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Gabriel went to campus the next morning with an interesting task: to find an invisible man.
He’d chuckled to himself about it at the coffee shop that morning, listening while the other people in line chatted about the various ways they were going to spend their day. Some of them were on their way to the office, many were finishing up their holiday shopping. Still, others were whining about visits with the in-laws, or taking the opportunity to perform a deep-clean on their house.
When a well-meaning woman had caught his eye and asked about his plans, probably in a gracious attempt to make him feel included, the assassin had panicked and merely repeated the last thing he’d happened to overhear. Yes, he would be spending the hours re-organizing his closet.
The reality was something a little harder to believe.
“All right,” he breathed, staring up at the gothic tower, “where are you?”
It had been a while since he’d been to Joist Hall. Not since Jason’s graduation, wherein he’d broken a medieval light fixture trying to maneuver his son’s unwieldy sofa down the stairs. In true Guilder fashion, not a single thing had changed. Everything from the ancient stairwell, to the spired ceiling, right down to the hand-carved glass windows, were exactly as they’d been in the seventeenth century, when the friends had travelled back in time. It was one of the few structures that had remained undamaged in the subsequent fire, and there had been a massive effort to preserve the original framework. Even if the student body had seen fit to add a few upgrades...
“Heads up!”
Gabriel lifted his eyes as a teenage boy came flying down from the third story—zip-lining across a cord that had been mounted into an old reliquary. He flew over the assassin’s head, then let go with a flourish, throwing a cursory glance over his shoulder to see who he’d almost decapitated.
A single look, and he nearly toppled over backwards.
“Holy shit!” he blurted without thinking, clapping a hand over his mouth. “I mean...you’re Gabriel Alden. You’re standing right in front of me.” He blinked three times. “Holy shit.”
The assassin waited patiently for him to catch his breath.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he answered, flashing a friendly smile. “Never got to spend much time here myself. Zip-lines were generally frowned upon in the cave.”
The boy stared with his mouth ajar.
Bad joke.
“I was actually looking for someone,” Gabriel continued quickly, “maybe you could help me out. He graduated a year or so ago, but there’s no address listed for him in the city. His name’s Rob Cantor, I think he goes by Robbie Cantor? Power of—”
“—of invisibility,” the boy interrupted breathlessly, unable to close his mouth. “Yeah, I know him. He lives up on the top floor. No one can afford to live in the city,” he added, “not unless they’ve been working for a while. They let a handful of the recruits keep their dorms until they get partners.” His eyes widened to saucers, fixing on the assassin’s face. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
Gabriel shook his head quickly, worried he might actually faint.
“Not in the slightest, I just need to finish a conversation we were having.” He tilted his head towards the stairwell, steering things back on course. “Top floor?”
The boy nodded at light speed, watching as he began to climb the stairs.
“Is it true that you can—” He caught himself quickly, looking almost afraid. Prompted by Gabriel’s patient stare, he forced himself to continue. Granted, he did so in a whisper. “Is it true that you can stop a person’s heart with nothing more than a twitch of your fingers?”
So that’s what the Guilder rumor mill is saying these days.
The assassin doubled back indulgently, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Evan.”
“Evan what?”
“Evan DeKensie.”
“Well, Evan DeKensie, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.” He leaned closer, flashing a conspiratorial smile. “I haven’t had to use my fingers in a long time.”
The boy stared back in a kind of daze as he gave a parting wink and started jogging back up the stairs. When he reached the landing, he was still standing there, arms hanging limp at his sides.
Another satisfied customer.
There weren’t many rooms at the top of Joist Hall—like most of the other gothic towers, it narrowed to a slight point, and the uppermost dormitories were prime real estate. He wandered down the hallway, glancing automatically towards Jason and Benji’s old room, before coming to a stop in front of the only open door. He hesitated a second, then some instinct made him knock.
“Come in,” a voice called in return.
He stepped over the threshold, casting a quick look around.
There was nothing too surprising. Two single cots, pushed to opposite sides of the room, along with a few pieces of furniture—most of it half-buried under a pile of dirty laundry. Between that and the vast collection of weapons, it looked like the standard living quarters of a PC recruit.
The only thing he didn’t see, was the recruit.
“...Robbie?” he called tentatively.
“Oh—right!”
There was a shuffling in the corner, then the air glinted to life with an iridescent shine. A few seconds later, a young man popped into view. His cheeks were flushed with the effort of wielding the ink, but he was grinning like a kid at Christmas. He couldn’t seem to stop.
“I came ready to avert my eyes, but I see there’s no need,” Gabriel teased, unable to keep from smiling himself. “So you finally got the trick of it.”
Robbie flushed again, looking undeniably pleased.
“I don’t know why it gave me so much trouble. I’d actually gotten it to work before,” he admitted, “but then it kind of fritzed out on me in training. Ever since then...”
Gabriel nodded slowly, finishing the sentence. “...it’s been in your head.”
It was quiet a few moments, as the two men regarded each other.
The thing about the supernatural community, was that statistically speaking, it was a very limited pool. Not only did a person’s life turn inside-out the day they turned sixteen, but there were frightfully few people with a shared experience who might be able to talk them through it.
The same little traumas happened to all of them.
The subsequent conversations were few and far between.
“The same thing happened to me,” the assassin confessed abruptly. “It happens to all of us every now and again. You lose confidence in a key moment, you lean on something that’s supposed to be steady...it can shake you up for a while.”
Robbie hesitated, eyes on the floor.
“How do you get past it?” he finally asked.
“Absolute persistence,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “You need to acknowledge this isn’t something to be afraid of, this is something already within your control. The progression is upwards; you’ve done it before, you’ll do it again. You will always, always do it again.”
A moment crested and fell between them, as the words found their place and settled. The corner of the boy’s mouth tugged with a little smile. “Absolute persistence, huh?”
“That and energy drinks.”
The guy was still laughing when Gabriel stepped back into the hallway, pacing towards the stairs with a lingering smile. He’d almost reached the landing, when a voice called over his shoulder.
“Heads up!”
He ducked instinctively, fearing a zip-line. Robbie jogged up behind him with a frown of concern. “They really have you guys wound up tight. Maybe I should re-think my line of work.”
He pressed a book into Gabriel’s chest. “Sorry I stole this.”
He was already gone, by the time the assassin looked down at the book.
Moby Dick.
He smiled to himself.
She wasn’t kidding.
* * *
GABRIEL WAS STILL SMILING as he jogged across the lawn, aiming for the shiny red convertible at the edge of the trees. It might have been the middle of winter, but he occasionally refused to conform. His wife had come home early from assignment. They had celebrated.
He was eager to get home and celebrate again—
“Mr. Alden?”
He whirled around on a dime, heart freezing in his chest. It wasn’t often someone was able to catch him off guard, but this girl had done it—standing alone at the tree line.
She must have been waiting. How else would she have found me?
“Elise,” he said bracingly.
A single look and his ears started ringing.
She pulled up short, looking like she’d swallowed a stone. It took a few seconds to find her breath. “I just...I just wanted to say...” Her voice caught again, low and rough. “There’s something I think you should know about me. Camellia Thorn...she was my aunt.”
Gabriel stared without moving, his face blank and still.
Camellia Thorn.
The name twisted inside him like a blade, tearing whatever happened to be around it. It had been years since he’d allowed himself to think it. It was just as potent that day, as it was back then.
He held back the first things he wanted to say, choosing his question carefully.
“What’s your ink?”
A few days ago, she wouldn’t have told him. Now, she flashed a lifeless smile.
“I was given the gift of self-reflection,” she said humorlessly. “Wouldn’t you know, it hasn’t made me a lot of friends.”
He stared at her in silence, searching in spite of himself for any familiarity. The last time he’d seen her aunt, the woman had been screaming in agony. He’d been holding her severed finger. A striking image, but she’d been torturing him for hours. She was lucky he didn’t take the hand.
“Your aunt—” he began, and faltered. “Is she—”
“She died in the fire,” Elise answered softly. “Nothing could have survived that fire.” Her eyes seemed to shine still with the blaze of it. Or perhaps it was merely the sheen of tears. “I was told when I came here, it wouldn’t matter.” She stopped, caught her breath. “That isn’t true.”
Gabriel held her gaze a suspended moment, then dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry about your aunt,” he murmured.
“Don’t be,” the girl shot back immediately. “She deserved it.”
He shook his head. “Don’t talk like that.”
“She deserved it and worse—”
“You don’t have to talk like that,” he interrupted sharply, meeting her eyes. “Everyone here comes from somewhere, all right? Look at me.”
The two stared at each other for a long time, a lot longer than either of them realized. It was one of those moments that could have gone either way, but the assassin was sure of his course.
Even if he didn’t realize it, until he took a step forward.
“The past it over,” he said bluntly, “and you have very little to do with it. The only thing that matters, is what you’re going to do now that you’re here.” He regarded her a moment, intent and appraising. “Do you see that place?” He threw out an arm, pointing towards the silver dome of the Oratory. “That place was founded on the idea of new beginnings, on a fresh start. You can spend your time here wallowing in old mistakes if you want to—Lord knows there are enough of them to go around. But if you’re looking for something better, something yours...that’s the place to start.”
She stared back in silence, almost like she was holding her breath. She’d expected a rebuke, she’d been programmed to look for it at every turn. But this wasn’t a censure, it was an olive branch.
A moment passed, and then another. Then she finally ventured a tentative, “Didn’t they build this place because some old king wanted to have a son?”
Gabriel stared back without expression. “That’s not the story they like to tell.”
With that, the unexpected meeting ended almost as quickly as it had begun. There was a cracking of ice, a cracking of smiles. Then two nodded to each other, a bit awkwardly, and headed their separate ways. It could have been a lot worse if he hadn’t reached back as they were crossing, giving her a punishing shove in the back. She snorted with laughter, breath clouding in the frosty air.
It wasn’t until Gabriel reached the parking lot that he finally glanced back. “Elise,” he called softly, catching her eyes. “Don’t ever use your tatù on me again.”
He swore that was the second time he’d said that to someone.
