CHAPTER FIVE

THOM

I was doomed.

I’d always been doomed, and to be honest I’d always known it, but it was really the words we exchanged my first night sleeping—or trying to sleep, rather—in the Airman compound that I realized just how doomed I was. Every time something creaked, every time a sound infiltrated my troubled sleep, I jerked awake with a start, my heart pounding. And that, of course, had been Rook’s plan all along, which made me realize how clever he was and how I might have underestimated him, thinking he was no more than a common hooligan raised above his capabilities to control himself. No, it was quite the contrary; Airman Rook was a dangerously clever sort of person, without any formal education or moral upbringing, so that he was something like a live wire without any outlet, no backbone of kindness upon which all his intelligence could be structured and thence put to good use. He was exceptionally smart, which meant that his brain was naturally frustrated because he’d never known the right way to channel his own intelligence or expand his mental horizons. This frustration made him angry, made him lash out at people, made him punish them without enough self-awareness to understand why.

Also, he was going to kill me.

Whether he was going to do it on purpose or whether he was simply going to get a bit overzealous while torturing me, it didn’t really matter. These were trifling details. The end result remained the same, no matter how I measured the contributing factors.

I wasn’t ever going to sleep again—at least, not if I could absolutely help it.

Luckily, the first day I had slated for no more than observation, and so I sat upon my couch and watched as each man filtered out separately, went about his business separately, left separately, and returned separately, interacting now and then to tell a joke, or pick a fight about boots left by the front door, or shout about how that had been Ace’s sandwich and not Ghislain’s, and what sort of rat bastard ate a sandwich without making it for himself first in any case, whether he thought it had been abandoned or not?

Now and then I took notes, though what I thought they’d accomplish I wasn’t sure. A few of the men were early risers, and a few of them hadn’t appeared even now that lunch was long since over. Thankfully, Rook was in the latter category; I hoped, privately and cruelly, that he would sleep all day, or perhaps be smothered with his pillow. The way he treated his fellow men was reprehensible, the way he treated women even more so. He was exactly the sort of man I’d always loathed, both during my time in Molly and during my years at Primary, then at the ’Versity.

“This is often what it’s like during the off-seasons,” said Balfour, obviously taking pity on me. If I looked as tired as I felt, it was no wonder. “May I?”

I gestured to the empty space beside me. “By all means,” I said.

“Though I don’t wish to get you in trouble with the other men.”

“In trouble?” Balfour looked at me quizzically.

“For fraternizing with the enemy,” I confided, leaning in close as Evariste and Compagnon passed through the room.

“Oh, no,” Balfour said, a little too quickly I thought, then flushed. “Well, actually, yes. But it’s not really important. Have you eaten? What are you writing down?”

“Nothing much,” I admitted. “On both counts. Only I thought that I might first—observe you in your . . . natural habitat. Undisturbed by my presence.”

“As if we’re zoo animals?” Balfour asked, but I saw his smile at the corner of his mouth and knew he was only teasing me. “We are zoo animals, some of us,” Balfour added, and I didn’t miss his pointed look down the hall, in the direction of Rook’s bunker.

“Well,” I replied noncommittally, “it’s not entirely for me to say.”

“Ah,” said Balfour. “Yes, I see. What have you found out thus far about our . . . natural habitat?”

“You never really talk to one another,” I pointed out. “I mean, I’ve seen you. You all know one another very well, but during the morning like this, there aren’t”—I struggled for a way to explain it properly—“aren’t any lines of communication open among you,” I finished lamely. “Does that make sense?”

“Some of us aren’t the sort who feel friendly in the morning,” Balfour tried to explain. “At night, it’s very different.”

“Yes,” I said, though I didn’t really see how such vastly incompatible men who refused to talk to one another beyond the occasional explosive argument or filthy joke could possibly work together in the air effectively enough to save all our lives from the Ke-Han hordes. Perhaps there was something I was missing, but I was rather dubious, from what I’d seen so far. “If you don’t mind my asking, what was the outcome with Merritt’s boots?”

“Oh, no one was hurt too badly,” said Balfour cheerfully. “But I do think Merritt is going to need a new pair.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ghislain dropped them out the window,” Balfour explained. “It was better than if Rook had done it, any case.”

“Oh?”

“Well, because Rook would have thrown them, you see, with Merritt in them,” Balfour finished. “No, all in all, I believe it was good Ghislain was the one who dealt with it first.”

“Ah,” I said, as though I understood, which I didn’t at all. The general meaning I did take, though, was that not all the airmen were as unnecessarily cruel as Rook. They were products of the same system, perhaps—and therefore spent some time interacting with no more social grace than the zoo animals Balfour had suggested—but they were different, still. Better somehow, as though in them there was still the basic human instinct of decency, long buried perhaps, but in existence nonetheless. Nothing I had seen from Airman Rook gave me any indication that he had a soul, let alone any sense of human decency.

Still, this indicated some sort of a system among the men, under which it was recognized that it was better to have some men deal with certain problems than others. It was a start, at least, and pointed toward what knowledge they might have as to each member’s strengths and weaknesses.

I realized then that I’d been writing instead of speaking, and that Balfour was patiently waiting for me to finish.

“At the ’Versity, we learn to write things down as we’re thinking them because you never know what you might forget or what might end up as important later,” I explained.

Balfour nodded, then seemed to hesitate over something. “I’d find a safe place to put those notes,” he said at last.

My dismay must have shown on my face, for he quickly smiled, reassuring and nervous at once.

“Not that I think—Not that there’s any reason for you to be paranoid, certainly,” he went on, in a tone telling me that paranoia would be a very wise choice at this juncture, trapped in the jaws of the dragon as I was. “It’s only, if they’re important to you, you should keep them safe.”

That night, I began writing double copies of everything. This served a dual purpose in that it also kept me awake much more effectively than I’d expected. The gentle hum of the strip lighting even became somehow comforting, though I jumped much more easily than I’d have liked to admit when Luvander kicked down the door to the common room, announcing he was going to bed. He didn’t look at me as he passed my couch, where I’d set my cases one on top of the other that I might use them as a makeshift desk.

The building was suddenly much noisier with the door open.

I hadn’t realized quite how much sound was blocked by those particular doors, nor had I really even given it much thought, though of course any man who’d met the airmen would have certainly thought to provide them with as much insulation as possible. I didn’t want to think of what they’d have done to one another in the ’Versity, where the walls were thin as paper and everyone observed a strict noise curfew so as not to curtail studying.

Balfour had said things were different at night, and indeed they seemed so. The sound of a piano floated down the hallway, scattered and abstract as though it were a tune someone was picking out of his very own head, which explained why I didn’t recognize it. Over the music were layered voices: the airmen, in what seemed to be either fourteen different conversations, or one very large and tenuous argument. Every now and then, the voices would be punctuated by a bout of raucous laughter, and someone called something to do with points, which I understood to mean they were playing some sort of game.

More than anything—for the sake of completeness and my notes—I wished there were some way to observe them in this state, obviously much closer than the separate irritability of the morning. I wasn’t foolish enough to think, however, that my presence would be welcomed, or even tolerated, and I had no more of a mind to invite a show of open hostility than I did to tear up my notes and sleep like a baby.

I stayed where I was, on the couch as if rooted there, though my progress in transcribing went much more slowly with the noise. Once or twice I thought I heard a feminine voice, high and tittering along with the rest, for of course there were no rules regarding a female presence in the Airman. I wondered if any of the ladies present that night was the owner of the undergarments I’d nearly tripped over my first day. I wondered how any woman could come here and not be disgusted by the utter male essence of the place, and how they didn’t feel, upon entering, like foreigners on the brink of some strange and distant land of squalor.

Either they were exceedingly silly, or I was missing something—some small and hidden quality that made the airmen appealing.

At that moment, a voice unmistakable in its arrogance crowed victoriously above the rest. “Winner takes the redhead!”

The common room erupted in noise, booted feet stamping the floor, hands slapping the walls or the tables, or any surface they could reach by the sound of things.

I finished my notes, final punctuation jabbed with slightly more emphasis than was needed. The first set I folded, placed them inside a notebook so that they wouldn’t crease. The second set I slipped into an opening I’d sliced into the lining of my very first suitcase, which I’d come into possession of when I’d still been living in Molly. A safe hiding place could mean the difference between whether you ate or not the next day. I didn’t know how effective the tricks would be, but the best experiment was a live one, I felt.

Then, despite my best efforts and the noise emanating from the common room, I eventually drifted into a restless sleep.

When I awoke, my first set of notes had been transformed into a rather generous pair of papier-mâché breasts affixed to my chest. The breasts themselves proved rather difficult to remove, the properties of flourplaster not being adapted for the curious particularities of human skin. The sound of giggling haunted me all morning.

“You’ve got to sign up in advance for a shower,” Ghislain pointed out when I exited, feeling soggy and humiliated.

They’d told me and I’d completely forgotten, I realized with a pang of shame. There was no point in doing this at all if I wasn’t going to do it right, or if I was going to lose what little regard they held for me by making them wait for showers.

“My apologies,” I said, in what I hoped was a tone that conveyed my sincerity. Ghislain was very large and seemed quite clever enough that he could kill me and have it look an accident. “I hope you’ve not been waiting long.”

He shrugged broad shoulders before he smiled with a flash of white teeth, bright and mocking. “I thought they looked rather nice on you,” he said.

The next morning when I awoke, my hand felt strange, and a little wet. Following Balfour’s advice however, did not lend me that much help, as further examination found a large pan of what might conceivably have started out as warm water at my bedside—well, couchside—and my hand submersed in it.

“Oh no,” I said, quiet and desperate for this all to be a dream. Surely it was a dream, and grown men did not indulge in this circus-ring behavior. “No, no, no.”

A crack of laughter, sharp like a whip, snapped past my head from above. If this were truly a nightmare, it was doing its job with marvelous attention to detail.

“He’s pissed himself.” Rook stood over the couch, eyes glinting with such a malicious amusement that I had to look away. “He’s not even twelve; he’s a baby.”

Shortly thereafter I found myself in the unenviable position of having a long discussion with Chief Sergeant Adamo regarding the laundry services for the Airman, what constituted a true “emergency,” and no, I could not have my own room with a door that locked.

“Fourteen rooms, fourteen men,” Adamo said gruffly, in a tone that brooked no argument.

For the sake of my dignity, I had to try anyway. “Well, well what about the common room? That private one. It’s got a locking door on it.”

He leaned forward, raised one thick eyebrow. “If you want to be the one to tell the men what’s the reason they can’t bring their entertainment home with them. Of course, if it were me, I’d consider the fact that might make them mad enough to take the whole door down.”

“Ah,” I said weakly. I hadn’t considered that.

“Door won’t stop them,” he continued. From his tone alone, I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to be kind, merely informative, or whether he was trying to scare me. “Not if they’ve really got a mind for doing whatever they’ve got into their heads.”

“I see. Yes.” I was starting to get a clearer picture of what my stay in the Airman would be like, and the picture had very bleak colors.

“Nothing,” Adamo said finally, “stops them. Not in the air, not on the ground. Best to remember it.”

I nodded, eager to excuse myself from the conversation. It was a piece of information I would have to remember, write down, even as I wanted to protest that I was not a Ke-Han campaign, that such blind hammering force was not acceptable with civilians as it was with the Ke-Han warriors.

The problem with the airmen, I noted, seated in a welter of blankets on the floor while the couch was out being cleaned, seemed to be simply that they were men who had been trained in a specialized kind of behavior, for a specialized kind of environment, and no one had thought to mention that such behavior was unacceptable outside the bounds of that environment itself. It was a common enough phenomenon among soldiers returning from the war, or prisoners released from long captivity.

I began to realize the extent of what I’d been charged with—the rehabilitation of a group of men who had no idea they were in need of rehabilitation at all. As I couldn’t very well quit, I had two options open to me. Either I’d soon be very successful, lauded throughout the city as a man who’d accomplished the unprecedented, or I’d soon be dead, from my own shame or something more immediately physical. And then it wouldn’t matter.

When I woke up on the fifth day, they’d stolen my clothes and put them under the showers.

On the sixth day, there were beetles.

It was maddening to catch these glimpses—cruel and detrimental to me as they were—because in some ways they were picture-perfect examples of what I’d so desperately sought after: an indication that these men could work together as a seamless team to accomplish a common goal. Of course, the common goal of beetles in my hair was considerably less exemplary than, say, saving the city from the invading Ke-Han, but in some things it was just as important to examine the abstracts as it was to accustom oneself to the specifics.

I showered twice and shook out all my clothes and both suitcases, discovering another wealth of beetles in the second trunk. I sent them tumbling in a shiny black rain out the window, some of them too dazed even to take flight.

I was completely and utterly miserable, but when I thought about all I was learning, all I’d been privy to, and all the mystery that surrounded the Dragon Corps—when I thought of what a thunderclap my dissertation would be to the academic world, to say nothing of th’Esar’s fiat—I concluded I had to stay. Often this conclusion was accompanied by the impulse to retch, whereupon I would casually make my way to the nearest bathroom in case of disaster. Often I ended up staying longer than was strictly necessary, knees drawn up to my chest and staring with dull fixation at the tiled walls, as though they could somehow offer a solution to my problems.

On the eighth day I made the mistake Balfour warned me against, bringing my wet hand to my face in confusion, and spent the rest of the day with a blue handprint stamped across my nose and cheek.

“I am sorry,” Balfour told me privately. “I thought I warned you—”

“I think it’s dashing,” said Luvander, as he strode by.

“I am sorry,” Balfour repeated.

I believed him, and I was sorry for him, but I was even sorrier for myself, and spent the rest of the evening hiding by one of the toilets trying to remember a time I’d been unhappier than this. Try though I might, I couldn’t think of a single one.

 

ROYSTON

A week had passed since the incident of the dining-room table, and by that point I’d discovered two things about myself. The first was that—despite all evidence to the contrary—I was in fact the epitome of self-restraint and there should have been a portraiture of me in the encyclopedia entry on the subject.

The second, which was rather more troubling, was that I was only a man and not a god, that I was completely besotted, and that eventually I was going to crack and do something very, very unadvisable.

We’d been spending a great deal of time together in the past week, Hal and I, whether out of loneliness and a mutual need or some deeper connection, I couldn’t tell. I taught him about the Basquiat, about the Esar’s bastion, about the Well itself, and I learned soon enough what I’d been too blind to notice straightaway: that the way to Hal’s heart was through my veritable archive of stories. Soon enough I found myself surreptitiously sending letters to my friends in Thremedon requesting the latest romans—those they would in their infinite wisdom recommend for a relatively young but voracious reader—and I anticipated their arrival with a keen and almost laughable excitement.

Beyond that, my daily walks with Hal grew longer and longer each time through my own careful machinations. I must have appeared to have discovered a new lease on my life, as well as a new hunger for exercise, when in reality I was keen and all too eager to increase our time together. He was companionable; our silences were comfortable. Now and then we were caught in a brief afternoon shower, on the tail of the heavier rains, and we took shelter beneath hanging willows, during which time I tried my best not to parade all my war successes in front of him the way William would display his favorite toys to impress one of his local friends.

In all, I felt something like a child again. Now and then I was struck by the sight of Hal, his kind mouth, his warm eyes, the uneven splash of freckles over his nose and the gentle, vulnerable line of his jaw and throat. His hair was still too long; it was always getting into his eyes. Walking beside him, I had more than one occasion to see him drift into some cloudless daydream, or chew the nail on his thumb, or gaze off at the tree-cluttered horizon as if it held the secrets to some unanswered question. I didn’t dare break into such reveries and treated them with my own private reverence, until he noticed he’d fallen silent and flushed to the tips of his ears, cheeks pink and eyes shy.

I thought I could be content simply to walk beside him, to listen to his thoughts on what books he had read, to know he sought my opinion and my approval on the theories he’d formed. We agreed on poetry—which was an unexpected detail, considering my obstinate spirit and his dreamier one—and I spent much of my time before finally catching up with sleep lecturing myself on how little this meant.

He was young. He was good-natured. He was kind to spend such time with me, starved for the attention I gave him, more like my student and friend than anything else. It was circumstance alone that brought us together, and kept us side by side on the twisting paths alongside Locque Nevers. It was luck, not fate, and there was a resounding difference between the two.

I’d cause no more trouble in my brother’s house.

However, I hadn’t counted on the tenacity of the rainy season. And I hadn’t counted on the storm that trapped us beneath a willow tree, soaking wet and shivering, but nevertheless laughing together happily, out of breath from running so fast for some kind of shelter.

“Do you get caught in the rain this often?” I asked him, over the pounding of the rain, the howling of the wind, and the occasional booming clap of thunder.

“Not really,” he replied. “I think—I think it might be you, actually.”

“Accept my most sincere of apologies,” I told him, near giddy, feeling my teeth chatter. “Your lips are quite blue. How long do you think this will last?”

“It’s difficult to say,” Hal admitted. He wrapped his arms around his chest, chafed them with the palms of his hands, and stamped his feet to keep warm, though the weather was turning to winter, and we were both soaked through to the bone. “It could be ten minutes or it could be an hour.”

“We’ll have to get back to the house,” I cautioned, “else you’ll catch another cold.”

“Oh,” Hal said, worrying his lower lip—a habit he had, and a very distracting one. “Well, we’re rather far from the castle.”

“And you feel it would be rather impractical to take our chances and return now?”

“I do,” he said, and the sound of his voice, blue-tinged as his lips were with the wet and the cold, made me shiver, too, though for a different reason.

“Is there anything you’d suggest, then?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, still chewing at his lower lip; and then all at once his eyes lit up, and I found my breath catching on something rough and untoward in my throat. “Well,” he said, some of that light fading, “it isn’t used very much now, but it would be warmer than standing here under this tree and waiting for the rain to pass. That is, the boathouse. If I remember it right, it’s not too far from here.”

“Not so far that we could make a dash for it?” I asked.

Such a situation as this one—the two of us wet and wild from the rush and new heat that surged in our veins—had never swept me up before. I was like a child no older than William again; anyone who knew me from my old life would never have let me hear the end of it.

Luckily there was no one here but Hal and me.

He reached forward, across the space between us, and grasped my hand in one of his own. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s make a dash for it.”

I caught his fingers and held them tight; and then we were running together, slipping in the mud, along the banks of the engorged river, laughing and shrieking into the howling wind and rain, half-blind in the downpour. No doubt we nearly lost our footing on more than one occasion, and were both perilously close to being swallowed whole by the gurgling river. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Hal’s fingers were ice-cold in my own, and there was a form in the distance, just visible through the sheeting rain.

That, I understood, must be the boathouse.

We tumbled inside the door, gasping and choking and still laughing. The hinges were rusty and we nearly knocked the damn thing in, and the wind was blowing so hard that we almost couldn’t close it again, but eventually we managed, collapsing back against it with our legs shaking and our whole bodies trembling with the cold.

At last, when I could speak again, I said, “It’s very dark in here, isn’t it?” then we both collapsed into laughter again, Hal sliding down the wall sudden and hard. Soon after, my knees gave way and I followed him.

This wasn’t going to do either of us any good. We needed to light a fire, get out of our wet clothes, and glean as much warmth as we could from one another until the rains had passed and we could return to the house.

Realization hit me like a punch beneath the belt. We should have done this—but we couldn’t.

Rather: I couldn’t.

“Is everything all right?” Hal asked into the silence, as the wind slammed itself again and again against the thin wooden walls and the rain made the whole roof shake.

“Yes,” I said. “Quite. I was simply trying to think of how we might best get warm.”

“Oh,” Hal said. “Yes, of course; you must be cold.” His words were hard to understand, as his teeth were chattering, but I knew my own limits. I couldn’t allow myself to reach over and warm him with my own body for a number of very real, very compelling reasons. Yet at the same time I couldn’t let him fall ill due to my own shortcomings as a reserved and unselfish individual. “I’m sorry,” Hal added, after a long moment. “This is my fault really.”

“Is it?” I asked, my tone of voice not betraying my darker thoughts. “I wasn’t aware you controlled the skies. How marvelous!”

“Oh,” Hal said again, and I knew without having to see him that he was blushing.

“You might have said something earlier,” I went on speaking, in order to give my thoughts as little entertainment as possible. “It’s a useful Talent, that.”

“No,” said Hal, warm and familiar. For better or worse, he’d come to recognize when I was joking, and he knew what was serious and what wasn’t. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I am aware,” I assured him, and cast a glance around the long, low building for anything that we might see fit to burn. I did not wish to incur my brother’s enmity by destroying any more of his possessions than I already had—though to be fair, I hadn’t seen them use it much—so the squat little rowboat leaning up against one wall was out of the question. So too the oars, I assumed, though I knew myself that if it came to a choice between freezing to death and the family’s recreational pursuits, I would take the blame wholeheartedly.

As if to add to my conviction, Hal lifted his hands to rub at his arms, one enormous quaking shiver at my side. He must have noticed me looking at him, for he offered a sheepish smile. “It’s not as warm in here as I thought it might be.”

“Do you know if there’s anything that we might burn?” I asked.

The look in his eyes told me I’d phrased the question wrong, or perhaps the memory of the dining-room table was altogether too fresh in his mind. “I mean, for a fire. I am not always in the habit of exploding property. During times of peace, in any case, when I’m dining with my brother’s family or taking shelter in my brother’s boathouse.”

“It might,” Hal began, forcing the words out between his chattering teeth. “If you can, I mean, that might be the only way we’ve got of starting a fire. I didn’t think to bring matches.” He smiled at this, as though I’d been the one to teach him sarcasm.

“Ah,” I said.

“Well, or, there’s an oil lamp in the back corner,” he said, using the wall to lever himself into a standing position once again. “Of course, that might burn the whole boathouse down, which would be warm, but . . .”

“Not entirely the solution to the problem I was hoping for,” I agreed, following suit and standing as well. The wind drove itself into the boathouse walls with a force that set them trembling as surely as Hal was. Remaining in this state was most certainly not an option.

Further exploration of the boathouse yielded a small skiff with the bottom torn out. William, Hal explained, had thought it just the perfect size for a sled down the gravel mountain that was all that remained of an old quarry upriver, and the boat had been quite ruined by the time it reached the bottom. I thought that as a source of wood it would serve quite marvelously, and set about dragging it to the center of the boathouse, praising William all the while.

“Here,” said Hal, pale and tinged with blue. “What can I do?” He was dripping all over the floor, and my own feelings on the matter made themselves known as surely as though I’d been kicked in the chest.

“Clear everything else out of the way,” I said, for fires were only ever a good idea when they were controlled, and with my wits and hands half-frozen, I wanted to take no chances.

Hal nodded and picked up the oars, taking them to the very back of the boathouse. I circled the wooden skeleton of the boat my nephew had destroyed, trying to judge whether it would indeed be safer to use oil from the lamp. I knew that it wasn’t, and that even entertaining the thought was simply a means for me to ignore the fact that I was reluctant to use my Talent again so soon, and in front of Hal. I was too old for such flights of fanciful self-consciousness, but there it was. If I were being perfectly honest, I assumed that it was only that I did not want him to look at me in a different way, which was patently ridiculous.

If I’d wanted that, I might have taken a care not to send the dining-room table out of the house in splinters.

“Are you going to light the fire?” Hal held his arms tightly, as if by doing so he could keep himself from shaking. A thin rivulet of water trailed from the ends of his hair, down his nose and mouth. Something shifted within me, sharp and bright.

My Talent for combustion—or exploding things, as seemed to be the layperson’s preferred definition—had proved particularly useful during the war. The Esar had never bothered to learn the specifics, once he knew what it was I could do, nor did it seem to matter much after that. All I really needed was the oxygen readily available in the air. The scientists had explained it all very concisely, chemical reactions resulting in a great deal of heat. Theoretically, my explosions began as all fires did, and all that dictated their intensity was my own level of concentration. It was for that reason, among others, that I had had to learn very quickly to control my temper. Mishaps like my brother’s dining-room table couldn’t happen. They shouldn’t happen.

“Stand back,” I said quietly. Hal stepped back, though his eyes were on me, clear and pale as the rainwater.

I concentrated, drawing on my own store, the Well of my own power, from within, where it lay coiled like an enormous, fat serpent. It could strike as easily as allow itself to be charmed, and without the proper experience many magicians could quite easily end up destroyed by their own Talents, poisoned from within.

The boat lit with a soft whooshing noise, a pale echo of the wind and rain that howled outside. The fire was large, though, and rose crackling and cheery toward the ceiling, so that the room was flooded with a shaky orange light.

I could see Hal still over the curling edges of the flames, face framed by fire like the burning portrait of a lover. “That was . . .” he said at length. His voice was still shivering but it had grown quiet and restrained, as though he were trying to quell his shivering—which of course wouldn’t help in the slightest. “That was very . . . Well.”

“Come here,” I said. I had to ignore the fluttering within my own damned chest that so mirrored the flames. I held out a hand and smiled without regard for anything else in the world, the rain or the wind, or my own considerable discomfort in clothes both clammy and frigid.

Hal crossed to sit next to me at the fire, taking off his sodden jacket with an unself-conscious shrug of his thin shoulders. “In . . . in the last roman I read, they went into a lot of detail about the best ways to . . . to get warm again when you’re cold,” he explained, and I knew by the quality of his voice and the uncertain way in which he would not quite meet my eyes that his thoughts had been the same as mine.

Well, likely not exactly the same as mine.

I nodded, acquiescing to at least this bit of wisdom. My own jacket was a soaked weight over my shoulders, clinging and useless. I peeled it off, and pushed it a careful distance closer to the fire to let it dry.

“This is a right sight better than the marsh,” Hal said, almost cheerful now that his teeth had stopped chattering so violently.

I laughed, as I often did at the unexpected glimpses of glib good humor Hal possessed. Then the sound died in my throat, swift and abrupt, as he lifted the hem of his shirt and tugged the wet garment over his head.

“Here,” I said, and my voice snagged on something low and dangerous, so that I had to clear the propriety back into my throat. “Here, let me.” Thoughtless of my actions, I reached over to help him, freeing his arms and, in a moment, the rest of him.

“Oh,” said Hal, his dark hair mussed in places and stuck to his scalp. The freckles on his face stood out like ink dots, sharp against his pale skin. His lips were still tinged blue, and he had freckles on his shoulders as well as on his shoulder blades. “Thank you.”

If he smiled then, I knew quite well that I would be lost, and so I turned away quickly. “It’s nothing,” I answered, quiet and gracious. Careful.

There must still have been a touch of what I was wrestling around in my voice, however, because he put his hand on my arm.

“Is—Are you quite sure everything’s all right? You sound as though you may be getting a cold.”

I laughed again, but it was at my own expense, and not a kind laugh. How I had ended up in this situation was immaterial, as it was most certainly my own fault and therefore my responsibility to keep my private feelings at bay. “I’m quite sure, Hal. Thank you.”

He brightened, as he always did when I used his name, and set about kicking off his boots with a thudding sound against the wooden floor of the boathouse. “You should start getting your clothes off, too—that is, if you don’t mind me saying so, of course,” he added quickly, as though I were staying clothed out of some insane obstinacy that wouldn’t allow me to take the advice of a country ward.

“Well,” I began. This was not a proper beginning at all, and so I elaborated. “I’m not all that cold, actually.”

He tossed me a look full of a fondness that made my chest ache, and which also suggested that he thought me insanely obstinate. No doubt he was right. “Of course you are. You were caught in that rain same as me. There isn’t any place for modesty; you could catch fever same as I, if you don’t take better care of yourself.” His voice was uncertain, unused to taking charge and yet armed with the simple conviction that he was right, and this gave him courage. “I’ll close my eyes, if you like. And keep them closed until the rain stops, too.”

“That really won’t be necessary,” I said, smiling in spite of the trap that had sprung up around me. With the air of a man headed to the noose, I began to undo the buttons of my shirt.

Hal looked away, and I had to assume it was out of a real sense of modesty rather than any promise he’d made me one way or the other.

I removed my shirt in precise, deliberate motions that meant nothing; I dropped it on the floor next to Hal’s by the fire. The boathouse gave a particularly violent shudder, followed by an ominous creak.

Hal whistled low. “It could go on all night, by the sounds of that.” When he did look at me, he kept his eyes cast down, so I knew that, for all his sensible talk, in some ways this was as difficult for him as it was for me.

Only in some ways, of course.

“Hal,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the storm that raged outside—but only just.

“It’s a good thing we’ve got this fire going,” he went on as though he hadn’t heard me, hands traveling to his belt. “Going by the size of the boat, it could last all night if we needed it to, without having to burn the one whose bottom hasn’t been torn out.”

“Hal,” I repeated. The light from the fire stained our white skin to a deep, flushed tan, as though it was the height of summer and the cold season was not upon us. It was warmer without clothes, and I was no fool. I knew perfectly well how to survive a winter in the mountains, or a wet night in a boathouse. This was simply a road I could not take, and the knowing of it overwhelmed all the sense in my head.

His belt hit the floor with a dull clunk. I caught his arm above the elbow, so that he turned to look at me in surprise. “Margrave?”

Our mouths were too close. I could feel his breath against my lips, warm and hitching and uneven. I knew what I’d intended all this time. To think that I’d pretended to myself that I’d even considered resisting him! I was much more of a fool than I could ever have guessed.

I could have kissed him.

I almost did it, forthright and honest. And it was a very rare occasion on which I was perfectly honest about something, with someone.

I had been honest with Erik. I was honest with Hal.

I could have kissed him, and I almost did. He must have sensed it in me, for he made a small noise in the back of his throat and his lips parted as though he was expecting my mouth on his. It was an invitation, however clumsy and inexperienced, and with it his arm came up to lock thin and tight around my neck, pleading with me to wait—just a moment.

That was when I forced myself to draw away.

He was too much younger than I, too desperate for anyone’s affection. Even though it was not my place to decide for him whether what he thought he wanted was what he actually did want, I couldn’t have that uncertainty drawn between us. I didn’t want to have to doubt him for any reason; likewise, I didn’t want to give him cause to doubt me. Above all, I was the elder, and it was my duty to protect him from at least the same blunders I’d once made myself when I was his age. It wasn’t so very long ago as all that, and because I cared for him, I refused to kiss him.

It took all my strength not to do so, to turn my face from his and toward the firelight. I was still holding tight to his arm, and we were close enough yet that I could feel as well as hear the sound he made, as if I’d doused him quite suddenly with ice-cold water.

There must have been something I could have done to reassure him, yet for the life of me I couldn’t think of a single thing.

We were silent for a long time. Hal didn’t remove his hand from the back of my neck, nor did I entirely release him. To do so now would be to scorn him completely, and that would have taken advantage of his position just as surely as kissing him would have done.

He made that sound a second time, softer than the first. I felt him stir against me; his hair tickled my neck, so that I knew he’d bowed his head.

Above all else, I told myself with sudden remonstration, I couldn’t allow him to think this a defeat of any sort.

“Hal,” I said.

There was an unfamiliar quality in my voice—it said too clearly all that I was feeling torn, ragged, on the edge of some deeper need—and his fingers tightened against the back of my neck. I didn’t know who’d moved first to make it so, but quite suddenly he was tucked in close against my chest, warm and impossibly soft. Everything important about Hal was softness, I decided, his hair and his mouth, the sweet curve of his jaw, and the way it fit neatly into my palm. I ran my thumb along the line of his cheek, marking its shape the way I’d only ever had occasion to with my eyes.

And there we were. I held him against me, his skin clammy and cold and still damp against mine, and his lips parted, his half quirk of a sorry smile. I could feel his heart pounding inside his chest, against my forearm, which was trapped between us and would soon start cramping.

Now should have been the time when I used this leverage and maneuvered us apart from each other. Now should have been the time when I put my wealth of experience in these matters to good use, to the task of keeping him as far away from me as was possible in the small boathouse.

But now wasn’t the night for it. And at least I’d mustered strength enough not to kiss him.

Then, his fingers clutched at the base of my neck, tangling in my hair. He murmured something that sounded like my name, and I allowed myself to harbor the foolish notion that it was exactly that. He was young, I thought wildly; he was separated from his parents and desperate for affection in my brother’s cold, uncaring, selfish house. We’d grown very close. We were intimate friends, and Hal had obviously longed for such companionship. He didn’t know what it was he asked for, the fingers of his free hand seeking purchase against my shoulder.

Yet, the treacherous shadow-half of me whispered, these lies would be to demean him. Hal was no idiot country boy, and inexperience was quite another thing from stupidity. I longed to rationalize his actions within the context of what I presumed him to be thinking—yet for all the time we’d spent together, I realized I had no way to judge or measure his thoughts at all.

“Hal,” I said again.

At last we pulled away from each other, and Hal let his hand fall to his side, fingers curling against his palm. In my terror and self-aborted desire, I’d made certain my hand moved no farther than where it remained, still cupping his face against the palm.

I could see his eyes, blue flecked with gray, and they were shining for me.

“I didn’t,” he said, and licked his lips. “I—”

“It’s warmer now,” I said lightly, not betraying even so much as a shred of my feelings. “Isn’t it?”

Hal began to blush, and quickly after that he looked away, ducking his head to hide it against my shoulder. I was sure that, considering how close we were, he was bound to hear the pulse at my throat beating wild and desperate for him.

The sound of the fire crackling, eating away at the poor ruined skiff, must have obscured the sound. I allowed myself to move my hand, to rest it against his pale back ghosted with freckles. His fingers tightened against my shoulder.

We should have spoken about it. We should have said something. We should have done anything other than curl against each other in silence, frozen in time, doing neither one thing nor the other.

I held my small triumph close about me like the mantle of a warrior, and said instead, “That was an adventure, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Hal said. There was sadness in his voice, deep and dark.

I rested my nose against his temple and stared beyond him at the fire. We were holding each other because it was practical; I loosened my embrace though I didn’t let go entirely.

Soon enough I could hear the even keel of Hal’s breathing as it slowed. The storm had ended, and Hal was sleeping. When I tried to move he protested, mumbling in his sleep, and buried his face against my throat as if I were both his pillow and his bed.

I didn’t fall prey, as I’d thought I would, to unhappy thoughts. Instead I followed Hal’s example and slept comfortable and deep.