Sebastian walked the familiar path toward his family's home, his feet moving on muscle memory alone.
The streets of La Ber were quiet at this hour, the lamps casting pools of warm light onto the cobblestones.
A few neighbors nodded at him as he passed, their eyes curious but too polite to ask. They had heard the rumors, of course.
Everyone had.
His mother was waiting on the front porch.
She looked no older than thirty, her dark hair falling in soft waves past her shoulders. She was dressed in a simple blouse and trousers, her arms crossed over her chest.
If she had been human, she would have looked like his older sister. But she was not human. None of them were.
"Sebastian," she breathed, and for a moment her carefully maintained composure cracked.
She reached out and gripped his arm as he climbed the steps, her fingers digging into his sleeve like she was afraid he would disappear again.
"I am fine, Lizzie," he said gently. "I am home." Lizzie was the nickname he gave his foster mother. The second human, his father, turned before him.
She searched his face for a long moment, her dark eyes scanning for any sign of injury or illness. Then she nodded, once, and led him inside.
His father and brothers were in the living room, lounging in his favorite armchair by the fire. He looked like he could have been Sebastian's older brother, maybe thirty-five at most, with the same green eyes and strong jaw.
He was dressed casually, sleeves rolled up, feet propped on an ottoman. He looked up when Sebastian entered, and a slow smile spread across his face.
"There he is," his father said, his voice warm but with an edge of relief underneath. "The prodigal son returns." His two younger brothers looked up and gave him a smile.
"Sebastian! You have returned!" Elliot exclaimed, standing up as soon as his father greeted Sebastian and engulfed him in a bear hug.
"Elliot!"
Sebastian gritted his teeth. He could feel his body getting squeezed by something heavy. "You're squeezing me."
Elliot only hummed, engulfing the scent from his brother before letting him go. "My god, you are so thin. Have they forgot to feed you?"
Casper, the eldest between the two, greeted him with much needed respect the youngest barely gave him.
"Barely. We barely have time to eat as time is ticking and Lucas... Lucas would've been in trouble," Sebastian said.
"That's true. Have you eaten yet?" his mother muttered, already heading toward the kitchen.
She moved with an unnatural grace, the kind that came from centuries of practice. "I am warming up dinner. You need to eat. You look like you are dying."
"I am dead, Lizzie," Sebastian muttered, words that earned him a deadly glare from his foster mother.
"Now, don't play smart with me, young man. You have been gone for so long, and I know you never fed during your searchings. So, you will eat."
Sebastian did not argue.
He sat down on the sofa across from his father, the familiar weight of the room settling around him. The same floral curtains. The same worn rug.
The same clock on the mantelpiece that had been ticking since before he was born.
There were photographs on the wall, generations of their family, all of them looking impossibly young and unchanged across the decades.
His father studied him. "Are you okay?"
His tone was different. As if he were not asking a question. And yet, Sebastian knew he had never been able to hide anything from his father.
"Yes, we met a wolf that has knowledge of where Lucas might've been," Sebastian said. "A village called Tanesab. Somewhere north."
His father nodded slowly, crossing his legs at the ankle. "Tanesab. I have heard of it. A place for strays who already want to forget the real world."
He paused, running a hand through his dark hair. "Is the wolf sure Lucas was there?"
Sebastian nodded as he heaved a deep sigh he didn't know he needed. "Yes, he had a brother up in that place, who married a witch."
The fire in front of them crackled, spitting amber sparks into the night air like fleeting fireflies. Sebastian watched his father's face. The way his jaw tightened at the word "witch" and the way his fingers paused mid-air before continuing their restless journey through his hair.
In their kind, that word was heavier than any stone they'd ever carried.
"A witch," his father repeated, not quite a question, not quite a statement. "And you are going with them? To Tanesab?"
Sebastian nodded. "Of course, I would. I want to see Lucas."
The rug beneath his feet kept him unfamiliarly warm despite the cold stature of their home. His mother was kept away in the kitchen, and his older and younger brothers already went to their rooms.
Sebastian looked at his foster father, carefully observing as his mind thought of a way to convince Sebastian not to go.
He didn't have to, as Sebastian was already planning to leave before the sun even decided to come up. But the idea of his father trying to stop him made his dead heart fiddle in existence.
"I know you are worried, but I had to do it. I had to make sure Lucas was okay."
Damian looked at Sebastian with a visible grimace on his face. "But the witch, Sebastian. I know that you would want Lucas safe, but I am just scared that the witch might hurt you in return."
Sebastian nodded in understanding. "I know. And I am ready for whatever is going to happen in Tanesab. So please, trust me on this."
"I do trust you, Sebastian. It's the existence of that witch I am worried about."
"You've always been stubborn," Damian said, rising from his chair. Sebastian looked at the man in front of him and wondered what he could look like if he didn't succumb to immortality.
Damian Reed was ageless, preserved in the amber of immortality, and yet his eyes carried the exhaustion of someone who had seen too many centuries pass.
"Even when you first showed up here, barely twelve, with that scowl and those pages clutched to your chest like they were the only thing keeping you alive."
Sebastian smiled at the fond memory. It was the first time he had seen such wonderful creatures, and his curiosity took over him whole.
"They were."
Damian crossed the room, his footsteps silent against the tiled floor, a habit born from centuries of moving unseen.
He stopped in front of the window, staring out at the darkness where the mountains swallowed the stars. His reflection in the glass was almost perfect, unmarred by time.
"I know what you are planning, Sebastian."
Damian whispered; a small desperation could be heard from his tone. "And I know that if I were even to try to stop you, you would escape this house like a little thief. But I cannot help but be worried, and forgive me if I do."
Damian turned, and his eyes—dark, ancient, endless—fixed on Sebastian with the weight of a thousand years of fighting an endless war.
"I know. But I have to."
Damian squeezed his eyes tight before heaving a deep sigh. "Okay."
Sebastian beamed. He looked at his foster father with a gleeful expression, making Damian shook his head in defeat.
"But, with one condition," Damian murmured. Sebastian stopped at his little celebration. He looked at his foster father as if he spoke some random mathematical equations that made Sebastian stop listening at all.
"Condition? What kind?"
Damian hummed before sitting back on the couch. His eyes are fixed on Sebastian before breaking into a smile and calling Casper from his room.
"Casper! Come down here!"
Sebastian stared at his foster father, the gleeful expression slowly melting from his face.
Oh come on. Anyone but him.