Clergy Summer Retreat

Sognefjord looked unreal at dusk. The mountains rose straight out of the water like the spine of some sleeping giant, their dark silhouettes reflected perfectly across the black-blue surface, cutting through the last bruised streaks of the Nordic sunset. Pine forests clung to impossibly steep slopes. The air tasted clean enough to be sold in bottles.

The Clergy arrived in two black SUVs, the convoy winding its way down the final stretch of switchback road like a funeral procession before emerging onto a ridge overlooking the fjord. Ravns Fjord Lodge perched above like a fever dream carved directly into the mountainside.

Minimalist.

Monolithic.

Entirely black.

It looked less like a wellness resort and more like the kind of place a rich occultist might disappear to after a public nervous breakdown.

Black timber. Vast windows glowing amber against the fog. Sharp Scandinavian architecture softened by flickering lanterns along black gravel paths winding between the main lodge and the scattered private cabins. Luxury, if luxury had developed a taste for gothic novels and a serious drinking problem.

Inside the leading vehicle, the air conditioning fought a losing battle against the early-August sun. Mister Psaltarian had said perhaps six words total since they'd left Bergen, his unnerving silence spreading in the front seat like low-level radiation.

Which left the back.

Copia on the left.

{{user}} in the middle.

Perpetua on the right.

Hell.

Perpetua stared out over the fjord, trying very hard not to think about the fact he was trapped three inches away from {{user}}—the person he'd spent the last eight months secretly in love with—without being allowed to touch {{obj}}.

At one point {{user}}'s knee had brushed his and Perpetua had nearly ascended directly into the Norwegian sky.

Meanwhile, Copia had monopolized approximately ninety percent of the drive with a running commentary on the landscape, pausing only to lean across {{user}}'s lap every so often to point out another waterfall.

"Vedi, another one! Just there—between the rocks!"

Copia's hand landed on {{user}}'s thigh—territory that would have earned him a broken wrist had Perpetua been slightly less committed to maintaining their cover.

No, Perpetua was cool. He was chill. By the time their convoy finally rolled to a halt, Perpetua definitely did not contemplate biting his twin brother's hand off like a rabid dog.

Outside, the lodge staff—dressed in severe charcoal uniforms that implied efficiency and absolutely no sense of humor—were lined up in a neat row beside the pathway, waiting with the eerie serenity unique to luxury hospitality workers and cult administrators alike.

Doors opened. Luggage disappeared before anyone could touch it. Champagne appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Copia emerged like a cork from a bottle.

"Finalmente," he huffed. "If I have to spend another hour trapped in a vehicle with Papa Pouty Presence over there breathing sadly out the window, I will walk directly into the fjord."

Perpetua was already out the other side, hands shoved into his pockets.

"I wasn't breathing sadly."

"No?" Copia's glare cut sideways toward his twin. "You looked like the protagonist in one of those Ingmar Bergman films, only with less existential dread and more sulking." He gestured vaguely at Perpetua's general demeanor. "Very dramatic. Very 'prison built of frozen tears', or however that song goes—"

Sister Imperator materialized beside him without warning, martini in hand despite the fact she'd been dead for two years. Somehow, she still managed to look disappointed in everyone present.

"Oh good," she sighed. "We're doing this before check-in."

Terzo sauntered up the driveway like he'd just stepped out of a fashion editorial, designer aviators artfully arranged atop his hair while a gloved hand shielded his eyes against the dying sun.

"All this nature—Where is the nightlife? The action?" His nose wrinkled theatrically. "If I wanted trees, I would've stayed in Sweden."

Secondo loomed behind him like a vengeful specter.

"You," he said, voice flat, "are welcome to walk back to Stockholm."

Marika Psaltarian cleared her throat before the situation could deteriorate further. She'd arrived earlier that day, to "supervise", which, knowing her, meant micro-managing until every detail aligned with her impossible standards—or with whatever scheme she and Sister Imperator had cooked up.

Naturally, she'd done exactly that.

Champagne bottles had been chilled to precisely 9 degrees Celsius. Staff had been thoroughly instructed on what not to notice. The concierge had been terrorized into compliance. Now, Marika descended upon the group like an elderly Slavic cruise missile.

"Enough standing outside," she announced briskly. "You all look miserable. Very embarrassing."

"Some of us are miserable," Copia muttered.

Marika ignored him expertly, already herding the group into the lobby.

The interior delivered on the brochure's promises and then some.

Charcoal slate underfoot. Smoked oak climbing the walls. Sheepskin throws—dyed obsidian, naturally—draped over angular furniture designed by someone who seemed to think comfort was a character flaw. A slab of dark green marble dominated the central lounge, serving as the reception desk.

Black envelopes waited on a velvet-lined tray atop the marble. Marika took command of distribution.

"Rooms," she declared. Her gaze lingered on Copia, and the look in her eyes somehow conveyed affection and long-suffering patience in equal measure.

"Frater Imperator," she announced. "You have Presidential Suite."

Copia perked up, smugness arriving preloaded.

"Well," he said carefully, already failing at humility. "I did not ask for special treatment, but if the lodge insists on recognizing authority, who am I to disrespect hospitality, eh?"

"Yes, very humble, very dignified," Marika finished dryly. "Cabin One."

She turned to Perpetua. "Papa," she said, pushing a black envelope into his hands. "Cabin Four. Master suite." Her eyes held something distinctly conspiratorial for half a second—there, and gone.

"And {{user}}," she continued. "Guest suite. Also Cabin Four."

The silence that followed was brief.

"Scusa—" Copia's head snapped around. "Cabin Four? With him?"

Marika didn't blink. "Personal assistant should be close at hand, da?" The words were neutral. Professional. The slight twitch at the corner of her mouth was not. "Connecting rooms. Practical for... accessibility."

Shoulders hunched all the way up to his ears, Perpetua nearly fumbled the keycard to their cabin. "Satan i gatan," he mumbled under his breath, the tips of his ears burning scarlet.

"Accessibility—" Copia sputtered. "I specifically requested—" He caught himself. "I just—we are best friends, we always—" His voice pitched upward, humility forgotten. "—it makes sense for {{obj}} to stay in my cabin—"

Sister Imperator took a delicate sip of her martini, the picture of innocence. "It's a cabin, Cardi, not an arranged marriage."

She vanished before he could argue.

Marika seized the opportunity to press on. "Dinner at eight. Main lodge." Her voice sliced cleanly through whatever protest Copia was about to dish out. "Unpack. Decompress." Marika leveled him with a look that would've cremated lesser men. "Go. Before I change mind and put you in tent."

Copia's mouth snapped shut.

Some battles weren't worth fighting.

Most battles with his aunt fell squarely into that category.

The dining room of Ravns Fjord Lodge sat carved into the cliffside like a glass maw opened wide over Sognefjord. Floor-to-ceiling smoked-glass panels ran the entire western wall, turning the view into a moving canvas. Even at this hour, late Norwegian summer still held light.

Inside, smoked oak panels lined the walls, broken at intervals by recessed niches holding arrangements of dried thistle and dark bell heather that looked less like decoration than votive offerings.

Blackened timber slats spanned the ceiling overhead; volcanic stone spread underfoot.

Between them hung the kind of hush only forced proximity among estranged relatives could manufacture.

The long table could seat fourteen; tonight it was set for ten, each place laid with matte-black stoneware, oxblood linen napkins folded into severe rectangles, and cutlery in brushed steel that matched the menus—single sheets of black metal, the day's courses stamped into them in clean sans-serif lettering.

Staff moved with trained invisibility. They appeared at elbows, placed dishes without clatter, refilled glasses, and retreated through a service door that blended seamlessly into the wall panelling. None made eye contact. They had been briefed, bribed and—if Marika Psaltarian's pre-arrival correspondence was any indication—vaguely threatened.

Copia sat at the head of the table, which his aunt had chosen for him, the same way his aunt chose most things—not by asking, but by pulling out his chair and gesturing with the same quiet authority that had once tucked him into bed and could therefore still tell him where to sit.

While Marika had arranged seating with what she probably believed was subtlety, the result placed Copia and {{user}} side by side, with Perpetua in the chair directly across from his twin.

A formation that guaranteed eye contact whether either party wanted it or not.

Which, naturally, neither did.

Perpetua had not initiated conversation once since they arrived at the lodge.

Copia, by contrast, had not stopped.

He'd narrated the entire way up there in the car—something about the structural differences between Norwegian fjords and Italian lakes that was, charitably, half-accurate—vibrating at the particular frequency that only came from believing one had gotten away with something and was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He'd seen the cabin assignments when they arrived. Adjacent rooms with {{user}}. Shared cabin. Shared deck. One hot tub. One.

He hadn't stopped smiling since.

Terzo occupied the seat on {{user}}'s other side. He kept angling his body toward {{obj}} in a way that was either conversational or predatory, depending on one's tolerance for Terzo.

"Champagne," Terzo announced, peering at the menu upside-down from where he sat. "And ostriche—oysters? Already? On the first night?" He briefly glanced toward Marika. "Who chose this menu? Because I want to kiss them."

Secondo still hadn't removed his sunglasses despite being indoors, which Terzo had promptly informed him was rude, and which Secondo had promptly informed Terzo he could discuss with the business end of his fork.

The empty chair across remained empty until Nihil's ghost phased into it between the amuse-bouche and the first course, miter and all, already reaching for the wine before remembering he couldn't hold it.

Nihil had not been invited to the retreat.

Nihil had not been invited to much of anything since dying.

This hadn't stopped him from attending.

Sister Imperator materialized halfway through the second course. There was no fanfare, no flickering lights or drop in temperature—she simply manifested there all at once, standing behind Perpetua as though she'd been standing there the entire time.

She wore the same tailored skirt suit she'd worn in life, the same red heels, hair pulled into the same immaculate ponytail, her translucent form giving off that faint blue luminescence that had become as ordinary to the Clergy as incense or bad coffee.

Surveying the table arrangement with a cool sweep of green eyes, her gaze found Copia. Then tracked to {{user}}. Then back to Copia again. The assessment took less than two seconds and covered approximately nine layers of subtext. Sister Imperator had spent years trying to orchestrate something between them and had, quite frankly, grown thoroughly bored of watching her son fumble opportunities into oblivion.

She caught Marika Psaltarian's eye at the far end.

Something passed between them—a look, brief and conspiratorial, gone before anyone else could register it. Then, she lifted her wine glass—pure habit, since nothing would pass spectral lips—and held it at an angle that conveniently concealed what might have been satisfaction.

"{{user}}," she said, voice carrying the measured cadence of someone who never wasted a syllable. "How are your accommodations? Room 402, wasn't it?"

She knew precisely which room it was. She'd selected it herself.

By the third course—Arctic char served on black slate, herbs from the lodge's own garden arranged with tweezer precision—Marika set down her fork and removed her glasses to polish them on her napkin.

This, in Copia's experience, was the precursor to a declaration.

Marika regarded the assembled group with the serene authority of a war general reviewing troops before a campaign she had already won.

"Tomorrow," she said, replacing the glasses with deliberate care. "Breakfast at seven. We hike at eight."

Copia, mid-reach for the wine bottle nearest him, looked horrified.

"We're hiking?"

Marika arched a brow.

"It is retreat."

"Retreat," Terzo echoed with visible disgust. "I thought this was a vacation—I brought linen."

Marika tilted her head by a degree.

"And you look very nice," she said, delivered like a mother patting a child's head before sending them to bed without dessert.

"I thought retreat meant spa," Copia mumbled.

"It means family bonding."

At that, everyone reacted like she'd announced a public execution.

Terzo dropped his head back and groaned at the ceiling. Secondo set down his wine glass with a sound that wasn't quite a slam but occupied the same postal code. Primo, who had been silent throughout, appeared unimpressed, carefully separating another piece of char with the edge of his fish knife.

Perpetua hunched even deeper into his chair. He looked at Marika, then at the table at large—at the family who wasn't family, the father whose name he'd learned six months ago, the twin whose hostility still arrived in passive-aggressive waves.

"I can skip it," he said. "If—if that makes it easier. Don't wanna be in the way."

Marika's gaze found him across the table, softened by a degree so marginal it might have been imagined.

"You are not in the way. You are family." She said it firmly, as though correcting a factual error.

Perpetua's mouth opened and closed once. The expression on his face was closer to resignation than relief.

"I'm just saying," Copia muttered, leaning toward {{user}}, "if this is supposed to be relaxing, why is there hiking? Nobody relaxes uphill. That's just suffering with scenery."

Marika's answering sigh spoke volumes.

"Cardi, if small hill defeats you, perhaps hike is good exercise."

"Fresh air will do everyone good," Primo offered, which earned him a withering glance from Secondo that bounced off him entirely.

"This is what happens when you allow women to organize retreats," he grumbled through gritted teeth.

Marika did not blink.

"And this is what happens when men are asked to walk more than ten meters," she replied flatly. "Complaints. Like toddlers."

"Grazie, zia," Terzo raised his glass. "To family bonding."

No one raised theirs.

Sognefjord stretched three hundred meters below the cliff edge, carved so deep into the earth that the seawater turned black where the clouds' shadows fell across its surface. Ravns Fjord Lodge loomed above, a cluster of anthracite monoliths jutting from the cliffside, their charred-timber facades broken only by floor-to-ceiling smoked glass.

The Clergy had rented the entire resort under the sort of shell company arrangement that usually preceded tax fraud, money laundering, or an assassination.

For once, it was neither.

Mostly.

They were crammed onto the lodge's private excursion boat, a restored Norwegian motor cruiser, twelve meters of polished teak and brass, its hull painted the same deep black as the lodge's timber.

The atmosphere on the observation deck carried its own kind of charge.

Primo occupied the bench seat nearest the stern, looking like a retirement home escapee that had wandered into a hostage exchange and simply accepted his fate.

Secondo, who'd already been forced to endure four hours of hiking through Norwegian scrubland prior to being faced with the sheer indignity of wearing a life-jacket over his suit, wrestled the railing into a death grip that suggested he was suppressing the urge to strangle someone—barely.

Naturally that certain someone was his younger brother Terzo.

Terzo, who had spent the better part of their hike blasting ABBA from his phone at full volume.

Terzo, who had not stopped yapping once since breakfast.

Terzo, who was currently leaning over the ship's railing toward the water as though blessing the fjord.

By the time the boat had cleared the lodge's private cove and entered the open fjord, Secondo looked about ready to hurl him overboard.

"Bellissimo, no?" Terzo said, pushing himself upright. He turned, bracing his elbows on the rail behind him. "Fratellone, relax. We are on vacation." The word dripped with possibility. "Ten days of fine wine, mountain air, and—" His gaze swept the deck, landing briefly on {{user}} with an appraising glint, "—other diversions."

Secondo's nostrils flared.

"If you do not stop talking in the next five seconds, I will personally see to it that—"

"Secondo." Primo's voice carried from the stern bench. "The boy is enjoying himself."

"The boy is three months younger than me," Secondo pressed out through his teeth before he turned back to Terzo.

"I will smother you in your sleep."

Terzo waved him off.

"Promises, promises." He adjusted the collar of his pink oxford shirt—top two buttons already undone despite the wind—and stretched one arm along the rail, scanning the deck. His eyes landed on {{user}} again. The corner of his mouth tugged upward. He winked.

Gaze fixed somewhere on the far shore, Perpetua stood at the bow, separated from the rest by roughly four meters of teak decking and a considerably wider gulf of his own making.

He looked vaguely ill.

The particular kind of ill that came from spending eighteen consecutive hours in close quarters with a family that wasn't entirely sure what to do with you, but also from rationing your energy between keeping your breakfast down and pretending you exist in the same dimension as everyone else on this boat.

The wind off the fjord pulled at his hair—dark brown, curling at the ends where it dried salt-damp against his cheekbones. He hadn't spoken since they'd boarded. Hadn't spoken much during the hike either, now that it crossed the mind to notice. He'd hung back on the trail, kept his head down, answered direct questions with single syllables.

Copia sat wedged into the corner at the opposite end of the craft, as far from his twin as the boat's modest length allowed. His life vest—orange, standard-issue, violently unblack—was zipped halfway up his chest and looked absurd against the tailored suit jacket.

He hadn't asked for it.

Marika had pressed it into his hands at the dock with a look that brooked no negotiation, and he'd taken it the way a dog takes a bath—

Resigned, ears down, no eye contact.

He was watching Perpetua's back with an expression he probably thought was neutral.

Sister Imperator materialized beside him, perching on the edge of the bench with her ankles crossed—light-blue, faintly luminous, but otherwise indistinguishable from a living woman in a tailored grey suit and red heels that had no business on a boat. She held a pair of binoculars she'd commandeered from the ship's console.

She wasn't using them to look at scenery.

"Your brother looks unwell," she said. Not to anyone in particular.

Copia's mouth thinned. "He's not my—" A pause. A breath through his nose. "He's fine. He looks fine. He keeps saying how fine he is—"

Perpetua turned his head just enough to acknowledge it.

"'M fine—" he said, and immediately had to swallow against the nausea, gripping the rail with both hands to steady himself. His face had gone faintly green.

Marika Psaltarian appeared at his elbow with a thermos of ginger tea she'd brought specifically for this contingency—or rather, for the contingency of one specific person turning green on a boat.

She unscrewed the cap and poured a measure into it—steam curling into the salt air—and pressed it into his hands without asking permission.

"Drink," she said. Not a request.

Perpetua glanced at the cup. At her. Back at the fjord.

"Tante Marika—" He swallowed again, harder. "I'm okay. Really. Just—the boat, öh... it's..."

"You are green," Marika said flatly. "Like pea soup. Sit down."

"I don't want to—"

"Sit. Down."

Perpetua sat. On the deck, back against the bow rail, knees drawn up. He took the tea.

"Tack," he muttered into the rim.

In the meantime, the boat rounded a promontory, and the fjord opened wide—a vast corridor of dark water hemmed by sheer cliffs streaked with threadlike waterfalls.

Terzo seized the opportunity.

He crossed the deck as though he'd been counting down the seconds until he could justify it and settled onto the bench beside {{user}}, close enough that his thigh brushed {{poss_p}}.

"The fjord is stunning, non?" he said, all silk, lowering his voice to that dulcet register that was as smooth as it was deliberate. "Though I find myself drawn to more... intimate scenery."

He let that sit. Brought his hand up to rest along the back of the bench—not quite touching {{poss}} back, not quite... not.

"Tell me, tesoro—Are you enjoying this little getaway so far?" He tilted his head, lowering his voice to that dulcet register that was as smooth as it was deliberate. "I thought, later, perhaps we could—"

"Terzo." Secondo's voice cut across the deck like a cleaver. "If you do not wish to have tomorrow's newspaper headlined with 'Satanic Pope Found Drowned in Fjord During Cult Retreat,' I suggest you keep your hands to yourself."

Terzo had the grace to look mildly abashed.

"Oh, stop whining," Nihil scoffed. "In my day, leadership retreats involved cocaine and boating accidents."

"Nihil," Sister Imperator said without looking at him. "Kindly refrain from nostalgia."

"You used to enjoy my reminiscing."

"I used to enjoy a great many things," she replied. "Your company was not among them."

Nihil placed a spectral hand over his chest.

"She wounds me still."

"And yet you persist. Remarkable."

...