Private Tales Shadows of the Absent

The corridors of the College were quiet at this hour - too quiet for his liking. Calixtus’s boots clicked against the flagstones as he moved, the sound crisp and deliberate, as though it might keep his thoughts from circling back to the one truth he couldn’t ignore.

Emrys was gone.

No word, no letter, no trace of his brother’s precision or pride. The Blodwyns were treating it as a family matter, which of course meant burying it beneath layers of silence and reputation. Calixtus, however, was not nearly so patient.

He reached the study hall where Bliss Gradimir was known to haunt late into the evening. For a long moment he stood there, jaw set, before rapping his knuckles lightly against the doorframe.

“Gradimir,” he called, voice smooth but edged with something taut beneath it. “You’re always so desperately buried in busy, I expected to find you sleeping on the table.”

He stepped inside without waiting for permission, gloved hands clasped neatly behind his back. His tone was dismissive, even bored, though his eyes flickered with something restless.

“I require… a consultation.” The pause between words was almost imperceptible, but it was there. It was a rare hesitation.

“Of a magical nature. Discreet, naturally.”

He didn’t meet her gaze just yet. Better to control the narrative before she could sink her teeth into it.

“My brother has been called away on… business. Some matters of his office remain unresolved. I need another set of eyes on them.”

The lie was flimsy, transparent even - but he delivered it with such smooth arrogance that it nearly sounded believable. Nearly.

Calixtus’s jaw tightened at her jest, though the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested it might have struck closer to the truth than he’d have liked to admit. He inclined his head slightly, a gesture that might have been acknowledgment or dismissal.

“Humbled is hardly the word,” he replied, the words smooth but dry as chalk.

He drew in a slow breath, the sort that bought him time. His gaze flicked briefly to the table she’d so neatly tidied, then back to her with something like approval.

“I need another perspective,” he went on at last.

A pause, and his voice dropped, quieter, edged with reluctant honesty.
“And before you start smirking, I require your discretion. .”


His brother's study was locked. Calixtus lifted a key from his tunic. It wasn't normal for a student to have a key to a maester's chambers, in fact it was against a number of college rules.

Calixtus opened the door and waited for her to enter. Inside was a mess. Emrys' chamber had never looked like this. Parchments had been tossed across the floor. A case had been shattered to splinters.

Bliss would hear the clunk of the door being locked again from the inside.

"As I said, a delicate matter."

Calixtus stilled beneath her touch. For a moment, he did not speak, only stared at the half-emptied shelves and the faint layer of dust that dulled their familiar gleam.

“It isn’t like him,” he said at last, his voice low and flat. The words slipped out before he could restrain them. “Emrys never leaves a room in disarray. Even his chaos was methodical.”

He stepped further into the study, gloved fingers tracing the edge of a desk still cluttered with open tomes and abandoned quills. The sight unsettled him more than he wished to admit. There were no signs of struggle, no overt violence, but there was absence. Purposeful absence.

When Bliss spoke again, his jaw tightened.

Trust me.

The words hung heavy in the air, pressing against something he kept barricaded deep within. She was just a means to an end, he reminded himself.

“He’s vanished before on research trips, private commission. But never without a trace, never without leaving someone a note.”

He turned to her then, finally meeting her gaze. His eyes, pale and sharp, betrayed a flicker of unease.

“The family would rather the matter stay quiet. Appearances must be kept, after all. I can’t trust them to look beyond the scandal of it.”

He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head once before stepping closer to one of the desks. A faint shimmer caught his eye - a charm seal, half-faded and incomplete. He crouched, examining it.

Straightening, he looked back to Bliss, the mask slipping just enough to show the weight behind his words.
“You wanted to know the truth, Gradimir. Now you’ll help me find it.”

Calixtus drew a slow breath, his gaze moving over the chamber as though expecting his brother to step out from behind one of the shelves at any moment.

"Three days ago," he began, voice subdued but clipped, each word carefully chosen. "He was meant to deliver his lecture on transpositional ley matrices. I went to fetch him from his quarters, only to find this."

He gestured toward the room. The gesture was measured and restrained, but his fingers twitched slightly as though the memory itself irritated him.

"I thought at first he’d gone to the archives or the observatory, but no one had seen him. His notes were left behind."

"He was working on something before he vanished, something he refused to share with me." He hesitated, then added quietly,

"Said it concerned one of the College’s sealed archives. Forbidden texts."

He straightened again, the familiar sharpness creeping back into his expression as though to smother whatever had almost surfaced. She would see that hint of vulnerability and care for his brother. Calixtus was frightened.

"That’s all I know for now. You said you would help me, Gradimir. Then start by telling me, if someone were hiding a presence from magical trace, how would you find them?"

Calixtus stiffened as her arms came around him. The embrace caught him off guard, and for a moment he stood perfectly still, unsure what to do with the warmth pressed against his shoulder. It was easier to face spellcraft and study than this quiet, human sort of comfort.

Yet, slowly, his hands lifted, uncertain at first, and came to rest against her back. The tension in his shoulders eased. He drew a breath that trembled more than he wished it to. When she finally stepped back, his expression was a careful mask once more, though something softer flickered behind his eyes.

"You need not apologise," he said quietly. "Just help me make sense of this. I requested your help. You only need help me."

He straightened himself out. He followed her gaze as she scanned the room, his brow furrowing at the question.

"Herbs?" he repeated, moving to one of the shelves. His fingers brushed along a row of small glass jars, some labelled in his brother’s neat script, others marked only by faint traces of dust where something had recently been taken.

"He kept a few for alchemical preparations. Nothing unusual. Rue, sage, crushed ironwort. He was not in the habit of working with organic reagents unless his research demanded it."

He turned back toward her, curiosity sparking behind the guarded composure.

"What are you thinking, Gradimir?"