Baccus chuckled, wholly satisfied with his mischief as he waltzed in.

He moved straight to the table and picked up the untouched tea. He took a sip and huffed in delight, before moving to the arm of the couch, where he sat, his shoes on the cushions.

“Trouble in paradise?” He tipped the tea back as he stared down Ophelia.

“I don’t understand your brother.”

He huffed, “which one?”

Ophelia glared. “Mavus.”

“What’s not to understand? He seems rather easy to me. He’s got a half-mast for justice and a longing for a voyage.”

She stared, dumbfounded. “He wants to make the city better.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” He sipped tea. Baccus held it still as he pulled out a flask from a pocket. “Why? Did he shove some political drivel your way again? You know, I think he practices all month just to tell you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, besides,” Ophelia moved away from him and pointed to the clock on the mantle, “shouldn’t your tutor be awake by now?”

Baccus shrugged as he sipped again. “This hour, two hours, tomorrow afternoon, I’m not sure yet. I’m experimenting.”

“You know if you applied yourself--”

“--and what,” he snorted out some tea, “be locked in a hospital day-in and day-out. Watch everything around me die? No, Ophelia, I don’t have the stomach like you do. I want to be surrounded by life.”

Baccus let his gaze hardened for a moment before he leaned forward to place the tea and saucer on the table. His hand squeezed into a fist as he regained himself. The flask slipped back into a pocket.

“You would be great at it.” She stepped towards him, arms across her chest.

He looked up to her again and relaxed. “White isn’t my color, and the first time someone told me I couldn’t do something, I would be compelled to do it twice. I am not cut out to be a doctor.”

“Only twice? You’re growing up.”

He cocked a smile. “I’m a learned man.”

She shook her head, but her eyes shifted away as she sunk deeper into her thoughts. Ophelia wrung the strap of her satchel. Silence swept over the room until all that was left were the faint ticks from the mantle.

Baccus held out a hand towards Ophelia, but pulled it back to him. He spun the golden signet ring around his finger that was marked with a capital M.

His gaze dropped. “You know,” he said gently, “he is right.”

“About?”

“You mean more to the family than…you know, hiding our secrets.” He shifted as he sat, shoes still disrespectfully on his brother’s couch. Fingers crossed over themselves as he stretched them, desperate to keep them busy.

“I think you are all in the unique position of not being in power for once, and mistaking this relationship for trust.”

He huffed and leaned back. “It’s trust.”

“How are you so sure?”

“My family is the kind that hire someone to hide my brother’s whatever-the-fuck-we’re-calling-them-now, rather than deal with him. They are entirely capable of pissing off Goldie and half the people in the Vista without losing much sleep at night. Yet they still invite you into the château. They still acknowledge your presence at all the events.”

“I’m titled. They have to at least do that, lest they try to ruin your brother’s standing, and their own. Besides, you’re only proving that this arrangement is based on fear.”

His brows curled in. “You really think I would waste my time sitting here afraid of you? Me, or Mavus would? That we just sit up here staring at the cobwebs in the corner awaiting the next ball? --Actually, I take that back, no respectable Vista house would have cobwebs.”

“No,” She started but couldn’t finish. Her head lowered again. “I didn’t mean to say that I waste your time.”

“Time with the ever magnanimous Honorable is never wasted. --The hours though.” He smirked and gave her a small salute.

“It’s not that. It’s what I represent.” She shifted uncomfortably. Baccus watched, helpless to stop it. “I’m a reminder. All the things that keep them up at night. They see my face, and it all floods back.” She looked up to him for a moment. His expression soft and attentive. “I can pinpoint it. The second it happens.”

“Is it like the moment of disappointment?” Their gaze locked. She had no reply, but they had known one another long enough to know it was true. They drifted off and stewed in a brevity of silence before Baccus slipped a hand into his pocket. A draw-string pouch swung with the flick of his wrist. “Hey, you wanna get out of here?”

She moved across the space between them. When she pulled it from his fingers, he didn’t fight. “These are new.”

“Grew them myself.” He beamed as his eyes rolled over her.

“You took my advice?” Baccus nodded as she examined the contents. She turned up to him. “Your tutor?”

“Will wake with a headache and mad cravings for beef pie. Serves him right, too.”

“And, what’s the plan if we do?”

He slipped a little closer to her. Feet planted on the floor. “The same thing we do every time.”

“I would expect you to break these out at van Croix’s.”

Baccus reached for them. “I intend to, but as always, you get first rounds.”

Ophelia let him pull the bag out of her fingers. He stuffed it again into a pocket for safe keeping.

Of all the Manchester brothers, his movements were the most human, the most alive. Johannes glided with the careful precision of a ballerina made of machinations, while Mavus carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. They were serious all the time. Always restrained. Baccus was the only one she ever heard properly laugh in the family.

In the vacuous stone hallways, joyous laughter was a welcomed echo.

Baccus turned his attention back to Ophelia. He slipped a half-smile as their eyes met. “You know, I hope that you can trust me enough. I won’t tell your secret.”

“I don’t have any secrets.”

“About my brother.” Baccus leaned into her ever so softly, his voice hushed. “I won’t tell.” She reiterated, but Baccus sighed and shook his head. “C’mon, I’ve added to it.”

Baccus waved his hands towards the door as he pushed himself off the edge of the couch. He stopped to make sure she followed, before he turned into the hall.

Together they slipped down another expanse of towering walls filled with art. Going past one such statue made Baccus lift out a finger to its mouth. “Ahh-ahh, she’s my company today.” Then he turned over to Ophelia. “He talks about you nonstop. I keep telling him it’s never going to work out, but he’s a bit thick-headed.”

Ophelia snorted and held back a smile.

Baccus leaned on his door with his back as he pushed it open. At the long table, an old man slept face first in a book. He looked like he was out for hours, and that he would be out for hours more.

Ophelia leaned over the unconscious tutor. His face was splattered against the pages. Some of the ink smeared onto him from his drool.

She put a finger to the man’s neck.

“He’s alive.” Baccus moved to a panel in the wall.

Ophelia turned her eyes to the text. “Anatomy?”

“Uh-huh,” he hummed.

She straightened herself and crossed the room. Baccus pushed on the panel with his shoulder and a smile. Behind him a clicking noise.

“I can’t imagine you would be struggling with it? Are the reevaluations difficult?”

“No. I understand it. I’m just of the mind to try and forget it.” He pushed the panel-door open and motioned to the secret room. His eyes drifted to hers for a pointed gaze as he smiled cheekily. “Well, most of it,” he finished through his smirk.