The bizarre wintry weather followed us across a snow-covered expanse—either a field or a lawn—and up to the front doors of a marble manor. The manor was in good condition, but there were signs of a homeowner’s absence: overgrown ivy along the overhead portico, a debris-covered doorstop.
“This place . . .” Addam said. “Can you feel it?”
“Yeah.” There were strong protective wards surrounding the property. That would have made me nervous if not for the fact that they hadn’t identified us as a threat. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to keep this place safe but social. I wonder if it’s an Arcana property.”
There was a heavy brass knocker on the door. In the absence of a better idea, I banged it a few times. The metal had been cooled by the snowstorm.
“Let me try,” Addam said after no one answered.
“Sure. Someone else pushing the button always makes the elevator come faster.” I smiled at him. “With all these wards, I don’t know how safe it would be to break in. The wards may decide we’re a threat after all.”
“Perhaps not,” Addam said, smiling back at me. Then he faced the door and said, with clear enunciation, “I am a scion of Atlantis and mean you no harm. Will you shelter me?”
The heavy wood door swung open on creaking hinges.
“Oh, the hell,” I said.
“There’s a lot you never learned, if you haven’t spent time in the Westlands.”
Dumbfounded, I limped ahead while holding my hand behind me in a “wait here” gesture. Addam snorted and followed, his abs, strikingly defined even through his shirt, deliberately pressed into my palm.
A bare stone foyer lead to a main hall that was dim with stormy daylight. Immense canvas tarps covered most of the furniture. There was little dust. I took a deep breath and caught the aroma of citrus-scented domestic wards.
Addam murmured a cantrip. Butterscotch light pushed at the gloom, revealing glimpses of color. The floor under us was a striking peach marble threaded with gold veins. The wood paneling was a warm cherry-mahogany. A staircase snaked along painted yellow walls and vanished into the upper stories.
I said, “Are you telling me you can go up to any house in the Westlands and get in by asking nicely?”
“The Westlands follows old rules—like Atlantis did. Atlantis had an entire etiquette built around travelers and guest privileges. It’s biased toward the landed class, but I suppose that’s worked in our favor.”
“So it wouldn’t work for bad guys?”
“It wouldn’t work for anyone meaning the owner, or the owner’s guests, harm. And I suppose it wouldn’t work if the owner had anything to hide from unexpected guests.”
“Like the bones of children in his oven?”
“Such a suspicious imagination,” Addam tsked.
“Still . . . Rurik was able to smash apart the Magician’s wards on the pathway. We don’t know if he’ll have any trouble getting in here.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to us?” Addam asked in a subdued voice.
“I don’t know. Maybe the wards weren’t broken. Rurik teleported us off the paths—he didn’t attack us on them.”
“Should we make a run for the Moral Certainty compound?”
I thought about it. Rejected it. “We have no idea where we are in relation to it. And we have no idea where the nearest path is. Let’s wait out the storm and reassess. I think we hurt Rurik, at least. Last time I hurt him, he took a while until he came after me again.”
Addam untied his belt holster. Melted sigils had fused around the leather thongs that had once held them. Addam gave the ruined devices an exasperated look, which reminded me, again, that he’d lived all his life behind velvet ropes. Because if that had been me? With all my sigils bent into slag? It would have meant the end of everything. It would have meant the end of my ability to make a living; to protect my household; to keep myself off the pointy end of a bad death. For Addam, it just meant a trek back to the family armory.
He said, “I’m sorry. I should have been quicker.”
“It’s kind of hard to dodge the impossible. How were we supposed to know he could destroy sigils? If Rurik can pull this sort of trick now, I don’t want to see what he grows up into.”
Addam tapped one of the melted sigils, quickly, in case it was still hot. When nothing happened, he balled the belt up and shoved it into his backpack’s side pocket. “I’ll be a liability to you now.”
“You’re far from a liability, even without sigils. You got us out of that trap, Addam. Thank you. You . . . I’ve never seen your Aspect before. I didn’t even know you had one. It was . . .” Magnificent. You were magnificent. “Um, efficient. And tall.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
I blinked.
“Is that what you think stopped him?” Addam asked. “My Aspect? That light, when we touched—that was not me. I think it was . . .” His voice trailed off. His eyes never left my face.
I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I don’t know why I didn’t—I couldn’t even explain it to myself—but I didn’t. “Whatever it was, it stopped Rurik for the moment. Let’s look around and try to figure out where we are.”
I took a few deep breaths of the clean, unheated air while Addam wandered to an old-fashioned light plate. He pressed a button. Nothing happened except for a click that echoed across the hard floors.
He said, “Ah well. Too much to hope for. Maybe they have a generator? We should see if the water is turned on, too. You have many scratches on your face, Hero.”
“The thorns didn’t exactly bounce off you, either,” I said. “Come here. I’m going to use a healing spell.”
Instead of touching the gold chain around my ankle, I concentrated. In a moment, the spell released, and I felt the just-bearable warmth of healing energy. Before the precious spell could dissipate, I healed the scrapes on my face, my twisted ankle, and the puncture wounds on my back. I gestured to the red, raw hash marks on Addam’s cheeks and, when he leaned in, touched him. He had the softest beard stubble I’d ever felt.
We stood there for a second, staring at each other. His breath was hotter than the air, damp against my cheek.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome.”
Hesitancy wrinkled his forehead. “Rurik was . . . doing something to you. Wasn’t he? Tricking you with illusions. You were very upset.”
I broke our gaze. “They were just illusions.”
My arms dimpled with gooseflesh as the healing spell dissipated. I rubbed at them while turning in a circle. “Come on. Let’s check this place out. I want to make sure we’re really alone.”
Addam sucked at searching.
He kept forgetting to be cautious or stealthy. He picked up anything that caught his eye, like a crow dive-bombing shiny coins.
Meanwhile, I went along as if something was about to jump at us from every corner. I cleared each room and hallway as we passed it, and walked on the balls of my heels to minimize noise. The first time Addam watched me fling open a door for a 180-degree pivot, sabre outstretched, he applauded silently. I got miffed and explained that slicing the pie was better than a button hook for possible hostile room entry. He added a deep bow to the applause.
“I’m not making fun of you, Hero,” he insisted, catching the look on my face. “It is very impressive.”
“Brand is better at it,” I admitted. “This sort of thing is more his job. I’m just the firepower.”
“Your Companion is also your business partner? Is that right?”
“Depends on how bossy he’s feeling when you ask him.”
Addam’s gaze dropped. He peered down at the molding along the border of the floor. “You were very brave to go after him outside my godfather’s building. Many scions wouldn’t have compromised their safety like that. He obviously means a great deal to you.”
It took me half a beat to read between the lines. I raised my eyebrows. “Are we doing this again? Are you trying to find out if I’m sleeping with Brand, too? I’m not good at these games, Addam.”
“Perhaps my unsubtlety is, in fact, a clever and subtle tactic to introduce my interest.”
“Let’s try that hallway over there,” I said, changing the subject and trying not to smile.
If I had any doubts that we’d stumbled on the compound of an Arcana, they were resolved when we entered the room at the back of the first floor.
It was a largish chamber, half a basketball court in length. The floor was hard stone scattered with pennyroyal rushes, and the walls were broken into alcoves filled with man-sized clay statuary. The statues, though old and worn, were a strange mix of soldiers, jugglers, musicians, and mounted cavalry.
I said, “Motherfucker.”
Addam raised his eyebrows at me.
On a hunch, I went through an archway at the far end. The adjoining room was a cluttered maze of equipment and tables. Aside from a few safe paths, the ground was studded with spikes of volcanic glass. So were the tables, and desks, and cabinets. Next to the doorway were wicker baskets filled with oversized boots and mittens, all of them sewn with a lining of obsidian thorns. It looked like a pod of serial killers had gotten together to throw a yard sale.
“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” Addam breathed from behind me.
“It’s a training ground for a very, very rare type of summoned construct. Those,” I said, and pointed back through the archway, “are from China. They’re part of the Terracotta Army—statues from about two thousand years ago that were buried for the first emperor of China, so that he’d have an army in the afterlife. I have no freaking idea how they got here—I can’t even imagine how priceless they are. And if you know the activation codes, they come alive.”
“Like the Tower’s golems?”
“This is on a whole other scale. The clay army is nearly indestructible, but obsidian and coral can slow it. They’re strong as hell, too. They can glamor themselves to appear human, and they’ve got the mental aptitude of an eight-year old—which is more than you can say for most constructs. That’s why they have this room.”
“I still don’t know what I’m looking at. What is this room?”
I stepped—carefully—along one of the paths to a cluster of tailor dummies. The cloth torsos were barbed with small spikes of obsidian. “You can’t turn them loose in public without training. Otherwise they’d be tearing off people’s arms during a handshake, or driving rib cages into lungs when they’re just trying to haul their owner out of danger. They train the soldiers in rooms like this, forcing them to pay attention to every single move they make.”
Addam marveled at it. “Which Arcana lives here, do you think?”
“The Hierophant. I’d bet money on it. He’s the best summoner on the planet, and he’s got an Asian fetish. Damn, I wonder what else is in the manor.”
We went back to the room with the clay soldiers. Addam pulled off his backpack and settled it by a wall, then slid down to the ground. “Your Queenie packed us sandwiches. Are you hungry?”
“Maybe later. I wouldn’t mind sitting for a while. Are you going to think less of me if I have a cigarette?”
“I may even join you.”
I rifled through my backpack. The only thing that remained of the cigarettes were broken filters. Since I’d snuck them in there just before leaving the Tower’s, I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or irritated with Brand.
I sighed. “Did I mention he was bossy? It’s not even worth arguing the point with him, either. It’ll be all blah-blah lung capacity, blah-blah fighting for your life.”
Addam rolled his head along the wall and gave me a wry smile. “When Quinn was younger, he’d smash up onions with a hammer, and take pictures of his eyes watering. He would paste the pictures to my cigarette packs.”
My laughter filled the air with puffs of frost. Addam laughed along with me, until the humor dropped off his face like a rockslide.
I said, “He’ll be okay, Addam.”
“He has to,” Addam said. “If you’re right . . . if Ella is involved . . . then she’s responsible for hurting Quinn. I’m having a very hard time accepting that. As would Quinn. He would be so distraught.”
“I didn’t think he and Ella got along.”
“They don’t. Ella treats him with indifference, at best. It’s a very sore point between us. But for her to—” His voice shook. “Quinn is sensitive to how others view him. If he thinks his own sister is capable of hurting him, he’ll take it hard.” Addam closed his eyes. His light cantrip bobbed and flickered. “I know I didn’t cause this—I know. But if it’s true, if Ella is involved, then I’ll still be a man whose own family turned on him. I’ll still be a man who’s lived his life in such a way that such a thing was possible. Does that make sense?”
“It does, but you’re stupid.”
Addam opened his eyes and stared at me.
“You are,” I said. “Trust me. I’m pretty well versed in the shitty things people are capable of doing. In some families you can see why things turned wrong—the people who hire me are just as bad as the people I’m being hired to stop or investigate. But I’ve met Quinn, and I’ve met you, and you’re not shitty. Addam . . . I’m really sorry I wasn’t able to help Quinn more. I’m sorry I left him behind.”
“As you tell it, you had little choice. In a strange way I’m . . . glad? No. Reassured. Relieved, maybe, that you took his warnings so seriously. Some people disregard Quinn and his gifts. Many are afraid of him. It’s why it was so difficult to leave him when I was stationed in Russia.” Addam smiled. “Not that it quite turned out that way. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s a seer, or because he’s a Quinn, but he has a remarkable tendency to get his way.”
“I sense a story,” I said. “Possibly with wallet photos.”
Addam gave me an uncharacteristically shy look.
“I’m teasing,” I said. “What happened in Russia?”
“It was my mother’s idea, that I spend time in Russia. Irkutsk. Quinn was only five years old, and we’d never spent a day apart. When Quinn found out I was leaving, he cried for days. On the morning I was to go, he hid, and refused to see me off. We finally gave up looking for him, and I drove to the portal station. Quinn waited until the guards were looking the other way, snuck off our estate, and began running through the city after me. He made it twelve blocks before security caught him. He’d wrapped a cheese-and-pickle sandwich in his bedroom drapes, tied them to a curtain rod, and had it slung over his shoulder, like a little boy in a Norman Rockwell painting.”
Addam shook his head. “Over the next seven days, he ran away a dozen times. When I found out, I called and tried to explain to him that I’d return, that the assignment wasn’t forever.”
“Did he understand?”
“He understands far more than people realize. He told me precisely how many people on the estate were scared of him. How many of his guards would ask for a new posting since I wasn’t around to scowl them into being polite. He told me how many times he’d cry himself to sleep if I didn’t come back, and how many times he’d get so sad that he’d throw up. He said . . . Ah, you have to know Quinn to understand how he sees things. He sees the future like it’s the past—futures, really. He said if I didn’t come back, then one time he ran away and got lost in a bad section of town. He said sometimes a man in a white van pulls up and offers him candy.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, he’s good.”
“Indeed. So I signed away a tenth of my trust fund to have a private portal constructed between Irkutsk and the court. I’d spend the week in Russia, and weekends with Quinn. Or at least I tried. He didn’t have much respect for the concept of here and there. I lost track of the number of times I’d come back from meetings in Irkutsk and find him curled up in my bed, having snuck through the portal because he’d gotten it in his head that I mustn’t wait until Friday to know about his new toothbrush, or the frog he caught. He brought the household guards to tears on a weekly basis.”
He smiled for a second, and then the smile faded, weighed down by the present. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Let’s have a snack, and then continue our search, Hero. There must be a generator or fireplace somewhere.”
We completed our search of the first floor.
I was on the lookout for anything that would help us communicate with the city or pinpoint our exact location. Technology was notoriously unreliable in the Westlands, but Arcana usually had people on their payroll smart enough to ward phone and internet lines.
The only thing I found of practical use was a large, rough sketch of Nantucket’s northwestern shores. It was thumbtacked to a corkboard in a downstairs office. The Moral Certainty compound was labeled, which was great, but I wasn’t sure how much we could rely on the map of a forest that ignored geography depending on what mood it was in.
“They are moving,” Addam said.
“What’s moving?”
“The lines on the map. Look, there. The tree line is now thicker between here and the ocean.”
“Damn,” I said with a low whistle. “Do you have any idea how much a map like this is worth?”
“Careful, Hero.”
“Yeah, I know. Wouldn’t want the wards to think we’re ungrateful houseguests.” I pointed to a spot on the map. “Look there. I think those double lines are safe roads. Here’s one that goes near the Moral Certainty compound.”
“I recognize this,” Addam said. He tapped an oval outline. “Peat’s Swimming Hole. It’s just outside the compound wards.”
“There’s about a football field’s worth of unprotected ground between us and your compound’s wards, then. Filled with snowstorms, liches, and huge Muppet monsters.”
“Will we risk it?”
I nodded slowly. “But not until my sigils are swapped out with some different spells.”
We went back to searching.
On the second floor were guest rooms, sealed up for an extended absence. One of them had a marble fireplace and a bin filled with seasoned logs. I thought if worse came to worst, maybe we could camp there.
At the end of a west-wing hallway, we had another stroke of luck.
Against a stretch of eggshell-colored wall, my senses began to tingle. I put my hand on it and felt a vibration. It was a steady, grounding power—unmistakably a sanctum. But the doorways on either side of the wall led only to bedrooms, and neither bedroom had an entrance to the sanctum.
In one of the bedrooms, Addam went over to the balcony doors. The glass was crusted with thick frost and he couldn’t get a decent view out of it. He said, “I think there’s a loggia here. Perhaps there’s an entrance from it to the sanctum?”
We both had to pull on the handle to crack the seal of ice. As the door opened, winter shoved in. The weather tantrum had worsened: the sky now spat ice and long streamers of sleet.
As I stepped onto the long loggia that ran along the side of the house, I tried to stare through open archways, looking for any signs of ambush or aggression, but everything around the manor was lost in a churning grayness.
We made our way down the unprotected balcony. There was, as Addam suggested, a middle balcony doorway. The glass panels had been cracked by a loose tree limb, spilling snow drifts into a bare, diamond-shaped sanctum. He shouldered the doors open and went inside just as hail began to pelt from overhead, bouncing and skittering across the flagstone.
Once we were inside the sanctum, we closed the damaged door as best we could, and took stock. There was no doorway on this level other than the one we’d entered, but a wrought-iron stairway spiraled up to the third floor. I climbed the stairs high enough to peek into the room overhead. It was a few square feet shy of being a master bedroom. Maybe the consort quarters, or close family.
Addam pulled his ruined sigils from his backpack and spread them out on the floor. After a long minute of staring at them, he shook his head. “I do not think these will function at all. I sense no magic in them. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“Welcome to the story of my life. The impossible things that get shoved in my face are never like winning the lottery or digging up Spanish doubloons in my vegetable garden. Impossible things are liches and melted sigils.”
That got me a wan smile. I was playing it light for Addam’s sake, but inside, I was worried. Sigils were the bedrock of a scion’s power. They were the irreplaceable product of a dead art. I’d never heard of one being destroyed before. Lost? Sure. Won in conquest; pawned; even dropped between the sofa cushions. But not destroyed.
The cracked windows of the balcony stole whatever warmth the manor offered. I took off my crusted jacket and shook the sleet into a corner, and laid it open on the ground to dry.
While Addam reluctantly returned his sigils to his backpack, I went to stand in front of him. When I had his attention, I touched my two necklaces: a cameo and silver ankh. The ankh needed cleaning; it had begun to tarnish.
I lifted it and said, “I got this when I was seven. It was one of my first sigils—a gift from my father’s seneschal.” I unwound the necklace and pooled the chain in my hands. On my hands were three rings. I pointed to the gold and emerald band. “Elena Lovers gave this to me. Long story. Well, not so much long as not reflecting too well on my sense of self-preservation.” I took the ring off, then leaned forward and stuck out my leg while tugging up my pants. The glow from Addam’s cantrip caught my gold ankle chain and made it slick with caramel-light. I bent, undid the clasp, and palmed it.
Addam said, “This has the appearance of a strip tease, but usually strippers remove the articles of clothing without describing them.”
“Funny.” I cradled the three sigils and said, “I give these sigils freely. Your Will is now their Will.”
“What are you doing?” he asked in surprise.
“You have a better chance of protecting yourself with sigils. I trust you to give them back when you’re done.”
Addam regarded the sigils I dumped next to him in wonder. “Rune . . .”
“And if you break them, you get a visit from Brand.”
“You’d lend me these? Knowing I could not even protect the ones I had?”
“I could just as easily have lost mine to Rurik. Plus, I’m not doing anything Quinn didn’t do for me.” I tapped the platinum disc on my belt. I would have given Addam that one as well, but I didn’t have time to recharge the spell I’d stored within it.
“True,” Addam said, “but Quinn’s a remarkable young man. I don’t often find people who measure up to him.”
I took a deep breath and pushed out the one question I hadn’t wanted to ask. “Addam, what do you think happened when we touched in the forest?”
“You want to know?”
“I asked.”
“I think,” he said, “that you’re my talla.”
Surprise first made my face go cold, and then warm as a flush rose beneath it. In a voice far gentler than I’d thought I could manage, I said, “We’re not tallas, Addam. I’m sorry.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just am. It’s not possible. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Is . . .” He chewed on his bottom lip. “Is Brandon your talla? Is that why?”
“That’s not why,” I said.
“But when we touched . . . what I felt . . . didn’t you feel it too?”
“It could have been another part of your Aspect. Or maybe it was part of mine—it looked like sunlight, didn’t it?”
“Or maybe it came from both of us. Don’t such things happen between tallas? It’s a mysterious bond. Powerful.”
Would that it were so easy, I thought tiredly. “We should get some rest. We head out at first light.”
He stared at me, hard, for a good ten seconds.
Then he nodded and said, “You can run, Hero, but you can’t hide.”
Right around midnight, I accepted that we were stranded for the night.
Tactically, I didn’t want us splitting into separate rooms. Logistically, there was only the one bed in the suite I’d picked earlier. I tried to avoid any future awkwardness by making appreciative comments about the fainting sofa in the corner.
Addam gave me a small smile and went into the adjacent bathroom to see if the pipes worked. They did. I won the coin toss and got to take a quick, lukewarm shower to clear the worst of the dirt off me. Addam headed downstairs to scrounge for food.
When I was done showering, I cleared the mirror with the side of my hand. I hadn’t packed a brush, so I had to finger-comb my hair into respectability.
I got dressed and left the bathroom. Addam had returned from foraging and dumped a pile of packaged food on the bed. I poked through it and saw olives, digestive biscuits, animal crackers, and water chestnuts.
Addam said, “We may possibly come to blows over the animal crackers.”
“Digestive biscuits?” I said in disgust. “What kind of man leaves million-dollar golems in the open and can’t even stock microwave popcorn? Just see if I break into the Hierophant’s house again.”
“To be fair, there was plenty of food in the pantry, but it was behind a sealed vermin ward. I didn’t want to tamper with it. We’ve intruded on the house’s good will enough as it is. But at least we’ll have a fire. Behold my industriousness!”
I walked over to the wide marble fireplace, where Addam had stacked a pyramid of logs.
“It is soft pine,” he said. “It will smell very nice. Do you have a lighter?”
I transmuted my wrist-guard into a sabre hilt and shot the pyramid with a firebolt. I kept on shooting until flames roared out the jumping logs.
Addam leaned against the wall, pulled off his boots, and dropped into a heap. He wrapped his hands around his toes to squeeze warmth into them. As the glow in the room grew steadier, he allowed his light cantrip to die.
While I tore open the waxy lining of the animal crackers, Addam said, “Was the shower pleasant?”
“It’s not my fault all the hot water is gone,” I said quickly. “There wasn’t much of it.”
“Suspiciously defensive,” he said.
“Sorry. I’m used to fighting about hot water. Brand has more knives than you, though.”
Addam got up and came over, briefly touching the side of my head. “Your hair is cute when it’s wet. I will shower now. Must I dress in these clothes afterward? Will my vigilant prince require us to sleep in battle gear in the event that Rurik comes calling?”
“I can honestly say Rurik will have no bearing on my decision to keep my clothes on.”
He winked and vanished into the bathroom.
I split up the food, skipping the water chestnuts and olives, but sampling a digestive biscuit. It tasted like sawdust and cough syrup. I put the box in Addam’s pile, palmed some animal crackers, and went over to look at the hardbacks on the bookshelf.
When Addam came out of the bathroom, he was in a towel. As he sat down by the fire, the towel parted over his muscled thigh. The flames made his leg hairs glint like bronze.
He saw my attention and stretched a smile over his lips. “Do my tattoos really look like I got drunk with a sailor?”
“Oh. Um. No. Did I say that?”
“You did. Do you like this one right here?” He touched the side of his stomach, where the tattoos feathered out at his waist. “Or this?” He touched his hip bone, nudging the towel loose.
“Stop that, or I eat the last giraffe.”
He laughed and knotted the towel closed. He held out a hand for the crackers.
While he ate, he studied me, his wine-colored eyes narrowed into a crescent. I tried not to react, but he was half-naked and wearing my sigils, and it was distracting. My ankh was against his chest, the emerald ring wedged between the knuckles on his index finger, the gold chain loose on his ankle and reflecting firelight in a dancing glimmer.
He was, truthfully, one of the most handsome men I’d ever laid eyes on. The reality of that filled me with regret. I always felt a sharp sense of regret when I stared at a truly beautiful man.
“So,” Addam murmured. “Do you want children?”
“What an awful pickup line.”
“And what are your views on group marriage?”
“Even better. You want to knock me up and see other people. You know, I was led to believe you were good at this sort of thing.”
“Perhaps I am sly. Perhaps I am overreaching in my negotiations, in hope that I end up with a simple kiss.”
“I don’t think there’s a single thing about you that’s simple, Saint Nicholas.”
He gave me a slow grin and leaned back. His arms were braced behind him, his body spread into something like a pose or an invitation.
Things stopped seeming abstract and started seeming like a real and present danger. I started fidgeting.
And then, to my surprise, the grin faded from his face. He pulled his legs up against his chest. “You are such a good fighter that I was . . . surprised. In the forest. To see you at a momentary disadvantage.”
Since he was being oblique, I responded in kind. “Hmm.”
“You’ve been skittish since then.”
“Skittish?” I repeated. “No one’s accused me of being skittish since I was a pony.”
“Perhaps I am not expressing my concern as well as I’d like. I am asking if you are well, Rune.”
I gave him a slow shrug. “I know you are. Addam, Rurik fucks with people’s heads. I told you that before we headed out. He was messing with my memories, trying to get me off-balance.”
“He . . . had your memories? He read your mind?”
“No, he,” I said, and stalled by taking a bite of cracker. “He can make you relive things. He makes you relive the things that hurt you. He feeds off dark thoughts and—”
Addam drew in a breath. I saw it in his eyes: it clicked. Maybe it was because I’d been thrown over the tree trunk when he arrived. Maybe he’d seen me scrambling to button my jeans. Maybe he’d noticed how doggedly I protected my personal space. But, either way, it finally clicked for him. “You relived your . . . assault.”
“Sort of. A little.”
“But . . .” To my utter astonishment, tears filled his eyes. “Oh, Rune. I’ve been so forward. I have been awful. I am so very sorry, I didn’t—”
“Addam, it’s okay.”
“It is not. I’ve been boorish and insensitive. I didn’t mean to act in such a way. I didn’t mean—”
Before I could think better of it, I lifted my butt off the ground and scooted over to him. His mouth closed in surprise. I leaned in gave him a quick, aimless kiss on the cheek and scooted back the way I’d come.
“If you still feel bad, though, you can give me the best side of the mattress.” I thought about it some more. “And the rest of your animal crackers.”
His discomfort broke apart, and he recovered his smile. He had a nice smile. It was a good thing to watch.
Later, I returned from a bathroom break and caught Addam slipping out of his towel and back into boxer briefs. He sensed my presence and turned. I expected a quip or a double entendre, but his cockiness had been tempered by the talk we’d just had. He gave me a small smile and tugged the briefs up over his pelvis.
He’d already removed the protective covering from the mattress and remade it with sheets he’d found in a linen closet. He slipped under the covers, then stilled and watched me cross the room.
I took off my socks and shoes, and unbuttoned my jeans. I thought about stripping down to my own underwear, I really did; but the idea was met with a near mental shutdown.
I got under the bed sheet and sunk low, hiding my flushed face in the pillow. Addam slid down so that our eyes were on the same level. Heat stirred the scent off his skin: sandalwood soap and fireplace smoke. I got lost in it for a moment.
“Thank you for the sigils,” he whispered. “I am humbled that you trust me with them.”
“They’re a little more raggedy then the ones you’re used to, but they’ll do the trick.”
“I like your sigils. They say something about you.”
“My cameo necklace says something about me?” I asked.
“It is unique,” he insisted.
“And a woman’s emerald ring? That says something about me?”
“You’re teasing,” he said.
“A little. It makes your accent sound funny.”
“A lot of things make my accent sound funny. And it was a genuine compliment—I like your sigils. The quartermaster only gives me and Quinn platinum discs.”
“Ah, yes, my grass is so much greener,” I said. “Know what’s funny? I used to hate this cameo sigil. It came from my mother, who died when I was very young. I was embarrassed to wear it, though. Gods, I was such a shit. I put it in a cubbyhole in my room and never took it out. . . . The thing is, that’s exactly why I have it now.”
“How so?”
“I scavenged most of my sigils from Sun Estate after the attack. The people who—killed everyone, they took the armory and ransacked the rooms. If I hadn’t hidden this along with my ankh, they might have been taken too.”
“Scavenged is a strange word to use,” Addam said. “Sun Estate is yours.”
“No. It’s not. Sun Estate belongs to the dead. It’s very haunted. I don’t walk into it unless I’m armed like a tank. Or if I need money for the cable bill.”
He laughed, and we lapsed into a comfortable pause, punctuated by the crack of tar and sap from the burning logs. Addam had been right. It did smell nice.
Addam said, “You’re lovely in firelight. You really are as beautiful as I’ve always heard.”
“For the record, the seer was drinking eggnog when she made that prediction.”
“I was not speaking in terms of prophecy. I was speaking of this real, breathing moment.”
“You need to stop complimenting me,” I said. “You’ve already talked me out of my shoes. That’s a good start.”
“Do you not think you are a beautiful man?”
Maybe I was tired. Maybe the firelight really did make things prettier than normal, including words. Either way, I said what I thought. “I think people make themselves beautiful. I think everything on our outside is a line sketch, and whatever’s on the inside blows those lines into three dimensions. It’s like with Brand. Now, there’s a man who puts no effort into looking good. There’s not an ounce of vanity in his body. Yet he walks into a bar, and people drop and gasp like drowning victims.”
“Your Companion is very handsome,” Addam agreed. “But I’ve yet to have him step in front of me, in a dark Westlands forest, without the sanctuary of safe paths, and burn away a lich’s self-important theatrics with a wave of fire.”
“Oh,” I said, and laughed. “Oh, you are so full of shit.” I pushed at his shoulder, turning him on his back. “Go to sleep, Lord Saint Nicholas.”
He propped back on his arm long enough to kiss my eyebrow, and then withdrew into a burrow of sheets.
Between the fire’s stupor and the aftermath of a long day, he grew drowsy quickly. His breathing went from calm sighs, to the fits and hitching of someone wavering on the point of sleep, and finally to a loud, dragging rasp that was just shy a snore.
When I was sure he was asleep, I slid a little closer to him. He’d gotten a sunburn on his neck during our walk. The heat of it warmed my cheek.
Life magic was one of the strongest forces known to Atlanteans—the twin of wild magic, potent enough to be nearly sentient. And within the constraints of this rare and powerful magic, tallas were considered its most seldom occurrence. Tallas were a pairing of souls; a joining of Will and way. It wasn’t exactly true love, though certainly lovers have become tallas. But there are also stories of mortal enemies developing a bond: soldiers on a battlefield, warring Arcana, court rivals. Hatred and conflict can be as strong as love and intimacy.
Still, whatever the relationship, tallas gained strength and magic from their forced union. I had heard of talla bonds curing cancer; bridging unwanted distance with spontaneous acts of translocation; folding time with a kiss.
Even though Addam couldn’t be my talla, my tired mind played around with the idea. I wondered what it would be like to be metaphysically duct-taped to another human being.
Eventually I tired my brain, and fell asleep to the metronome of Addam’s breathing, even though I’d planned on keeping watch.
I dreamed of creatures the size of skyscrapers, and necrotic flesh that turned healthy and pink under waves of white sunlight. I dreamed of a long, teasing conversation with someone who I knew to be both Brand and Addam at the same time. I dreamed of doing cartwheels through a field of bioluminescent bees and kicking up clouds of monochrome butterflies. While some of these dreams had the markings of nightmare, not once did I feel threatened or scared. In every scenario I was contained. By a warm jacket. By a tight belt. By humid summer heat.
Much later, I opened my eyes, and found myself in Addam’s arms.
He was still asleep. His breathing made the hair around my ear hot and damp. I went still, very still.
As quiet I was, though, I woke Addam up. The arms around me tensed.
In a flash of insight that felt like panic, I realized I didn’t want him to pull away. And I think he knew it. Because, tentatively, he moved a hand up my chest until it covered one of my own hands. I curled my fingers through his. He pulled tighter against me, his knee slipping just through my legs, his chest against my shoulder blades.
I moved back into him as he pressed forward. My breathing slowed, a rasping sound. His fingers tightened around mine, once, before snaking free and trailing down my abdomen. He traced a pattern down the front of my underwear. When I ground back into him to signal my willingness, he outlined my hardness with his fingertips and circled the tip.
And then I felt my orgasm, a sudden, unstoppable surge. I made another sound, this time horrified. Whatever muscles or willpower were supposed to stop something like this from happening failed me. My cock jerked three times, shooting warmth. I tried to push Addam’s hand away as if that could hide anything.
Addam said, “Rune, shhh,” but I struggled until I was free, until none of his body touched mine. I sat up in the bed but kept the sheets over my lap.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s not.” Tearing the sheets away, I retreated into the bathroom, the humiliating, wet cling of my underwear making bile rise up my throat.
I shut the door behind me, turned on the shower, and undressed with clumsy, angry movements. I threw the underwear against a wall. While the shower heated up, I unspooled toilet paper and cleaned myself.
As soon as the shower was passably warm, I stepped into it and put my head under the stream. I kept it that way until I was gasping for breath. I punished myself by replaying the scene again in my head, over and over, like grinding a toothache into your soft, swollen gums.
I put my arms against the tile, and hid my face in them. Sometimes, my life sucked. It was so much easier to fight the monsters outside my head.
“I’d like to shower,” Addam announced from the other side of the curtain.
I wiped the water off my face. “Um. Okay. I’ll be out in a minute?”
There was a short pause. Then Addam said, “Hero.”
“Oh. Now. Come in?”
The shower curtain parted and Addam stepped in behind me.
It was a large shower, and he didn’t need to touch me. He didn’t try to reassure my ego or soothe my feelings, which was pretty damn insightful of him. He just stepped around me and nudged me back, and bowed his head in the shower until his dark-blond hair was wet.
Then he opened his burgundy eyes and just stared at me.
“Would you let me touch you?” he asked.
“I’m not . . . I’m not very good at . . .”
“If my touch is unwelcome, or unwanted, you must tell me. I will respect that.”
“It’s . . . I do. Want it. I do—I’m just not good at—”
He braced his hands along my body and slid to his knees. He touched my thigh with his lips, kissing my hip bone. He continued to kiss his way upward, tracing each inch with the roughness of his tongue. He was very patient, and it lasted a very long time. By the time he took me in his mouth, I was hard again.
If the shower stall hadn’t been right behind me, I would have fallen. Addam reached up and kneaded my thighs, encouraging them to do their job.
He was skilled, and gentle, and very determined. He kept going until my world was his warm mouth and the cold water, until another orgasm shot out of me. I think I screamed along with it.
He kept me in his mouth as I softened and then kissed his way back upright. When he was standing, I put my chin on his shoulder so that he couldn’t see the look in my eyes.
Was I supposed to do something to him now? I’d forgotten the rules.
I cleared my throat and asked, “Should I . . . ?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, Hero. Not right now.”
“Why did you come in here?” I asked stupidly.
He smiled into the side of my face, drank water from my neck. After a while, he said, “I needed this to be the memory you remember, from tonight.”
“Addam,” I said, closing my eyes against the conviction in his words. “I wish you could be my talla. I do, I swear I do. I wish it were that easy.”
“I don’t think it will be easy at all, Hero. I think what would be easy for anyone else is a very great challenge for you; just like I think you routinely do things that would be impossible for others. Now. Take a moment for yourself. Then make the fire hotter and come back to bed. I am very sleepy.”
A kiss on my forehead, and he was gone. I heard him rummaging through the linen cabinet for a towel, and the bathroom door clicked shut.
Later, I went to bed naked—with only brief hesitation—and squirmed backward into Addam’s embrace.
He said, “You rest now. I’ll watch.”
Using the crook of his arm as a pillow, I surprised myself by falling asleep in moments.