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“Ah!”
The sound is small, from a small body, and it doesn’t carry well through the plastered walls of the Berlint apartment.
But Yor catches it. She throws her covers aside, pulls on her cardigan against the winter chill, and is out the door to Anya’s room.
She doesn’t turn on the lights. She doesn’t need it. Yor simply moulds with the silent shadows of the flat, another silhouetted ghost who belongs to the corners and the easily forgotten.
It helps her eyes adjust, too, to the new moon ink oppressing the details away from Anya’s room.
Her little girl is sitting up in bed, clutching her head where she usually keeps her decorative hair ornaments. Her pupils are dilated with fear and her skin is clammy, cold sweat catching what little light there is.
“Anya?”
She has nightmares sometimes, Anya. Terrible, dark moments from before Loid adopted her. She tries to explain them sometimes to Yor, but all her sobs and babbles really communicate to her is that whatever was done to her to give her her ability to Listen, she doesn’t understand anything but the pain.
But this isn’t that kind of nightmare, Yor can tell.
Anya’s eyes snap to Yor’s, real fear zapping from daughter to mother.
Yor catches her breath the same moment that Anya does.
“What is it?”
She wishes she had her knife.
She doesn’t even know if Loid is home or on assignment.
“Papa is here,” Anya answers as soon as the thought registers. “He’s getting up now.”
With those words, she tumbles out of bed, brushes the last remnants of sleep out of her eyes.
She’s at the window before Yor can stop her.
“Anya—“
Yor catches her little girl around the shoulder, guarding her heart and lungs, and guiding her hand so the curtains don’t open more than a crack.
This is how Loid finds them, fingers on the light switch, his shadow falling on the woman kneeling with the child, blood red cardigan and midnight ink hiding anything more than their silhouettes. A crack of gold from outside slips in.
“Papa,” Anya says, her voice trembling, but her eyes never leave the boy stepping out of a stately car and onto the pavement. “Damian found something.”
***
He shouldn’t be here.
What was he thinking?
This is the worst thing he could do— be ray the Desmond name. Betray his father. Betray his country.
But Anya is— Anya is—
Anya is the adopted daughter of a spy - a spy his father knows about, but hasn’t reported to the SSS. Because— Because—
Anya stands on the other side of the glass to the downstairs hall just as the automatic lights flicker out. It’s a shock, lightning roaring in his veins.
He should turn around.
He should walk away from all of it.
A car passes behind him, and Anya vanishes in the bright reflection for a single moment.
When she re-emerges in the dark her eyes are wide and fearful. Listening.
He wonders if she can hear the thunder in his veins, the fear screaming from his heart, even as he can’t put words to what terrifies him so.
Anya smiles.
He’s had too much practice.
The door falls open and she grabs his hand.
“Come on, Syon-boy,” she teases. “You’re making us both dizzy with all that thinking.”
She drags him through into the dark, and he follows her willingly.
The hall and staircase are seeped in darkness. Anya doesn’t stumble at the steps the way Damian does. She floats over them, silently, her hand tight in his, her chill fingers the only thing giving away her fear.
The world holds its breath between sleeping bodies, and it’s like they’re the only ones alive.
Until the door at the end opens silently, revealing the green silhouette of Loid Forger.
“Anya,” he says, calm and cool as anything.
“I know, Papa,” Anya answers as if she’d been scolded, responding to thoughts rather than words. “But Damian doesn’t watch Spy Wars. He doesn’t know hesitation is death.”
Damian balks at the shoddy veil.
“What did you tell him?” He hisses, just inside the flat.
The curtains are drawn tightly shut, that’s the first thing he notices: the hermetic seal that won’t leave a crack of light show outside. He’d never noticed they were blackout curtains before. They’re never drawn.
The next thing he notices is the scent of hot coco in the air. Anya’s mother in the kitchen. Her usual tactic for calming her daughter - and now him.
This golden place. This warm home, the only place he knows as such. And he’s about to set it aflame.
“Well, nothing!” Anya bristles in response to his accusation. “It’s not like I can make sense of all your thoughts. You’re going to have to do that yourself.”
He glances up at Loid, still towering over him, this all encompassing adult that is still so much taller than Damian. And yet, though he wants to be angry, though he wants to take Anya’s hand and run away from both their fathers, he doesn’t feel any of the dooming terror that he would feel at the mere thought of defying his own.
Loid simply watches him calmly, watching. And it doesn’t feel scary.
It pisses him off.
A spy!
From Westalis of all things.
Maybe his father’s party was right after all. Maybe they really are slippery and untrustworthy. Maybe he really did adopt Anya, just so he could get intel on the state.
Anya makes a face like she wants to protest.
Damian sighs and shakes his head. He knows there is too much love in this house for that to be true.
He drops his bag, lets Loid greet him, Yor fuss over him, and Anya drag him to their soft, warm couch.
He’s betraying his family for this.
For the people bustling in the kitchen, whispering amongst themselves, glancing and giving him space.
For the warmth and the love radiating from their gestures, a touch to the elbow here, a dangling of tea bags. A careful laugh.
He wonders what kind of cover this is. There wasn’t much about Yor Forger in his father’s file. As if she’d barely been investigated, as if she was too harmless to care for. A woman, once again dismissed by his fathers’ party politics.
Maybe Loid Forger— no, maybe Twilight is as careless. Maybe he chose Yor as another cover, her easy, comfortable laugh, making him seem that much more perfect. Maybe they don’t love each other at all.
It does seem fake, the more he looks at them.
“It’s not,” Anya whispers. “But you’re right. They’re not together. They’re just enemies that work towards the same goal.”
“What?”
She grins. “Just because politicians say we can’t get along with Westalians,” she teases. “Doesn’t mean we have to agree.”
“Don’t let the secret police hear you say that,” he grumbles.
There’s silence for a moment, and when he looks up her mischief has sprouted, her grin growing even more radiant.
“Nah,” she says. “Uncle’s fine. He really does like papa, deep down.”
“What!? Your uncle is in—“
Her head flies up to check on her parents. “Shh,” she hisses, waving him closer. “Papa knows, but mama and uncle don’t know about each other.”
Her hair tickles his cheek, and her hand is warm on his shoulder as she conspiratorially pulls him closer, draws him in. Shares her secrets, like she always has.
And this time, he believes her.
Even if her family sounds more complicated than his now.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re my favourite Syon-boy in the whole world—“
“Pretty sure I’m the only syon-boy in the whole world.”
“—and you don’t trust papa,” she says, ignoring him. Her nose does that thing, popping up in the air like she’s learnt from himself and Blackbell. “For stupid reasons, too. And I just wanted to let you know you can trust him. And me.”
Her hand slips from his back.
Damian sits back properly in his seat, meeting her confident smile with turmoil. This silly twelve year old acting so much older than she is. Being so reasonable. Knowing exactly what to say to him to make him feel safe.
And that’s it, isn’t it?
This is the reason he’d come here in the first place.
Out of the three people that can rifle through the confines of his brain, she is the only one he feels safe with.
He pictures his father’s spooky, dooming shadows, his brother’s disquieting chill. He thinks of his mother, who has been unable to hide the way his existence causes her pain and disgust. And he glances back at Loid and Yor, the only two adults in the world that have ever made him feel like he had a place of warmth to dive into, to hide in.
They’re shuffling their feet, checking the sugar pots, and giving the two kids space, trusting Anya to make him comfortable enough to talk.
Clever spies.
Anya tuts.
“Mama isn’t a spy,” she says, thumping her heart. “She’s an assassin, working for Garden.”
There’s a clatter from the kitchen.
“Anya-san!”
Damian’s mouth goes dry. “Garden?”
He can’t believe her mother hasn’t murdered her father in cold blood yet.
Not even his father knows about this.
Anya’s smile brightens. “See,” she says triumphantly. “If mama hasn’t killed him yet, then that’s a good sign you can trust him.”
There’s a pained groan from the kitchen, and a giggle.
When Damian glances back at the adults, Yor is pressing her hand to Loid’s cheek, her smile full of adoration, and the spy’s expression has fallen into deep exhaustion. They look like a couple in love, like a normal, boring set of adults, the centre of the other’s world. And he feels the sting of jealousy stab deep at his heart.
He didn’t know that existed.
Even as they’re swallowed by the blood of their enemies, their victims, and are about to be drowned by the consequences of their connection, they are still moved by love.
He’d been the one to light the match for the bomb that’s about to go up in their living room.
And yet, he sees for the first time what he really wants in life, right here.
He looks back at Anya.
He wants to protect it.
So he nods.
He has to trust it.
***
Damian Desmond has never been good at getting the truth out, Twilight knows.
His shoulders are slumped as if he’s the one in the wrong, and his eyes are lowered with guilt, as he flips his school bag open.
He’s always been the type to shout his prideful lies or swallow his tongue with fear, always convinced that his truths are never good enough.
Twilight feels a strange sense of camaraderie with the boy, and pride in his ability to come here, even as the panic is clawing under his skin, tearing Loid to shreds from the inside out.
But when it’s most important, he finds his voice at last.
He glances once at Anya for support, and when she nods, he produces a folder, and a flyer.
“I—“ he begins, faltering as he stares down at the political flyer like he wants to burn holes in it. “I know it isn’t as important, but… I was sitting in my room at the mansion and reading through the political flyer for the election, and I— I hated it. Everything my father stands for.”
A police state. Military regime. Women in the kitchen. Camps for foreigners. War.
That’s what Donovan Desmond is promising if he wins.
“He makes it sound like flowers will bloom and the rivers will turn to wine, if we can just go to war with Westalis,” he says. “He makes it sound like comm— like people like Anya are better off in segregated parts of the city, and—“
He swallows his anger down.
Shakes his head.
His arm tenses, and Twilight knows that Damian is clinging to Anya.
Funny old world, how their friendship has caused so many unintended results, and yet, all the right ones.
Damian is a smart kid at fourteen. His idolisation of his father had led him to be able to see through Donovan’s rhetoric. But it’s his friendship with Anya that had led him to hate it.
Something settles in Twilight and he exhales.
When Yor places a hand on his shoulder, they share a smile of momentary relief.
Damian continues: “So… I got mad,” he admits. “I was— I don’t know what I was going to do, don’t think I would’ve gone through with it. But he wasn’t there. He never is, anyway. I found this in his office.”
He pulls the flyer aside to reveal the title on the file - the terribly thick file.
Subject 007/Anya Forger.
Twilight blinks.
The world goes very still, and his vision bleeds.
Far away he can hear Damian’s voice tremble with anger.
“It’s my father. Her ability. He caused it.”
***
Yor can’t stand it anymore.
The boy, Damian, speaks with such eloquence. He goes through the file, one destructive piece of evidence at a time, like the politician in training that he is. He handles it with a calm that Yor can’t feel, but that she sees mirrored in Loid.
No. Not Loid.
There’s a chill radiating off the man at her side.
Twilight is taking in all of the information given to him, by the son of his enemy, with an intensity that scares her.
It’s bad enough, listening to Damian pick her life apart, one crumbling stone at a time. It’s worse, seeing how seriously Twilight takes it.
The mask is slipping off. The necessity for her husbands’ existence is melting away before their eyes. This is when Loid Forger dies.
She doesn’t know what they’re going to do.
All she knows is that that man, the man who caused the original war between their nations and destroyed their childhoods;, the man who experimented on her little girl, knows who they are and where they are. He’s been surveying them for years. He’s been waiting, biding his time.
And when he’s re-elected, he’s going to come - and he’s going to take away her husband and her daughter.
The chair clatters across the floor, and Yor is in the hall-way before Loid can stop her.
His hand is warm against the bare skin of her arm, holding on with a stubbornness that won’t let her shake him off.
There is a knife in her other hand already.
“Don’t try to stop me,” she says. Loid.
She doesn’t say the name. She feels his presence differently here, between their two bedrooms. Between the lie and the truth.
He is Loid, and he is Twilight, when she can’t see his face. He is only both in this liminal space, when he faces her back.
All she knows, is he’s never taken advantage of that back. He has only ever guarded it.
“I have to,” he says, grip tightening with desperation.
He’s always been bad at that, her husband. Lying is something he’s good at, but hiding from people who knows him has never been a skill he’d developed very well.
“But he knows about Anya,” she exclaims, turning around. “He knows about you! He has for years!”
And there it is, that closed-eyed smile he uses so he can’t see her tears, that self-deprecating smile that proves he’s kicking himself.
“I know,” he says. “I heard.”
He exhales and his eyes fall open, that steely glint back. Twilight. Always calculating and thinking ahead.
“Serves me right, for being such a fool,” he murmurs. His words cut her heart, shatters her last hope, even as he brushes her tears away with a gentle hand. “No wonder I was having such trouble getting past his guard. He knew.”
Yor’s lower lip trembles.
Loid is dead.
If his mission is over, then their family will be disbanded too.
“What are you going to do?”
She’s too weak to fight whatever he’ll want. The shock is too new, the wound is too raw. They never were anything more than a mask for him to use, and she was happy to be used. She can’t think now, can’t react, can’t plan.
She needs—
Twilight smiles.
And it’s—
“I thought I’d pack up our lives,” he says. “Our little family. And ask you both to come back to Westalis with me.”
It’s—
His eyes close as his smile widens, something like relief glowing from him. As if he’d been holding it in way too long, this thing he hasn’t been saying, but has always been on the precipice of.
It’s Twilight’s, that soft smile.
When had he fallen over the edge? When had Loid really died?
The day she’d moved in? The moment he took Anya’s hand?
Maybe they were always the same person to begin with.
“I let this play on way longer than I should’ve,” he admits, goes on, is as honest with her as he has ever been. “I let the years drag on and on, made excuses. For the mission, to keep it going. This work doesn’t take a month or two, anyway, I excused. There will be ways in eventually. But really, I just wanted to stay here, with you. With Anya. I wanted Loid to be real, so we could stay here.”
“Oh,” Yor whimpers.
And the tears come all over again.
The world is crumbling at her feet, and yet it has never shone so beautifully.
She had taken him so long ago, bloody hands and sunset secrets and all, trying not to think about how it shouldn’t have felt so right— trying not to think about the war that tore apart their peace, trying not to think about the men that had hurt them too deeply to ever make them normal.
The knife clatters to the floor.
His cardigan is so soft when her nose presses against his chest, and he smells of soap. She hears the nervous, thump thump, of his heart against her ear, and she thinks it whispers, like his hands around her, welcome home.
“You were always real to me, Loid,” she assures him, claiming him proper.
His laugh trembles through her, wet at the edges.
She will hunt down the man who is a threat to her home, will rip out his heart and absolve herself in her husbands’ arms afterwards. She will free her daughter. She will set the files, the laboratories, all of it on fire. And then she will tell her friend, her husband, her daughter, that they are all free.
Maybe that way, there will forever be peace, and she will be able to leave the Garden forever. Maybe she will finally be a plucked rose, resting on a sweet white pillow, smiling at Loid as he wakes in the morning.
There will always be a need for the Forgers, he had assured her when she had learned he was a spy. When he had promised her eternity.
“Mum wants to kill the baddy.”
Anya’s voice rings out in the silence.
Yor stiffens.
“Oi,” Damian snaps. “Don’t call him that. It’s not a cartoon.”
Because she can’t look up at Loid when she’s panicking, she turns to her daughter instead. His arms don’t leave her, hands simply sliding one to her shoulder, the other to her waist.
Anya is standing in the light from the kitchen, grinning, and holding Damian’s hand. He looks rumpled and resigned, but he hasn’t let go of Anya once.
“Anya—“ Loid exhales, exasperated. “I wish you’d stop announcing our thoughts to the rest of the room like that.”
“What?” She retorts, on the cusp of teen defiance. “It’s easier this way. And I let you get there yourself, even if you took so long to say it.”
“Don’t be cheeky.”
“I want to stay.”
It isn’t Anya who says it but Yor.
Loid looks at her, surprised. “Yor—“
“I want to stay here,” she says. “With you and Anya. With our little family and our friends. You’re not harming anyone, Loid. You just want peace, like the rest of us. I want to protect that wish. And—“
She finds a smile.
Thinks of all the politicians that have carved wounds into skin and painted blood onto their hands. How they have all screamed and begged her for mercy in the end.
“Even if killing him means there will be another figurehead for the NUP, the next one will be easy for you to get close to.”
She looks at Loid, her husband, the spy, with all the confidence she feels in him, and he stares back at her, disbelieving.
Her fingers tighten on his hand. Their bloodstained hands. Together.
He laughs, a little breathless. A little helpless.
“If I’d known this was what came out of telling you…”
He exhales, shakes his head, a fond smile gracing his lips.
Finally he turns to look at Damian.
“And what about you?” He asks. “Are you okay with this, Damian?”
There’s a glint of defiance in the boy’s eyes at the question. As if he doesn’t like Loid’s implication that he can’t handle his own father’s murder.
“I—“
He glances at Anya and flushes. But instead of losing his temper at his own attachment as he usually does, Damian Desmond stands firm.
“I chose sides when I came here.”
Anya looks from Damian to her mother, still a little too young to understand what it is that’s happening. She frowns at Yor’s thoughts.
“You can’t change your mind later, Syon-boy,” she says to him. “Even if you get mad at me. This is a secret you can’t take back. No matter what.”
This time his face goes red for an entirely different reason. “Who do you think I am?” He demands, some of the old pride coming back to him. “I’m a Des—“
He deflates, paling.
And then he softens. “You’re my favourite person in the whole world, Anya,” he admits. “No matter how much you’ve annoyed me over the years, or I’ve teased you, I’ve never told anyone your secret in revenge. I’ll keep this one for you-- no.” A shake of the head. “This one is ours. We’ll keep it together.”
He looks down at her with such determination, and she beams up at him with such joy and trust, that for a moment they look like a picture from a book of fairy tales. All swathed in gold.
Well, thinks Yor, remembering her first knife and Loid’s stories of signing himself up to be a child soldier. It’s always a slippery slope, from love to villainy.
Beside her, Loid deflates.
He sighs like one who holds the weight of the world on his shoulder, and leans into Yor for strength.
“I’m going to regret this,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t mean their plans.
Yor giggles, weaves her fingers into his hair, and presses a kiss to his temple.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve got your back.”
When he looks at her again, it’s as if she is his whole world.
“I’ve never had a partner before,” he confesses, a hushed whisper. “You’re going to steal all of my firsts.”
***
Damian has heard about Garden.
It is an old whispered secret in his family, the shattered connection between the aristocracy and the true secret police of their realm. Shadows, killers, tied by a noble vow his and many other families had abandoned for power and money.
He thought they were a myth.
But now he clutches Anya’s hand, as they step out into paradise, their shadows cat long and deep into the murk amongst the trees by a rising sun.
“Oh don’t be so glum,” Anya says, looking around curiously, her eyes sparkling at the romance of it. Her hand slides up his arm, so she can use him for leverage as she leans further out.
Damian tries not to be miserable or impatient for a whole other reason.
“It’s romantic,” Anya continues. “Villains and heroes, people doing the right thing no matter how they’ll be punished. Not that mama will be punished.”
“Don’t you think it’s time to call her mum or mother?” He asks, his impatience getting the better of him for a moment. Why did she have to be two years younger? “You’re getting too old for Mama. Especially with the age your’e claiming—“
He stops short, catching his breath at the way she looks at him.
All the way through, Anya has been the strong one. All night she has been the steadiest presence amongst them, knowing where they all stood, before they were ready to admit it. All the way through she had seemed impervious, even though she was the one most at risk.
Now her green eyes are wide, washed out blue with the greys of the early morning.
“Do—“ she leans closer. “Do you think that’d be okay?”
Her voice trembles.
And, oh, Damian is forever selfish and unselfish with her.
“I know your family is ridiculously slow,” he drawls, trying to keep some of his pride intact. “But I think after tonight, you’re stuck with them, so you might as well.”
Anya beams at him.
She reaches up and kisses his cheek.
And then she bolts away from him, to go whisper in her mother’s ear.
Damian stares at the space she disappeared from, uncomprehending for the longest time.
She—
She kissed him.
His face blooms in full red.
“Argh!”
He crouches down, covers his face with his hands and knees.
She kissed him.
She kissed his cheek.
So bloody adorable.
“Sir?” One of the servants in the garden requires softly. “Do you need assistance?”
“No!”
Damian shoots to his full height, remembering his dignity, and shuffles his shoulders.
Right.
Villains. Murder. Patricide.
“Come on, you two,” he barks at the Forger women. “We don’t have all day, and my father is going to discover I was snooping any moment now.”
He can feel Anya grin at his back, as he starts stalking ahead into the murky garden. He’s glad the twin smile isn’t visible to her, glad he can subtly touch his cheek when he disappears between the trees.
He’s so glad. He made the right decision, he really did.
Anya comes sprinting after him, and Yor takes the lead.
Her mother, as always in red and black, but sporting long stilettos from her belt and deadly heels on her feet, is quiet and tense. There is very little of the warm mother left in Yor now, just the smooth killer.
She reminds Damian of a mamba, elegant and dark, poised for a quick kill.
But Anya barely notices. She chatters away about the place, tugs on his sleeve and marvels at the adventure of it all - as she does. It’s easy, with her around, to feel safe; to feel as if they’re just on another field trip, one that won’t go wrong.
Until they get through the bush and into a clearing full of flowers. At the centre is a circular pavilion with greek columns and a dome roof, a raised dais and a man, enjoying his morning tea in peace.
Darkskinned, with white curls and a neutral face, the first thing Damian thinks is that he looks like a black sheep.
Anya snickers at the pun.
He nudges her to be quiet.
She nudges him back.
He opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it.
This is not the place.
They are not invited in for tea immediately. Instead, Yor steps closer, holding a quiet conversation with the man she refers to as shopkeeper. He frowns at her explanation, the one she and Loid crafted to keep him out of the story, and looks over, surveying Damian and Anya.
The file is handed over and disappears into the hands of a servant.
Damian is starting to sense it, the eyes he cannot see. They prickle against his skin, draw marks across his throat. This place is poison, he can feel it. Under his feet, in the grace of the grass.
But he will keep his dignity here too.
Finally, they are invited over to the table.
“Miss Forger, Mr Desmond,” the shopkeeper says, smiling without emotion. “Thorn Princess her has told me so much about you both, and of course, there is so much reading material about you separately. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, finally.”
He doesn’t invite them to sit down, and Damian has a terrible feeling it would be unwise to do so.
Meanwhile Anya gapes up at him without fear.
“You’re going to let ma— mum do it.”
Another ephemeral smile. “Fascinating,” he observes. “If your mother was not so protective of you, you could be such a force for any organisation you chose to ally yourself with, Miss Forger.”
Anya grins.
“Anya is a Forger,” she says proudly, jumping up into one of the seats without being asked and reaching for a cookie. “She only works for world peace.”
That little fool.
“Oi,” Damian hisses.
But the shopkeeper just chuckles.
“That we can all respect here,” he says. “But it depends on what your friend has to say to me.”
A chill runs down Damian’s spine, and he finds it in himself to go even more rigid. Now that she’d left him to fend for himself.
Anya meets his gaze, like she has the utmost faith he can stand on his own two legs - and so he must.
Like every other person that loves her, he will cover his hands in blood to keep her safe. He will take the hands of villains, and become corrupt before he has had a chance to step foot in politics. He will avenge her pain and paint the world in her hopeful hues.
Like every other Desmond before him, he will become a villain.
And he will embrace that part of his family legacy if it means keeping Anya Forger’s smile in his life.
“My name is Damian Desmond, I am the scion of the Desmond family,” he announces. The formality drips into his voice, steeling him. He touches his fist to his chest, and then holds it out, palm up. “I wish to re-establish the connection between this noble house and the Garden that protects the people.”
The black man raises his eyebrow. “For what purpose?”
“To create a contract,” Damian answers. “On my father’s head. I want you to kill Donovan Desmond.”