Word Count: 1583

Yvoire reached the end of the bridge in a dream—the jumbled kind he couldn’t always make sense of, where faint music weaved through discordant voices and the images distorted before he could piece them together. Blood stained the stone at his feet the way it stained the stone in the haunted grove beneath the cathedral, dripping down the sides into the water below. Fire burned, reducing buildings to rubble. Smoke hung heavy in the air, but Yvoire had no trouble breathing. He stared through it, heart racing, as the screams rose and fell all around him.

Ellie! Ellie, please don’t let them do this!

The smoke parted, wispy tendrils peeling away to reveal the path before him. Reims stood where bridge met shore, but it wasn’t the boy Yvoire knew. Yvoire skidded to a halt, caught within the depths of stern blue eyes. The beat of his heart hammered away, pulsing at his wrists, his throat, pounding in his ears loud enough to drown out the screams.

The man was tall and broad, his shoulders accentuated by the very same cape Riker had not yet fully grown into. Neither young nor old, the man’s handsome face seemed prematurely lined—by stress, by grief, by fear masked beneath composure. His gaze tracked over Yvoire slowly, from his loose hair all the way down to the bows on his boots. Then he peered more closely into Yvoire’s face, eyes flicking from one feature to the next like he was searching for something familiar.

Ellie! Ellie!

“... Evie…”

The image dissolved. First the bridge, then the burning city with its grand cathedral. Reims lingered through the curling smoke, one gloved hand lost within the black mane of a familiar winged lion. He was the last to fade, blue eyes locked on teal as the smoke thickened until it obscured everything.

Yvoire blinked once, twice, lashes fluttering as his senses returned to him one by one. Warm water surrounded him, seeping through his clothes, dampening his hair. The smoke of his dreams became steam, undulating through the moist air. Yvoire shifted and tried to rise, but a burning ache below his waistline halted the movement before he could lift himself any further. His breath caught. Yvoire groaned and settled back again, staring up into the high stone ceiling of the healing springs at Sessrumnir.

A familiar face appeared above him, sliding into view as the figure beside him leaned into his field of vision. Golden curls framed a smooth face. The symbol of Ganymede glowed bright at the center of her forehead. She sat along the edge of the pool, her boots discarded, feet and lower legs submerged in the water. Her eyes trailed over Yvoire’s face the way Reims’ had, but her red lips curved into a faint smile.

Yvoire exhaled into the steam.

“I think I died,” he said, voice rough and raw the way it sometimes was after a long, deep sleep.

“So I heard,” Ganymede replied.

Later, the memories would torment him, creep into his days uninvited and invade his dreams each night, but they seemed distant in safety, temporarily obscured by the more recent images of a bloody bridge, a burning city, and blue eyes which seemed both foreign and familiar.

Yvoire stared listlessly, sore body relaxing into the water. The last time he’d needed the springs, Reims had been in the water and Yvoire had sat in a chair brought to the water’s edge. Yvoire tipped his head in search of Reims but found only Ganymede.

“He’ll be back soon,” Ganymede said, like she knew exactly where his thoughts had gone. “He’s checking on everyone else.”

“Are they—”

“They’re fine,” she told him before he could finish asking, putting a hand to his hair like she might need to stop him from moving. “Everyone made it out alive. They’re resting, or healing, or both.”

Yvoire knew he should be relieved, but the truth was he had no idea what any of his friends had to recover from and so he felt only confusion. The events of the basement had occurred so quickly the memories of it were a jumble of strange sounds and disjointed images in his mind. Snarling youma. Reims’ scarf. Splitting wood and the twang of strings. A pair of eyes over a mask. The crack of bone as a boot met Reims’ ribs. Then pain and blood and darkness. Yvoire remembered running the length of the bridge. He remembered being ripped away from it, then staring into a bright white star as tears dripped down Reims’ face.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

He’d seen Sessrumnir’s and Alastor’s faces at the Celestial Theatre, but not hers. Yvoire had been conscious long enough to recognize the shift from theatre to springs—Reims’ arms around him, holding him steady; Reims’ eyes stained red along the edges, brightening each iris.

The rest blurred and darkened. Yvoire didn’t remember being put into the water. He didn’t know who had called Ganymede, or when she’d arrived, or how much time had passed since he was last conscious.

“I ran,” Ganymede said.

She offered no further explanation. Yvoire stared up at her, too dazed and tired to know what clarification to ask for. He only knew some part of it was missing, some piece to a puzzle he wasn’t sure how to put together. He blinked once, slow and sluggish, searching her face through the haze of steam and patchwork memories.

Her features never wavered. Her hair remained golden, curls more defined in the humidity. Her eyes remained turquoise, lined by magic make up, her lashes long and dark, lips as red as her collar, her skirt, the jewel at her throat. Yvoire let her image become unfocused, but neither the shape nor the colors changed. He never saw Liesel in her the way he sometimes saw another Reims in Riker. None of the scattered memories he’d seen at Yvoire or Reims included a different Ganymede.

“What was his name?” Yvoire asked. He knew there were other concerns to resolve after that night, but he couldn’t think beyond the man at the bridge long enough to center any of the rest in his awareness. “Reims. In the past. What was his name?’’

Ganymede’s smile tensed, then lowered into a frown. Gentle fingers stroked a few strands of hair off his forehead. After Énna had learned he was Yvoire, Ganymede had become evasive about the past. He knew only minor details—a few names; the location of the capital; a relation between them which no longer existed. It’s important for you to remember for yourself, she always told him, averting her eyes to the glowing line across her palm. Yvoire wasn’t sure he understood the point, but he thought it might have something to do with that pure, bright light. Ganymede had the protection of her homeworld. Chaos couldn’t touch her starseed. Maybe she feared depriving him of the opportunity if she interfered too much with the bond between Yvoire and his wonder.

Whatever she saw on his face now must have convinced her to lower her guard.

“His name was Gabriel.”

“Gabriel,” Yvoire said, trying the name for himself. He’d never met a Gabriel before so the name felt new. He let it roll through his thoughts, attaching it to blue eyes, dark hair, and a pair of gloved hands holding a gleaming crown. “Did he love me?”

He remembered a strong arm slipping around him, catching him as he tripped. Watch your step. He remembered the shift of a dark cape, wide shoulders blocking his view of the screaming girl on the stone slab. Please, Ellie! If he closed his eyes and sank into the abyss between past and present, he caught flashes of dark hair splayed over white sheets; sunlight streamed through a window, warming bare skin. No one can know. Do you understand?

Yes.

Yvoire blinked and returned to the springs. He gazed up at Ganymede, who gazed down at him with an expression that could only be described as complicated. Her frown had become pensive, maybe disapproving. She swallowed down her first thought and refrained from speaking until her faint smile came naturally again.

“He was protective,” she said, “like Reims is now.”

Stained glass rose and met another blade somewhere in Yvoire’s memory. Blood dripped from a wound on Reims’ neck, staining the collar of his shirt red like his eyes. A boot connected with Reims’ chest, sending him flying. Something tore across Yvoire’s middle, spilling warmth down his thighs. A hand wrapped around his throat, cutting off his supply of toxic air. Reims’ scarf shifted around his face; Yvoire fell with the scarf beneath his cheek, soft and warm and sweet in the darkness.

Then the bridge, and the figure on the shore—Gabriel and the lion framed by the remnants of a ruined city.

“The past can be important,” Ganymede told him, “but you still have to live in the present.”

Yvoire knew the truth in it, and in this: he was lucky to be alive at all.

Water lapped at his chest, his shoulders. Steam rippled through the air. Distant voices reached his ears now—low murmurs and quiet whispers, interspersed with soft crying. Mary. Effie. A deeper tone from somewhere that might belong to Sessrumnir. Then another voice further away.

Reims…

Sunlight through stained glass. The rustle of wings. Blue eyes in a grim face. A glimmering crown.

Yvoire closed his eyes and let himself drift—in, out, but not away.