Things at Master Draan’s house had never been so solemn when he was a child under the Magus’s care.

            Or so awkward.

            Kevza had always enjoyed coming to the house in the springs of bygone years. He and Natavali used to chase each other through the garden and the woods nearby, playing and looking for mushrooms and toads until the sun became too hot and their teacher would call them back to the house for lunch and studies. He wandered the old paths, remembering the days that he had loved so dearly, in a time where the most considerable sadness in his life was being denied permission to swim in the river until after he’d finished copying his rune translations.

            Now he was here again, with a far darker threat hanging over him, and a distance between him and Natavali that he could not cross on his own. Even Master Draan was no longer there to comfort them, although Kevza liked to think that he would have had just the right words to bring the children under his arm and wrap them in comfort.

            If he had ever wished for any of his old teacher’s skills in the last two days, that by far would have been the first.

            Natavali was much better at it than him, he’d found. His calm voice and gentle gaze had been witnessed calming several of the children in the time they’d all been holed up together. But even he hadn’t been able to soothe everyone. Kevza’s attempts fell even shorter, but what could be expected?

            Today though, things had been particularly rough.

            Everyone was tired. The beds were infested with worms after being left for so many years, and sleeping on old cushions and worn blankets only did so much to alleviate the aches of the wooden floors. The majority of the mages didn’t like having a team of alchemists to share the area with, especially with how small the house was already, and Noa, in particular, seemed to be ready to bite at a moment’s notice.

            But for the moment, wandering the gardens with his thoughts, Kevza had found a breath of peaceful fresh air.

            Until he hadn’t.

            The voices reached him before he saw them, sharp and biting even if he couldn’t quite make out the words. But one was unmistakably Noa, and the other sounded like one of the younger Magi boys.

            He and Natavali had been working together, however stiltedly, to try and keep the peace. But the children were restless and lacked the patience and regulation of age. There was no telling how far a fight between them might devolve. So Kevza picked up the pace, hurrying through the overgrown paths back towards the front of the house. Rounding the corner, he saw Noa and Xavi, the medical officer holding him by the arm, and one of the older mages restraining the younger Magi Kevza had worried about.

            “You have no idea!” the younger boy yelled, just as Kevza passed the garden wall.

            “You think you’re the only ones who matter?” Noa yelled, fighting against the grip on his arm. “We were attacked too! And we don’t have big walls and fancy magical wards to hide behind!”

            “Calm down, Noa,” Xavi tried to coach. “It’s ok-“

            “It’s not ok!” The boy cried, finally yanking free. “Nidi is dead! My brother is dead! He was murdered! And no one seems to care that-“

            “Hey!” Kevza yelled, intervening, and pulling Noa back once more. He didn’t flinch when the boy’s fist made heavy contact with his shoulder, instead placing both of his hands on Noa’s arms and steering him to the side, holding him in place until the thrashing stopped. “We care, Noa. Look at me- no- hey- look at me.” He waited until the scorching gaze met his eyes before continuing. “We care, ok? We do. And I know this must be so hard for you to deal with so much at once.”

            “You don’t know anything,” the young man snarled pulling back to push at Kevza again. “You were supposed to protect him! That is your job as a captain. You were supposed to protect him, and you left him behind to die instead.”

            “There was nothing I could have done!”

            “You could have put up a shield! I know you can do that! You could have healed him like you healed yourself!”

            “There was nothing left to heal!” Kevza said desperately. “By the time I managed to get off the ground, he was gone, Noa. And I’m sorry. You’re right, it is my job to protect all of you, and I failed to keep your brother safe, but I can’t raise the dead.”

            He paused, trying to swallow past the knot in his throat and keep his voice calm. “But the mages didn’t do anything wrong, ok? It’s like you said, we are all being targeted by this, and they’re scared too. We’re all scared. That’s ok. And it's okay for you to be angry. Nidi was a good kid, a bright kid, who we all loved, and who you loved most of all. It wasn’t fair that they took him away from you like that. It wasn’t fair, and I should have been there to protect him. It's okay to be angry, but don’t take that anger out on the others. It’s not their fault.”

            The fury seemed to ebb, the boy slumping onto Kevza’s shoulders with a hiccup that quickly devolved into sobs. “I just… I want my brother.”

            “I know,” Kevza said, bringing his arms up to hug him tight to his chest, his own tears threatening to fall. “I know.”

            Noa’s fingers burned where they burrowed into his back, but Kevza didn’t dare to try and let go. Instead, he held on just as tightly, his own tears welling up and spilling down his cheeks as they stood apart from the others.

            “They’ve never been apart,” Kevza thought as he held the sobbing child. “From birth, they’ve never been separated for more than a short time. And now, they’ll never be together again.”

            “We’re going to figure out who did this,” Kevza promised through his tears. “And they will be held accountable.”

            Noa nodded against Kevza’s shoulder before taking a step back, his face splotchy and his breath uneven.

            “I’m going to go inside,” he hiccupped. "I want to be alone for a little while."

            “Get some rest,” Kevza said with a nod. He gently rubbed the boy’s arm, turning him back towards the house and ushering him up the steps.

            On the other side of the yard, Natavali was talking to the other mages who had been involved in the fight, the four of them huddled around him with their eyes downcast. After a few more words he sent them off with a nod, turning and catching Kevza’s eye.

            “I apologize,” the Magus said, walking over. “Tylan hasn’t been handling things well. Thank you for stepping in.”

            “Can you blame any of them?” Kevza asked solemnly. “None of us are at our best right now, and anger is an excellent mask for grief.”

            “I…” Natavali began, only to pause, shifting his weight. “I know it would be unconventional, but… Captain Danae and I had an idea.”

***

            Later that night, Kevza and his team knelt side by side with the mages. Half a dozen pillar candles Pasha and Danae had found rested alight on the brick bench in front of a fireplace, found in one of the side rooms that they had roughly cleaned out to use as a reverent space.

            Ideally, they would have traveled to a proper shrine and knelt at an altar stone to pay their respects to those they’d lost, but with things as they were, the adults had all decided that it was best to stay away from major areas. They didn’t know if it was safe, and the temples and altar stones would likely be overrun by civilians who had earned their own grief from the attacks.

            But this, this small act, here in a home that belonged to none of them… it was at least something.

            Kevza knelt next to Natavali, counting the drips of wax that rolled over the side of the candles, deep in his own sorrows. As time had passed, he’d come to terms more and more with what he had seen, with what he’d been told. The Guild Masters… his students, his coworkers… the receptionist who always smiled at everyone, the attendant who plucked flowers for the vases in the halls… a dozen others who he would recognize on any given day, but never took the time to learn their names… They were gone.

            They deserved to have someone remember them. To remember their names, their stories.

            And there was also Lynette, who had shined so bright she’d decided to share it with the whole world, who had wanted nothing more than to teach Magi of her own, only to be ripped away from them when they needed her most.

            And then there was Nidi. A bright young man with an even brighter, promising future. A young man who Kevza had promised to teach and guide and protect…

            …snuffed out like a candle, dead before he’d had the chance to grow into something greater.

            The others petered out slowly as the candles began to die out in puddles of wax, retreating back into the large main room or the barren kitchen in search of anything that could lend comfort, until only Kevza and Natavali remained kneeling, one last candle flickering between them.

            “She wanted to look for you,” Natavali said, breaking the silence softly. “Lynette. She wanted to make sure you were alright. She made me promise that if I ever found out where you had gone, I would let her know, and vice versa.”

            Kevza turned his head slightly, watching the other stare at the last low flickering flame through his bangs.

            “So… I sent her a message after we met with the Guild Master in Hawthgrove,” the Magus continued. “I told her you seemed to be in good health, that you were living in Faren, working for the guild as an arcane specialist, with a team of your own.” He paused again, and Kevza watched in silence as he gulped, tears welling in his eyes. “She answered and said, ‘oh, he’d do such a wonderful job. Tell him we’ve missed him. Tell him to come visit us. Tell him I hope to see him again.’”

            Kevza couldn’t stop the sob that ripped through him, dropping his head, and closing his eyes as the burn of tears overwhelmed him, dripping hot through his lashes. Why? Why would Natavali share this with him now? A hand settled on his shoulder, heavy and shaky in its grip as the two of them cried quietly in the candlelight.

            “She’ll be put to rest in the Coven’s catacombs,” Natavali said thickly, his hand squeezing softly. “When we’re summoned back to the Keep, you should come with us. To visit her and… and to say goodbye properly. She would have wanted it.”

            He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat, settling for looking over with a shaky nod as he reached up to clumsily wipe the mess from his face. Natavali nodded solemnly, and then stood, taking a moment to clean his own tears away and put himself back in order before sweeping out of the room to console his charges quietly in the hallway.

            Kevza knelt for a while longer, the flame of the candle nothing more than a glowing aura through his haze of tears, burning like the breath in his lungs.

            Part of him wished that he had never gone to Faren. That he had wandered the world, lawless and listless and all alone, with no one to tie to him…

            … with no one to miss.

            Eventually, the small flame began to flicker in the puddle of wax, slowly spluttering, and Kevza leaned forward, blowing it out with a gentle breath. In the same moment, he sent a prayer to whatever god might be listening among the stars that the souls of the departed might find peace in their hands.