The hidden room was cozy.

The curtains were drawn across the window so only the faintest light filtered through. Floor-cushions littered the floor. A glass enclosure grew mushrooms. Along the unpainted walls, Baccus had hung sketches of plants and equations. Drug-induced visions were smeared across it in charcoal. On the far end was a long table that served as his desk. Glasses were stacked in a corner as well as a guarded shelf of chemicals. His journals were between two carved, stone skulls, as were his reference books. A model skeleton was posed off to the side with the burnt end of a used cigarette in its mouth.

It reminded her of the smoking dens and illegal coffee lounges Goldie had procured.

There was a constant sense of ease and sedation, and at times when the lanterns were lit, and the room was darkened, serenity. Just like her sanctuary in her garden, this place was his.

Together the two eased into the room. The panel-door closed and Baccus moved a lever to seal it. Then, he held his hands out in pride.

“Looks great, right? Bought pillows after I fell the last time, and moved the vase over there. Added a food cabinet. Chamber pot in the corner. Now, I never need to leave.”

But all Ophelia heard was chamber pot.

She stared until Baccus plopped down on one of the massive floor-cushions. He swatted at the back of her leg until she focused on him. Ophelia pulled her satchel off then sat next to him.

“Now,” he pulled on the bag as he leaned on his elbow into her, “takes a moment to hit, but when it does, feels like the ocean and a blanket, and oddly enough, cinnamon. Don’t ask, I have no idea. I’ve only just gotten it to stop the dizziness.”

He pried the bag open and plucked the dried mushrooms out. Then, like a shot, they tapped them and ingested.

Baccus wiggled himself more into the cushion. “Trust me, get comfy.”

She did so. Her arms folded lazily across her middle. Her breaths were steady. In a house made of stone, she sat in the safety of wood. It made the tension in her spine relax.

After a moment of silence, Baccus tilted his head towards her. “You know, Mavus is a lot of things, but he’s right.”

She rolled her head to him. “About what this time?”

“He sees a problem, even one as fucked as Johannes, and he isn’t discouraged. He keeps problem solving. Keeps going. This place is rotten, but if anyone could change it, it would be Mavus. --Don’t tell him I said that.”

“I won’t.”

“He’s the better one of us all. I look at Johannes and think how much easier it would be if I slipped him the wrong thing, or just snipped the right artery. I still have my tools. I could make sure he didn’t suffer.”

Ophelia rolled her head to him. “Why don’t you?”

Baccus fell silent. His hand clenched. “Ah, besides the whole murder-thing… we’re the only ones left. My brother’s and me. We’re what’s left of the Manchester line, the only cousins our age are technically Honhensteins from my mother’s side, and my father’s only brother died when he was younger. Any other distant relatives are…” his eyes rolled around the room as he thought best to put it. He exhaled with, “not breedable.”

He rolled his wrist dramatically, “And, despite my flagrant escapades, bastard Midtown and Low children don’t really count for much, do they?” He huffed. “How absurd is that? We need Johannes. ...Part of Johannes, echk.” He shook it from his head.

“I wasn’t aware you had children.”

“I don’t. Though, I think there is a part of my parents that wish I had. At least then there would be more Manchesters.”

“I’m allowed to not take a job, if I want.”

“Ah,” he grinned, “so you do like us. I was afraid after all these years you were simply seething at the sight.” He bent a knee and shifted his suit.

“Who am I to judge?” Ophelia pulled her gaze away. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, doesn’t mean we deserve…”

“Are you insinuating that the Honorable Ophelia has been unhonorable?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I know.” He, too, pulled his gaze from her. They rolled over the contents of his room. “Still, I don’t know what to do. Every time I see him, I just want to run.”

Ophelia let out her chest through her nose. “It’s hard, knowing those kinds of things. It’s like looking at a monster and not being allowed to scream. Can’t even warn anyone. You’re just...stuck.”

“Yeah,” he exhaled. “That’s about right.” Baccus lifted a hand and again spun the signet ring. “I used to wonder out of you and I, who had seen more cadavers. Honestly, now I don’t think I want to know.”

“No bones about it,” she said flatly.

The sound that burst out of him, made her jump. His hand flew to his face as he cackled. “Ah, gods, I shouldn’t be laughing at that.” He rolled and laughed himself red. After his fit, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He wiped his face. “Feel it yet?”

She lifted an arm and wiggled her fingers. Tingly.

“We do trust you,” he added as he closed his eyes. The high crashed over him. “I do.”

“I think you’re afraid of me.” Their voices fell into a whisper.

He shook his head with a hum. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“I could ruin your family.” She rotated her wrist. A butterfly made of shimmering white floated across her vision. The pictures on the wall bent and swooned.

“More than I have?” His hands moved to his chest as he floated in the waves of numbness.

“I stand by what I said. You would have made a great doctor.”

“No one doubted.” Baccus let out a long sigh. “Ability wasn’t the issue.”

He fell silent for a few seconds before: “I don’t think this will work for the van Croix’s. I feel too cozy.” She hummed in agreement. Ophelia felt like the first sips of warm tea. “We’re supposed to be looking for marriage candidates there.”

“Again?”

“Yeah-- with Mavus expected to uphold the family and work, you’d think they’d want him to marry someone first.”

Ophelia turned. “They want you to?”

“Oh, I’m as shocked as you are.” He shook his head. “I thought I had permanently scalded my name years ago, but a Manchester is a Manchester, so apparently, I’m still getting offers.”

“That’s so absurd to me.”

Baccus laughed, “that someone would want to propose to me?”

“No,” she waved a hand that she swore for a moment was about to take off and soar around the room. “That you have to do this whole...thing,” she stammered.

“Ah yes, romance is so rarely a thing in the Vista.” Baccus turned over in his floor-cushion. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious who the rumors say I’ll have dozens of children with?”

“Dozens?”

“Dozens!” He rolled over to his side as they both were encased by a fit of giggles.

As they wiped the tears from their eyes, and the next wave of the high descended upon them, Baccus returned to his back. Ophelia reached behind her head and unpinned her hair. She unfurled it and ran her fingers through the ends.

"I can't even bring my fiddle tomorrow. I'll have to suffer through Vista only conversations. Ahck, the dread." His shoulders shook.

"Don't remind me I'll be the only Low-Pale in the room."

"I'd bring a Midtown plus-one, but I've been banned from it."

She twirled her hair between her fingers. Eyes closed and drifting. “What are they intending to do with Johannes?”

A long exhale streamed out of him. “I have no idea. My stomach turns for the poor person set to marry him.”

“Maybe by then, there will be some cure or some answer.”

Baccus snorted. “He needs to be euthanized, or at the very least drugged.”

Ophelia felt her eyes grow heavy. “Don’t you...fiddle with things over there?” She pointed to his desk with a twirl of her fingers.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t know where to even start.” Baccus huffed and put his arm above his head. His eyes closed. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Garden. --I don’t have the stomach for it.”

Ophelia would never confess aloud, but alone in her darkened cottage at night, sometimes she wondered if she did either. But when the doubt crept in, she saw their bones, without a face and a name, and she recalled why.

“I want them to be remembered,” she confessed.

Baccus turned an eye and brow towards her. Ophelia’s own gaze drifted to the ceiling.

“Maybe no one will ever remember their name or their faces, but,” she spoke to the ceiling above them. To the sanctuary of wood. “I...hoped that even with the horribleness that was done, that I could make them beautiful again.” She looked over to him, caught his gaze, then quickly turned back to the ceiling. “...I hoped, someday, even if they were only flowers, someone would acknowledge they existed.”

Baccus’ gaze glued to her. “I didn’t know that. --So, you come here and you…” he trailed off as he turned back to the ceiling.

“A bit Romantic for Vissereth, I fear.”

“I think it’s exactly the kind of humanity it needs.”

Silence filled the room. The lolls of the high fading in and out. Their eyes to the ceiling, they laid there for so long, they thought the other might have fallen asleep. It was then that Baccus shifted and sighed.

“You have room in your vault for one more secret today?”

“Are you paying me?” She smiled to try and change the air, but when she looked over his face was as serious as she had ever seen it.

“I’d buy you that dress from Midtown if you hadn’t already.”

“The lavender one?”

“The lavender one,” he nodded.

She waited a moment before she agreed. “I can make room for you.”

Baccus hummed through his chest. An arm curled behind his head. A knee bent. His umber-brown eyes glued to the ceiling as he confessed to the space above them. “I was excited to be a surgeon. Three-- over three years ago now.”

He clenched his jaw and released another slow exhale. The signet ring spun around his pinky again.

“I was the top of my class. Had top marks when I worked on cadavers. My sutures were…perfect. I was even titled for some experimentations I had done before I graduated. It was unheard of, but I didn’t care about that. I thought I was going to help save people.”

He skipped a beat as he collected his thoughts. “I was offered a position in Midtown, and though my parents would have preferred me here in the Vista, I wanted to be around real injuries. I wanted to be where my skills could actually be utilized. --I had a lot of things in my life lined up. A title at 20, a respectable position, a Vista-heir fiancée…” He trailed off.

Baccus tightened his jaw again. “And then it all went…my first damn surgery...I couldn’t. I broke.”

When he tried to say more, she turned over to him and rested a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want.”

“Someone ought to know.” He turned troubled eyes to her. “I didn’t stop because I wasn’t proficient. I’m a coward. I ran away.”