Archive of Our Own ^beta

Grantaire has blood running down his right arm when Bahorel comes through the door, but it isn’t his own blood, so he doesn’t look up at the wordless noise his friend makes. “Give me two seconds,” he mutters, biting his tongue and shifting the flask in his left hand. “This stuff spoils quickly.”

“Is there any reason you have a tiny corpse in your hand?”

“I may have made a mistake.” He can hear Bahorel pacing around, looking at everything on the shelves and hanging from the ceiling. “There’s a way to do this without killing the bird but this one is older than I thought, it would have died soon anyway.”

(He still feels bad. The delicate body of the goldfinch is still warm, as is the blood that pools in his palm and spills down his wrist. He’s trying to catch as much as he can in the flask but there isn’t much hope. He’s upset. He’s supposed to be good at this.)

“What’s it for this time?”

Grantaire sighs heavily. “It would have served a better purpose if the bird have lived. Now I’m just saving the blood on the off chance my mother will be able to use it.”

He hears Bahorel settle into one of the chairs next to him but doesn’t shift his attention away from the lifeless bird he still holds aloft. There’s magic there, in the soft feathers and hollow bones, and it feels soft as it slips between his fingers and into the open air. What a waste.

The blood has stopped running down his wrist, so he sets the flask on the wooden table and fumbles for the stopper. After a moment, Bahorel hands it to him, and Grantaire mutters his thanks as he seals the tiny bottle. “Do you want it?” Grantaire finally asks, offering up the small bird. “I can’t bury it in the garden. It died too soon, it might kill my flowers.”

“Yeah, why not.” Bahorel’s fingers are soft as he lifts the tiny bird from Grantaire’s palm. “It will only work up until the point that it would have died naturally, though. There are rules surrounding accidental death.”

“You would know better than I.” Grantaire casts about for something to wipe his hand with and finds a familiar scrap of soft cloth. He scrubs at his wrist. “What can I do for you?”

“Feuilly met a man with a particular malady that he though you would be able to help with. The guy’s a basket case, apparently, went to some school that didn’t teach spoken magic.” Bahorel’s voice is slightly jeering, and Grantaire grins roughly in response.

“Why not take him to Joly?” He asks.

Bahorel’s shirt shifts over his shoulders as he shrugs. “Feuilly thought this would be more up your alley. It’s a doozy of a curse, from what he said.”

“I’d come just for the story,” Grantaire jokes, and then sighs. “Give me three and a half minutes. I want to put on a new shirt, this one has blood on the sleeves.” He climbs to his feet and walks away from the table towards his own bedroom.

Bahorel chuckles behind him, and something makes a small chirping sound. “I’d call you creepy but I just re-animated a bird, so.” Grantaire smiles as he hears the flutter of wings.

*

The goldfinch follows them all the way to Courfeyrac’s house, where the mystery guest is staying. Bahorel is enamored with it. Grantaire says he should name it Killer, and earns himself a smack to the back of the head.

*

Grantaire can tell who the newcomer is because the man is practically glowing white-hot with magic. It makes his chest burn– he hasn’t felt anything this strong in ages, because he doesn’t deal with strong spells anymore. There’s a reason he skipped his necromancy classes.

He’s familiar with the layout of Courfeyrac’s apartment, so he goes directly to the armchair where the man is sitting and kneels in front of him. “Give me your hand,” he orders.

The man in the chair leans back. “Excuse me?” He asks angrily, and Bahorel makes a choking noise as Grantaire’s mouth drops open in shock because holy shit.

(Three things: first, this man has a voice like a ringing bell. If his knack isn’t spoken magic Grantaire might cry. Second, his words spark a surge in the magic around him, making Grantaire certain that this curse is word-based. Third, two objects have just fallen from the man’s mouth and into his lap.)

Grantaire doesn’t hesitate to pick the objects up, ignoring the way the man leans farther away from him. They feel like coins of some sort. “Holy shit,” Grantaire finally says out loud, cradling the cold bits in his hand. “Someone actually cursed this kid to have solid gold coins fall out of his mouth when he talks.”

“Uh, Grantaire?” Courfeyrac’s voice breaks into his gleeful examination of the coins. “You’re scaring Enjolras.” Grantaire becomes very aware of how close he is to this man and drops back, folding his legs underneath him and sitting right on the floor. With his luck, his hair is probably a mess and he probably still has goldfinch blood on his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, automatic, trying to tame his wide smile. “Hi. Please tell me how this happened.”

“I’m impressed you get him to talk,” Courfeyrac says. “He told me he refused.”

“How did he tell you that?” Bahorel asks, genuinely curious. The goldfinch on his shoulder chirps.

“He had to write it down.”

“That’s charming,” Grantaire breaks in, clapping his hands together just to hear the gold hit together, “but I can’t read, so you’re going to have to talk to me. Did you say your name was Enjolras?”

There’s a moment of silence. Then–

“You can’t read?” Three more gold coins fall out of Enjolras’s mouth at his words and Grantaire eagerly holds his hands out for them.

“Not at all,” he says distractedly, as the coins are placed carefully in his palms. “Three coins for three words? Feel free to recite a poem or something, my rent is almost due–“

“Grantaire.” Courfeyrac stops him again. “Please, please, please take this seriously. Enjolras is distressed.” Grantaire falls silent, repentant.

Courfeyrac shoves off the doorway and comes to sit in a chair next to Enjolras. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to you?” He asks quietly. “Just ignore Grantaire for a minute.”

“He’s barefoot.” Two more coins. Grantaire holds out his hand again, trying to ignore the words.

“He’s weird about shoes. Come on, talk to me.”

The gold feels warm against Grantaire’s skin. He can feel runes etched into both sides; he’ll have to find someone who can tell him what they’re for. He lays all seven coins in a line on the floor in front of him.

“I’ve had this curse ever since I was seven.” Coins tumble from his lips with every word, and Grantaire can tell that Enjolras is trying to catch them all in his hands. “I ran away from home when I was seventeen. I knew Courfeyrac when we were both very little, before I was cursed, and he said he had friends that could fix it.” The gold clinks. “Um. By the way. I don’t mean to be rude, but, how can you help me if you can’t read?”

“Screw you,” Grantaire says, leaning forward to take the coins that overflow from Enjolras’s hands. “I don’t need to be able to read to do magic.”

“But you won’t be able to write anything.”

“Are you serious?” Grantaire snaps.

Enjolras’s clear voice takes on a defensive strain. “Please don’t tell me you’re a supporter of ritual magic,” he shoots back with distaste. The coins make a ringing sound as they fall to the floor. Grantaire jumps to his feet.

Courfeyrac is at his side very suddenly, gripping his wrist. “Listen, Grantaire,” he says, “his parents didn’t tell him anything–“

“Where did you find this guy?” Bahorel asks in awe.

“They told me that only written spells are effective,” Enjolras says. His voice is high and unhappy; he keeps trying to catch the gold that spills from his mouth.

“Here’s the thing, though.” Grantaire says, wrenching his wrists out of Courfeyrac’s grip. “People like your parents are real snobs about preserving magic. But magic was made to evolve." The room is completely silent. Grantaire can feel his breath stuttering in his chest. “I bet they told you that magic only works if it’s written on parchment with a quill pen or something, right?” He doesn’t need to see Enjolras nod. “Bahorel’s got tribal tattoos with more magic in them than any of your textbooks. Feuilly does incantations in plainspoken French that can stop a thunderstorm. Bossuet can literally write spells into computer codes.” He takes a step closer and lowers his voice. His words are fierce. “And if you give me birch bark and two drops of your blood I’ll be able to find you no matter where in the world you run. You were taught an archaic system that almost no one uses anymore.” He huffs and kicks out at the spot where Enjolras’s bag is sitting next to the armchair. “Get your quill pens out of here. They’re almost magically void and it’s giving me a migraine.”

Enjolras is shockingly silent. At Grantaire’s side, Courfeyrac almost radiates with tension.

“Grantaire’s got more raw talent than anyone in this room,” Bahorel says gruffly. “You ought to be ashamed.”

“He is,” Courfeyrac says. He sounds defeated. “Grantaire, Enjolras is one of my oldest friends. I’m begging you. Please try and fix him. He’s had people take advantage of this curse and no one knows how to make it go away.”

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras speaks up finally. His voice is very quiet, and the resulting coins fall heavily into his lap. “I don’t understand, but I’m sorry.”

Grantaire’s hands are balled into fists. “I don’t think you can imagine the scope of how little I want to do this.”

Enjolras’s voice is barely a whisper. “Please.”

Grantaire can still feel the glow of the boy’s curse, and he hates himself for being intrigued by it. He’s faced nothing short of torture at the hands of academics in the past.

“I won’t,” he says. “I can’t.”

*

He gives in.

*

“Okay. Apartment rules.”

Grantaire waves his free hand in front of the approximate location of Enjolras’s face.

“Don’t touch anything without my permission,” he starts, ticking the order off on his thumb. They’re walking back to his place, and he hates himself for needing Enjolras’s arm looped through his to keep him from walking into a building or something. “There isn’t much in my place that can kill you without my intention but there is some, so keep your hands to yourself.”

“Okay.” Enjolras sounds lost. He’d been hesitant to offer his arm, too. Bastard.

“Second: don’t move anything.” Pointer finger. “This goes along with the first rule but it deserves its own rule. Don’t change the order of my bottles. Don’t shut a door that’s open, and vice versa. If you aren’t sitting in a chair push it in. Got it?”

“Um.”

“Great.” Grantaire lifts another finger. He makes a mental bet with himself; ten dollars says Enjolras hasn’t noticed yet. “Third rule: don’t pick up the cat. She bites. Fourth rule: do not accuse me of summoning demons, raising an army of the dead, brewing poison, or believing in anything remotely spiritual. I will hit you. Fifth rule–“

“Can I just–?”

“No. Fifth rule: if I tell you to do something, I need you to do it. This rule, of course, has its limits. I don’t want to order you around.” Grantaire takes a deep breath. “I do a lot of things that aren’t going to make sense to you, and you’re going to have to help me with them. If I have to explain everything the timing will be off.”

“I understand,” Enjolras says quietly.

Grantaire nods. “Final rule, which isn’t going to be numbered because I don’t want to count on my right hand: you need to learn about other types of magic. If that means incessantly asking me questions, fine. Whatever. If you want books I can get them for you. I can introduce you to a lot of people that know a lot more than I do about a lot of things. I can help you learn anything you feel like learning.” Grantaire wiggles the five fingers he has in the air. “Any questions?”

“Why won’t you look at me?” Enjolras bursts out. The words have the flavor of something he’s been dying to ask, and the coins that fall from his mouth scatter noisily on the sidewalk.

“Bloody hell, Enjolras,” Grantaire groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. He owes himself ten dollars. “I’m fucking blind.”

*

“Don’t touch anything.”

“I won’t,” Enjolras agrees hastily. He sounds exceedingly unnerved but Grantaire doesn’t care yet.

His arms are full of sweet-smelling flowers that he lays on the floor next to the fireplace. He picks up one of the blossoms and reaches directly into the flames, settling it between the burning logs. It will take two minutes to burn.

“What are you?” Enjolras demands. He’s too slow to catch the fruit of his words this time; they hit the floor and roll away from him. The coin produced by his muttered swearword follows suit, and he lapses into disgruntled silence.

Grantaire grins darkly despite himself. “Witchboy,” he offers. “Son of a witch, master of object magic, with a knack for just about everything that entails. Except for necromancy.”

“Necromancy?” Another coin rolls across the floorboards.

“Don’t knock it before you try it.” Grantaire inhales deeply as the smell of the burning flower wreathes around his head. “That goldfinch following Bahorel around was re-animated. I never learned it, to be honest.”

“I’m starting to think that you’re education must have been vastly different than mine,” Enjolras mutters. He seems to have remembered to catch his coins.

The flower burns away completely and Grantaire hums to himself.

He wonders what Enjolras thinks of his home. He has all sorts of odds and ends on the shelves in the room they’re sitting in, and the bottle of goldfinch blood is undoubtedly still sitting on the table. Grantaire also has a black cat, because he’s a fucking cliché. He doesn’t want Enjolras to accuse him of paganism or Satanism, because then he would just end up killing him out of spite, and how would he explain that to Courfeyrac? He’s still questioning the wisdom of letting the judgmental cursed boy into his apartment.

“I told you not to touch anything,” he bursts out suddenly.

Enjolras jumps. “How can you even tell?” He cries in return. “You aren't even facing me!”

As if that would matter. “I can feel it. You’re glowing with magic, it’s like you leave bright neon fingerprints on everything.” Grantaire shakes his head in disgust. “I’ll have to wash everything in rainwater after you leave, I swear.”

It was the bottle of blood. Grantaire can hardly blame him; it must have looked interesting.

“You can feel magic?”

“Overcompensation,” he mutters. He rests his head on one hand. “I’ve got magic perception like none other, and you’re dripping in it.” He picks up another flower and puts it in the fireplace.

“Why doesn’t that burn you?” Enjolras asks. He starts making tidy stacks of coins on Grantaire’s little table.

Grantaire holds one of his hands up over his head, angling his wrist so that Enjolras can see the tattoo there. “I’ve got a metric ton of protective charms in my skin. Don’t try to murder me, you’ll only get hurt.”

Enjolras sighs.

*

Grantaire is up early the next morning, sorting the rest of the sweet-smelling flowers at his little table. All of Enjolras’s gold coins have been put in a wooden chest above the fireplace, except for one, which Grantaire strung onto a necklace and hidden underneath his shirt. The warmth of it is familiar already. He hums to himself; he can feel sunlight on his long fingers, the air coming through the window is crisp and cold and smells like dew, and the noise of the city street below sounds muffled. He feels clean. Sometimes the blood and the flowers and the darkness get overwhelming, and he likes everything around him being bright and organized.

Enjolras is still asleep, sprawled out on a low trundle bed in a nest of soft blankets. His magic is less frantic while he’s asleep, less dissonant.

(Grantaire has Theories about Enjolras’s magic.)

He has a phone sitting on the table in front of him. It chimes once. When Grantaire taps a finger on the screen, it speaks in Courfeyrac’s voice: “I’m hoping that your radio silence doesn’t mean you’ve killed him.”

Grantaire smiles and holds the phone up to his mouth. “Répondez. He’s asleep. We haven’t talked enough for me to consider killing him yet.”

Another chime. “Thank you, R.”

Grantaire doesn’t reply to that one.

“How does that work?” Enjolras is awake. Grantaire hears him sit up and let four gold coins fall off of his chest and into his lap. “How did you get it to talk with Courfeyrac’s voice?”

“With a lot of blasphemous spell work,” Grantaire tells him snidely. “Our friend Bossuet uses written magic but he’s great with technology. My phone has a rune scratched on the back to make it accept spellwork. Then Bossuet can go in and program spells into it, so that it will read any text aloud to me. Giving messages the voice of the sender was another friend’s idea, the kid is a fiend with spoken magic. Whatever spell makes it do that is some ungodly combination of the two.”

“You can combine magic?”

Grantaire grins sharply as he keeps sorting flowers. “The best spells have more than one element to them,” he replies. “I don’t need to tell you about intention, you know that a spell won’t work unless you’ve got the will to make it work, but you can use that to make it blend with whatever you want.”

“How many different types of magic are there?” The noise of the coins landing in Enjolras’s lap has become louder and louder with every word that he speaks. The pile of gold hums with distracting energy.

“That’s the million dollar question.” Sorting flowers has taken Grantaire sixteen minutes. He picks up one of the most wilted blooms and carries it to the fireplace. “There are three categories, for the most part. Spoken is the easiest to pick up, and it changes the fastest. Written comes next. You know a bit of that.” The flower starts to burn. “What I do is generally called object magic, which sucks and doesn’t describe the breadth of it at all.” He leans back on his hands and lets his head loll back, feeling the soft ends of his hair brush the back of his neck. He realizes distantly that he never put a shirt on. “Also known as witchcraft, paganism, voodoo, Satanism….”

Enjolras shifts uncomfortably, and Grantaire waits for him to speak. “I’m sorry I called it ‘ritual magic,’” he says finally. “I’m honestly still really afraid of a lot of the stuff you have in here but that was…unfair of me.”

“Nothing in here will hurt you,” Grantaire mutters, and then breathes in deeply through his nose.

“I don’t understand half of what this all is. It seems very imprecise.”

“Okay, seriously,” Grantaire says, whipping around, “you need to get rid of the idea that magic has set rules to follow. It’s fucking volatile, all right?” He balls his hands into fists. “Quite trying to make it make sense and it’ll start making sense.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“Then don’t.” Grantaire turns back around and steps up on his chair. He knows where all of the hooks above the window are but he still has to feel for them, spreading his hand along the bricks until he finds one and then hanging the bunch of flowers on it.

Enjolras shift back and forth on his feet as he puts his coins in the wooden chest. “You don’t act like a blind person,” he blurts.

Grantaire sinks his fingers into his hair and resists the urge to cry with frustration. “Please,” he almost begs, “please try to not say anything offensive to me for like five minutes, okay? I’m having such a nice morning.”

*

Enjolras does not last five minutes.

*

“You’ll have to be my eyes for this little trip,” Grantaire warns Enjolras as they walk down the hallway. “The layout of my apartment doesn’t change but the real world isn’t so accommodating.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says, and then fumbles to catch his coin. “I can do that. Should I hold your arm or something?” He speaks slowly so he can catch every bit of gold.

“That would be stellar. And you may not want to talk once we get on the street. I mean, even I would give serious thought to robbing someone who made money appear out of thin air.” Enjolras huffs and leads Grantaire through the front door of the apartment building and onto the sidewalk.

“What do you normally do when you need to go out?”

“I thought I said you shouldn’t talk,” Grantaire mutters, concentrating on the sounds of the people around him. There aren’t many. “What are you doing?”

“I have my hand up near my mouth. The coins are sliding down my sleeve.”

That startles a laugh out of Grantaire. He can just imagine how uncomfortable the small bank accumulating near Enjolras’s elbow must be. “It’s a bit pathetic, really,” he finally says. His words aren’t as bitter as they could be, coming off the edge of laughter. “I always have someone with me when I go out.” He shrugs. “If there’s an emergency I can cast spells to help me navigate.”

“Can’t you just spell your blindness away?”

“We’re going to put my blindness into a category of things that you’re not allowed to ask about, okay?” Grantaire doesn’t wait for Enjolras to agree. “I lost my sight because of magic, so trying to brink it back with magic won’t work. I’ve tried. Stop talking.” He fumbles in his pocket for his phone and holds it up to his mouth. “Envoyez à Combeferre. Are you busy? I need help with a rune.”

The phone chimes barely a second later. When Grantaire taps the screen with his thumb it speaks in a slow and measured voice: “Library. Bring me coffee.”

*

Enjolras spends ten minutes drilling Grantaire about the words written on the side of their coffee cups. Grantaire tells him all sorts of shit before reminding him that hello, he literally cannot see what is on the coffee cup, does it even really matter?

Enjolras says they look like spells.

“Oh, that?” Grantaire says, nonplussed. “That’s just to keep it warm.”

Enjolras almost throws the coffee cup at him.

*

When Grantaire was a child, his mother had told him that light was magic and darkness was the absence of magic. He knows it isn’t true, because his skill with spellwork only increased after he lost his eyes, but standing in the library and only seeing a void reminds him that he isn’t allowed to experience how astonishing things can be in the light.

The library in the middle of the day is one of the sights that Grantaire misses the most. The atrium is large and spacious and full of light that spills through the widows set high on the walls. The columns that hold up the vaulting roof are edged with gold paint that glows when the sun hits it, and the marble floor has metal symbols embedded in it.

Grantaire’s favorite part is the books. They drift in midair, flying peacefully to their shelves and organizing themselves. The spell to make them do so is a handy bit of written magic that is often etched on the inside cover, which only takes a spoken word to activate. Grantaire used to love watching all of the novels and tomes and textbooks weaving their lazy paths through the air. Now all he knows is the faint traces of magic on them, letting him know if he needs to duck his head to avoid taking a hardcover to the back of his head. His senses shiver with the magic of it all.

Enjolras’s grip on his arm has become viselike. Grantaire stays still and lets the other man take it in; if there’s any way to make Enjolras understand the importance of the different strains of magic, the library is one of the best places to do it.

“It’s beautiful,” Enjolras breathes; his sleeve rustles as he moves his hand up automatically to catch the two coins that tumble out of his mouth.

Grantaire nods. “It feels beautiful, too.” Enjolras shuffles awkwardly at the reminder and doesn’t protest when Grantaire leads them forward, ducking slightly as a series of paperback books set a course right through them.

*

Combeferre is on the top story of the library, enjoying the sunshine that streams through the glass roof. (He’s sprawled on the floor with his feet up on a shelf, taking care that the bottoms of his shoes don’t touch any of the books. His glasses have slid almost to the very end of his nose.)

“I brought you the nectar of your pretension,” Grantaire says, holding up the coffee cup. “You can drink it if you can tell me what this means.” He releases Enjolras’s arm and pulls the necklace with the coin over his head before flinging it in Combeferre’s direction.

“Where did you get this?”

Grantaire pushes the man at his side forward a step. “Say hello, Enjolras.”

“Hello.”

A single coin falls onto the floor, and Grantaire revels in the shocked silence that follows. “Feuilly brought me a schoolboy from England with a fairy tale curse, if you can believe it,” he says, dropping abruptly to sit on the floor.

Enjolras makes an irritated noise and sits next to him. “I just got hit in the head with a book,” he mutters. “Does everyone here use magic?”

“Almost everyone,” Grantaire says, “though some don’t have the knack for it.” His smile turns sharp. “Like Combeferre.”

“Really?”

Combeferre shoves Grantaire’s shoulder. “Yes really. I can do some of the written stuff, but that doesn’t take much natural talent.”

Grantaire can almost feel Enjolras recoil. Combeferre keeps talking.

“I study magical languages. That more than makes up for it. My specialty is runes.” He jingles a handful of coins. “These all have the same symbol etched on them, but it isn’t one I recognize.”

“So a personal mark.”

“Most likely.” Combeferre clears his throat. “The rune has nothing to do with the spell itself, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for the source. But it lets you know that this is personal. Either you use the rune to find the caster and make him reverse it, or you see if the spell itself is somewhere you can find.”

Grantaire nods. “Enjolras?”

“…I didn’t understand any of that.”

*

“Have you ever spoken so much that you’ve run out of coins or anything like that?”

The room is silent. Grantaire turns his head to track the uneasy movements that Enjolras is making and waits for an answer.

“Did you ever test it?” He prods after a moment.

“Oh– sorry.” Enjolras sounds startled, as though he had forgotten the question; two coins fall to the floor. “No. I mean, I’ve never run out of coins. I, um, had to keep speaking once until my voice gave out, and once it did the coins stopped too. But. That’s all.”

Grantaire frowns and presses his mouth against the lip of his mug. “You had to keep talking for that long?”

Another moment of silence. “It’s a long story,” Enjolras says slowly. “Is it relevant?”

“Not right now.” Grantaire sips his tea and hums appreciatively at the taste of honey and ginger. “Just wondering. You’ve been cursed for ten years, you’ve obviously gone through quite a lot of coins.”

Enjolras makes a frustrated sound. “I never kept track. I should have, but by the time it occurred to me it had already been years.”

Their mugs tap on the table at the same time and Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “All of that gold is coming from somewhere,” he points out thoughtfully. “I’d love to find out where.” He stands up and goes carefully to the shelves set into the wall, feeling for the third bottle from the left on the lowest shelf. “Do you want more honey?”

*

“Enjolras?” Grantaire puts his hands out carefully. It’s an early morning again, a pure morning, and the air drifting though his window is clear and cold. He wants to wake Enjolras up but he doesn’t want to startle him.

He sets one hand carefully on the blanket, trying to find a wrist or a shoulder that he can shake Enjolras awake with. It’s maddening; he’s good at figuring out where things are, he’s good at navigating blind, but Enjolras and his curse are so disorienting that he has to resort to fumbling around like a child in the dark.

His hand lands on something solid. He presses down, catching the edge of a collarbone with his fingers. His palm is flat on Enjolras’s chest, so he jostles the sleeping man’s frame as gently as he can. “Enjolras?”

Enjolras’s hand wraps tightly around Grantaire’s wrist for one moment before he lets go. “Grantaire,” he says in a sigh, and Grantaire feels a coin fall right on his fingertips. “You scared me.”

“I didn’t want to yell at you,” Grantaire mutters, pulling away. He feels heavy and slow today, in a way that doesn’t bode well for company, and he finds himself wishing suddenly that he hadn’t woken Enjolras up. “I wanted you to look through your coins for me and tell me if they all have the same rune on them.”

He can hear Enjolras moving and shifting in his nest of blankets, probably sitting up or throwing an arm over his eyes. “Why do I need to check the runes?” He asks.

“Just to be sure.” Grantaire sits in the chair by his little table. He thinks the city must be covered in fog today. “If they aren’t all the same that could mean this was an accident, a spell gone wrong somewhere that you walked into. If they’re all the same it was intentional.” He has rings on every single one of his fingers today, and he twists the one on his right pointer finger. “Randomness in a curse or spell implies a mistake. Conformity implies intention.”

He can hear Enjolras get up and walk to the fireplace, can feel the movement of the magic that exists in his veins, but Grantaire still feels lost in his own head.

“What will you be doing?”

He ducks his head.

“Are you going to do anything?”

“Leave me alone,” he mutters. He twists the ring around his finger again.

Enjolras sets the wooden chest of coins on the sharply on the floor. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” he says. His voice is odd– he sounds exhausted, still, but underneath there’s a metallic note of frustration. Coins are falling directly from his mouth to the floor.

“It’s been two days,” Grantaire snaps, twisting his rings off his fingers.

“And you haven’t made any progress!” Grantaire would bet anything that Enjolras has thrown his hands in the air with that statement. “You keep telling me that I shouldn’t be so skeptical of your brand of magic but I haven’t seen you do anything!”

One of the bottles on his shelf shatters with a wretched splintering sound. Enjolras falls abruptly silent.

Grantaire stands up very slowly, closing his eyelids over his useless eyes. He calmly takes one of his copper rings and holds it up so Enjolras can see it.

There is metal laid into the walls of Grantaire’s apartment, making a complete circuit. Within that circle, he is king.

He sets the floor around his feet on fire.

*

The roof of Grantaire’s building is his garden. The other renters let him have the space entirely to himself; in return, he offers himself as a handyman and magical counsel, as well as letting them gather flowers and herbs from his supply.

It’s chilly on the roof; the city around him hardly makes a sound in the early morning, and he wishes very suddenly that he could see the buildings rising out of the fog that he’s sure must be there. He wishes he could see so that he could be certain. He wishes he could see the sun burning a path through the low-hanging clouds. It makes his chest ache.

“Envoyez à Courfeyrac,” he orders in an undertone, holding his phone up to his mouth. “I lost my temper. Make sure he’s okay.” He sends the text, takes a deep breath, and throws his phone off the roof.

When Grantaire was in school, he would play clapping games with his friends. If they chanted the words right, sparks would fly from their hands as they slapped them together. He used to watch the brilliant pinpricks of fire, trying to fix his eyes on them before they disappeared. He never could. As soon as they appeared they disappeared. His anger has vanished in a similar fashion.

There are little wind chimes set along the edges of the roof so he can orient himself. He sits in the very middle of his flowerbeds after picking a daisy and tucking it behind his ear. The gold coin necklace is warm against his sternum; he pulls it over his head and sets it in front of him before arranging three of his rings in a triangle around it.

Metal is nice. Metal conducts magic as easily as it does electricity, which makes it invaluable for talismans and charms. Grantaire has metal rings and metal necklaces and metal imbedded in the walls of his home. He’s good at manipulating it.

Trapping it in the rings isolates it. He feels for its magic in his mind, ignoring the blinding glow of it and trying to make out a feature or a direction. The spell has to be tied somewhere; spoken magic can’t accomplish this type of curse, which means either someone wrote this out or there’s a base for the spell set up somewhere.

He doesn’t know how long he stays, locked in his own head with the incandescent whiteness, but his reverie is broken suddenly by a light touch on his shoulder. “Grantaire,” Enjolras says quietly, and every memory comes crashing down.

Grantaire turns. “I’m sorry for frightening you.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Enjolras’s voice is barely a whisper, almost drowned out by the wind chimes and the clink of the coins landing in his palms. Grantaire can feel sunlight on his face; he has no idea what time it is.

“We went about this the wrong way,” he says heavily.

Enjolras clears his throat. “Can I just–? Sorry, I think we need a heart-to-heart, but… Not all of the coins have the same rune. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before.”

Grantaire perks up. “That means this isn’t intentional. Whoever did this to you did it by accident.” He scrabbles for the coin on the ground in front of him. “Did you write all of the symbols down?”

“Yes.”

“Brilliant. We can take them to Combeferre and see what he thinks.” Grantaire starts to rise but then he hears Enjolras take a step back.

He drops back down. After a moment, Enjolras sinks down next to him. His movements are hushed and hesitant.

“It’s a pity it isn’t Saturday,” Grantaire says after a moment. “We could make this into a sleepover. Cook popcorn. Braid each other’s hair.”

“I don’t know how to braid anyone else’s hair,” Enjolras mutters back, letting the coins fall in his lap. “I only know how to do my own.”

Grantaire furrows his brow. “Your hair is that long?” He raises a hand questioningly. Enjolras takes it and lays it on top of his head. His hair is very soft; Grantaire runs his fingers down the length of it, to where the braid stops between his shoulder blades.

“What color is it?”

Enjolras hums. “Gold. It’s very fitting. Can I ask you a question?”

Grantaire sighs and takes his hand back. “It really is a sleepover. I’m assuming you’ve never had a magical pillow fight though. Yeah, go ahead, and for every question you ask I’ll ask one back. Trust games. Courf would love that.”

“Okay.” Enjolras shifts so that he’s sitting in front of Grantaire with their knees brushing. “In that case, I’ll start small. What’s your favorite color?”

“Black,” Grantaire deadpans. Enjolras makes a horrified sound and he smiles crookedly. “You’re off to a great start, kiddo.”

“God, I’m sorry,” Enjolras says wretchedly. “You get to ask me two for that.”

“Okay. What do you look like?” Enjolras makes an inquisitive noise. “All I know is that your hair is long and gold. I don’t even know how tall you are– wait, stand up.” They both scramble to their feet, ignoring the coins that fall out of Enjolras’s lap, and Grantaire puts his hands out. “You bastard,” he says wonderingly. “You’re almost four inches taller, fuck you.”

Enjolras laughs.

“Now tell me what you look like.” Grantaire drops back to the ground.

“I don’t know how,” Enjolras sighs, following suit. “I have blue eyes. I have a forehead. I have a mouth.”

“Wow, screw you. Okay. Tell me about your parents.”

Enjolras moves forward so that their knees are touching again. “You’ve just moved this entire game into an extremely serious realm,” he warns. Grantaire shrugs.

“It’s a trust game. I’m not going to gain much from comments like ‘I have a forehead–‘”

“Okay, how was I supposed to– you know what? Never mind. My parents suck. They used me to get rich.”

Grantaire sits up abruptly. “Enjolras…”

“I was cursed when I was seven. And they never even tried to break it, or explain to me what it was. They pulled me out of school and kept me at home all of the time.“ He pauses. His voice is very serious, and he starts playing with the gold in his lap. “I ran away when I was seventeen and stopped talking to people completely. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in years until I ran into Feuilly and Courfeyrac and they brought me you.”

Grantaire covers his face with his hands. After a moment Enjolras takes his wrists and pulls his hands away.

“Don’t,” he says firmly. “It’s your turn. Tell me how you set the floor on fire without burning anything.”

“I have metal set into the walls of my apartment,” Grantaire says, and holds up one of his rings. He can feel Enjolras draw back slightly. “It makes a complete loop. The ring is made out of the same material. If I have to ring in my hand I can manipulate anything in the apartment. But it’s got fire protection charms and so do I, so nothing burns.”

“You have–?”

“It’s my turn,” Grantaire says firmly. “How do you know Courfeyrac?”

“He was my closest friend at school before I was cursed. Fire charms. Go.”

“I told you I have tattoos.” Grantaire pauses to roll up his sleeves. “I can’t point out the exact ones to you, obviously, but most of the ones on my arms are for protective purposes.” He doesn’t shudder when Enjolras lightly runs his fingers up his forearms. “What did your parents teach you about magic?”

Enjolras huffs. “Almost exactly what you said. That it was mysterious and had to be kept pure, and that the old methods worked best. I can write spells very well, but they seem so outdated to me now.”

Grantaire hums. “How–? Sorry, no, it’s your turn.”

“What were you doing with the coin when I came up here?” Enjolras still has one of his hands encircling Grantaire’s wrist but now he lets go and leans back. He starts picking up handfuls of coins and moving him from his lap; they must be getting uncomfortable.

“This is almost impossible to explain,” Grantaire warns him. “Spells don’t just happen, you know? They need groundwork, or a base. I was making a space so I could see if I could tell where this curse’s base is.” He stops, considers his words, and makes a frustrated sound. “You know how if you destroy a bit of paper that has a spell on it, the spell stops working?”

“Yeah.”

“Object magic is like that. The spell has to have a source. It’s messy and imprecise because all objects inherently have magic in them, and you can draw from any of those to set your spell, but the properties of what you’re using will affect how well you can succeed.”

“What about spoken magic?”

“That takes its power from language itself. Words have power on their own, in relaying information and sharing ideas. Magic sticks to language in the same way that it does to people and animals. It’s less tangible, because words aren’t objects, but it’s there. That’s why speaking magic is so hard to trace.”

Enjolras is buzzing with curiosity again. “Does the language that you cast a spell in affect it at all?”

Grantaire nods emphatically. “Feuilly could tell you more about it than me. I might even take you to Gavroche, that kids speaks in a language of his own and he’s got more raw talent than anyone I’ve ever met.” He taps his fingers on the ground. “Spoken magic changes the most quickly, because it follows language, and language changes quickly.”

Enjolras doesn’t reply. A few coins clink together in an absentminded way.

Grantaire sits up straighter. “Did I break you?”

“I just…” Enjolras stops. “We’ve been skipping your turn,” he says after a long moment.

Grantaire shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve got more important questions.”

“I only have two more.”

“Fire away.”

“Do you really think you can break my curse?” His tone is blunt but there’s an undercurrent of unease. It makes Grantaire’s chest ache for him. He nods.

Enjolras exhales noisily. “Okay. Okay.” He fidgets with the coins in his lap. “Secondly, why do you have daisies in your hair?”

Grantaire pushes his fingers back through his curls, discarding the tiny blossoms. “I forgot about that,” he admits. “Just a silly thing.”

Enjolras waits.

“They’re a very cheerful flower,” Grantaire says with a shrug. “I was hoping they would improve my mood while I was working.”

*

“Didn’t you take your phone with you earlier?”

“Oh, yeah. I threw it off the roof.” Grantaire can almost feel Enjolras’s incredulous stare. “Calm yourself, padawan. It has a ton of protective spells sunk into it, courtesy of Bossuet.” His tone turns thoughtful. “Do you have a phone?”

“Are you asking for my number?”

“I would, but I get the impression that you’d be really terrible at sexting.”

Enjolras drops something on the floor, and Grantaire laughs.

*

Courfeyrac is spinning around Grantaire’s living room, shouting out ideas for modifications to make to Enjolras’s phone. Grantaire surreptitiously presses his back to one of the shelves. He doesn’t like it when things begin moving too fast. “Courf, can you tone it down a notch?”

Courfeyrac starts jumping up and down in one place.

“That…is not what I meant.” Grantaire sighs. Courfeyrac exuberant can be glorious fun but it’s tiring today. Grantaire still feels so tired. “Enjolras, there’s a box of silver rings on the mantle, will you pull out two of them and give them to Courfeyrac?”

There’s a shuffle and a clink of metal; Courfeyrac stops bouncing. “Oh,” he says in a measured tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice.”

“I don’t understand,” Enjolras says quietly.

Grantaire goes back to making tea. “Courf?”

“I can do it.” His friend takes a slow breath. “You remember when we were in school, Enjolras, and I’d always figure out who was feeling bad in our class?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Courfeyrac shuffles his feet. “It’s a bit like what Grantaire does, with feeling the magic in people, only with emotions? I think?” He sighs. “And it messes with my head a bit. So I have really intense mood swings from time to time.”

Enjolras dumps a handful of coins on the table. “And the rings?” Grantaire tries to be quiet as he stirs his tea; even without Courfeyrac’s knack he can feel how difficult this conversation is.

Courfeyrac hesitates. “All of my friends have them at their houses,” he says slowly, “because I forget them a lot. They kind of…bring me back. Make everything level.” He must be holding out his hands, because next he says, “Grantaire helped me make these, and Combeferre helped us figure out what to write on them, and then Jehan insisted on putting it in a cipher so it’ll only work for me. See?”

Enjolras is very quiet. “These are amazing.”

*

Enjolras gestures with his hands when he talks. Grantaire finds this out because he gets nailed in the face in the middle of a conversation.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Enjolras is saying, his hands flitting all over. Grantaire waves him away with one hand pressed to his eye.

“Ow, fuck,” he complains. “Who died and made you my father?”

Enjolras goes very still. Grantaire replays his words and swears again.

*

It all comes to a head when Enjolras realizes that because he’s been sleeping in Grantaire’s bed, Grantaire hasn’t been sleeping.

“Why the fuck haven’t you been sleeping?”

Grantaire drops his head into his hands. He’s starting to see colors in the void that is his eyesight, which is never a good sign. “I literally just told you.”

Enjolras is stomping, pulling him across the room and letting coins fall all over the floor. ”I didn’t even know it was possible to stay awake for that long–”

“You can get shots of alertness in your coffee if you ask the barista,” Grantaire informs him. “It’s fucking magic. Get it, Enjolras? It’s literally ma–”

His feet hit the bed and he falls over ungracefully.

“You’re such an idiot,” Enjolras hisses, pulling off Grantaire’s shoes. “No more spellwork today. You’re going to sleep until morning or I swear to god I will tie you to the bed.”

Grantaire is too far gone to even make a joke about it, which is a real travesty. He’s asleep before Enjolras can even start on his socks.

*

Grantaire wakes up in the middle of an epiphany that he almost loses at the realization that he is very much wrapped in Enjolras’s arms. The resulting flailing ends with Enjolras being pushed off the bed. He hits the floorboards hard and wakes up with a shout and a shower of gold coins.

“I’ve got it,” Grantaire gasps, “I’ve got it, I think I’ve got it–”

“If you didn’t want me to touch you, you could have just woken me up–”

“I was dreaming–”

“I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable–”

“I was dreaming about the library– wait, what?” Grantaire reaches out for Enjolras and frowns when the blond isn’t right by his side. “What?”

“What were you saying?” Enjolras asks suddenly.

Grantaire holds out his palms. “Why are you on the floor?”

“You pushed me!”

“I’m sorry.” Grantaire still has his palms held out and his eyelid closed. “Come back?”

“What did you say?” Enjolras demands. “About your dreams?”

“Oh!” Grantaire jumps upright and climbs out of bed, almost tripping over Enjolras and his coins. “Sorry, sorry– yes, dreams, I was dreaming– are you really concerned about me not wanting to touch you, because that is not the case– no, fuck, this is important!” He knots his fingers into his hair. “Enjolras, do you have anything from your childhood that you’ve kept with you? Anything at all?”

The blond is suspiciously silent. Then– “One thing. A book. I stole it from my father.”

“Yeah?” Grantaire asks, egging him on. “How old were you?”

“Christ, I don’t know!” Enjolras cries, spilling more coins. “I was probably like six or…or…” He stops and takes a very deep breath.

Grantaire throws his hands up. “When you were seven!” He yells.

Enjolras jumps to his feet with a wordless shout and rushes past Grantaire, who hugs himself and waits. Before long a thin book is being pushed into his hands. It’s glowing and burning and Grantaire can’t stop fucking smiling. He doesn’t know why he didn’t notice this in his apartment; the only answer he gets is the continued presence of Enjolras, who burns so much brighter. Grantaire thrusts the book back at him. “How many times do I have to tell you that I can’t fucking read?” He demands, but he’s beaming. Enjolras takes a shaky breath and starts leafing through the pages.

“What am I looking for?” He asks. Five gold coins fall directly to the floor, unnoticed by both of them.

“Anything handwritten,” Grantaire says, bouncing up on the balls of his feet. “An inscription, and underlined passage, fuck, even some creative looking stains–”

Enjolras freezes.

“I found it.” His voice is hoarse. “It looks like–” He starts to laugh, only it’s more of a sob. “It’s a prosperity spell. Grantaire–”

Grantaire shakes his head and wraps his arms around himself. “You corrupted it by stealing the book,” he says in awe. “The spell would have been attached to whoever owned the book, so it latched onto you.”

Enjolras is laughing and crying, for once not minding the coins that fall from his lips. “Guess what the book is, Grantaire.”

Grantaire stills. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Get out.”

“I swear to god,” Enjolras says, and he grabs onto Grantaire’s hand and drags his fingers over the raised cover. “It’s fairy tales, Grantaire, he wrote a spell in a book of fairy tales–”

Grantaire pulls the book out of Enjolras’s grasp and drops it on the ground before pulling the taller man into a hug. Enjolras hugs him back, wrapping his arms around Grantaire’s ribs and crying into his shoulder even as he shakes with laughter. They sway in the middle of the room like that before Grantaire lets him go and bends down to get the book. “Are you ready?” He asks.

“God, yes.” Two coins fall on the floor, and Enjolras swears at them them cheerfully before ripping the page from the book. Grantaire grins as Enjolras grabs his hand and leads him over to the fireplace.

They stand there for a moment. Enjolras takes a deep breath and then thrusts the page into the ever-burning fire; Grantaire can feel the burst of magic flickering and changing as the spell breaks down.

He turns to Enjolras and puts a hand up to the other man’s mouth. “Go on,” he whispers. He feels Enjolras smile against the tips of his fingers.

Enjolras takes a deep breath. “Hey, Grantaire,” he says quietly. No coins materialize at his lips, and Grantaire barely has time to start beaming before he’s swept into another hug. Enjolras is laughing again and it's beautiful, he sounds beautiful, and Grantaire doesn't even care that he can't see. Feeling Enjolras shake apart in the circle of his arms while he's struggling to speak past his own smile is enough. It's more than enough.