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He woke with a splitting headache.
He woke gasping and sputtering, limbs thrashing against a danger which -- who? What danger? He couldn't remember, only that he was in pain, pain, and he didn't know why. The last thing he remembered was waking in the woods near Shady Run Creek to discover that three of their friends had gone missing in the night, Yasha had gone missing in the night -- they'd met that dwarf lady Keg and she'd told them about those motherfuckers, the Iron Shepherds, slavers that preyed on the weak. Making plans to ambush them on the road, and then --
He woke up, flat on his back and in pain on the ground. Didn't take a genius to figure out that something had gone wrong.
"Easy now," a voice murmured. It sounded familiar but he couldn't quite place it. He blinked upwards, only now registering just how dry and stiff his eyes were, and tried to make out the figure hovering over him. He could see a head and shoulders, hair and a coat, but the face was silhouetted against the ceiling. Against the… sky? He squinted, trying to make out just what was overhead. Points of snow spun down out of the sky in a silent rush, but seemed to wink out just a few feet over his head.
If that was snow, why the hell wasn't he cold?
"Here, drink this," the familiar-unfamiliar voice said. A cup was placed to his lips and he groped for it with a wavering hand, taking a moment before he tipped it back and drank. Water, sweet and cold, trickled into his mouth and soothed his raw throat. At least the temperature confirmed that he wasn't numb, it just wasn't cold in here. Wherever here was.
"Did we win?" he croaked out. The figure above him paused, then went back to supporting the cup.
"In some ways, very much not," he said quietly. The cup tipped up and was drained, disappeared for a moment before coming back refilled. But he wanted answers now more than he wanted a drink.
He batted it away, trying to sit up. The effort woke shivers of fiery pain all down his front, centering in his chest and stomach. "Ow. Motherfucker," he grunted. But he couldn't just lie here, not when, not when… "Yasha? The others?" he said, his voice a little less of a croak now. "Are they all right? Are they back safe?"
"They will be," the quiet voice promised him. "Everyone was all right in the end except you. And you will be too, now."
That didn't make sense. That was fucking ominous was what it was. He managed to get up to his hands and knees, though it made him sway dizzily with the effort. Everything hurt, not just his chest, that just hurt the most. But the change in angle meant that he could look his rescuer in the face instead of seeing him silhouetted against the graying sky.
The man wore a charcoal grey outfit with a dark coat on the top, with belts around his waist supporting a dozen tiny pouches. Wavy hair was tied in a ponytail at the back of his head, and his eyes were a deep blue Molly had only seen in one person before.
"Caleb?" he said, not believing his eyes. Not wanting to believe his eyes because there was no mistaking him, but the auburn hair was streaked with silver and the beautiful eyes were flanked with a fan of crows-feet and the Zemnian accent on his voice had worn thin and polished with years of speaking Common.
His head pounded; his gorge rose, threatening to return the liquids he'd just gotten down. Confusion was giving way to fear, to horror, to the slowly cascading realization of the pieces falling into place. "How long have I been dead?"
He blacked out before he heard the answer.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting for wakefulness only to find himself utterly unable to make sense of the world around him and lapsing back again. He was in a dome of grey light with snow falling the wrong way up into the sky, he was in a dungeon cell of dark stone with bright, many-colored insects crouching in the corners, he was in a bed in the finest and most comfortable inn there was. Caleb was there, then Yasha stood over his bedside with her wings behind her, melding into dark clouds that stretched overhead. Two of Jester danced at the foot of his bed, and Caleb was there. Fjord and Beau were squabbling endlessly somewhere he couldn't quite see, Nott was crouched on his chest making it impossible to breathe, staring into his face with eerie yellow eyes, and Caleb was there.
In his snips of consciousness Caleb was the only common thread; his voice followed Mollymauk through dark dreams, murmuring soothing words in an accent that didn't sound quite right. His silhouette blocked out the light, passing shadows over his bed, the light behind him turning his hair into a reddish halo backlighting his face. Clever hands, always: lifting a mug of warm sweet tea to his lips, pressing cool compresses against his head and neck and arms, helping him re-settle his head on the pillows and stroke his hair back over his horns.
"Did we get them out?" Molly asked, half-aware and half-raving, over and over again. He ached, he hurt, but he could not rest while the others were in danger. Time for rest later. "Yasha and Jester and Fjord? Are they safe, are they out?"
"Yes, they're safe," that gentle voice came softly in the twilight. "They're out, the Iron Shepherds are dead, it's over."
"Is everyone okay?" Molly wanted to know. "Nott and Beau, are they okay? Are they hurt?"
"They're fine. Everyone was fine but you," the voice promised him.
"What about Caleb, is he okay?" Molly demanded, tossing restlessly on the pillows, unable to settle. "Tell me he's okay, Gods, please tell me Caleb's okay. He's so -- so easy to hurt --"
There was a pause and an indrawn breath, a hesitation of the hand stroking his hair. "Yes, he's fine too," the voice said quietly. "Everyone's fine. No one was seriously hurt except you. Rest now and get better, it will make more sense in the morning."
"How long was I out?" Molly mumbled, delirious, even as he slipped back into sleep. Kiri's voice seemed to multiply raucously in his head, echoing words that turned to nonsense as they doubled over themselves, and he fell back into restless dreams to the feeling of gentle fingers in his hair.
The next time Molly woke up fully he was indoors, in a room that looked vaguely familiar. An inn room, on the fancier end of the scale -- the Pillow Trove? It looked like it, but some details weren't quite right. The curtain was drawn over the window so he couldn't tell what time it was; a soft oil lamp illuminated the room.
"Seven days," came a voice from the doorway and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Did jump out of the sheets, which did kind of draw attention to the fact that he wasn't wearing the same clothes he'd gone to sleep -- passed out -- fucking died in. It was a soft pair of pajamas in a heather grey color, and he really, really wanted to know where his other clothes had gone.
The man in the doorway was -- it looked like Caleb but it couldn't be, not the Caleb that Molly had known. The ratty brown coat and threadbare scarf were gone; instead he wore a well tailored coat of dark purple material held closed by a fine silken sash. With his elbows bent the sleeves rode up a few inches on his wrist, revealing pale freckled skin cut with fine white scars. And he was, unmistakably, at least ten years older than the man Molly had known.
Those eyes -- the eyes were the same, though.
"You kept asking," the wizard (Molly couldn't quite bring himself to call him Caleb, but he was pretty fucking sure he was a wizard) said, coming inside and pulling up a chair that had been placed close to the bedside. "Seven days. It was a narrow window I had to work with, given that the spell only works for ten days after death, but I managed to make it in time. Yasha and the others are out and safe; no one else was badly hurt. Did you have any other questions?"
He had so many, it was hard to pick just one to start. What happened was way up there, but the most important parts of it had just been answered so he decided to leave that one aside until later. "Where the hell are we?" he asked.
"A question with a number of answers, most of which won't be very helpful to you," the wizard said. "In one sense we are right where we were, a hundred yards off the side of the Glory Run Road. In another sense we are on an entirely different plane. But to answer the question I think you meant to ask: this place is mine. The house is created by a spell I cast and control, and staffed by magical constructs that do my bidding. You will be safe here. If there is anything you need, just ask, and I will try to provide."
That was -- a lot, and Molly wasn't really sure what to make of it; on the one hand it was pretty cool (if true) but on the other hand it was pretty terrifying. "Who brought me back?"
"Ah, that was me," the wizard said, and smiled a little, self-deprecating smile that made Molly's heart pound double-time in his chest. Caleb's smile, this was Caleb, but it couldn't be, or else he was lying. "I had to save my strongest magic for that, which is why we only had the Tiny Hut last night instead of the mansion; but perhaps you did not miss it much, since you were unconscious for most of it."
That tore it, because Molly knew that Caleb didn't have magic like that. "And who the hell are you?"
The wizard flinched when the question hit home, his dark blue eyes darkening further, his expression pinching with hurt and sorrow, and it tore at Molly's heart because it made him look more like Molly's Caleb than ever. "I… do you not know me, Mollymauk?" he said, and his accent thickened further, his voice heavy with emotion. "You spoke of Yasha, you remembered the battle -- I did not think that you would forget -- I am Caleb. Caleb Widogast."
"No, I know who Caleb Widogast is," Molly snarled, feeling irrationally hurt and furious on behalf of his friend, his friend whom this could not be. "He's a human man with two books, one cat, a weight on his mind that bows him nearly to the ground and a shield of dirt that he uses to hide his face from the world and you, friend, are not Caleb Widogast. The Caleb I know is at least ten years younger, he can't make mansions out of nothing, and he sure as hell can't bring people back from the dead. So either you're lying about who you are or you're lying about how long I've been gone, and either way, I don't see why I should trust anything you have to say."
Blue eyes stared at him for a long moment. The wizard snapped, and all at once there was a familiar ginger tabby in his lap, who turned towards Molly and sniffed the air with curiosity before leaping from the chair to the bed and climbing on Molly's lap. Molly flinched back against the further proof, because if this was Caleb and Caleb was telling the truth then how --
"The answer to all your questions is the same," Caleb -- because it was him, Molly couldn't deny it any longer -- said in a quiet, sympathetic voice. "It has been seven days since you saw me last, Molly, I did not lie about that. But it has been much longer than that since I saw you last. Long enough for me to learn many, many new tricks that you have not seen from me before."
Molly stared at him, confusion and dizziness boiling up in his mind. "What --" he stammered. "How --"
"I did not mean to agitate you this much," Caleb sighed. "You are still not well. Sleep, Mollymauk. We'll speak again in the morning."
Molly recognized the heavy hum of power that accompanied the word sleep and for a moment he fought against it; but the power that had once felt a bright trickle at the edge of his mind had grown to a raging flood, and he was swept away on it into darkness.
The next time Molly awoke he felt calmer, if not necessarily better. His heart still pounded, his stomach still twisted, his limbs still felt as achy and weak as wrung-out rags. But his head had cleared somewhat and he could think straight again. A warm weight against his legs turned out to be Frumpkin, who blinked at him with uncannily blue eyes before yawning and tucking his chin back onto his paws.
It hadn't been a dream, then.
On the little table by the bedside was an array of flasks and bottles; curious and still not feeling up to standing up, he began picking them up and looking them over. A bottle of water; a carafe of the same sweet tea he remembered tasting before; more little bottles with colored stoppers but no labels. A silver tray with fine engraving around the edge, filled with little bread rolls and slices of fruit. His stomach rumbled in anticipation at the sight. He hadn't had a solid meal since last -- since the night before --
Come to think of it, he had no fucking idea when was the last time he'd eaten.
"You can eat them, you know," came a voice from the doorway, and Caleb came in. That damnable sadness was back, hovering in his eyes despite his best attempt at a poker face. "I know you have your doubts, and I cannot say you have not been given reason to be suspicious of me, but -- I would not harm you, Mollymauk. Have I done anything to harm you?"
"No," Molly had to admit. He sighed. "Look, come in, don't hover in the doorway like a cat." He stretched his arm as far as it would go and shoved at the chair by the bedside; he couldn't move it more than a few inches across the floor, but at least it got the message across.
The wizard crossed the floor hesitantly and hovered behind the chair. "Take a seat. Have some munches," Molly invited, gesturing towards the silver platter.
Caleb frowned. "I have already eaten," he said. "I do not need to take your food as well."
"The way I see it, if you're shady, then you eating the food will prove to me it's not poisoned," Molly said cheerfully. "And if you're on the level, then it's better to share a meal with a friend."
Caleb sat down slowly in the little chair and reached for a bread roll, his eyes darting quickly over the platter as if to take count and ascertain there would still be plenty left. He sat there tearing off little bits of bread and nibbling them and if there had been any doubt in Molly's mind as to his identity, the familiar way he shredded his food dispelled them.
"How do you feel?" Caleb asked as the silence stretched awkwardly long.
Molly stopped to really think about it. "Pretty shitty," he admitted. "Getting something to eat and drink in me helped -- thank you for that, by the way -- but it's not -- it's like that time in the circus I got the flu and it knocked me on my ass for a solid week."
Caleb nodded. "These should help," he said, pointing at the little vials on the bedside table. "There is not, unfortunately, any cure for the sickness you are feeling right now -- but I can at least try to help mitigate the symptoms. The red ones are for pain, the yellow should help with nausea, and the blue ones aid with sleep."
"Oh thank fuck," Molly said with real feeling. He wasted no time in grabbing and knocking back a red and a yellow, but his hand hesitated and fell back on the blue. He wanted answers and he had to be awake for that.
These potions were the good shit, he quickly realized. The throbbing in his chest dulled to a low ache and his stomach untwisted enough that the bread rolls started to look actually appetizing instead of nauseating. He grabbed one and took a bite; to his surprise it was still warm, steaming faintly, and there was a spicy sausage filling inside the bread crust that made his mouth water for more.
"Where is everyone?" he said around a mouthful of bread.
Caleb quirked a smile, causing the new wrinkles on his face fan out in a way that was really unfairly attractive. "Another of those complicated questions," he said. "In this time they are in Zadash, perhaps on their way to the Menagerie Coast by way of the southern road. In my own time they have all gone their separate ways, to their own homes and interests and families."
"Okay, so this is something you're going to have to explain," Molly said. " 'This time' and 'my time,' and that business about it being seven days for me but fifteen years for you. What the fuck, Caleb?"
"Yes. I, ah, I am not quite the Caleb Widogast you knew." Caleb cleared his throat. "You were right about that. But I am him and he is me, or he will be me, fifteen years from now."
Molly considered that.
"Time travel?" he said at last.
"You don't seem very surprised," Caleb said, sounding a bit surprised himself by the fact.
"You're a wizard. You could always do things that shouldn't be possible," Molly pointed out around a mouthful of bread. And Caleb had always been the smartest man Molly knew; if anyone could crack the incredibly improbable prospect of traveling through time, fifteen years of Caleb's brain working on the problem could do it. "So sure. Why not. Time travel. Honestly not the biggest question on my mind right now."
"I imagine not," Caleb said. He leaned back in the chair. "What did you want to know? I am at your disposal."
"Yasha," Molly said immediately. "You said -- you said she was all right 'in the end.' What does that mean? Did we get them out of those fucking cages, or not?"
"Not." Caleb sighed. "Or at least, not at the time. Our ambush on the road was a complete and utter failure. There were more of them than we expected, and we were overwhelmed."
Wasn't that just their luck, Molly thought grimly.
"We lost that fight in every way it was possible to lose," Caleb said heavily. "We failed to free our friends, we were overwhelmed, the Iron Shepherds taunted us… their leader, Lorenzo, decided to 'make an example' of us. You were the example. I take it that you do not remember."
Molly shook his head, momentarily bereft of words.
"It is probably just as well," Caleb tilted his head back, his eyes closed. His brow was knotted with old pain. "The Iron Shepherds took the others away. There was nothing… nothing we could do for you, not then, not with what we had. No clerics. No scrolls. I did not have my stone, then. We gave you what ceremony we could in the time we had, but by that time you no longer needed any help we could give. The others did."
He paused for a moment, looking towards Molly as if awaiting a reaction, but Molly honestly couldn't think of a single thing to say. After a moment Caleb went on.
"We went back to Shady Creek Run and got supplies, got information, got help. In the end we met Lorenzo and his lackeys in his own lair and we destroyed them. " The sudden feeling in Caleb's voice startled Molly; for the most part his recounting of these events was impartial, drained of emotion by long time and distance. This, though, this was a burning hatred and vicious satisfaction that not even years had tamed. "We burned Lorenzo from the inside out and he met his end crawling on the ground like a worm."
By we, Molly translated, Caleb meant himself, since he was the only one Molly knew who could cast fire spells like that.
"And Yasha?" he said. "Jester and Fjord? Were they okay?" Caleb said they had been, he'd promised, but Molly had to know.
"Ah…" Caleb seemed to come back to himself. He made a see-saw motion with his hands. "They were pretty rough when we got to them. But they lived, all three of them, with no injuries that they could not recover from. In time."
Molly breathed again.
"The hardest thing…" Caleb hesitated, then seemed to steel himself to push forward. "The hardest injury for Yasha, I think, was losing you. She was -- inconsolable. For a long time, she seemed like… But we all tried to be there for her, as best we could, and… in time it seemed to help."
"Where are they now?" Molly asked.
Caleb gave a little shrug. "I cannot say precisely," he said. "For me it was many years ago, so I cannot remember exactly how many days passed in travel. Right now they are on their way to the coast, to Nicodranas, where they will have some unexpected trouble with the zolezzo and accidentally become pirates."
"Accidental pirates. Right. That tracks," Molly said. He began to feel excited, calculating routes and travel times overland... "So if we leave for Nicodranas now, we could meet up with them!"
"Ah…" Caleb said. He trailed off, something complicated and melancholy crossing over his face. "No offense, Mollymauk, but right now you are hardly fit to travel. This should fade -- I understand -- in a few days, a week at most. Once you are better, I can transport you to Nicodranas if that is your wish."
"Well sure," Molly said, puzzled. "Why wouldn't I wish? The Mighty Nein are my family. Fuck, with the circus still broken up, you guys are pretty much all I have in the world. Where else would I go if not with you?"
"The others will be glad to see you, of that I am certain," Caleb demurred, and Molly meant to follow up the deflection, he really did, but he was distracted by a sudden stab of a headache.
"Would they even remember me, still?" Molly said, seized by a sudden worry.
Caleb smiled. "Mollymauk Tealeaf, you are exceptionally difficult to forget," he said. "In point of fact, Jester continued to disguise herself as you for quite some time after your departure. As did Beau, in part."
"Oh, this story I want to hear," Molly grinned.
And hear it he did, along with a dozen other stories as the night wore on. Caleb was extremely cagey on the overall picture -- he insisted that Mollymauk should not know the specifics of a future he had yet to live through -- but he was able to supply plenty of details that kept Molly half-strangled with laughter. About the time that Fjord had distracted a goblin shopkeeper by whipping off his shirt and singing a sea shanty while she rubbed oil over his abs. Or the time that Nott had eaten some sort of narcotic fruit and flown higher than a kite for an hour as they tried to infiltrate an underwater temple. Or the time that Yasha and Jester had shared a meal of giant spider legs that had given Jester what Caleb diplomatically described as 'the spins,' and Beau of all people had sat up with her all night to hold her hair back from her face.
"The more I hear, the harder it is to believe that you lot got through fifteen years of this without dying," Molly said at last when the laughter died down. The thought was a relief, though it also left him feeling an almost nostalgic melancholy: they'd been fine without him, after all. He was glad they'd been fine, he wouldn't have wanted them to be anything other than fine, but... maybe they hadn't needed him as much as he'd thought.
"Ah, well, I cannot say that was entirely the case," Caleb said vaguely. "But I can tell you that we all made it to the end of our adventures alive, though it was a close thing a time or two, for certain. By the end of it we had gotten our fill of travel and adventure, and most of us wanted nothing more than to settle down and find some peace.
"We all thought Fjord would go back to the sea once our travels were over, but he surprised us by making his home in the Blooming Grove instead. The Clays adopted him readily; I think that Fjord who had gone so long without a family was overjoyed to inherit such a large one.
"Beauregard -- did I mention that Beau and Jester got married?" A fond smile touched his careworn face.
"No!" Molly gasped. "I thought our dear monk was completely gone on Yasha. Jester? Really?"
Caleb chuckled. "Oh, she certainly was gone on Yasha," he said. "When they moved back to the Menagerie Coast, Yasha went with them -- they bought a beautiful little manse by the seaside. I would visit quite frequently, although my studies kept me in Rosohna for the most part. Once I was able to create a teleportation circle at the estate, traveling became much easier."
"And what about Nott?" Molly asked. "I'm surprised she didn't come on this time-journey with you. You two always were joined at the hip."
"Ah..." Caleb's face fell, and Molly kicked himself for putting his foot in what was apparently a sensitive subject.
"Or does the spell only work for one person?" Molly offered him an out, but Caleb shrugged.
"There is no such restriction on the spell," Caleb said carefully. "It is not... not a matter of her being unable to come, as that she was not available to come."
"Please tell me she's not --" Molly left it hanging, but Caleb quickly shook his head. "No, no. Nobody died, I promised. She, ah. She went home. She returned to her family."
"What, you mean her clan?" Molly said, puzzled. "She didn't seem to me to have much love for them."
"No. Not her clan." Caleb pressed his lips together. "It is, um, a long story and not entirely mine to tell, especially not if you will be traveling together still and there are things she was not... not ready to be open about, then. Now. It is enough to say that she found her happiness in the end; she returned to the place she belonged and to the family that needed her."
"And you didn't need her?" Molly asked.
That was a cruel question, maybe; certainly a hard hitting one if the way Caleb flinched minutely was any indication. "I am a grown man, Mollymauk," he said.
"Not an answer to my question," Molly returned.
"I would not ask her to leave her home and family after she had just found them again after so long," Caleb insisted. "Not when I knew that I was leaving on a journey with no return."
"Wait, what? What do you mean?" Molly said. For the first time since he awoke to Caleb's face a bolt of fear and dread squirmed down his spine to nest in his gut.
Caleb opened his mouth, then seemed to rethink his next sentence. "What I did to come here," he said very carefully, "was -- new magic. No one has ever done this before, as far as I know. And I looked. There are no records, no precedents of anyone who returned to a previous point in time as I have. Right now, I exist in this world in two places at once. I do not think it would be wise to bring both of those instances together."
Molly searched Caleb's face. "But that's not all, is it?" he said.
"It is not," Caleb admitted. "I came back in time for a reason, Mollymauk. And as much as I wanted to do this for you, as glad as I am that I could make things right for you... that was not my primary purpose in coming back here. There is further back that I must go. There is something else that I must do."
That felt like the truth, Molly thought. As glad as he was to be aboveground and breathing, he'd always known that Caleb was a man with big plans, an ambition that he would fulfill or destroy himself trying. "So, do what you need to do and then come back to us," Molly urged him. "Fuck, if you can jump around in time, then it doesn't matter when you leave, does it?"
Caleb shook his head. "It is not that easy," he said. "This spell, this magic, it only works in one direction. Once I go back in time, I can never return."
That -- then Caleb would be gone. Forever gone, walking away from Molly on a path which would never intercept his again. Molly swallowed against a throat gone suddenly tight, like a noose had closed around it. "Except for the way the rest of us do it," he said. "One day at a time, Mister Caleb."
Caleb said nothing. Molly pushed himself up on the bed until he could look the man in the face, but Caleb was avoiding his eyes. He was still as a statue, the only movement about him the motion of his fingers as he rubbed Frumpkins ears.
"What are you planning?" Molly said abruptly. "Once you do whatever it is that you need to do, change whatever you mean to change. What will you do after that?"
"To be truthful," Caleb said in a voice that was so soft as to be almost inaudible, "I had not thought past that point."
"Of course not," Molly said, feeling suddenly frustrated and fed up and tired. "You haven't actually changed at all, have you? Fifteen years later and you're still every bit as much of a godsdamn stupid martyr as you ever were."
Caleb met his eyes at last and the blue was cold, so cold. "Of the two people in this room, Mister Mollymauk," he said in a clipped voice, "You are the last one who should be throwing stones about martyrdom."
Molly flinched. Caleb drew back into himself, closing off the moment of anger as thoroughly as he'd closed off every other emotion. "I am sorry," he said after a moment, stiffly. "That was unkind. I should not have said it."
He stood up from the chair and Molly could see the years in that simple motion. This man might command magics that could reweave the fabric of reality but years of grief and suffering had clearly carved their mark on him, leaving him aged before his time. "I should go," Caleb said, "and leave you to your rest. The sooner you are well, the sooner I can open a portal to Nicodranas and get you back to your family."
"Yeah," Molly said, as Caleb left the room, feeling sad and angry and not at all knowing what to do about it. "Sleep sounds good."
It did. If he was sleeping, at least he wouldn't have to think any more, wouldn't have to feel. Wouldn't have to ache and grieve with every breath. Wouldn't have to imagine Caleb, worn down by time and pain but still so powerful, so beautiful, walking down that road alone to his own determined doom.
Sleep beckoned in the form of a blue-stoppered vial on the bedside table. Molly drank it down, and sleep came for him kindly with a purring cat resting solidly on his chest.
Maybe it was the potion, or maybe the events of the last few days had just left Molly shaken, but that night he dreamed. He stood at the edge of Glory Run Road, his feet just inches away from a stirred plot of earth that was stained dark with blood. Snow fell around him except that instead of snow it was stars, streaking soundlessly out of the sky to bury themselves in his grave. From somewhere nearby he heard a man's voice talking, telling him something incredibly important, but he couldn't make out the words.
In the dream he took a step away from the grave towards the road -- only to see the road split in two beneath his feet, two paths leading off in different directions. He looked back and saw a mirror of himself standing on another road; when he stepped forward the other himself stepped away, and more and more versions of himself began to appear around him. Each moving in perfect synchrony, each in a completely opposite direction, until he could no longer tell which of these versions was himself.
Somewhere in the crowd of reflections he thought he saw a flash of red hair, the trailing banner of a sash -- or was that a scarf? -- as it slipped away through the crowd. He turned towards it and took another step forward and all at once, the voice he had been unable to hear came into sudden focus.
"--ll the time in the world," the voice was saying. "Time enough to grow indescribably close. Time enough to, to learn how to care for each other, how to allow yourselves to be cared for. Time enough -- in this particular case -- to fall deeply and truly in love."
He woke up.
Caleb's magic house proved to be an excellent place to rest and recuperate, even if he and Molly did have to leave it for a few minutes each day to stand in the bitter cold so that Caleb could recast the spell. With the other twenty-three hours of the day spent sleeping or catching up on some much-needed missing meals, by the fourth day Molly was completely back up to strength.
Molly leaned against the trunk of a winter-stripped tree and watched as Caleb finished dismissing the spell, the door to the mansion vanishing in a complicated swirl of arcane sigils. "Well, it was nice while it lasted I suppose," Molly said with a touch of wistfulness. "Shame we couldn't take anything from inside with us."
All of the clothes he'd been wearing for the past few days -- pajamas, fluffy robes and housecoats -- had been part of the creation of the spell, and vanished when the spell had dismissed. Caleb's invisible servants had cleaned and mended the clothes he'd been wearing before, but they couldn't really do anything to make them warmer. Molly shivered.
"It will be much warmer near the coast," Caleb promised him. He was kneeling on the ground with his spellbook out, drawing a complex arcane circle on the flat stretch of ground, and Molly watched him with a warm admiration glowing beneath his breastbone. It had taken him some time to get over the shock of seeing Caleb age fifteen years in what had been -- to him -- a single night, but now that he was used to it he thought he liked it quite a lot. This newer, neater Caleb looked healthier than the vagrant Molly had known, calmer and quieter, his air of constant tragic misery transmuted into a calm melancholy. The silver threads in his hair added a nice touch, thought Molly, who'd always admired a bit of distinguished grey.
"I'm sure it will," Molly agreed. "But I'm not going to the coast."
That stopped Caleb in the middle of drawing a line and he looked up at Molly with surprise. "What do you mean, you aren't going to the coast?" he said. "Weren't you hoping to catch up with the others in Nicodranas?"
"I was, when I thought you would be going with me," Molly said. "It turns out you're not, so... surprise! I'm not either."
He spread his hands and smiled, a restrained echo of his showman's display, and Caleb stared at him as though he'd sprouted wings. "But... then... I don't understand," he stammered.
"I'm not going back to the rest of the Nein," Molly clarified, since Caleb apparently needed it spelled out for him. "I'm going with you. Wherever you go. Whenever you go, I'm with you."
"But --" Caleb shook his head. "No, you do not understand. I am returning to a time years in the past, before you even existed as yourself. If you come with me, you can never return to the time that you knew."
"I've lived in this world for literally twenty-five months," Molly said bluntly. "You are sincerely overestimating the amount of attachment I feel towards it. You know me, I'm always looking for something new. What better place to find it than in another time?"
"You won't be able to rejoin the Nein," Caleb pointed out and oh, even having made his decision, that still hurt. "You said they were your family."
"And you're part of that family, Caleb," Molly reminded him. "I love them, and a part of my heart will always be with them, but it sounds like they don't need me. They can take care of each other now. But where you're going, there will be nobody to take care of you."
"Molly, no offense, but I have mastered magic that can make the stars unravel," Caleb said stiffly. "I can watch my own back."
"And I'm duly impressed," Molly said dryly, "but however legendary you've grown you're still squishy. Someone has to stand next to you and make sure that all those unpleasant bladed weapons don't find a mark." He shrugged. "Besides, that wasn't the kind of 'take care of' that I meant."
"But..." Caleb's face was a study in crumpling confusion, his eyes filled with dismay. "But... why? Why would you choose me over them? I don't -- I don't understand."
Molly sighed and took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them as he placed his hands on Caleb's shoulders. "You know, for a man who cracked the secret of time-travel magic single-handedly, you can be remarkably stupid about some things," he said, and kissed him.
It felt good, that kiss, even aside from sending a message that could not be mistaken. It felt like slipping into a warm bath after a day of cold rain, of resting in front of a warm hearth after a long journey. It felt like coming home.
Breaking the kiss, leaning back enough to take in the expression on Caleb's face, was one of the more difficult things Molly had ever done; but he was planning on having plenty of chances to repeat the experience in the future, so that was all right. "Well?" he said. "Did that convince you, or do I need to get a little more persuasive ?"
"Um," Caleb said, and then blushed as red as his hair as the innuendo hit him. "No, you do not need to, unless, I mean, if you would want to --"
Molly stopped him with another kiss and for this one, he took his time. For the first time since he'd awoken by the side of the road, panic and urgency crashing around in his head, he felt like he had all the time in the world.
Seasons could have passed while they stayed locked in that embrace, spring and summer come and the leaves fallen and the stars come crashing to the earth. But when he finally pulled back again, the world was just how it had been. A little brighter, maybe, for the light shining in Caleb's eyes.
"Come on," Molly said, taking Caleb's hand with a smile. "Let's go leave your past a better place than we found it."
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.