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Unfathomably deep beneath the sea, pinned under the water's weight like a crushed tin can, lies the cold and damp prison called the Fortress of Meropide. By this point in his sentence, Wriothesley has well learned all its rhythms and discomforts: the narrow quarters, the recycled air, even the twin pressures of the oppressive, creaking ocean above and the watchful gaze of the ever-present Gardes. But sometimes the pervasive smell of wet metal still gets to him afresh, like a sudden smack over the head with a sopping bag of coins.
In his dream, a Gardemek has him by the neck, jamming his face against its sheet-metal breast in a harsh, cold embrace. Caught by the gleaming clockwork limbs, nostrils choked with that steely tang, he struggles against a grip that tightens, tightens, until his head feels ready to pop—
Only to wake with a jolt—and realize that the scent, and the throbbing headache, are both annoyingly real.
That, and the piercing alarm announcing the start of second shift, mean his day's already getting off to a shabby start.
He dresses in a daze, to the sound of a dozen bunkmates going through the same motions nearby, displaying about the same energy and enthusiasm. When he goes to put on his boots, he gets a jumpscare at the reflection of something, garish and wrong, swimming up at him from the depths of the mirror-like metal fastenings.
Only upon taking a closer look, squinting at the gleaming surfaces, does he realize it's actually his own reflection, sporting a massive black eye, and several dark abrasions lining his cheek down to his lip, in varying stages of scabbing over.
Just great.
Fucking Maxime, from the next cell block over, had gotten his hands on a metal pipe. Just looking at its imprint on his face makes his teeth hurt all over again.
It's not severe enough to earn him a visit to Nurse Sigewinne. But the Gardes, hardly known for their good humor at the best of times, tend to be especially rough on those that look like trouble.
There was little he could have done differently, though. For days now, Maxime has been taunting him during their shared work shift, and that's not something that can go unanswered around here, not unless you're aiming to become everyone's punching bag. The inmates pretend to keep to themselves, but they're always scouting for the slightest hint of weakness. Flinch once, just once, and it's your blood on the water, a bright flag drawing in a whirlwind of hungry, snapping jaws.
Not too different from how things were growing up, really, competing with his adopted siblings for a shred of their parents' time, attention, resources. With that head start, Wriothesley has taken to prison life with depressing ease. Despite being shorter, lighter, younger than anyone else here, he's never backed down from a fight, never been afraid to let his fists do the talking.
Whatever Maxime's issue was, a couple shared blows proved enough to resolve it, and if Wriothesley's jaw aches something awful, at least he has an answering set of bruises on his knuckles to match, and a satisfying memory of Maxime dropping, steel pipe and all.
No one's going to try that on him again anytime soon.
It's some comfort, as he finally levers his aching body out of his bunk, and makes it last to the exit line.
It's less comfort when he gets to the front and presents his second-shift chit, same as he's done every day, same as everyone ahead of him just did—and is alone turned away.
Meropide is a place of regulations and routine, and Wriothesley feels their strictures more tightly than the claustrophobic metal corridors, the half light, or even the knowledge that they're a single bad weld and the subsequent structural collapse away from being snuffed out by the weight of the ocean, instantly, without a breath or sound. But at least all the copious rules make the place predictable. Five years into his sentence, he knows what to expect.
In five years, this has never happened.
"Not like I was dying to get back to my backbreaking hard labor anyway," he mutters, but it sounds weak in his own ears, unsettled.
The Gardes leave him in the doorway and retreat a short distance to mutter amongst themselves, as confused about what to do with him as they are confident that he mustn't be allowed to do what he's been ordered to do every morning until now.
Being stranded in the doorway means that he's treated to stares and whispers by both those heading away to second shift, angling entirely unsubtle looks back over their shoulders, as well as those reporting back in from first shift, claiming the beds just abandoned. Lucas from first plops down in Wriothesley's bunk, and gives him a hard stare, without sympathy.
"Don't get comfy yet," Wriothesley quips at him. "Looks like I already did it all, they've got no more work left for me. Think I'll sleep in today."
He stretches his arms and yawns exaggeratedly, suppressing a wince when it stretches the taut, healing skin of his face. Lucas's only response is to immediately lie down, turning his back to Wriothesley with great indifference.
Eventually one of the Gardes comes over and silently wrestles Wriothesley's hands into cuffs, which is just a bit humiliating. Even as someone who tends to push his luck, he hasn't been stupid enough to wind up in restraints for… well, several months, at least. Usually if you've put out the Gardes to that extent, they have ways of taking their troubles out on you while you're conveniently unable to defend yourself. To make matters worse, they cuff him behind his back, and parade him down the halls that way, one Garde at each shoulder, so his chest is held wide open and exposed to the stares of every passing inmate, several of whom would have gladly stuck a shiv into his stomach or ribs.
"What's the occasion?" says Wriothesley dryly as he tries to wrestle a more defensible position, to little avail. "Taking me to the ball? I would have put on my fancy gown. Prison stripes wash out my complexion."
Fournier, the Garde that has his right shoulder and elbow in a vise-like grip, is notoriously easy to needle, comically so. That he doesn't respond this time, doesn't so much as twitch, suggests a tension that puts Wriothesley himself at ill ease. The grip suddenly feels like a sign that Fournier himself is nervous and on edge.
As they turn toward the infirmary, Wriothesley redoubles his efforts to get some kind of reaction. "Hey now, don't tell me all this commotion is for these scrapes and bruises of mine? I'm touched, but it's really not that serious. Or is this your way of threatening to rough me up some more?"
There's another Garde posted outside the infirmary, which is also unusual. "He's inside," she hisses when they approach, with an urgent glance toward the closed door. "How long are you going to keep him waiting?"
Fournier flinches, and Wriothesley would find it funny if he had the time. But then the door opens, and they're frogmarching him inside, and he feels his stomach drop.
One or multiple of the Gardes are saying something polite and deferential, and maybe there's a bow or curtsy involved, but Wriothesley finds it hard to pay them any attention, as if the edges of the world have been carefully pared away, and there's only the figure before him left in sharp focus.
Abruptly, he's plunged back to five years ago, a skinny kid dragged before a hostile audience, blood on his fists and murder still a new weight on his conscience. Then, as now, there was Chief Justice Neuvillette presiding at the front of the courtroom, examining him from on high, preparing to judge, sentence, skewer him.
In the infirmary, Neuvillette is primly seated on the edge of one of the hospital beds, one knee bent over the other, cane leaning against his thigh, so that Wriothesley is the one looking down on him. He's dressed in his robes of office, just as he had been five years ago, down to the precise drape of his cravat, every last gleaming button, every lock of salt-and-ocean hair.
Yet he looks smaller from this vantage point. Or it might just be that Wriothesley has grown.
Just his luck, that the day he's brought before the Iudex once more, Wriothesley is freshly banged up from a prison scuffle, eye blackened like a damn raccoon. He can feel Neuvillette's gaze running over his injuries, his shabby prison garb, as physically as the touch of a hand. When Neuvillette's examination lands on Wriothesley's cuffed wrists, he waves to the Gardes, a motion as languid and implacable as the sea that holds them all down here.
"There is no need for that, surely," he says, and Fournier all but falls over himself to agree, while another Garde unlocks the handcuffs, and tries to hand them to Neuvillette. When Neuvillette doesn't take them, she coughs and sets them on the desk beside him, where Sigewinne usually sits.
Wriothesley realizes suddenly that the infirmary is entirely deserted but for them. Sigewinne should be here. Maxime, at least, after how hard Wriothesley had hit him. Several times.
But there is no one.
Even more so when the Gardes turn and leave, with a series of polite, stuttering bows. These are the brutes that have casually planted Wriothesley's face into the floor for looking at them wrong. Their sudden fawning sets Wriothesley's teeth on edge; even worse when the door clicks shut behind him, leaving him alone with the subject of their deference—who continues to study him like a particularly interesting bug.
"A meeting with the Supreme Justice himself, I'm honored. To what do I owe the pleasure? Something you forgot to add to my sentence?" Experimentally, Wriothesley steps closer. He's not shy about making use of his stature when the situation calls for it, and it's easy to loom over someone sitting down. "Here to punish me some more?"
"Certainly not." Neuvillette almost looks pained, almost about to get up, but visibly steels himself to stay seated. It's suddenly apparent that their relative positions were deliberate, scripted like stage directions, which takes some of the wind from Wriothesley's sails. "I am here to request your assistance in an urgent judicial matter."
"Now that's not a very funny joke."
"It is no joke. There is a certain ongoing case that I believe you would be uniquely suited to help with, should you be willing."
"What makes you think," Wriothesley begins slowly, feeling the familiar itch start to build just under his skin: teeth gritting, shoulders tightening, nails biting grooves into his palms as his hands clench into fists. He doesn't think of himself as an angry person, but it's been a hell of a morning, and he's not in the mood to be toyed with. Hit them first, stop them in their tracks before they can get you, that's the rule down here. "What makes you think you can lock me up for five years, among the worst of the worst, and then casually waltz in and ask me for help? You're about five years too late, I'd say."
And Neuvillette has the gall to look puzzled, even mildly surprised. "It will not be without remuneration, of course. You may name your price."
"My price?" Wriothesley crosses his arms, hard, the only way to stop himself from lashing out. Even then, he feels like he's being held back by the thinnest thread, one already quivering under the immense temptation to do something really fucking stupid. "Do you even know what you sentenced me to? I was a child when you put me down here. I haven't seen the sun in half a decade. Do you know what I've had to do to survive, locked in here with criminals?" He angles his face forward, so Neuvillette can get a better look at the repeated, brutal impacts of a heavy metal pipe. "Every damn day is a fight to get by."
"Other criminals," comes the correction, swift and disorienting as a sucker punch.
"What?"
"You have been locked in here with other criminals, as you yourself have also committed a crime." Neuvillette dips his head gravely, so that the silver strands of hair fall over his profile in waves. "That is why we're having this conversation."
"You—! You pompous, inhuman reptile—" The thread snaps, and in a single instant Wriothesley has launched himself forward. He has a fistful of Neuvillette's crisp robes before he knows it, other fist reared back to strike, to show he won't be a target, to painfully ingrain that fact on anyone who needs to learn it.
It's the wrongness of it all that stops him, barely—the body yielding to his grasp, Neuvillette's utterly steady expression, that jolts him back to sobering reality. He's already a convicted murderer, but he's certain following through with that strike would be the costliest mistake of his life.
Neuvillette hasn't made a single move to defend himself, and why should he? A word from him would have every Garde in Meropide rushing in here. Hell, Neuvillette himself could slam Wriothesley into the walls, squeeze the breath out of his lungs with force, where so far he's only done so with the law. He holds still and serene the way a standing cobra does, letting its calm eyes warn of the danger that awaits.
With great effort, Wriothesley releases his hold, releases a furious breath and finds he has only more simmering anger underneath. Turning on his heel, he paces around in a vicious circle, and then jabs a finger at Neuvillette, rather than a fist. "And you think," he grits out, "you're going to get help from a criminal?"
"I never thought it would come cheap." Fastidiously, Neuvillette straightens his robes from the disarray of Wriothesley's grasp, and doesn't comment on the close call. "As I said, you may name the price."
"I want my freedom," Wriothesley says immediately.
"I cannot grant you that." Neuvillette's look, even cast up at him from the thin cot, is pitying. "I know you believe your crimes were justified. But your sentence must still be served."
Barely-banked fury swells in Wriothesley's chest, the dams burst, and he's gone. "You're just fucking with me, aren't you?" he snarls, ripping the stupid cane away, casting it aside with a clatter. "You knew that's the only thing I'd want. You came down here just to make me ask for it and then deny me, didn't you? Didn't you?"
Once again his aggression takes him close enough he can feel Neuvillette's body heat, and smell him, a clear, neutral scent that evokes the sea, but the Chief Justice simply leans back minutely, with preternatural calm. "I cannot to agree to any requests that would break the law. But ask for anything else, and it will be yours."
And Wriothesley shoves Neuvillette square in the ribs, forcing him the rest of the way down onto the bed. For a moment he freezes there, shocked by his own daring, and Neuvillette too lies where he's fallen, silver hair spilling around him on the mattress. But no one comes rushing in, and Neuvillette doesn't cry out, or retaliate, only widens his eyes.
It's a reaction, at least. Emboldened by his success, Wriothesley climbs on top of the supine form, knees bracketing hips, chest hard against chest, and leers down at him, the man who sentenced him to all of this, who sits atop a throne in the lighted world while Wriothesley labors down here in the dark. Now Neuvillette's body is warm pinned beneath his, thrillingly pliant, soft and supple where everything else down here is toughened callus and unforgiving steel.
"Then I want you in my bed." A flash of inspiration strikes, and he reaches over to snatch the handcuffs from the nearby desk, and spins them tauntingly on his finger. "Nights get awful cold down under the weight of the entire ocean. If you want my help, you'll earn it with your body."
Lovely a thought as it is, reversal and revenge for all he's been put through, he knows that's a deal Neuvillete will never make. He'll be shoved off in a heartbeat, slammed to the floor with the force of the ocean and the fury of Fontaine's legal system, both at Neuvillette's command. But so what if he gets another century or two of imprisonment added to his sentence. At least while he's rotting down here, he'll have proven Neuvillette a liar.
Ask for anything, yeah right.
But although Neuvillette looks taken aback, the moments drag on and there's still no rage, no disgust, no fight. "Very well," he says finally, dipping his chin with that infuriating calm. "I can offer you one night. Will that be sufficient?"
That's not right. Wriothesley narrows his eyes, wondering just how far this will go. He snatches Neuvillette's wrist, shoves back the many frilly layers of sleeve, and finds Neuvillette's smooth, pale wrist at the center. Such an intimate, human sight is almost unsettling, especially when he closes a metal cuff around it, taking no care to spare the tender skin, and still the Supreme Justice doesn't fight back, doesn't resist as he's restrained like a common criminal.
It's only when Wriothesley goes to take the other wrist that Neuvillette startles and says, in a pained voice, "Please wait."
"Oh? Don't tell me the champion of justice is going back on his word?" Beyond the satisfaction at having won at this game of chicken, there's relief and disappointment both, that this is where it ends.
"You misunderstand me." Neuvillette gently but firmly takes his wrists back, somehow manages to sit up without seeming to push Wriothesley off him. He unclicks the cuffs with the key still in them, folds them together, and… hands them back to Wriothesley, as if a gift.
"I simply recommend that we not do this here, in Sigewinne's office. You won't be able to hide the… evidence, not from Melusine senses, and you may be accused of a crime."
"Another crime," Wriothesley says, and takes the handcuffs, both actions as automatic as a Mek's, because his mind has gone blank.
"Indeed."
"But you would be fine with this crime occurring elsewhere."
"I do not consider it a crime." For the second time, Neuvillette is straightening out his normally immaculate clothes and hair, with a dignity that makes Wriothesley feel almost guilty. That doesn't make any sense. "I said you could ask any price that doesn't violate the law, and this certainly falls within those parameters. It is merely the appearance of a crime that I wish to avoid. Are we agreed?"
Slowly, Wriothesley climbs off of Neuvillette's legs, and off the bed, not sure if he is letting go of his captive or putting distance between himself and a madman. He is still holding the handcuffs, and after a brief pause, he stuffs them into the loose pocket of his baggy prison uniform. The cold settles against his thigh with a jolt, and he says, "Agreed."
"Good," says Neuvillette, and gives every appearance of meaning it. "The help I am requesting from you will require that we return to the surface together. If you wish, we will go to a secluded location and take care of your payment immediately. Or, we can wait until the conclusion of the matter, and you will receive your due at that time. It is entirely up to you; do not fear that I will attempt to renege on my side of the bargain."
"Because you're a champion of justice and all," Wriothesley says sarcastically, but there's a part of him that actually believes it.
"That is my job description, correct."
"At the end, then," he decides. Let Neuvillette stew on it longer, even if he'll never ultimately go through with it anyway. The most powerful man in Fontaine, submitting to honestly outrageous demands from a convict? At no point in any of this had Wriothesley thought it would actually happen; even less now that it's been agreed to. He picks up Neuvillette's cane from where it's rolled into a corner, and hands it back without a hint of apology. "So what the hell do you need my help with, anyway? Must be a doozy, if you're willing to go to these lengths."
"I would not have put it in quite those terms." Neuvillette gets the cane steady under him, before standing and straightening out the rest of his clothes. Even then, there's the discomfiting sense that Neuvillette is only doing this to prevent any suspicion from falling on Wriothesley when they leave the room. "But yes, I suppose that it is."
***
When Chief Justice Neuvillette wishes to take a prisoner out of the prison, no one objects. In fact, when they exit the infirmary, there are more Gardes waiting outside than when they'd gone in, and every one instantly jolts to attention, scrambling over themselves to try to lead the Chief Justice back to the entrance. Neuvillette hardly has to say a word about Wriothesley trailing at his heels before they are all in agreement, that of course a convicted murderer, barely into his sentence, should be allowed to enter the elevator at Neuvillette's elbow and be taken up to the lighted world.
All of that is lost in the noise, however, when a long ascent later, Wriothesley is standing on the surface once more, breathing in sweet, fresh air, and basking under the sun.
Oh, the sun.
It's been five years since he's seen it, felt it, been drenched in it, fingers of warmth combing over his every surface and heating him through—so he thinks he deserves some leeway if he can't get over it just yet.
Forget the deal Neuvillette tried so hard to wrench out of him, ask any price, all of that nonsense. They could have plucked any prisoner from the Fortress of Meropide and demanded any onerous task from him, in exchange for an hour with the sun on his cheeks, blessed heat in his limbs. Like a slab of meat taken from the icebox and popped on the stove, he'll gladly cook and baste and bask in it.
But that's not all he was promised.
Neuvillette waits patiently off to the side, standing tall and stately with the grand Opera Epiclese looming behind him like an extension of his form. A few of his Melusine helpers come rushing out of the courthouse, eager for his attention, but he motions for them to keep their distance.
Well then. Wriothesley will take his time. He first rolls up his sleeves, and then sheds his thin prison jacket entirely, just to feel the sun on his skin. When he goes to sling it over his shoulder, Neuvillette instead takes it from him without a comment, and folds it over his arm, like it's second nature to help.
Wriothesley lets him have it, and can't resist letting their arms brush, just to goad him about what's supposedly waiting at the end of this adventure. Wriothesley's bare to the shoulders now, but Neuvillette is wrapped up as always, layers on layers, gloves and cravat and mantle hiding almost every inch of him. Before the eyes of Celestia above and the waiting Melusines, Wriothesley leans in close, finds the bare inch of exposed throat above the layered cravat, and takes a deep, intrusive inhale, letting his stubbled cheek graze deliberately against the underside of Neuvillette's jaw, so he can speak into his flesh, low and sultry, "After so long in the ocean, I'm not used to being on dry land. But you still smell like home."
Even then, Neuvillette remains maddeningly impassive. He swallows, hard, and stiffens slightly, but doesn't shy away from the touch, and still he doesn't rush Wriothesley from his moment in the sun, not until Wriothesley himself says, "Well? Let's get this show on the road."
As they finally begin walking, the Melusines come rushing up, bustling with all the items of business that Neuvillette has missed in his short visit down to the prison. He hands Wriothesley's prison jacket to one of them, and it disappears with frightening efficiency.
"I'd better get that back," Wriothesley warns, "they charge you an arm and a leg down there."
Neuvillette starts to make a polite reassurance, but he's diverted by yet another handful of Melusines waving papers at him, and quickly falls into somber discussion as he walks.
Wriothesley lets their chatter wash over him, as he observes all the things he couldn't see in prison: grass, flowers, birds and such, and the Chief Justice of Fontaine with his long limbs, his broad, mantled shoulders, his smooth, purposeful stride.
The stories are that Monsieur Neuvillette is inhuman, as cold and unfeeling as the statue of the Archon of Justice, or the glittering opera house they pass through. To Wriothesley, he's more like the sea: a deadly, implacable force that has long held him prisoner within its effortless depths, yet immense and beautiful to look at, smooth surface betraying no hint of what lies beneath.
Wriothesley has lived his entire life on the back foot, honing the fine skill of irritating authority when he's never been in position to challenge it, yet he's barely been able to get a twitch out of Neuvillette so far, much less provoke the kind of reaction he's used to. In the face of such mind-boggling patience, Wriothesley has to wonder if the stories got it wrong; if man is not inhumanly cold, but simply inhumanly tolerant—as if human irks are beneath him, troubles of an entirely different race, like the little Melusines clamoring at his knees.
Soon they've left the opera house behind. They pass the Palais Mermonia, where they lose their cohort of Melusines, and alone enter a sunny residential district that screams of wealth. The towering houses are immaculately kept, freshly painted in shades of bright macaron, the streets evenly cobbled and clear of any scrap of rubbish. There are a few wandering Gardemeks, but people walk past them like street fixtures, rather than nervously averting their gaze; they are clearly here to protect the public, rather than keep them in line.
A few businesses dot the neighborhood: an idyllic cafe where even the coffee-sipping patrons are dressed up in frilly skirts and crisp vests, and a tailor's shop operating out of a home, with a sign shaped like a pair of scissors hanging over the door. A pair of poodles are tied outside, both with fluffy heads and comically slim, shorn bodies from the neck down. Wriothesley's just about to comment on how ridiculous they look when a woman leaves the tailor's with a pair of tiny outfits and begins to dress the dogs up. He has to turn away.
It's somehow marvelous and infuriating at once that this kind of thing is still going on up here, a world apart from the prison under the ocean. Poodles in tuxedos, ladies relaxing with lattes, all the luxury of time and liberty and being able to see the damn blue sky. Life going on as usual, when for Wriothesley it had ended ages ago, with a short trial followed by a long, long sentence.
In the back of his mind, he's always thought one day he'd serve out his time and be back here, freed again. But he's learned an entirely different world down there, and he's no longer sure he can be part of this one.
"Don't you think it's about time you told me what you hauled me up here for?" Wriothesley says, as they round the corner. Just to be an asshole about it, he grabs Neuvillette's arm to make the question stick, letting his knuckles graze indecently down his ribs as if on accident. If he was hoping for a reaction, he doesn't get much of one, just the usual surprised pause, a slight tension of the spine.
Instead, Wriothesley is the one who freezes in place, having suddenly forgotten how to place one foot in front of the other. An ache in his wrists tells him he must be squeezing hard enough to leave bruises, but rather than take it as an attack from a deranged criminal out on parole, Neuvillette only looks back in concern. "Is something the matter?"
"That's…" Wriothesley's voice comes out strangled, and he has to try again. "My sister. My youngest sister. That's her. Eloise."
"Are you certain?" Neuvillette follows Wriothesley's gaze a few houses down. It's a cozy thing, a bit smaller than its neighbors: faded brick, tinted windows, and a small balcony on the second floor. The courtyard out front is fenced in with white stone and uninspiring, scrubby bushes, and it's full of playing children, big and small. Neuvillette looks between them, frowning, and Wriothesley can't muster the ability to point her out.
Even if he could, Neuvillette wouldn't see the same memory overlaid: the littlest girl to join them yet, shyly clinging to the doorframe of the childrens' room in the strange home she'd been brought to, unwilling to enter. She'd kept her petite face cast down, that first day, tawny-crinkly hair a curtain or shield against all the kids crowding around. Only when Wriothesley had called her 'sister' did she look up in shock, finally showing those mismatched eyes. She had only been there a few weeks before it had all happened—before Wriothesley had murdered their parents, and been swallowed up by the courts and the prison in the ocean—and he'd never gotten the chance to ask if her eyes were what she'd been shy about, if she was expecting a group of strange children to tease her about them.
"The girl with heterochromia, I take it?" Neuvillette is watching Wriothesley more closely than the children in the yard, so it's mystifying how he managed to pick her out. "If you're certain it's her, that is a good sign."
"How can that be a good sign?" Wriothesley is staring again, but those are definitely her eyes: one a muddy hazel, the other a crystalline ocean blue. 'By land or by sea,' that's what their mother had called her, and it had stuck. It's such a familiar sight, a courtyard so full of children, Eloise among them, that it whisks him right back to his childhood, growing up with the foster parents he'd eventually murder, the foster brothers and sisters that he couldn't save.
Eloise is one of the tallest children now, attending to two younger ones mid-quarrel over some toy, and an instinctive dread squeezes his chest.
It takes him a moment to realize why.
At around a certain age, his siblings had always vanished, with feeble explanations: adopted by a faraway family, gone to apprentice abroad, one even improbably reunited with her birth parents, off to live happily ever after, without a goodbye. Eloise was barely twelve the last he'd seen her. Now she's a teen, visibly older than any of the other children in that yard.
She will be the next to go.
As Neuvillette steers him away, back out of sight around the corner, Wriothesley manages to draw in a few short breaths, like tight bands on his lungs have loosened just slightly, just momentarily.
"It always happened like that," Wriothesley mutters, knowing he's incoherent. "When one of us 'left', a younger sibling arrived shortly thereafter. Eloise was adopted only just before I— Weeks, maybe. She was intended to replace—"
"There was no sign of her in your foster parents' records," Neuvillette murmurs, more troubled by paperwork than the fate of an innocent child. "All the others, we saw to it that they were cared for, this I can assure you. But there was no record of an Eloise."
Wriothesley realizes he still has a death grip on Neuvillette's arm. What had started as a taunt turns into a grab for dear life as he takes the arm in both hands, bunching the fabric under his fingers and feeling strength and muscle underneath. "We need to get her out of there."
"Let us complete the mission first. Then we can discuss the next steps."
"You said I could name my price. I changed my mind, I want— I need—"
"The mission first," Neuvillette says firmly, steel coming to his voice. This is the merciless judge Wriothesley remembers, from the day of his sentencing. A slapping tidal wave, rather than an accommodating current.
Wriothesley takes one last choking breath, and then drops his hold. "Then you'll tell me what the mission is. If Eloise is involved, I insist."
Neuvillette is reluctant, but finally sighs, and smooths the wrinkles out of his sleeve, still marked by Wriothesley's hard grip. As he begins to tug at the lace cuffs with two fingers, a strangely delicate gesture, he looks around to make sure they're out of range of the cafe, and the Gardemeks, and that the woman with her well-dressed poodles are nowhere to be seen.
"Very well. After your trial and sentencing, we began an ongoing investigation into the activities of your foster parents."
"My parents are dead." That point is inarguable; it's the whole reason Wriothesley is in prison stripes, and only up here in the lighted world on loan. "They've been dead for five years."
"Indeed. But they did not operate alone. Due process has taken a great deal of time, and there was little evidence to follow, but we are currently pursuing an individual we suspect to be one of their former associates. However, as we do not yet have enough evidence to convict him, I am seeking a witness that can definitively identify him. That's where I hope you will come into play."
"You would take my word for it?"
"Certainly. I believe you to be an honest person." Neuvillette looks perplexed, as if the conclusion was obvious.
"You— you put me in prison! The worst prison!" Wriothesley sputters. He doesn't even mention the assault in the infirmary, the untouchable Chief Justice sent sprawling by his own hands, pinned and unresisting between his knees. He isn't sure how to put it into words. "You made a point of calling me a criminal!"
"These facts are not mutually exclusive. And you are the perfect candidate to help us confirm our suspicions: a witness they have entirely forgotten about."
"I didn't witness much of anything. I never even knew that there were others." But of course there would have been. His foster parents couldn't have operated alone. The thought of other children suffering all this time hits him with a pang. So many loose ends, when he'd thought the job done, and gone to wallow in his imprisonment. "I don't think I ever saw any of their cronies. I doubt that I'll recognize whoever your suspect is."
"My goal is to simply ascertain whether or not you do. As I said, the fact that you recognized Eloise is a very good sign." Neuvillette's voice softens. "For our investigation, anyway. If you wish to speak with her, there is time. We need not mention… the circumstances."
"No," says Wriothesley immediately. "That part of my life is gone. No."
"Very well." Neuvillette shrugs off his voluminous cloak, leaving him in a slim waistcoat that looks a bit silly against his full cravat—not unlike the poodles earlier, trimmed from the neck down. With perfect, solemn dignity, he drapes the mantle over Wriothesley, covering the prison uniform, if not the bruises on his face. The layered fabric flows, smooth and slippery like the waves, and Wriothesley grips it hastily before it slides right back off his shoulders. "I will speak with the girl, if you'll go see to the suspect. I won't point him out to you, to avoid giving you preconceptions."
Wriothesley is about to respond, but then Neuvillette is buttoning up the cloak, fingers moving smooth and deft down Wriothesley's sternum, and he swallows anything he might have said. Silently, he follows Neuvillette back to the house, and is careful to stand behind him as he pulls the latch on the gate, and leads them into the courtyard.
Eloise's attention is on them instantly, her luminous, mismatched gaze hovering between the two of them—Wriothesley's bruises, Neuvillette's state of oddly formal half-dress—before settling on Neuvillette. By land or by sea. She shushes the quarreling children and comes over, face lowered, all these years later still self-conscious about her eyes. At least it means she doesn't look at them too closely.
Where most children would be wary of a strange pair of adults entering their home, she simply points toward the back of the house, where a small, stone stoop marks a side entrance. "Are you here to see Papa? All the guests go in that way."
"Thank you. Might I ask you a few questions first?" With a nod at Wriothesley, Neuvillette puts a knee down so that he's less threatening, lowered to just under her height. It's a familiar trick, after the infirmary—good to know Neuvillette uses it to soothe both little girls and Wriothesley.
Leaving them to it, Wriothesley approaches the side entrance, offering a reassuring smile to the other children. They look at him curiously, but no one questions his movements. He wouldn't have expected them to.
There's a small bell over the door, which is an odd fixture for a private residence, and he can hear a number of voices inside, chatting jovially. When he enters, bell chiming overhead, the conversation stops. A sudden urgency grips him, same as it had back then, when he'd started to realize something was amiss with his parents, with the entire household. Now, as back then, he surges forward with haste, desperate to grasp the truth before it's hidden away again with plausible stories and cold smiles. He races down the wood-paneled hallway, turns a corner, then another, and gets just a glimpse of an opulent sitting room, with maybe a dozen men and women seated around tables or reclining on an array of plush sofas. There's a wineglass in every hand, along with various notes and photographs. As papers slide across the table surfaces like playing cards, Wriothesley feels a sick certainty that there is some sort of commerce going on.
That's all he has time to take in, before one of the men hurries forward to meet him. He's dressed in a dove-gray suit, but he doesn't wear it well, and the way he grasps the stem of the wineglass with his entire fist makes him look ill-mannered, ill-bred. These instinctual observations are coming back to Wriothesley now, in a house just like where he'd grown up, all the trivial details that mattered to his parents for some reason, and so he couldn't help but pick up on them also.
Without using force, simply by getting in close, the man engages Wriothesley and urges him back around the corner, back out of sight. Wriothesley lets him, running over the glimpsed gathering in his mind, mentally going over face after face. Not one jogs his memory.
"Can I help you, Monsieur?" says the man, who doesn't bother to hide that he's staring at the cuts and bruises running down Wriothesley's cheek. Damn Maxime, damn steel pipe. "My name is Laurent Savatier, and this is my home. And you are…?"
"Got a lot of kids out there, don't you?" Wriothesley says, trying to angle for a second look into the sitting room. "They all yours?"
"I fail to see how that is any of your concern— stop that before I call the Gardes!"
"Be my guest." Wriothesley grins, showing teeth, and finally looks the guy in the eye. Mousy brown hair, round face with ruddy cheeks, standing with a bit of a stoop to his narrow build. He's disappointed that he doesn't recognize this one either, but it's Savatier's eyes that widen after a long look, round cheeks going slack with shock.
"Well, well! If it isn't Colette and Andre's boy!" His tone turns abruptly jovial, as he takes another sip, eyes never leaving Wriothesley over the rim of his glass, astonishment or perhaps wine melting the suspicion from his face. "You are him, aren't you?"
Five years of prison, not to mention his entire childhood, have taught Wriothesley never to flinch—but it's a close thing, to hear those names again. His parents, captors, victims. He recovers with a soft grunt. "You recognize me?"
"But of course! The little boy with the shaggy black mop, such a darling. We almost took you in, my wife and I, but we owed Colette, so they got first dibs. But at least we got little Ellie with the eyes, eventually, when they… when you…"
Realization catches up with Savatier as he talks, and abruptly he drops the glass, where it shatters against the wood, leaving a wine-dark puddle studded with crystal white shards.
"All right, Laurent?" comes a call from the sitting room, to which Savatier responds with a weak affirmative.
"When I…?" Wriothesley prompts, grin returning. It's an extraordinary situation, but he knows weakness when he senses it in an opponent, and he wants to sink his teeth into it. "What were you going to say?"
Eyes wide and haunted, Savatier backs away: a jerky, abortive motion, as if he can't quite decide what to do, how alarmed he should be. Considering the murderer of some of his friends has just shown up at his door, he doesn't seem quite panicked enough. Wriothesley decides to help him along, stooping to pick up a long shard of glass from the floor, letting the red wine run down his fingers as he turns it over in his hands, idly testing which cutting edge will work best as a shiv.
"What are you even doing here?" Savatier bursts out. "Last I heard, you were locked away in the Fortress of Meropide. Where you wouldn't be able to talk— to come walking around here. How could you be out already?"
Wriothesley lets out a short bark of a laugh. The fear in this man's eyes—it's not for his life, but rather that Wriothesley might blurt something inconvenient to the adults.
After taking his siblings' safety into his own fists, sullying them with his parents' lives, and holding his own against the worst criminals of Fontaine—he's forgotten what it's like to be talked down to like a child. If it wasn't already clear who this man associated with, the patronizing tone gives it away. His parents had used it with him, to the very last.
The bell at the side entrance chimes again, and Wriothesley grabs Savatier's wrist, tugging him along with ease. "Why don't you ask that to his Chief Justice-ness, the Iudex himself?"
"What?" sputters Savatier, stumbling through the puddle of wine and glass shards. He begins to protest, but Wriothesley casually flicks the shiv in his free hand, letting the spinning glass shard catch the light, and the protests subside.
By the entrance, they meet Neuvillette, who looks supremely unperturbed to see Wriothesley coming his way with a hostage, a glass shiv, and red dripping down his hands.
"He's with me," Neuvillette agrees smoothly. "Please pardon the intrusion. I was due to pay you a visit, and requested that he accompany me."
"Monsieur Neuvillette?" Incredulous, the man stares back toward the puddle of his drink on the floorboards, as if questioning how many he's had. Then he seems to register who he's speaking to. Wriothesley's unexpected presence, Savatier had treated like one of his children doing something naughty and unexpected. For the Chief Justice, he straightens his shoulders, and nervously pulls at his collar. "To what do I owe the pleasure? The great pleasure. And honor. Monsieur."
"I am not here to arrest you, if that's what you're thinking." Shock, horror, and relief pass visibly over Savatier's face—who had clearly not been thinking this, until now—only to swing firmly back to horror when Neuvillette continues, "The Gardes outside will take care of that."
"Arrest? Whatever do you mean?" Savatier's gaze swings wildly around to the windows, back to Neuvillette, before landing on Wriothesley accusingly. "This is just a gathering of friends. I don't know what he's told you— He should be in prison—"
"For the murder of two of your associates, yes. That makes you the third of your number Wriothesley has helped to put away. I trust you are grateful it is at the hands of the authorities, rather than the alternative." There comes a knock on the door behind him, and Neuvillette uses his cane to push it open, admitting the first of several uniformed Gardes. "Better for all parties involved."
***
They walk some distance before Wriothesley realizes he's shaking, all but clinging like a lost child to Neuvillette's cloak still draped over his shoulders. At least he's following behind Neuvillette, so there's a chance that his weakness has gone unnoticed.
It occurs to him that he could make a break for it, dash into the side streets and lose himself in a crowd.
Then a nearby Gardemek turns to look at him, and he remembers a dream he had just that morning. Never mind, then.
With some force of will, he manages to steady himself. He's not a helpless child under his parents' control any longer, nor the teen who'd slain them, as much as recent events have placed him right back in those dark times. No, he's stronger than that now.
However, he keeps the cloak.
He nearly walks into Neuvillette when he slows down, motioning to the cafe they passed earlier. Each table is shaded by a pink or purple parasol, and the woman with the dressed-up poodles is sitting at one of them, leisurely sipping from a steaming cup and reading from a slim tome.
"Shall we sit down and enjoy the sunshine for a spell?" Neuvillette suggests. "What would you like to drink?"
Wriothesley looks at him blankly, for once devoid of a quip. Neuvillette actually pulls out a chair for him, by its back: wrought iron shaped into an intricate floral design.
"Water," Neuvillette says to the waiter who comes by. "And tea, I think, for my friend."
He must be a regular here, because the waiter instantly falls into an animated discussion. They've been trying to improve the quality and purity of the water they prepare, just for Neuvillette. The latest method involves charcoal and steam condensation, and there's some discussion of oxygen saturation and distillation that should be better suited to an alchemical lab.
As Neuvillette expresses patient gratitude, Wriothesley sits with the word, "friend", and turns it over in his head. Just about anyone in Fontaine would do anything for this man—including, apparently, crafting a specially-shaped flask for capturing water vapor, a drip at a time, for him to drink. A lowly convict cannot be his friend. Especially one that he put away.
When their orders come, Neuvillette receives the glass of what looks like plain water with the same impeccable manners he showed earlier. It takes many rounds of exchanged pleasantries before the waiter will leave, and yet Neuvillette partakes in each one with utter patience, as crystal clear as the glass before him of any impurities, such as annoyance or boredom.
"Shall I pour for you?" Neuvillette offers, once the waiter has gone. His blue gloves are a shock against the white curve of the teapot, the gaudy fringe of his sleeves incongruous against this mundane act of service.
"But I didn't recognize him," is what escapes Wriothesley's lips.
The stream of tea falters a moment, before Neuvillette tips it anew. "Savatier recognized you. That will be evidence enough to put him away. I have some familiarity with how the justice system works."
That sounds almost like a joke, but there's no change in expression as Neuvillette sets the teapot down, and pushes the cup on its saucer closer to Wriothesley, without so much as a clatter.
"What will happen to… them?"
Again, Neuvillette proves a mind-reader. "The children will become wards of Fontaine, Eloise and all. I will personally see to it that they are properly cared for."
Wriothesley picks up the cup from its saucer. It feels more delicate than anything his hands have handled in recent memory. They're for labor, his hands. Penance. Fighting for survival. The ceramic is warm against his calluses, and when he sips, the warm fragrance loosens something within him.
"Those poor staff tried so hard to purify your water for you. And here I am, polluting mine with leaves. You must want to lock me away for that alone."
"Do you like it?" Neuvillette looks for all the world like he's truly curious about the answer.
Wriothesley's never been much for tea, but there's a pleasant aroma to this one, taste strong enough to cleanse his palate, yet gentle enough not to linger. He can see himself wanting more.
Once he's drained his cup, he holds it out for a second pour, which Neuvillette obliges, with perfect courtesy.
***
It's near dark by the time they return to the Opera Epiclese, which is a shame. If Wriothesley had thought about it, he'd have paid more attention while there was still light, to capture a memory for his return to the prison below. But rather than heading straight for the elevator, Neuvillette steers them to the entrance of the opera house.
"There is still the matter of your payment," he says, when Wriothesley gives him a puzzled look. "You've fulfilled your part of the bargain. I apologize that I cannot honor your initial request, to be freed prematurely from your imprisonment. But your other price is within my means."
The last time Wriothesley entered the opera house, it was to be tried and sentenced for his crimes. This time, he almost feels as though he's being invited to perpetrate another upon the Chief Justice, in the most sacrilegious of places.
Rather than going to the courtroom, they take the curving stairs up and up, the sound of their footsteps muffled on the carpet, their shadows multicolored and ethereal under the dusk seeping in the expansive panels of stained glass lining the entire stairwell. He remembers now that Neuvillette had promised to take him to a secluded place to exact his payment; this turns out to be a bedroom tucked into the very top of the building, halfway to the sky. The interior is immaculate, richly furnished like the opera house below, with thick, red velvet drapes that Neuvillette carefully draws shut over the windows, and a solid wooden door that he shuts and locks. A four-poster bed stands at the center of the room, a sofa and desk at either side, and that's about it. No personal effects to speak of, no pictures nor trinkets, which means this surely isn't Neuvillette's own room, where he sleeps at night—but the sad thing is, given how impersonally he holds himself, it's impossible to be certain.
"Will this location suffice? It isn't the prison infirmary, but I venture that it is more comfortable."
Eyebrows lifting at what sounds like another joke, Wriothesley slowly turns in place, taking it all in. "Sit back down on the bed, and I'll let you know."
The Chief Justice of Fontaine books no argument, and sits.
"Ah yes, this is taking me back to where we left off. There's only one thing missing." Wriothesley pulls the handcuffs from his pocket, where they've been sitting all day, banging against his leg, and holds them up challengingly.
With an incline of his head, Neuvillette goes to the effort of stripping off his gloves, setting them aside, and pushing up his sleeves. Surprisingly, the lace parts come off, and the rest rolls up, leaving bare forearms—which Neuvillette holds out, pressed together, for Wriothesley's convenience.
Incredulous, Wriothesley approaches, and takes the wrists in his hands, holding them in his grip rather than steel—for now. He isn't one to back down, and he certainly isn't one to say no when a prize is offered. Still anchoring Neuvillette in place, he leans in and steals a kiss, drinking in the clean fresh taste of his lips. When he'd demanded this earlier, he'd done it just to provoke Neuvillette, to hurt the cause of his own. Now he has no more desire to harm him, but Neuvillette is far from reluctant, responding with eager sweetness, doing nothing to fight off the hold, not even when Wriothesley picks up the handcuffs, and clicks them open.
As he measures one cuff against Neuvillette's unresisting wrist, he says, "I have just one question for you, before we proceed."
"I'll answer if I can."
"You didn't really need me for this case, did you? Yard full of children, people in there swapping like trading cards. You would have put them away either way."
"I went to great lengths to secure your assistance." Neuvillette looks pointedly around them, then down at the handcuffs, as Wriothesley clicks the first one closed.
"Precisely. I think I deserve to know why, when you could easily have done it without me."
Neuvillette tugs a bit on the locked cuff, pulling the chain taut. Wriothesley, holding the other cuff, can tell there isn't much force behind it, just playing the links out, as if he wants to feel the bite on his wrist.
"I stand by every sentence that comes from my court, and that includes yours, five years ago. But although your crime needed answering, so did the crime perpetrated against you, and those like you. This is something I have worked on ever since, and now that the time was approaching for justice to be carried out, I wanted to offer you the opportunity to personally see it done."
Wriothesley had been starting to suspect it might be something like that, but to hear it said aloud, in Neuvillette's smooth tones, squeezes something in his chest. "Then I've really misjudged you. What you've done for me, and for the children, that's enough. I'm not going to hold you to anything else you agreed to earlier."
As he goes to unlock the cuff, Neuvillette stops him with a hand against his. He looks almost offended as he says, "Unacceptable. I would no more take back my word than I could take back your sentence."
"You're comparing sleeping with me to being sentenced to prison? Flattering."
"It's a far more agreeable prospect. But there are one or two similarities." He clinks the cuffs together, and that's hint enough. Wriothesley doesn't need further encouragement before he takes Neuvillette's other wrist and finishes the job. This time when he leans in to kiss him, he pulls the bound arms aside, delighting in the idea of Neuvillette at his disposal, to be explored and ravished as he likes. Neuvillette acquiesces to the motion, to being pushed bodily onto the bed, arranged this way and that until Wriothesley's satisfied, bound arms pinioned above him, smooth line of his body laid bare to the touch.
Other than way too many layers of clothing, of course.
Wriothesley first draws that long hair aside, and kisses his way down Neuvillette's cheek, the join of his chin. Somehow he manages to get the frilly cravat untied, and lunges at the pale expanse of throat revealed, biting at it gently at first, and then harder, when the response proves positive—glowing, even, if he's any judge of the quality of those soft, wanting moans.
"I wasn't going to hold you to it, but I've been dying to do this all day," he confesses, to Neuvillette's pleased murmurs. "Unwrap all those layers of yours like a present. Leave my mark on your skin."
Neuvillette's eyes snap open. His lashes are so, so pale, his deep ocean eyes ready to devour Wriothesley whole, but he swallows, throat working against Wriothesley's lips, as he visibly musters his composure. "May I undress you as well?"
Wriothesley leans back, pulling Neuvillette's bound hands to him. "It's your cloak I'm wearing," he chuckles. "I barely know how to take the damn thing off."
The cloak goes fast, despite the handcuffs, the prison garb faster, delayed only when Wriothesley interrupts to return the favor, unbuttoning Neuvillette's waistcoat, his undershirt, pawing at the lovely skin he finds underneath. The only difference is, the more Wriothesley reveals, the more eager he gets, while the more Wriothesley undresses, the more Neuvillette slows down.
"No need to be shy," he laughs, when he sees Neuvillette hovering. He grabs Neuvillette's bound hands and draws them between his legs, letting him have a good palmful, and grinding against the sinfully sweet touch. "Not like you haven't done this before."
The silence goes on a little too long.
"You have, haven't you?"
"It never seemed appropriate, given my position." Neuvillette's hands close softly around Wriothesley, as if holding something utterly precious, so delicately Wriothesley can feel himself starting to blush, and it takes him a full moment to process the answer.
"You've never—" Wriothesley chokes, hips jolting involuntarily, as Neuvillette gives him a contemplative stroke. That doesn't feel like someone who doesn't know what he's doing. "You never wanted to take advantage."
Wriothesley thinks back to the fawning Gardes at Meropide, the cafe waitstaff falling over themselves to serve Neuvillette, attend to his every whim. All the deference, the obsequiousness, only forcing Neuvillette to keep himself at polite separation, reserved and aloof.
Never—?
And here's Wriothesley demanding the unthinkable, lewd and degrading, and Neuvillette readily agrees to his monstrous demands as if it wasn't far beneath him, as if the demand wasn't made from a place of anger and malice.
At least that much has changed, after a day with Neuvillette has shown him just what kind of man he is. Wriothesley likes to think that if it hadn't, if he'd still come to this room for his anger alone, to satisfy his grudge, Neuvillette would have put a stop to it. But some part of him is worried that Neuvillette had seen through the heart of him from the start. Observed and judged him so deeply, so keenly, that he'd known things would end like this, from the moment he agreed.
"Absolutely unbelievable," Wriothesley mutters, and shoves Neuvillette back down, manhandling him back into position. Half dressed, lying in the many-layered shell of his fine garments fallen open, he resembles nothing more than ripened fruit with its rind freshly parted, exposing the succulent flesh within. "This is exactly where we left off, I think."
Wriothesley climbs on top of him, presses his bound wrists over his head, into the cool silk fan of his hair, and Neuvillette lets him—deliciously pliant, supple, responsive as Wriothesley dips his face to that warm expanse of skin exposed, teasing out moans and gasps with every pull, lick, bite, swallow.
So this is the Chief Justice of Fontaine, supposedly inhuman, unfeeling, untouchable—impartial as justice itself. Wriothesley takes great pleasure in touching him all over, marking with tooth and nail and palm, setting skin and flesh flush and aquiver, until there can be no question of right or wrong, crime or justice any longer.