by K. L. Noone
Kit gave him an insubstantial snort because of course that would be in there, and did not hide that those scents and sweetness wreathed his own presence too, coloring all those edges of self.
He’d linked magic with other people before, of course: the junior constables, Sam on occasion, when required for a working and a case. He did not like to; he worried about overload, about strain, and not for himself.
Working with Harry felt easy. Working with Harry felt right.
They slid into rhythm as if they’d done so for years, though they never had. Not unless they counted a glimpse of a moment in a library, or more recently in a hunting lodge on a sofa, at the pinnacle of everything.
Kit guessed that that was Harry’s doing; that rare gilded gift would be good for finding seamless cohesion. It certainly wasn’t his own. He’d never been skilled at reaching outward.
Harry’s amusement twirled like streamers in a breeze, and settled. They caught each other, bright and dark, a balance of listening and guidance.
Kit, being older and more experienced, at least in theory, took the lead; Harry let him. They both felt the brittle ice-cruel flaw at the core of the world, though. They leaned closer to it together.
The ice hurt like blades even here. Perhaps especially here: magic meeting magic.
The elemental dreamed, cold and lonely. It curled like a colorless small dragon into the earth; it had come without thinking, following crumbs of promising vibrancy like dropped gemstones: red as quick blood, golden as wheat, purple as wine. It had found itself in another world, a human world, not surrounded by magic in each breath; it had burrowed in and taken a stand, soaking up what it could, but it remained so cold, there was never enough food, even here, where the supply had seemed inexhaustible…but it was exhausted now, and tired, with hunger like stones down in its belly…
Kit heard it. Took it in. Held it laid bare.
Harry’s kindness reached out, infinite. Ran a hand across scales and cold, with compassion. Promised to help despite his own shivering.
Harry touched the universe again, metaphorical fingers skimming strands of gold. Found a stretched-thin place, a curiosity, an awareness of leakage from another side. Offered an invitation.
The elemental stirred, waking, wanting. The cold grew worse, and more biting. More widespread.
Back at the great house fires went out. Edward Arden, fighting tiredness and wrapped in blankets by his study window, keeping determined watch, shivered and put a hand on the wall.
Harry, fighting back, held the estate of Fairleigh in his thoughts like a jewel. Like a carving, meticulous and detailed and crafted with love; only not a carving, because every breath and each growing thing was alive, alive and moving, emerald and topaz and blue as summer against white coldness.
Kit took all that empty chilly loneliness and unfolded it like a banner: showing the elemental what it felt, how it had got that way, everything that hurt. It trembled, ached, wailed: in distress.
It shifted toward the thin place between worlds. It pressed itself into the universe, and began to fade.
Harry’s hand, outstretched, stroked a quivering pencil-sketch dragon-wing. Held out a promise: not an exile, not entirely. If it might be hungry. If it needed to slip back in, through that thin place, for one day, perhaps two, from time to time. Not long enough to cause lasting harm. With permission asked and given.
The elemental quivered again, became a puff of emotion that felt like question marks and exclamation points, and murmured in bewilderment.
Kit raised eyebrows, and waited.
Harry, solid bedrock, made of earthworks and foundations and the love of Fairleigh and the world, waited also.
A hint of agreement, icicle-clean and light as a single snowflake, brushed across Kit’s senses. Across his and Harry’s.
The elemental slipped through golden webs, and vanished into elsewhere.
Kit’s heartbeat sang. The universe grew lighter, relieved: one problem solved.
He gazed at Harry, here in this world made of glimmering interconnected threads; Harry glanced back, raised eyebrows in turn, and grinned, beckoning.
They could do anything. They could.
This time Harry reached out first, into snow and night and blocked roads and treacherous ice; Harry, who had for so long held his home safely guarded against peril, knew the way Fairleigh should feel in late spring, the way each bit of new life should unfold, each blade of grass, each thaw and blossom.
Kit offered support as best he could: standing guard over Harry, attuned to Harry, weaving empathy into a cradle around Harry.
The snow gave way. The world began to melt.
Astonishment and gratitude and relief flooded across the beleaguered estate. Back at the house, Edward Arden lifted both hands, and pressed them over his face for a moment.
Harry, growing tired, let energy spill through his fingers like water; he listened, soft and alert, when Kit told him it’d be enough. Harry smiled; they both held onto each other, and opened eyes.
“Oh,” Kit said, luminous, full of wonder. He and Harry were both still naked, holding hands across messy blankets. Outside the mountains of white had dwindled, sinking slowly but steadily. It’d take some time, but it would fade. “Harry.”
“Kit,” Harry said. “Constable Thompson.” In that voice, it was teasing. “Kit.”
“Harry.”
“You can do anything.” Harry’s grin, weary and elated, sent answering brilliance into Kit’s chest like the best kind of arrow. “I knew you could.”
“We,” Kit said. “We did.”
“We.” Harry’s voice curled around the world, and made it into another form of magic. “Yes. I know we should go back—Ned will definitely be having those kittens by now—but honestly I’m rather tired. And the snow’s not gone yet. That’s a good excuse, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Kit said. “You should rest. You deserve it. We’ll go back in the morning. Later in the morning. What time is it?”
“So late it’s early,” Harry said, and yawned. “Sorry.”
“Go to sleep,” Kit told him, “I’ll be here,” and lay down with him, coiled himself around Harry’s height and breadth like a very naked exhausted shield, and meant to stay awake and keep watch.
He lasted only a few moments, feeling Harry’s heartbeat steady and even under his hand, before he sank into sleep as well.
Chapter 11
They walked back to Fairleigh Hall through a carved crystal morning. Sun glinted primrose from slumped snowbanks and puddles. Trees shook ice from branches and sat up like ladies dusting off ball gown skirts, ready to waltz. The sky hung overhead, brassy and blue and so clear Kit thought it might ring like a bell if tapped by a hand.
As he thought of hands, his own snuck into Harry’s, without conscious planning. Harry gave him an oddly shy smile, and wove fingers into Kit’s in turn.
As they approached the house, the front door crashed open. Edward Arden bolted out of it, managed to run down the lane without stopping, and panted, “Harry…”
“What are you doing up?” Harry flung arms around his brother, though; and they clung for a moment. “After that night, and the storm, you shouldn’t be—”
“I’m fine.” Ned waved a hand. He did look better: obviously thin, and the general weak lungs and fragility hadn’t vanished, but his cheeks were pink above that impatiently tied cravat and quilted dressing gown and incongruous hasty boots, and he wasn’t leaning on his brother for support. “You know I’m generally better than you think I should be. When you didn’t come home—and it got so cold—Harry, what happened?”
“He made a bargain with an ice dragon,” Kit said.
“You what?” Ned’s eyes, that watercolor grey version of Harry’s luscious blue, got wider; they looked even more alike, for a moment. “Tell me everything. Right now.”
“In your study,” Harry said, and tactfully steered his brother that way, hand on one sharp elbow. “Where you can sit down. And th
ere’s tea. And chocolate.”
“Technically I’m the Earl here.” Ned let himself be steered. “Talk to me about ice dragons. Really dragons?”
“One small one,” Harry clarified, “and it was lost, and hungry…”
This explanation got them into the study and through plates of golden shortbread and solid strong tea and thick brown chocolate for Ned’s sweet tooth. Grayson the Devoted came and went, the second time returning with even more food and a perceptible easing of tension in those dependable too-young butler’s shoulders: he had, Kit recalled, grown up with the family.
Harry took over telling the story, all enthusiasm and big flying illustrative gestures. Ned listened and nodded and interjected occasional questions, and wore expressions ranging from brotherly anxiety to a lord’s thoughtful consideration of implications for Fairleigh and the future. The snow transmuted itself gradually to water, beyond heavy draperies and windowpanes: reassured as the bodies inside.
Kit sat on the arm of Harry’s chosen armchair and let Harry do most of the talking. He did not need to take credit; he wanted to watch Harry, all that exuberance fully recovered and caught up in storytelling motion. That newfound poignant emotion twisted like an ice-needle under ribs: ruefulness, perhaps, or acceptance, or desire for something he had not previously known he needed and did not know how to give up.
He did say, interrupting a sentence full of praise, “It’s not as if I knew it’d work. And I don’t need more of a reputation.”
“But you solved it.” Harry looked up at him, utterly earnest. “You aren’t even an expert in this area—no real crimes, only an elemental and loneliness—and you still figured out what to do. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”
“You would have,” Kit said. “You’re good enough for that.”
“I don’t think so,” Harry said. “But either way I didn’t have to. Because you were here.”
Kit shifted weight on the chair. Glanced down at his own boot-tip, up across Harry’s shoulder. Avoiding sea-spray sincerity. Long-held fortifications collapsing under the siege-weapons of honesty. He couldn’t not be sincere right back. “Then…I’m glad I was.”
“Yes,” Harry said. “Oh yes. So am I.”
Ned looked from Harry to Kit and back. All apparent innocence, suggested, “Constable, if you’d like to stay a few more days, we’re certainly thrilled to offer our hospitality; the roads will likely still be a mess in any case…”
“Ned,” Harry attempted, half a groan. “He doesn’t want…it’s not…we’re not…just don’t.”
“Aren’t you?” Ned said. “Happy, I mean. You deserve that. I know how much you do.”
“I was thinking,” Kit said. His hand was very close to Harry’s shoulder; he could swing a boot, where he was sitting on the chair-arm, and nudge Harry’s leg. He did not want Harry to ever say those words—he doesn’t want me, we’re not a we—again. He wanted Harry to say the opposite.
And he did not, in the end, give a damn about Society and gossip and class divides. Neither of them would ever fit in properly and that would be just fine; both of them were nevertheless respectable enough, and they’d faced worse than what would be a fairly minor ruffling of waters, and anyway the only part that mattered was whether Harry would smile.
He finished, continuing the statement, “About the question you asked. About whether your elemental, or others, might come back.”
Both Arden brothers looked at him. Harry’s eyes were unhappy around the edges, in the way of someone very happy indeed at a successful rescue of the world but waiting for a final sword-blow farewell.
This time Kit did kick him, but gently. “Part of the problem is the build-up of your power, right? In one place. A beacon. So if you aren’t always in the same place…if you were to travel…not for months or years at a time, of course not, but at least a week, a few days…”
“You could,” Ned said. “Harry, you could.”
“I can’t.” Harry gazed at them, confused, conflicted. “Ned, I can’t leave you—”
“I keep telling you I’m better,” Ned said. “Honestly, look, I’m not ever going to be, well, you, but I’m not twelve years old and on the brink of perishing from a summer fever, either. And I’ve got proper doctors, and Elizabeth to lean on. I can handle a few days or a week without you. Or, if Elizabeth wants to, we can pile into a carriage and come and meet you in London. We could open up the family townhouse again.”
“In London,” Kit said; and Harry’s eyes found his, and the moment became forever. Harry leaned in closer; Kit’s hand landed on the closest broad shoulder.
“I could,” Harry said, “but…could I? The estate—everything I do—”
“You mean you could actually let our estate manager do his job for once?” Ned said. “Fairleigh will be fine. And you can fix whatever needs fixing when you’re home. And be here if your ice dragon decides to pop by for a future visit. Speaking of visiting, I think you really should go to London and visit the Preternatural Division offices for yourself. Give them an in-person report and commendation for Constable Thompson. You know. Ensure he’s properly…rewarded for his efforts.”
This time both Kit and Harry stared at Ned. Who shrugged, shameless, and popped shortbread into his mouth. “What? It’s a perfectly reasonable proposition.”
Kit chose not to dignify this word choice with attention. “Harry?”
“You were thinking about this,” Harry said, not quite a question, full of abrupt and clumsy hope.
“I was.” He let his hand drift: to the nape of Harry’s neck, toying with sunbeam tumbles of hair, skimming fingers over warm skin under the edge of that unfashionably sturdy shirt-collar. “I was thinking that you might like to see an opera. Talk to a magical zoologist. Visit a pleasure-garden. Drop into a dressmaker’s shop.”
“A—”
“My sister’s.”
Harry closed that mouth. Opened it again, after a second, and breathed, “Yes. I would like that.”
“Yes,” Kit echoed, lightheaded—lighthearted—with the word. “So would I.”
“You’re adorable,” Ned said, around a sip of chocolate.
“Go away,” Harry requested, leaning into Kit’s hand more. “Since you’re feeling well enough to do that.”
“It’s my study!”
“And I’m about to kiss Kit in it. That is…” Harry paused. “I am, right?”
“Very, very much yes,” Kit said.
“Good,” Ned said, quiet and with affection; at some point after this he did get up and slip away, but Kit did not notice when.
Too busy kissing Harry. Too busy sliding hands through Harry’s hair, untucking that shirt. Memorizing the shape and sensation of freckled skin and firm male body under his hands, and the way Harry looked sprawled out across an antique purple armchair, and the way Harry moved and responded and laughed under his hands.
This morning Harry tasted like unsweetened strong tea and shortbread, and that shaggy golden hair held the impression of that long-overdue thaw, frost bending and surrendering and giving way. Harry kissed back while laughing, smile curving against Kit’s mouth, legs falling cooperatively open, and said again, “Yes please.”
So Kit kissed him more, drinking him in, thinking of London and cobbled streets and tea-shops and cluttered Preternatural Division offices, thinking of a future like a waving banner and a call to adventure; he answered, word a vow against Harry’s throat and the heartbeat there, “Yes.”
THE END
Author’s Note
I love both paranormal and historical romance, particularly Regency and Victorian, so I was thrilled to be able to write a story for this “Snowed In” theme that combines those loves—especially this particular story, which explores the history of the Demon for Midwinter universe! I hope you’ve enjoyed this little prequel glimpse into this world as much as I enjoyed writing it, and maybe you caught one or two references to pieces of the later Demon stories, too—I couldn’t resist.
Like all my stories, this one has a soundtrack. Here’s the list:
The Doors, “Wintertime Love” (thematically appropriate!)
Van Morrison, “Moondance” (I’ve always liked this song, and the lyrics fit so well)
Walk the Moon, “One Foot” (this was on the radio everywhere while I was writing, but it also fits—both literally, for walking through snowstorms, and as a metaphor for Kit and Harry taking fumbling steps into a relationship!)
Buddy Holly, “Oh Boy!” (for happy endings)
The Interrupters feat. Rancid, “Got Each Other” (an ending party, a promise, a declaration)
ABOUT K.L. NOONE
K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press. Her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies.
With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
For more information, visit twitter.com/KristinNoone.
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