Nicholas can't say much in a letter but repeatedly assures Stavros and Rafael that he's fine and tells them it's better not to meet (because Nicholas will a hundred percent follow Hearth and it'll be Lambros instead). Says he'll talk properly with them when he gets back to school.

He gets twelve more letters back, one after the other in rapid succession.

Most of it is just scraps of paper cussing him out for being a trouble magnet and 'if the high mage hurt you, I'll take his hair off with a fireball' or 'I'm going to handcuff myself to you' and a particularly threatening 'Thoth is upset'.

Nicholas replies with more assurances and after they learn his wand is gone, Stavros sends his own wand, which Nicholas sends back because no, Stavros can't just use Rafael’s wand during class - that's not how it works. Apprentice wands are personally made like every focus.

It's just back and forth for hours, a stream of carrier pigeons dive-bombing Nicholas' window with a stream of conscious letters – most of them half a sentence followed by the end half in a follow-up letter and it's an absolute headache trying to piece it all together.

It could be so much faster if they sent it through the letterbox Nicholas left in the dorm - it connects directly to the one in his mum's office- but that wouldn't be homing specifically in on Nicholas, and they seem to need the reassurance that they know where he is. They could have also tweaked the spell they have in the works, the ink paintings, so they can 'see' each other - but they can’t concentrate on spellcrafting when Nicholas still isn’t physically present in front of them.

Nicholas sighs, fondly exasperated.

And then Rafael and Stavros start sending a letter each and complain when Nicholas doesn't reply to every single letter – even the one with a shitty drawing of an angrily frowning Hearth. Apparently one of the letters was even a port ritual circle to take him to the island and was screened out by the mail wards around Ayad Manor.

Nicholas understands that they're freaking out and want to make sure Nicholas is okay and not being spirited away again but they can't keep this up for however long it takes for Nicholas to go back to school.

Nicholas calms them down eventually (after three straight hours of this chaos).

Nicholas finally sends off the very last pigeon who looks particularly disgruntled, with rumpled feathers like Stavros definitely yeeted it off a tower trying to make it go faster.

Nicholas sighs heavily but there's a smile on his face as he closes the window. He looks down, just a glance, and catches sight of someone hiding in the wild and overgrown garden ringing the large property, tucked between six-pointed flower bushes and flat-topped trees. Someone young, clothes dirtied and torn, bloodied…

The man -boy- peeks out towards the first storey and then cautiously stands up.

Nicholas' eyes go wide and he tears his way across the house, sandals loud in the echoing hallways, hands training over smooth sandy walls. He leaps off the stairs halfway down, lands on the cushioning spell built into the wards after his dad gave up trying to make a toddler Nicholas stop jumping down the stairs, and chooses the fastest route by vaulting out of the first floor window.

Nicholas blinks, face to face with a boy that looks almost like a mirror. Both of them have thick black hair, the high Ayad nose, soft cheekbones, slimmer bodies and a warm olive skin tone. The other boy is taller though, looks maybe older than Nicholas and has all of his wild hair but with deep black eyes.

"Dad?" the boy whispers like he’s too afraid to speak any louder.

"Luca?" Nicholas asks slowly.

"Oh! Uh, nothing, I just got a bit lost." The other laughs nervously and then stops. "Wait, what did you say?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"You're Luca, right?" Nicholas grabs Luca by the shoulders, smiles blindingly. "I heard about you! I'm your dad."

Luca stares. "Uh, yep. Yeah."

"Come inside!" Nicholas cheers happily, dragging Luca towards the house. "Come meet dad - I mean your granddad!"

Nicholas clambers back through the window, dragging Luca with him, and bursts into the dining room to present the hand he's holding to his dad. "Look, it's my long-lost twin!"

Jordan stares at first but then puts down his sandwich and stands, moving over to shake Luca’s hand. "Well, you must be the Luca I’ve heard so much about.”

Vinaya walks past the room, backs up and blinks. “Gods, you're identical. The Ayad blood is strong in you."

Luca has a death grip on Nicholas' hand, confused. He has no idea what’s happening right now.

----------------------------------------

After Luca is stuffed with food and sent to have a proper shower to wash off the blood and dirt of that final battle. He gets dressed in Nicholas' soft clothes, they find him a spare pair of rectangular glasses and use a couple of spells to adjust it to his prescription so he can finally take out his contacts for the first time in days.

They end up on the cushy library couches again, Luca shoving himself right up against Nicholas with Vinaya still occasionally cooing in the background.

"Your Stavros, an older one at least, he killed Adam," Nicholas is explaining.

"No, they just used his magic so the signature came up with a lot of the assassinations, it was actually an anti-mage device," Luca says quickly. Stavros and the other victims got blamed for a lot of deaths, so even after Luca saved them from the lab, many got punished because people didn’t believe the mundanes could make something that stole magic.

"Um," Nicholas looks away. "My Adam. My friend, not, the other one."

Luca hesitates.

"It's okay," Nicholas says. "I know it's different for you."

"It must have been awful though," Luca says softly. "I - I'm sorry it happened. It shouldn't have." Luca’s next inhale is stuttered before he can get a grip on himself.

"Are you okay?" Jordan asks softly and Nicholas hugs Luca from the side.

"Yeah," Luca rasps. "I just, had a long day. And you tell me everything, like I don't even have to prove myself, and I've been so lost before, I just - it's just a lot."

"I met you today and I already love you," Nicholas admits.

Luca hugs back tightly.

Vinaya barely restrains herself from taking a picture.

Luca listens intently as Nicholas goes right onto being kidnapped. There’s a noticeable gap where Nicholas doesn’t say anything about what Luca’s Stavros did during those days and only talks about what Stavros said, mainly about Luca which Nicholas is enthusiastic about – and that makes something in Luca’s chest hurt.

It’s clear that Nicholas doesn’t want to talk bad about Stavros to Luca, but Luca knows what kind of person Stavros is. Stavros was probably as nice as possible because the man loves Nicholas so much -Luca knows that for a fact- but Stavros is never really nice.

Nicholas also tells Luca a small bit about how Xia grabbed him and why Xia is going to keep taking Nicholas for publicity.

Luca's jaw clenches at that. "Does Xia know I killed him?"

"Let's never talk about that again," Nicholas says calmly. "So how did you get here, Luca? Through a broken Transverse as well? Lambros had a lot to say about how shitty that was."

Luca knows, he watched, as Stavros shattered an entire ley line to take out a bunch of Crane Sect disciples that were chasing them and then -not even mentioning how impossible that must have been to set up- apparently got hurled through dimensions and somehow landed in this world still intact.

Luca is going to insist for a moment that Nicholas goes into more detail about Xia but pulls back. It probably wasn’t a good time for Nicholas, Luca shouldn’t push.

"I came from further in the future than Stavros – than Lambros,” Luca corrects. “I…came from after Xia killed the last high mage and she self-destructed her own magic to injure him, it was a whole thing." Luca glances between them nervously. “I’m technically dead.”

"There are stories about second chances,” Jordan muses. “Us Ayads walk with death after all, we are often steeped in the reincarnation cycle.”

"I've heard the story, had a talk with the Beast even," Luca admits.

Jordan splutters, Vinaya blinks several times and Nicholas makes a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat.

“Anyway,” Luca says, used to people staring at him in utter disbelief and a shocked sort of horror. "At the end, Stavros didn't know this, but Xia had something that acted like a battery to power his soul sweeper spell-"

"Don't!" Vinaya says quickly. "Don't, not while he's so focused on honey here. Sweetie, how good is your mind arts? We’ll have to make sure your memories are protected."

"Pretty awful," Luca admits straight up, shyly pushing up his glasses the same way Nicholas does, with the knuckle of a finger to the bottom of the frame.

"I can teach you!" Nicholas says excitedly. "I'm a great teacher, I'm great at everything. Ever. A super cool dad…"

Nicholas and Luca smile stupidly at each other for way too long and Jordan needs to leave the room otherwise he's going to crack up laughing.

"Dear?" Vinaya reminds them.

Luca jolts. "Yes! I – sure. I'm pretty bad at it, but I'd love to learn. Anything. From you. Dad."

Nicholas clutches at his chest and struggles to breathe through all the love.