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At the very least, the floors at the Shores of Solace didn’t creak.
Candleshade was an old estate. As old as his dad, who had never disclosed his age to Keefe beyond a “when I was your age” lecture. During one of those lectures, his father mentioned building Candleshade after being appointed an Emissary. Classic Cassius, needing his house to reflect how woefully unable his status was to fill the void. His dad had not liked it when Keefe made that analysis. If Keefe remembered right, that was the fight where his dad insisted that if Keefe couldn’t appreciate the house his father provided, he was welcome to find somewhere else to stay – preferably in the next ten minutes.
Whatever. Keefe had learned to love camping.
All this was to say that the floors at Candleshade knew how to creak. The higher the floor, the more likely the endless stairs groaned as Keefe tip-toed along them. Keefe assumed his father refused to fix them to catch Keefe as he snuck around the house. The jokes on him, though, it only encouraged Keefe to practice his telekinesis.
He wondered if that’s also how his mother got around the stairs.
Part of Keefe was tempted to follow that line of thought as he made his way through the Shores of Solace’s dark hallways. He was supposed to be thinking about his mother, searching his mind for where she’d slipped through. In a perfect world (or a nightmarish one) he would find more awful ways she’d made him complicit in her schemes. In reality, he stumbled across thoughts like that one. Little keyholes where Keefe could turn his brain just right and see all the sickening ways he and his mother aligned. All the times she’d used his childhood as a smokescreen for the life she truly cared about. The memories had little value in stopping her, unlike the ones Keefe was after.
But they made it hard to sleep at night.
Especially after he’d taken fathomlethes. The pearls were supposed to trigger important memories. Instead, on bad nights, they were more likely to send Keefe tripping over every small pothole in his mind.
Their dreamy quality gave the house a sense of unreality. The walls felt far away and the fall to lean to his right passed endlessly. Keefe collapsed onto the wall in a slide, unable to stop the light giggling at how silly the whole ordeal felt. Rough sandstone pressed against his forehead. Keefe turned his face further into the wall and brought his hand up to run against the brick.
Woah. His fingers scraped against the stone, minerals tickling his palm at the same time it scratched his nose. The sensation rippled through his arm, trailing up his shoulder and dispersing like butterflies into his stomach. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up; repressing the shiver that ran through him was impossible. He could crash against this wall forever. Even better, he could sit against the wall.
No. No sitting. Sitting meant never getting back up. Laying on the floor until someone found him tripping out of his mind was the last thing he needed. His dad would lose it. Ro would never let him hear the end of it.
He’d move on the count of three. One. Twoooo. C’mon, c’mon. One last breath.
Three.
Keefe pulled his body away from the wall with a groan, not careful enough not to tip over his almost dead weight and land against the opposite wall. This time, Keefe didn’t give himself enough wall time to get stuck and immediately course-corrected.
Five more minutes of steady feet sliding and Keefe made it to the kitchen. His hands roamed the counters and cabinets, clumsily collecting the pans and ingredients needed. The organization here was almost identical to Candleshade. Figures his dad was so much of a control freak that he had to put everything down to the spices in its place. Keefe was willing to bet the set-up was the same in the Atlantis apartment, not that he’d ever get to see it. His dad still needed at least one refuge, of course.
Even with the world rolling and his limbs twitching, cooking came easily. It was one of the first skills Keefe’d learned out of necessity. His parents were loathe to waste good food on a small child who couldn’t appreciate it. More importantly, a child took food away from gilded dinner guests who could be impressed by his parents' display of towering tiered plates and bubbling fountains of wine. Keefe spent long nights waiting outside the door to the dining room, hoping for scraps picked off of plates after long, hungry afternoons where lunch was foregone in favor of dinner prep.
His father almost smiled when Keefe begged to try the more developed taste pallet his parents favored. It only took one plate of cold, stiff leaves for him to realize his mistake. But by then it was too late. Keefe would appreciate the food if it took all night. Adopting a sophisticated tongue was the mark of nobility and Keefe would not stick out like a sore thumb.
The growth spurt that gave Keefe the inches he needed to reach the stove couldn’t have been more welcome. Trial and error – emphasis on error - plagued his cooking attempts. There were a lot of sad, raw meals before Gloya, a gnome that lived near Candleshade, offered advice to the pitiful elf who could barely toss a salad.
Thankfully, Keefe had come far enough that he didn’t have to resort to salad for his midnight snack. He chopped vegetables while the pan heated up, humming softly and enjoying how the sound vibrated in his chest.
“What is this ?”
Keefe flinched at the small light that Ro flicked on when she entered. Huh. He hadn’t realized he’d been in the dark this whole time.
“Snack,” Keefe rolled the word between his lips with more effort than it would’ve taken sober. The light burned his eyes.
“This looks like a little more than a snack, Hunkyhair.”
He shrugged. “I was hungry.”
In all the excitement it took to walk down the hallway, Keefe had almost forgotten the rumbling ache in his stomach. It only took the searing scents of sauteed vegetables to bring it back. He popped a diced cube in his mouth.
“Whatcha making?” Ro asked, sauntering over to the counter and leaning over Keefe’s shoulder. If you had told him a year ago he’d become this comfortable with an Ogre getting up close in his personal space, he would’ve laughed. But a lot can change in a year. Despite being an Ogre, Ro was the only adult who had to care about Keefe and didn’t seem to mind it.
“It’s… uhhh… I forgot the name. It’s got vegetables n’ shit.” He gestured vaguely at the dish.
“Right,” Ro said flatly. “How much have you taken tonight?”
“A couple.”
“A couple…?”
Keefe transferred the first, finished section onto a plate and put the next in the pan. “Like four.”
“Four?” Busted.
“Maybe five.”
Ro crossed her arms and fixed him with a hard look. “Blondie’s gonna freak when she finds out about this.”
“That’s why she’s not gonna find out,” Keefe huffed.
She’d probably be too busy with Fitz, his mind bitterly filled in.
He was happy for them. He was. He just wished it didn’t feel like a knife in his gut when his stomach churned in sync with theirs as they stared into each other's eyes or felt the overdrive of their hearts when they spoke. It never stopped being jarring to experience firsthand how much his crush liked another guy.
Sometimes, being an Empath felt more like a curse than anything else.
“Aren’t you supposed to be done hiding things from her?” Ro was never going to let that argument go. Her first witness to Keefe’s “extreme inability to pull his head out of his ass” as she liked to call it, was when Sophie chewed him out in the Healing Center following his spar with King Dimitar. She loved bringing it up whenever trying to convince him to confess his feelings to Sophie like that would do anything other than complicate already fraught dynamics.
Best to let Sophie and Fitz sort themselves out. That was what Sophie wanted.
“So, find anything interesting?” Ro continued when it became clear that he wasn’t going to respond to her jab. He shook the pan, mixed the food around, and used his spatula to check everything was cooking evenly.
“Nope. Just a ton of reminiscing about how much my mom loved using me to get information on Silveny. Good times!”
Compared to all the other sore spots he’d developed about his mom, this one barely ranked in the top ten. But something about how his mom had draped his cape and smoothed his hair, how his dad had looked at him with a glint that resembled pride, stuck. He didn’t know how to deal with it then, uncomfortable with the attention of his parents' interest without a punishment slapped on at the end. It had been surreal to be crowded into bed by his mother when he returned from the High Seas facility, sipping a cup of tea that made him feel warm and cared for.
Now, he could better recognize the warmth of a sedative.
Watching those memories back, distorted and vibrant from the fathomlethes, had been disorienting. His chest had felt heavy and his eyes watery, but he couldn’t stop laughing. He’d skipped a grade but had been too stupid, even after all these years, to realize that nothing would ever change. There was no suddenly turning things around. No way to finally win his parents' affection, years after he’d already decided it was impossible. But that was his mom. Always planting fragile seeds of hope only to yank them out at their roots.
“It’s funny, ‘cause like, I used to think they were actually proud of me then. That somehow, my parents would be proud of something I had done that had nothing to do with whatever plans they had for me. Sure, I knew they cared because it involved the Council and the Alicorns, but still. My mom tucked me into bed. I don’t even think I can remember two other times that happened. Of course, Mommy Dearest was just using me.” The fathomlethes loosened his tongue. Unglued his teeth and made him a babbling fountain. Made the shadows in the kitchen look like a blanket he could wrap around himself as he stupidly said, “It’s fucked up that that’s become almost comforting. Her manipulating me is more familiar than her being nice. I’ve gotten so used to it when she’s awful that that’s when it feels the most like she’s my mom.”
The vegetables sizzled in the oil. Keefe wished he could burn with them.
Ro blew out a hard breath. “You’ve had one messed up life.”
A laugh jerked out of him. What an understatement. What a small phrase to sum up infinite pain. “You’re telling me. I’d be better off as an alicorn.”
Ro’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? You’d rather be a sparkly horse?”
“Yeah,” Keefe laughed, transferred the final batch of cooked vegetables, and added the last toss of seasoning. “I’d be all like…” He leaned down to put his hands on his knees and blew air through his pursed lips, mimicking Silveny’s whiney. The noise made him crack up even more. Ro stared at him like he was crazy and the urge to take the joke further crashed into him. He put his hands on the floor and galloped forward, causing Ro to trip backward into the counter. Part of him knew he would never do this sober but the fathomlethes make it easy to indulge. It was one of the reasons he took them so much; when the high was good, it felt good .
Ro kicked a foot out to stop him after a few gallops. “Enough Hunkyhorse. You’re not actually an alicorn.”
It was stupid, but the words stopped him short. “Yeah, I know,” he said, getting up off the floor. The lump that appeared in the back of his throat made it difficult to talk.
That was the worst part about Empathy. Neverending intensity, like being on a vorinator you could never get off. The highs were high, the lows were lows, and they were only a half-step away from each other. Ecstatic became depressed became furious became exhilarated within seconds.
Each Empath handled it differently. Keefe preferred purging; dumping extreme emotions in private once the buildup spilled over. Some of the worst fights Keefe and his father had was when Keefe had spent too long in the tornado, amped up and primed to blow, directly in the path of another Empath in the same boat.
Admittedly, the fathomlethes weren’t very helpful for taking the edge off. Keefe was likely to vomit if he touched Ro, the addition of her emotions enough to destroy his stomach. She knew this, after a close call that ended with Keefe shoveling sand out of his bedroom window, and stayed seated on a stool safely across the kitchen while he wiped tears from his eyes.
“Don’t be so pouty. Your life wouldn’t be better if you were a horse. You’d have to eat grass and poop in public.”
Keefe rolled his eyes. Plated Ro’s food and passed off her dish. Plated his and resisted the urge to throw it across the room. His fingers twitched at the thought. “I guess. But if I were an Alicorn, I’d have Silveny as a mom.”
She was so caring with Wynn and Luna. Doting and watchful, occasionally frustrated with their antics but no less loving for it. There were no ulterior motives, no mind games. Grady, Edaline, and Sophie cared for them – no more scavenging for food or dodging danger. It was the happy childhood Keefe spent his whole life wishing for from outside the windows of Everglen, but with wings.
“I know your mom is, well, your mom,” Ro said without apology between bites, “but no way she’s worse than a horse.”
“Uh, I would say so, yeah.”
“Huh. I guess I just can’t imagine wanting someone else to be my parents.”
Yay for her. Keefe could think of ten people off the top of his head.
“Well, congrats on your stellar childhood. We should give your dad another crown: King of Ogres and Fatherhood. We can even engrave it on his underwear.”
“Ew, don’t talk about my dad’s underwear. And I’ve told you a million times, he wears it because he’s tough, unlike you elves.”
“Who beat him in a spar again? Oh right. This guy!” He flexed his arms, posing for a crowd of one. Ro gave him a decidedly unimpressed look. Her loss.
“Please. You wouldn’t last a minute with him if he were really trying.” Which was what Ro always said when they had this argument.
Keefe spread his arms. “Hey, I’m around whenever he wants a rematch.”
“I’ll let him know,” Ro said dryly. “Maybe once you fix your counter-cut. It would be embarrassing for me if you dropped your sword mid-spar.”
Swordfighting lessons had become a staple in their routine. Group ones after Foxfire, spread out on Everglen’s lawn trying not to stab each other. Grizel and Louvise were decent teachers and despite the serious reason behind the practice, it almost reminded Keefe of long afternoons of playing tackle bramble with Fitz and Alvar. The memories were bittersweet, just like Keefe assumed these would become, but it was nice nonetheless. A sign that not all the changes in his life had to be sanity-shattering.
After that practice was long hours with Ro, who had strong opinions on Grizel and Louvise’s teaching. Therefore, it was up to her to whip Keefe into a “real warrior” no matter how long it took or how much he begged her for a break. He hated to admit it – and probably never would to Ro’s face, she was smug enough already – but the training did make a difference. It was easier and easier to disarm Fitz and Dex during practice. The sword was finally an extension of his arm.
The development was disquieting if he thought about it long enough, raising unspoken questions about his legacy. Best not to think about it. Keefe easily double-timed as the Lord of Pranks and Denial.
They ate in silence for a while. It was easy to become lost in the mechanics of chewing, the press of his checks, and the curling of his tongue. Logically, he knew that he had no nerves in his teeth. He couldn’t taste the food that way. Still, the flavors seeped in. Salty and spicy popped in the blues and greens of the kitchen backsplash.
Normally, it was easy for Keefe to ignore how his senses crossed, twisting up together until he was smelling sounds and tasting colors. Tripping on fathomlethes, the world became a tangled mess of sensations that were hard to disengage from. If he had to guess, Keefe probably spent five solid minutes with his fork in his mouth just to experience the metal.
He wondered if his mother had similar thoughts while in prison. Did she touch the metal bars, channeling strength in hopes of bending the cell? Was their cold infecting? Tainting the soiled ground, making it impossible to sleep?
Did she worry about him in all those long hours?
“Do you think my mom cares about me?”
It was a cruel question. He knew it was. What do you say to that? How do you tell a teenage boy that the answer was infinitely more complicated and much, much simpler than it should be?
Ro froze. Fork midway to her mouth, greens perched precariously enough to fall if left for a second more. It took three blinks for her to put her hand down. “It doesn’t matter. Your mom probably cares more about you than anyone else on the planet – except for maybe your pretty little Blondie. But whatever creepy feelings she’s got for you isn’t the good kind of caring. And it’s not the kind you want to dwell on.”
“Well, at least she feels something,” the hurt kid that lived in Keefe’s chest said. The one whose father screamed at him while his mother stood watching without a word. “That’s more than I usually get.”
“That’s not true.”
“She got me a bodyguard,” Keefe pointed out. “Everybody knew the Neverseen were after me. Dex, Fitz, and Biana all got Goblins. Nobody breathed a word about protecting me. Just left me to fend for myself hiding in Alvar’s old place. But my mom got King Dimitar to give me protection – give me you. Isn’t that what love’s supposed to be?”
“No,” Ro said firmly. “Not when she’s the reason you need protecting.”
How the fuck is he supposed to know that, he wanted to yell. The people who were supposed to teach him couldn’t be bothered to talk to him most days. There was no good or bad love, only messy, toxic attention that left him shivering and scratched and bleeding. Love was shattered glasses and flipped tables. Frigid silences and gaping neediness. Shaken shoulders and shredded notebooks. Love in the Sencen household was a fight, ever-raging and so, so exhausting.
Keefe opened his mouth, not sure what was going to come out.
The sound of a switch flipping echoed. Wisps of light stretched from the direction of the master bedroom.
“Go to bed,” Ro said. “I’ll clean up here.”
Keefe swallowed around his dry throat. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now, shoo before Lord Jerkface gets here. And don’t even think about taking any more of those pearl-thingy’s. You’re high enough already.”
He bobbed his head. “Aye, aye Captain.”
Shuffling down the hall, Keefe pretended not to hear Ro’s rough sigh behind him. It was only another in a lifetime of disappointment.