Feargus

Zacharias Vonsinfonie was surprisingly nimble for someone who'd been asleep for centuries. Sometimes after a good eight, nine hours (rare, but it happened), I'd wake up with a kink in my neck or an uncomfortable pull in my side. But the man sat up and climbed his way out of that casket like it was nothing. I offered him my hand, but he didn't take it. Getting out was the easy part, though. Once he landed his feet on the ground, he had a bit of a wobble on account of the bad leg. I pretended not to notice, and he fished his cane out of the coffin, turning his stern, amber gaze in my direction.

He was shorter than Vincent but still a lot taller than I was.

Found him, woke him, now what? I felt a layer of sweat forming on my forehead, so I wiped it with my forearm, and I found my attention drifting to his fingers.

He wore two rings: a simple silver one, and a big gold one with an emerald in it. It looked exactly like the amethyst ring I'd seen in the hatch under the rug in Leberecht.

After spinning it around a few times, Zacharias removed the silver ring and placed it in the casket. He was still staring, and he still hadn't answered me.

Interesting tidbit: the silver ring wasn't keeping Zacharias asleep. The silver ring dampened his passive powers so he didn't expend them needlessly while he slept, and therefore, he wouldn't need to consume as much or as often to fuel his active powers. The small amount of silver wasn't enough to fizzle him completely, let's be real. So, as you might remember from The First One, Rhian removed his rings right before he woke up. But it wasn't because of the rings. It was because he was being robbed. And because…

Well, someone had to make the first move, so I flashed a smile and dipped at the waist in a respectful bow. The man was a legend—literally. He probably expected some level of adulation. But all he did was raise an eyebrow, still staring.

I held a hand out. "Jack Finnegan."

"Feargus Finlay," he corrected, and I wished he would do it again. His voice was deep and cavernous, and it echoed off the walls. I felt it rumble in awkward places.

Ivana wasn't kidding.

"Fair play," I answered, retracting my hand. The stories always made the brothers seem so flamboyant, but the thirtyish-year-old man I was looking at just seemed sad.

"I've been wondering," I said, "what's a group of Anima called?"

It took a second, but the answer came with a straight face. "An auditorium of Anima."

"That flows nicely off the tongue, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Zacharias replied. "Now, are you done?"

I wished I were, and boy was my mouth ever dry. I'd dealt with all manner of people before, but Zacharias Vonsinfonie was in a category of his own—but wait, no. Actually, he wasn't. My good mate Vincent Delestade was in the same category, wasn't he?

"It's not every day an ordinary Partisan like me meets someone of your station," I said. "Would you mind indulging me for a little while?"

Zacharias tap, tapped his way over to me, and then past me. At that end of the room, there was a staircase leading up, but the exit at the top was entirely walled in. I didn't clock any secret mechanisms, and I wondered where we were. Somewhere near Oskari, I supposed. The composer had a sit on the stairs, and he patted the space beside him.

I smiled graciously and sat. "I'd expected you'd have a beard."

"I could never bear facial hair. An unnecessary irritant."

"So, you keep a razor in there with you, or how's that work?"

"Of all the questions you could ask, that's what you wish to know?"

It most certainly was, at least for now.

The composer slouched forward, resting his arms on his thighs. "My hair doesn't grow."

"Is it like that for all Anima?"

"We are what we were, and I was meticulous about personal grooming and aesthetics. My reanimation forced my appearance into a state of perpetuity."

I reached over and fixed a few stray hairs in his otherwise surprisingly intact 'do.

He raised an eyebrow at me again.

What. A. Fox.

Found him, woke him, now what? "You all right, mate? You seem a bit down."

He nodded. "And you? A bit down?"

I nodded. "We can talk it out if you like."

Zacharias regarded me for a solid twenty-three seconds. "I've indulged your questions, Blessed One. Now I wish to go back to sleep."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Look, Zack—can I call you Zack?" No answer, but he didn't seem a man who cared about much at the minute. I was savvy to that, though. Rhian was a professional at pretending not to care when she cared too much. "I'm here to ask you to go home."

"Then you've wasted both our time."

"I could kill you," I said, pulling a page out of the book of Rhian.

He turned his head sharply toward me.

"I mean, you're done, right? You're just packing it in, planning to sleep for another four hundred years?"

He didn't look at all surprised by the revelation, but his eyes narrowed.

"So," I continued, "let me do you a solid. I've got silver bolts."

"Death is a mercy I don't deserve."

"Why would you say that? You're strawberry rhubarb pie. You're a legend."

"I'm—what?"

"It's a long story I'm not entirely familiar with, but I can't say your name."

Zacharias dropped his head into his hands, weaving his hair between his fingers. "Avis," he said. "When did you meet her?"

"I don't think I know an Avis."

"Tall, unreasonably stunning brunette with expressive eyes and a—" Zacharias reached into his suit jacket and produced a small piece of paper from the inside pocket. The paper had an image pressed into it—I'd never seen anything like it. But the woman in the picture was definitely stunning. I recognized her straightaway.

"Aye," I said. "She and her mates gave me this whistle." I showed the whistle. "Why do you have her picture in your pocket?"

"Avis is my wife."

"And you don't want to go home?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"You'd be surprised what I understand."

Zacharias regarded me for a moment, but he didn't reply.

"Look, a number of reputable folk seem to think you're the one who can help, so whether you believe so or not, you're needed up there."

"Help?" he said wryly.

"My mates are about to be sent out here to deal with some lunatic Anima. They're going to be in over their heads, and the best part? I know everything, but at the same time, I know nothing, and I can't tell them anything. Not only because I literally can't, but I also literally can't. I just have to—I just have to figure it all out, right? Alone. And here I am, humbly asking you to rejoin the world so my friends don't die. I think."

It all just came pouring out, and I'm not sure what I was expecting, but—

Zacharias Vonsinfonie buried his face in his hands and started crying. Like, big, heavy sobs kind of crying. I put my arm around him and let him go for a while.

Technically, I knew why he was crying. Delilah had given me the rundown on the brothers' story. I just couldn't remember any of it after being wiped. So, you can imagine at the time I was more than a little perplexed. But it wasn't for long.

Zacharias confessed everything. I mean, everything. You think you've heard it all, but you haven't.

"Our parents were awful," he said. "Father was always drunk and our mother was oblivious, and we—well, I was scared, all the time. He would turn his anger on Sebastian—our father. Me, at first, but my brother was born more damaged than I was, he—I couldn't do anything to protect him other than to pretend it wasn't happening. To absorb his fear, and convince my brother that our father loved us, and that we were special."

I nodded and rubbed his back.

He went on to tell me all about the making of the Vonsinfonie brothers, and the unspeakable abuse they both suffered as children from the adults they were supposed to trust. They only had each other, and then eventually, Avis, too.

"She deserved better," he said. "By the time we were engaged, I was suffering six—seven panic episodes a day. I was tired of the road. I was tired of the people, the endless performance. I wanted it all to end. But my brother—"

"I don't know much about candied lemons, but it sounds like you were very close. And bonded through a lot of trauma. Just like me and my sister."

"Candied lemons…"

I shrugged helplessly.

"Sebastian thrived in our lifestyle. Every moment at his best."

He would, I reckoned. Vincent Delestade was the most enigmatic man I'd ever met. But I could relate. Rhian had always wanted to defect more than I did. Not because I was loyal to Palisade, but I liked my job generally. It kept me busy, and out of trouble, and there was never a shortage of interesting new puzzles to solve and strange new people to meet. I knew the sacrifice Rhian made to stick around for me. I wondered if Sebastian did.

Though he'd composed himself somewhat, Zacharias relayed the rest of the story between long pauses and heavy sighs. His nose was leaking, so I dug around in my bag for my hankie and handed it over. He told me about the sickness, Sebastian, and the decision that would go on to change the world.

"Did you really think it would help you?" I asked. "When you drank the elixir?"

"If by help me you mean end my chronic pain, the endless anxiety and suffering inside, and a life without Sebastian, then yes. I believed it would kill me."

In the story Delilah had told me, the one I didn't remember at the time, I tell you now it didn't include any mention of Jakob. But Zacharias's version did. I recognized the name from the journal I'd found in the keyhole, and now I knew what the shackles were for.

"He wasn't there when I was," I said.

"Was he with Avis?"

"I don't know."

"I can't feel him anymore. I think he might be—"

He dropped his face into his hands and started crying again.

I resumed the back-rub.

"We tried for so long, and then when he—"

"Look, if Jakob's out there, I'll find him, all right?"

"Why?"

I reckoned he meant why was I helping him, but that's not how I answered. "So you can say you're sorry."

Zacharias shook his head. "I slept because I could no longer bear the cost of what I've made. I could no longer fool myself into believing myself in any measure of control. I sleep, and I dream of forgiveness I don't deserve. I dream of a world wherein those I love no longer suffer. I slept because all I've ever wanted was to create, and yet all I've done is destroy. The world is better off without me, Feargus Finlay, and no one must ever know I chose the rest I didn't earn."

Given my food-related issue, I supposed he wasn't too worried I'd spill his beans.

Zacharias stood from the stairs and made his way to the coffin.

"Now please," he said. "Let me be."

I stood, too. "All right, mate."

Zacharias peered over at me like I'd try to stop him, and when I didn't, he put on the silver ring, climbed inside his coffin and closed the lid. Shaking my head, I clicked the latches shut. I knew he could hear me in there, so before I left, I made sure to let him know: "I'll be back tomorrow."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.