‘Alex!’

Magic flares along Hector’s skin, lining his arms like bristled quills as he darts out the door. His chest constricts, almost tripping over his own feet—

—only to slam into Alex, crouched over the doorstep. Eliav barges into Hector, nearly knocking the three of them to the ground. Hector’s magic sputters out as he stares at the top of Alex’s head, illuminated by the single light over the entrance. Alex is unhurt, much to their great relief. Hector feels the urge to smack him. 

In fact, Alex seems grim despite the earlier scare. His shoulders hunch against the breeze, threatening to become something stronger. When Hector sees what his brother is looking at, he gasps. In his hands, Alex is cradling the head of a prone figure lying on the ground. Hector’s eyes flicker to the pale, blood-stained hands first. Back to the face.

Eliav pushes past Hector to touch the back of Alex’s neck. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No,’ Alex says. He pauses. ‘No, I’m fine but… I don’t think this person is.’

Moving back to let his brothers look closer at the figure, a peculiar sensation settled over Hector’s shoulders like an ill-fitting cloak. A nagging in his heart, a churning in his stomach. His lungs suddenly feel shallow and a cold sweat breaks out over his brow and palms. Something’s… wrong. He knew this face, didn’t he? His mind, ever-talented at placing faces to names, and names to faces, shutters through hundreds of memories in an instant, trying to match this stranger against his facial database. 

It’s hard. The stranger looks close to death, face gaunt and haggard. Lips look chapped and bleeding beyond repair. Their clothes are completely in tatters, displaying a sickly pallor, and a torso laden with scabs and scars. Frail ribs rise and fall with each laboured breath. Fair hair lies lank and knotted on the doorstep, falling between swollen eyes. The strands stick to sharp cheekbones and a nose that must have been broken at least once. 

He knows no one like this—

No. No, he does. Hector inhales. Rotting seaweed and dead fish fill his nostrils, but he barely notices. The nagging in his heart has turned into a thunderous roar. His gaze wanders back down to the figure’s left hand, which lay upturned. A long puckered scar sat across the width of the palm and two dark moles sat neatly on the slender wrist, like a die’s snake eyes. 

An identical scar ached with the mostly forgotten pain of a glass shard dragged deep and slow across the palm of Hector’s right hand. He exhales in a rush, a name riding the dispelled air like a tossed piece of paper. 

‘Damien Frisk.’