudly and abruptly, and quietly gasping almost out loud, because he hardly had enough strength for pride. Only when time passed a little, and his breathing slowed down slightly, he pulled himself together again, closing eyes and forcing himself to be silent.

And then it was repeating. Again. And again.

Sometimes he wanted to sleep. But they always had a bucket of water ready.

“If you had been a little more pliable, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Justifying Luz's words, Philip did not answer her.

They stopped feeding him sticks. Maybe the palistrom was exhausted, maybe such literal violence was still too much even for such a strong Luz. But they poured water on him steadily as soon as he showed even a hint of drowsiness. And without replenishing energy, he wanted to sleep more and more.

Even if there is disagreement in their team, there is no way they will show it to him. Even if everything that happens is entirely Luz's initiative, they always discuss it before going into the cave. They plan several clear steps and calculate a behavioral strategy. And they act as a single monolithic force. It was so before, and so it was this time. It didn't matter how much effort it took for Luz to convince them to go along with it. And even if a young non-human with crimson eyes who was very similar to his brother looked like he is about to have a hysterical break, even if another boy was defiantly folding his arms across his chest, not helping those who pour water on Philip, and if a girl with glasses was putting hand on Luz's shoulder and looking into her eyes, as if asking, “Are you okay? Can you still continue?”… Even if they have internal disagreements and problems with what is happening, they will stick to the plan no matter what. Even if it is too much for each of them individually to torture someone for the first time, they can do what is needed. Because they are together. And collective responsibility frees their hands. And the end justifies the means.

They were pouring water on him and the drowsiness was going away. There were often pieces of ice and snow in the water, but Philip did not feel the cold from it. Although his body must have felt it, because after this there was no sleep in his eyes. But he no longer even felt hungry. He didn't even feel the passage of time. The only thing that gave any idea of how much time had passed was the number of buckets spilled on him. And sometimes he heard, even though they spoke little, one of the children mention what time of day it was.

The nightmare did not stop for two “nights” mentioned out loud and one “day”.

“You will make an everlasting oath” Luz leaned close to him, and one could see that there were deep shadows under her eyes. “You will swear not to attack me and my friends. And to help us. And then I'll let you rest.”

Philip was looking at one point and did not move. Didn't even breathe. He didn't have the strength for it.

“Damn you stubborn goat,” Luz muttered, gritting her teeth.

Philip would have bet he was more of a stubborn deer.

Somewhere on the edge of consciousness, the pain that had recently been experienced still remained. Sometimes, an involuntary trembling began to hit him, and he was trembling like that, sighing convulsively, for a long, long half hour or an hour, pressing his knees closer to himself. Then he was released from this, and he lay on the floor like a corpse, with half-open eyes, staring in front of him. It was very close to the state in which the darkness of unconsciousness would simply cover his mind, no matter how much more water was poured on him. He found himself almost looking forward to this as a chance to finally stop feeling the pain. But if they want to continue the torture...

They'll have to feed him again.

Luz was looking at him with helpless, tired irritation. With some strange, achingly sad emotion. With something that Philip could not read nor sense, causing her to furrow her eyebrows and curl her lips. And look away from him, unable to continue looking. And throwing another branch of palistrom on the floor, say one unthinkable word, loudly dropping the silence of the huge cave:

“Enough.”

And that was the end of it.

Somewhere nearby there was a sigh of relief. It even seemed to Philip that it was not just one sigh. Several non-humans exhaled simultaneously and in unison. Then someone picked him up. With such care, as if he were glass. His eyes readily closed, even a little before his shoulder blades touched the stone, not as hard as the floor, with a cloak spread on it. The familiar greenish smoke, giving warmth and an ephemeral moment of silence, was almost sickening. He no longer even had the strength to be grateful to fate, to higher powers, to God himself for the long-awaited calm.

~

The light from the window hurts his eyes and hits his nerves.

Caleb, standing in the bedroom doorway, looks at him in disbelief for a moment, then rushes to his bed.

“Oh, Philip, dear,” Caleb presses him to his chest convulsively, almost painfully.

“What's the matter?” Philip asks in surprise.

From sleep he is wet as a mouse. Either he was so sweaty, or Caleb was also pouring water on him.

Caleb's eyes are still filled with the fear he recently experienced.

“Pip, you haven’t woken up for three days.”

Philip shakes his head vaguely. The room before his eyes is spinning slightly. It's like he's on the verge of fainting from hunger. But he doesn't want to eat at all. He is exhausted, as if he had never slept at all.

“I’m so tired, Caleb,” Philip closes his eyes heavily, resting his head on his brother’s chest. “You can’t imagine how tired I am.”

“Just don’t sleep, don’t sleep, please!”

His heart is beating wildly under Philip’s ear. Caleb is shaking visibly.

“I won’t fall asleep. I'm here. Everything is fine,” Philip barely moves his lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For waiting.“

Caleb takes a shuddering breath, his hands relaxing slightly.

“You scared me so much, baby.”

Caleb nuzzles his shoulder and exhales calmly. Affectionately strokes Philip on the back. They sit hugging each other and clinging very tightly to each other. It’s as if each of them is afraid more than anything in the world of losing the other.

“What did you do while I was away?”

“Still the same. There was a lot of work left in the forest after the fire.”

Philip realizes that Caleb has been collecting and cleaning old paintings for three days.

Philip is sitting in a tub filled with apples.

“Get out of there.”

“I feel perfectly good here.”

“Philip…”

“Bury me under the apples,” Philip asks dramatically, placing the back of his hand to his forehead. “Oh, I'm dying. It is my last will that the grave be made of apples.”

“What a stupid will, your highness,” Caleb says seriously, kneeling next to the tub on one knee.

The thatched canopy above them sways slightly in the gusts of wind. Pieces of the sky are visible in the holes made by the rain. The sky is blue this day.

“Hey, it’s either good or nothing about the dead. So it's a normal will.”

“Oh, speaking of your will— I’ll be right back,” Caleb gets up and moves to the corner of the house, where a long woodpile and a tall barrel are located under a canopy against the wall.

Philip thoughtfully digs into the apples as best as he can. The tub is quite large, with some effort it will actually fit.

Caleb suddenly jumps up to him with a bucket, and Philip screams, jumping out of the tub. The apples splash out to the sides in a red fountain when he, clinging to the wooden edge, flies over the side straight from the position in which he began to bury himself. Water pours into the place where Philip was a second ago.

Caleb looks at the empty bucket with regret.

“Hey, that’s no fun…”

Then he looks up at Philip. And his eyebrows rise in surprise.

“Pip? Is everything okay?”

“Not the water,” Philip wheezes in a cracked voice.

For some reason he is holding his chest and breathing heavily. For some reason he feels terribly uneasy.

Caleb looks at him carefully, frowns and throws the bucket on the ground.

“Sorry. Sorry... You wanted a pool…”

“What?” Philip glances up at him nervously.

“Swimming pool, Pip,” Caleb repeats softly. Then he walks towards him, watching his reaction. “Are you alright?”

Philip leans against the wall of the house. He sighs, closing his eyes.

“Yes. Just... let's go without water for now.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?” Caleb asks in a businesslike manner.

Philip thinks for a second.

“The dream,” he says briefly.

Caleb grimaces. And he frowns even more.

“What the– What were they doing?”

“They were pouring water on me,” Philip laughs for some reason.

But Caleb is silent, and his face remains serious and thoughtful. Philip sighs deeply again. The momentary fear is gone now. He even thinks that he wouldn’t mind going swimming today. He needs to visit Fred at the pond.

“That girl came up with a great idea,” Philip says slowly, looking into the distance, to where the grass sways in the wind on the field. Like waves. “They didn’t let me sleep for a couple of days. They expected me to break down and give up.”

Philip smiles, but his eyes remain cold.

“I won.”

And he looks at Caleb. For some reason his brother has suddenly turned pale.

“You weren’t allowed to sleep for several days?” he asks in a strange voice.

Philip raises his eyebrows.

“What?”

“And you haven’t woken up all this time, Philip? Here, I mean.”

It gets to Philip. He bites his lip and looks away. Well, if you've already said this much, you might as well also share the terrifying truth about the curse that haunts you.

“The hand too,” Philip muttered, looking at the toes of his dirty, scratched feet, “was broken in the dream. Remember what I said, it fell off there. And my back…”

Caleb rubs his face with his palm, sucks in air through his teeth. For some reason, Philip feels shame and guilt.

“I... I don't know. This is a dream, right? But for some reason it is too realistic. But at the same time... there are creatures that do not exist in reality. Witches and demons. And magic... And the same thing is repeated endlessly, as if it were some kind of punishment or... maybe... maybe it’s…”

“Don’t say it,” Caleb stops him, raising his hand. “I understand what you want to say. Don’t.”

Philip again looks down at the trampled ground. He squeezes his fingers on the warm log of the wall behind him.

“But this... this is logical, right? Remember, people with a left hand are susceptible to the influence of evil. And the fact that in a dream I go to hell…”

“You are not influenced by evil, Philip,” Caleb steps towards him and persistently pulls him into his arms. “I don’t know what your dreams mean. Maybe it's magic. Perhaps you have been cursed. But what happens is not your fault.”

Caleb’s hand rests soothingly on the back of his head. Then he says, confidently and firmly:

“This is not real. It's just a nightmare. And we can get you out of there. Surely there are other people with similar problems. We'll figure out a solution.”

“I’m the only person there,” Philip mutters, hugging his brother’s belt. He corrects himself, “one of two.”

“And she’s sleeping too?” asks Caleb.

“You know, sometimes it seems to me that she’s stuck there, just like me. And just doesn’t want to get out, for some reason.”

“If that’s the case, have you thought about helping her? Maybe death will free her and she will wake up? Maybe you both could get out this way,” Caleb suggests.

Philip clutches the shirt on his brother's back.

“I don’t know... No... I don’t think so. You know, I couldn’t get out of there if I was close to death. I was just plunging into some kind of... Eh... Nothingness. But I didn't wake up. I stayed there until one of them fed me with magic power.”

Yes, when the energy flows out of him almost completely, when the basilisk sucks everything out of him without a trace, leaving him a second away from starvation, it is simply impossible to sleep. Probably the body needs at least some energy for the consciousness to continue to work. If there is no power at all, consciousness disintegrates along with the body. Spreads into a viscous rotten slurry. Turns into nowhere and nothingness.

No, of course, this is just a dream, and in reality his body is intact and healthy here, but... it seems that this dream has its own laws, like reality. And while he remains there, he is forced to play by the rules of that world. As if he really could die there forever... and never return home.

“Hey, you didn’t tell me about this,” Caleb releases Philip from the hug, but only to squat down next to him, take Philip’s hands in his own and look into his eyes. “Listen, this is... Everything you say scares me. And how your dream constantly affects reality. First it was just your hand, then you couldn't walk. Also this now. So you could literally die there? And not wake up? Please promise me that you will be more careful. If you continue to talk to them like that, what if they leave you completely exhausted? And then just leave?”

Caleb bites his lip, looks away for a moment, and sighs as if it’s not easy for him to decide something. Covers his eyes. Then he looks at Philip, and his look already collected and confident.

“Philip, promise that you will act as if what is happening there is real. Don't neglect your safety.”

Caleb looks really scared. Looks at Philip pleadingly.

“Please, Philip. Promise me to be careful. Until we figure out what's happening to you.”

Philip is silent for a long time, looking at his hands in his brother’s.

~

One of the torches in the throne room barely smolders, burning the remaining oil in a huge bowl. One of the columns in the throne room is cut by claws and cracked under terrible blows. One of the tall doors opens slowly and silently. But Philip feels the movement of air.

He is trying to get up. His breathing is ragged and his voice is failing him.

“Not now. Out!”

Black and red circles splash before his eyes.

“Uncle... it's me, Hunter…”

“Ah, Hunter,” Philip exhales. He feels better from the sound of familiar voice. “Did you bring what I asked for?”

“Sorry, there are no palismen. I sent a detachment to search for new ones. They're on their way.”

Philip closes his eyes helplessly. The realization that he will have to endure the pain longer makes him feel weak, and he allows himself to sink back to the floor, breathing heavily. The Titan's heart beats above the throne in takt with his sighs.

Hunter approaches him, his steps echoing loudly from the high ceiling. Through the veil of pain, Philip sees a vague silhouette in a white cloak, and when this silhouette sits on the floor not far from him, he realizes that his nephew is no longer wearing a mask. Somewhere during the attack, his mask was lost too. The imperial robe remained, spreading around his pain-weary body.

Philip reaches out to his nephew with gold-clad fingers.

“Come here.”

Hunter is afraid. Philip smells his fear. But he approaches, stepping on the floor with his palms and knees. He sits down next to Philip, and his uncertainty rings in the air.

“Give me your hand,” Philip asks.

Hunter hesitates, and Phillip waits, holding his open palm forward. The fabric rustles, Hunter carefully places his hand in Philip’s. And Philip realizes that he has taken off his glove. A slight magical effort, and the golden glove also disappears from Philip’s hand. He closes his fingers. He squeezes warm hand tightly.

And then the pain comes in waves over and over again, leaving him gasping and writhing on the floor. And squeezing the other’s hand, probably to the point of bruising. The hand doesn’t try to break free and doesn’t let go. And Philip clings to it as the last solid bastion of reality.

At some point in his existence, Philip was faced with a big problem: his body was strong, almost immortal, but this sometimes was turning against him. Without energy, it fought so desperately for life that it caused unbearable pain. It tried to pull energy from itself, although for a long time it could only take it away from others.

God save him from ever finding himself in a state where he has too little strength to rise to his feet. But enough that his own body, which has become a curse, turns the remains of his existence into a slow agony.

~

“Don't be afraid. Do you remember what we talked about? Just behave yourself. I know you're good at pretending. Pretend to be a good boy.”

Philip sighs heavily, settling down on the bed, covering his legs with a soft woolen blanket.

“I’m not afraid,” he answers firmly. “I'm strong there. I'm not scared of anything.”

Caleb shakes his head.

“You are self-assured.”

“Because I know what I’m capable of,” Philip retorts.

Caleb looks at him with a smile. So loving and sincere. But a little sad.

Phillip reaches out to hug him, and Caleb gladly allows him.

“I sometimes confuse where reality is and where it is a dream,” Philip whispers, like the worst secret.

Caleb freezes. As if even afraid to breathe. It was as if Philip's words had taken him by surprise and frightened him.

“You're real, aren't you?” asks Philip, quietly sniffling. “Not like that Caleb from my nightmares?”

“And what about that Caleb?” the brother asks worriedly.

“He is very similar to you,” Philip holds on to brother’s shirt. “But only externally.”

Caleb is silent thoughtfully for a minute. His hand begins to stroke Philip on the back, and gives him an incomparable feeling of peace.

“But didn’t you ask what his name is?”

“Somehow it didn’t occur to me,” Philip admits in surprise.

Caleb laughs quietly, ruffling the hair on top of his head.

“Well maybe he’s not Caleb at all.”

Not Caleb? Yes, indeed, and maybe he’s not that similar after all? Philip tries to remember the details of the dream, but cold and hunger emanate from there, and he shudders and shakes his head. No, this won't happen again. He wouldn't allow anything like that to happen in this dream again.

He decided two things for himself that day.

First, as Caleb asked, he would be more careful. The last thing he would like to do is be stuck in an illusory world, unable to wake up at home. This means that he will have to try not to be a brute, which, of course, will not be easy and will certainly be much less fun. He has to collaborate with witches. Help them correct what was caused by careless handling of the portal. And second...

This portal will be useful for him too.

Chapter Text

“What is your name?”

Not-Caleb blinked in confusion.

“Don’t you remember?”

Philip saw no point in answering this question. So he continued to look expectantly. The young non-human, who was so clearly similar to his brother, nervously licked his lips, looking somewhere past Philip.

“I'm Hunter.”

“Stupid name,” Philip snorted.

Hunter raised his eyes in surprise and laughed unexpectedly lightly.

“Agreed. The one who gave it clearly did not suffer from too much imagination.”

Philip was still sitting there, on this strange stone lodgment, clasping his knees with his hands and looking ahead. Hunter was sitting on the edge of the lodgment at a respectful distance and avoiding looking him in the eye. As always.

It seemed like just a few minutes ago Philip was lying in his bed. Caleb's hand seemed to leave his shoulder, and his brother put out the candle, plunging their bedroom into darkness. And Philip closed his eyes, turning away from the window, where the stars were winking through the curtains and the growing sickle was smiling. And then he felt someone shaking him by the same shoulder. And he opened his eyes. And glyphs were winking at him from the ceiling. And next to him, instead of Caleb, it was not him at all. Why. Why the hell? Why can't he just stay home?

“Why do you come to me so often?” Philip asked, addressing almost no one. “Leave me alone.”

Hunter seemed to frown awkwardly. Simultaneously dismayed by his question and ashamed.

“We need your help.”

Philip buried his forehead on his knees.

Again. He's here again. And again there was pain throughout his body and cloudy circles before his eyes. The sensations were so familiar and so tormenting for him. How tired he is...

There was an awkward and tense silence for a while, almost palpably drowned out by Hunter's thought process. Then he finally exhaled, lowering his tone with confusion and fear:

“Wait, you don’t remember me…”

Silence.

“Demons... this is bad…”

Philip glanced sideways at him, turning his head slightly. Hunter looked as if a bag of kittens had been drowned before his eyes. Why, Philip thought, should I remember you? In vain I started asking about the name...

“You really... oh, do you even remember why we left you tied up that one time?”

“Which time?” Philip frowned.

Hunter was silent, looking at him for several long seconds.

“That time when... when you asked us not to leave you here alone.”

Philip raised his head and pressed his lips into a thin line. What is he even talking about?

“I wouldn’t ask for something like that,” irritation poured into his voice.

Hunter seemed quietly terrified.

“Do you even remember who you are?”

Not to say that he lost his temper. But the pity in Hunter’s eyes, such undisguised and melancholy pity, made his teeth clench so tightly, and a stifling wave of anger rose in his chest and...

He quickly —faster than Hunter apparently expected from him in such a state— raised his hand against the boy.

“I’m the one who can break your spine with one movement,” he said coldly, grabbing Hunter, who was sitting just an arm’s length away, by the neck. Not allowing him to recoil, and looking firmly into his instantly widened eyes. He even pulled the boy slightly towards himself, not without difficulty overcoming the resistance, bringing their faces closer to each other. “Will such a definition satisfy you?”

“It will. Let me go,” Hunter wheezed, clutching Philip’s thin hand.

Philip unclenched his fingers.

Hunter jumped up from the lodgment and quickly took a couple of steps back, widening the gap, still holding his throat with caution. Philip was looking at him with a heavy glare from under his brows.

And he himself tried to quietly catch his breath.

Like any active action lately, this breakthrough was difficult for him. He was desperately short of breath now. The cave, with Hunter frozen opposite him in a defensive stance, was swaying barely noticeably. Oh God. How annoying it was. If the situation doesn't change, he'll die here. He will simply die from exhaustion. Even his infinitely durable body could not survive an eternity in such a state. Damned branches are not enough for him.

“So do you remember,” Hunter repeated insistently, breathing heavily, “or not?”

What a persistent child, Philip winced. But he had to think the answer through.

Should he remember him? He probably should. Hunter reacted too harshly to his question about the name. But he doesn’t remember... He doesn’t remember much at all. And if Hunter understands this, Philip thought, maybe they will finally leave the cave. If they think that he is not the one they need... But then... Philip licked his lips. If they left now, he would remain in this cave forever. No one will probably wake him up for a certain long time. But if the need suddenly arises, like this time, maybe someone will try again. Luz and company or someone else. Maybe they won't care that he's a little different from the Belos they all know. Maybe they’ll even come up with a different way for him to exist and serve his sentence. In which he will not be able to return to his brother. One way or another, while he is in this cave, he will have to rely on the mercy of the victors. And everything that happens to him here will affect reality. And something can only be changed while he is awake here. While these children need something from him. Damn, why do they even come? He knew this...

Philip clenched his fists, making up his mind.

Caleb would take care of him if he were here. But since his brother is not here, he needs to take care of himself. He promised. Brother would like this.

Philip closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. And he raised his head, straightening up with dignity. Come out, Belos. There is a job for you. You need to be а calculating bastard.

“A lot of time has passed. I may have actually, um... forgotten some... minor insignificant details.”

Oh, that was probably cruel. The boy clearly shuddered and turned a little bit pale, as if he had been hit in the gut with something sharp. Philip grimaced slightly. Was he really someone important to this Hunter? And so, in passing, he casually called the memories of him “insignificant”. Poor child.

“How many... details?” Hunter asked, barely pulling himself together.

Philip raised his eyebrows vaguely.

“Crap. When Luz finds out...” Hunter muttered dejectedly.

“Oh, you won’t tell her,” Philip interrupted him insinuatingly.

Hunter threw a touchingly dissatisfied face at him.

“Do you really think I will lie to her?”

“Who said anything about lying? You can simply not voice certain nuances of my... condition.”

Hunter looked at him skeptically.

“I don’t want to worry our mutual friend again,” Philip added confidentially.

Hunter chuckled.

“Remind me, why should I do this?”

Philip shrugged.

“Don't even know. Perhaps if we keep this a secret, I can answer a couple of your questions?”

Hunter's eyes instantly widened and lit up, as if taking the bait. But after a second he frowned again.

“Do not fool me. How can you help us if you have amnesia, genius?”

“Well, even if the smallest part of my former knowledge about the structure of the Boiling Islands, artificial magic and the influence of the blood of the Titans on the world remained in my memories, I would know more than all the empty-headed coven heads and academics combined.”

Hunter narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips.

“You wouldn’t say that with amnesia. And you remember about Luz. Titan, are you just fooling me?!”

He doesn’t know that for me most of what I said is a meaningless set of words, Philip thought, lifting the corner of his lips.

“No, you know, my memory really fails me... I’m not so young anymore...” Philip shook his head with feigned regret.

“Oh, shut up! It's impossible to watch your acting efforts. Luz was right... but let's face it, you don't know how to press for pity.”

Philip wiped the expression of sadness from his face. His gaze became even and cold again. Yes, Hunter, of course I'm a terrible actor. Of course you figured me out. All this nonsense about leaky memory doesn’t stand up to even one skeptical glance now, right? It's as if I wanted to manipulate you by pretending to be mentally ill. As if I didn’t want Luz to find out, because she would immediately see through my game. And you, boy, are the most naive of the two of you.

“Don’t think I’m so naive,” Hunter said, answering his thoughts.

He was looking at Philip, and, as always, all the emotions were written on his face. Now he grimaced with disgust, now his mouth tight from offense, now, remembering something, he widened slightly his eyes. And the expression on his face went from just irritated to more dangerous.

“And that time–” Hunter clenched his teeth and seemed to be truly angry, “that time!” he was almost choking with anger. “You were pretending too!”

Philip did not try to dissuade him. Although he still didn’t understand what ‘that time’ Hunter was talking about, and why this was so important to him. And he still hated to think that he seemed to have forgotten and could not remember something humiliating. ‘You asked not to leave you alone.’ Damn, what a shame. But he wasn't going to tell Hunter about this. He just rolled his eyes slightly. It was better to let him think that Philip ‘that time’ played on his emotions.

“Bastard,” Hunter muttered. “What a bastard you are. What are you trying to achieve, huh? Make me mad?”

“And it isn’t that difficult, is it?”

Hunter took a step towards him. As if he wanted to hit Philip. A palisman even appeared in his hands. He had such a face that Philip really believed he would strike without holding back. But Hunter clutched the staff. Squeezed with all his might. In the silence of the cave, it was easy to hear the creaking of the leather of his gloves. With such a grip, the fragile tree could easily be snapped in half. Hunter exhaled heavily through his teeth and placed the end of the staff on the floor, looking down at Phillip.

“If you knew how you look now, you wouldn’t try to evoke pity,” he pointedly gazed at Philip from head to toe and looked into his eyes again. “How should I pity you even more?”

Philip clenched his teeth and felt the anger boiling inside again. If Hunter had said one more word, oh, he was almost ready to spend his small reserve of power on a short-term transformation and an attempt to slash this insolent face with his claws. He noted how the boy's fingers curled around the staff's shaft. And his seemingly open pose was ideal for both attack and defense. Somehow he knew that Hunter’s hand, if Philip suddenly attacked him, would shoot up an instant before, because tracking the direction of the attack by the position from which the blow was delivered is not a problem for a truly experienced fighter. And Hunter was watching him very carefully now.

You're asking for it, little boy, Philip narrowed his eyes, turning to him and throwing his legs off the logement.

As luck would have it, it was at that moment that his chest became tight. Oh no. Philip shook his head, feeling the for now soft lump growing heavier deep inside. He sighed with a wheeze. He grabbed his shirt. His own heart was beating quickly and rapidly into his fist.

Hunter was still watching him carefully, his stance unchanged, and Philip felt both funny and bitter at the same time. What a damn shame. The enemy seems to take him seriously. He even respects Philip as an enemy. But Philip in fact doesn't pose any real threat. Not in a fair fight. Not now.

Out of sheer stubbornness, he rose to his feet, noting that he was taller than Hunter by a good half head. He tried to calm his heavy breathing, clenching his fists. They held each other's gaze for several seconds. Then Philip sank back, clutching the edge of the logement. He bent over slightly, trying to stop the nausea. The cave swayed all around. He closed his eyes.

“Okay. Let’s just…” Hunter exhaled.

The hands clutching the logement trembled slightly. If I don’t throw up, I’ll be a hero, Philip decided.

There was a sudden touch to his shoulder, and he shuddered, recoiling.

“Let's not do any tricks, alright?”

The hand did not try to hold him in place; instead, Hunter, standing next to him, bending slightly, handed him a palistrom. Philip looked up at him, breathing heavily. He didn’t notice... for some reason he didn’t even hear Hunter approaching him. Has he really fallen out of reality? He was so overwhelmed by the feeling of weakness… how disgusting. How disgusting to be so vulnerable.

Philip took the branch. Hunter immediately straightened up and took a step back. The branch crunched in Philip’s hands. A grain of strength, and now it’s easier for him. It's like he's terminally ill. One of those who drinks potions for pain on a schedule, washing them down with potions that in turn will eliminate the side effects of painkillers. Or like a drug addict. Hopelessly dependent, forced to either satisfy the constant urges of his substance-corroded body, or howl on the floor, bent mercilessly by spasms of withdrawal.

The fragments of the branch flew to the floor, thumping against the stone in silence. Philip sat with his eyes closed, quietly absorbing the sensation, almost like relief.

He still wanted more.

Hunter was still standing in front of him, putting his staff away and crossing his arms over his chest. And he was looking at Philip thoughtfully. And Philip, moving away and climbing back onto the stone with his feet, was looking at him in response.

“You need a palisman,” stated Hunter.

Philip looked at him from under his brows.

“But first, we also need something from you. You remember, right?” Hunter emphasized the last word in a slightly ironic tone.

Phillip rolled his eyes again in irritation.

“The beginning of our conversation was stupid. But you said,” Hunter swallowed, “about the portal. Are you really ready to help?”

“I said maybe,” Philip corrected. “And I said ‘answer questions’.”

Hunter waited.

Philip slowly took a breath. Portal. Exactly. Yes, that's what they need... And not only them.

“You know, you’ve tired me a little,” Philip let his voice become sincere, “and even though I don’t care about your portal,” to make it easier to hide a little lie behind the truth, “so be it, if we agree on a price...”

“Will the palismans be the price?” Hunter interrupted.

“You probably have nothing more to offer me…”

“Titan take you!” Hunter suddenly shouted, throwing his hands up and shaking his fists angrily. “This is literally what we proposed initially!!! Are you just taking the negotiations back to where we started?! Why couldn’t you agree right away?!”

“Well, really,” muttered Philip, a little taken aback by such pressure, even slightly leaning back, away from the angry boy, “would that be interesting?”

Inarticulate sounds of primal rage came from Hunter. Philip looked away somewhere on the floor, blinking in surprise. Hm. He seemed to have succeeded in his aspiration to be as annoying as possible.

He wondered how Luz would react…

“Is this what I proposed from the very beginning?!” Luz roared, throwing up her hands in an attempt to turn over the furniture that was missing from the cave due to an oversight by the interior designers.

Philip was pleased. Oh, how pleased he was. It was a real pleasure to see a face twisted with anger for the second time that day. Although these were different faces, their expressions ended up being surprisingly similar.

After he considered his conversation with Hunter to be over, Philip managed to fall asleep to the boy’s displeased grumbling, wake up alone, find several branches of palistrom carefully left for him nearby, fall asleep again, and only then, finally, open his eyes to meet them with Luz looking closely at his face.

And then, without allowing her to open her mouth, he immediately stunned her with an offer to make an everlasting oath. And he watched with pleasure as the girl’s face lengthened.

“How long did we suffer with him?!” Luz raged, screaming into the air as if addressing God himself. “How much palistrom has already gone? Not to mention the palisman! And this... he gives it away?!”

“Yes, I know!” Hunter was no less emotionally indignant. “Just look at his face!”

They both stared angrily at Philip, who could not do anything about the satisfied squinting and trembling corners of his lips.

“Bastard,” Luz hissed.

“Share,” Hunter exhaled, trying to calm down, “what made you go our way?”

“I can’t stand watching for three days as a bunch of teenagers teeter on the brink of hysteria again,” Philip said sourly.

“Wow, someone's empathy has awakened?” Hunter grinned ironically, albeit a little wryly.

“And it was a rude awakening.”

It was clear from Hunter’s face: he didn’t believe this explanation one iota. It is probably clear from Philip’s almost imperceptible smile that he hardly uttered a word of truth. But, of course, they will not hear his true plans. It is naive of them to even expect this.

“Okay, we didn’t expect it to be quick and easy,” the dark-skinned guy intervened in the conversation and literally climbed between Luz and Hunter, hugging both of them by the shoulders. “But we achieved... uh, at least something, I guess. Let's take advantage of the moment.”

“Okay,” Luz sighed, running her hand over her face. “And really, we should be happy. What luck, His Majesty has descended.”

Philip coughed.

“Yes, yes, you haven’t descended yet, I know. This is just the beginning,” she rolled her eyes. And sighed again. “I will talk. As usual.”

“This will take a long time,” the guy saddened, still hugging Hunter by the shoulders, when Luz slipped out from under his other arm and headed towards the logement with Philip sitting on it.

“A long time, yeh” Hunter agreed.

And they both moved away a little, choosing a spot not far from the lodgement. The other witches, together with the boys, now formed a semicircle armed with staves. And the basilisk stood closest to Philip. Obviously, no one was going to sit down on the floor relaxed this time. Consciously or not, everyone took a position from which it would be convenient to attack him at any moment. And Philip involuntarily felt satisfaction about this. Apparently, there will be no such disrespect as last time. Even Luz, much less carefree today, approached him with her staff ready for anything.

“Don’t even try to do any stunt,” she sat down on the stone opposite him, as far away as possible, tucked leg under herself, placing the staff on her knees.

Philip wanted to answer, but started to cough. Dirt poured from his throat, and he leaned over the edge of the logement, spitting onto the floor. And wincing from powerlessness in front of his own illness and shame for such a vivid manifestation of it.

“Nevermind…” Luz said, looking at it.

Philip wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He straightened up. It took him a lot of strength to look into her eyes directly and without emotion. To his displeasure, it seemed a flicker of sympathy flashed in her eyes.

Damned weakness. Damned pity. So humiliating.

“So you... are ready to make a deal,” Luz said slowly, affirmatively.

It was as if a gong struck somewhere in the distance, starting a new round of negotiations. Philip pulled himself together.

“I am ready to discuss its details.”

“We know each other’s conditions,” Luz hastened to dot the i’s. “Let's not beat around the bush. Yes or no?”

“It’s not that easy,” Phillip waved his hand, causing Luz to groan in disappointment.

“What else again?”

“On my part, I will need to guarantee your team’s safety. Are you, in turn, ready to do the same?”

Luz frowned.

“I was hoping we’d go with palismans.”

“Is this not such a big payment for you anymore?” Philip said with a grin.

Luz's gaze grew heavier, and with visible difficulty she managed not to look away. Yes, palismans are still a sensitive topic. But there was a precedent, and giving a living magical creature into the hands of a villain is no longer unthinkable.

“I planned to discuss their number. And strictly limit it to the necessary minimum.”

“Of course.”

“What other safety are you talking about, besides eliminating the symptoms of the curse?”

“I’m worried that if, for certain reasons, I suddenly begin to express dissatisfaction with our cooperation, you will take advantage of my promise of non-aggression. I would not like to repeat the water procedures.”

Luz paused.

“A natural concern. It turns out that it’s possible to scare you, eh, Steadfast Tin?”

“To be honest, I’m not even ashamed of it. What you did would never have been allowed during my reign, not even for the most dangerous criminals and enemies of the empire. There are much more ethical methods of inquiry and of subjugating another’s will.

Oh, it got to her. Even despite how confused his mind was from pain and lack of sleep during the torture, he then, apparently, correctly determined Luz’s attitude to everything that was happening. She must have been disgusted with herself. He will be able to put pressure on this for a long time. It is useful when your opponent feels sorry for you, although it is humiliating to take advantage of it. But when you are weak, there is nothing else left. There is no place for pride if life or sanity is at stake.

“Fine. You will take an oath not to harm us, I will swear the same to you.”

Philip nodded contentedly.

“But keep in mind that, as a last resort, we’ll just go away. We will leave you under a sleeping spell. Forever.”

Philip smiled at her affectionately.

“Oh, this would be ideal for me.”

Luz's eyes widened. Looks like she finally got it. However, only because Philip said it literally straight to the point. She could guess that he did not crave their company or awakening in general.

Did you think it would be difficult to understand why you attacked me?

Yes, he then attacked her (and later, when it didn’t work, also Hunter) precisely so that they were forced to activate the sleeping spell. And then they had to wait, he doesn’t know exactly how long, a day or two, maybe more, until its effect wears off completely, until Philip can be woken up. And she understood it. It really wasn’t difficult to guess this. But his actions could be mistaken for ordinary sabotage of negotiations. It could not have been obvious to them, living in this world, that it was unbearably unpleasant for him to be here. And how he longs every time to return home as soon as possible. Until this very moment when he voiced it out loud.

At the same time, he in fact prevaricated a little. After all, now returning home has become not his only goal. Maybe a couple of days ago he would have really done anything to just make them leave with nothing, to leave him alone, in the silence of the cave, asleep and motionless. But now... Now he had a chance to do something important. And for this he needs a portal...

But Luz surely doesn't need to know about his intentions.

“What if next time,” Luz suggested, thinking about his words, “you wake up and can’t sleep? Because the spell has changed— suddenly become anti-sleep for some reason?”

Philip pursed his lips.

“I hope such measures will not be necessary.”

“Depends entirely on you,” Luz narrowed her eyes.

“No, Luzura,” Philip shook his head. “It depends on you. Don't put responsibility for your decisions on me.”

Luz frowned.

“And if you decide to torture me again... Well, it’s your decision. But I hope you have enough conscience to at least look me in the eyes this time.”

It was as if she had been slapped on the face.

“Nice view, huh? A suffering enemy, flowing water,” he grinned wryly, looking into Luz’s pale face.

She pursed her lips and looked down.

The silence between them lasted more than a minute.

Luz said without looking at him:

“I did what I thought was right.”

“And that’s why you’re making excuses to me now?”

“No,” she nevertheless raised her eyes. And she repeated again, “I did what was necessary.”

Philip shook his head.

“Keep repeating it. Maybe you can convince yourself.”

Luz closed her eyes shut.

No, she behaved well for her age. But for some reason —while desperately hiding it from herself— she wanted to get Philip’s approval and understanding. (It’s as if she’s fourteen again, and he’s not even thirty. And he admires the glyph of light she lit.) And Philip himself, for some reason, wanted to say something... hmm, encouraging?

“Everything will fall into place when you lose the need to repeat to yourself that you were right. There is too much pity in you right now.”

Encouraging in its own way, of course. He said the word “pity” with undisguised disgust. No, you shouldn’t feel sorry for me, he thought. If you decided to do what you did, then in your opinion I am not worthy of pity.

“Do you consider pity a disadvantage?” Luz asked, a little surprised.

“Definitely.”

She thought for a moment. And then said quietly, firmly, weightily:

“Then I will never give up on it.”

Philip twisted his mouth.

“Then don’t try to threaten me. You’re too weak for this,” he spat.

Luz suddenly smiled. It was as if he was giving her a compliment. Philip narrowed his eyes, raising one eyebrow. Catching the expression on his face, Luz snorted.

“You are right. Forget about the threats. What do you want for helping us with the portal?”

“Finally, the good part. So first of all, I want to take off the bracers.”

“Oh don’t you also want me to put my staff up your–”

The dialogue began to acquire a purely business tone.

Members of Luz's team looked on irritably and, at the same time, tiredly. They huddled together out of boredom (while continuing to glare at Philip warily) and were interested in the dialogue to various degrees. In parallel with the human squabbles, commentary also took place among the witches, which Philip inadvertently followed out of the corner of his ear.

Particularly emotional bickering like “you puritanical, greedy piece of–” and “no, I don’t understand where the half-dead scum gets so much ambition” caused revival in the squad.

“The way she’s cussing him... it’s a sight to behold,” Hunter was smiling serenely, looking at Philip’s slightly twitching face.

“Am I the only one who feels spanish shame about everything that’s happening?” the basilisk, who now looked like a human girl of the same age as the other guys, grimaced.

“I would even say latin american shame,” the dark boy answered her rhetorical question with a sigh.

The basilisk choked on air and turned purple, trying to hold back the laughter bursting out.

“You know, I wouldn’t even mind going back to torture,” said the girl with glasses boredly, standing next to Hunter with her arms folded on her chest. “One way or another, this and that continues for what feels like an eternity, and is absolutely unbearable.”

“Well, I’m still interested in how this will end,” objected... Amity. Amity Blight, right? Luz called her that name in front of him, probably.

“It will end in a fight, I think. They are both at their limit already.”

“Oh, look, now he will answer her something…”

“Ooh, I know that gaze,” Hunter muttered. “This is not good. She got him there.”

“–Because all we need from you is an answer to the question: how to close the hole in space. This can't take a long time, can it?”

Philip's gaze was heavy, from under half-lowered eyelids.

“It can’t… right?”

Phillip was looking at her long and intently, so Luz became nervous.

“What?” she demanded.

“Miss Blight,” Philip said.

Everyone turned to look at them. It seemed like no one expected him to talk to anyone other than Luz at all. Or at least Hunter. Moreover, it was so official, and not “hey you”, for example.

“What?” Amity asked him in the same tone as Luz. However, unlike her friend, she was a little discouraged.

“Is your father still in business at Blight Industries?”

“Let’s say he is,” she, like the other witches, looked more and more confused.

“Then explain to Luzura how official research applications are compiled. If my memory serves me correctly,” he noticed out of the corner of his eye how Hunter grimaced at his words about memory, “your father, in addition to commercial activities, is also engaged in scientific activities.”

“Uh,” Amity blinked, “why should Luz know about the applications?”

“Because she has no idea now what she requires. And how much effort it costs. I want an official, formally-written request to study the effect caused by the influence of the portal on the fabric of the worlds.”

A long, stunned silence hung throughout the cave.

“You,” a breathless hiss, “do you want to bureaucratize our interaction? Are you kidding?!”

Philip glanced at Luz with narrowed eyes. And he tried not to look too malicious.

Amity had to jump up very quickly to intercept Luz, who rushed at him with her fists ready. Philip thought, watching how quickly and skillfully she pressed the struggling Luz to her with minimal effort, that she obviously had a lot of experience of this kind.

“I'll kill you! I'll kill you with my own hands, you nasty bastard! I'll shove the damned application form down your throat along with your teeth!”

“Don’t worry, I receive such requests all the time, they are not very difficult to prepare. On the contrary, it will help us clearly state what we actually want from him,” Amity admonished her, slowly dragging the ball of rage away from Philip.

“He’ll make you rewrite it at least three times,” Hunter warned, heading towards the girls. “And there are some nuances that have changed over ten years. Should we compile according to the old form?” he calmly asked Philip, stopping next to him.

Philip looked at his face carefully.

“The old one,” he said hesitantly. “Unless you have the latest version of the empire standard here so that I can familiarize myself with the new one.”

“So it’s the old one,” Hunter cheered up and continued moving. “It was less tricky than the current one.”

Philip followed him with a thoughtful gaze. This boy said “he will make you rewrite it”. It would be fine if he just guessed. It’s not difficult to understand that Philip wants to mock them a little more. But the tone, the confidence with which he said it. He had experience. And well, if only this was the only time he’d said something in such a knowing tone that only a person who had close contact with Philip could know...

Who is this guy, Philip asked himself, looking down at his hands. It could not be just a coincidence that he looks so much like his brother?

A second guy rushed past him with a notebook or something like a journal in his hands. He ran up to Amity, Hunter and Luz. The latter was already calming down. Although she was still throwing murderous glances towards Philip. Philip twitched the corner of his lips contentedly. It's such a pleasure to use a power available only to those above this world: annoying bureaucracy.

The basilisk and the girl with glasses were the last to join the others. As usual, the squad sat in a circle against the wall on their cloaks, kindling balls of light above their heads. For some time, sounds of intense struggle with pen and paper could be heard from them. Amity described the sections of the application in proper order and what they included, Hunter explained how they differ from ten-year-old standards, and wording options were expressed and discussed. Amity diligently wrote down the final result of the brainstorming session.

“Not bad,” Philip praised, running his eyes over the first version. “There are, of course, technical shortcomings... oh, no, this section will have to be completely rewritten. I apologize, no decent scientist would accept your request with such wording. The relevance is too vague.”

“The salvation of the world is at stake, how could it be more relevant?” Luz was indignant.

“Describe why saving the world is so important. How will its salvation affect the state of the manufacturing and scientific industries of the economy.”

“Luz, calm down,” Amity intercepted her friend’s hands, which were already reaching towards Philip’s throat. “This always happens. It's good he found fault with relevance, this is the simplest part.”

“These objectives are not acceptable either,” Philip stated vindictively, looking through the already altered and corrected piece of paper for the second time. “The goal is allowed to be so broad, but the objectives are not. At a minimum, it is necessary that the execution of each objective brings some tangible results. As a maximum, schedule deadlines. This will add points to your application in the eyes of the commission.”

“What commission?” Luz moaned tiredly.

“The commission is represented by me,” Philip explained.

“Why didn’t you tell us about the objectives right away?!”

“That’s what rereadings are for,” he kindly explained to Luz, who was gritting her teeth.

For the third time he read the application longer and more thoughtfully.

“Tolerable,” he gave the verdict.

“In his language it means ‘very good’,” Hunter said quietly in Luz’s ear.

“Now I need a piece of paper.”

“For what?” Luz was surprised.

Amity and Hunter looked at each other knowingly, and Luz, noticing this, tensed.

“Why do you need a paper?”

Meanwhile, Hunter reached the corner where they had been creating the application all this time, and brought clean paper and a pen.

Philip accepted them from his hands with a nod and placed the application and blank sheet in front of him.

“I will draw up a response to the petition.”

Luz closed her eyes. Slowly, slowly, she exhaled through her teeth.

“Be grateful that he voiced the corrections out loud,” Hunter put his hand on her shoulder.

Luz looked at him in horror and revulsion.

“Yes, this usually all happens in the form of correspondence. And an official person at the level of the Emperor takes from a month to infinity to respond to such petitions.”

Luz shuddered.

“Great Titan. What a nightmare.”

“It's always like this,” Amity said philosophically.

Philip diligently scribbled on his sheet of paper, periodically glancing at the application lying next to him.

They came to some conclusion after four long hours of bickering.

“No, the oath will only be about a guarantee of non-aggression on both sides. Provided that this is not required for self-defense,” Philip was breathing heavily, with wheezing, probably audible both for Luz and for her team, which had retreated again to a purely symbolic few meters. He was taking long pauses between sentences. Sometimes he closed his eyes to freeze for a moment, to calm the dizziness.

“Why not include the terms of our agreements in it?”

Luz looked tired too. It had been a long day for both of them. But, despite the fact that it was much more difficult for Philip, she spoke to him the same way as before, without focusing on his pitiful condition. Philip was grateful to her for this.

“Because it will put both of us in limits that we may not be able to fulfill. I may not find the answer to your question. You may not be able to fulfill your promises to ‘leave me alone forever’.”

Yes, during business negotiations, which were more like a scandal, Philip managed to bargain something for himself. Besides for the palisman, which he needs so much to even just wake up. Something he really lacks. That is the only thing he really would like to achieve in this world now. And although Luz didn’t seem to fully believe him, or at least didn’t understand why he wanted the entrance to his prison to be forever closed to everyone, she agreed to do everything in her power when he helped them to solve their little problem. After all, this request was much more harmless than one would expect from the former Emperor. (But... if he succeeds in what he has in mind, this, of course, will not be necessary at all.)

“Pfft, you’re right, it will be hard to resist the temptation to pester you even in the afterlife.”

“Well, you see,” Philip smiled sparingly, feeling the last of his strength leaving him with every second. “Therefore, the oath will only include a pact of non-aggression.”

“And this, obviously, will give you the opportunity to make additions to the terms of the oral agreement at any time convenient for you.”

Philip smiled a little more sincerely. Luz rolled her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said with a straight face, “for something at least.”

They have come a long way. As Luz’s friend correctly noted a little earlier this day, after so many days of fruitless attempts to extract at least one kind word from Philip, “they achieved at least something.” Philip, in turn, achieved everything he planned during this round of negotiations. And, good Lord, he was so tired.

The hand with which Philip squeezed Luz's palm, swearing not to attack her and her friends, was clearly trembling. Luz tactfully pretended not to notice.

An everlasting oath was made for them by the hand of Amity. Philip received a leather folder in which the kids collected all the data they had at that moment about the observed effect of the convergence of worlds. He thought briefly that they were very optimistic if they brought all the materials without knowing the results of the discussion in advance. And now there was only one thing left.

“Honestly, I hoped until the last moment that I would be able to convince you to eat only branches,” Luz regretfully took out of her bag what, upon closer examination, turned out to be very similar to a small fox.

“And do you know why I ended up getting a palisman?” Philip slowly picked up the wooden figurine, which shone blue in the uncertain light of the glyphs.

Luz watched his leisurely movements with a frown.

“Because you brought it with you,” Philip breathed out, looking into her eyes.

And clenched his fist.

The crack of wood made Luz flinch. Power flowed from the broken figurine.

Breathing suddenly became easier. For the last hour or two, hunger had almost become unbearable, despite the fact that Hunter always served him the palistrom tree on time. All that day Philip kept waiting for his left hand to start hurting in its usual place. It was very bad, and the branches did not help. But the palisman... a sweet shiver ran through his body. The power of a living soul curled up into a warm ball of light somewhere in the chest. This feeling of peace... For a week or two he will not fall apart from pain. Maybe more? He became so unpretentious and modest in his requests. For many, many days to come he will not feel nausea or hunger. He will not writhe on the floor and convulse. It can almost be called happiness.

He rose from the logement, maybe even too energetically, as if overwhelmed with enthusiasm. He looked around, and choosing the floor near the lodgement as his location, he squatted down, with his back to the kids who had gathered in a group again. From now on he basically planned to ignore them.

“You’re not going to draw potentially dangerous glyphs on paper, are you?” came a warning from behind him.

Philip just waved his wrist casually in the air, without turning around. Like, an everlasting oath, remember?

Luz sighed and turned to Hunter.

“It still seems to me that there is some kind of catch here.”

“You’re well done anyway. Now you can write down ‘I have outstubborned the most stubborn human on the Boiling Islands’ in your achievements.”

Luz laughed softly.

“Hey, really, the most? I thought this status should have been assigned to me a long time ago!”

“You are successfully laying claim to it, but... he lived for four hundred years on the energy of suppressed anger and, without naturally having magical abilities, not only became stronger than any witch on the Islands, but also seized supreme dominion. I mean, how much stubbornness did it take to do all this?”

“This is, surely, impressive, but… after all of it, he looks barely human.”

The pencil crunched in Philip’s palm.

Chapter Text

“But I don’t understand how? It's just a drawing!”

“Not just a drawing, Hunter. This is a pictogram. A formula for summoning magic.”

“Formula?” Hunter glances at his uncle.

Philip nods slowly, as if measuring a pause in the dialogue with his nod so that Hunter would comprehend his words and heed.

The child next to him, on a stool too tall for his own little legs, thoughtfully examines the drawing on the table in front of them. There, on a piece of parchment, a combination of several glyphs is drawn in pencil. Polylines connect the glyphs to each other, and the entire structure is enclosed in one common circle.

“You already know this symbol,” Philip says, and it’s not a question.

Hunter looks away in embarrassment. He shouldn't know what an air whirlwind spell looks like. He shouldn't even know how it works. And he definitely shouldn’t use spells read in books from the forbidden stacks of the emperor’s library, which are somewhere very close to wild magic.

“But you don’t understand how it works,” Philip states boredly.

Hunter shrugs, tilting his head.

“Meanwhile, the workings of this, like other pictogrammatic spells, is ensured by your favorite equations.”

The boy looks at Philip, all eyes.

“It can’t be,” it’s hard to tell what is more in Hunter’s voice: admiration or disappointment.

“You would have understood this if you had not run away from class on the topic ‘graphical representation of equations’.”

Hunter looks back at the paper.

“So this is the graph?”

“By quantifying the interactions of force flows, we can represent them in the form of a picture,” explains Philip. “From the drawing you can often immediately understand the result of adding certain glyphs.”

“But these drawings work in the opposite direction too!” Hunter exclaims, almost jumping on his stool. “Drawing makes magic… magifest… Why?”

“Why does the wind come?”

“What?” Hunter blinks his eyes.

“Why does the wind come, Hunter?”

“Why?” the boy obediently repeats after him.

“Because the trees sway,” Philip hides a smile in the corners of his lips.

Hunter squints at him, looking especially closely at the echoes of a smile. Hunter, judging by his look, senses a catch in his uncle’s answer. But his uncle can’t lie to him, right?

But the expression on his uncle’s face is serious again. And Hunter prepares to listen to his words. Because he knows that look. He knows well when and what to expect from his uncle. And now his uncle will definitely say something important.

“And the drawings invoke magic,” Philip’s voice becomes almost a secret whisper, “because glyphs are the language of The Titan.”

Hunter forgets how to breathe.

“Using pictograms, we call to Him,” Philip exhales.

“But why,” Hunter also whispers, clutching the stool under him and leaning towards Philip, “why then are they in the forbidden stacks?”

Philip looks at him slightly reproachfully and the tips of Hunter’s pointed ears turn pink.

“Because little children, who are forbidden to roam around the forbidden stacks, are not supposed to know about them,” Philip sighs heavily.

“But uncle,” Hunter looks at him pleadingly. “I'm already old enough! I was able to use this spell!”

“And here you definitely have nothing to brag about,” Philip’s tone instantly freezes, causing Hunter to shrink on his stool and look down. “Using new spells without understanding how they work is the last thing you should be proud of.”

“But uncle…”

“Even to annoy Kikimora,” Philip snaps.

They are silent for a while. But Hunter could never be silenced so easily. A minute later he looks up again with curiosity.

Philip looks at him with a demonstratively stern look.

“Well?”

“You use them yourself…”

“Unlike you, I can solve equations.”

“But…”

“And this helps me clearly calculate what effect I want to get from this or that combination. Without calculation, the effect will be unpredictable. If you don’t learn mathematics,” Philip raises his hand instructively, “how can you even expect to be a good mage?”

A finger encased in scales of golden armor lightly touches the boy’s long nose. Hunter snorts.

“But uncle, I don’t understand. What then is the point of such magic in practice? I mean, for example, in a battle. You can’t calculate all these combinations on the fly, right? What would you do, carry a notebook and pencil with you all the time?”

“If necessity forces you, you will,” Philip sternly answers this. He adds, a little feignedly grumpily, “how lazy young people are these days.”

“Notebooks aside,” Hunter shakes his head. “How many of these formulas do you need to remember?

“Lazy and gormless,” Philip rolls his eyes, causing Hunter to snort again.

“But if,” Philip continues, as if taking pity, “you don’t have enough diligence to not only solve equations, but also memorize ready-made spells,” after these words, Hunter sits frowning and clenching his hands into fists on his knees, “there are ways to put magic into an object.”

Hunter quickly forgets about sulking at the reproaches. With glittering eyes, he clings to the corner of the table where...

“That’s exactly how my staff works,” Philip lifts the corner of his lips, looking at him.

He even takes the staff in his hands. The scales on the gloves clink slightly. He runs his fingers tenderly along the smooth white shaft.

“Intertwining streams of power, calling directly to The Titan in his language. That's what the magic of glyphs is. It's difficult. More difficult than being born gifted. But tell me, Hunter,” says Philip insinuatingly, “do you know of even one witch who can defeat your Emperor?”

Hunter looks at him with such undisguised delight. Shakes his head desperately. Hunter accepts the staff from his hands with trepidation, like the greatest treasure. He squeezes his slightly trembling fingers on the cool shaft.

“The magic of glyphs is a power to which the magic of natural witches could never compare.”

Philip continues to stroke the staff held carefully by the small kid’s palms.

“And one day,” Philip whispers conspiratorially, leaning towards the baby, “one day, Hunter...”

Hunter looks at him with big eyes.

‘Will I get the same one?’ Philip can read on his face.

Philip smiles as affectionately as he can.

Hunter returns the staff to him reluctantly.

“That’s where strength lies, Hunter. It’s in your hands,” Philip looks at the staff in his hands affectionately, almost lovingly, like an artist gazing upon his greatest painting imbued with a piece of his own soul.

“But I thought magic comes from the heart.”

“My heart is cold and empty,” Philip tragically brings his eyebrows together over the bridge of his nose.

Hunter chuckles into his palm.

In his eyes it's clear as daylight: not for a second does he consider that his uncle's words are anything more than a joke.

~

“Luzura,” Philip waved his hand without turning around. “Come here.”

Light steps approached him from behind and stopped just short of arm's length. Philip again beckoned with his finger, without raising his head. Hesitantly, they approached him a couple more steps. And he pointed to the chart in front of him.

“The data you provided allows us to estimate the dependence of the distance between worlds on time. Luckily for you, it still looks linear. And yet, I would call the slope of the line relative to the time axis implausibly... hmm... fast. You know that the inclination of a line to an axis can be equated to speed? They should teach you something useful in a magic school.

“The tangent of the angle of inclination, you mean? I don't think this speed is constant. That is, we only have measurements over a relatively short period of time, and a very recent one at that. These measurements were carried out at exactly the moment when the movement of the worlds started influencing reality in obvious ways. Otherwise we would not have noticed any of this. There were earthquakes, floods and all sorts of things. That is why scientists were engaged in all kinds of observations. Although it occurred to only one witch to measure the tension of magical energy in the interworld... His data is not at all guaranteed to be accurate, but it’s not like there is anything to choose from. The hypothesis that what is happening is the result of the rapprochement of the worlds is, in principle, not supported by the entire scientific community.”

“Idiots. Pseudoscience flourishes on the Boiling Islands. I could count the real explorers on one hand, and the first two would be Philip Wittebane and Emperor Belos,” Philip answered automatically. Then he looked up from his notes and raised his head. And only then he realized that he was not talking to Luz.

“Well, not everyone can be so enlightened,” the guy with dark skin raised his eyebrows.

Philip pursed his lips, squinting at him.

“So what about the speed calculations?” the guy asked with interest, eagerly looking over Philip’s shoulder.

“Where is Luz?” Philip asked briefly.

“She went home to sleep,” the guy frowned. “It's my shift now. Hey, I could help with all the math and…”

Philip turned away.

A sigh was heard behind him.

“Well, of course. If you want to have a snack, I have a whole bunch of brushwood.”

Ignoring the other’s words, Philip leaned over the notes again. They sighed again from behind. Light steps began to recede. They actually sounded different than Luz's footsteps. And the children smelled differently. The smell of illusion magic has a slight bluish tint and is somewhat reminiscent of sweet sparkling water or pink caramel syrup. And for any witch, the aroma of magic is unique, and is an integral part of their presence. And for Luz, the smell of the glyphs she drew, like a veil of perfume, only frames her own. Human. Easy to distinguish. Philip just seemed to be too absorbed in himself, so he didn’t notice. What’s more, he didn’t even notice how Luz left, and she was replaced on duty by... this... witch.

On duty, right? Well, what else can you call it? The witch said something about his shift. They will now take turns guarding him, it seems. Well, the smaller the company, the better. Although the large cave did not feel crowded even with seven of them.

Philip stared in front of him, at the paper-covered floor, with a slightly more meaningful gaze. He inhaled slowly. He exhaled through his nose. How long did he sit there? His head felt pleasantly light. He rubbed his face with his hand and looked at his own fingers. They trembled slightly. But, no longer from hunger and exhaustion, as throughout the last week. Rather, he was excited. With an involuntary smile, joyful and unexpectedly sincere for himself, Philip looked at his notes, written on top of other people's observations. He didn't know how much he missed it.

After he and Luz, to everyone’s relief, agreed on at least something, and she gave him the documents carefully collected in a pile and placed in a leather folder, Philip somehow fell out of reality for a couple of minutes or maybe hours. And he came to his senses only when he realized that the paper folder was empty, and all the sheets with articles printed on them (some from ordinary newspapers, others quite scientific) were lying on the floor in their rightful places, covered here and there with pencil marks. And there were more others nearby, where entries were made in strict calligraphic handwriting, coordinate planes and simple two-dimensional graphs were drawn by hand. By his hand.

Here, in order of importance, were all available observations. Mostly represented by simple descriptions of the phenomena that accompanied the recent distortions of space in the world of the Boiling Islands. And closest to him lay the only table found in the folder, filled with numbers. Philip terribly disliked speculation, of which there was much more in the so-called science of the Boiling Islands than accuracy. For practical application, as he had learned a long time ago, the best approach was reliable data, preferably obtained in the form of numbers. And it was with such a laconic table, not burdened with unnecessary explanations, entitled ‘Results of measuring the tension of magical energy in interworld space’, that he started the analysis with. When he quickly looked through and laid out a bunch of scattered and motley data on the floor in front of him into one big picture, this table turned out to be the most interesting. And without even looking particularly at what he was doing, he drew the graph to simplify presentation of the data. Somehow intuitively, out of habit. Why the hell did he call it a habit... well, yes, a habit... he's always been doing something like this here, as long as he can remember... even though he still remembers offensively little. All he remembers is that he really liked it all.

Yes... He really missed this…

Surprisingly, today everything was slightly more ordered in his head. Like sheets on the floor, laid out in terms of importance. Philip inhaled the air again, slightly opening his lips, and closed his eyes. He ran his fingers on the graph on the sheet in front of him. After this sensation reached out, like a chain, sensations-memories. As it was when a dream gave him to plunge into the past who he was here. And Philip threw back his head slightly, allowing the veil of deja vu to envelop him.

From the very first day in the islands, the world has become for him... this. An object of investigation. Unknown, incomprehensible, requiring immediate study. Fear and disgust seemed to belong to someone else at such moments, someone who went into the background, when Philip Wittebane (oh, so he was Philip here too? yes, really, he was ...) took the pen to draw a new glyph, write down the words of the verbal spell, capture the conjecture of the nature of the phenomenon in the sky. He combined two seemingly incompatible sides. One was ready to burn the world with all its inhabitants to the ground. The other was trembling in love with the process of cognition. And together they learned, with detached curiosity, to turn into the most dangerous creature on the islands.

Of course, he is such a hypocrite... "I hate magic" he said, with childish delight exploring all kinds of glyphs. “I hate magic” he whispered, turning his body into a living magical artifact. “I hate magic” he shouted, killing the witches with their own weapons. Becoming stronger than any witch. The most powerful witch.

And leaving less and less humanity in himself.

Why?.. Why does he hate it all so much?

I hate magic. I hate witches. I hate this whole world. They took you away.

A sharp injection. A flash of pain, running from the center of his forehead along the nerves to his chest, knocking out air. It was so sudden. Sudden and scary. As if searching through a casket by touch and stumbling upon a needle with your fingers. Philip shattered, scaredly and quickly covered his face with his hands. As if he could hide from these thoughts, strange as if from a great distance, that had come to him suddenly. So suddenly creepy.

They took you away

Philip hunched up and clenched.

What was it now?

“Hey, is everything okay?”

His whole body was reduced from fright. As if pierced with lightning. He breathed quickly. What is it, damn? What happened to him... Why did such the feeling of longing seem so familiar, a feeling from which he wanted to howl and fight in hysteria? His throat clenched, and his eyes pinched. He lost... lost something forever... And again, nothing will ever be corrected... The whole world is collapsing, disappearing under his feet, and no one except Philip, for some reason, sees this. Why does his memory so helpfully intertwine with this sensation every moment of life in the Boiling Islands? His whole life here. Why did he even live all this time? Every day, every step... took him... They took him away... why, why, why...

“Belos?..”

“I'm Philip!” he barked, without taking his hands off his face.

It seemed to be the first time he raised his voice to one of the children, in all the time they had been communicating.

“Okay, okay. Hey, Philip, the main thing is don't forget to breathe.”

Philip wanted to laugh. What kind of idiotic advice was that? Is it possible to breathe when your chest hurts like that? Philip exhaled several times with effort, took a quiet sip of air, although his throat was still constricting, the grip of the emotions that had overwhelmed him clung to him tightly, but he stubbornly swallowed again. Then he exhaled again, instead of trying to fill his burning lungs with air. The pain gradually began to subside. Probably after a minute or two, he managed to take a breath. He hugged himself by the shoulders, closing his eyes. The sudden fear subsided as quickly as it had rolled in. No, it wasn't that he was really scared. He wasn't scared at all, actually. Everything was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was fine... He didn't even understand what had just happened. And why did his chest suddenly start to hurt with a suffocating feeling, so strong that if he were a child, he would burst into tears. Oh yeah, but he is a child. Why wasn't he crying? Maybe he was used to it.

A hand touched his shoulder with extreme caution, and Philip smacked it away by the wrist.

“Um, sorry. I just thought... Here.”

Philip turned his head and saw a cloak in the boy's hands. The same one that he, Philip, always covered himself with on the lodgment.

He was looking into the boy's eyes for a while with a frown. The boy looked back at him from above. They exchanged glances for a couple of minutes, silently. Philip was not going to move, and the boy was not going to leave. At some point, the boy simply raised his hands and let go of the cloak. It fell on Philip, covering his head. Philip gritted his teeth in irritation, yanking it off himself. And still throwing it over his shoulders and wrapping himself in warm, thick fabric. The familiar weight on his shoulders gave a feeling of comfort. The boy was already sitting next to him.

“Don't sit so close... witch.”

“I'm Augustus,” the boy said, getting up and moving a couple of steps away. He sat down, folding his hands on his knees, and tactfully not looking at Philip, who was still catching his breath. He repeated, tilting his head in his direction, “Augustus Porter.”

Porter. Well, yes, of course. Philip was distracted from the already vague and unclear feeling that had frightened him so much, by this thought. To which the sensation-memory clung again. And much less abstract, even quite concrete. Similar to an entry in a dictionary. And it was related to the name he had heard. Somehow it was even expected that a name in the company of Luz's friends turned out to be familiar to him again.

Augustus's father is a persistent journalist, towards whom Philip has always had a rather mixed attitude. Perry Porter had a blog on Penstagram, ironically and imaginatively describing the long-familiar boring realities of life on the Islands from some unexpectedly interesting angles. In his youth, when he first came to the Isles, Philip himself was doing something alike... with the caveat that a personal diary still differs from a blog in the absence of likes, comments, or shares. Some witches, most often those wise with years of experience as writers or scientists or philosophers, kept something like an open personal diary, and it was to such accounts that Philip had subscribed. How a journalist got into this company, he did not remember. But at some point he found himself engrossed in reading posts about the few social events in Bonesborough, local events like Grom in Hexside, a new vegan cafe... And how he stopped scrolling past with the corner of his lips twitching in displeasure, those moderately polite posts not overstepping the bounds while still quite openly expressing dissatisfaction with the authorities. How he began to read them carefully, and even enjoy them. It was not dangerous that a journalist with a couple of thousand subscribers points out in his personal blog in a slightly disappointed tone some of the shortcomings of the current social structure. And how the authorities in the Isles are tightening their grip on the people's throats even more tightly. But for some reason it was a little flattering. As if someone noticed and singled out your efforts, what you have been toiling over for many years. Like someone said, yes, I see what you are doing. And you are doing great.

Philip rubbed his forehead in surprise. He still wasn't used to how at one time he barely recognized the children he saw almost every day (they come almost every day, right?..), and at another time his dream would throw him this historical background from his life here... Just like that. Although when he tried to focus on some individual details —asking himself and the bottomless pool of his memory: what kind of efforts made while being the authority was he thinking about, for example— they desperately eluded his inner gaze. It would seem that if he wanted to, he could clearly, point by point, describe how society was organized during his reign. But what exactly did he do that made all sorts of journalists unhappy with him? And why would it be dangerous if there were suddenly more witches paying attention to this. And then he remembers scrolling through Penstagram. Very important memories, of course.

But he remembers. He really remembers all of it. As if he himself lived through it. He remembers how he sat at the desk in his office, now and then distracted by the scroll. He even remembers how, with thin, half-moon glasses on his nose, he had first learned to use all that crap that enterprising witches had stuffed into an initially simple device, intended by design exclusively for recording and exchanging information. And how someone small and nimble was fussing around and looking over his shoulder. Some details, however, escape him... Who was that next to him?.. (A short lump of energy, every now and then trying to snatch the scroll from his hands, jumping up and down in impatience).

Uncle, please give it to me!

Philip winced from the pain that shot through his temple.

But now he could at least figure something out. At least the names, events, and actions partly began to have a chain of associations. As if from that viscous porridge that had been filling his head for the last few days, his brains had gathered into a heap and started working as they should, well, almost. He glanced at his calculations again. This was obviously the effect of consuming palismen. Yes, it seemed he would not have been able to do anything without the palismen. His head was so clear now. But what would happen in a week? In two?

“Don’t you need a stick?” they asked him carefully.

Raising his eyes, he met Augustus’s gaze.

Augustus Porter. Excellent academic performance at Hexside, illusion magic, potential of the highest category, at the level of geniuses like the heads of covens, the only parent and…

Philip shook his head, putting his palm to his forehead and wincing. Damn it. He doesn't even know what Hexside is. It was like when he used to say something without understanding the meaning of half the words, merely guessing from the reactions of his interlocutors that he was saying something meaningful. Only now for some reason he was saying it internally, to himself. And it was not easy to just stop this flow of information, still so scattered and disturbing, like so much unnecessary noise.

“Maybe a potion for pain relief?..”

“Enough coddling,” Philip said calmly. He took his hand away from his forehead, raising a cool gaze to Augustus. “This is inappropriate.”

“I think it is quite appropriate,” Augustus muttered.

“The potion won't work on me. I think you know that.”

Hands on his throat, on his jaw, his teeth in someone's blood, somewhere nearby chains are clinking, he is twitching and trying to break free, something pouring into his mouth, making him choke and cough, it’s bitter, like the Notorious Truth, a potion that loosens the tongue. Someone desperately wanted to learn everything they could from him. No, it was not the children. Someone before them. Everyone always needs something that Philip knows. And they needed it ten years ago. And nothing has changed in ten years.

Except that the witches now know that even after drinking the truth potion, he will simply send them away with nothing.

Augustus scratched the back of his head.

“Well, you never know…”

He did not have an answer to this.

“Mm, by the way, I have something for you,” Augustus distracts himself by rummaging in a small belt pouch.

Philip involuntarily became interested. He hadn't heard such words for a long time. Something especially for him? Of course, it would hardly be something really useful. But it was interesting.

“You were under the sleep spell for too long, and your head is a mess after this.”

In the witch's outstretched hand with nails painted in different colors, some kind of pendant was swinging.

“Well, you know, spells that affect the mind often have an additional effect, one way or another, the mind is still a complex system, and if you move it a little, everything can fall apart and... yeah, but who am I telling this to,” Augustus caught his disdainful look. “Anyway, let's leave aside how impressed you are with my deep knowledge in the field of mental magic... that's it.”

A small stone on a string fell into Philip's palm. Augustus's words were spoken in a confident tone. The wording was too categorical. "Your head is a mess after this”. Neither “probably" nor "I think", he simply knew what he was talking about. Philip tried not to grind his clenched teeth. They were definitely penetrating his consciousness. Another thing is that, obviously, they did not find anything there. But the fact itself. Outrageous. As if his head was a thoroughfare. Nevertheless, the stone was interesting. Philip twirled the trinket in his fingers with interest. The amulet reeked of illusion magic... an incredibly sweet smell. But Philip, of course, would not wear it under any circumstances. An everlasting oath is an everlasting oath, but if a friend of Luz gives him a thing that will gently nudge him towards the right decisions, make him a little more kindly to children, it would not be a violation of the promise ‘not to harm’. Augustus, apparently guessing his train of thought, explained:

“It's just calming magic. Instead of a potion. Potions don't work on you, as you rightly noted. I sometimes make such things for sale. It has a slightly non-standard functionality. In addition to the general calming effect, it helps cope with attacks of anxiety and... um... panic. With some reservations, but according to the idea, it should also make traumatic memories less hostile.

“And why do I need this?” Philip asked dryly, emphasizing the word "I".

“Well,” Augustus raised his eyes to the ceiling. He rubbed his wrist a little awkwardly.

Philip looked at him attentively for a few moments. Augustus licked his lips slightly nervously and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “do you really want me to spell it out?” Philip was studying his face, reading echoes of emotions and intentions. No, it's not that Augustus managed to see something specific in his head. Then he would probably have asked him directly about something... And it's very doubtful that even if he had seen it, he would have become so worried about his well-being because of some details of his past. The thing is... Philip raised the corners of his lips.

“If this is an attempt to say ‘sorry for torturing you’...”

“Okay, stop,” Augustus raised his hands and shook his head. From his face, which appeared slightly frightened, Philip realized that he had guessed right. “Let's not talk about it, okay? I'm not proud of that decision, but we needed results. And you, well... you weren't particularly accommodating one way or the other.”

“The methods must be chosen according to your capabilities,” Philip gave advice quite liberally, tossing a pebble between his palms.

He probably began to anger Augustus a little. Because he answered sharply compared to his previous tone:

“I am capable of pouring a bucket of water on you right now.”

Said the one who never touched either water or Philip during those terrible three days.

“You know, Mr. Porter, I can’t say that my experience in torture is great,” Augustus turned slightly pale from his words. “But you lost before all this began. And it’s not about water or palistrom or anything else.”

“Why?” Augustus asked hoarsely.

“Because the first rule of an executioner is no emotions,” Philip raised the corners of his lips in a suddenly gentle smile, from which Augustus slightly recoiled.

Augustus closed his eyes heavily. It was easy to notice how he was trying to hide his trembling fingers in his palms.

Then he finally exhaled, without looking at Philip:

“In this sense, we probably lost, yes.”

And Philip realized that for some reason he was not proud of winning this small argument.

It was still very strange.

Here he is looking at the drawings on the wall, and he knows the name of each of the four basic glyphs that form the general pattern spreading throughout the cave. He can mentally break the pattern down into several component blocks, and say for sure what will happen if they are activated separately. And his hands remember how to draw circles strictly and evenly, more accurately than the most precise compass, how to hook them onto each other so that a stream of power flows from one to the other. He even knows why the wall is covered with glyphs from floor to ceiling, and across the ceiling. Someone might want to move here one day, but now, thanks to the glyphs... the teleportation spell will never open here in the Skull again.

He could look at Augustus Porter and remember leafing through the dossier the guards had collected on him. Maybe, if he strained a little, or simply racked his brain, he would understand why he needed this dossier (something told him it was connected with Luz).

He could stare at Hunter's face as much as he wanted— which made Hunter visibly nervous —and still not remember anything. Empty. His head was simply empty. As if Hunter had never existed.

But it was just impossible.

"It's a normal thing," Hunter said, looking back at Philip, who was demonstratively not paying attention to them, immersed in the notes spread out on the floor. "I was rather surprised that he did not ask for a washcloth and soap on the very first day.”

“He probably had other things on his mind,” Augustus shrugged, sitting on the warm cloak with his legs stretched out and leaning against the wall in front of Hunter. “And now the situation has become calmer. His brain has freed up resources to satisfy secondary needs.”

“So what combination did he use, you say?”

“It seemed similar to the one Luz uses to peel vegetables.”

“Titan... Radical…”

“Well, at least all the dust and dirt came off instantly. From the clothes too.”

“Yeah. Along with the top layer of skin, apparently. He never cared about collateral damage.”

A human... not a human, a witch... no, not even a witch, he smelled different somehow. Not like the other children, and the magic that he smelled of belonged to his red palisman. And also a little bit of glyph magic, like Luz's. So, a non-human who was not in Philip's memories should not be talking about him like that. And it seemed that no one except Philip himself was embarrassed by this. And that irritated him even more.

“Maybe we should offer him a bath?”

“Maybe it's too early?” Willow suggested, lowering her voice. “Taking into account the recent events, he could very well interpret such an offer as a threat.”

There was an awkward silence between the guys for a few seconds. Philip chuckled to himself.

"Sudden change of topic," Augustus said loudly, making Philip flinch slightly. "Does anyone have something to eat?"

Willow waved her hand at her bag by the wall. August was sitting closer to it, so he reached in and took out an apple.

"Luz will bring croissants. Camilla was going to bake them today."

"Oh no," Augustus was upset. "I won't wait for her. I have to run right now, I've been sitting here for half a day already.”

"Then don't forget to drop by," Hunter advised. "It would be a sin to miss out on Mom's baking.

It seemed like nothing out of the ordinary had been said. It seemed like a normal, meaningless conversation. But Philip suddenly froze, and then slowly raised his head.

"Oh, I'll gladly take your advice," Augustus stood up, grabbing his cloak.

Philip absentmindedly glanced around the cave, watching as Augustus, holding an apple in his teeth, quickly put on gloves, fur earmuffs and wrapped himself in a cloak. How he headed to the wall of the cave opposite the door and there, running his hand over several glyphs, disappeared into the unusually bright daylight. He returned his gaze to Hunter and Willow, only now noticing that he was calling the girl by name to himself, because he knew it from somewhere. He would even remember her last name, if he tried hard enough. But Philip could not understand what had caught his attention so much in Hunter's words about croissants.

They were still sitting like that. A shimmering cave, a couple balls of light in a corner by the wall that had been firmly occupied by children for all these days. A quiet, leisurely conversation. Philip had not written anything for some time, he was simply looking at the sheets of paper in front of him with an unseeing gaze.

At one point he realized that he was constantly glancing up, listening to the idle conversation of the two non-humans who stayed with him. He realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on the records, his own and others', and it was not very easy to think while listening to crunching apples.

“Hunter... just don't move,” Willow slowly and carefully picked up the staff from the floor.

“He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” Hunter tensed up.

Willow nodded in concentration.

Philip realized that he had to act quickly. Emerging from behind Hunter’s shoulder and, in the blink of an eye, snatching the apple out of the boy’s startled hands, Philip recoiled from a simple, non-magical swing of the staff.

Willow seemed ready to jump up and start chasing, but Hunter put his hand on her staff.

“Leave it. Let him be.”

Philip silently straightened up and went to his place, as if nothing had happened. Biting into the apple with pleasure. It now seemed even sweeter to him than the day he stole the same one from under Luz's nose. Then, it seemed, he barely felt the taste. How nice it is, after all, when there is enough life in the body. Without the power of the palismen, he is simply broken.

And Luz came, by the feel of it, at the end of the day. Tired, slightly scratched and torn in some places, taking off her heavy cloak on the go and throwing her hat somewhere to the side.

“Everything okay?” Willow asked, more for the sake of formality it seemed. Neither she nor Hunter looked surprised by their friend's appearance.

"Couldn’t be better," Luz said, holding up a finger as she shuffled toward them on stiff legs. "Just another day of school."

And she collapsed forward, onto Hunter, who readily caught her and put his arm around her shoulders, helping her settle down on the floor more comfortably and lie on his lap.

“This is much better than writing a research application form,” Luz muttered somewhere into his stomach.

“Anything is better than that,” Willow nodded.

A quiet “hic” interrupted their conversation. The cave sank into silence, in which Luz slowly turned, moving away from Hunter to look into the center of the cave, towards the lodgment. And there she saw Philip, who, covering his mouth with his hand, quietly hiccupped again. On the floor next to him, on a loose page from a very mediocre newspaper article, expressing all of Philip’s attitude towards it, there sat one skinny apple core.

The silence became ominous. And Hunter was noticeably nervous.

“Hunter,” it crashed heavily, echoing against the stone vaults, “did you feed him? We agreed, no food.”

“It's not like I had a choice,” Hunter muttered.

“Tell me you at least tried to stop him. Say it. Look me in the eye,” Luz demanded, lowering her voice threateningly.

However, even with her frown and her very menacing intonation, from her low angle half-lying on the floor, hands leaned on Hunter’s knees, she did not inspire much of a threat. Although, perhaps, only to Philip. Perhaps Hunter, somewhat tense, knew something about Luz that Philip did not.

“But look, he didn't throw up,” Hunter raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. “So the ban on food is irrelevant.”

“Hunter, we are at war,” Luz breathed out in a terrifying whisper, her eyes flashing. “Violation of discipline here is like,” she made a dramatic pause, “death.”

“Luz, stop exaggerating,” Willow asked. “The war over apples is, of course, important. But we only lost one battle today.”

“Okay... okay,” Luz pulled herself up out of the floor to sit by Hunter’s side, leaning her shoulder against his as she met Philip's gaze. “The day will come, and we will take your apples too.”

And she had no idea, of course, how frightening her threat was.

Chapter Text

“What were you thinking, Philip?”

“I just wanted to pet him,” Philip says plaintively, wincing.

“And now you're bitten. What will you do next time?” Caleb asks in a didactic tone.

In response, a joyful voice sounds:

“I'll beat him with a shovel!”

“Philip, no.”

The brothers are sitting on the steps of a small porch. Near Caleb stands a small bottle spreading a sharp smell and a parcel of neatly-cut fabric strips.

“You will leave the animal alone,” Caleb says, bandaging his hand.

Philip tries to pretend as convincingly as possible that he has listened. Caleb, of course, sees right through him.

And about fifty steps away, at the foot of the apple hill, small red ears stick out of the grass.

The fox cub appeared at the edge of the forest a day or two ago. The white tip of the tail flashed on the periphery of his vision, either near the woodpile under the canopy, or in the reeds by the pond behind the house. Philip does not yet know his name, he only knows that the cub has sharp claws and teeth. And a nasty temper. During this time, Fred was the only one who managed to communicate with the new inhabitant of the forest edge. And Fred was in no hurry to share what he learned from the fox cub. In general, he was a rather taciturn frog.

“It's not fair,” Philip mutters, pursing his lips. “Why is he so angry?”

“Well, you can't be liked by everyone, Pip,” Caleb tightens the bandage on his hand, finishing it with a small bow.

“What do you mean?” Philip shakes his head. “I can. And I will.”

“It doesn't quite work like that,” Caleb smiles tiredly.

“How then?”

The ears in the distance disappear into the grass, then pop out again, a little closer to them, floating across the field, twitching with interest.

Philip pushes the bottle and bandages aside with a casual movement of his unbandaged hand. The bottle falls and rolls along the wooden boards with a clatter. He and Caleb watch it until it rolls off the porch, landing with a quiet thud. Philip turns away indifferently, and Caleb sighs. Philip sits closer to his brother. And his brother hugs him by the shoulders, pressing him to the sun-warmed body. They both watch as the little ears scurry from side to side across the field.

“See, it’s not up to you,” Caleb says quietly, looking ahead. The wind plays with a strand of his hair falling on his forehead.

Philip hugs him around the waist, and looks up. Caleb runs his hand through his hair with a smile.

“If someone likes you, they just do. There's little you can do to change their mind.”

~

Philip opened his eyes. Before him was a cave wall, covered in dimly glowing glyphs. There were so many glyphs. Every piece of the wall was covered with pictograms, which together formed a pattern familiar to him. Familiar in theory. In practice, if he wanted to fence off a territory with anti-portal magic, he would do it much more gracefully. And it would not take him many weeks and months of painstaking work, imprinting the pattern over the entire surface of the huge cave walls, to protect it from penetration.

But, probably, ten years ago, the witches who built the prison for him did not have the time to understand deeply enough the ancient art of glyphs, long forgotten on the Isles. Philip would not undertake remembering how exactly he was held before the prison was created. Memories of that time were heavy and crumpled. He could even remember his life as the Emperor better, perhaps, although even that was difficult now. But the time after the day... The Day, which became the key and turning point, blurred all memory into one long, continuous half-sleep. As if he opened his eyes only to feel how sick and exhausted he was, unable to comprehend where he was or what was happening around him, and then fall right back into oblivion. And sometimes then to feel how someone gave him another potion, in an attempt to achieve something... And kicked him in the ribs, listening to his dry, strained laughter, interspersed with coughing.

Why keep something so dangerous nearby, if it is also completely useless? It does not plan to give you a single gram of useful information, it only laughs at you, baring its teeth in a fanged smile. And it is constantly at risk of escaping, either on its own or with someone's help. It is logical, after all, that you would try to create a reliable prison in the shortest possible time. As soon as possible, before someone too enterprising or loyal comes for the Emperor. It is clear that everything was done in a hurry, as much as possible. Maybe that is why no one noticed that on one part of the wall, right opposite the door, the pictograms slightly stand out from the general pattern.

And Philip realized that he was awakened either by a premonition, or by the feeling of magic moving. Because that very part of the pattern, standing out from the whole picture, lit up brighter, turning from blue to yellow. The passage that opened in the wall let the guests into the cave. Philip closed his eyes, catching the remnants of the fading sleep. He squeezed the cloak that covered his shoulders with his fingers. It was so strange, falling asleep at home and waking up here. And then back again. A completely identical ritual. If he hadn’t known for sure that he was dreaming all this, he probably wouldn’t have been able to distinguish between a dream and reality. There, at home, he invariably felt sleepy at night. Caleb put him to bed, helping him cover himself with the blanket, and sat next to him, placing a soothing heavy palm between Philip’s shoulder blades. It was easier to fall asleep that way. And almost not scary. Even though Philip knew where he would have to return. And what might await him there. It was so unfair that here, on the contrary, he, having enough strength, could stay without sleep at all. Ah, if only he could not wake up…

“Enough lying around,” they pushed him in the shoulder, almost pushing him off the lodgment.

Philip shuddered and opened his eyes.

But even if he tried really hard, his persistent enemies would never leave him alone. There was one positive for what happened ten years ago: at least in all that time no one had bothered him.

“You have plenty of work,” Luz walked past, to the wall the kids loved to sit beside, taking off her warm long jacket as she went.

“I don't get paid enough for this,” Philip muttered under his breath, throwing back his cloak and sitting up carefully.

Three days had passed, probably. Since he ate the palisman. His head didn't spin when he sat down. And there was still no pain in his body. If only it could be like this all the time...

Philip sighed quietly. This terrible place makes him dream of having normal things. Just the absence of pain and unbearable fatigue, independent of the absorption of living souls. Was he asking too much for himself? He also thought, as he descended to the floor, to the ordered chaos of notes, casually rolling up his shirt sleeves so that they would not interfere with writing, that he would not have had to endure this whole nightmare at all if someone had not thought to ask him for advice.

Luz did not appear in the cave alone, this time she was accompanied by Willow Park and the basilisk. As had become customary since the beginning of their communication, the first thing the children did was to lay out their things by the wall, not far from the lodgment, spread out their cloaks, light up the balls of light, and begin to take out all sorts of little things that could help pass the time. From a book that Willow, having adjusted her glasses, immediately began to read, to a deck of hexes hold’em cards, which the basilisk, having again taken the form of a human girl, offered to play with Luz.

However, she refused. She, having shed her warm outerwear —but keeping the same zip-up hoodie it seemed she always wore— headed to the center of the cave, to Philip's lodgment. From the floor, Philip watched intently, face bowed behind a curtain of hair, as the children passed around a bag emanating the smell of something delicious, and he pretended to completely ignore the approaching girl. The bag, however, unfortunately, did not move towards him along with Luz, but remained lying by the wall near Willow. And he could already see how the basilisk was reaching out to this bag... Soft boots stopped a step away from the notes laid out in front of him. Those very notes looked, perhaps, impressive. They created the impression of some work done.

Luz was all impatience.

“Well? Can you say something?”

Philip looked up at her.

“I can. You're all idiots.”

“Anything constructive?”

“That's constructive.”

Someone by the wall snorted.

Luz stood in front of him, hands on hips, looking at the notes on the floor.

“Okay, but I'd like a more detailed report.”

Philip opened his mouth, but she added:

“And something we haven't heard from you yet. Preferably, not concerning our mental abilities. Maybe something about the portal?”

Philip closed his mouth. And shrugged thoughtfully:

“About the portal then,” his hand slid over his work area, picked out the very picture that he had drawn on the first day, and which he had already shown to Augustus.

Luz took the sheet of paper from his hands and stared at it for a whole minute. It seemed to Philip that the graph did not require any special comments, but he was ready for specific questions, for example...

“And what is this graph for?”

No. He was still not ready for such a question.

“I mean, I see that it says "dependence of the tension of magical energy on time", but what do I need to see here?” Luz tore herself away from the sheet of paper. “It is growing, I think?”

Philip looked at her for some time, without moving or blinking. Luz began to get nervous under his gaze.

“Can you stop…”

“Luzura, we need to talk about your academic performance,” Philip said seriously.

And again he heard snorting from the non-humans sitting nearby.

“What?” Luz blinked.

“I hope you at least know what the tangent of the angle of inclination of a line to the axis of a variable is?”

“Did you just read some kind of spell?”

“Oh God,” Philip rubbed his face with his palm. “Luz, you should spend more time studying. You are a disgrace to our kind.”

“What relation do I have to your kind?” her face was slightly perplexed.

“You are a human. I am a human.” Philip explained. ”We cannot be more stupid than witches.”

And the witches at least know what a tangent is, as he had already found out.

“Lord, in the seventeenth century did the cult of achievement already exist? And why are you scolding me as if I were some kind of schoolgirl?”

“And you aren’t..?” Philip raised an eyebrow.

Luz was starting to get angry.

“I graduated from school seven years ago!”

“Then I'm completely ashamed of you,” Philip shook his head.

Choking with indignation, Luz shook the ill-fated graph in the air. Her face acquired a pinkish tint.

“Yes yes, you’re the pinnacle of humanity. Now, do you have anything to share or are you just fulfilling your humiliation quota for the day?”

Philip's lips involuntarily twitched in a short laugh.

“Of course I am. Imagine how bored I get when you're not here. It’s no fun to quarrel with witches. They are in a clearly losing position.”

Luz rubbed her face with her hand.

“Of course, a representative of a higher race. Grant me mercy, show me the full power of your mind, oh great Belos! Please!”

Luz handed him the graph.

“Just make it simpler, please. For the slow and small-minded. I'll have to explain it to the witches later after all.”

Philip couldn't help but grin again. He took the paper, slightly crumpled from being waved, out of her hands. He glanced curiously at those sitting by the wall. Basilisk was openly amused. Willow calmly turned the page of her book.

“It seems you're learning to approach your interlocutors, huh, Luzura?”

“Why do you call me "Luzura"?”

“Why do you call me "Belos"?”

Luz blinked again.

“Oh. I see.”

They were silent.

“Then "Philip"?”

“Then "Luz."”

“Deal,” Luz smiled slightly. And it seemed like it was almost the first time her smile for him was not forced.

Philip allowed himself a pause, to hold his gaze on her smile. Whatever one may say, it is not very pleasant when you are hated all the time. Especially when it is done by the only other human in the world... But today Luz seemed to be in a good mood. And in the mood for a chat.

“So? Tension, time, why is it important? Is it growing?”

Philip took a deep breath. Perhaps the only thing he loved more than achieving results in his research was talking about them. He even, irrationally, wanted more listeners, even if they were witches.

“Yes, in general, you are right. The simplest conclusion that can be made from this graph is that the level of tension of magical energy in the interworld is growing. This could either be a consequence of the convergence of worlds…”

Luz leaned forward slightly, inspired.

“...or not connected to this process at all.”

Luz groaned, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes.

“But I am inclined to believe,” Philip continued, ignoring her outburst of emotion, “that at the moment of the physical manifestation of movement, judging by your newspaper clippings, these were mainly earthquakes and also some spatial distortions in thin places like Eclipse Lake,” his finger crawled along the graph from the bottom up, “so, at such a moment, the tension of magical energy really, very likely, was associated with the movement itself.”

Shooting his eyes towards the non-humans, Philip saw a very busy expression on the basilisk’s face and a completely indifferent one on Willow’s, who was still looking at the book.

“Tension of magical energy, what is that anyway?” Luz rubbed her eyes, still in no hurry to take her hands away from her face and look at what Philip was showing her.

“So,” Philip chewed his lips, thinking about how to explain it more simply. “In short, the flow of energy, wherever it goes, encounters resistance from the environment…”

“Oh, it's like electricity,” Luz snapped her fingers.

“What do you mean?” Philip was confused.

“Forget it,” she waved her hand. “I understood about the tension, let's move on.”

Philip frowned slightly. This offended him a little. He now had a feeling that he didn't know something here. And he didn't like that feeling. But he continued again:

“If we accept the hypothesis that this graph reflects the connection between tension and the movement of worlds towards each other as an axiom, we can assume that the growth of tension reflects the speed of convergence. Or rather, acceleration.”

“So. Yep,” Luz put the tips of her folded index fingers to her nose, thoughtfully twitching her lips. Either she was simulating a thought process, or she really understood something for herself. “And can we find out how much time we have? If we expose the graph?”

Philip, who had previously lowered his eyes to the paper again, raised his eyebrows and his face.

“You know smart words.”

“I'm not even sixty percent sure that I pronounced or used this word correctly,” Luz said, smiling calmly.

And she put one hand on her waist, slightly lifting her chin.

Philip was completely delighted. And because of this phrase, he felt something in common with Luz. How much it echoed his own current state and feeling in those moments when he talked to the children about something from their common past. But why understand or realize what you're saying, right? The main thing is to say it confidently. And not to forget the condescending look.

“So how much time do we have?”

“A difficult question,” Philip sighed, closing his eyes.

He would like to lie here... to say "yes, yes, the graph gives a clear idea of ​​the speed, and it is like this", it would be useful for implementing his plan... but they had already managed to discuss it with Augustus. Well, not really discussed maybe. Augustus had managed to express his assumption before Philip realized who he was talking to and began to ignore him. But the fact is that the rest of the team probably knew about Augustus's thoughts. Philip glanced again at the basilisk, who was eloquently clutching her head. Although those present were probably not aware, or had not understood the issue well... but if it came to a general discussion, Augustus would explain to them in detail what he had already told Philip – there is no guarantee that measurements over a limited period of time show reliable information about the growth of the tension of magical energy between the worlds. They have no right to assume that the speed of convergence is constant, and does not happen in jerks, which is why earthquakes and breakthroughs or distortions in space occur in some places. That is, the available data says practically nothing, at least in the long term. They may still have a lot of time. The process of worlds converging is not fast. More than Philip would like to spend on implementing the idea. But he is not the only one who understands this. And if he pours water into Luz's ears now, the deception will quickly be revealed.

Unless he can operate within the facts, as one who does it best. Not as a scientist. As a politician.

“We do not have new, more detailed data,” Philip told one truth, “and this is the most reliable of all available,” he supported it with another one, sounding no less convincing, “and, based on them, we can make a forecast that will demonstrate the situation in the worst possible scenario.”

Luz frowned and rubbed her chin.

And Philip, having carefully stacked his facts in the order strictly necessary to make a pure truth cake, added a drop of emotion like a cherry on top:

“It would be much more dangerous to ignore such a possibility than to count on it happening.”

“He said, pushing her to the decision he needed,” Luz muttered.

As if she expected something like that from him. Not surprising, though.

Philip feigned insulted innocence. Luz raised an ironic eyebrow at this. But she thought about his words.

“Okay, and what is the prognosis in the worst case?”

She was surprisingly accommodating that day. And she did everything perfectly, just the way Philip liked it. Lots of questions, a little goodwill. Even a little flattery just by her behavior, expressing interest in his words. Yes, she’d definitely decided to change her approach for a while. Since torture and intimidation did not work.

“I can only say,” Philip glanced at the graph, “the tension that was enough to distort space here,” he poked his finger at one point, marked with a cross. Luz also leaned over the paper, resting her hands on her knees. Philip felt her breath tickling the top of his head. “If the current speed is maintained, such tension will become constant quite soon.”

“‘Quite soon’ is how much for you? Fifty years?”

Philip met her gaze, looked up at the ceiling, mentally calculating the numbers.

“Possibly.”

“Can you say anything for sure?” Luz asked.

Philip's eyebrows moved up and down.

“I can say for sure that this will be the moment when it becomes impossible to live in this place. Considering the number of holes from the Titan's blood at this point in space.”

“And will it be dangerous?”

Philip looked at her with displeasure.

“You think it's safe here now?”

“You know what I mean. More dangerous than it usually is on the Boiling Isles.”

“Yes, I know. I meant that since space is already distorting, it’s already more dangerous than usual, right now.”

“Cool,” Luz straightened up, clasping her hands. “Thanks for telling me. I didn't notice. You're so helpful.”

“And in three weeks there will be another earthquake,” Philip said casually.

“What?! You should have led with that! How did you even figure that out?”

“Can't you see it from the graph?” Philip asked innocently.

Luz gritted her teeth.

“Come here,” Philip nodded kindly to the place next to him.

Luz was surprised, but she walked around his work area, squatting down to his right. Philip turned the graph towards them, picked up a pencil. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw what seemed to him to be the basilisk stretching its neck with interest.

“Look, if you draw a line like this,” he placed the pencil at the intersection of the graph and the vertical axis, moved it to the right and up, drawing a straight line across, “it will indicate an increase in tension. But relative to this line itself, the graph fluctuates.”

He slightly unfolded the sheet. The line he had just drawn became horizontal. The graph was no longer growing, but only going up and down in a wave. Luz tilted her head to the shoulder, slightly opening her mouth.

“The wave up, as I assume, corresponds to noticeable energy breakthroughs. There were exactly as many earthquakes, at least judging by the newspapers, as there are waves on this graph.”

Luz let out a startled sigh. As if she were listening to some dynamic story, and a sudden plot twist had happened in it. Philip involuntarily paused, hiding a satisfied smile.

“If you look at the edge of the graph, it may seem that it is rapidly approaching zero. But as experience tells me, all oscillatory processes in nature work the same way. This is a wave that has gone into decline, it is simply the largest of the previous ones. Then the tension will begin to increase again and…”

His pencil continued the graph right across the adjacent sheets of paper, mercilessly crossing out someone's articles and his own notes. It followed his words, first down, then up.

“And the tension will reach its highest point,” his pencil froze, “in about three weeks. If the measurements were accurate enough.”

Luz turned her head towards him. She looked at his face for a long moment.

“The earthquakes will end. After some time,” Philip considered it necessary to explain. “When the oscillations die down. Something caused them, but what exactly is unclear. Maybe after that the calm will be long enough. Until a new wave of oscillations comes. Which will be stronger, because the worlds will be closer to each other by that time…”

“Okay,” Luz quietly interrupted him, raising her palm, “I understand. Earthquake, yeah…”

She put her elbow on her knee and rested her chin on her palm, thoughtfully examining the graph Philip had drawn. Her gaze was somewhere far away. Philip thought that she didn't have to solve all this right now. In ten years, the distortions of space could become a problem. But for now, these were just the first signs. And the question was, did Luz need this? Was she the type of person who didn't put things off until later, or, on the contrary, one of those who procrastinated on a task until the last minute? Philip involuntarily imagined Luz at seventy, leaning on a staff and hobbling towards the portal to finally solve the problem she had put off for so long, as the world around her is being destroyed by a raging spatial storm. The mental image made him chuckle. But this option didn't suit him... He hoped she was from the first category, like Philip himself.

“Do you think there will be many casualties?” Luz asked, still looking at the graph. At the point where Philip had marked the next earthquake.

And it dawned on him. Of course. What difference did it make how she liked to solve problems? Something else was important.

“Oh, it depends on where the distortion happens,” Philip tried to speak carefully and evenly. “And that's impossible to predict.”

Luz frowned and stared at the thick pencil dot. And Philip waited, almost holding his breath.

She was the type of person who would never let bad things happen to others if she had the power to prevent it. Right?

She stood up, stepped over a pile of papers and walked away, finding herself opposite Philip again. She began to walk from side to side, thoughtfully looking at the floor in front of her, her hands in the wide pockets of her pants. Philip and the non-humans, even Willow, tearing herself away from her book, watched her movements. At one point, Luz suddenly stopped, turned her head, almost making Philip flinch.

“Do you have any ideas on how to stop all this?” She stared into his eyes. “You're just chatting me away, meanwhile this is the reason we bothered getting involved with you at all.”

‘Involved?’ Philip was privately indignant.

“That's elementary. There is no other way but to close the portal and separate the worlds.”

And again, he didn't lie about a thing. As long as the portal exists, it will not be possible to stop the collision of worlds. And it's just a coincidence that the need to destroy the portal corresponds with his plans.

“Wow,” Luz raised her eyebrows, “and how to do it? Do you need some bulky mechanisms, like for the portal itself?”

“We can try without them,” Philip shrugged. “If you choose the spell scheme correctly, it should be enough.”

“So. So it's all pretty simple?”

“Simple... Yes…” Philip agreed, nodding slowly.

The pauses in his words did not go unnoticed.

“What's the catch?”

Philip looked at her straight, without blinking. This look, as usual, made Luz frown tensely.

“Guess. In three tries,” he offered ingratiatingly, still holding her gaze, as if in a tenacious grip. “You won't even need the basics of mathematics for this.”

Luz looked into his eyes for several heartbeats, searching for an answer. Rubbing her palms together nervously. And then, with the realization rushing over her face, she froze, as if struck by lightning.

“You said... to divide…”

She slowly sank to the floor, staring ahead.

“To divide... forever?”

“Clever girl,” Philip praised kindly.

Luz, stunned by the understanding that had washed over her, must not have heard him.

Although the silence in the cave was so thick that one could have heard the fluttering of a butterfly's wings. If only here was a place for butterflies to come from.

“But how... and my home…”

Home... is a good word, warm. Philip immediately saw a sunlit green field, a hill with a tall tree on top. For some reason, he thought Luz lived somewhere here, on the Boiling Isles. It was as if he was familiar with this, as if he had once known such a person, who had left the Earth and remained here. And it was, as if, personal. And it was, as if, important, very important for him. And he thought Luz had also chosen the Boiling Isles as her home. He felt offended for the Earth, abandoned and discarded. But there she was, staring in front of her, confused, even lost... At this thought she was so taken by surprise that she was showing weakness in front of her enemy. And her words sounded so childishly disbelieving: How so? And what now?

Two girls' palms fell on her shoulders from both sides, one wider, the other smaller, and Luz raised her face to her friends. She blinked uncertainly, as if she had not seen them. Willow supported her under the elbows, lifting her off the floor and leading her to the wall.

They sat for a while as she came to her senses.Then the basilisk, unable to stand it any longer, shook Luz by the shoulders, pulling her out of the strange stupor that had gripped her. And the creature began babbling about all sorts of nonsense, completely meaningless and incoherent, but Philip could see it made Luz feel better. And she returned to the paper on the floor in front of him with a more sober look, obviously thinking about the matter.

But when she approached him again, Philip got the impression that she had put off solving the problem for herself. The second type of person after all, eh?

They continued their conversation, and she tried to act as if nothing had happened. And she said that something else would have to be thought up closer to the earthquake. Philip replied that he was not promising anything. And Luz asked to prepare a pictogram of the spell in case they could not think of anything other than closing the portal ("and... dividing the worlds," she said this with difficulty and reluctantly).

And she also said:

“In fact, you have almost finished everything you were supposed to do for us.”

“Besides the spell itself? Yes. But creating the necessary pictogram is not a quick process.”

“And when will the pictogram be ready?”

“I need about two weeks, I guess.”

He realized that Luz was looking at him strangely. Looking at him with a mixture of something resembling irritation and humility. He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Philip, how many days have passed since we made our oath?”

Philip looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“Is it the fourth day?”

“The fourth day,” Luz nodded. “And you've already solved everything. And in your response to the application“—from somewhere, she produced a piece of paper absolutely covered in handwriting, Philip’s handwriting, and demonstratively put it forward—“it says that the research should take at least six months.”

“I can be productive,” Philip said, looking at the paper.

“And devious,” Luz reproached him.

“And devious,” Philip agreed with her.

“And where else did you bullshit us?” Luz asked, without changing her tone. Philip winced. Of course, he hadn't lived under a rock (um... until recently...) and knew that the culture of speech among young people, even girls, had become much more free. But he still wanted to wash the girl's mouth with soap.

“Even if I lied somewhere,” he played with his eyebrows, feigning insult at just such an assumption, “you'll hardly be able to distinguish truth from lies.”

“That's the problem, Philip,” Luz raised her voice. “How can I trust you?”

It was strange to hear that from her. What choice does she actually have? He's the only one who can help her anyway. He can trust her so easily, can he? He should, should he? Well of course! After everything they’ve been through together, who wouldn’t?

It doesn't quite work like that.

“It’s not up to me,” Philip suddenly said for some reason. “Like your sympathy, however I feel about it, there’s nothing I can do— it exists inside you. If you trust me, you just do.”

Luz looked at him silently for a while.

“You have some strange ideas about interpersonal relationships.”

Philip shrugged.

“We have no reason to trust each other at all. Even an oath is just an opportunity not to tear each other's throats. But I do spend my time on you, don't I? Deal with your problem? Be kind, have respect for my work, and come to terms with the fact that somewhere, one way or another, I will deceive you.”

“Wow, so to-the-point?” Luz raised her eyebrows. “Well, thanks for being honest, for now at least, I suppose.”

Philip turned away with dignity.

“And the hell you mean ‘time’? You wouldn’t have time to do anything if it weren’t for me. You've been sleeping in a cave twenty-four hours a day for the last ten years.”

“And I spend my precious sleep time on you.”

If it weren't for you, Philip thought, I could forget about this place forever. And about everything that happened here. He closed his eyes tiredly. He imagined a house near the forest and an apple tree on a hill. Never mind, he'll finish here...

And Luz suddenly laughed. Philip glanced sideways at her, at the smile playing on her face.

"You're so unbearable," she exhaled, for some reason still smiling.

And Philip, for some reason, felt good again.

Chapter Text

Clouds float across the sky, streaked with holes, feathery. The clouds are long, crawling across the sky from edge to edge. There are many of them, as if they are ready to gather into heavy clouds and pour down on the ground as a stream of water. But there is no rain here. No rain, no thunderstorms, no snow. The sun always shines here, warm and gentle, summer sun.

Philip sometimes misses the rain.

However, this feeling leaves him as easily as any sadness. Well, there is no rain, is there a reason for sadness? Aching nostalgia does not linger in his heart for long. Not a single feeling lingers in his memory. He often forgets what he was sad about a minute ago.

And why remember such a thing.

Philip lies on the grass, the grass gently tickles his cheeks. Has his memory always been so unreliable? Or is this something that appeared along with the curse of the nightmare? He does not remember this either. He rarely remembers what he ate for breakfast, although most often it was porridge, he is not sure which way from their house the nearest town is, and what the town was called, he has forgotten. But for some reason he remembers very clearly any day when he and Caleb picked apples. Although each day is like two peas in a pod with the previous one.

Philip rises from the grass, looking at the edge of the forest. His senses do not fail him, he sees Caleb at the edge of the forest rusty from drought. He is carrying paintings again.

Philip comes down the hill to him. Caleb notices him halfway to the house, stops in the middle of the field and waits. He hands over a couple of light paintings, tied with rope and covered with canvas. His hands are smeared with soot.

On the way to the house, Philip sees a red tail flash in the grass. The tail flashes not far from them, about ten steps.

The stairs to the basement are steep. You have to be careful when going down it in the dim light of an oil lamp. It turns out to be very inconvenient to drag paintings along it.

For some reason, Philip can't remember the last time he was in the basement.

And the basement is filled with paintings.

It's dark and dusty here. And the basement is unexpectedly large. It might seem that it's even larger than the house above it. And there are countless paintings. They stand in rows against the wall, leaning on each other, stacked in neat piles.

And Philip goes up to one, runs his fingers along the edge of the frame. He grabs the fabric covering the paintings.

It seems that Caleb should call out to him, cut him off in a stern voice, but he remains silent. It seems that he should stop Philip before he tears off the canvas, raising clouds of dust into the air, revealing a dozen large paintings to the light of the dim fire.

But he stands there, staring, not making a sound.

For some reason, Philip isn't surprised when he sees the man from his dream in the paintings. The man looks like his father, although Philip doesn't understand how he still remembers him. Perhaps it's more a memory of a memory. He just knows that he looks like his father. He...

Yes, he's the one in every painting, that's the thing. Only all grown up.

"I remember that," Philip mutters, looking at one of the paintings, putting it aside.

Caleb glances at it and frowns. There's a painting of Philip and Luz in a cave, the man in a blue frock coat, old, and Luz is very small, no bigger than Philip now, but she seems to be wearing the same sweater that she still wears.

Another painting catches his eye, where he and Caleb are eating pumpkin soup at the table. A delicious memory, and the sight of the dish makes Philip's stomach rumble.

In the third, a man, relatively young and with a beard on his face, but still in the same unchanging frock coat, writes something in a diary, sitting on top of a hill. You can even see some formulas appearing on the page under his pen.

And this reminds Philip of...

“By the way, there was… it must be somewhere here…” Philip begins to rearrange the paintings. And, examining them for a moment, puts them back, walking from one pile to another.

Caleb follows him like a silent shadow.

“Oh, there it is,” Philip pulls out a very small painting from among a pile of dozens of others.

There are mostly these here, ones in which a man, somewhat reminiscent of his and Caleb's father, sometimes with a beard and young eyes, sometimes without, sometimes for some reason in a mask, sits at a table, stands near a wall covered with sheets of paper, sits in a chair with a weighty leather journal, and writes, writes, writes...

“Good, it's here,” Philip shakes the painting, blowing off the dust.

In the painting, a man, looking into an open journal in front of him, noting something in it as he goes, is repairing a door with a huge eye. The eye is yellow, with a vertical bird's pupil.

Philip's fingers touch the canvas. And he feels that he knows how the screwdriver will turn in the man's hands, and why he needs that jar of green powder near the toolbox. And he also sees how the portal door is arranged.

And most importantly, he imagines how to draw it.

“This needs to be taken upstairs,” Philip, without looking, throws the painting towards Caleb, who, eyes wide and almost dropping the lamp, frantically catches it.

And then Philip looks with interest at several more nearby stacks. And why didn’t he go down to the basement before? There are so many interesting things here... But how long did it take Caleb to drag everything?

“I don’t see something here.”

Caleb looks at him and waits. His gaze is strange, an even, unreadable expression on his face.

“I see Luz and the witches from the dream. And witches, and demons. Many different ones. But Hunter is nowhere to be found. Why?”

Caleb swallows slowly. Almost in a whisper, he answers:

“The paintings with Hunter are in the forest.”

“We need to bring them in,” Philip throws out, looking to see if there is still room for new paintings.

For a moment, the basement seems much larger to him than it could be.

“We need to,” Caleb barely audibly says, looking away.

In the shadows under the dim lamp in Caleb’s hands, the basement looks like a long corridor, against the walls of which, it’s impossible to see where, hundreds and hundreds of paintings are stacked in neat piles.

A couple of them are now upstairs, crawling out of the basement with them when he and Caleb leave it. Philip takes the paintings under his arm and drags them into the bedroom. There’s not much room there, but let them stand against the wall. Closer and in the light. So that important information doesn’t get lost…

Appetizing smells lure him into the kitchen. He catches the moment when Caleb throws diced pumpkin into the pot. Philip gets a few pieces that didn’t make it into the soup.

He crunches on the pumpkin, sitting by the window and looking at the grass, swaying in waves in the wind. He puts the last piece in his palm and puts his hand outside. A few minutes later, small red paws are busily stomping along the woodpile, climbing higher. The fox cub finds himself near the window and sniffs the pumpkin with interest. Last time, he ate the apples that Philip cut and placed next to him on the stone. Now he quickly takes a piece of pumpkin from his palm and dives into the grass. Philip smiles. He turns his head, looking around their small kitchen. Caleb is stirring the soup with a long wooden spoon. In the stove, the logs, burnt to coals, are smoldering red and black. On the table, two identical wooden plates are already waiting for the soup to be ready. And on the wall of their kitchen, there is a picture. There is a hill and a tree on top of it. All covered with red apples.

~

Philip opened his eyes.

The world burst into him with the light of glyphs, the smell of magic, the sound of breathing. Yes, yes, glowing walls, yes, a multitude of drawings under the arch of a huge cave, children in the corner by the wall, turning their heads in sync with him when he suddenly stood up and jumped off the lodgment, pulling an almost clean sheet of paper from a pile of written ones. He had seen all this before. It was almost routine, like going to work.

Philip shook his head, slightly ringing after sleep (he didn’t want to think that for the last week he had always woken up easily and cheerfully, and today, getting up, he felt the first hint of dizziness) and took up a pencil. He closed his eyes for a moment. Again, it was difficult to remember right away what he had done yesterday. But he remembered some things well. Even better than yesterday, a day here or a day at home. What he needed now. Any artifact has a diagram. A simple diagram that the magician first draws on paper. The artifact reproduces it in three-dimensional space. But it uses the same energy flows that can be displayed on a plane. It was as if he saw a screwdriver in his hands, a green jar next to the toolbox, a half-disassembled door... And most importantly, a diagram. A two-dimensional projection of the portal door to the human world stood before his eyes clearly, as if drawn on the back of his eyelids. It even glowed slightly in the darkness of his imagination. The pencil ran across the sheet of paper. He knew how he came up with it. What component blocks it consists of. How it punches a hole in the space between two neighboring worlds. And he knew exactly how to change it to achieve the opposite effect.

“Morning doesn’t start with coffee,” he overheard Hunter’s comment.

And he ignored it as usual.

Although for a moment it seemed to him that this was said without hostility, perhaps even with some kind of a smile in his voice, as if it was about something familiar and... dear? The pencil almost slid to the side as the thought flashed through his mind. And it wasn't the first time the boy had spoken in that tone... Who the hell are you? What kind of attitude do you have towards me? Why do I even care... No, he urgently needs to bring Hunter's portraits home. He has to know... he has to...

Philip clenched his teeth, forcing himself back to the diagram. It was still clearly and correctly outlined in his head, and when he looked at the sheet, it seemed to lie on it like an illusory sketch, over which he simply moved a pencil. And when the portal diagram was ready, he took a new sheet. And on it he began to draw the diagram with the changes he needed. He called such spells "chiral”. From the Greek word for palm. Palms are similar to each other, like reflections in a mirror. Two equal objects on different sides of the reference point. Minus one, plus one. Mirror images of each other always give zero when added together. It doesn't always work like that with spells, but that's exactly how the bracelets on his hands were made, for example. They are simply the same diagrams that are drawn on his skin. Only in the opposite direction. Luz's intuition did not fail her, he cannot use magic in them. The combinations of glyphs block each other. A simple chiral spell would be enough to close the portal, if they weren't too late. If the worlds hadn't reached the point of no return yet, and without a connection between them, the repulsion force would outweigh the attraction force... So he drew a reflection of the portal spell on the next sheet of paper.

He was drawing salvation for the entire world on a piece of paper.

"Can he really do it in two weeks?" It was Willow's voice. She spoke quietly, trying not to draw his attention to the conversation.

"If I know him," Hunter answered in a disgustingly knowledgeable tone, "he already has everything ready. He rarely promises to do something he can't do, unless he's outright lying. We can start the countdown to "I solved your problem”."

The pencil in Philip's hands completed the last circle. With his arms outstretched, he held the diagram out in front of him. Light from the round yellow balls filling the cave shone through the parchment paper. And the diagram seemed to be burning with this light.

"Call Luz," Philip said contentedly, smiling slightly at the corners of his lips. "I've finished the key to the end of the world."

Philip quietly exhaled through his nose. Rubbed his forehead. Sighed a little louder. He was silent for a while and sighed again. He sat for a while, sorting through the papers and feeling someone else's gaze on him. He put a whole stack aside. He looked at her sadly, folded his arms across his chest with a heavy sigh.

“What's wrong?”

Philip raised his eyes, full of universal sadness.

“What's the matter, Belos?”

Philip looked at the witch sitting near the wall not far from him spread out on a cloak. His gaze, somewhere in the direction of her round glasses when she spoke, dropped to the little plastic bag in her hands.

Willow followed his gaze and raised her eyebrows in surprise. Then she rolled her eyes, getting up from her seat.

“Seriously? Was it so hard to ask?” she asked rhetorically, putting the bag on the floor next to him and returning to her seat.

Philip followed her path to the wall with his eyes, and slowly, with the attitude of a man doing someone else a favor—just the most self-reliant air possible, picked up the bag from the floor.

The witch looked at him with restrained curiosity, crossing her arms over her chest, but Philip no longer paid attention to her.

Hunter went after Luz and left them alone, and Willow, after wandering around the cave for a while, took a plastic bag out of her satchel and began to crunch something appetizingly. Philip always thought that it was impolite to eat in front of someone and not share food. Which is what he tried his best to hint at. His message, fortunately, found a response.

Carefully poured out of the plastic bag into his palm were several light hard balls. White-mountain kinar berry? Living stone from the caves on the Wrist? No, it didn't smell right. Philip threw the balls into his mouth. Maybe those strange sweet beans from the foothills... And suddenly he froze, stopping chewing. The taste of roasted nuts spilled onto his tongue.

Philip closed his eyes.

Earth nuts. It was strange that he did not recognize the smell.

The last time he ate peanuts was in his distant, very distant childhood. There had always been many invasive species from the human world on the Boiling Isles; among the aggressive carnivorous plants and red spruce trees, you could easily find a common chamomile. Moreover, the spruce trees themselves were obviously either plants from Earth brought millions of years ago to the demon realm, or vice versa. The difference in the color of the needles hardly made one doubt the relation of the two species. But for some reason, peanuts did not take root on the Isles. Although Philip had read (one of the paintings in the basement shows him in an imperial robe, holding a book in his hands, standing near a long tall shelf) about several documented cases of this legume penetrating local ecosystems. Something was missing in the soil, air, or sunlight. Or maybe the flora and fauna, including witches, simply ate the tasty nuts before they had time to multiply. Anyway, there were no peanuts on the Boiling Isles. And surprisingly, he hadn't forgotten the taste at all in hundreds of years (another picture... Caleb brought a bag of nuts from the market... they are cheap and filling, you can generally rely on nuts when there is no other food). Philip poured some more into his palm, began to put the nuts in his mouth one by one, chewing slowly, savoring. And he had a thought. He involuntarily wondered if this company had food from Earth because Luz periodically traveled to the human world? Or had the Boiling Isles managed to establish trade relations? Could they have done it in ten years? Considering that a teenage girl would have to become an intermediary between the two worlds. And if Philip knew anything about humanity, it was that if they tried to contact the Boiling Isles, they would become an object of interest for military forces. Which in the human world had always been much more organized. Much larger... The islands are relaxed by the absence of a large and powerful enemy. Philip smirked at this thought. He muttered quietly:

“You forgot about yourself.”

Yes, but perhaps one person is not capable of keeping an entire state in good enough shape, sufficiently prepared for a serious military conflict. The oracle's ball is not capable of giving a full idea of ​​the military power of the neighboring world, but even what Philip saw through the curved glass was enough to make his heart flutter with admiration for the technologies that had become commonplace in the world of humans. Which allowed iron machines to fly across the sky like birds. And bring down a rain of iron and fire on cities... One such bird, and the Boiling Isles would be on fire. And if he understands human psychology... Oh, ten years would be enough to grind the witches into dust. With all their magic, their power did not even reach that of the staff assembled by his human hands. Even without a staff, even with limited spells, he is, by god, the strongest. Strength is not in the heart, not in a damn sack filled with magical bile.

Philip looked at his wrists, bound with iron bracers. At the edge of the drawing, which was open after he habitually rolled up his sleeves.

This... he knows that the glyphs were drawn by his hand, but he hardly remembers it. Probably, this picture is now in the forest... But he just knows that the spells worked perfectly. They did not care where they were, on paper or on living human skin.

Philip slightly tensed his fist, in which he still held the bag of nuts. This made the muscles from the wrist to the elbow move almost imperceptibly. The glyphs on his hand glowed red. And on the bracers, as expected, a counter-spell glowed. Chiral to the one on his hand. Glowed blue, like the ones on the cave walls.

When activated, the glyphs destroy what they are drawn on. This happens sooner or later with any material. Paper quickly, metal more slowly. And that's why it's quite painful when they are drawn on skin...

But there is an exception.

Philip raised his head and looked at the cave walls covered in glyphs. The inside of the Titan Skull. Titan bone.

How much effort would it take to make an engraving of that size on a Titan bone? It had occurred to him, but... actually, why does he say “but”? Not only had it occurred to him, he had also made artifacts from bone a couple of times himself before realizing that it was less practical than creating wire from it (A painting: the interweaving of wire makes up miniature, ultra-thin glyphs, lying on top of another similar weave, under it a third, a fourth... and Philip puts another one on top, and adds a drop of oil to the staff mechanism). It is difficult to make metal from Titan bone. A very complex process, where any mistake costs the resulting material resource consumption. But he learned how to do it, and wrote down the method in detail for himself in one of the journals... One of those journals that were kept here, until the day of his defeat...

Philip abruptly looked down at his hands. Of course. If he had thought about it earlier, he probably would have understood it right away. It's obvious.

The bracers on his hands are titanite. Metal from bone. Otherwise, their strength reserve would not have been enough for long.

The journal that was lying on his desk here (a painting: Luz flying, thrown back either by a blow or a spell, crashes into the table and turns it over) described in detail the only method known to Philip for smelting all the metal components from Titan bones. A sufficiently experienced potion maker... or a sufficiently skilled blacksmith, perhaps, would have mastered the method according to his instructions quickly. And casting chiral spells is an intuitive solution. Luz is good with intuition. It seemed that she had somehow tricked the portal scheme in the same way...

Just as Philip began to peer closely at the pattern-breaking section of the spell on the wall, which was supposed to protect this place from penetration and exit through the portal, the not-right piece of the drawing lit up, opening a passage for guests from outside.

To his considerable disappointment, it was not Luz.

“I hope you brought food? Mine was confiscated.”

“Another extortionate tax?” Augustus quipped, looking back at Philip, who, at the mention of food, rustled the bag of nuts again, which he had somewhat forgotten about, distracted by his thoughts.

“You can go home to eat. After all, it's our shift,” Amity suggested.

“I want to wait for Luz. His Majesty announced his readiness to solve our problem. Maybe we won't have to come back here, finally,” Willow drawled hopefully.

Amity sighed wearily in agreement.

Philip tried to hide his grin. Naive children. How can they, knowing Luz as much as they do, believe that under the current conditions of their truce, all this will end up quickly and painlessly.

The children spent some time having a snack. Their pies smelled amazing, but Philip considered it beneath him to beg for food for the second time in a day, and for some reason he could only afford to brazenly take it from Hunter or Luz. It was a strange feeling, as if he needed to know the other witches a little better to feel comfortable eating their lunch.

However, they did share with him.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on me from behind,” Philip said calmly, not raising his head from the sheets of paper with notes that he was rereading for the hundredth, if not thousandth, time in order to maintain the appearance of a serious, busy person. “The oath, of course, protects you, Mister Porter, but I would strongly advise against tempting fate.”

The boy behind him sighed in disappointment.

“How did you notice me? I hid all the sounds and was completely invisible.”

“That’s why you reeked of illusion magic from a mile away,” Philip explained, still not turning around.

“Oh,” Augustus walked around him, squatting just a step or two away, no more, looking at him point-blank. “Does magic have a smell?”

“Not so close,” Philip winced, moving away.

Augustus moved away without complaint. Right on his haunches, without straightening up, in a goose step. It looked funny.

“And what does my magic smell like, tell me?”

“Sweet berry syrup.” Philip glanced sideways at Augustus.

“Wow,” he exhaled.

“And abomination magic?” Amity, who had overheard their conversation from her spot beside Willow at the wall, involuntarily became interested.

Philip sniffed slightly to answer, not entirely confidently:

“Hm. Clay, I suppose…”

“Plant magic?” Augustus did not let up.

“That's obvious,” Willow added dryly, before Philip could answer, “grass and flowers.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Philip smiled tightly.

Willow chuckled, shrugging.

“Oh, maybe that gave me away too,” said Augustus, handing Philip the pie he had been holding in his hands.

Philip accepted the offering, and it was obviously an offering, graciously. The filling of the pie turned out to be raspberry. And Philip hadn't eaten anything so delicious in a long time. Actually, he hadn't eaten anything at all in a long time.

“Now that you've been appeased, I hope,” Augustus waved his arms wide, bowing his head, as if feigning worship. In the "squatting" position, it didn't work out very well, but he tried. “Would you be so kind and tell me how you solved our little problem?”

Philip chewed the last piece of pie. He swallowed it with some regret that it was finished.

“I wouldn't like to repeat everything twice,” Philip brushed off the offer.

Augustus tried again.

“I won't ask what Luz is interested in. I'd like to know about the technical side... how you did the calculations, and all that... the extrapolation of that graph really showed that the tension fluctuation…”

Philip turned his head, looked straight at Augustus. He didn't flinch. He only hesitated a little, looking away for a moment. But then he continued. And he was saying some really interesting things. The boy was saying out loud everything that Philip had conveyed to Luz in the simplest words just a couple of days ago, and he clearly had an idea of ​​what he was talking about. Philip didn't think it necessary to answer the questions he asked during his lengthy monologue. But he was interested in something.

“You must be a scientist.”

“No, I'm the toastmaster.”

Philip closed his eyes. He sighed. Of course, the smartest boy in the company is in charge of organizing celebrations. Where else to apply such wonderful brains. Oh, well, he's already mentally giving the witches compliments. Beginning to think of them as people is not so far away.

“I like all this magical science, but they don't teach it at universities. So I haven't found myself as a scientist,” Augustus shrugged, folding his hands on his knees.

Philip sighed again. And regret, an unexpected emotion, broke through into this sigh.

“Magic on the Boiling Isles is presented in the public consciousness more as an art. Witches perceive it this way because they are born with magic in their bodies. In fact, magic is a very subtle and quite precise science. But only a few people understand this.”

Philip caught himself almost complaining. He glanced quickly at the witches by the wall. No, it seems they didn't pay attention to the tone. But they listened with genuine interest. And Augustus scratched his nose and suddenly agreed:

“This is the most interesting side of magic, how it can be described in the language of mathematics, just like any natural phenomenon. It's just that everyone has magic, but not everyone has math.”

Philip looked at him with curiosity.

“Not everyone needs it,” Amity butted into the conversation. “Math helps, of course. But in practice... most people have enough to rely on their feelings and basic skills.”

“Only in the moment is it like that with magic. Any artifact, any complex one,” Philip spoke thoroughly, measuredly, ”cannot be done without calculations.”

Amity chewed her lips.

“Well, oracle balls are enchanted without them…”

“Whose invention do you think is now in great demand, unlike oracle balls, and works regardless of whether you have the ability to use oracle magic or not?”

“It can't be,” Augustus breathed out.

Amity blinked a couple of times and reached into her pocket, taking out a scroll. Philip bowed his head, feigning modesty.

“No, I'm fibbing, of course. The idea wasn't mine, just the implementation. But after the creation of centralized information through magic balls, the concept was in the air.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Haven't you thought about how your Penstagram scrolls work?”

Amity glanced at the scroll in her hand, exchanged glances with Augustus. Then they both focused their greedy gazes on Philip. He smiled thinly.

No, in fact, it would not be difficult to make the scrolls an analogue of oracle television. To build a scheme of the artifact's operation entirely on ordinary magic. But Philip... It was a bit unexpected for him, but for the first time in many years he wanted to do something just because. Not for the Great Goal, not by the Will of the Titan, not in the Name of the Plan. Just sit down over the drawings and figure out how to make a compact communication device from the interweaving of glyphs and wires. Not because his life or the success of his grandiose plans depended on it. For the sake of the process of work itself. He was simply hooked by the idea.

“These are not artifacts in the usual sense. Artificial magic, that's what they work on. Like the airships. And who is the one and only specialist in artificial magic on the Boiling Isles?”

“Not the only one anymore,” Amity objected, apparently out of a pure sense of contradiction.

“Please, Miss Blight,” Philip snorted softly, “you know that Luzura specializes in spontaneous, albeit successful, solutions to specific practical problems. Science is not for her.”

“Well, what about Blight Industries–” Amity began, but Philip interrupted her here too.

“Your father's work is truly grandiose,” Amity's eyes widened slightly, and her mouth opened in surprise from such frank praise on his part, but Philip did not focus on this, “but he combines his natural magic with technology that is completely devoid of magic. This is also useful, no doubt. But try at least once to create a mechanism capable of generating magic. And do not use magic in the process. And you will understand how different it is.”

Amity was thoughtful and quiet for the rest of the evening until Luz arrived. And Augustus, to Philip’s delight, nevertheless asked impatiently:

“So how do Penstagram scrolls work?”

Luz was looking at Willow with a heavy gaze.

Willow shrugged awkwardly.

"I think he needs to eat something. Maybe he'll need fewer palismen this way."

"Et tu, Brute," Luz stated reproachfully.

Philip silently poured the remaining nuts from the bag into his mouth. He crunched it, drawing attention to himself.

"I'm Brute too," Augustus confessed, raising his hand and waving his palm in the air. "Dad made pies, so..."

Luz sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"If he throws up, you'll be the one cleaning this time." Willow and Augustus nodded dejectedly in unison.

"This time?" Philip blurted out involuntarily.

Luz turned her whole body to him, placing her hands on her hips.

"Are you cleaning?" Philip asked.

It probably sounded a bit rude. As if he thinks that teenagers are incapable of cleaning in principle.

“Well, otherwise everything here would be covered in your goo. It's uncomfortable.”

Okay, that was a bit rude too. Someone is clearly not in the best mood today.

“Your presence here also offends my sense of beauty, but I try to keep myself within the bounds of politeness,” Philip frowned at her words.

Luz chuckled.

“Okay, whatever you came up with, show me.”

At that moment, a parallel dialogue was going on behind her:

“And he said that my magic smells like berry syrup.”

“It never occurred to me to compare the smell of magic with ordinary smells,” muttered the basilisk who came with Luz. “But he is definitely right about illusions and syrup. They are very similar.”

“As promised, I made a diagram that will help close the portal,” Philip took the piece of paper in his hands, folded it in half, gently running his fingers along the fold. “That should solve the problem. If you caught yourself in time, of course.”

“Give it to me,” Luz extended her palm forward, her eyes greedily clutching the piece of paper.

Philip smiled softly and closed his eyes.

“No.”

Luz made a sound that was like a low, guttural growl. Philip smiled a little wider involuntarily.

“First, I'd like to…”

“Look, I understand that you're eager to perform a couple of diplomatic pirouettes, but today really isn't the best time,” Luz winced heavily. “Maybe we can go without it?”

Philip shook his head, still smiling.

“Okay,” Luz suddenly turned around and stood with her back to him again. “Then tomorrow.”

“What?” Philip was confused.

“Do you think I have time for hours-long negotiations every day?” Luz threw a frowning glance at him over her shoulder. “I'll come tomorrow.”

“But,” Philip also frowned, even wanted to get up from his seat, he was so indignant, “I would like to sort this out as soon as possible…”

“If you really wanted to, you wouldn't drag out each attempt to reach an agreement. You'll have to be patient. Hence I tolerate your patronizing pedantry.”

Philip fell silent. It wasn't that he had nothing to say. But he didn't want to ruin the image of a reserved, condescending villain just because the impatience to share his elegant solution tickled his throat. After all, was that what he needed most? He leaned back on the stone of the logment and exhaled. He even demonstratively, hiding his irritation and slight resentment, delved into reading the first article he came across on the floor next to him.

“Who can take over for the next shift?” Luz looked at her team.

“Me!” Amity and Augustus announced in unison. They exchanged glances, Augustus rubbed his neck in confusion, Amity began to scratch her cheek.

“I’ll let you go,” Augustus shrugged.

“Oh no, you can go, Gus.”

“Oh no, only after you.”

“Guys,” Luz cut off their equivocations with an even face. “A few words.”

They walked a fair distance away, probably confident that Philip would not be able to hear them from there. Luz glanced back at him, making sure that he was completely absorbed in studying some piece of paper. Philip was carefully peering at it, while eavesdropping. Then, lowering her voice, she asked:

“What the hell was that?”

Amity and Augustus exchanged glances again.

“Okay, listen, it seems that when he's in a good mood, he gives lectures on artificial magic for free and a piece of pie,” Amity shared in a half-whisper, as if it were the worst secret.

“What?” Luz's eyebrows, judging by her voice, shot up. “When did he become so kind?”

“He himself enjoys sharing all this, in my opinion,” said Augustus. “He's a scientist. And imagine, not telling anyone about his research for so many years, keeping everything to himself, whether intentionally or because few people besides him are interested in this magic.”

“I can't imagine.”

“Imagine that no one read the new chapter of your Azura fanfic.”

“What a nightmare…”

“You see... And by the way, he is a good orator.”

“Damn, I would have stayed to listen.”

Amity and Augustus exchanged glances again. If Philip were in Luz's place, these glances would have already begun to irritate him.

“You know, um,” Amity hesitated, “maybe it would be a bit difficult for you…”

“Pf-f-ft, what?” Luz waved her hand. “Come on, what don't I know about magic? I'm getting my second degree right now.”

“Luz, Eda's university is cool, and I like going to master classes there myself, but this is different. Philip is constantly throwing around academic terms. If you're not immersed in that environment, it feels like a different language.”

“Yeah, Philip was talking about the Penstagram scroll device today. And I didn't quite understand everything, to be honest,” Augustus confirmed. “The lack of a university education is taking its toll. Sometimes I regret leaving my second year…”

“Ugh, terms. And hey, since when did he become Philip and not Belos?”

Amity and Augustus exchanged glances once again. Luz just waved her hand at them.

And Philip was sitting there, not reading the text before his eyes, and could not hold back the satisfied smile of a well-fed cat.

Chapter Text

Philip was sitting quietly under intense observation. He was sitting, no longer pretending to be busy with anything, just sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the lodgement. He’d thrown a soft cloak over his shoulders, which had absorbed the smell of dust and the eternity of this cave. A pile of obsolete papers, completely covered with writing, lay to his side (only a couple of sheets from the whole stack somehow miraculously escaped the fate of their comrades, and remained virginally clean). A few dozen balls of light dangled above his head, closer to the ceiling. His left hand, resting on the bend of his knee, was twitching slightly, each time his thumb touched one of the four other fingers, then the next, quickly tapping out an inaudible rhythm, four beats per tact.

Philip was sitting, closing his eyes and counting the seconds. And feeling the gaze on his skin.

Hunter came alone today for some reason. More precisely, he was already here when Philip woke up (he rose slowly from the lodgement, carefully holding his head, which seemed to have cracked from sudden pain). The boy was sitting where he always did, at the wall closest to the lodgement, and, it seemed, did not take his eyes off Philip. And when Philip looked around the cave, unmistakably understanding, by the sound of his breathing and the smell of the palistrom wood, where his only guest at the moment was, he met Hunter's gaze. And Hunter looked at him intently, but with an unreadable face. Philip also went down to the floor, pulling the cloak he had covered himself with. While he was going down, the cave swayed slightly, and he hurried to settle on the floor, lean his back against the stone, close his eyes, and wait out the dizziness. This was the second time in a row that this had happened since waking up. It wasn't even one tenth as bad as at the very beginning, when the children had come to him for negotiations, and started them with the basilisk leaving him completely exhausted. It was still a long way from that state. But... even the echoes of this feeling made him tense up. And now, when he understood that it was possible to do without pain and nausea at all, he didn't want to endure this state, even many times less terrible than real exhaustion. He wanted to demand a palisman for himself.

And if someone else were here, he might have started a conversation about it. But talking to Hunter would be difficult... So Philip was silent and looked ahead, from under half-closed eyelids. And he counted the moments of silence with his fingers. Trying to distract himself from the pain in his head. Every now and then he rubbed his forehead and involuntarily winced. And although he didn't look at Hunter, it seemed to him as if every movement of his wound a spring of irritation inside the guy. Philip also thought he understood why he was reacting this way: the last time he was alone with Hunter, they’d had a rather unpleasant conversation. And Philip had hinted that by playing on his pity or anger, he could easily manipulate him. Hunter was not happy with this realization. And now he would probably perceive any sign of weakness on Philip's part with caution, with hostility, as another attempt at manipulation. He might even lose his temper. Last time he had refrained from striking, but if he continued to react so sharply, it would not end well.

And so they were sitting. In tense silence. Philip did not remember ever having to live through such an awkward silence in his entire life, such a silence filled with so many unspoken things. Although he could no longer rely on his memory lately.

However, this silence did not bother Philip himself. Moreover, when the silence was broken by footsteps, when the cave became crowded with witches, his head began to spin a little more. And the twittering of conversations, sudden against the background of that previous silence, seemed like an unpleasant vibration, irritating his sharp ears.

At some point, the twittering came closer, and Philip realized that Augustus was squatting next to him, somehow very close, asking something.

Does this witch even have a concept of personal space?

Philip winced. His forehead once again shot with pain. He tilted his head to the side, frowning and pressing his lips together. From how close the witch sat to him, the stabs of pain began to be accompanied by a crushing hum. His voice, persistently chattering, mixed with this hum and pressed on his ears. He wanted to cover them with his hands and squeeze his eyes tightly shut.

Philip wanted to say something, through his teeth clenched tightly from pain, to say something as quickly as possible, before he would vomit from this hum and noise and before his eyes would darken from the fact that there was so much of this noise...

And then a hand fell on Augustus's shoulder. A hand in a glove. And pulled him away from Philip a good couple of meters. Augustus fell from his haunches in the process and slid across the floor on his butt. And then he looked up at his friend in surprise.

"You're sitting too close," Hunter said.

And Philip couldn't hold back a sigh of relief.

The girls, who were taking off their warm coats by the wall, throwing down the small bags they always carried with them, turned to look at the boys.

“Keep your distance,” Hunter advised, “if you don't want to get clawed in the face.”

“Ah,” Augustus squeaked. “But the oath..?”

“The oath will work after you lose your eyes,” it sounded surprisingly casual.

Augustus blinked and nodded slowly.

And Philip understood, understood with an unexpected sting of resentment in his chest, that Hunter was worried about his friend, and not about Philip. He rubbed his forehead with a slightly trembling hand. And the other, with which he had been tapping out the rhythm, clenched into a fist.

“Yes, excuse me, can I..?”

Augustus was already on his feet and, demonstratively raising his hands, was about to move towards him again, but was stopped, pulled back, and almost fell on the ground again.

“What did I just tell you?” Hunter sounded irritated, grabbing Augustus by the scruff of the neck.

Augustus turned around and looked at him pleadingly.

“I want to read what's there.”

And he pointed his finger at the stack of papers next to Philip. Philip glanced at it. Then he looked back at the children. His fingers were already continuing to tap each other. One, two, three, four. Hunter also looked from the paper to Philip, lingered on his hand, frowning slightly. Then he looked at Augustus, who had folded his palms in a pleading gesture. Then sighed, letting him go.

Hunter approached Philip himself. And Philip noted with some detached interest: when he approached, when he bent down, picking up the paper from the floor without looking at Philip, when he turned around and walked back to Augustus, who remained at a respectful distance... in general, when Hunter was nearby, his head was not squeezed by a suffocating hum. And there was no tingling desire to move away. As if Hunter's presence in his personal space was familiar and ordinary.

It seemed that he let even Luz near him with more reluctance. And yet she was a person he knew quite well, compared to all the other visitors to this cave. Of course, he most often had no choice: he was either tied up on the floor, or spread out on the floor, exhausted, or it was an interesting enough conversation for both of them to sit next to her. But if he had a choice... he would have said that he felt the least discomfort when Hunter was next to him out of all of them. And it was something completely unconscious.

Was it because of the resemblance to his brother again? Philip thought about it with a kind of sick smile.

A strange dream. Strange, unpleasant. With such a wrong Caleb. Whom Philip cannot perceive even here as a threat or a stranger.

The children must have decided to get together again. And Luz, as a commander should do, made everyone wait for her. She arrived with the basilisk when Philip's fingers had been tapping against each other for two hours. And Philip rose from his place, carefully putting his cloak on the lodgment. His head no longer spun from every movement. Only from abrupt ones. And it was time to meet the dear guest.

God willing, they will both get what they need today. Although not necessarily what they want.

Philip was looking at the wall.

From the other's perspective it must have looked strange. He had been staring at the wall for several minutes, not taking his eyes off it and barely moving. But Luz probably understood what interested him in this wall.

This was the very place from which she had once again appeared in the cave in the company of the basilisk. All the other children had come from there before.

“Well? Won’t you ask anything?” she couldn’t stand it at some point and went up to Philip, leaving her coat and bag where the others had done.

With some slight pride, Luz looked at the glyphs arranged in a slightly incorrect order, relative to the pattern on all the other walls. Not even that, the pattern was preserved, but some details were slightly different, literally at the level of dashes deviating to the side. You don’t know what to look for, and you won’t notice. But in the end, the pattern in this particular place was a little bit broken. Just enough to open a breach in the portal defense. And even a professional in working with glyphs (like Philip, for example) needs time to see the violation in the pattern. Very delicate work. He couldn't even believe that this is the work of...

“I have only one question. How do you manage to do something like this without math?”

“Imagination,” Luz waved her hands in the air in front of her face. “Also a little luck, strong intuition, and many man-hours spent on the trial and error method.”

“God, what a nightmare,” Philip said, equally delighted and puzzled.

He still couldn't tear his eyes away from the wall. Why did he only now deign to come up and take a closer look? Somehow he had no time, it seems... But this is such an interesting work. He even forgot for a while about what he so wanted to discuss with Luz. As they call it nowadays, he was simply spellbound.

“Did you really come up with this all by yourself?”

“There’s not much to think about,” Luz grinned, judging by her tone, flattered by his interest. “While they were applying the engraving, there was plenty of time to try out a couple of options. I made mini versions of the anti-portal spell on the inside wall of cardboard boxes. I burned a dozen in total before I managed to make a loophole.”

Philip imagined for a moment what could have happened to the Skull if they had closed the circuit with one of those versions of the broken spell Luz used to burn the boxes. How could she even manage to cause fire with anti-portal magic? How much breaking would it take...

“And you're still just creating new combinations at random?” Philip said, letting disappointment creep into his voice.

Luz immediately reacted to the tone and snapped:

“A normal method. Not everyone can be a mathematician,” and, shaking her head, as if in defense, she said, “I have enough experience to feel and predict how this or that combination will behave. And my feelings usually don't let me down.”

Philip nodded with satisfaction. In fact, it was the same for him. Over time, you get used to guessing the action of a combination, you just see how you need to connect certain glyphs to get the result you need. And calculations, if you have to do them, are more likely to identify some subtle side effects. Like, for example, there is a combination with which it is easy to skin vegetables or dead animals…or living witches… So this combination, with a (very slight) change in some parameters, becomes an excellent cleaning agent. A bit too rough for people with delicate skin, but perfect for Philip, who absolutely hates the feeling of dirt, slime, and so on. And although he used this spell on himself almost every day that he sat in this cave with a pencil and paper, he still caught the phantom sensation of the curse's liquid flowing down his back, his face, his collarbones. It drove him crazy. But asking for a basin and a washcloth seemed humiliating. And even more so, washing in the presence of someone. No way. He is capable of solving such everyday issues himself. What a blessing that he does not need a toilet at all.

“Have you already reached figures other than a circle?”

“I'm... in the process. The idea of ​​using triangles and squares came to me a long time ago, but in practice it turned out to be difficult. So far I'm figuring it out from your journals,” Luz honestly admitted.

Philip, against his will, again felt satisfaction from the fact that his knowledge, his work, was appreciated by someone. It was difficult to count how many books on magic he’d written in his entire life— most of them, of course, not under his own name. How funny it was to hear live, at the occasional holiday social reception in the palace, or to see in open correspondence, first in newspapers, later on social networks, how some major scientists would argue until they were hoarse about whose fundamental work on the foundations of magic was the most fundamental: William Fitane’s famous Fundamentals of Classical Magic or Bane Witte’s (slightly newer but no less famous) Magic of Elementary Matters. Funny and damn nice. Because books written by witches were rarely put on par with his best works. But still, even more nice, it is already the peak of something flattering and itching your pride, when your enemy literally says "you, of course, piss me off, but I like to study from your notes”. Although the feelings are mixed when you think about your enemy using your achievements to improve their professionalism.

“And how are things going?”

“Fine,” Luz raised her eyebrows, “except for all sorts of diffs, I usually flip through them.”

He felt bad about the differential equations.

“But in general, at least drawing triangles and squares is much easier than with circles. I even figured out all these vectors a little... Gus helped. But it pisses me off when in the middle of clear instructions for using a combination you make a lyrical digression for ten pages about the meaning of life and the structure of the universe,” Luz winced. “Reminds me of Bane Witte's writing style.”

Philip chuckled, squinting ironically, watching as realization slowly and inevitably spread across Luz's face.

“Wat,” Luz closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Bane Witte. Wittebane. Fuck.”

Philip burst out laughing.

The witches huddled against the wall all turned to look at them.

“Guys, did you know that we studied his textbook in Magic Theory?” Luz pointed an accusing finger at Philip's face. He flinched away slightly.

“Since his real name became known?” Hunter confirmed, puzzled. “And not just in the theory of magic. There were a lot of names suspiciously similar to ‘Philip Wittebane’ in the school library.”

Luz slapped her face with her palm. Philip giggled again.

“You left your mark everywhere,” Luz stared ahead, thoughtfully rubbing her brow, “textbooks are fine, but even damn Penstagram?”

“Don’t forget that without me, the Isles wouldn’t even have a concept of statehood,” Philip reminded her modestly.

Luz looked at him irritated. But Philip already knew her face well enough to find carefully disguised admiration on it. And with his eyes alone, he showed that he noticed it. And Luz quickly hid her gaze. Philip suppressed the urge to smirk. And he stepped toward his lodgment, inviting her to change the subject.

“By the way, you seemed to want to find out something from me.”

They were somehow separated from others again, as if there were only the two of them, two people, the only people in the world. And the witches were somewhere to the side, in a corner, almost unnoticeable, almost silent observers, if you don’t count the restrained whispers. As it used to be in the very first days. When he spoke only with her. Philip was happy with everything. He could almost forget that there was someone else in the cave besides the two of them. And it was more comfortable this way. The feeling of the crowd gave birth to a heavy hum in his tired, sick head. While the witches stood at a distance, compactly and unnoticeably, it was better. And he moved closer to the center of the cave, closer to the lodgment, where he was used to working.

Luz followed him, but as if deliberately avoiding the main question for both of them, she began somehow from afar.

“Do you remember the conversation about the reason why we are here?”

Philip raised an eyebrow, turning around as he walked.

“I mean, that it was we who came to talk, and not someone else. Well, when I put the bracer on you,” Luz scratched her cheek, looking slightly to the side.

Philip silently looked at her, waiting for her to continue. And he was in no hurry to answer. The truth was that he remembered it rather vaguely. The events of the dream were very willingly washing out of his memory, mixing with each other, becoming cloudy and unclear after several days. (He preferred not to think about it, but a part of him knew that the same thing was happening with memories from reality.)

“How did you understand back then,” Luz finally got to the point, sitting down on the floor where he had arranged his work area and crossing her legs, “that we were here on our own initiative? I understand, it’s a logical guess, we are, indeed, not the first candidates for the role of negotiators, but...” She looked at him with carefully concealed curiosity.

Fortunately, he could answer the question.

“Dust by the door,” Philip explained laconically.

“What,” Luz frowned.

“If your visit had been agreed upon with the jailers, you would have been taken through the main entrance, obviously. And there would have been traces by the door,” Philip said, nodding demonstratively in the direction of that very door. “There is still dust there. A thick, noticeable layer. Untouched.”

The layer was really noticeable, especially in contrast to the area of ​​the floor closest to the lodgment, spotlessly clean, where the children, as he had learned last time, periodically cleaned up (apparently while he was sleeping). And where on that day, that first time (several weeks had passed… these memories were dim, and he was more likely to imagine them than actually remember) the dust had been trampled by footprints. Footprints that did not lead from the doors. Luz turned her head where he pointed. For some time she looked silently, with a somewhat complex expression on her face, at the notorious dust. She looked for quite a long time.

“Are you fucking Sherlock Holmes or what? What the hell.”

Philip chuckled. He had no idea who he had just been compared to, but the tone was enough to tell.

Was Sherlock Holmes a witch known for her talent for solving riddles, or a byword in the human world... It was complicated. It was difficult to figure out what Philip didn't know because he couldn't know, and what he simply didn't remember. Luz had asked him a question, and the answer had come to him by itself. As if there was a piece of paper lying on the table next to him, from which he had read everything. Sometimes, one of the children would say a word, and Philip would have to get up from the imaginary table and go to the bookcase. Thoughtfully run his fingers along the spines and find the answer in one of the books. Sherlock Holmes wasn't in his archives. But Hunter wasn't there either. Was it because the books had gotten lost somewhere? Or did he hide them somewhere far away?

He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering his small house.

No, these are not books... paintings.

They are not in the closet. In the basement. Here they are, all of them that might be useful. Come and take them. But those that are not here, are not in Philip's memory when he sleeps.

They are there, in the forest. Covered in ash. Or burned to ashes.

There is a man in the paintings. A man who looks like his father. Philip stubbornly refused to call him Philip, but he knew that he looked like the man in the paintings. Like the older one. And he looks a little less like the much younger one, with a beard. But they are all the same man...

And he can take the place of this man in the painting. And then he becomes him. That Philip, who seems a little different. Who knows how to smirk contemptuously and knows what to say to him. And Philip himself does not remember and does not understand what the man in the painting is saying. He speaks for him. So confidently, as if he had been learning to speak beautifully all his life.

He should have thought for a second how this was possible. And why his dream, his damn nightmare, was connected with these paintings. Paintings that in reality were in the basement of his house.

He and his brother had never gone to get the paintings with Hunter. Philip asked, Caleb refused. Philip insisted, Caleb got angry. They almost had a fight. And Philip thought that it wasn’t worth it.

In the end, what did it really matter, an unhuman who looked so much like his brother? It was just a dream. He was sleeping and seeing a distorted reflection of reality in his dream. Or worse, he was damned, and this nightmare was his personal hell. Then it was no wonder that his brother-not-brother was looking at him here with such hatred. If Philip had believed for a moment that he was in the real world, that look would have caused him a lot of pain.

He looked towards Hunter. The latter, as if to spite him, was looking at him. Philip turned away again.

But he knows it's just a dream. And he doesn't care. The only thing that matters is that while he's here, while he has this opportunity, he must protect himself. And do what he can for the only human besides him in this hell.

He also approached the lodgment, sat down on the floor, two steps away from Luz, who was still thoughtfully looking at the door, apparently lost in her thoughts, like him. While he was lowering himself to the floor, as carefully as possible, trying not to catch another bout of dizziness, he leaned on his left hand. His hand responded with quiet discontent.

Philip closed his eyes heavily. Well, here it begins. And he had hoped until the very end that things were not that bad yet.

A weak aching pain in his left hand was added to the stabbing lightning bolts in the center of his forehead.

“Well, is it my question now?”

Luz turned her head.

“Are we having another Q&A?” she said a little hoarsely, cleared her throat slightly, and swallowed.

“It's a convenient format for dialogue,” Philip shrugged. “Why didn't you come in through the door?”

After all, he knows it from somewhere, the combination that opens the magic seal on the other side of the door is familiar to Luz (the picture... an old one... with half-erased faces...).

“There are basilisks on duty outside.”

Ah, so that's it. Well, of course, they are basilisks. Although the need for security, as such, is more likely due to the likelihood of someone like Luz and company coming. After all, the door cannot be opened from the inside. But reinsurance is not superfluous, considering that, perhaps, only basilisks can pose a real threat to Philip, and to any witch also. Now it is clear why he practically does not notice this little friend of Luz. There is already the smell of basilisks in the cave. And much stronger, adult ones. It is not surprising that she is simply lost against their background for him. And their smell, in turn, has become so ordinary that it does not cause a reaction.

“Do they ever come inside?”

“The inspection happens once in... no, I think I've already told you enough,” Luz responded, shaking her head.

Philip snorted. She caught herself right in time, yes.

“Oh yeah, I could use that information... oh, wait a minute, that's true. I could kill you all, wait for the check, and therefore the doors to open, and jump out to the guard…”

“Yeah, to a crowd of basilisks, with a stone in your hands and a couple of glyphs on paper,” Luz also snorted.

He didn't explain to her that it was possible to prepare a combination in advance that would kill everyone who passed through the door and would not require direct confrontation from him. She must have understood this anyway. She must have thought about it, because her face became serious and thoughtful. And then the conversation reached the point that Philip had been waiting for, in fact, for a long time.

“You could have,” she said unexpectedly quietly, so unusually quietly for such a confident and loud Luz, “you could have killed us all that time. You were filled with the power of the palisman. You had the ability to cast spells with one hand. And we were too careless... you could have not only attacked me back then, you could have killed everyone. Before I put the bracer on you…”

"Why didn't I?" His question interrupted her. Luz looked up at him.

"Do you realize the scale of my goals, girl?" Philip asked ingratiatingly. "Do you realize how much of a drop in the ocean it would be for me to kill just four witches and one demon?" Luz froze. Her face paled visibly. But it was so strange, Philip couldn't tell for sure whether it was from horror or anger.

"I don't need power for its own sake. It's just a tool. I don't enjoy violence. I just do what I think is necessary. I don't get satisfaction from murder. I don't want to destroy all the witches only for me to laugh at their graves. And I don't waste my time on small fry like you.

Philip looked down at her and knew for sure – his eyes were now flickering in the semi-darkness with a cold bluish fire.

“If I kill, then I kill all the witches,” Philip turned away. “If there is an opportunity to kill a dozen or two, what's the point? This is not a personal feud.”

These were words that he could really say. If it were him from the painting ten years ago. It probably sounded convincing. More convincing, perhaps, than telling the truth. About the fact that Philip didn't want anything at all anymore.

He might have killed them if it still had any meaning for him.

Luz exhaled through her teeth, then sucked in a heavy breath.

“Why,” she muttered almost in a whisper, “why are you always so different... It seems to me... I don't understand, it's as if you're real one moment and pretending the next. But I don't understand when it's which.”

“It's always me,” Philip answered with boredom.

And this, unexpectedly, was the truth. As strange as it was for him to admit it. In each of the paintings in the basement, it was him. He was different there. But it was always him, Philip Wittebane. No matter what name he called himself. He could sign his works as "Bane Witte" and give orders as Emperor Belos. And maybe for someone these masks had meaning. But it was always him, him, him...

Everything that happened in the dream still happened to him. But at least... now that it was a dream... he could believe that in reality he would never have picked up a knife to kill...

Philip squeezed the elbow of his left hand with the fingers of the other. His hand began to ache persistently and pitifully.

It’s true that the left hand belongs to the devil. After all, in that murky memory, covered in ashes and certainly not brought to the basement, he was clutching the knife in his left hand.

He closed his eyes for a moment, put his palm to his face. How good... that he didn't remember whose death he dreamed about back then.

Maybe... maybe he would have killed those witches too. It wouldn't have cost him anything, really. Luz's death, perhaps, wasn't in his plans, but it wouldn't have been a big problem either. Just... why? Why do anything? If it weren't for Caleb's request, not for the specific goal of making this dream safe for himself, he would have preferred to lie on the floor and not react to anything. Then again, if it weren't for that task, he could have killed them all and just continued sleeping. But the realization that the death of the friendly company would not end it all made him shake himself up and take hold of his wits. As much as it was possible when his wits were running out.

The silence was resounding and cottony, and Philip knew, even without looking at them, that the company of witches was looking at him now in full force. Silently. Part of him showed slight interest – what was in their eyes now? Hatred? Disgust? He still decided that he was curious enough, and glanced sideways at the witches. And he saw there... different things. That's how they look with the words "well, I didn't expect anything else from you" (the crimson eyes of his not-brother). That's how they look when they blame themselves for something. Probably, it was something like "ah, in vain I forgot myself... exactly... you are evil itself, and I was so careless with you”. He saw sympathy (what?..), and contempt, and indifference. And on the face of Luz, whom he looked at last, it was impossible to read emotions.

"Let's get this over with," she said hoarsely.

And she stood up, taking a step away from him. Philip closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath.

Yes. They need to finish it. There's not much left. Soon he'll fall asleep again. And this time for a long time.

Philip also stood up. And then confidently moved towards the witches. They tensed up a little, some even grabbed their staffs (well, of course, Philip’s little brother and his best friend), but Philip calmly approached and extended his hand forward. Augustus, to whom his palm was directed, quickly realized and put a stack of paper on it. Philip returned to the tray, leafing through it as he went. He fished out a couple of sheets.

One of them, folded in half, he demonstrated to Luz, standing in front of her.

“You need to use this diagram at the portal site. And it will close.”

“And that's it?”

“And that's it. If there's still a chance to separate the worlds, that's enough. If our portal is the only one, if the convergence hasn't passed the point of no return, if no one decides to open the portal again…”

“A lot of ifs,” Luz muttered.

“What did you expect?” Philip raised his eyebrows. “With one decisive blow? Did you think you were in a fairy tale?”

“There is definitely no other way out?” Luz asked with a sigh.

“Another way out cannot be invented and implemented while sitting in a cave,” Philip frowned. “If you want more…”

He looked at the piece of paper in his hands, twirled it in the air with his palm.

“I could help if I had an equipped workshop... better yet, a full-fledged artifact workshop.”

“And I have to drag you there?” Luz snorted. “A brilliant plan, I don't even see the catch.”

Is this her defensive reaction? Or does she just like it better when they bicker in a joking manner than when Philip dramatically broadcasts about murders and morality? Somehow she quickly switched to a more relaxed tone.

“You haven't heard my entire plan yet,” Philip smiled slightly. "It's that I'll only give you the diagram," he raised his finger, Luz followed the gesture with her eyes, "only when I'm near the portal. I want to be there."

“Oh-ho-ho, wait,” Luz waved her palms in front of her, even shook her head for good measure, “we didn't agree on that.”

“Plans have changed,” Philip said, exactly as he had originally planned.

“So this whole time,” Luz closed her eyes, shook her head, “that was the catch? You just thought we'd let you out? Are you nuts?”

“Stop talking in the plural,” Philip began, enunciating his words. “It's you, you, who decides what to do. There is no "we". You constantly conflate yourself and your team, but you are the only one doing anything that matters here.”

He approached her, closing the distance between them by a couple of steps, hanging over her, making the team tense up again. He poked her in the chest with his finger. Luz, irritated, lightly hit his hand, removing the finger from herself.

“And you'll let me out,” Philip said quietly.

They both didn't take their eyes off each other.

And then Luz snatched the paper from his lowered hand and jumped back, shielding herself with a staff that appeared out of thin air.

“Ha,” she smiled contentedly, squeezing the paper in her fingers. Again, so playful, as if everything that was happening was hardly serious.

Philip looked at her with his best condescending grin on his lips. Luz frowned, suspecting something. She took the paper with both hands (her palisman hovering next to her at that moment) and unfolded it. She ran her eyes over it.

“Damn you, bastard!”

“This would be too complicated a scheme if I drew each glyph,” Philip drawled, speaking somewhere into the air, as if not directly addressing Luz. “There's only a structure, so I don't forget. Instead of dots, the finished diagram will have glyphs.”

“Damn it,” Luz clenched her fist, crumpling the paper in her fingers, “damn it. Titan. Let you out? Let you out?! I would understand if you were trying to escape. Yes, there is a damn portal leading out of the cave, but you, demons, have never even looked in its direction until today. We diligently cover the combination with our backs when we need to dial the opening code, but you don’t even try to peek at it or ask for it. You don’t try to bypass the deal and take someone hostage. Do you want to triumphantly leave with me arm in arm? So that I can lead you out of here myself?!”

“And you want to triumphantly and single-handedly save the entire world,” Philip said ingratiatingly.

He took one step closer to her, then took another...

Luz looked at him point-blank, without blinking.

“Instead of joining forces with your big friendly family,” Philip said this with a contemptuous grimace, waving his hand towards the witches, “you preferred to force the enemy to help you. If only to be the most right and the very first one to save everyone. Oh, the world is in danger, oh, something urgently needs to be done. You have fifty years to come up with hundreds of ways to balance the tension, and you want to decide everything in a month. You are ready for torture, for sacrifices, for deals with conscience. This will be just another in a whole series of dubious hasty decisions. And you have already done too much, gone too far. You will have to either accept this decision—” Philip took another step, already so close that he could touch Luz's temple, where a bead of sweat was drawn, with his fingertips “—or say ‘I give up’."

Luz looked at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. He was Belos for her at that moment, probably. It wasn't bad, perhaps. Although he had never liked the name or the mask. But sometimes it was necessary to remind that Belos was still here.

Both to them and to himself.

“And I would be happy to watch,” Philip whispered, taking the last step, standing almost close to her, “how you would choose any of the options.”

She closed her eyes. The muscles in her face were playing. But then she suddenly raised her head, and Philip raised his eyebrows, meeting her harsh gaze.

“Or,” she suddenly began to look more confident, she pulled herself together so quickly that Philip was almost ready to praise her, “we will visit your mind again. Now we know what to look for,” she waved the piece of paper clutched in her hand. “And we still have time. Sooner or later, we will find what we need. And you will not be able to do anything.”

She even smiled at him. So affectionately. What a little pest, Philip thought almost with affection.

“I think I can limit the remaining time. And the sleeping spell will probably bother you.”

“We won't activate it,” Luz snapped.

“You will,” Philip laughed shortly.

“Do you think you can still manipulate me?”

“Do you really doubt it?” Philip raised an eyebrow.

The smile slowly slid off Luz's face, at the same time as Philip's lips stretched into a sly, slightly superior smile. Luz's gaze became intent and attentive. She visibly tensed up, in contrast to Philip's relaxed, casual pose. She clenched her fingers on the shaft of her palisman. And then Philip raised the piece of paper clutched in his fingers. The one he had been hiding in his fist before. With glyphs drawn on it, of course. When he pressed the piece of paper, Luz automatically jumped back. The spell, however, was not intended to hit her. It flew past Luz, behind her back, to where the wall of the cave, almost at the very place it curved into a high stone ceiling, was cut by a huge double-leaf door with a sharp pike. Locked from the outside with a magical seal. Guarded from the outside...

It was like a sledgehammer hitting a large anvil when a powerful fire spell slammed into the door, causing the entire cave to shake. Oh, that roar was impossible not to hear even from behind the closed doors.

“What are you doing?!” Luz grabbed her head in horror, looking at the slightly sooty door.

Philip was also looking at the door, still smiling.

“You're an idiot! They'll find out and the deal's off!”

“I won't lose much from this,” Philip muttered. “Besides, you still have time. The basilisks won't come here without reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements are always ready, they'll be here in three minutes,” Luz groaned.

“Then I advise you to hurry,” Philip answered.

“Luz! We need to get out of here immediately!” Hunter jumped up to them, grabbing Philip by the shoulder.

He again noted with some surprise that he didn't even feel so unpleasant and unexpected from the touch of other person's hands, and the desire to throw them off himself didn't grate on his nerves as much as it usually does with unfamiliar people and witches. Although Hunter grabbed him tightly, roughly pulled him along, dragging the unresisting Philip to the lodgment.

Philip calmly lay down on the stone. The now-bare stone – Hunter had torn both cloaks from the lodgment, quickly and casually rolling them into a ball. Philip folded his arms on his chest. That's how corpses fold their hands. All that was missing was a bouquet of flowers. Philip heard, felt the vibration of the air, saw the flickering around out of the corner of his eye. Hunter picked up a stack of his notes from the floor with the rustling of paper. Luz tried to wipe the black soot off the doors with quiet curses. The children gathered their modest belongings with a creak and a clang. Philip looked at the ceiling flickering with blue glyphs.

“Damned dust. How do we get the dust back in place, demons!”

And then Philip heard four quiet knocks on the floor, the knock of shoe soles and palms. A four-beat rhythm. One, two, three, sleep. He felt the power running through the spell circle on the floor. And when the power closed into a ring, in the darkness that had thickened before his eyes, it seemed to him as if someone had struck flint, casting a spark.

He is sitting on the porch again. Next to him is a frog and a fox. At some point, his brother comes out onto the porch too. He comes out when the sun is no longer visible, when the sky turns from blue to gray.

And again there is a fire in the forest. Again their whole little world is filled with smoke to the horizon. The smoke has covered the sky, making it difficult to breathe, the forest has disappeared behind the smoke, as if behind a foggy milky veil.

They are all looking at the fire. This time the fire is closer.

“What have you done, Philip…”

Caleb's expression is sad and painful.

Philip is silent.

He must have really done something.

He seemed to remember it until the smoke became thicker than the air, until it obscured the outlines of the forest.

Chapter Text

He was gently shaken by the shoulder.

"Just five more minutes, Caleb," he pleaded sleepily, his own voice sounding foreign to him.

The hand jerked away from his shoulder as if it had been burned. But after a while it returned, shaking him again.

“Philip...” Caleb’s voice rang out, a little hesitantly, “come on, it’s time to get up.”

“I’m not awake yet,” Philip answered, burying his face in the pillow.

“Yes, you are” a smile could be heard in Caleb’s voice, “I can see that you’re not sleeping.”

“No, I’m not,” Philip muttered, opening his eyes.

It turned out that he wasn't lying on a pillow. Under his head was a cheerful pink knapsack stuffed with something soft. It was surprisingly comfortable for his head, no worse than a completely normal pillow. But... a bag, seriously? Why... Upon further inspection, when Philip turned his head, it turned out that he wasn't even lying on a bed, but on some kind of stone. A tall rectangular stone in the middle of a large dark hall (either an altar or a pedestal... just like for an exhibit). And somewhere high above, a stone ceiling shimmered with glowing patterns.

But Caleb wasn't around.

“You’re not Caleb,” Philip immediately informed the man in front of him.

He shuddered. Then closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain.

“I know,” he muttered, looking away.

And he straightened up. And stepped back a little. And he turned out not to be the only person near the stone pedestal on which Philip had woken up.

Philip glanced around. A dark cave. With glowing walls. For some reason, it was painfully familiar. Lots of strange drawings and huge fireflies… Unnaturally flickering semi-darkness. Everything was so unreal, like in a dream… As in a dream, the outlines and details were hidden by the darkness that had gathered in dusty clumps at the walls of the cave. There also were some people standing nearby. Philip glanced at them, not recognizing anyone. Young people, older than Caleb. A girl and a guy, both with darker skin than Philip. And Caleb himself… that is, someone who looked a lot like him, with his voice and facial features, but not Caleb. The one who was standing closest, the one who woke Philip up. Philip looked from one to the other, and he was understanding less and less about what was happening.

“How did you sleep?” the girl asked, placing her hands on her hips.

“I don’t remember,” Philip said quietly. And he coughed slightly. His throat was dry, but he coughed because his voice felt so terribly wrong in his own throat. It wasn’t the voice he was used to speaking with.

He looked again with confusion at the stone on which he lay. And something suddenly made him tense. He raised himself slightly on his elbow. And froze.

There was a stranger’s body lying on the stone.

The body moved exactly as Philip had moved. The body was not his.

What the hell.

Philip wanted to jump back, but his legs, too long for him, with large, bony feet, jerked after him. Philip leaned on his hand to get up, and could not hold back a cry. The hand flared up, as if it had broken under his weight. Philip grabbed his elbow that was shooting with pain, bent over, pulling his legs up at the knees, instinctively trying to curl up into a ball, as if this was supposed to help hide from the pain. But from the sudden movements, his eyes began to darken. He froze, pressing his hand to his chest, like a dog with a wounded paw. And he stared ahead, breathing rapidly and blinking.

He was so completely, helplessly confused.

“Philip?”

Philip looked up. The girl was addressing him again. She was addressing him with a slight frown and looking him over carefully. As if something in his appearance or behavior was unclear to her. She stepped toward the pedestal and stood next to the guy whom Philip had initially confused with Caleb. They both tilted their heads to the side in a similar way, with surprised expressions on their faces. The guy was frowning, the corner of his mouth twitching in displeasure.

“How are you?”

“It hurts,” Philip exhaled.

The girl shook her head with a sigh.

“Looks like we'll have to bring in a palisman soon.”

Philip blinked helplessly:

“What?”

The girl raised an eyebrow questioningly. Philip drew his eyebrows together and winced.

“I don’t understand,” he said, closing his eyes, sighing convulsively to force himself to continue speaking in this strange, completely alien voice, “what’s happening…”

And he saw, looking up, how not-Caleb's eyes widened.

“You…” the girl began, but she was interrupted by an angry, irritated:

“What the hell? Didn't we go through this already?”

It wasn't his brother who was looking at him, frowning hard. Remarkably similar to Caleb, but somehow not at all. And that incongruent likeness only fueled a vague anxiety.

“When?” Philip responded apprehensively.

“Just recently,” spat not-Caleb .

“I don’t remember,” Philip closed his eyes for a moment.

“Really?” not-Caleb said, his voice suddenly kind.

And Philip, looking at him again, saw a smile on his face. But it was so strange, and made Philip shrink slightly and open his eyes wider. And not-Caleb leaned toward him, leaning his hand on the bedstead, and his broad shoulders blocked half the cave from Philip.

“Tell me, do you remember anything about the portal and the collision of worlds?”

“What?” Philip frowned in response. “Who are you... who in the world are you…”

In an instant, the smile on the man's face vanished. If it had been Caleb, Philip would have been whining. He hated upsetting his brother. And he had never seen such rage on Caleb's face in his life. But it would have hurt even more to know that he, Philip, was the cause of his brother's anger, which had flared up so quickly.

Only he didn't understand why.

A strong gloved hand grabbed him by the chest, easily lifted him up (Philip’s vision instantly disappeared, as if for a second someone had turned off the light, sound, reality…) and shook him to make sure.

He came to his senses already sitting in an upright position, breathing heavily, hanging on to the shirt, which was firmly grasped by not-Caleb's fingers .

And he barely heard:

“This time you managed to get me angry even faster.”

And then there was the sound of fabric creaking. Because it had stretched even tighter when a heavy fist hit Philip in the jaw.

“Hunter, leave him!”

Philip looked with eyes trembling in their sockets. The surface of the stone pedestal. Smooth, polished to a shine, even cold in appearance. His palms, bony and long, rested on the bluish-gray stone. And between his palms, a dark green viscous liquid was dripping. Philip closed his eyes. He began to tremble violently. And something was running down his chin. He looked again. The stream flowing from his mouth collected on his chin. Green liquid dripped onto the stone. Philip wanted to scream in horror.

It was just, just, just…

“Are you crazy?! The oath!”

It was the voice of another boy, apparently.

When Philip turned around, he saw the girl staggering, pale and clutching her hand. There was a glowing purple ring around her hand. Blood started to flow from the girl's nose. The second boy managed to catch her, help her stay on her feet. And the ring around her wrist quickly went out. But Philip definitely saw it...

And it was impossible.

“Damn.”

His not-brother clenched his teeth, looking at the girl. His gloves creaked. Then his gaze fell on Philip again. Still a very angry gaze. Philip spat out a viscous liquid.

He sat up, swaying as if shell-shocked. For some reason he sat, although he wanted to curl up and bury his face in his knees. But he leaned on his hands, which were shaking under him, under a body that was not his, unexpectedly heavy for these thin, weakened hands. And he realized that this was a bad idea, feeling how heavy his head was. The cave flew around in a circle, glittered with sparks, and Philip groaned, clutching his forehead.

“Enough already!”

This time they didn't hit him, they just shook him by the collar of his shirt. Philip shook his head and pressed his palms against not-Caleb's chest. Not-Caleb was like a rock, as if he hadn't noticed Philip’s trembling hands on his chest. He pulled Philip to himself and said through his teeth:

“Stop pretending.”

“Let go,” Philip hissed.

He really did let him go, even pushed him away a little, and Philip hit his elbows on the surface of the bedstone. And he moved back sharply, trying to grab onto the stone beneath him and shaking. It seemed to him that sharp claws had grown on his hands, scratching the smooth surface.

“Hunter, stop,” Philip managed to catch, through the blur of hair that had fallen on his face, how the girl wiped the blood from under her nose with the back of her hand. “Of course, I can withstand a couple more blows like that, but let’s try using our words first.”

She stood up on both feet more or less confidently, moving away from the boy who was supporting her.

“Why are you so angry?” she muttered, wiping her nose with her palm again and sniffling quietly.

“Because he’s making fun of us,” not-Caleb seemed to have already pulled himself together.

“Like it’s never happened before,” the girl said casually.

“Well, should we let him get away with it?”

The guy waved his hand towards Philip, causing him to flinch and pull his knees up, moving away a little more. And this did not escape the girl's gaze.

“You’re a bit nervous,” she muttered, apparently addressing Philip.

And he almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. This man had just hit him. Really, why would he be nervous?

“Let’s talk normally,” the girl asked tiredly. “Without all this.”

And Philip was suddenly overcome by a suffocating wave of trembling fear. The way these people were addressing him was dissonant. They were addressing him as if they knew him. People he was seeing for the first time. At the same time, it suddenly seemed to him that everything around him was absolutely unreal, and that he had never seen anything more real. And this was impossible. It was like an all-too-real nightmare. Only a dream could be so unreal. Perhaps only hell on earth could be so real.

“I don’t want to talk,” he shook his head, “I want to go home.”

Anxiety rose in his throat like nausea, and the confused way these people looked at each other didn’t make it any easier.

He tried to sit up again. He even managed it, although several black spiky balls exploded before his eyes, filling everything around him, preventing him from seeing the faces opposite him, and squeezing his head into a hoop, heavy as lead. This is not his body... everything is not real... what is happening to him...

“What's wrong with me?” Philip raised his trembling palms. Not his palms at all, stained with the strange liquid flowing from his mouth. Covered in a thin network of scars, long and dry, as if belonging to some old man. And the rest of his body, is it that old too? Is that why he feels so bad? And are there really black claws growing on them... What's going on?!

“Hey,” the guy who was still standing next to him made to touch him on the shoulder, but Philip recoiled and shook his head.

“Calm down, he won’t hit you anymore,” the girl who had approached him tried to grab his hand at that very moment. Philip screamed, and she recoiled, letting go of his wrist.

He flew off the opposite edge of the square stone on which he was sitting and curled up into a small ball near it.

“Don’t touch me,” he sobbed, closing his eyes and clasping his knees with his hands.

“We won’t,” the girl’s voice promised him from behind the stone. “Don’t be afraid, we’re not going to touch you,” she said, slightly confused but calm. And for some reason she added, somewhat out of place, as if by intuition: “Everything will be fine.”

Philip didn't answer. He clearly understood: the girl was lying. He couldn't understand where from, but he knew it for sure.

Nothing will be fine. And it hasn't been for a very long time.

“Philip,” she addressed him quietly, not trying, judging by her voice, to get closer, “are you okay?”

Philip began to feel more nauseous.

“Do you know me?” he asked uncertainly.

A puzzled silence hung over the stone, and then the girl asked in response:

“Philip, what is the last thing you remember?”

Philip swallowed. His eyes darted around and he felt like he was suffocating. He couldn't help it, the tears started to flow down his cheeks on their own, and his ragged breaths began to accompany his sobs.

“Philip?” uncertainly, with a hint of concern.

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” Philip began to sob loudly, wiping away his tears with the heels of his palms. “I don’t remember anything. Where is Caleb? I want to go home.”

An oppressive silence hung behind the stone, and the silence of the cave was now broken only by his quiet sobs. Philip did not remember how he had ended up in this cave, nor where he had been before, nor how much time had passed since he had last been home. Philip could not recall a clear image of home, there was only a feeling of it. It was firmly associated with Caleb, whom he seemed not to have seen for many, many years. He knew that somewhere he must have his Caleb. And nothing else existed in his world. Not before Caleb, nor after.

He hugged his knees with his arms, buried his forehead in them, feeling his shoulders shaking from convulsive sighs. His pants, his sharp knees, were quickly getting wet from the drops falling from his face.

“What do you mean, he’s not lying?”

“He really doesn't remember anything, as far as I can tell.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“The last time I tried to look at his memories, it was all wrong. There was a lot of stuff –too much– and it was all mixed up. I couldn't make anything out. But now there's just…”

The voice died down.

“Just what?”

“Just a house near the forest and a big apple tree.”

Somewhere on the periphery, quiet voices were heard, which Philip stubbornly did not notice until a certain moment.

“It seems to me that this is not our good old Belos anymore,” his confused consciousness snatched the phrase out of thin air.

He froze and became quiet. Something inside him responded to the word…

“Belos,” he whispered.

Belos…

And all reality faded into the background. Because he recognized the name. This name was painted with the colors of the past. His past was the color of fire and blood.

Memories thundered in his head like the clatter of a rockfall.

No

A face so familiar to the point of pain, crossed out by a knife blow.

This can't be

A lifeless body, in the shadows between the blazing fire you can't see whose it is. You can't see the white strand on the forehead. Or the big empty eyes.

“No!” Philip grabbed his head.

“Philip?” someone's voice sounded as if through the thickness of water.

“No, no, please,” he whispered, unable to see anything in front of him because of the veil of tears.

And again. Again. Again. Again and again empty eyes with a white strand above them.

What is this? Why is he seeing all this? So much blood. So much death…

Someone seemed to run up to him. They tried to grab him by the arms again, but he broke free and screamed.

“Leave me! Leave me alone!” he screamed, clutching his head in his hands. The past, the future, or whatever the hell this was, why, why, why all this, for what… The voices in his head hummed in different ways, and all belonged to the same person. There was so much. There was only one thing missing, the one thing he needed the most now. He really wanted to tear it off, his unfortunate head, along with all the memories. Tear it off and throw away hundreds and hundreds of years.

Years without Caleb.

But he couldn't do it. His arms were too weak. He could only scream. And hit his head on the stone floor to make it feel a little lighter.

Philip cried and screamed, and asked to be left alone, no longer understanding who or what he was asking for. He hugged himself with his arms, with sharp claws that seemed to have grown even longer, and did not feel whether they were cutting through the fabric of his shirt, nor the skin under the thin fabric... And then he was simply shaking, as if in a fit, in dry sobs, because he had run out of tears, and whispering unintelligible pleas in a broken screaming voice.

He begged someone very desperately until the very end, resting his forehead, splitting with pain, on the cold floor, “forgive me, forgive me, forgive”.

For some reason he was lying on the floor. He was lying in some kind of cave, on some kind of unnaturally smooth stone floor, covered with deep furrows near his face. His indifferent gaze rested on these furrows, four of them next to each other, as if some large wild animal were scratching the floor with its claws. His eyes were burning, as if sand had been poured into them. And his entire skin was burning, as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. And somehow it felt normal and natural that not a single bone in his body stopped hurting for a moment.

Philip leaned his hand next to him and tried to sit up. It slipped on some mud and he fell, cracking his head on the rock. The blow echoed loudly inside his skull, hitting its walls. Philip remained lying there, for minutes or hours. Looking ahead at the traces of someone's claws.

He slowly pulled his palms toward himself, first one, then the other, leaned on both, and just as slowly began to push the floor away from himself. The floor moved away heavily, the darkness from the corners of his eyes began to spread, obscuring the cave. And with some kind of detached indifference, Philip realized that the same mud that smeared the smooth stone beneath him was dripping from his face.

He was able to sit up after all. Through the dizziness and the feeling of nausea rising in his throat. With great difficulty, as if his body was made of the same stone. And he was able to raise his head. And see the walls and ceiling, closing in above his head in a high hemisphere. Painted with blue light.

He was able to look around. Slowly and carefully turning, brushing his long, dirt-stained hair away from his face with a limp, weak hand. And his gaze fell on…

Caleb

A young man in warm traveling clothes was sitting on a rectangular stone, looking down at him. The young man looked exactly like his brother.

There was something about the younger man's appearance that bothered him. He was a little older than Philip remembered… he had a scar on his jaw that Caleb didn't have… and his eyes… he couldn't remember what they were supposed to be like, but the crimson eyes were strange, for some reason. But it felt like his brother… maybe…

“Caleb?” Philip asked.

The young man twisted his lips and slowly shook his head.

So it's not Caleb, Philip thought with stunning indifference. He looked around the cave with a blank gaze. Caleb wasn't there. But that didn't frighten Philip. For some reason, he thought he'd find him anyway. He always did. He always got him back.

“Where is Caleb?” he asked dully, without even a questioning intonation, without even looking in the direction of the man who was not Caleb.

But he remained silent.

Philip waited a bit. And repeated:

“Where is Caleb…”

Silence was his answer. Philip tried a third time, simply because… he didn’t know why. But he repeated again in an even voice:

“Where is Caleb?”

And yet he raised his eyes again to the one who was not Caleb.

He pressed his hand to his mouth, looking at Philip with such pain... This look sobered Philip. Like a slap in the face. He lowered his heavy eyelids for a moment, swallowed viscous saliva and shook his head slightly. This movement made him wince from the pain in his temples and forehead. But he took a deep breath and, blinking, looked at the man in front of him more meaningfully.

"Where am I? What's going on?" Philip asked questions that were far less important than the question about Caleb.

The young man closed his eyes. He sat like that for a few seconds, as if he was pulling himself together. He ran his gloved hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers and frowning. Philip also rubbed his eyes for some reason. And then he looked at his fingers, which had traces of dirt on them. He felt disgusted. Nauseous again.

But the young man remained silent.

“Hey, are you mute?” Philip asked calmly, dropping his hands onto his knees and swallowing again, trying to ease the nauseating feeling.

Not-Caleb finally looked at him. At least he didn't look like he was ready to burst into tears, which was good.

“You’re in a cave,” he croaked briefly.

“Wow,” Philip looked around again, slowly returning his indifferent gaze to the guy’s face. “Thank you, I suppose.”

Not-Caleb winced. He closed his eyes again and turned away, frowning. And he nodded to himself, as if he had decided something. And he stood up. He walked towards Philip, but slightly to the side, adjusting his coat as he went, and throwing a small bag over his shoulder. He seemed to be heading towards the wall. And looking there, Philip, or so it seemed to him, saw a passage in the wall for a moment (it was strange, like the ghostly outline of a doorway where in fact there was none, but only the same strange drawings). And he realized that the guy was leaving.

“No... W-wait…”

His eyes widened and he raised his head up. The young man didn't look at him, clenched his fist on the strap of his bag, and continued to walk steadily past.

It suddenly became cold, as if he had been doused with water, a prickly fear began to stir in his stomach. No, no, not like this…

And Philip rushed towards him (rushed is a strong word... crawled maybe...), pushing against the floor with his weak hands, riddled with a nasty tremor, and with difficulty moving his knees, which had been scraped against that very floor, not having the strength to rise to his feet. Smearing the dirt under him.

“Wait!”

The young man recoiled, raising his hands in a defensive gesture, but as soon as he lowered his gaze, as soon as he glanced at Philip, he froze, and his breathing, so distinct and heavy, became irregular. And Philip reached out to him and grabbed his pants.

“Don’t leave me here alone,” his voice, quiet and broken, trembled, “please…”

The young man's eyes were almost popping out of his head. And at the same time, his eyebrows formed a house, drawing a mournful crease between them. Then he bit his lip and carefully squeezed Philip's wrists with his palms.

Philip obediently allowed his fingers to be torn from the stranger's pants. He was even a little ashamed that there were traces of dirt left on these pants now, but the young man seemed not to notice it at all. For a moment, Philip thought that he would be pushed away and abandoned... But not-Caleb sank to the floor next to him, and it seemed to Philip that he did it slowly enough so that his movements did not look abrupt, did not frighten, and then he hugged Philip around the waist with one arm, and with the other he caught him under the knees. And he lifted him up in his arms with casual ease. Philip clasped his shoulders with limp arms.

He carried Philip to the lodgment and sat him down on a warm cloak spread out on the stone. He helped him sit up straight, to fold his legs more comfortably, which Philip barely obeyed.

“You’re not Caleb, right?” Philip asked for some reason.

The guy shook his head, staring at Philip's knees.

“No,” he hesitated, but added, “I’m Hunter.”

"Hunter," Philip tasted the sound of the word, and Hunter winced when he heard his name from his lips. And for some reason he winced painfully.

And then he finally raised his eyes. And they looked at each other for a few seconds, in deathly silence. And the silence was loud, as if it was screaming something.

Then Hunter reached somewhere under the hem of his cloak (to his pockets, Philip realized) and pulled out a red handkerchief with a monogram on the corner. "HN" was embroidered on it in golden letters.

He reached for Philip's face and began to try unsuccessfully to wipe the mud off it, carefully holding his shoulder with his other hand. And Philip, for some reason, sat calmly and allowed him to do this.

“Sorry for hitting…”

“What?” Philip looked at him confused.

Hunter turned pale. His hand, clutching the handkerchief, froze on Philip's cheek.

“Nothing,” he said, barely moving his lips, “let’s move on.”

It was as if he himself had been hit at that moment.

And again he returned to his useless task. Useless because the mud seemed to be growing. It seemed to be running from Philip's nose, from the crack in his lip, and down his cheeks, either from his eyes or from somewhere nearby. And Hunter finally gave up. He looked at the dirty handkerchief, a little bit too big for the job. It must have been a neckerchief or a kerchief. With a sigh, Hunter set it down on the lodgment, further to the edge. He wiped his glove on his already dirty trousers. And he did all this without a single sign of disgust on his face. He didn't even wince once.

“How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Philip said calmly.

“Are you hungry?” Hunter asked.

And Philip suddenly realized that inside he was twisted by a strong desire to the point of nausea, a terribly hungry emptiness. And it was because of this that his head was spinning and his throat was constricted.

“Madly,” he croaked.

Hunter licked his lips…

“Then... I should bring you some food…”

Phillip nodded at first, and then it dawned on him and he grabbed Hunter's hand with both of his own. Hunter looked down at their hands.

“Don’t go,” Philip asked fearfully.

“If I don’t bring the medicine,” Hunter was now for some reason no longer talking about food, but Philip didn’t pay attention to it, “you’ll get worse.”

Philip began to shake his head convulsively, and Hunter continued in an admonishing voice:

“I have to, you understand?”

“I can endure it,” Philip lied. It was almost unbearable to endure it. Mud dripped from his chin, soaked his neck and shirt. It was disgusting and scary. His stomach was cramping, he wanted to howl from hunger.

But he desperately didn't want to be alone.

“I need to see my sister,” Hunter muttered, not looking at him.

Philip raised his eyebrows. Sister?

“I need to know how she is. My sister has been unwell. And it’s because of me.”

Philip felt a pain in his chest.

“But what about me?” he asked, almost crying.

Hunter suddenly moved closer to him, putting one arm around his shoulders. Philip squeezed his cloak with his fingers, staining its fabric with the damn mud.

“Look, I have to leave now anyway. You need medicine, I'll be back with it as soon as I can.”

“Ask someone to bring it,” Philip did not give up. He grabbed Hunter with a death grip, “but don’t go.”

“I have to. No one can come now. Everyone is very busy. It's partly your fault.”

Philip's eyes stung. Was it his fault?

“Why?” he exhaled quietly.

“Because you like to drive everyone around you crazy,” Hunter sighed, looking towards the door. Philip only now noticed that in the wall farthest from the lodgment there was a tall double door.

"I don't want to be alone," he whined. How was it that it was his own fault that he was going to be alone now?

Hunter hugged him with his other hand. Pulled him to closer. And Philip buried his face in Hunter’s shoulder, clasping his torso.

“I’m afraid,” Philip breathed convulsively, “I’m afraid, I don’t want to… don’t go…”

A gloved hand stroked his hair, and that made him feel a little easier.

“I won’t be away for long,” Hunter whispered, placing a strong hand on the back of his head.

“No,” Philip cried.

"I'm scared that I won't be able to do anything if you get sick," Hunter admitted with unexpected pain in his voice. With such bitterness, with such an old and familiar ‘I already know what it's like’. "I don't want to just watch you while you're in unbearable pain."

And that's why you're running away? Philip thought this, but didn't say it out loud.

And then Hunter pulled away from his embrace. And Philip couldn't help himself, the tears streaming down his cheeks.

Hunter sighed and unclasped the brooch made of a strange metal that shimmered blue in the cave's uncertain half-light on his chest, pulled off the cloak it was holding, and then suddenly threw it over Philip's shoulders. He wrapped it tighter, like a blanket. And Philip felt warm.

And even the tears stopped.

“Here,” Hunter suddenly took out of his bag several branches tied together. Philip took the strange gift from his hands in bewilderment. “If it gets really bad, break them.”

Like in a fairy tale, thought Philip. Or like in a dream.

It would be better if it really was just a dream.

And Hunter stroked his shoulder one last time, squeezed it reassuringly. And stood up, grabbing his bag.

Having already taken a few steps, he turned around. He looked at Philip as if he was seeing him for the first time.

“Come back soon,” Philip whispered. “Please.”

"Hey, I won't be away for long. Honestly," Hunter promised.

He hesitated, and then for some reason returned back. He took Philip's hand, awkwardly stroking his cold fingers. In some way, just a little, this gesture reminded him of Caleb. Philip squeezed his palm tensely, his gaze fixed somewhere below.

“I'll be back soon. You won't have time to breathe in and out a hundred times.”

And his hand slipped from Philip's. And then he left. And Philip watched him go, long after the passage in the wall had closed. And then he began to count his sighs.

It seems he is sleeping... or not... or is he...

He has a strange dream. It is dark and light all around at the same time. There is no source of light, no sky, no sun, but a measured radiance is spread everywhere.

Below, there is black, quiet water, like a suspension of steam lying along a deep canyon. And the walls of the canyon, steep rock walls, go far, far up.

And silence...

The otherworldly unreal place can be nothing but a dream. The surface of the black matte water is like a thin line between a dream and reality. Somewhere between... somewhere in the middle...

Swaying on this edge, stumbling, he falls, falls, falls...

And when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a cave. In a dark cave, where the ceiling and walls were covered with a luminous pattern.

And he thought: I'm still sleeping.

It happens… you open your eyes and realize – this is a continuation of a dream. A dream within a dream. You never woke up.

He was lying on something hard and looking at the ceiling burning with a quiet blue fire. And he didn't know where he was or how he had ended up in this cave. He could taste dust on his tongue. The skin on his face was unpleasantly tight, as if some kind of mud had dried on it like a crust. His fingers and toes were numb from the cold.

He also felt hungry.

He was used to this feeling. Hunger had been his constant companion for a long time. Hunger persistently gnawed at him from within, hunger rolled in waves.

Philip closed his eyes, wincing and arching as his stomach twisted with pain – the next wave was that strong. Philip couldn’t breathe for a few moments, it was that painful. Philip felt a tear, forced out by the pain, roll down his temple and hide in his hair. It took him a long time to come to his senses, staring blankly into the void. And then the pain came again. And he groaned. And his groan echoed off the high stone ceiling.

He blinked away the tears and saw himself curled up on his side, his knees drawn up close to his chest, clutching tightly to the soft cloak that wrapped around his shoulders. On another cloak, spread out on the rock where he lay, he saw traces of a green, dirty liquid. It smelled of swamp and dark, dense forest.

For some reason he reached out with his fingers to it. And he saw that his fingers, with sharp black claws, were already dirty with this liquid. His fingers, his palm, his wrist… The mud was running down him, staining his tattered shirt.

Philip took a deep breath and tried to sit up. His head began to spin and feel heavy. And, having assumed a vertical position with great difficulty, as if he were lifting a stone up a mountain, he sat for some time, clutching his head and trying to overcome the nausea.

A thin, sweet smell made him look around, sniffing. On the edge of his rectangular stone bed lay a bundle of branches. It was a strange blue wood. And Philip instinctively reached for them. He pulled the string that tied the sticks together. He grabbed one of them, feeling sparks of something tasty and sweet under his fingers. His mouth became sticky with saliva, and Philip squeezed the branch with his teeth. Unexpectedly hard for himself. And it cracked. And from it poured, flowed across his tongue something warm and soft, similar in taste to honey. Similar in color to light.

And the hunger subsided a little.

The bundle of brushwood quickly turned into crumbled sawdust.

And all the sawdust that littered the floor near the bed was covered in a green-black liquid.

Philip didn't want to get his cloak dirty, but the dirt on his hands was disgusting, and he pulled it off his shoulders, trying to wipe his palms on the hem. And then he realized...

The realization was terrifying. Philip jumped up from the stone, dropping his cloak (it flowed to the floor next to him in a helpless heap of fabric), stood up to his full height (full… it seemed unusually tall…) and looked at himself. And he realized that the rags that replaced his clothes were all stained. And the stains seemed to have been absorbed not from the outside… but from the inside…

He looked at his palms. Palms with claws and swamp mud instead of skin.

“It’s a dream, it’s just a dream, remember?” Philip whispered hoarsely to himself, out of breath.

Something creepy and dark was crawling across his trembling hands.

Alive.

His heart was beating like crazy. He was scared. Scared to breathe, because he thought that he would then feel the disgusting smell of rotting flesh, and his body would begin to fall apart. It seemed that the liquid on his hands was creeping higher and higher, hiding under the sleeves of his shirt, and this only frightened him more, because under the fabric he could not see how far this... this thing had spread... Philip, breathing loudly, wheezing, began to tear the shirt on his chest.

It was everywhere. The swamp-green mud crossed the skin of his torso here and there in long, narrow streaks, like knife cuts. And it gradually flowed out of the cuts, filling more and more... As if it were replacing the skin. As if it were eating Philip alive.

Philip began to cry. And his tears began to drip onto the floor. Drops of black mud.

His knees weakened and buckled, and he fell. Onto the smooth floor, covered with some kind of pattern, similar to the one that glowed on the walls.

He grabbed his own face with his hands. It was soft and slippery under his fingers. He pulled his hands away in disgust. His hands, just like his face, were half eaten away by a terrible curse. And clutching his hair with his hands, which still had claws on them, Philip cried bitterly. How could he distance himself from this, how could he wipe it off, how could he run away, if the mud was leaking from somewhere inside?

“Someone... please, someone…”

Who did he hope to reach with such a quiet whisper?

Swallowing his sobs, Philip frantically tried to scrape the mud off his face with his claws, but where it had spread over his body, it was as if there was no skin left. There was only this viscous swamp mud. And Philip was shaking with horror as he selflessly and furiously tried to get rid of it, to scrape it all off. And it was no easier than removing clay from a clay figurine. It seemed to him that this slime was crawling out from somewhere inside. That in time his entire body would become this liquid, would spread across the floor, and nothing would remain of him. And that his face was already dripping onto the floor, leaving the bones of his skull exposed.

But he kept trying. He scraped it off his face, then from his bare chest. Cutting his claws deeper and deeper.

And behind the noise of blood in his ears and his own convulsive sobs, he did not hear someone enter the cave.

He barely noticed when someone appeared next to him.

“No. No, God. Stop. Stop, please.” She grabbed his hands and tried to stop him from slashing with his claws everything he could reach.

And Philip suddenly realized that he was no longer alone. He froze, allowing the little girlish hands to squeeze his wrists. And he looked up.

There were two of them. A girl and a boy. The girl was kneeling on the floor in front of him, holding his hands tightly, not afraid to get dirty. And the boy was standing next to her, holding a staff. And he looked like someone Philip knew… and he was very, very pale.

Philip realized that he looked exactly like Caleb. Only for some reason… for some reason, his gaze, fixed on Philip, was so… so…

Philip wanted to get closer to him. He pulled his hands out of the girl's grip and moved forward. And the guy recoiled. And Philip froze.

The guy looked at him with horror. Horror at how he, Philip, looked. The guy took two more steps back, twisting his lips. And Philip felt so much pain from this. He covered his face with his hands, feeling tears running down his cheeks again. He was shaking.

“Luz... Luz, I...” the guy tried to squeeze out the words hoarsely and convulsively, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

The creaking of his gloves could be heard as he squeezed his staff heavily. And he smelled of such panic...

“Go,” Luz answered him quietly.

And the guy jumped up, the steps quickly retreated to the wall. Then there was silence. Only the girl remained with Philip. The girl named Luz.

“Hey,” she said softly, “Little guy?”

What kind of baby am I to you, thought Philip, wiping away tears with his palms. Feeling that this way he would rather just smear mud on his face. On a face that for some reason is still whole. And even partly hard. And it seems like he can’t feel the traces of his claws. And then suddenly his left hand was shot with pain, and he cried out slightly, clinging to it.

"What’s wrong?" Luz leaned towards him, her palms resting gently on his wrists again. Their warmth touched Philip's skin, and he froze.

“My hand,” he answered in a trembling voice.

Luz looked at his hand, then at him, raised an eyebrow, as if to say, may I? Philip just shrugged. And Luz lifted the sleeve of his shirt. Under the sleeve was a bracer. Under the bracer, on the skin, drawings were visible, like from the walls and floor of the cave. And on the bracer itself there were such drawings. And where his hand hurt, there was green mud. Philip began to cry quietly again.

“This again?” Luz made overly big eyes and blinked them in surprise. “It’s not even hurt!”

Philip sniffed. He also blinked at her. Wet eyelashes touched his cheeks, he quietly sobbed convulsively and looked at his hand.

“It’s not?” he asked uncertainly.

"Of course not," Luz nodded confidently, taking his hand in hers. For some reason, her palms were very small. And his were so big... And it really didn't hurt that much.

“Well, are you going to cry some more?” Luz asked sarcastically.

“I’m not,” Philip muttered, pulling his hand away. And for some reason he began to rise to his feet. His head spun and he swayed, but Luz, who had stood up, offered him her shoulder in time, on which he leaned heavily.

She seemed to sway under his weight, too. So small next to him. But surprisingly she remained standing.

“Okay, let's feed you. You, likely, don't eat enough porridge, look how frail you are.”

Philip thought that Caleb always told him the same thing about porridge. So it really wasn't worth neglecting? He thought it was his brother's trick to make him, a sometimes capricious boy, eat his breakfast. Even if Caleb himself had half a ladle in his plate, or even a piece of bread instead of porridge, and his face was drawn, as it always was in winter, when work in the fields stopped.

Luz helped him sit down on a stone lodgment covered with a warm leather cloak. She sat down in front of him. She rummaged through the bag that hung over her shoulder.

The bag was put on the floor, Luz was next to him, crossing her legs like him. And then he took from her hands...

“And how am I supposed to eat this?” Philip breathed heavily, looking with displeasure at the wooden figurine lying on his palm. Was she making fun of him?

Luz sighed quietly, apparently trying not to let him notice. She carefully took his trembling hands in hers. She looked into his eyes. Philip met her gaze and read a question in it.

May I?

With some difficulty, he tried to relax. To let her small hands lie on top of his long, sinewy ones. To help him squeeze the mouse-eared figure tighter. He had so little strength that he really needed this help.

“Like this,” Luz said quietly, guiding his hands.

Philip obediently squeezed the figurine harder, breaking it in half. Luz brought their palms closer to his face, and a stream of glowing greenish smoke flowed upward from the crack. Philip smelled it, a smell like honey or resin or something in between and neither, and instinctively inhaled. The sweet smoke was sucked into his nose, filling his head with seething energy. Philip arched and involuntarily gasped. This was not just a sip of water after days of thirst. It was as if this water made him burst into flames. A spark pierced his body, reaching every little bone, a soft, bright pleasure. He realized – the pain had stopped. His body became calm. He shook a little from the wave of energy that rolled in after that. An invigorating sip of coffee would have been close to this feeling. And then it was just quiet and good. Without pain, nausea, fatigue and cold and the feeling of melting flesh. And the state in which it was normal seemed to him like heaven on earth. Left him trembling and convulsively squeezing the fragments of a wooden figurine in his palms. And then, finally having absorbed all the energy, to exhale exhaustedly. And as if to lose some kind of rod that had held him upright before.

It must have been several minutes before he found himself aware and conscious of reality again. He was breathing slowly and loudly, bent over in a relaxed manner, his arms hanging down on his crossed legs, spilling the remains of the wood. His forehead was resting on someone else's shoulder, and a small hand was holding his back. He was breathing deeply and steadily. He was gradually coming to his senses. The ecstasy was leaving him slowly, as if reluctantly.

"Who am I now?" he whispered, making Luz flinch. "Philip or Belos?"

Her confusion was so palpable that he didn't need to look at her face.

“How do you feel?”

The palm on his back still lay without moving.

“It makes no difference to me,” Philip suddenly admitted. He himself probably didn’t know it until he said it out loud. “It’s about how others see me.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Then Philip,” Luz finally answered. Very quietly. But confidently.

“Good.” Philip closed his eyes.

A moment later he had already forgotten the meaning of his words. A minute later he did not remember that he had asked a question.

Chapter Text

“My name is Luz,” she repeated patiently.

It was funny. Philip had asked her name for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. Luz's expression grew more and more anguished each time, but she answered obediently. She didn't try to remind Philip that he had already asked her about it. Philip chuckled to himself. Strange girl. Forgetful, apparently.

“And I'm Philip,” he pointed out just in case.

“I know,” a little more anguish, although it seemed there was no way for it to grow, poured into her eyes.

Philip rubbed his chin thoughtfully. What a strange girl. She remembered his name, but didn’t know she had introduced herself a couple of times already.

“Luz, are you okay?” Philip asked sympathetically.

Not that he really cared. But Caleb always said that caring for your neighbor makes that neighbor like you more. If you think about it logically, a neighbor who likes you is better than an angry and dissatisfied neighbor in any circumstances. That's why Philip, when he had enough strength to keep his harmful nature in check, always tried to be polite. Polite and compliant people, he knew, live longer than the proud and arrogant. Life itself taught him to play the good boy.

Luz looked up at him, slightly surprised. She blinked her eyelashes. Her eyelashes were very long, her eyes enormous. Like she was literally a puppy. Such an interesting appearance, one that evokes an instinctive desire to touch her cheeks.

Having realized this desire, Philip did not think long. Reaching out to her cheek with his hand, he squeezed it with his fingers and pulled slightly. Luz took it stoically.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she muttered, her mouth pulled slightly to the side, not trying to break free. “As far as it's possible... considering some,” she turned her gaze to his other hand, which reached for her other cheek, “circumstances…”

“Yes? Well, okay,” Philip thoughtfully shook her cheeks back and forth. Luz obediently dangled in his arms. Her quiet sigh was almost inaudible. “What's your name?”

And this time the sigh was quite clear.

“My name is Luz, Philip…”

Philip slowly leaned towards her. With a quiet, dull "bonk", he hit his forehead against hers. From this distance, her eyes seemed even larger.

“How can you be okay?” he asked in a terrible whisper. “You're losing your memory.”

Luz flinched as if she'd been hit, and Philip recoiled, letting go of her. Luz, stunned, rubbed her slightly reddened cheek and bulged her eyes at him.

“Me?” she asked, strangled.

“Yeah,” Philip nodded confidently. “You.”

Luz looked at the floor, then at the ceiling, then back at Philip. She was frankly scared.

“What have I forgotten?” she also lowered her voice, still not taking her hand off her cheek.

“This is the fourth time I've asked you your name,” Philip explained, shaking his head sadly. “And every time you answer like the first.”

Luz blinked her long eyelashes again. She closed her eyes for a moment and clenched her teeth very tightly. Philip was surprised to realize that he could hear them creaking. He could hear them so clearly, as if his ear was right next to her mouth. And it was as if he could even hear the beating of her heart, not just his own...

“And why are you asking,” she muttered, without opening her closed eyelids, “again and again?”

“Because you’re answering,” Philip shrugged, listening in surprise to the sound coming from the chest opposite him, which was so clear to him now.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

But this is some kind of nonsense. How can he hear the beating of her heart? Maybe he’s just imagining it?

Luz opened her eyes wide and stared at him with an unreadable gaze. Then suddenly, with a clap (Philip flinched slightly from the sharp sound), she lowered her palm onto her knee. She exhaled heavily, closing her eyes.

“I see.”

Philip noticed that there were dark marks on her cheek. And then looked at his hands.

“Then, please,” Luz looked at him, smiled tenderly. Seeing that he was not looking at her, she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him slightly, forcing him to look up. “Philip, please. Stop asking what you already know, okay?”

“Um…” Philip looked down again. His hands were covered in some kind of dirt. All covered in a smeared dried crust. As if he had been messing around in the ground for a long time... or had fallen into a swamp. “Okay…”

Luz also looked at his hands.

“Do you want to wash up?”

“With pleasure,” Philip sighed with relief.

They were sitting together on a high stone pedestal, in the middle of a large dark cave, illuminated only by strange drawings on the walls. They were sitting opposite each other, legs crossed, and it seemed that Luz had been trying to establish a dialogue with him for some time. Philip met these attempts favorably, but sometimes his attention would switch to something more interesting, such as the desire to pull Luz's cheek to the side. Luz rubbed her face again, wiping off the remains of dirt from his fingers, and reached somewhere under the hem of her sweater. Probably to the inside pockets. Some papers rustled. This sound was also loud and clear, Philip thought he could name with a very small error the approximate number of pieces of paper rustling in Luz's pocket. Then, Philip noted the moment when a thought came to her mind. It was reflected expressively on her face, this thought, and made her hand freeze. And slowly lower back onto her bent knee.

“My brother will be here soon,” Luz said, still thinking about something. “I’ll ask him to bring some water.”

Philip nodded. Whatever she was going to do, she had changed her mind for some reason. But her words reminded him of his own brother…

“So, where is Caleb, do you know?” Philip asked again just in case. That was the first question he had asked her, of course. At the beginning of their conversation.

Luz shook her head, just like last time.

“And also, how did I get here?”

“Unfortunately,” Luz spread her hands. “I found you here like this.”

‘Like this’ yeah. He knew his appearance was unpretentious. Philip looked at himself again.

His clothes were dirty and tattered by life. His shirt was hanging on his shoulders, torn in the middle, leaving his chest bare. Ribs poked through skin streaked with a dozen scars, each a different degree of horrific. A small stone hung from his neck, a string threaded through a hole drilled in it. The thought, wait wait, what is this stone? appeared from out of nowhere, as if he hadn’t expected it to be there, as if he had somehow expected the rest, but the thought melted away faster than Philip could catch hold of it. There were wide metal bracers on his arms. There were drawings on them. Similar to those on the walls of the cave.

"You promised to tell me where we are," Philip said, and scratched one of the circles on the bracer with his fingernail. It seemed to him that a spark ran along the circle...

"Oh, you remember that too?" Luz smiled slightly. And she muttered under her breath, "I don't even know if I'm happy about this..."

Philip kept looking at the bracers. And the skin underneath them. Marked with the same circles. Neither the hands, bony and dry, nor the unusually long legs, nor the scarred chest had ever belonged to him. A thought occurred to him: a strange dream. Too realistic. And unlike anything he knew. But all this couldn’t be anything other than a dream, right? In his dreams, he was often someone else. He even dreamed once that he was a girl…

A small palm touched his knee. He looked at Luz.

“Is everything okay?” she asked quietly.

Philip noticed how she quickly glanced at the stone on his chest. He touched it automatically. The stone emanated (Philip thought it was crazy, but there was no other way to describe the feeling) a calming warmth. A warmth that smelled like berry syrup.

“Yes,” he said carefully. “It's fine. I just don't understand what's going on.”

He really did feel surprisingly calm. And just a little surprised. There were a lot of questions, but for some reason he wasn't scared...

“But I want to figure it out,” he added, completing this thought.

“Then let's figure it out together,” suggested Luz.

Philip tilted his head to the side with interest. And she continued, smiling:

“I'll tell you how it looks from my side. In general…”

Luz told him how much she, her brother and their friends loved hiking in the mountains. They loved it so much that for a whole month now they've been going to this cave on the top of a high mountain almost every day to have picnics here. The cave is so big, the atmosphere here is pleasant, there is glowing algae on the walls (yes, algae, what did you think? These are plants, they often glow in the dark). And imagine their surprise when they discovered an unconscious man in the cave during one of these hikes. And Philip didn't know exactly how, but he felt it with every fiber of his being: Luz was lying shamelessly. She didn't say a word of truth. Until a certain moment.

“Then my brother went outside, and I stayed. I gave you food,” and it was true.

Only here...

“For some reason, I don't remember your brother,” Philip frowned.

It was such a stupid feeling. Apparently, he had no choice but to accept Luz's words. Because he himself didn't remember... He didn't remember at all how he woke up in this cave. And when he tried to remember the beginning of his conversation with Luz, he realized: this event went into the distance, to the horizon of his memory, got lost there, and it was absolutely impossible to see what was beyond it. As if there was nothing there at all...

And this, it seems, is a normal phenomenon for a dream. It's just that the dream began with his conversation with Luz, right?

"You must have hit your head," Luz said admonishingly, patting his knee.

Philip looked at her, his eyes slightly closed in displeasure. He had never been called brain-damaged so politely before.

"After something like that, you might have memory lapses. By the way," she perked up, as if she had just remembered something, "what's the last thing you remember? Before you ended up in this cave?"

And Philip tried again.

His house. Their house. His and Caleb's. A huge fire somewhere very close. The crackling of trees dying in flames.

Not that.

The mud pouring onto his face. Filling his mouth and making him choke. How does he manage to scream, where does his breath come from, where does his strength come from?

No...

Water under his feet. Black water, and the soft, glowing twilight of deep emptiness.

This can't be a real memory.

"Philip?" a cautious question.

Memories are so fuzzy, so unsteady. They unravel like old fabric. They hide from him in the fog...

"And what," Philip rubbed his forehead, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to break through the fog, "what is your name?"

"Philip, I asked you to," the girl whose name eluded him said with a tired sigh.

Philip closed his eyes. No, his head didn't hurt. Nothing hurt. Not a single bone in his old body (very… very old, he somehow knew). But how thick was this fog... smoke... where did so much smoke come from...

He thought he would drown in this smoke.

They pulled him out of the thickening smoke, shook him. They forced him to open his eyes.

"Philip, listen to me," she held his shoulders with her hands again, holding his gaze with her eyes, "do you remember your brother's name?"

"Caleb," he said, without even thinking.

"Okay," Luz quickly licked her lips.

Luz. Luz, he remembered her name.

"And do you remember the name of the city you lived in?" she asked uncertainly.

"Luz," he said instead of answering.

Her eyes filled with relief.

He felt her palms on his shoulders. Her small, fragile fingers, squeezing his bony hands.

“We live,” he corrected.

Luz raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“We live in Gravesfield,” Philip said. “Me and my brother.”

The smoke was less.

“Okay,” Luz nodded and let him go.

And Philip wanted to return the touch. When she hugged him (she hugged him… right? Or- no… He didn’t remember. But it was as if he remembered this touch. The warmth of her hands) it was better... But why are his shoulders so broad? She’s an adult... she looks much older than him... But he’s much taller and broader...

Why does he have the body of an adult?

How did he end up here...

“I remember the fire,” he said uncertainly.

And he caught her concentrated gaze.

“What kind of fire?” She looked at him carefully.

“In the forest,” Philip fell silent for a moment. Philip rubbed his forehead again. “I don't know. All the memories are in the smoke.”

And he closed his eyes heavily, resting forehead on his palm. And so he only heard a startled gasp. A sigh of new understanding. Oh, it seems someone understood something. He wondered if she would explain anything to him?

He still didn't understand anything. Perhaps this was still a dream... clear and realistic at first glance, becoming lost in the details, not etching itself in memory at all. It even seemed to him that he should probably know what to say, that he should at least have a rough idea of ​​who he was and what was happening. That's usually what happens in a dream. When you take on a role in the play staged in your head, you accept the directions: become part of it for the duration of the dream, believe unconditionally in the reality of what is happening, ignore how, contrary to logic, eternal summer reigns and it never rains. Fail to notice that the dream never goes beyond the boundaries of your home... Because when you are in a dream, if this dream is pleasant, you want to believe in it.

Here it was different. What to believe in if there is nothing? There is nothing in his memory, only this scrap of conversation. Only smoke...

Luz, however, seemed to have realized something. Something about him? He opened his eyes, breaking out of the foggy, shaky something that replaced his consciousness, and looked at her face. It happens that a person, having guessed the answer to a question that had long tormented them, is immediately filled with satisfaction. But Luz, after her realization, looked exactly the opposite. She was not at all happy about the revealed truth.

But before he had time to ask her about it, the cave was illuminated by daylight. After the semi-darkness, it hurt his eyes, and Philip closed them for a moment. When he blinked, a broad-shouldered young man was standing by the wall where the bright light had been shining just seconds before.

And Philip immediately realized that he reminded him of someone, painfully.

Luz also noted him, shaking her head slightly, as if driving away the uninvited thoughts that had so burdened her. And she had a task prepared for their guest already.

“Hunter, bring some water, please.”

Straight away from the threshold. No "hello", no "how are you?"

Hunter, who had raised his leg to take a step deeper into the cave, froze.

"Why?" he did not understand, "I could just cast a spell..."

Under Luz's gaze, which promised all the plagues of Egypt, Hunter became embarrassed, coughed, and promptly shut up.

Luz turned her gaze, again filled with angelic patience, to Philip, and smiled at him, narrowing her eyes.

"He's joking," she said in such a tone that Philip understood that no other answer was expected from him than an affirmative nod.

He nodded. Then he looked at Hunter.

"Joking," he also smiled, slightly crookedly.

I believe you, Philip thought, mirroring their tense smiles.

And I believe in the algae on the walls.

Cold sweat on his back, a dripping anxiety.

And I believe in accidental slips of the tongue.

He narrowed his eyes sweetly, slightly tilting his head.

When I get home, you, my friends, will be caught and hanged.

Then he added, still to himself, —if this is not all a dream, of course.

Hunter still went and brought water. Luz tried to distract Philip from watching him exit the cave, but he still saw, glancing sideways, that the guy really did go through the monolithic wall. And after he returned, there was a solid wall there again.

The gallows are crying for you, Philip thought, no chance. There were obvious signs of witchcraft.

However, despite thoughts of the gallows, he was terribly curious.

By the way, in a dream you could be curious... They wouldn’t hang him for dreaming about magic, would they? Probably not...

When Hunter brought a bucket filled with water, Philip just rose from the cradle and went to the wall.

They tried to stop him, but somewhat sluggishly. He still reached the wall, accompanied by an honor guard in the form of um... one girl who was pursuing him. Hunter, who stood in the middle of Philip's intended path to the wall, was bypassed without any ceremony.

Hunter only sighed and put the bucket on the floor, crossing arms over his chest and looking at Philip. The girl stood to the side of Hunter, putting her hands on her hips.

There really were glowing drawings on the wall. From a distance, it was possible to think that it was an optical illusion, although Philip's vision was now such that he could count how many hairs were on Hunter’s face from a distance of three dozen steps. And his face was overgrown with untidy stubble. Yet, from a distance, one could still believe something about algae up there... or what was it she’d said... algae, mushrooms? It didn't matter, up close it was simply obvious that the drawings were glowing on their own.

Runes carved into the strangely warm stone.

“So this is magic, isn’t it?” asked Philip. He turned around and wagged his finger admonishingly at them. “Magic is dangerous. Magic killed my mother.”

They looked at him with wide eyes.

“Your mother used magic?” the girl asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Philip shrugged his shoulders and returned to looking at the drawings on the wall. Raising his head higher and higher. “She looked like a witch. They hanged her for that.”

The drawings extended to the ceiling. And onto the ceiling itself... And the warmth coming from the wall was not really warm in the usual sense. It was like the stone on his neck. Warmth in a completely different range of feelings...

Silence hung behind him, and Philip began walking along the wall, enthusiastically running his hands over it, examining its ornamentation. It was clearly locked into some kind of pattern.

“And what does this drawing mean?” he asked, poking his finger at one of the circles.

“It is a symbol of light,” the girl squeezed out.

“And this?”

“A symbol of fire. Listen, Philip…”

Philip looked back at her. Then he turned his whole body. He bowed his head.

“Do you know me?”

“Yes,” the girl sighed, wincing painfully. “Yes, I know you. We talked.”

“Yes,” he slowly agreed. He frowned. “That's right, we talked. You... um…”

“I'm Luz.”

“Yes, yes, I remember,” Philip shook his head.

“I'm Hunter, by the way,” Hunter muttered, poking himself in the chest with his thumb.

Philip looked at him like he was an idiot. Hunter clearly felt uncomfortable under this gaze. And Philip narrowed his eyes, examining his face more closely.

Why are they treating him like he's crazy? It's rather unpleasant. And also, this Hunter reminded him of someone...

“Philip, I see you like magic?”

Philip shuddered. Slowly folded his hands behind his back. One of his hands clenched into a fist, his nails digging into his palm painfully. The other grabbed the metal bracer on the first's wrist. Where did he get the bracers from... He couldn't remember putting them on...

"Not at all," he said quietly, looking at the floor somewhere past Luz. "What makes you think that?"

There was another moment of silence.

"It seemed you were looking at the glyphs with such interest..." Ah, his favorite, the game of ‘prove you’re not a witch’. He had become very good at it over the years of living in Gravesfield. He always won. The price for losing would be his life.

"It only seemed so," Philip said without emotion.

Silence. Only the beating of two hearts. One - Philip's - was beating strangely, quietly and intermittently, as if it didn't particularly want to beat, and the other - Luz's heart. Why couldn't he hear Hunter's heartbeat?

"Philip, don't you want to wash up?" Luz asked, waving her hand. Her hand pointed to the bucket at Hunter's feet, which Philip had only just noticed. And then he noticed the dirt. On his bare feet, on his hands, on his chest bared by a torn shirt. Oh...

"With pleasure," he said enthusiastically.

Now he suddenly clearly felt how unpleasantly his skin was tightening.

Especially on his face. He really wanted to wash his face.

Philip walked up to Hunter, bent down. He looked into the bucket and shuddered. A skinny, exhausted old man with the same dirt on his face, cheeks streaked with white tear tracks, was looking back at him from the reflection in the water's surface. Philip grimaced. The old man in the reflection also winced tiredly.

So that's it. Is that what he looks like?

This is a dream, this is a dream, just a bad dream.

He needs to clean his face.

They almost immediately ran into a problem.

"No," Philip shook his head.

"We'll turn away, everything's fine," Hunter promised.

"Just go outside," Philip muttered irritably through his teeth.

He almost growled, in a voice that wasn't his own. Low, threateningly vibrating.

"Listen, well... I'm sorry, one of us needs to stay here just in case."

"I'm not going to wash myself in front of strangers.

Hunter winced slightly at the last word, clenched his teeth, and gritted them slightly. The sound was barely audible.

“To hell with it,” Luz cursed, taking a piece of paper out of her bosom. “He’s right.”

Hunter looked at her, raising one eyebrow. But he remained silent when she stepped toward Philip and slapped the paper on his chest. Philip shuddered.

A wave passed through his body, slowly and softly, with a warm yellow glow that was already familiar to him from the walls of the cave and the stone on his neck. It passed, ruffling, like a brush. Leaving behind clean skin.

“You wanted to do this without magic,” Hunter reminded casually.

“I thought he’d be scared. And he–” Luz shook her hand near her temple, waving her hand in Philip’s direction.

“Wow,” Philip turned his absolutely clean palms in front of his eyes in admiration.

No, if magic is so scary, then why is it so interesting?

And then Hunter gave him a new shirt. It seemed to be Hunter’s. The shirt was quite big, even for Philip it was loose enough, red with a checkered pattern. With buttons made of some strange material, not wood or metal. It smelled the same as Hunter. A spark of warmth, similar to the one that lived in the walls of the cave, in the stone on Philip's neck, in Luz's papers. Also cold clean air with a hint of pine. And wood shavings.

Caleb's clothes always smelled of wood too.

“Oh,” buttoning the shirt, Philip looked straight at Hunter. How strange, he looks very grown up, but also shorter than Philip, like Luz. “You look so much like my brother.”

And then came the question that should have been asked first. It was strange that he hadn’t asked it yet:

“Do you know where Caleb is?”

Luz, as if she had been hit in the same sore spot for a long time, winced visibly and covered her mouth with her hand. Hunter turned pale, and his face became an even mask. They both hid their eyes.

“No, when we met, I wasn’t being followed.”

“You…”

“Yes, I’m sure. Luz, I’ve been in the guard longer than you.”

“Because there’s no guard anymore, wise guy. And consultants don’t serve, I’m not on official support.”

A quiet chuckle.

“I have a vague feeling that you just invented that phrase.”

“Maybe… maybe…” If there’s a sound to a shrug, that’s what came after those words. “I was definitely being followed. Had to ask Gus to distract them with an illusion.”

“Oh, so that's why he didn't come with you.”

“Yeah. Although his help with all this shit would have been nice.”

“Hey, you're talking about my uncle!”

Feigned indignation. A second of silence, then a nervous laugh.

“I see you're even joking now.”

“It's a defensive reaction, don't hope for more. I don't know how much longer I can stand watching this... My poor therapist, he'll have to double the price for the session.”

“And see a therapist too.”

Quiet grunts, again in two voices.

“How bad is this on a scale from "The Day of Unity" to "Execution Day"?”

“Hmm, let me think... The crowd tearing him apart in front of my eyes, or the moment when I thought he was really dead? You know... that's not the right scale. Neither one nor the other... Some mysterious third kind of pain.”

“Dude. That door still opens outward, you know, anytime you need…”

And that's what someone's hand sounds like on someone else's shoulder.

A quiet consonant "mhm".

“I hope Gus comes back when he's done distracting surveillance. This would be easier with mental magic.”

“He’s not really a mentalist though…”

“Well, he certainly knows more about all this than you and I do.”

“Yeah... It's all so unfortunate... Horrible timing.”

“Trouble rarely comes at the right time. Would you be ready if it happened in a month or two?”

“You can never be ready for anything with him... Hell, it's his fault that we're being followed now. If it weren't for his prank last time…”

“Well, on the one hand, yes, but on the other, it's not his fault that when the “door slam” raised the alarm, our absence from our usual work and study places exposed Lily. I should have prepared a proper alibi. Nothing ever goes exactly according to plan. I should have been more careful.”

“How long will the excuse about hiking in the mountains work, do you think?”

“I think those guys who had to be thrown off our trail today have already started to suspect something.”

“Well, yeah, who goes to the mountains every day anyway.”

“No, such people, of course, also exist... oh, we really will have to organize a bunch of hikes for at least a couple more years when we finish all this.”

“Just think: we have found a new hobby. And what good team building it turns out to be.”

“Oh yeah, joint torture and interrogation always strengthens the team.”

Philip was lying on some stone, and above him the ceiling of a huge cave glowed with hundreds of repeating patterns. The cave was unnaturally round, almost a perfect hemisphere. Its ceiling was strewn with fragments of stalactites, which made it seem rough. The stone he was lying on was long, rectangular, and rose above the floor like an altar or a pedestal in a temple. The stone was covered with a thick, warm cloak. Blinking a couple of times, Philip realized that small yellow balls were flying around under the ceiling, adding a little more dim light.

He was lying on some kind of stone, tied hands and feet.

Nearby, two people were having a leisurely conversation, where he could not immediately see them.

He jerked his head slightly, turning it to the side. He saw the speakers standing nearby. A short girl, a guy slightly taller than her. Their silhouettes were outlined by the shadows of several yellow balls above their heads. The girl's palm was lying on the guy's shoulder. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his head down. And, as if they sensed something, they both turned to Philip, looking at him with shiny dark eyes.

Before that, their conversation in the background seemed to fill the cave, making it brighter and more real. The collapsed silence deafened, hid the light coming from the drawings on the walls, wrapped itself in a dense cocoon. The silence began to press on his ears. Then Philip pulled his hands tied at the wrists towards himself, turned slightly, hit his hands on the stone. Not hard, just to make at least some sound. The sound of hitting the cloak-covered stone was muffled and drowned in the silence. And Philip hit again and again, with a little more fury. But either from the sound or from his movements, the two standing nearby simultaneously shuddered.

The girl quickly approached him, grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hey, stop it.”

Philip jerked, breaking free and crawling away from her. And he noticed that one of the tight bundles wrapped around his wrists had burst. They looked strong and thick enough. But Philip tensed his arms and felt the ropes tear.

“Stop it.”

The young man intervened. He also came up to him from the other side, put a heavy gloved hand on Philip's shoulder, looked into his eyes from top to bottom when Philip raised his head to look at him.

The guy was a copy of his brother. Only older. And somehow just a little bit wrong. But so similar to Caleb...

“Quiet, come on. What are you even doing,” he said in an even, soothing tone.

And Philip did not shake his hand off.

Breathing slowly and loudly, he looked into the eyes of a man similar to his brother, and felt the weight of his hand on his shoulder. And he understood – for some reason he felt calmer this way. And the girl, who had previously made him break free and crawl away from her touch, raised her hands in a demonstrative gesture and took a step back.

“Okay, okay. How nervous we are today,” she muttered, irritated.

This irritation was bursting out of her, despite her obvious attempts to contain it. As if she was very tired of being patient.

“We're just tired. Aren’t we, Philip?” the young man said, putting his arm around his shoulders and carefully sitting him upright like an obedient doll.

Philip looked at him in surprise, but nodded quietly. The guy helped him sit down, comfortably bend his bound legs and lean on his shoulder, sitting down next to him on a long stone cradle.

The girl sat down a little further away, almost on the opposite edge, with her legs up on the pedestal, which jarred Philip, who already perceived it as something like a bed. She placed her legs bent at the knees in low boots on the stone (thank goodness it wasn't on the cloak spread out on it), and folded her hands on her knees. For some time, she silently looked at Philip, who had become quiet, pressed against the shoulder of the young man sitting next to him. He was uncomfortable with such attention, and he sat a little ruffled, looking absentmindedly somewhere to the side. He awkwardly folded his arms and involuntarily tried to seem smaller. Involuntarily looked vulnerable, probably. And the girl thoughtfully watched him. With some kind of research interest. As if she was seeing him for the first time.

“Listen, you and I are idiots,” she said suddenly, without taking her eyes off him. But obviously addressing the man. “How could we not notice this?”

The young man clearly winced when Philip turned his head to see his reaction to the girl's words. With a sigh, he stared back at Philip. He also ran his eyes over his face, and seemed to see something there that he had not seen before.

“Don’t poke the bruise, eh? We also somehow did not particularly notice the destroyed and devastated mindscape.”

Philip did not know what they were talking about, but for some reason he subconsciously agreed with the statement that they were idiots.

“Mindscapes can look like anything, depending on the will and personality structure of its owner. Destruction is not always something terrible in reality,” he muttered, raising his bound hands to his face and rubbing his itchy chin with his index finger.

“Well, we were there once already,” the girl objected, shaking her head. “We had something to compare it to.”

It seemed she wanted to add something else.

And suddenly she shut her mouth.

And then she and the young man both stared at Philip, looked at each other, looked at Philip again, this time with bulging eyes.

“What a bastard,” the young man exhaled, abruptly getting up from his place.

Philip almost fell, falling backwards, but the girl's palm caught him by the knee, unexpectedly strong for such a thin figure. She managed to crawl up to him, sit down, bending her knees under her, and was now a little too close, looking directly into his face.

“Wait–” she said either to the man or to Philip. Then, obviously addressing Philip specifically, she asked, “what did you just say, huh?”

And what did he just say? Philip blinked at her with probably the purest and most uncomprehending look possible. He raised his hands, then his elbows, and then his shoulders, shrugging them and trying to pretend to spread his arms at the same time. When your hands are tied, it’s hard to do the latter. So, just in case, he asked out loud:

“I don’t know. Does that mean anything?”

The young man looked at him, raising one eyebrow and folding his arms across his chest. But without hostility. Perhaps the way he towered over him, a frowning figure, looked a little hostile in itself. And the girl pulled away again and suddenly giggled nervously.

“Look how he’s been leading us on this whole time. Damn it. And how confidently he was holding his face!”

And she started laughing, slapping her knee with her palm. Her shoulders were shaking, and Philip thought that it all looked like the beginning of hysteria.

Her friend must have thought so too, because he silently put his hand on one of her shoulders and shook her really hard. He shook her like you shake a tree to make apples fall from it. He shook her back and forth, which was easy for him given their difference in build. The girl hiccupped while shaking, judging by the loud "ouch!" she bit her tongue, but the idiotic laughter stopped as if it had never happened.

"Okay, enough, enough," the girl rubbed her face, and Philip only now noticed that it was slightly swollen, as if she hadn't had enough sleep, and pale to the point of grayness. The young man next to her also seemed pale, but he was probably like that by nature. Like Caleb... "What, from the beginning again?"

The young man shrugged.

“You can just sit silently. Or ignore him.”

“Well, somehow it's... inhumane,” the girl muttered quietly and evenly, lowering her eyes, faded from fatigue.

Then the young man took the initiative. He unclasped his hands, letting them hang freely along his body, and said:

“Hi, Philip. I'm Hunter.”

“What a stupid name,” Philip said to this, looking up into his eyes.

“Wow. Did you hear that?” Hunter snorted, not at all offended, and poked his friend with his fist.

She chuckled, began to giggle involuntarily again, but Hunter put his gloved hand on her shoulder, and the emerging hysteria died down again.

“And this cheerful girl, my sister Luz,” Hunter introduced, nodding at her.

Luz only smiled weakly.

Philip was silent, looking at brother and sister for a while. He was left to decide what to say in response, without any leading questions. So the first thing Philip did, after thinking carefully, was say:

“I want to go to Caleb.”

God, how exhausted those two looked. How nervously Hunter's cheek twitched.

“No, he's still mocking,” he whispered under his breath.

Luz sighed, a little convulsively, as if holding back another fit of laughter. Then she put her hand on top of Hunter's on her shoulder, looked up at him:

“Well, were you expecting something else?”

“I don't know,” Hunter twitched the corner of his lips. “It would be interesting to hear the continuation about the mindscape.”

“Oh, maybe,” Luz caught an idea by the tail, folded her arms across her chest. “Philip, listen, do you want to play ‘question and answer’?”

He looked at his tied hands. And he couldn't understand what he was feeling. Nor what he wanted.

“Okay... will you untie me?”

“If you will answer the questions, then absolutely,” Luz promised.

Philip frowned.

“And will you answer me?”

“Of course,” Luz agreed after a slight hesitation.

Then, Philip thought, why not. He still needed to occupy his time with something until he fell asleep.

Why he needed to fall asleep, though, Philip didn't know at that moment.

He just shrugged and nodded lazily.

And the first question followed immediately:

“What do you know about mindscape?”

“Nothing,” Philip answered honestly and just as quickly.

In his head, there really was nothing concrete to answer this question.

Luz sighed in disappointment, not at all surprised. She and Hunter both seemed to be expecting nothing more.

“Yeah, if only it were that simple,” Hunter commented, sitting down on the cradle again.

This time, however, next to Luz. They were now sitting shoulder to shoulder, she with her feet on the stone, Hunter just slightly leaning on his hips, his torso turned to look at Philip directly. He folded his arms on his chest again. Now it was as if the two of them were opposite him. And Philip felt as if he was in a minority in some battle. The sensation was prickly, unpleasant.

Almost as unpleasant as the ropes that tied his arms and legs.

“Why am I tied up?”

Luz and Hunter exchanged glances.

“You tried to leave.”

“And why can't I leave?” Philip raised his eyebrows.

“That's another question,” Luz slightly raised the corners of her lips.

Philip frowned offendedly, pursed his lips. And for some reason, Luz and Hunter both snorted at this expression. Philip pouted even more because of their reaction. And this only made them laugh more.

“Well, ask your question already!” Philip irritably hurried the joyful two.

“Don't be offended. It's just that it's rare to see you so direct,” Hunter chuckled kindly.

“A couple more years under the sleep spell, and you will see me only like this,” Philip said, something he himself didn't understand.

He said it in such a strangely indifferent tone, from which, if this tone belonged to someone else, a chill would have run down his spine. This chill noticeably passed through their company, wiping the smiles from the faces of the brother and sister.

“In another ten years, I basically won't be able to talk,” Philip added for some reason.

Hunter stood up and turned away.

Philip blinked. He looked up at Hunter, who had stood with his back to the pedestal and his hands on his waist. Philip looked at his tense back. He licked his lips and slightly raised his eyebrows. Then he leaned toward Luz and quietly asked:

“What's wrong with him?”

And his tone was direct again. And his eyes were probably clear.

And he really didn't understand what had happened.

Luz was also looking at Hunter, but when she heard Philip, turned her head towards him and saw his face, she looked at him with a slightly wild look. Then she sighed. And just as quietly, leaning forward slightly, she answered:

“His uncle is sick. He's been sick for a long time. And he only found out now.”

Philip was silent. He lowered his voice to a whisper:

“Then why is he here with us and not with him?”

Hunter raised his hand, and it seemed, pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“Philip, listen! Question,” Luz distracted him from examining Hunter's tousled nape. “Why does the sleeping spell destroy consciousness?”

And she caught a disdainful look from him.

“The sleeping spell does not destroy consciousness. That's nonsense. If it is properly composed.”

“Damn,” Luz exhaled, rubbing her face with her palm. “Okay... Wait, what if it's not composed properly?”

“That's another question,” Philip retorted.

Luz twitched the corner of her lips.

“Why am I in a cave, tied up, and can't leave?” It was Philip's turn to ask a question. And he tried to formulate it in such a way that it would be harder to avoid answering.

Luz, as expected, thought hard about this formulation. She even rubbed her chin. Hunter stood behind her, frozen in place, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, breathing evenly. Philip realized that he couldn't hear his heartbeat. Whereas Luz's heart was beating evenly and clearly.

She began to answer, choosing her words carefully:

“Because if you leave, it will be dangerous.”

And her heart began to beat a little faster, but she didn't lie in a single word.

“What about the sleep spell?” she asked ingratiatingly.

“What spell?” Philip did not understand.

And he, in his heart, did not understand what she was talking about.

Luz cursed, and Hunter suddenly laughed. What a laugh they both had, unnatural, harsh.

“Well, the moment is lost.”

Hunter said it, and turned to face him. No, his eyes were dry. And not even red. Only a mournful crease appeared between his eyebrows.

Philip tilted his head to the shoulder, looking at him more closely. A strange feeling squeezed his chest when looking at him. If someone mixed melancholy and nostalgia in one bottle, he would feel something similar.

If someone asked Philip a question, he could probably answer it. Just like he answered about spells, not really realizing what he was saying. If someone asked him, ‘what do you feel?’ he would say. If someone asked further, ‘and why do you feel this?’ he would… what would he answer then?

Why, looking at Hunter, does he see his brother's face. Why is Caleb's face covered in tears and blood?

Philip realized that he didn't want to hear the answer. That he just wanted to go home.

“Philip, concentrate. Come on, the sleep spell. You just said that if it's composed correctly, it doesn't harm the consciousness it affects. Why would it be harmful?”

Luz was insistent.

“Changing the structure of a spell most often leads to changes in its functions,” Philip muttered monotonously, as if he was reciting a tongue twister.

Luz closed her eyes and exhaled sadly.

“Thanks. Very informative.”

Philip hardly reacted to her sarcasm. However, his own sarcasm was enough to answer weakly, "You're welcome."

He sat in silence for a while. Everything suddenly seemed so strange and unreal to him. The cave, shrouded in a bluish glow. Talking about magic... he only just realized that he was talking about magic as if it were something self-evident, like the color of the sky and the sound of the wind. His hair was very long... And for some reason it was the color of wheat, almost like Caleb's. A whole wave of fluffy curls fell from his shoulders, laying on an expensive wool shirt of a bright red color. He hadn't worn such bright things since... he doesn't remember how long. He had never had such sinewy large palms. This is not his body and not his world.

It's like he's in a dream. As if he's playing someone else.

“Hey, Philip.”

Only for some reason his name here is really his own.

“Your turn to ask.”

And nothing was left of him except his name.

“Where am I?” His tongue moved with difficulty, his mouth suddenly went dry. “This is not my home.”

He lowered his unseeing gaze to his hands. He unclenched his fingers. All his palms were covered with thin old scars.

“Who am I?” he whispered. “This is not my body.”

This was not just one question. But he no longer cared. He was stunned by how thin and shaky reality had become. He tried to look into his memory in search of answers. And he found nothing.

And the worst thing is that he did not find the strength to be afraid of this.

Luz looked at him silently. He did not raise his eyes to her and did not know with what expression she was looking. And why she did not want to answer.

But he heard a step, another, and then Hunter's hand fell on his shoulders again, rubbing soothingly.

“These are difficult questions, Philip. But we'll figure it out. I promise you.”

And Hunter pulled Philip to himself.

Philip buried his cheek in his stomach. And he sensed that very smell more clearly. The smell of pine needles and wood shavings. If he closed his eyes, he could have been completely deceived. He would have seen Caleb in his mind's eye. He would have been able to believe for a moment that it was his brother hugging him.

And for some reason, Philip felt so bitter. For some reason, there was one thought in his head.

No matter how much I try to replace you, the pain does not go away

But he still froze for a few seconds or minutes, as if in a trance, pressing his side against Hunter, and feeling that very peace that for some reason came with his touch.

But he still wanted to go home.

To the real Caleb.

And his gaze suddenly caught on something strange on the wall opposite.

“Is that the door over there?” Philip pointed his finger in its direction.

An unremarkable wall, painted with the same glowing blue pattern as the rest of the cave. But he just saw something wrong with it. Some kind of… mistake. A gap. A passage. Luz was looking at him for a long time. Then she turned in the direction he was pointing and looked there for a while. Then her eloquent gaze found its place on Hunter's face. She waved her hand indignantly, vaguely, but more pointing at Philip than simply twirling it in the air. Hunter just spread his arms (one, to be more precise, the other still resting on Philip's shoulders) and shook his head. And he looked at Philip with some strange sparkle in his eyes. This whole silent dialogue ended with Luz finally turning to Philip and giving a laconic:

“No.”

And that was the end of the matter, in her opinion, apparently.

Strangely enough, she didn't lie again. Not entirely. Somehow it was a half-truth again. And Philip was starting to get annoyed by this routine.

Evading direct questions. Not telling the whole story. Do they think he's an idiot? ‘We’ll figure it out,’ yeah, of course.

Philip just tore the thick ropes on his hands and feet with one movement. He threw off Hunter's hand, moved away. He got up from the stone. And went to the wall where the passage was.

Luz called out to him, concerned, trying to stop him, grabbing him by the shoulder. Philip barely moved it, easily freeing himself.

Hunter blocked his way. Philip looked down at him. Hunter looked back at him calmly. And Philip tried to go around him. But Hunter calmly stepped in front, again standing in his way, folding his arms across his chest. Philip exhaled heavily, squinting dangerously. Hunter held his gaze.

“Philip, Philip, listen,” Luz was next to him, switching his attention to herself, carefully grabbing his elbow. “Philip, do you know that magic is available to anyone? You don't even have to be a witch to do it.”

Philip involuntarily became interested. He turned his face to her.

“Really?”

It was as if he had forgotten... somehow it had slipped his mind that he himself knew more about magic than this Luz a few minutes ago.

“You bet,” Luz nodded quickly, “even a child could handle it.”

I am a child, Philip thought, poking his finger into his chest and raising his eyebrows. Luz nodded again with a smile.

“Do you want me to teach you too?”

It was impossible to say that the offer didn't interest him. But a second later he remembered the pre-dawn mists enveloping the high gallows in the main square of their small town. And he thought about it some more. He was overcome with doubts, he hesitated.

“And this... well, no, somehow it's wrong... what if I do become a witch?”

He glanced at his left hand. He was no longer embarrassed by the fact that it seemed to belong to someone else, not him. That a metal bracer, artfully carved with a round pattern, was clinging to his wrist. He only thought that his left hand made him vulnerable to the dark force.

Perhaps he is simply doomed to embody evil.

“You won’t,” Luz objected confidently.

And it was as if she was not just talking about this specific moment, but promising him that he would never, ever turn into a servant of the devil. And Philip wanted to believe her.

“Look,” she turned her head to him, demonstratively pointing to her ear. “Round ears. I didn’t become a witch.”

And Philip really believed her unconditionally. Although before that he had never heard that witches should have any other ears.

They persistently hugged him by the shoulders and led him to the stone cradle. Philip went obediently, but along the way he looked around in bewilderment, frowning thoughtfully.

It seemed he wanted to do something... but what?

Well, there you go...

I forgot.

“Let’s go, Philip. Let’s go.”

“This drawing represents the symbol of light.”

“And this one?”

“The symbol of fire.”

Philip was looking with interest at the sheets of paper with the so-called "glyphs" laid out in front of him.

“And how do they work?” Philip asked, reaching for the sheet of paper with the glyph of fire.

“Philip, wait!..”

The flash and heat that engulfed his curious face quite eloquently demonstrated how exactly the glyphs worked.

Philip coughed, exhaling a cloud of smoke, feeling the soot that had settled on his skin and the hair that stood on end.

“They are activated by pressing,” Luz explained, taking out some paper from her bosom. “So you have to be careful with them.”

Philip realized and heeded. And that same piece of paper from Luz's bosom was stuck to his forehead. He felt a wave of warm energy pass over his face when she pressed it, leaving behind a feeling of cleanliness. He looked up, trying to see the piece of paper stuck to his forehead. Luz, seeing this, snorted quietly, hiding her laughter.

“And what is this?” asked Philip.

“It's a combination of glyphs that cleans skin and clothes. I call it ‘Wash’."

“How convenient,” Philip was delighted.

And the paper from his forehead disappeared as soon as it worked. It simply dissolved in a wave of yellow energy. It had a pleasant smell, like the rays of the sun. As strange as it may be, of course, to attribute a smell to pure power.

“Yes-s,” nodded Luz. “And this,” she pulled out a sheet of paper folded in four from her bosom, unfolded it, handing it to Philip, “anti-portal magic. Like on the walls of the cave, see?”

The diagram on the piece of paper was much more complicated than "wash". And there were no glyphs in it, only dots that designated them. And on the wall of the cave, indeed, all over its surface, a blue looping pattern shimmered into itself, at first glance somewhat reminiscent of the one on the piece of paper.

“Wow,” Philip turned the drawing over, held it up to the light, “yes, it really is very similar,” he agreed, moving his gaze from the paper to the wall and back.

“And we can't leave the cave because of it,” Luz complained. “Now if someone understood how to decipher this spell that is on the piece of paper,” she drawled, shaking her head, “then we would be able to find a way to get out of here.”

“I am amazed at you, sister,” Hunter chuckled, sitting on a high stone cradle on the other side of Philip, and watching them fiddle with the glyphs. Luz ignored his remark.

“Yeh, do you happen to know what glyphs need to be substituted here?” Luz asked, looking up into Philip’s eyes imploringly.

And she poked her finger at the sheet of paper in his hands.

“Amazing,” Hunter said. “Brilliant.”

Philip rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He looked at the drawing. Then he looked up at the wall again. Then back at the drawing. And back at the wall. Luz fidgeted impatiently.

“Oh, look, there’s an exit,” Philip joyfully waved his hand at one part of the wall, quickly jumping off the lodgment and walking confidently in the direction indicated.

“Oh, my God, how much longer can this take,” Luz moaned, rushing after him.

Hunter watched them both with some indifference, yawned lazily, covering his mouth with his hand and did not move.

She stopped Philip halfway.

Philip hissed, trying to pull his hand away, but Luz grabbed it with unexpected strength. Then Philip grabbed her by the shoulder. He shook her so that she would leave him alone. Luz did not leave him alone. In a fit of righteous irritation, Philip grabbed her with both hands (and even at that moment she did not let go of his wrists) and lifted her off the floor. He shook her harder. Luz gasped, began to twitch her legs, looking for support. And Philip suddenly realized, with surprise, what he had just done. He looked at the girl in his arms with an amazed look.

He did not need to make any effort at all to hold her up in the air with his arms outstretched in front of him.

“Oh, you are so light,” Philip was delighted.

“It’s you who are so strong,” Luz dangled in his arms. “You could probably lift Hunter and me at the same time.”

“Oh, really?” Philip turned sharply to Hunter, squinting. Hunter swallowed hard.

“Oh no-no-no.”

“Oh yea-a-a,” Philip threw Luz over one shoulder, making her gasp, and, not noticing her weight, confidently headed for Hunter.

Hunter tried to quickly jump off the pedestal and get out of his reach, but he couldn't do it fast enough to get away from Philip. He wasn't really struggling, though. It seemed like he’d quickly resigned himself to it.

Philip lifted them both onto his shoulders and spun around.

“Ooooh, like feathers! What strength I have!”

“Maybe you could put us down?”

“Wait, wait.”

He did some squats and jumps to try it out.

When after some time that very passage opened in the wall, shining with bright sunlight, and some people entered the cave, they found the following picture: Luz, boredly propping her chin on her palm, hanging over one shoulder; Hunter, convulsively trying to grab onto something with every movement, on the other; Philip in between, dragging them all around the cave, testing how much he could squeeze out of his physical capabilities with such a weight.

“I don’t even want to ask,” muttered the boy with dark skin.

“Well I do,” the girl with bright hair said. “What the hell?”

She was a little shocked. However, both new arrivals, perhaps.

And Philip, turning to face them, looked at them thoughtfully. Trying to figure out how many more people he could carry at once. The new visitors tensed up and recoiled slightly under his gaze. Yes, there was a good possibility of adding at least one of them to each shoulder…

But Luz, who suddenly began to stir actively, as if sensing his thoughts, patted his back with her palm:

“Philip, come on, bring us back down to earth. Your bony shoulder busted both my kidneys while you were jumping around here.”

Philip's conscience was about to perk up, intending to gnaw at him, but Philip harshly blocked these attempts, mentally slapping it and explaining that they could break free and bite if they didn't like what's going on.

The dark-skinned young man scratched his head, watching as Philip squatted slightly, carefully placing Luz and Hunter on the floor.

“We really need you, Gus,” Luz said in a terrible whisper, her mad gaze boring into the guy’s face.

He swallowed hard.

“I see…”

Meanwhile, the girl with the unnaturally bright hair was lowering a small backpack from her shoulder.

Luz looked at her, then at her bag.

“Remember, I asked you to…”

Interrupting her, the girl pulled a coil of wire out of her backpack with a magician’s gesture.

“Oh, you’re a sorceress,” Luz beamed.

The girl smiled back at her.

“We just had a big order recently. There’s a lot of wire left. I just took it from the warehouse.”

“Uh, what about the inventory…”

“Please,” the girl smirked, “I do the inventory myself.”

Luz raised an eyebrow.

“Is this fraud and abuse of office, Mrs. Blight?”

“Of course,” the girl nodded. “The last name obliges.”

Meanwhile, Philip suddenly realized one simple thing.

“You lied to me.”

He said it without accusation. Just as a statement of fact. And almost without offense. What offense is there if...

He’s used to it.

She always lies.

Luz froze. And then she returned all her attention to him.

Philip looked into her eyes for a few seconds without words. And then he rushed to the exit.

It seemed to him that he had already done this. It seemed to him that this day lasted much longer than he remembered. And he had a feeling that he had already tried to leave.

It was like being stuck in a forest, in the domain of the fairies. Dancing forever in a clearing with magical creatures, not remembering time, not remembering yourself. Forgetting where the exit was.

He had already tried to leave. And he had to try again. This time he had to be faster than the damn fairies.

And he was fast. The strength in his legs was the same as in his arms, capable of lifting two adults into the air without effort. He rushed to the wall, where the passage had already closed, to the witches standing opposite it... pointed ears, yes. They were not humans. But they were short and thin. Philip knew that he could easily push them out of his way.

Hunter appeared in his path in a flash of light. Appeared out of thin air. He also had pointed ears! A witch. Philip tried to hit him in the face with a roar, but Hunter blinked again, clutching the red staff with a bird at the head in his hands, and was suddenly very close, throwing Philip onto his back.

Strength or not, but Hunter had a lot of weight. And Philip was unnaturally light for his height.

They ended up on the floor, and Hunter tried to pin him down by the wrists. And tried to look into his eyes. Tried to say something. In some tone that is not appropriate for a fight. Philip didn't hear him over the pounding of his pulse in ears. He simply threw Hunter off himself. He pushed him with his hand, and Hunter flew off like a sack of straw. How much strength there was in his hands! Philip jumped up and ran again. He suddenly felt a sharp weakness, as if he had been slammed hard against the floor, and almost tripped. A bright purple ring lit up for a second around his right wrist and then went out. His vision darkened, but he dodged the whip that lashed out nearby, using only intuition. It turned out to be green. It was a huge living vine. Trying to grab Philip by the legs. Rising from behind him, from where Luz stayed.

And then he was met by a blow from a huge purple fist. Philip flew to the floor, exhaling sharply with a wheeze. All the air was knocked out of him by the blow. He tried to get up. Tried to do it quickly. But his arms and legs were already entwined with vines. And then purple clay joined the vines, embracing his entire body.

And he was lifted into the air, suspended upside down. Philip began to twitch desperately in the bonds that had embraced him.

“Maybe I should knock him out? I can do it carefully.”

That kid. Gus, it seems. And Philip first thought he was nice.

“That's not necessary,” Luz answered, wiping a trickle of blood from under her nose. And looking at him point-blank with her big eyes. “He'll be normal again in half an hour.”

“Are you so sure?”

“Yes,” Luz jerked her head and turned away. And threw over her shoulder, frowning, “his memory is updated every fifteen minutes.”

Philip froze. The stems of the plants and the strange clay substance (so disgusting... some kind of abomination...) took advantage of the moment of peace to compress his body into a tight cocoon. Philip breathed raggedly, staring ahead with wide eyes. Everything blurred before them, the image swam. Tears slid down his temples.

How long has he been here? How long has he been sitting here, not remembering himself. Not remembering that he must leave and return to Caleb.

What if this is not a dream.

What if he has been here as long as his body is old. His old old old body...

Lord

Philip twitched desperately, stubbornly gritting his teeth. He had no more than fifteen minutes until he remembered...

He was lying on the stone floor. He was lying on his side, his knees pulled up. And his gaze was fixed unseeingly on the wall, painted with a strange glowing picture.

“Well, you can't remove claw marks from the floor, of course.”

No, not on the floor. That's what it seemed at first. It was a tall stone, like a pedestal or an altar. Covered with a thick cloak.

“I don't care anymore. The main thing is that the spell should work.”

Philip himself was covered with a cloak. Thin, soft. The cloak smelled of something familiar and dear.

“Do you think we can fix it with wire?”

“It was you, Mrs. Blight, who listened to a lecture on artificial magic from Mr. Bane Witte. He always made his artifacts from titanite wire, right? It should work. If not... Lord, I don't know how much longer I can stand it. It would be much easier to put him to sleep.”

“Who am I hearing this from? My dear Luz, when was the last time you looked for easy ways?”

A chuckle.

“Lately I've been wanting to more and more often than ever.”

Philip stirred slightly. He felt that his face was wet. And in his hand he found clutched a red handkerchief with a monogram. He wiped the tear tracks from his cheeks. And some dirt from under his nose. The handkerchief was stained in green and black.

“Hey... Hunter…”

“Yes. I see.”

Someone rose from the floor. Footsteps were heard.

“Philip?”

Someone gently touched his shoulder.

Looking up, he saw a man.

“Are you okay?”

Philip looked at the young man who stood next to his bed for several long moments. Behind the young man, the round stone ceiling of a huge cave burned with a blue fire.

“I want to sleep,” Philip admitted.

For some reason, he was very tired.

The guy sat down next to him on the edge of a long stone.

“Then sleep.”

And he did not remove his hand from Philip's shoulder.

Something suddenly flashed through Philip's head. Very vaguely. As if some conversations were going on in a circle. As if he was asking for something again and again, running somewhere... And a suffocating feeling of longing and thirst was painfully squeezing his chest.

“It’s just a dream, isn’t it?” Philip asked quietly.

The blond head turned to him.

“When I close my eyes,” Philip's lips moved with difficulty, “I will be able to wake up. Yes?”

A pause stretched over his head, dropping silence in soft moments. Then a hand gently touched his hair.

“Of course... Close your eyes.”

The hand softly and so familiarly stroked the top of his head.

Philip obeyed.

“Thank God, even here you are next to me,” he whispered on the exhale, “Caleb…”

Philip could no longer see his brother's face. But it seemed to him that before falling asleep, he heard a strangled sob.