Private Tales Shadows of the Absent

[Calixtus]

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.

 

[Bliss]

She had known Calixtus for a few short months by now, and despite how their earlier lessons together were full of getting beneath one another's skin, they both came to the realisation they both wanted the same thing. To succeed in their academic endeavours when it came to learning about magic.

Bliss hated that a sort of friendship, without the actuality of being friends, had developed. That he knew where to find her, and trapped there at her table, surrounded by several books open for referencing, Calixtus found her.

She had been in the middle of reading a sentence, hoping to finish it before tuning into what Calixtus had been saying, but her train of thought was leaving her to listen to his voice.

Her eyes removed itself from her book, watching Calixtus.

Just as he knew where to find her, Bliss had learned how to begin reading his impassiveness. He was averting his gaze, when she knew the young man to arm any requests or favours with steady eye contact.

"Your... brother? The Maester?" She sat up straight, the stretch causing her to lift her arms high and let out a yawn. Bliss covered her mouth, letting the yawn drag out before she could relax.

"Well... what sort of matters?" Should she pack up her things? Her eyes dropped to her notes page before her, chewing her bottom lip as she weighed her options. If Calixtus wanted her urgently to go with him, he would have demanded it. Bliss would have snapped back with something to frustrate him and take her time... but this Calixtus was hiding something.

Without wanting to make him suspect she was trying to figure out more about him, Bliss began to pack her things. A low, murmured spell had all the pages stack neatly, and the stopper to her inkwell set itself back in place. Her books all closed, ribbons keeping her place between the pages, and then placed back into her book bag.

She sluing the long strap over her shoulder as she stood and pushed out her chair. "Well... I suppose I should be flattered you thought to ask me for help. I am sure your first attempt at understanding your Maester brother's work humbled you." It was unlike him to be so... dignified with her. Bliss offered him a smile, hoping her jest would bring him back to his usual self.

 

[Calixtus]

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."

 

[Bliss]

It felt cheap to try and fill the silence with banter and soft insult as he lead her towards the Maester's study. Bliss had been here only once, after the Maester had invited her to meet with him and that he could ask a favour of her. That was only a few months ago, that he would like his brother to learn under her thorough tutelage.

And here she was now, walking behind Calixtus to enter the study.

It looked morose, as if without the occupant going about the room, it had turned from the warmly lit interiors to this cold and dreary aspect. There was no life to it at all, even amongst the littering of papers and disheveled bits and pieces.

Bliss turned to Calixtus, her brows furrowing deeply.

"Calixtus..." Still he did not look to her. Her hand grabbed his arm and pulled at it, hoping he would at least meet her searching gaze. "Is the Maester in trouble?"

The study looked almost ransacked, but there was still a particular neatness to it all. As if someone were in a desperate hurry, and nothing looked too out of place or ruined.

"You can trust me..." Bliss tried to soften her face. "Please, I swear I will help you and of course I will be discreet..."

But she needed to know more information. Know what Calixtus knew, what he tried to do to make sense of it all.

 

[Calixtus]

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.”

 

[Bliss]

All she could do was watch Calixtus, for never had she seen him like this. In all their time spent together to work on their arcane arts, Bliss never witnessed anything resembling love from Calixtus for his Maester brother. Then again... the Blodwyn's had their unique way of acting in public, Bliss wasn't sure if they could even feel or express the emotion.

She saw the way Calixtus cared for Emrys in the way he was worried, masked of course, but the unease, the appeal for her help...

It made her want to help him. To succeed in finding Maester Blodwyn.

"Of course." She nodded slowly, peering around the mess. "Alright, then. Tell me when you started to suspect not all was right."

What did he see? What did he do to investigate? What spells had he casted? She needed to be on the same page as him, to read his account of the events and plan how to go on from there.

 

[Calixtus]

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?"

 

[Bliss]

Her heart ached at the thought of ever losing any of her brothers.

She too would do anything to find her own closure, to be active about searching for answers.

Bliss watched Calixtus as he spoke, careful to not miss a word or beat. This was unlike him, even as he tried to hold onto whatever mask the Blodwyn's were born with, Bliss could see his wits slowly coming undone. The way he looked to her, spoke to her so bluntly, she could hear the desperation it masked.

Without really thinking of hit, her instinct had been to launch herself at him and envelope him into a hug. She squeezed, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I'm sorry Calixtus." She murmured, muffled. "I'm sorry you are going through this and I am going to help you."

She had been insistent to not consider him a friend, not until this moment where he came to her for her help. That... that was something friends would do, and she without any doubt agreed to help him, not because Maester Blodwyn was one of her favourites to attend classes for, but for Calixtus.

A step back and she looked up at him with determined eyes.

"Every spell has a trace, even one used to conceal any casting. It sounds to me you tried a spell already, and that it did not work... so then we turn to other methods." She peered around, brows furrowing. "Does your brother keep herbs?"

 

[Calixtus]

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?"

 

[Bliss]

"Oh... right..."

She clicked her tongue and looked around the space and did not see anything useful to her now. Bliss closed her eyes and brought her hands in front of her. One hand over the other, palms turned upwards. An incantation spilled from her lips, well spoken and repeated over three times before her face strained with effort.

Within seconds, a wooden box appeared in her hands, and Bliss put her bottom hand on top of it to keep it from falling.

"I am sure the botany green houses will not mind." She gave him a weak smile before setting the box down on a space of the desk that was level. From the kit, Bliss plucked three leaves and murmured another spell. The fresh leaves began to dry and curl up, and she grabbed the mortar and pestle she saw on a shelf nearby, bringing it back to her temporary space.

Combining the herbs, she crushed it all to a fine powder.

"Here, hold this for me? Let us start from the door and sprinkle this down..."

 

[Calixtus]

Calixtus blinked, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the wooden box and the quiet authority with which Bliss commanded the space. Her focus drew his eyes, the precision in her movements holding a kind of discipline that reminded him of his brother’s demonstrations. The true surprise was that she must have just broken some. Rules.

He took the offered mixture. It wasn’t how he would have approached an investigation, but something in her confidence held him still. He

"You intend to trace the last use of magic in the room," he said. His tone carried a touch of reluctant admiration, though he did his best to disguise it behind his usual composure. He wouldn't have known where to even start.

He moved toward the door as she’d instructed, careful not to spill the powder. The pale dust shimmered faintly in the low light, its colour shifting between green and silver as it caught the air.

"If this actually works, Gradimir," he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder at her, "I may have to start listening to you more often. Just... do not tell anyone I said that."

 

[Bliss]

Bliss snorted, following him towards the door. With her hands free, she was able to pinch the dust and began softly sifting it as she walked a few steps into the room. She was recreating natural paths one would take when entering, starting towards the desk. The dust floated, but ultimately settled onto the wooden floor.

"You should listen to me. Your brother is a Maester, and I learned so much from him." She frowned, worry setting in only a little. "Last I saw Maester Blodwyn was after class, two days ago. He had inquired if... you were doing well, and I said that you were." Calixtus earned that recognition. He was far advanced that his classmates, all because of her help. "He mentioned he hoped to teach you some family magic one day..."

And that, she was not privy to learning about either. Bliss had not been aware the Blodwyns had magic passed along like the Gradimirs were strong in defensive magic. She would not press about it, not until they were closer to something.

"Alright... perhaps towards the bookshelves." Bliss returned to Calixtus to grab another pinch of dusting. As she walked, she let the dust fall, and after a few seconds, the dust stayed. Some moved to show a possible path, hanging and suspended, it was clear magic still held a trace there.

She widened her blue eyes and stared at Calixtus. Bliss dared not to breathe.

 

[Calixtus]

For a moment, Calixtus simply stared at the suspended dust, the way it hung in the air as if caught on invisible threads. He could feel the magic at work, even if he didn't understand it.

He stepped toward her with slow, cautious movements, as if afraid a single stray exhale might break whatever fragile trace lingered in the room. His eyes flicked from the drifting pattern to Bliss herself and something like awe sharpened his features.

"That is not residual casting," he said under his breath. "Something active passed through here. Recently."

His gaze tracked the suspended trail with an intensity that bordered on reverence. For the first time in hours he looked less like a boy burying panic and more like the student prodigy his family wanted him to be.

He crouched slightly, examining the dust’s faint glow.

"This is no trace of my brother’s hand," he murmured. "This..."

He stood, eyes narrowing as the pieces began to turn behind them.

"This feels colder. Sharper. Someone else was in this room. A violent spell."

His jaw tightened as the lingering dust gave a angry, orange glow before they fell.

"Bliss..." His voice softened, unguarded. "Can you follow it? Tell me where it leads?"

There was no arrogance now, no posturing.
Just trust.

And fear he could not hide.

 

[Bliss]

"You are right." The way the dust remained so still gave away the nature of magic that was used her. Her hand moved towards it, just lightly resting fingertips to it and she withdrew with a jolt. Unfamiliar casting and the aggression put into the spell... it was unlike Maester Blodwyn's magic. His magic was similar to Calixtus', how there was a finery to it's strength.

Bliss took a larger handful of the fine dust she had made. To touch the herbs with magic to create more, or to bolster it, would simply make it ineffective in their current use. She cradled her hands together and blew into the hole created and watched as the dust spread forth. As it caught on a line of magic, she began to follow it.

After a few minutes, Bliss had mapped out every trajectory of magic used. It became hard to breath, for out of the eight spells used, only three of them had not belonged to Maester Blodwyn.

"Calixtus..." How could she tell him her brother was bested? That each dust of herb clung in such a way, it showed her a story of what had happened. "I suspect this spell here, was the last to be cast. The books... the shelve that was snapped... I believe your brother was blown backwards with such a force that he was not able to recover on his own. He would have been taken."

And given all the defenses surrounding this college, it could not have been an outsider. This had been done by someone invited, someone familiar of the College.

 

[Calixtus]

Calixtus watched her work in absolute silence. With each new arc of dust illuminated, each line of suspended shimmer showing angles of impact and intent, his stomach tightened further.

He had always known Bliss was thorough, but seeing her unravel spellwork as if it were a tapestry thread by thread left him struck by admiration. He tried to push such feelings down. Not only were they beneath him but they had more important matters to deal with.

I believe your brother was blown backwards with such a force that he was not able to recover on his own. He would have been taken."

When she finally spoke something in his chest clenched.

"Taken," he repeated, barely above a whisper. His brother could already be dead.

"This caught him by surprise..."

His jaw tightened hard enough that a muscle jumped in his cheek.

He swallowed, anger beginning to kindle under the fear.

"This was deliberate. Calculated."

He took a single, steadying breath.

"Is there any way to follow them?"

 

[Bliss]

She had never seen him this unraveled before and it made her want to comfort him again. To embrace him and promise to help, that they will find his brother. Doing that once was strange enough, but she knew all he needed right now was her leading the discovery of what happened. Bliss gave him a weak smile.

"I... have a way. I need a book from the library to help me with the incantations, but... only if you are alright with giving some blood?" She gave him a sheepish look before going to explain. "Your family is all accounted for and safe, they are doing nothing to help... but I know of a spell that can link bloodlines."

And even though she had heard many scandals with other merchant houses, Bliss could not doubt Calixtus and Emrys Blodwyn were directly related. There was no doubt about it when they were seen side by side. His blood will help find a direction of area Emrys was taken.

"We just need... the book, a knife, and parchment and ink..."