The Keepers' Evil

Three: The keepers have shown me other memories as well

Song- Way down we go: Kaleo

"The keepers have shown me other memories as well."

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Sleep had clearly betrayed Sebastian after I had left the Undercroft the previous night. His eyes bore circles as dark as the wisps of magic that inhaled and his clothes hung creased and crumpled from his body as if he hadn't left the Undercroft at all. Sebastian had signed away his sanity the day that curse left his wand and he didn't even try to shy away from the binding contract of insanity he made with his own mind.

I turned to look at Ominis beside him, Ominis who was a complete contradiction to Sebastian. His skin didn't house the same tiny flickers that Sebastian's did, the flickers that only I knew were his nails' desperate, and entirely unintentional, attempts to hold himself together. His eyes didn't threaten to send him into an instant exhaustion if he blinked ever so slightly too long and his hands remained entirely scrubbed clean.

"You're both awfully silent today- I thought I'd like it, but it's rather unnerving." He quipped, a remark that I knew was Ominis' attempt at playing detective- a role he had too often had to take up to navigate all that came with being friends with Sebastian.

And me for that matter.

The three of us looked entirely misplaced in the Great Hall. We looked jumbled, wrong. We looked like three shards of the same shattered mirror- once it's cracked it's never fully the same. There are gaps, there are cracks, but it's still one.

To the other students we seemed normal, maybe even boring. In our own minds, here we sat in our own little bubble, one of us craving closeness, one of us seeking secrets and the other utterly unaware of what was going on right under his nose. But to the other students, here we sat whilst we ate breakfast, together.

"Why thank you, Ominis. I truly appreciate you, as always."

Sebastian chuckled lowly under his breath, maybe more like a sigh than a laugh, at the sarcasm that toppled over my words but he didn't look up from the table and certainly didn't look up at Ominis. But I did, and I knew that if Ominis could see Sebastian's eyes he would have already warned me by now that something was wrong. It was when Sebastian was silent that Ominis knew to worry most.

Ominis stared into my eyes more deeply than even Sebastian had in the Undercroft that night. It was as if he were saying I may be blind, but I can see your soul better than anyone with sight. Ominis was too good for the life he had; he deserved better than Sebastian and I at the very least.

"How are you?"

Ominis' question was poorly timed with the large mouthful of water I had decided to practically inhale. The water seemed to crash inside my throat, crashing as if it weren't water from my cup, but water from the ocean instead. I spluttered loudly, forcing the air through the sudden dam of liquid in my lungs.

"How am I?" I repeated as if he should know better. The tone my words held wasn't deliberate, but it said what I wouldn't.

Fig was dead.

Anne was dying.

I was lying to Ominis about a path that wasn't mine to follow.

And Sebastian was, well, Sebastian.

I wondered for how long Sebastian had been staring at me the way he was with that same muddled look he seemed to have adopted. I didn't like that this emotion was becoming familiar. I needed it to stay forbidden, I needed it to stay away, at least until I found a way to avenge Isidora.