Havemercy (18 page)

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.