Niko had been watching Fionn, who had been standing outside the bakery, looking out toward the city square where a large statue of five people stood. A Human, a High Elf, a Dwarf, a Satyr, and a Sea Elf. Everyone knew those faces, knew those names, because they were the five heroes who'd taken down Ylos the Bloody twenty years ago. None of them had survived, but the world had made a point to beat their names into everyone's skull. One of them, he didn't need to have beaten into his head ... one of them he couldn't forget, because it was his elder brother.

Adriel Harding.

Former heir of Nyx Enchanting, and former eldest son of the Harding family. The top of the mountain, the peak he could never climb or surpass, no matter what he did, and his father never let him fucking forget it. Never let him forget that he was the spare, and that now he had to fill the impossibly large shoes that Adriel had left behind. That's why he was here, why eight years of magical study just wasn't enough. Not for a Harding. Not for a family whose line had been unbroken for nearly eight hundred years, and held fast to the Arcane Artifact Creation and Enhancement monopoly for nearly three hundred of those years.

Not for a family that had produced one of the five saviors of the realm.

Niko scoffed, focused on the part of the statue he could see from the bakery window. He'd seen it so much that he knew which figure was his brother, even if he couldn't see the face. His father was so fixated on the loss of an heir, while he and his mother had been grieving the loss of a brother and son. He and his mother had gone to that statue nearly every day for years to place flowers there, until she fell ill. Mana poisoning. It was a byproduct of working in enchanting before magical regulations had been implemented fifty years ago, and eventually, it was the very thing that killed her. A byproduct of her working for seventy-five years in that fucking monopoly he was supposed to take over, toiling away for the very man who would never see him as good enough to be his son.

She'd been young, barely over one hundred and seventy. Just like his brother, who had only been in his late fifties, both were too young and had been taken too soon, especially for High Elves. His people usually reached at least three hundred, which meant he had a hundred more years to put up with his father's bullshit. Unfortunate.

Niko sighed, forcing a strained smile when a Dwarven woman waved him down and pointed to the box of pastries and two to-go hot cups she'd placed on the counter. "Thanks," he muttered, dropped a few silver pieces in the tip jar, and arranged the two cups in one and the box in the other. He turned and made his way to and out the door.

"Fionn!" Niko called, saw Fionn ignore him, and he frowned. Fionn was zoning out, so focused on that statue that he wasn't even blinking. So much so that he didn't even notice Niko reach him and pause to stand by his side, watching him. Something was wrong, and Niko had an inkling it had to do with the rumors spreading like wildfire around their university.

They'd been at Sagewood for what, eight months now? Long enough to get settled into a routine, and short enough to still have time to decide on what specific field they wanted to focus on in their time there. It wasn't a route many magisters took. Still, he was under familial obligation to do something extraordinary, and Fionn, for some reason, decided to put himself through four more years of magical studies. They'd already finished eight; that was all that was required to be respectable in whatever you chose to do in society.

Right, society. That place where ordinary people dwelt, separate from high society, which was somehow even more divided by inherited hierarchies and generational wealth. There were normal folk, and then there were high-society folk, and his father never let him forget it, either. Fionn? Fionn was a part of society. Despite his father's meddling and complaints about a member of high society galavanting with normal folk, Fionn ... Fionn was still there. Right there, by his side, just as he had been since he was sitting at that statue talking to his long-dead brother at thirteen. Like Fionn had been when he was eighteen, and unwilling to leave his bed two months into their schooling when his mother died. Like he wanted Fionn to be in three years, when they became High Magisters, and he was forced to wear those fucking too-big shoes.

"Fionn," Niko said softly, and nudged the redhead with his elbow.

Fionn jumped, yanking his head around fast enough that the heavy, pointed golden earrings he wore smacked his cheeks. His eyes were wide, frightened almost, and he took a moment to register who was beside him. When he did, he smiled and took the cup of hot cocoa that was offered to him. "Thanks," he said, and started trying to pry the lid off his cup. "What animal did they give me today?" he asked.

"I don't know. I wasn't paying attention," Niko replied, and nodded to one of the three small tables with an umbrella beside the bakery's front window.

"Ah! It's a cat! Look!" Fionn exclaimed, thrusting his cup over so quickly that the marshmallow wiggled and nearly toppled to the ground.

"Watch it. You spill it, and I'm not buying you a new one," Niko said, putting their food on the table so they could pull out a seat and take a sip of their coffee.

"Yes, you would," Fionn said, laughing as he sat down and placed the cup's top on the table. He reached over and opened the box, and his eyes lit up. "They had special cupcakes!?"

"Yeah, cause of the meteor shower," Niko replied, and laughed despite himself. "You can have them both, I'm not hungry."

"You have to make a wish at least then," Fionn said, grabbed one of the large decorated sugar stars from the dark blue icing, and then started waving it in front of Niko's face as if it were a shooting star.

A wish, huh? Niko watched the faded gold star as it danced in front of him between Fionn's pale fingers, and then he looked out towards the large statue in the city square. His gaze lingered for a few moments, and then came back down to the table before him. He swirled his cup, mixing the espresso a bit more with the milk of his latte, and took a sip. "I don't think any of mine can come true. It would be a waste. You make one instead," he said.

It was quiet, a bit too quiet, and Niko glanced up. Fionn wasn't looking at him, but out at that statue again.

"Are you okay?" Niko asked.

"Yeah," Fionn replied, then shoved the sugar star in his mouth and chewed it. He looked back finally and gave a strained smile. "I was making a wish for you, since you couldn't think of one," he said.