Rafael is sitting across from Stavros at the round table outside the cafe, sipping tea and watching the magical population of Crete walk about. “Whatever the high mage wants, he’s playing the long game,” he murmurs in Italian.
Stavros, just finished reading the story for the third time, now squints at the moving picture in the newspaper. "Oh shit, is Nicky telling the crow story?"
The picture shows Nicholas standing at the head of a crowd that seems to be bowing to him with how they're staggering from laughter. His jewel-encrusted horns glow as Nicholas mimes wrestling with something.
"At least he's enjoying himself,” Stavros says with a fond smile. “Plus good news -or possibly bad- being this public means Xia can’t do anything bad to either of them now.” He smirks. “Do you think Luca will assassinate Xia in his sleep now that he’s snuck into the guy’s house?”
“If Luca does, that’s because of your influence, not mine,” Rafael denies.
Nicholas and Luca meet the two a few minutes later and they swap to English for Luca. The four of them go wandering around shopping – mainly for the stuff next year because their school lists just came in, but mostly because the next day is a full moon so they need to buy some drug-purging potions.
Nicholas buys Luca all the ‘fun stuff’ like ingredients for potions and equipment for alchemy, dresses him up in the greys and blacks of the uniform, and gets way too much cute stationary.
Rafael is therefore the one who reminds them to actually buy textbooks and even then they get half the books recommended because either they share or because the textbooks are optional. He also spends most of his time staring at price tags and trying not to look at anyone when Nicholas or Stavros pays for his things.
Stavros jokes about being Rafael’s sugar daddy and Nicholas laughs about eating the rich but the carelessness in how they spend money doesn’t take away the sting of shame. Rafael tampers that all down though after he catches sight of Luca trying to buy second-hand. It proves Rafael is a normal person, it’s just Nicholas and Stavros that are strange.
So instead of despairing as he watches Stavros buy new clothes that he’s probably going to wrestle Rafael into later (Nicholas is happy to be dressed up and does not need forceful intervention), Rafael puts his energy into helping Luca find the best books to catch up on his schooling.
They also need to pick up some more ingredients since they go through Thoth’s potions pretty quickly even though Rafael doesn’t think it’s necessary. He doesn’t remember anything when he’s Thoth and barely remembers what happens right after a transformation. Any pain he does feel is blurred, dream-like, and settles into a low if constant ache after but if it makes the others happy…
Nicholas runs off with Luca through the shelves of the apothecary, touching everything. Stavros makes it his mission to slink through the shop and lunge around corners to jumpscare Nicholas as many times as possible – which ends quickly when Luca draws a wand on instinct.
Rafael picks up a basket and wanders with it hoked over the crook of his elbow as he gets the common ingredients. The other three keep looping around to drop off supplies and then scatter again. He can only just see their hair peeking above the shelves as they run past.
“Raffy!”
“Ross,” Rafael hums and Stavros comes strutting around a corner, clutching a glass jar with tiny eyeballs floating around, optical nerves all connected into a stem. They bob around with the motion of Stavros’ walk, turning to stare at Rafael.
“No,” Rafael says. “What is that even used for?”
“Cute pets,” Stavros argues and dumps it in the basket before walking away.
“Put it back,” Rafael complains but Stavros is already gone. He sighs and wanders off into the rarer, more expensive section of the shop. He picks up the glass jar so it can see properly. “Where were you?”
The eyeballs drift left and so does Rafael. He finds their shelf eventually, a noticeably missing spot in between more eye-like things that blink at him. He turns to leave but catches on a label, hyper-aware of it like seeing his own name.
Werewolf (bestial) – collateral ligaments of the leg
Dried, reddish-yellow strips of meat lie in a metal basket, paired together and bound by rope with a detailed tag. They’re expensive for something so small and there are only two bunches. Werewolves are rare after all - but that’s probably because they’re in hiding. Most are killed in ‘quarantine’ by a ‘medical complication’ but Rafael has no doubt that normal humans are snatched off the street and infected with the sickness to keep up production.
He’d always felt paranoid, avoiding a section like this in case someone might one day look at the products, and look at him, and somehow piece it together. But after all that information Christos passed on, today he’s rather curious. He wonders much the reform centre sold him for. Could they use all of him or did they dump the rest into landfill?
Rafael picks up a pair of ligaments and it feels like any other dried meat. How would they get the ligaments out without sawing off his entire leg? Unless they simply kill Thoth and break him down. Werewolves are easy to make, there would be no point in keeping him alive like Christos implied. Why would the reform centre bother to keep healing Rafael after they take the parts they need?
His eyes track across the shelves labelled werewolf. Claws, teeth, vials of blood, basic things. Meat, tendons, skin, bones…such a huge price tag.
Rafael spots a truly ridiculous price. He puts the ligaments away and crouches to see a simple wrap of skin locked behind a dimly glowing security ward. It’s human, no fur, but it’s labelled werewolf. A born werewolf, the label proudly states in a larger font.
Rafael didn’t know that mattered. Is that why they kept him for so long? Did they peel his skin off too to make a nice pelt? They wouldn’t even have to wait for a full moon, they could just crack his bones off and rip them out. Imagine that, a creature more expensive when they still look human.
“Rafael?” Luca asks.
Rafael stands up and smiles. “Hey, are you done?”
Luca darts a glance to the shelves and frowns. “Your centre was destroyed.”
“I read about that in the news,” Rafael hums. “You got to it pretty fast.”
“We’ll stop the rest,” Luca promises.
Rafael chuckles. “I don’t think you can. Look how much I cost; you think people will stop when that kind of money is on the line?”
Luca hesitates but then just shrugs. “They’re not going to have a choice after Christos gets to them.”
Rafael feels something in his chest tightens. “Oh, yeah.” He looks back at the shelf and can’t stop a smile. “Yeah, okay. That’s true.”
After they pay for the ingredients, they all shuffle the bags around until Rafael can hold Stavros and Nicholas’ hands while they keep shopping. He’s not worried, really, and that might be a bad sign but he’s always been fully aware that these things happen to people like him. That’s not a surprise. No need to panic over a fact and he can’t stop it anyway.
As the sun sinks fully below the horizon, they all huddle around the Transverse to split off.
“Sorry,” Nicholas says, a bit guilty because Luca is now loaded down with shopping for all four of them. Nicholas will bring Rafael and Stavros’ in his luggage when school starts, to avoid Rafael’s mum in particular noticing, so Luca is taking it back to the Ayad Manor now.
“It’s charmed,” Luca dismisses, pulling up the masses of bags in a bicep curl to demonstrate how light they are. He seems to hesitate, a bit awkward around the subject but still earnest when he says, “Call if you need anything. Extra potions, whatever it is.”
“We’ve stocked up,” Nicholas reassures and flashes a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Luca!”
“Okay. Be safe!”
Rafael waves as Luca steps through. He then turns around and realises Nicholas and Stavros have already disappeared. Damn it.
“That one?” Nicholas asks, pointing at a bakery across the road as he half jogs down the street with Stavros because they’re on a time crunch.
“I swear to you, best store in – Nicky!”
Stavros grabs for his arm but Nicholas is already bumping into someone because he’s too distracted watching the bakery, causing them both to stagger.
“Oh!” Nicholas grabs the woman’s arm to steady her, eyes going wide as he looks down at the spilled cocktail all down her tight white dress. “Sorry about-“
“What the fuck’s your problem?” yells a man, forcing his way in between them, big and mean and clutching a beer.
“What happened?” asks someone else from the same table, a group of friends, maybe twenties and clearly already a bit wasted.
“He just hit my girlfriend!” snaps the angry boyfriend.
Stavros steps up, wrapping up an arm around Nicholas' waist and bringing him close to hide the way he snaps out his wand with a violent flick of the wrist.
Well, to hide it from everyone except the table of people who decided to pick a fight. Their eyes all drop to the wand and a few even take a step back.
“Y-you can't do that,” stutters another man. “Your witch cops won't let you.”
“Yeah? You going to call them, mundane?” Stavros sneers. “Go on, take out your focus and cast an emergency alert charm, I'll wait.”
Nicholas purses his lips to try and smother the smile on his face. “Come on, Ross, it was an accident. Right, guys?”
“Yeah,” the woman Nicholas bumped says quickly. She grabs the arm of her boyfriend even when her friends try to pull her back to safety further away from the confrontation. “It was an accident.”
The man isn't backing down though, he gets even more pissed off at being threatened. “That stick means you're on that giant floating rock, huh? You can't do anything with it, broomfucker. You ain't even legal.”
Stavros chuckles darkly, hand tightening on Nicholas' waist. “I'm about to erase this entire town from existence and then you can tell me what a Lambros can and can't do.”
“Lambros?” whispers another woman from the back, disbelieving.
The man shifts his grip on his beer and half raises it as he takes a step forward. “I don't give a shit about your witch celebri...ties...” His steam runs out as his eyes slowly slide up and up and up to over their heads.
“Is there a problem here?” Rafael asks in a rough voice, standing damn near head and shoulders above the crowd, eyes blazing gold as he peers down at the man, sneering just enough to show sharp teeth.
“No,” the woman says firmly, hauling her boyfriend back. “No, it's fine. I'm sorry, he's drunk.”
“Sorry I bumped into you,” Nicholas can finally say. His wand pops out and despite everyone flinching making the aim harder, he fixes the spill on her shirt and then polishes her shoes because he likes the bright orange colour. “Okay, bye!”
Nicholas grabs Stavros and Rafael and hurriedly runs off through the other tables who have just started to turn and watch. They take a quick turn around the corner then stumble into an alleyway, Nicholas cracking up.
Stavros turns on Rafael, incredulous. “Did you make your voice deeper?!”
“You were standing on your tippy toes!” Nicholas cackles.
“I'm telling Luca you almost got into a fight,” Rafael hisses in outrage. “I can't believe you pulled your wand on a mundane, you know people go crazy about that shit.”
“He was throwing out slurs!” Stavros complains. “Clearly we'd win if it came to public opinion.”
“Why did you even leave?”
Nicholas offers up a sheepish smile. “Um, we wanted to get you a nice treat because you didn’t look so good after the apothecary.” Nicholas points across the road at the bakery they were aiming for.
“We could have just gone together,” Rafael points out, exasperated.
“But it’s always better when it’s a surprise,” Nicholas insists.
