I would, of course, have thought of the seeking spell myself, had they simply told me the diary was missing. I'd handled it enough that it would be easy to track the book at this point, missing only hours instead of days or months, and with me knowing exactly what it looked like, its heft and size, author and contents. The personal, familial nature of the ties to this house would make it even easier to track.
But Robert had been such a jackass about it—interrupting me before I'd had a decent amount of coffee, telling me what to do, and smirking about Gareth—that I was in a foul mood as I set about making the spell.
I needed only some concentration and judicious application of magic to set the spell. After my fourth cup of coffee—the stronger the better—I felt able to do so, and saw no reason to wait till after I'd finished the rest of my breakfast. I began making the pattern in my head, humming silently, drawing the colors together in a woven pattern, like tapestry. It was an individual spell that only I could do; a different magician would've needed to create a different spell.
And as it was something only I could do, it was something that no one could stop. It would find the journal. It would take time, perhaps, but the success rate was bound to be above ninety percent. My teachers at the ministry-school would've given me hell for only a ninety percent accuracy on a spell such as this, during my training. With all the favorable factors I had to work with, it would actually more likely be as near a hundred percent as statistically possible.
I set the final color-threads and tied them off, then released the spell like a balloon to waft away. Only the lightest tendril led from it to me, to tug at my awareness when it grew closer to untangling the woven lostness of the web of life and the journal. The spell would work its way, burrowing deep, unstoppable as lava but gentle as mist. It would weave its way into the very tapestry of the universe to find the book. I felt rather smug and satisfied with myself as I put down my last cup of coffee and rose to get something to eat.
Mr. Skeffield was crunching his toast and marmalade happily when his son returned. I had just offered to get Mr. Skeffield some eggs, and he'd accepted, when Robert came back into the room.
He looked lost for a moment, as if he didn't know what he was doing. He'd rushed off after Louie and driven away in the driver's place. If ever there was such a display of lovesickness, I'd never seen it before. Now Robert looked around, blindly, as if he couldn't remember what he was doing.
He'd come back right from the station, by the look of him. Forgotten to primp, too. It was odd to see the man so windblown. He'd made no attempt to straighten his hair or clothing. He looked around, swallowed twice, and then moved to the breakfast buffet, his steps jerky, like an automaton.
Of course, he actually did have mechanical parts: his heart was fully gears and metal, magic-powered. But I had never seen him behave like this.
"Everything all right, Robert?" asked Mr. Skeffield around a mouthful of toast. He watched his son carefully.
I watched as well. For some reason I didn't feel like smiling at his predicament today, even as unpleasant as he'd been with me about Gareth. The man was in pain, and I could derive no satisfaction from it.
Robert glanced at his father almost as if he didn't hear him. "No, I'm fine," he said, and moved to the buffet, picking up a plate. He stared at the food and stopped moving, his hands sagging a little, as though it took more energy than he could spare to eat anything, even to decide what he ought to eat.
"I—excuse me. I have to go for a ride," he said after a moment.
"A ride?" I asked.
He gave a jerky nod of the head, moving past, as if he didn't see either of us. His face was wooden, but he was blinking hard.
"Well," said Skeffield, trying to sound jovial, though his look held growing alarm. "Of course it's good for you to ride your old horse. I'm sure he doesn't get enough exercise."
"Yes," said Robert vaguely. "I—excuse me, Father. Silus." He gave me a distracted nod as well and strode out.
Skeffield gazed after him, still chewing slowly. His gaze and mine met accidentally as he tore his attention away, sighing. We looked away from one another. The concern in his eyes for his son undid me a little.
And damn me, there was just no way I was going to get involved. I didn't want to get caught up in their little dramas. I finished my breakfast as soon as I decently could and arose. As I was leaving the room, I heard a horse gallop past on what sounded like a bruising ride indeed.
"Damn fool," I muttered, and headed off to check the security.
Just at that moment, there was a tug to my new finding-spell. It was so shiny and new I hardly recognized the feel of it. I stopped and listened with my magical awareness, letting the colors and feelings of magic and the inner workings of the world became more real to me, and the rest of the world, the outer shell kind of vision, less so.
The horse's colors were pink with a mix of pleasure and nervousness at being ridden so intensely. It welcomed the energetic exercise but felt something was wrong with its rider. A horse knows that sort of thing: their natures are sensitive to mood and feeling, as if they know a kind of magic themselves. Robert was filled with dark colors that hinted at a welling grief and breakneck recklessness.
Skeffield's colors were pale but steady, like a candle burning low but not ready to flicker out just yet.
Not far away, I felt staff, workmen, the guards—and ah, there he was: my Gareth. I had to stop, to pull my attention back to the spell. It was so easy to be distracted by Gareth's intoxicating magical scent lately. Even more easy every day, it seemed. I had to concentrate hard on the spell.
Oh, but it was going in that direction after all. I followed willingly, letting the soft tug lead me on. It moved in the direction I wanted to go, anyway.
But it didn't go past, out the back entrance or down one of the many rabbit-corridors further into the mansion. No, it led straight to my once-lover's bedroom.
He was sitting cross-legged on the bed when I entered.
"What is it?" He looked up. His face looked naked without his glasses, but he was reading, and didn't need them for that. He still reached up to his nose, as if to push up the phantom frames, and he blinked at me, looking clueless and gentle and still somehow like the knock-kneed boy I'd once desired with everything inside me.
"What are you reading?" I came and took the book from him.
He gave it up willingly and stretched back out on the bed, grinning. "Why, have you taken a sudden academic turn in life?"
I looked at him sharply.
The spell had led me here. And yet—and yet—there was nothing. It was just a book. And here was Gareth, teasing me, a glint in his eyes. And we were in his bedroom. I laid the book aside carefully. His eyes gleamed up at me, almost daring.
I had been thinking very hard about Gareth right about when I made the spell.
Damn me, but I'd really begun to mess myself up. I could hardly put him out of my head these days—even for a simple spell I should've been able to do in my sleep. Of course it had led right to him. I was like a dog in heat around him.
I looked at him, and he looked at me.
His smile disappeared, and for one moment I saw a kind of raw, desperate hunger and longing and pain as his mask slipped. There was something of the boy I'd known in him after all. He could still feel something for me, and deeply.
"Come on, then," he said, his voice rough. He shifted his hips, reached for his trousers.
"Let me," I said, just as gruffly.
I could hardly breathe for that moment, before he hesitated, and then nodded.
Outside our little world, a horse galloped with a desperate man on his back. An elderly gentleman ate his breakfast. Life moved on at a steady beat at the Manor, lives intertwining and moving along. And Gareth and I beat out another tune, playing it on each other's bodies, joining in a desperate rhythm I thought he'd forgotten.
I made love to him, and he let me. He cried out as he finished, just one little cry, an old sound I'd memorized and then forgotten, a sound that resonated in me like the striking of a bell known from earliest childhood, that one sound that echoes to your very marrow, leaving you shaken and lost all over again, old memories flooding over you when you hear it again.
I pressed my face into his shoulder, kissing his warm, smooth flesh hard and desperately, breathing him in, holding onto him. "I'm sorry," I said, not knowing when I had become so lost.
He was closed off from me in some deep, fundamental way. But I understood enough, now: I understood something from when he'd lost control and cried out. Just a bit of what he felt had slipped through.
He'd been in love with me.
I'd broken Gareth's heart.
When I left, and didn't take him with me or stay in touch. I'd broken his entire, gentle heart.
"I'm sorry," I whispered achingly.
"No, you're not," he said, just as softly, one hand cupping the back of my head, holding me close to him, not wanting to let go. "But don't go yet."
"I won't," I said, meaning it in more ways than I could tell him yet. He wouldn't believe me. I would have to prove it.
He didn't need words; he needed actions. I must prove I wouldn't break his heart again before he could ever open up and let himself care for me again.
I hadn't known this was what I needed so desperately, but just now, nothing else mattered a tenth as much. All things paled against the need for keeping Gareth, and making love to him, and helping him feel safe again.
He let out a soft chuff of laughter, as if he'd caught some trace of what I was feeling. Perhaps he had. He was closed off to me largely, but I'd been pretty much an open book around him since I'd picked him up in the rain at the train station.
His fingers trailed through my hair, still holding me close, as if he wanted to touch more, to not let go. "You don't mean any of that," he said softly, and turned his head and kissed my forehead. "You think you do, but you don't."
And he rose quietly, releasing me, turning away, and began to get dressed.
I watched his bare back. I let a hand reach out and rest there, touching his warm skin, till he shrugged me off and moved away.
I lay in bed, staring up at him, my world shaken and settling in very new ways.
When he turned to me, I was still as undressed as I'd been, but he was fully armored in clothing. He gave me a rather professional smile. "I'll meet you later to discuss the job, shall I?"
I smiled at him. A real, honest smile, holding nothing back. I stretched my arms languidly over my head. Stretched the rest of myself a little, too, naked and not ashamed of it. "If you like," I said placidly, not quite smirking but very close to it.
He glanced at me, splayed out in the rumpled bed sheets. He bounced his gaze away, cheeks flushing a little. "I can see you have other things on your mind. Very well. I'll talk to you later." He tucked his small volume under his arm and walked from the room.
I followed his colors with my magic, just letting them trail through my awareness. That silly spell I'd made trailed with him, so close: I would have to break it and start fresh, when he wasn't in my every thought.
And when would that be, I wondered. When would that be?
His colors were a little brighter than they'd been lately, though, and I swear he walked with a spring in his step.
I grinned to myself and got up, feeling much the same.
#
The rest of the day was taken up with security issues, magical detective work (the boring kind that meant following up on historical contexts and old letters and floor plans), and it meant consulting with Gareth a great deal. I kept my mind on work—mostly—but he seemed to keep his there exclusively.
My eyes kept tracking to his face, memorizing the way he brushed his hair distractedly back behind his ear, and the furrow of his brow when he concentrated—even the careful way he took on and off his glasses, always folding them precisely and putting them away into their case. Even when he could be clumsy and forgetful about everything else, Gareth took immaculate care with his glasses—the sure sign of someone who'd grown up very poor.
We'd rarely talked about family in the old days, me without any and him too glad, no doubt, to get away and become a grownup. Or perhaps I simply hadn't given him space to talk about them. At any rate, I wanted now to know everything I'd missed out on earlier—back then, and in the years intervening.
We didn't talk of such things, of course, but I kept thinking of what I wanted to ask him. It wouldn't be professional to do so until later, when we could have some time to ourselves. When we weren't supposed to be concentrating on our work for the magical ministry.
I wondered if they'd pair me with him permanently. It would certainly be convenient to have a bed partner as well as a magical partner. We were suited.
And to be honest, I had little chance of winning him over and proving I really was sorry if I didn't get to spend more time with him, regularly and a lot of it. It would have to be permanent, of course: if we were teamed, it would have to be for good, not just a job or two.
I would definitely make my wishes known to Bauer when I talked to him next, even though it meant eating my words about not working with a partner. Some things were worth eating one's words for.
But while I was making plans for the future, I found it rather worrying that Gareth didn't seem to give our intimacies a second thought. Meanwhile, I couldn't tear my gaze from him, and could barely think of anything else.
Still, it would take time to prove I'd changed, that I meant to be a different man now. I knew that, and now I would have to be patient and dedicated if I ever hoped to reach that place with him—the place where he would look at me like he used to, with such trust and tenderness.
I missed that; I hadn't realized. Why hadn't I realized how he felt?
Well, I'd never known love from family or lovers previously. I couldn't be expected to realize when a young man had given me his heart. Could I? Or had I just fooled myself, and in truth I'd known all along?
No. I was sure I hadn't. Or if I had, I hadn't realized what it meant, that he'd given me a fundamental part of himself, and I hadn't accepted and cherished it.
But an even sadder truth was that I'd cared for him more than anyone else in my life before or since, and if that wasn't a kind of love, then what was? So perhaps it was even sadder yet that I'd parted from him with barely a backwards glance. I'd known so little about the warmer feelings that I hadn't even understood my own.
And then on meeting him again, I'd had the temerity to think him a cold fish, to believe he hadn't missed me, and that I was being foolishly sentimental to dwell on those early days together.
How long had it taken him to put them out of his head and heart—while I was off having adventures without him? Oh, but I had been a cold young man, without even realizing it.
I always seemed to strike people that way, and it had never really bothered me. I thought most people, magical or not, had extraordinarily thin skins. But all the same, I'd never have wanted to hurt Gareth, if I'd known. I wouldn't have hurt him on purpose.
Of course I wouldn't have.
I hoped I wouldn't have.
It had been the culmination of my goals and desires, embarking on a life in the magical ministry, working with magic and doing important things in a well-paid position that required cleverness, power, travel, and all the things my youthful heart had dreamed of. All the things I'd wanted. Would I have given him a second thought if I'd realized it might mean giving up my chance?
I didn't want to think about it, and yet it kept coming back into my mind. Would I have tried to find a way to stay together if I'd realized how much I meant to him? Or would I have laughed and told him goodbye anyway?
Too many years separated me from that callow youth to truly know the answer. And yet I was afraid, with a kind of sinking dread in my gut, that I might have laughed, and left.
I wondered; I would never know now. And he would never know I hadn't done that, unless I could prove otherwise...prove that I had grown into a different man.
#
I broke the first finding spell and set up my second as soon as I was alone for a few minutes. It was easy. Still, I took a few extra minutes to clear my mind and even more elaborately picture the book, weave the threads, and finesse the magic. It would be excellent this time. I had kept Gareth completely from my thoughts; it was all about the book now.
Afterwards, I put away the papers I'd been studying and went to find Gareth and ask if he'd like to eat supper with me. He usually seemed content to grab a sandwich from the kitchen and eat in the library, where he liked to read all the books. The Skeffields had given him permission to browse at his pleasure, and he'd certainly not outgrown his downright greed when it came to reading and knowledge and books. I liked the sight of him in a window seat, curled up, eating thoughtfully as his eyes scanned the pages in front of him. But I hoped he would agree to eat with me today.
As soon as I left my room, it started up again, the finding spell. The quiet, nagging feeling was very firm and very close. I made sure it was the new spell, not the old, and then began to follow it, wondering what was going on. Unless the book had been misplaced, it shouldn't be back in the library already. Had Skeffield thought the diary was stolen, and really he'd just forgotten on which shelf he'd left it?
I stepped into the library without waiting to see if it was occupied. I didn't think it possibly could be. Nor would it matter, of course, if it was. I was simply there to look for a misplaced diary.
The room was occupied.
Gareth sat on a window seat, a sandwich with a bite out of it held in one hand, suspended halfway to his mouth as he read a book. It was the same book he'd been reading when I found him earlier, following my erroneous spell. Which had led to him.
It was the same book that had gone missing—the diary. The newer spell very firmly led right to the book on his lap. The tendrils all led there, bright and glowing to my magical senses.
I took a deep, sharp breath.
Gareth looked up. He lost his page with his finger when he reached up to brush back a hank of hair. "Oh, hello." He took a bite carefully, chewing slowly, watching me. Then amusement lit his gaze, a cynical spark of something almost unpleasant. "Found it, did you?" He nodded to the book in his lap, not making an attempt to hide it now.
I managed to shut my gaping jaw and speak. "Yes. Why...why did you take it? Why not just borrow it? And...most of all, why read it here, where I was bound to find you?"
He grinned and shut the book. It made a firm, ominous sound. "Oh, I didn't suppose that would matter much. You were so head over heels, you didn't notice anything. And truly, I thought my spell would keep you from recognizing the book." He shrugged, as though it hardly mattered now.
I took another step closer. "But...why? Why keep it here in the first place?"
He still met my gaze easily and calmly, even boldly. "I'd have turned it over to my boss tonight, but I wanted a look first. I've always been good with ciphers."
"The ministry itself hasn't been able to decipher the little codes," I observed, and took another step closer. Still he made no objection or seemed anything other than calm.
"Haven't they?" he asked, cynical again. "Well, I wanted a look, anyway. They wouldn't have given me one."
"Who do you work for? Who got to you?" A magical ministry agent bribed—or blackmailed? I knew such things had happened, but it still shocked me. Not to Gareth. Not to my Gareth. How had they gotten to him?
He gave me a cold, almost feral smile that showed too many teeth, and startled me on his sweet face. "Oh, you are a fool, aren't you?" he said softly, as though he relished this.
For a second I was afraid, afraid that it wasn't him at all, but someone with a strong magic for disguises who had somehow taken his place. But no—I felt out for him automatically, and it was him, Gareth in his own special Gareth-ness, the threads and tendrils and colors that he could never hide from me. I would recognize them anywhere, and they couldn't be faked the way appearances could be.
And now, since we'd had sex just this morning, I could see deeper than before. Even with him trying to block me out, I could feel more of what was behind his exterior. And he was frightened. Angry, bruised, broken, and terrified.
They'd hurt him. Whoever it was, they'd gotten his help by convincing him it was the best alternative when he was in a terrible place in his life. They'd kept him ever since, but he was in over his head. Never had anyone demanded this much from him before—this much duplicity, this much investigation, this much outright harmfulness. But always there had been the knowledge that they could demand it and he would have no alternative.
I sucked in a deep breath. He was scowling at me, hard. "Don't do that. Don't try to look," he snapped. "You have no right anymore." He rubbed his forehead, as though it hurt.
"All right, then tell me. I'll listen." I drew up a chair and plopped into it, steepling my fingers together, elbows resting on my knees. "Just you and me. Listening."
He rolled his eyes and gave a bitter laugh—but it was a shaky one, and he was trembling a little at the edge of his mouth on one side. Yes, he was stressed indeed. He held the diary as though he didn't much care what happened to it now.
"I don't know what there is to tell. I work for the ministry. But I answer to another. He's deeper in the ministry than you could ever believe. If you think he doesn't have other agents, you're very mistaken."
"Who?" I asked, raising one brow.
He gave me that cold smile again. "You really think I'd tell you? Who knows, I could be making this all up. Anyway, maybe I'm working for myself."
"No," I said immediately.
"Oh, no, no, poor little Gareth, stuck in a garret, he could never do anything for himself, could he? He could only be your little toy, to use while it was convenient, and then throw away."
"I—I didn't mean to. I'm sorr—"
"Oh, yes, you're sooo sorry. That's why you cut the lifelines between us—so I wouldn't even know if you were alive or dead. That's why you never wrote or visited, or gave a fuck that I was close to dying because of you."
"Wh-what?"
"What do you think happens when your life threads bind so closely to someone, and they cut it off suddenly and don't look back? When you give more than you ever get in return? When you give your fucking heart to someone who doesn't give a shit about you?"
He was on his feet now; we both were. He had the book curled in one hand, and his eyes blazed, and I thought he might throw it at my head.
"I was a fool," I said softly, hardly able to breathe. "But I didn't know. I promise you, I didn't."
"Do you know what? I don't believe you. I don't have to now." He threw the book at me. It was a fragile old volume, and I couldn't let it be destroyed. I snaked out a hand to catch it at the same time as I threw up a magical damper to keep it from falling apart or smashing into something.
His gaze was triumphant and filled with pain and a vicious triumph at the same time. "It was my pleasure to betray you," he said. "I only wish you had some small taste of how I felt." His lip curled. "And I wish I could kill you for what you did to me. But, alas, duty calls."
And with a twist of the lip and a cold little mock salute, he moved to the window, pushed open the wide glass swing-pane, and leaped out and ran off.
I didn't follow him.
I didn't need to. His threads blazed bright and familiar to me. I could have followed him anywhere, from any distance. And perhaps I did have some inkling of how he had once felt, because I could feel him cutting the cords between us on his side—fragile and new as they'd been—but that I couldn't let go of mine.
I didn't try. I put the diary on the desk and moved to the window after him. I stood there with my hands on the frame, staring out.
I was breathing hard yet shallowly, and my eyes were wet.
"What seems to be the problem?" asked a voice behind me, abrupt and cold. It was Robert. He sounded testy and distracted. "Why do you have the window open? We do pay to heat this house, you know."
I stood still for a moment, gathering my wits, catching my breath. I wiped at my eyes quickly, and then pulled the window shut and latched it carefully. I set the lock with a bit of magic, re-securing the bonds of security around the manor quickly and easily. No one would get in or out without my awareness of it. Not even Gareth.
"Never mind," I said, turning slowly. "I found the diary. It was on a shelf."
"What?" He stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. "What the hell's wrong with you, Smith? My father wouldn't have missed that. And what's wrong with your face? You look like you're about to cry." His lip curled. He had no patience for me, for anyone who wasn't Louie right now. I couldn't much blame him.
I arched an eyebrow and looked coldly amused—or did the best job of it that I could. "It's truly a shame we can't all be as perfect as your father, and never make a mistake in our lives."
He flushed hot and gripped one hand into a fist. "He would have looked carefully," he said through gritted teeth. "He would not have missed—"
"Never mind. Just tell him I recovered it from the thief, and tell him to put it somewhere much safer this time." I motioned to the diary on the desk and walked from the room with studied unconcern.
I had a great deal to think about.
#
It was official; I loved Gareth. I had lied for him, and risked my own position with the ministry by not immediately reporting his actions and doing my damndest to stop him.
But I knew I could find him. I knew I could, even now. He was hiding out behind the bushes in the back garden. He was cold and wet, and no doubt waiting to sneak back in and re-steal the diary so he had something to give to the demanding person who had his service.
Frankly, I didn't give a shit about the diary. A copy was in the ministry's hands. The document had only sentimental value at this point, and its absence would only be noted if they thought to look at it sometime. After it was locked away safely wherever they decided to put it, they probably wouldn't look at it again for some time.
I didn't care if Gareth stole it. I didn't care. I just wanted him to be all right.
And he wasn't.
I couldn't eat anything. I stayed in my room, pacing, clutching at my hair in a surprisingly dramatic fashion and muttering curses under my breath, trying to cudgel my brain into some semblance of rational thought. But I couldn't. All I could think was that I had to protect Gareth, had to make him whole somehow.
I gave in; I went to the kitchen and got him a pudding, and took it out to him. He looked startled at my approach. But he didn't try to hide.
He must've known I was coming, felt my certainty and my pity, or whatever this feeling was. He must have decided it was worth trying to stick around. Could the diary be so valuable?
I handed him the pudding. He looked for a moment as though he wouldn't take it, his lips twitching a little. There was a light drizzle, and he was miserable as a cat in rain, always had been.
He took the bowl from me without argument and began to eat standing there, shoveling bites in quickly, not bothering to try to sit down. "I shouldn't be here," he muttered. "And neither should you." But I saw in his eyes that he was glad I was there.
"Come on," I said, sticking my hands in my pockets and trying to seem calm and casual. "This is silly. You hate the rain. Come inside and we'll talk about this."
"I can't just... Here." He handed the plate back. "I should go."
"Come on. Just for today and tonight. Nobody has to know. If we can't figure anything out, we'll renew hostilities tomorrow, all right?"
I could see the idea appealed to him. Of course it would, romantic boy that he'd been. Christmas truce, noble enemies—all of it. His lips twitched, on the edge of agreeing.
"Darling," I said softly. "I know I owe you more than I can make up. But let me try."
I didn't think I'd ever seen him so startled in my life. "You don't..." He touched his lip with his tongue, his eyelids fluttering. "You don't talk to me that way. You never have. Who are you?"
"Maybe I'm starting to grow up. But come on. If the rain isn't bothering you, it's bothering me." I touched his arm.
He looked at me then, and it was a look almost of wonder. His lips parted. The rain was hitting his glasses, leaving them with little pocks of droplets obscuring his vision, irritating him. And yet he'd never looked at me, since we were young, in such an open, interested way. He was really seeing me—as it had taken me so long to see him.
"Let me make it up to you," I said. "Let me try to fix this."
He shook his head gently. "You can't. I'm in too deep."
"Let me try, anyway."
We looked at each other, standing there in the rain, regarding one another, trying to see decisions and life choices and sincerity and the future—all the things you can never truly tell about another person.
"All right," said Gareth softly. He put his arm through mine, and we walked back inside, blinking against the rain. It was coming down harder now.
#
That night he slept in my bed. There was no talk about staying apart, about being too professional to repeat this morning's intimacies. They were even better this time, with us both trusting each other more, and feeling more deeply in tune. I comforted him from the storm, holding him close when the thunder rumbled and he shivered, that whole-bodied, flinch-like shiver that I used to know so well. It tormented him, the bad weather.
We didn't talk. Somehow, I didn't dare. I just wanted to comfort him. And I did.
Morning found us both hungry, exhausted, and disheveled—and yet at peace. Something had settled between us. Neither tried to shut the other out. I was pleasantly aware, as we went to breakfast together—not quite holding hands, but feeling as though we might any moment—that our magic threads were quite, quite intertwined, a veritable rainbow of magic and colors and beauty, all woven together now. It would be difficult to rip them apart, or tear them, or snip them: and I certainly wasn't going to try.
I meant to keep him, and fix things, even if I wasn't certain how yet. If we had to have some rather serious discussions about the matter, I was willing to. But I was not willing to give him up, no matter what it cost. We had lost far too much time already.