Chapter 160: Ficklebottom Returns

The second I stepped inside, I was assaulted by light and color in a way that made my brain temporarily forget we’d just been chased by a mob and saved by homicidal bunnies, because the interior of this theater bore absolutely no resemblance to the crumbling disaster I’d seen from outside.

It was like stepping through a portal into some fever dream designed by someone who’d been told to make “opulence” and “barely holding together” somehow coexist in the same physical space—and against all logic and several laws of physics, they’d actually succeeded.

The floors were covered in plush red velvet carpet that had definitely seen better days but still managed to maintain a kind of worn elegance, soft beneath my boots and emitting this strange radiance that seemed to come from within the fibers themselves.

The walls were dark oak, polished to a shine that reflected the warm glow of what had to be dozens of candles lining every available surface in brass holders that gleamed like captured sunlight, their flames dancing and flickering in patterns that seemed almost choreographed.

And the ceiling—saints above, the ceiling—was covered in pale yellow star decorations that hung suspended on invisible wires, rotating slowly and catching the candlelight in ways that made them twinkle like an actual night sky had been compressed and stuffed into this impossible space.

We were standing in what appeared to be a large lobby, the kind you’d find in theaters that catered to nobility and people with more money than sense, complete with a concession stand at the very front that looked slightly run down but still functional, its glass cases empty but sparkling clean.

On either side of the stand rose two sets of lavish staircases—carved from the same dark oak as the walls, their banisters worn smooth by countless hands over what had to be years or possibly decades—that curved upward in elegant spirals to reach a balcony that overlooked the entire space.

But the most jarring thing, the detail that made my brain stutter and restart like a machine trying to process impossible data, was the moonlight streaming in from the large arched windows on either side of the lobby.

Yes, moonlight—soft, silver-blue, impossibly beautiful—that painted everything it touched in shades of ethereal luminescence.

I glanced up toward the balcony, drawn by instinct or perhaps by the sheer dramatic weight of the scene presented before us, and there he was.

Julius. Perched on the oak railing in a pose so precarious it defied both gravity and common sense, one leg extended on the wood for balance while the other was tucked beneath him, his entire frame radiating an elegance that shouldn’t have been possible for someone sitting on a banister like an exotic bird.

He was draped in lavish blue robes that caught the moonlight and threw it back in cascades of sapphire brilliance, the fabric flowing around him like liquid night, and beneath that was a white button-up shirt left scandalously undone to expose a triangle of chest that probably violated several codes of noble decency.

In his hands he held a violin—battered and worn, the wood scarred with age and use, but positioned with the careful reverence of someone holding something precious beyond measure.

A gold pocket watch hung at his side, swaying gently with each slight movement, and his long golden hair—which I remembered being slightly messy back in the prison—now fell in perfect waves around his sharp-featured face, framing those soft hazelnut eyes that were currently closed in what could only be described as reverent concentration.

And behind him, framed perfectly in a circular window like some kind of divine painting, hung the moon itself—a crescent of luminescent blue so vivid it looked hand-painted by someone with access to colors that shouldn’t exist in nature.

Brutus took a step forward, his mouth opening to call out a greeting, but I shushed him with one raised finger because I could feel it, that electric anticipation in the air that suggested something was about to happen, something that would be criminal to interrupt.

And then Julius began to play.

Oh gods, did he play. The violin—clearly held together more by love than proper maintenance—sang under his fingers with notes so sweeping and elegant they seemed to physically manifest in the air around us, visible as shimmering distortions in the candlelight.

The tune was off-key, objectively wrong in ways that would’ve made trained musicians weep, but somehow that imperfection made it more beautiful, more real, like listening to the genuine voice of something that refused to be perfect and was all the more gorgeous for it.

Each stroke of the bow pulled sounds from the instrument that shouldn’t have been possible, high notes that pierced straight through to something vulnerable in my chest and low notes that rumbled in my bones like distant thunder promising storms.

It was mesmerizing, utterly and completely mesmerizing, the kind of performance that made time feel optional and breathing feel like an imposition on the moment’s sanctity.

Julius paused, his bow hovering above the strings, his eyes still closed as though he were communing with forces beyond mortal comprehension, and then he spoke.

His voice rolled across the lobby in measured cadence, each word perfectly timed, perfectly weighted, as he recited poetry with the kind of passion reserved for declarations of war, love, or possibly both at once.

“In twilight’s grasp where shadows play,” he began, and the violin sang a single note between his words, “Where moon and candle share their light,” another note, higher this time, dancing, “There waits a stage for those who stray,” the bow moved faster, building, “To find their purpose in the night.”

He drew out the final word, letting it hang suspended, then brought the bow down in a flourish that made the violin cry out with triumphant finality.

His eyes opened—slowly, dramatically, revealing those hazelnut depths that now held an expression so utterly, impossibly elegant I briefly forgot how to form coherent thoughts.

I cleared my throat—partially to break the spell, partially because my body demanded I do something to process what I’d just witnessed—and began clapping with enthusiasm that was only slightly exaggerated.

“Bravo!” I called out, my voice echoing across the lobby. “Absolutely stunning! Ten out of ten. Though I have to dock half a point for the tears you’re about to make me shed.”

Julius’s head snapped toward us with such velocity I heard his neck crack. Just then, his face split into a smile so impossibly wide, so luminously joyful, that I actually grew a little concerned he might dislocate his jaw or achieve liftoff through sheer enthusiasm alone.

The violin left his hands as though it had personally offended him, tossed aside with a casual disregard that made me wince because that instrument had to be worth something even in its current state.

And then he leaped.

Not stepped down, not climbed carefully—no, this absolute madman launched himself off the balcony railing in a series of delicate flips that would’ve made any trained acrobat nod with approval, his blue robes billowing around him like wings as he spun through the air with the kind of grace that suggested either extensive training or complete disregard for his own mortality.

He landed on the lobby floor in a crouch that should have shattered his ankles, and a massive cloud of dust erupted from the impact point, completely obscuring his figure in a brown-gray haze that made me cough and wave my hand ineffectually.

“Um, Julius?” I called out, genuine concern bleeding into my voice now. “Are you—are you okay?”

Then, without warning, he came bounding out from the dust cloud like some kind of deranged gazelle, his face still split in that manic grin as he began performing a series of front-handsprings toward me while screaming my name with a volume that probably violated several noise ordinances.

“LOOOOOOOOONAAAAAAA!” The sound echoed off the walls, multiplying until it felt like a choir were singing my name in increasingly unhinged harmony.

His body crashed into mine at what could only be described as terminal velocity, the impact driving the air from my lungs and sending us both collapsing to the floor in a tangle of limbs, robes, and my own considerably smaller frame.

Before I could process what was happening, before my brain could catch up to the current situation, Julius began his assault—kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, anywhere his lips could reach, while tears streamed down his face and words tumbled out in a breathless rush.

“I missed you so much—you have no idea—every day I wondered if you were alive—if you’d made it out—if I’d ever see your beautifully chaotic face again—!”

I laughed breathlessly, the sound coming out half-strangled because Julius’s weight was considerable coupled with the fact that he was also crying on me which made everything slippery and awkward.

“Julius—can’t—breathe—you’re—” My protests dissolved into undignified squeaking as he suddenly stood, grabbed me under the arms like I was a wet kitten somebody fished from a river, and began tossing me into the air with alarming enthusiasm.

I went up—spinning, twirling, my skirt flaring around me in ways that violated my dignity several times over. He caught me only to throw me again, higher this time, while planting more kisses on whatever part of me he could reach during the brief moments of contact.

“Julius!” I wailed, my voice cracking somewhere between laughter and genuine distress. “Put me down! This is assault! Adorable assault, but still assault! I’ll press charges! I have a witness!”

He caught me in a final tight embrace that squeezed the remaining air from my body, his arms wrapped around me like steel bands. I wheezed pathetically while, admittedly, also kind of melting into it because gods, I’d missed this ridiculous human and his complete inability to express emotion at reasonable volumes.

“You absolute maniac,” I gasped when he finally loosened his grip enough for me to breathe. “Gods above, you haven’t changed at all…”

Julius pulled back slightly, his hazelnut eyes shimmering with residual tears, and laughed—a bright, genuine sound that filled the lobby with warmth.

“Welcome!” he declared, spreading his arms wide to encompass the entire space. “Welcome to my humble abode, The Moonlight Sonata, finest theater in the slums, which admittedly is like being the tallest dwarf but we take our victories where we can find them!”

He spun in place, gesturing dramatically at the lobby, and I took the opportunity to actually look

at him properly.

He’d filled out since I’d last seen him, gained muscle and confidence in equal measure, though he still moved with that same manic energy that suggested standing still was physically painful. His golden hair caught the candlelight and moonlight in equal measure, creating a halo effect that was completely unintentional but impossibly effective.

Then his attention snapped to Brutus, who’d been standing there watching our “reunion” with an expression caught between amusement and deep concern for everyone’s sanity.

“And you,” Julius said, his voice dropping into something approaching reverence, “must be Brutus. The mountain himself. The legend in the flesh! The man who kept our dear Loona alive through gods-know-what horrors.”

He crossed the distance in three long strides before grabbing Brutus’s single arm and shaking it with such extreme vigor that Brutus actually stumbled forward, his expression shifting from concern to alarm.

“Look at this arm!” Julius exclaimed with overjoyed glee. “One arm doing the work of two! The efficiency! The power! I bet you could crush a man’s skull with this—have you? Please tell me you have, I need to live vicariously through your violence!”

Brutus opened his mouth, closed it, tried again, and finally managed, “I… maybe, yes? I mean, not recently, but—”

“Magnificent!” Julius released his arm and clapped his hands together. “I knew the moment Loona mentioned you in prison that you’d be spectacular. And look! Here you are! In my theater! It’s fate! Destiny! Possibly just coincidence but I’m choosing to believe it’s fate because that’s more interesting!”

I watched this exchange with growing amusement, noting how Brutus’s concern was slowly morphing into reluctant fondness despite himself, because that was Julius’s gift—making you care about him even when he was being absolutely unhinged.

“So,” I said, drawing Julius’s attention back to me, “how exactly did you end up here? Last I saw you, we were being separated in that nightmare of a prison, and now suddenly you’re running a theater with attack bunnies for security?”

Julius’s expression brightened impossibly further, which I hadn’t thought was physically possible. “Oh, what a story!” He grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward one of the plush chairs near the concession stand, practically vibrating with excitement to tell it. “Remember those winnings you gave me? From beating Felix in that fight?”

I nodded, the memory surfacing—the underground fighting ring, the terrified boy I’d refused to kill, the transfer of his ownership to Julius.

“Well,” Julius continued, settling into storytelling mode with obvious relish, “I used every single coin to bribe, negotiate, and occasionally blackmail my way back into noble standing. Not high standing, mind you—more like ’nobles acknowledge I exist without spitting’ level—but enough to gain entry to the Velvet Chambers.” He gestured around us with theatrical flair. “I became a street performer, playing violin on corners, doing acrobatics for coins, slowly building reputation and funds until I could afford to rent this place. It was abandoned, half-collapsed, absolutely perfect. Spent weeks fixing it up—well, fixing up the inside, the outside is still a disaster but that’s part of the charm—and now here we are!”

I glanced around in genuine awe, taking in the impossible beauty of the interior juxtaposed with the crumbling exterior I’d seen.

“It’s stunning,” I breathed, then my eyes caught on the moonlight still streaming through the windows. “But wait—that moon. That shouldn’t be possible considering we’re, you know, underground?”

Julius’s grin turned sly, almost proud. “Illusionary magic!” he announced, practically bouncing with delight at my confusion. “The whole thing—the moon, the stars, even the way the light falls—it’s all an illusion.”

I blinked in surprise, my mind racing to adjust this new information into my understanding of Julius. “Wait, I didn’t know you were a mage?! When did you—who taught you?”

Julius froze mid-gesture, his expression flickering with something complicated before he glanced down at the gold pocket watch hanging at his side. He clicked it open, checked the time with sudden urgency, then snapped it shut with terminal finality.

“No time!” he declared, grabbing my wrist again with renewed vigor. “You need to meet the others! They’re waiting in the main theater and they’re going to be insufferable if I make them wait any longer—come along!”

“The others?” I questioned.

Julius didn’t answer, instead he tugged me toward a set of ornate doors past the concession stand, Brutus following behind with an expression that suggested he’d given up trying to understand what was happening and was just along for the ride.

Whatever awaited us beyond those doors, I had a feeling my life was about to get significantly more complicated.

And knowing Julius, significantly more theatrical.

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