The old house creaked in the late afternoon heat, its shuttered windows filtering in strips of gold. A scattering of maps, letters, and notebooks lay over the battered table in front of them.
Zevran leaned back in his chair, boot propped on the edge of the table with shameless disregard for its precarious wobble. "Well," he said, twirling a dagger between his fingers, "it seems we have upset the hornet's nest. Congratulations to us all."
Evie, lounging against the wall with her arms crossed, snorted. "Was that not the plan?"
"A little less hornet, a little more smoke," Kieran muttered, scribbling something indecipherable in one of his ledgers. "We can't stay hidden forever if we keep escalating."
Hirik grunted agreement, busying himself with a bit of broken clockwork he insisted was going to be 'important later.' Only Tai remained still, gaze steady on Zevran.
"You want to leave," he said, not quite a question.
Zevran smiled. Not his usual glittering, devil-may-care smile, but something a little quieter. "I want to make certain you are not caught like fish in a drying pond, tesoro."
He let the dagger clatter to the table and stood, tracing a line across one of the maps with his fingertip. "Treviso is burning metaphorically and... possibly soon literally," he said lightly. "The Crows are focused here, yes, but we can give them other fires to stamp out."
"You have people," Kieran guessed.
"A few." Zevran flashed a grin. "Old friends, bitter rivals, the occasional blackmailer. People who would love a reason to kick the Crows while they are down."
"And you want to pull them into this mess?" Tai raised a brow.
"Not into this mess," Zevran said. "Into their own glorious messes. Distractions, my beautiful children. While they chase ghosts across Antiva, you stay here, clean, untouched."
Evie frowned faintly. "That's only part of it."
Zevran inclined his head. "You know me too well. I also mean to open... a back door."
"Escape route," Hirik translated.
"Yes, yes. Escape route." Zevran gestured elegantly. "Preferably before the building is on fire and all the exits are blocked."
Kieran tapped his pen thoughtfully. "Rivain?"
"Possibly." Zevran shrugged. "Or the Free Marches, if my old friends in Starkhaven still remember how to hold a grudge."
Tai straightened from the wall. "You think it'll get that bad?"
"I think," Zevran said, voice losing some of its usual playfulness, "that you should always have a door ready. Especially when you are tearing down the house."
The room fell into thoughtful silence. He wasn't wrong; an escape route was a good idea. So was setting new fires elsewhere to draw attention and resources.
Zevran straightened, clapping his hands together. "Right. While I charm and lie and perhaps murder my way across the countryside, you lot-" he pointed dramatically at them, "-will stay quiet."
"No promises," Tai said, grinning.
Zevran only laughed.
-
The sun hadn't quite set yet, but the world was already blue and gold and hazed with smoke. The house sat quieter than usual, the walls thick with something like stillness.
Zevran had packed lightly. He always did, even before there was danger on his heels and old ghosts clawing for his throat. A worn satchel slung over his shoulder, a few knives hidden where even a Crow would have to think twice to find them. That stupid green coat, somehow always spotless, even when the rest of them were covered in dust and soot.
"Are you sure about this?" Tai asked. His voice was too sharp to pass for casual.
Zevran turned from the door with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Oh, I have never been sure of a single thing in my life, hijo. But I am charming enough to fake it."
Tai didn't smile back. Evie stood just behind him, arms crossed loosely. She wasn't trying to stop Zevran. She knew better. But her eyes, steady and sad, said everything she didn't. Kieran was silent, but that wasn't unusual. Hirik fiddled with a clasp on his bracer like it was suddenly fascinating, jaw tight.
Zevran stepped forward and opened his arms like he was about to tell a joke.
"Come, come," he said. "This is where you all cry and cling and tell me not to go."
Hirik snorted. "Do you want a slap instead?"
"Hmm, tempting," Zevran mused. "But no, I think not today."
Tai rolled his eyes and let himself be pulled into a hug. It was quick at first, a brief press of arms, but Zevran didn't let go. He kept a hand on the back of Tai's neck, fingers threaded into his hair.
"I mean it," Zevran murmured low for Tai's ears alone. "I will come back. Do not burn the world down while I'm gone."
"You're one to talk," Tai said thickly, blinking hard.
Zevran pulled back just enough to look him in the face. "You are so much better than I was at your age. It's beautiful."
Tai huffed, but the corners of his mouth tugged upward. "You're only saying that because I inherited your hair."
"Luckily for you," Zevran said, mock-solemn. "You look good in it."
He moved to hug Kieran next, brief, a shoulder clasp, the sort of affection Kieran accepted awkwardly but without protest.
Hirik got a bear hug and a kiss to the top of the head for the crime of being the shortest. "Try not to blow yourself up."
"If I do, it'll be on purpose," Hirik muttered, but he didn't pull away until Zevran did.
Evie stepped forward, softer than the others, and her arms went around him without hesitation. She was so small compared to him - light, sharp-edged, but warm.
"It was good," she said, voice muffled in his shoulder. "Having you here."
He nodded against her hair. "It was good being here, mi floricita." He pulled back to look at her. "Write to your father; tell him I send my regards." He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Be careful, Evie. Or don't. But come back anyway."
And then he was gone, just like that. The door shut behind him with a soft click. The silence that followed was heavier than any goodbye.
Evie and Tai stayed by the window, watching as his figure disappeared down the street, vanishing into the haze and heat of Treviso like smoke into the sky. Tai stood beside her, shoulders tense, arms crossed now in defence rather than attitude.
"He'll be all right," Evie said softly.
"He always is," Tai said, too fast.
She stepped over and bumped his shoulder gently with her own. "But it's still hard."
He didn't answer. She didn't push. She just stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, and said, "He'll come back. He promised."
After a long pause, Tai finally spoke, "Mm. But he always promises."
Evie looked sideways at him, then up at the slowly darkening sky. The smoke overhead still lingered like a bruise.
"And he's always kept them," she said, quiet and certain now.
And for the first time since the door closed, Tai exhaled, not a laugh, not quite a sigh, but something like relief.