They slept long.
Nobody decided to — they all just did. The body takes what the body is owed. The lamp burned out sometime before the twins finally made it to chairs, and they didn't make it any further than that. Leo's back found the wall. Piscessa stayed exactly where she'd sat. Only Orin had made it to the cot, and nobody had seen him move.
By the time Geminio opened his eyes, it was close to midday. He stared at the ceiling for a while. Stretched — crack, embarrassingly loud — and looked sideways.
Geminia was still out, head tilted against the chair back, mouth open. Younger-looking when she slept. The line of her jaw unclenched, the constant readiness that had been in her face for years just… not there for a while. He could see the edge of the bruise along her ribs where her coat had ridden up, the color darkening.
He got up quietly and started putting soup together in the corner kitchen.
When Geminia smelled it, she came back.
"You cooked," she said, voice still dragging.
"Boiled water and added things."
"That's cooking."
"Then sure, I cooked."
She sat up and her hand went to her ribs automatically, pressing, checking. Winced slightly. Better than yesterday, probably. She'd know by tonight.
The bowl appeared in front of her. Broth, some root vegetables, hard bread on the side. Nothing complicated. Warm.
"Thanks," she said.
"Don't read into it."
They ate in a quiet that neither of them felt the need to fill.
In the corner, Leo was waking up with all the enthusiasm of a man discovering that walls are not beds. Piscessa was already up, had apparently been up for some time, sitting with the rifle across her lap and cleaning each part with the methodical attention she gave it every morning.
Orin sat with his sword across his knees, watching the small fire. He looked rested, or at least his version of rested, which meant the line between his brows was slightly less deep.
The morning moved slowly, which was its own kind of luxury.
Leo marked routes on the old map with a pencil stub, sipping coffee that had gone cold. He didn't seem to notice or mind. Piscessa worked through her ammunition, counting and sorting in a logic that was hers alone.
Geminio, once the soup was done, found the short broom and made an attempt at the floor. His height versus the broom handle made this a structural problem from the start — he had to hunch to use it, which turned him into a man who looked like he was extremely angry at the floorboards.
Every time he consolidated a pile of crumbs, Geminia walked past and kicked it gently apart.
"I just cleaned that."
"I just walked past."
"You walked through it. On purpose."
"I can't control my feet."
"Yes you can."
"You don't know that."
He chased her with the broom. She ran. They went around the table twice before she slipped behind Leo's chair and used him as a barrier.
Leo turned a page in his map notes without looking up. "If you knock over my coffee, I will take both your blades and throw them in the river."
They went slightly quieter. The chasing continued but at a reduced speed.
Piscessa watched them from her corner with something that was trying very hard to be mild disapproval and not quite getting there.
Orin watched from his chair. He didn't smile, not exactly, but there was something in how he was sitting that was different from how he sat when things were heavy.
Geminio slipped on the pile of cloth he'd left near the wall — his own pile, he had thrown it there two nights ago — and went down with the full drama of someone who had rehearsed falling. Geminia fell over laughing.
"Defeated by your own battlefield!" she announced.
"The cloth moved."
"Cloth doesn't move."
"Maybe a draught."
"There's no draught."
He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, apparently doing the math. Then: "Still unfair."
That afternoon, Leo stood up from his chair and started putting on his coat.
Orin looked up.
"Stepping out," Leo said, like it was the most ordinary thing. "Something I need to handle."
"Want company?"
"No." He buttoned the coat. "Won't be long."
He left. The iron door closed behind him.
Geminio and Geminia looked at each other. The exact same look at the exact same moment.
"We are absolutely not following him," Geminia said.
"Completely agree," Geminio said, already getting up.
"I mean it."
"So do I." He was at the door. "You coming?"
Piscessa put her cloth down. "You two are going to do this anyway and nothing I say is going to matter, is it."
"I genuinely don't know what you're talking about," Geminia said, following her brother.
The door closed.
Piscessa looked at Orin. Orin looked at his sword.
"They'll survive," he said.
"It's not them I'm worried about."
The city in the afternoon had the energy of a place winding down — vendors starting to pack up, shadows getting long over the stone streets, the smell of evening fires starting somewhere. The twins followed Leo from a distance that they were sure was casual and was not.
He turned left at the clock tower. Went through three narrow alleys. Stopped in front of a building that had nothing remarkable about it except a small lamp burning over the door.
He went in.
They eased up to the gap where the door hadn't fully latched. Inside: low music, smoke, half a dozen tables of people playing cards with the focus of people who are losing money and can't admit it.
Leo was at the center table. He was winning, from the look of the chips. Then he wasn't winning. Then he was losing steadily, and his face gave absolutely nothing away about any of it.
Then he took off his jacket and put it on the table.
Geminio made a sound that he cut off by covering his mouth with both hands. Beside him, Geminia had turned the color of someone trying not to laugh at a funeral.
Leo, without looking away from his cards, said: "You have five seconds to get away from that door."
They fled.
Three alleys away, they collapsed against a wall and let it out.
"HIS JACKET."
"I KNOW."
"He put his jacket on the table, Geminia, he put his actual—"
"I was there—"
"What was he thinking—"
"That he was going to win it back—"
"He didn't win it back, he put his jacket—"
They slid slowly down the wall, wheezing, the kind of laughing that makes your ribs hurt and you don't care. Geminia wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"If it's his only jacket," Geminio started.
"It's not his only jacket."
"But if it was—"
"He'd walk home fine, he's built like a barn—"
"The wind would just… he'd just look at the wind and the wind would apologize—"
They went the long way back to headquarters, still talking, each retelling getting wilder.
Back at headquarters, Orin was in his chair. Piscessa was in her corner.
The twins came back with red faces that they weren't doing a good job of making neutral.
"You followed him," Orin said, not looking up.
"We happened to be in the same part of the city," Geminia said.
"Coincidence," Geminio agreed.
"Leo will tell me."
"Leo already told us to leave," Geminia said. "Which we did. Promptly."
Piscessa made a quiet sound that could have been anything.
Leo came back not much later. His jacket was back on, origin of its recovery unclear. He looked tired in the specific way of someone who has paid for something and didn't get what they wanted out of it. He walked in, saw the twins, and stopped.
"You two," he said, "age me."
"We just—"
"Don't." He held up one hand. "I know. I was there."
He took his chair. The twins, on some unspoken agreement, took themselves to the kitchen corner and started making dinner — or rather, started throwing ingredients around in the general direction of making dinner. Geminia lit the stove. Geminio pulled vegetables. Something airborne between them at all times.
A carrot bounced off Leo's shoulder.
He caught it before it hit the floor, one hand, without looking. Set it on the table. "Who."
"Physics," Geminia said.
"Geminia."
"Things fall."
"Sideways."
"Sometimes."
He put the carrot down with great precision and picked up his drink.
Dinner was soup, bread, meat that had cooked slightly too long because Geminio was too deep into the story of the jacket incident to watch the pot. They ate at the table while he and Geminia reconstructed the afternoon — each version added new detail, got more dramatic, acquired minor embellishments. Leo ate without correcting anything, which either meant it was accurate or he had given up caring.
"You really do just make a story every day," Orin said.
"What else is there," Geminia said.
"The soup's burnt," Piscessa offered.
"That's Leo's story," Geminio said, pointing at him. "I was just trying to document it accurately."
Leo exhaled. He had been exhaling all evening, at regular intervals, the way a man does when he has accepted his circumstances.
Night came the way it always did, gradually and then completely.
The twins actually made it to their beds this time, which was treated as a minor event. They argued about the pillow arrangement for a while. Then the blanket distribution. Then whether there was a draught or not. The argument lost urgency and became murmuring and then stopped entirely.
Leo lit a small candle at his table and sat with it for a while. Piscessa put her rifle in its place one last time.
Orin watched the ceiling from the cot in the corner for a moment before he closed his eyes.
The candle stayed lit a while. The twins' breathing went slow and even. The water dripped through the tunnel wall, same as it always did.