Luca is sitting on a streetside bench in Canada, the paint chipped off and the wood splintered enough he can feel it through his clothes. Across the quiet road and behind the dusty glass of a restaurant window are Luca’s mothers.

His mum is telling a story, all hands and a bright smile, while his ma keeps trying to interrupt with a laugh because mum is always blatantly telling stories wrong.

They’re just dating right now. His mum proposed with a necklace, knowing ma doesn’t like things on her hands, and ma never took that piece of jewellery off for as long as Luca can remember. She isn’t wearing it now so it must not have happened yet.

They look strangely young, which is an odd thought to have because at least they’re adults. Nicholas is still younger than Luca and acts like it, all boyish grins and vibrating with energy but maybe that’s a personality difference.

Luca’s mothers are already mid-twenties now so they were settled and ready for a family when they agreed to take in Luca to hide him. Luca was four, wasn’t he? Still young enough he doesn’t remember anything but it probably wasn’t easy to comfort a grieving child.

“You don’t want to talk to them?” an adult Stavros asks.

Luca jolts and his wand snaps into his hand before he realises it’s just his Stavros standing at the end of the bench. “Don’t do that,” he huffs.

“I just walked up,” Stavros argues. He falls onto the bench and groans as he slumps, throwing his arms over the backrest. He’s dressed fancy today, in pure white that almost glows and silver so silky it almost seems to run like liquid.

“Why do you look tired?” Luca asks, eyes darting around the street just to make sure no one followed.

“I ported all the way here,” Stavros mutters. “And we are both going to pretend it’s because Traverse gates are logged and I’m staying undercover.”

Luca purses his lips but it’s not surprising Stavros doesn’t want to get back into a ley line after what happened the last time he was in one. “I’m fine with that but why didn’t you tell me to meet at the reform centre then?”

“I thought you were going to talk to your mothers,” Stavros admits. “I wanted to be emotional support.”

“Uh, no. I - nothing to say, really. Better I don’t.” Luca clears his throat. “I was actually thinking about what I remembered from my childhood. I think…have I seen you before? I have a vague memory but maybe I just convinced myself it was you.”

“It was me. You must have been-“ Stavros lets out a gusty exhale “-maybe nine years old when they said Raffy died? I’d just seen the body – or, well, I hadn’t actually. I should have checked because I would have recognised none of them were Thoth, but the werewolves were just thrown into a pile and already set on fire. I wanted to see you since you were the last person I had left.”

“And then…” Luca trails off because Stavros has never told him what happened after, Luca learned about it from old news articles.

“And then I went fucking insane on the werewolf catchers,” Stavros admits candidly. “The magpol sedated me and I woke up five years later strapped to machines. Are we done with story time?”

“You could have said you didn’t want to talk about it,” Luca suggests calmly because he’s used to Stavros getting defensive.

Stavros tsks. “You ready to go?”

Luca stands up and they head off. Luca needs practice with his porting spell anyway so they hop countries together, taking breaks to ward off the dizziness. That’s especially true when jumping islands across to Europe and the distance leaves Luca swaying.

The Creature Reform Centre that had Rafael is the main centre where they kept the rarest creatures, like a born werewolf who lasted to adulthood. It’s hidden in the forests of Finland, promoted as a resort where dangerous but sentient creatures can learn how to control themselves and be productive members of society.

Every so often the public kicks up a fuss about it because the centres aren’t exactly well-hidden jails but Vasundhara Bhale bought the land with his own money and it’s a private company so no amount of protesting can do anything without hard evidence.

Vasundhara and High Mage Niaa both meet up in this particular centre, or at least they used to - they will? In the future? If they do, there should be files kept here. If not, at least Stavros will be able to tear it down again in Rafael’s name.

That is, if all goes well. They’re hoping to get inside and maybe bring it down but that will depend on what they find. Since they're back in time, the things they know might be different or completely wrong and misinformation is the fastest way to get someone hurt.

It’s an information-gathering mission above all else. Even if they don’t find anything incriminating for those two mages in particular, one of the major priorities is to figure out how the collars work in this time and how to deactivate them.

Luca isn’t optimistic that they’ll find anything good in the reform centre and honestly, he’s not looking forward to it. He still remembers the last time he had to be in there.

Their last port sends them staggering a few minutes’ walk outside of the wards. Luca braces himself against a tree and takes deep breaths to ward off the spots of black in his vision and the vertigo. “That was horrible.”

“Good practice,” Stavros huffs and shakes himself out. “Okay, let’s go.”

Neither of them is good at transfiguration so Luca tosses back a pre-set transfiguration potion that shifts him into a quiet, mousy-looking assistant and he conjures a notebook and pen so he can pretend he’s doing something. Stavros only has to fix up his hair a bit and unshrink a dragon-headed cane that he had tucked into a pocket.

Then they just walk right in through the sliding doors into the massive lobby.

“Mr Lambros,” a woman says immediately, stepping away from two others and walking towards them, short heels tapping against the marble flooring. She has a perfected customer service smile on her face, suit jacket and pencil skirt without a single wrinkle. “Welcome, can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?”

“That’s nice of you,” is all Stavros says, like an insult. His eyes are cold and his features are set into apathetic, vague annoyance.

The woman hesitates for only a moment, coming to a stop just too far away to be natural. “Of course, we should get right down to business. My name is Anneli and I’m a Senior Executive here at this Creature Reform Centre. My preferred pronouns are they/them. I was happy to hear you expressed an interest in taking a tour of our facilities.”

“Considering you’re trying to plant one of these eyesores in Greece, I felt the need to see it for myself,” Stavros deadpans. “Show me where you keep the animals.”

Anneli only smiles, no longer caught off guard and unfortunately adaptable. “Right this way.” As they lead Luca and Stavros off down a hallway, they make a hand gesture to the other two people who skitter away. “I understand your concern, Mr Lambros. Your mountains are a beautiful sight. But I assure you, like the way we preserved the forest here in Finland, we’ll take the utmost care in blending our centre with the features of Greece if we are allowed to build in your country.”

Luca walks half a step behind Stavros, trying not to react. They’re laying the flattery on a bit thick, aren’t they? It’s not like the Lambros own the country.

“How are you preventing the animals from leaving?” Stavros demands. “You’ve failed before.”

“We have taken full responsibility in cases where the creatures lashed out,” Anneli says solemnly. “Either our building wasn’t capable of housing particularly strong creatures or our rehabilitation programs sent them out too early.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Anneli grabs a door handle and it turns green when it identifies their magic. They pull it open and the marble flooring turns to concrete, the subtle wallpaper becomes off-white paint, and the security cameras and wards are no longer hidden.

“But I assure you,” Anneli continues. “That we have learned our lesson and grown from it.”

As they keep walking, Luca realises this hallway is still meant for guests, still neat and tidy and displaying the creatures as if in a showroom. Staggered on either side are transparent wards with the faintest of coloured glow around the edges, leaving no privacy for the creatures.

The rooms are decorated like right out of a textbook. The fairy is tucked away in a tree hollow with only its glow giving away where it is, the room a perfectly arranged snapshot of a forest. A selkie is in a water tank filled with flowing seaweed but he’s hiding in a carved-out hollow of rock. The next room is a gorgeous nest of feathers but the aarakocra sits curled up on a tree branch and tucked into her wings.

They all wear collars.

“What are the wards?” Stavros asks, knuckles going white where he’s gripping the cane, his limp more pronounced. “Some – animals are magic resistant, how do you expect them to be contained?”

As Anneli gives them the tour, Stavros keeps pressing for answers and Luca scribbles them down. They explain the wards, the security cameras, the doors and the lockdown procedures in place.

After walking through the zoo portion, they lead the way to the control centre and Stavros goes quiet. It’s the same room, so horribly familiar.

Some staff are sitting in front of monitors and Luca even recognises one of them. The staff member doesn’t look quite the same, more human. Maybe he hasn’t volunteered yet or perhaps the experiments haven’t started but sometime in the future, the reform centre starts trying to give mages and mundanes bits of creatures so they can be stronger and faster, to better control their merchandise.

Shit, Luca forgot he had to deal with that.

Stavros snaps his fingers at Luca. “This is taking longer than I’d hoped. Go and get me a coffee.”

“I could send someone-“ Anneli begins.

“They’d do it wrong,” Stavros deadpans.

Anneli pauses. “The break room is just out that door and to the left. It’s a security door so just knock to be let in again.”

Luca ducks his head and makes his way across the control centre, scanning the monitors as he goes. It’s the same layout as he remembers. It’s not a big place, just the display rooms for the prettiest creatures and then the underground cells for the most expensive. Not more than a few dozen creatures are kept here and they should be easily moved.

“And your collars,” Stavros says quietly. “Tell me how those work.”

Luca leaves the room into a silent hallway and doesn’t quite close the door behind him so it won’t lock. He takes a left into the break room and scans for monitoring spells or machinery and detects none.

Luca then stares at the fancy coffee machine for far too long before just conjuring a mug, adding water and then turning it vaguely coffee-brown. It’ll taste like water but Stavros will have to deal with it.

He pulls out the anonymous letter they prepared earlier and scrawls the specific sending-ritual diagram for a creature conservation, who can be called out to situations where injured magical creatures need immediate assistance.

The latter vanishes in a blip just as the outer wards snap to opaque and lock down the entire area, trapping everyone inside like Anneli promised they would.

Luca glances to the coffee but shrugs it off since apparently, Stavros doesn’t want to keep playing it safe. He makes his way back into the control room, wand already in hand.

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Luca and Stavros hang around hidden in the forest while they watch the creatures get picked up from the loading bay, the strong structure still standing even with the rest of the centre collapsed into rubble.

The conservationists are vets first and foremost who do rehab and release of injured creatures so they take one look at the destroyed building and decide it’s someone else’s problem. They call the magpol and that’s out of their hands now, so they can focus on the injured creatures, many of which can’t even stand.

Neither Vasundhara nor Niaa shows up but they must have been told. Luca is getting a bit paranoid that they aren’t here, pacing and constantly scanning the forest in case they…what, sneak up on him? Luca is getting a bit too worked up if he thinks someone like Niaa can be subtle.

“They’re probably doing damage control,” Stavros says with a smirk. “Imagine that, the control room malfunctioning? Technomancy is a budding field of magic after all, it tends to be volatile.”

“I think we should go,” Luca says.

“I wiped the cameras with future techno spells no one has even dreamed of yet,” Stavros dismisses. “And we don’t exist anyway so good luck finding a trail.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to fight a high mage just yet and it’s a long port trip back,” Luca points out.

Stavros grimaces.

They stay long enough to make sure the conservationists take the creatures and no one else does, then hike deeper into the forest so they don’t get pinged for using magic nearby.

And as expected, getting back is awful and Luca just passes out in Stavros’ guest bedroom.

He was hoping he’d be too tired to dream but that night, Luca remembers memories strong enough to be nightmares.

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Luca is standing at a control room desk, behind metre thick walls, the wider room outside filled with shouting and flashes of colour, doors blocked against a flood of creatures by desperate resistance fighters.

There are seven hundred and thirty-two creatures in the complex, collared and driven mad, half of them held together with stitches -old and new- from being harvested in cycles. Vasundhara sent them after the resistance - or rather he let them free and they went wild.

Luca has the kill switch. Already got past magical wards and traps, mundane passwords and software, and technomancy firewalls.

With one switch, Luca can kill the creatures and end their suffering, save the resistance members here, go after Vasundhara before he escapes.

"I'll do it," Rafael says, his Italian accent light and voice a quiet rasp barely heard over the screaming and spellfire, the slamming on the walls. He stands a bit slanted, a chunk taken out of his calf, bleeding through his paper-thin grey uniform, gaunt and with a rattle to his breathing, blood that isn't his on his mouth and claws.

The collar, attached to his spine, is flashing in warning because Luca unlocked the switch. Half an hour Luca has known him, barely anything, so why does it matter so much?

"I can-" Luca blinks quickly a few times. His contacts are starting to hurt. "There must be a way, I just need time. There are so many people - I need time."

"Ah." Rafael limps closer, hand braced on the control panel to help him stand. "That's where you've gone wrong. We're not people."

Luca's head snaps to him and Rafael only smiles wryly, there's no amusement in his eyes.

"I'm sick," Rafael admits. "That's what it is. Magic gone wrong. And if you save us, what then, where do we go, who takes us in? Do you really think we won't just be killed in a different way? More humane. Even the people here who say they're fighting to free us, they flinch from me."

Luca swallows thickly. "I have favours I'm owed - just because I don't have a plan now-"

"Please leave, Luca," Rafael asks neutrally. "I don't want you to watch."

Luca grits his teeth, jaw clamped shut but trembling. He feels cold.

"Ross is going to be so upset," Rafael muses, ushering Luca away with a claw-tipped, gaunt hand on his shoulder. It’s gentle. "Let him know that I was dying anyway. They already gave me the injection to put me down, what he did only slowed it by an hour or so. It's already hurting."

Luca staggers back a step, blinking. He turns and walks the few steps out of the closed-off security centre, into the main room that's much larger but filled with more computers and screens. The doors are half broken down, the wards fizzling and sparking. It's louder out here, almost deafening.

Stavros is near the larger double doors that lead off from the major corridor, blond curls tangled up in a bun, a violent grin on his face as he lights up the area around him with spellfire. Moving with his limp for once instead of struggling to pretend it isn't there. He's happy, after meeting Rafael again. He's the one who calmed Rafael down at the start, when the man was all instinct and brutality, looking through Stavros, unable to even talk.

"Can you tell Nicky that I was brave, in the end?" Rafael asks.

Luca's inhale stutters where he stands at the doorway, back to the small room.

"Sorry," Rafael mutters immediately after. "Sorry, my head is a bit messed up. I forgot. Sorry." He huffs out a laugh. "I'll just tell him myself then."

The kill switch is used as a threat, usually in individual cases, as a show of power, to be a demonstration of utter control. And yet for some reason, Luca is still expecting it to be quiet.

There's a loud click, perfectly in sync, hidden in the chaos. Then comes the explosions, a burst of power and the tell-tale crackle of technomancy, a thundering roar that shakes the building, a few doors are blown in from the force. Luca can feel it rattle through his bones.

There's a splatter of blood on the floor by his shoes.

The room settles, and the sudden quiet after is like a vacuum. Then people start cheering in relief, checking on their comrades, looking over the - the bloodied corpses in the corridors that aren't even whole anymore. Someone shouts across at him, but Luca doesn't hear.

Stavros shoves past in a panic and Luca staggers to the side, back hitting the wall and he leans there, the world so loud but so distant like through thick glass. He grips his wand tighter, rubs fingers into the smooth wood but feels nothing. His body is cold, numb, but he doesn't have time for this.

Luca turns to look behind him and he doesn't know how long it takes him, how long he was staring out into the main room, but when he looks Stavros is kneeling on the floor, the tiles sparkling clean and empty. He's holding a metal collar, chipped and burnt. Stavros is bowed over, shoulders jutting up like spires, face hidden, hands gripping the collar so hard they're white-knuckled and shaking.

Luca kills seven hundred and thirty-two creatures, forty-six staff, three visitors, High Mage Niaa who screams the whole time, and one Vasundhara Bhale who was financing farming the creatures for his apothecaries.

Or rather, Luca does none of it by hand, but does it matter when he started it? When people look to him and ask if he's happy with their work?

Stavros drags Vasundhara into a room, takes his time, and Luca just sits outside on the ground, elbows on his raised knees. He wonders what Rafael used to be like, when he was actually happy.