Sonata Form

by Carole Cummings

  “Did I?”

  “I can’t believe you still have it.”

  “I’ve never parted with it. Not once.” So I hope you understand how much I mean this went unsaid. “Nain said it was a way for the dragons to bind my heart to theirs, and....”

  Milo hoped the rest of the sentiment was obvious, because he couldn’t make himself finish it without blubbing again.

  Apparently it was, because Ellis sucked in a soft breath and closed his fingers reverently over the stone. “It’s warm.”

  “Always. And gets more so when a dragon is near.”

  “Yeah?” Ellis brought it closer for inspection, smiling and holding it like he’d never received anything finer. “It’s perfect.”

  Milo tugged at his ill-mannered magic, made it behave, and didn’t say So are you because it seemed he was always at risk of dying of twee these days.

  But he hoped Ellis heard it anyway.

  Chapter 9—Glissando

  : a rapid slide between two distant pitches

  Every moment is infinity turning

  faster than the heart’s hasty crawl

  Milo had heard that once. Or read it, maybe. Song lyric? He couldn’t remember. But he thought he might understand the poetic contradiction of it now.

  Reaping migration kicked his arse. Besides the fact that it seemed every single dragon on the continent made at least a short stopover before moving on, a ridged snapper—well west of the path it should’ve been flying—got stranded with a torn wing in Goodcrest just north of Tirryderch. Part of the clan lingered with it, which made the locals jumpy. Everyone was fine with flyovers—enamored with them, really—but no one except those who lived on or near preserves were used to such a large wild animal stalking their borders. And because it was a snapper, and because it was a wounded snapper, it was an unpleasant large wild animal.

  “She’s gorgeous.” Dilys had come up from Tirryderch to see. Bored, she said, having completed her Warden training in Wellech. Ellis had insisted she take a month before assuming her fellowship in the Tirryderch division, and it was chafing her something wicked. So much so she’d managed to talk Milo into taking her little half brothers camping a few weeks ago when Ellis had to cancel a meetup in Brookings. And though it hadn’t been completely awful, a day and a half in Tirryderch’s wilderness with two so-bright-they-bordered-on-obnoxious little creadurs, plus Dilys and her relentless wit, did manage to convince Milo he really had to stop being such a pushover.

  “Can I?” Dilys gave Milo a pleading look. “Please, please, Milo, can I?”

  Milo laughed, charmed, and got Dilys as close as the snapper would allow. Which turned out to be nearly eye-to-eye, but she didn’t let Dilys touch. Dilys was a bit disappointed but not deterred.

  “You can’t keep a dragon, Dillie, you absolute minger.”

  “I don’t want to keep her.” Dilys rolled her eyes. “I’m only saying it would be fun to have one about Tirryderch.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I’ve a proper list of knobs I could feed her.”

  The logistics of getting the dragon to Old Forge involved a lot of negotiation with the railroads, a lot of soothing of the locals, a lot of pacifying the dragon, and a cursed lot of time spent doing all of it. Thank every goddess that Glynn loved everything about being an apprentice and had turned out to be so competent.

  “I can’t believe we’ve got a snapper!” Glynn was nearly starry-eyed. “What’s she doing this far west?”

  “Loading me with more work I don’t need,” Milo retorted, though he frowned as he said it, wondering the same thing, because it hadn’t only been the snapper, but part of her clan as well. One dragon wandering from its path was unusual enough, but the ten or so that had accompanied this one? Milo was already composing in his head the questions he was going to need to ask those dragonkin in Central Màstira who were still answering his letters. It seemed like every predictable thing about dragons was becoming less so by the day.

  “She likes me.” Glynn grinned at Milo from atop the stepladder as she examined the repairs she’d helped Milo do on the snapper’s wing. She smoothed her hand down the wing humerus and snorted when the dragon gave a pleased little shiver. “I bet I could do this without you here, even.”

  Milo shrugged and handed her up a pot of salve. “Let’s not find out just yet, yeah?”

  “You’re a proper killjoy, Milo.”

  “It’d be a doddle to magic you up a tail, Glynn.”

  By the time Highwinter rolled around, Milo was in serious need of a holiday. Ellis was charmingly accommodating, managing to arrange an entire week in Brookings where they attended so many festivals and fairs they were both probably a stone heavier when they parted at the train station.

  “The almanac says this’ll be a bad winter.” Ellis adjusted Milo’s scarf, gave it a little tug to pull him closer. “But let’s try for two weeks?”

  Milo’s frozen nose defrosted just a touch when he leaned into Ellis for a proper kiss. “Yes. Let’s.”

  It turned out to be four weeks, but it was four weeks of bonfires in the pastures, and persuading reluctant cattle into the feeding pens because the dragons could barely move in the cold let alone fly, and chipping ice off the outer fences so Milo could feel the wards properly. Someone was still now and then mucking with them, occasionally breaking through one in particular. The Whitpool Wardens had been no help at all in finding out who or how. There was at least one of them patrolling almost as often as Milo did these days, and yet no one had yet been caught or even seen.

  Well. Cennydd had been nabbed nosing about the perimeter again, but this time Milo let the Wardens deal with him, because Milo simply didn’t have the patience. And maybe the Wardens would do a better job of scaring Cennydd off for good this time.

  When it came to actually solving the problem, though, Milo was no closer than he’d been when the whole thing started. No one in Whitpool had the magic necessary to challenge those wards. No one Milo knew of, anyway. And the parish council agreed.

  It was unnerving. And annoying. And bloody time-consuming.

  Months of dragons and Wardens and apprentices and mad dashes to Brookings, and Milo barely managed the space to breathe between it all. So it was odd that the year slipped past him so fast his memory of it was an indistinct haze, and yet slurred with the speed of cold honey at the same time.

  Every moment is infinity turning

  faster than the heart’s hasty crawl

  Too bloody right. And Milo hadn’t even realized it until he’d picked up the newspaper and registered the date. Which was absurd, since he’d had it marked in his diary for a month, ever since Ellis said he’d bought his ticket, determined to visit before Sowing migration was over, even if it meant he had to leave the overseeing of the tail end of Wellech’s planting to someone else. And yet Milo hadn’t made the connection until the date was coupled with headlines like Queen Orders Blockade in Gulf of White Sands, and Refugees Bring Harrowing Tales of Tyranny and Oppression.

  Something is always brewing, Ceri had said. And she still hadn’t come back.

  It had been a year. A year.

  She hadn’t been in touch. At all. Alton wouldn’t tell Milo where she was, how she was, when she might be coming home, or even admit he had anything to do with her being gone—he wouldn’t even let Milo in the cursed door! The sly suggestions of the Black Dog Corps in the newspapers weren’t nearly as reassuring as they probably should’ve been. It wasn’t as though Ceri Priddy was the only mage who could conjure a beast out of smoke and magic, and the Black Dog Corps were legend—of course their tactics would be copied and used. So who really knew who if it was her out there? And the way she’d left, the way she and Milo had been when she’d left, ate at Milo.

  So did his want for a cariad contract. His ache to have more of Ellis than a few days every month. His absolute helplessness when it came to figuring out a solution that could work without one of them having to give up everything. Not that they’d be allowed to. It would b
e no less impossible to find dragonkin to replace Milo than it would be to dig up a future Pennaeth to replace Ellis; even if the Sisters approved the contract, the local governments would contest it, and likely win. And unless the distance between Whitpool and Wellech somehow magically shrank....

  Milo sighed dramatically and closed his fingers over the key in his pocket. He’d arrived at the station too early, overly excited—a bit jumpy, even—that Ellis’s long-awaited visit to Whitpool was finally happening. He’d thought a cup of tea and the newspaper at the station’s teashop might help pass the time and calm his nerves. The date, the headlines, the state of the world in general—it only ramped up Milo’s anxiety and sent it sprawling through his stomach, his chest, every vein, every artery, until his tea felt like acid bubbling through every inch of him.

  Save him, he was like those barky, jittery little terriers, so busy vibrating all over the place they didn’t even notice they were pissing on everyone’s shoes.

  Milo huffed out his tension, shut his eyes, and took a long, deep breath. He was being irrational. What did he have to be nervous about? It was Ellis!

  When he opened his eyes again, it was to the surprised face of Cennydd, staring at Milo from across the teashop as though Milo had just stolen his wallet. It only lasted for a second or two, the strange shocky anger morphing into a smile so pleasant Milo wondered if he’d been seeing things.

  “Haia, Milo!” Cennydd grinned, and made his way over to Milo’s table. “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m well, Cennydd, thank you. And you?” Milo didn’t see Cennydd much these days. As far as Milo knew, Cennydd had kept clear of the preserve since the Wardens had scared him off, and there hadn’t been a peep from Glynn about trouble between them since that day at the forge. “School’s going well?”

  Glynn had another two years to go, so Cennydd must have at least one.

  “Oh, you know.” Cennydd waved his hand around, but didn’t really answer the question. Instead, he tilted his head and asked, “So what brings you to the station today? Are you off somewhere again, or…? Oh!” Cennydd’s eyes widened. “Is your mam coming home, then?”

  Milo tamped down the jab of worry that spiked at the question, then sidestepped it. “I’m meeting my....” He hesitated, weirdly shy about saying it out loud. “My cariad is arriving on the afternoon train.” He pulled out his watch. “I was a bit early.” A bit was ridiculously optimistic. He still had a good wait. And that was if the train was running on time. “Oh, sorry.” Milo stuffed the watch back in his pocket and moved the newspaper aside. “Would you like to join me?”

  Cennydd’s eyes had gone narrow. “You’ve signed a cariad contract?”

  “Oh. Well, no. Not yet.” Milo felt his cheeks go hot. All right, so this was apparently why he’d been shy about saying it out loud. “No paperwork or anything, only. Well, there are some things to figure out first. You know how it is.” In point of fact, Cennydd probably didn’t, seeing how he was still so young, but that didn’t stop Milo’s mouth. “Schedules”—(which were fairly insurmountable)—“and contract approvals”—(which they hadn’t actually applied for yet, and likely wouldn’t get, anyway)—“and plans to make, and things to think about, and… well, you know, things just sort of get in the way, and…” And they barely lived on the same island, the distance between them was so great.

  For pity’s sake, what were they thinking?

  “Hmm.” Cennydd was frowning, hazel eyes curiously sharp as he pulled out the chair across from Milo and sat down. He stared at Milo, opened his mouth several times to say something then apparently rethought it, until finally he looked down at the newspaper and… paused. Clearly thinking. Clearly assessing. “Milo.” Cennydd’s hand was warm and sweaty when he set it atop Milo’s, astonishingly presumptuous for all it was gentle. “This… cariad.” He said it with a pinch of lips, like a disapproving auntie. “Are they…? Can they…?”

  Milo was abruptly incredibly uncomfortable, sitting here with Cennydd’s hand over his as though… well, Milo didn’t know, but he didn’t like it. There wasn’t much custom in the shop just now, but there was some, and this little display was right out in the open. It was mildly shocking and proper discomfiting, and it didn’t help that Cennydd was acting exceptionally oddly, even for him. So oddly, in fact, that when Milo tried to pull his hand away, Cennydd’s clamped down on it so firmly Milo thought he felt bones scrape together.

  “Cennydd, I don’t think this is the place—”

  “You don’t, Milo. Think, that is. That’s what I’ve always liked about you. I mean, you’re sharp as split shale when it comes to dragons or books or getting one over on the parish council, at least that’s what my mam says.”

  Cennydd’s mam had a seat on the parish council, and so should know very well that Milo absolutely did not “get anything over” on them. It was only that he had no issues with siccing Merfyn on them to fight tooth and nail for what the preserve needed. And what the preserve usually needed was for the parish council to get off its collective arses and approve the paperwork so it could move up the chain. And then maybe, when it had been so long Milo had almost forgot he’d made a request, someone in Llundaintref would finally approve it. Or refuse it. Which meant Milo would have to start the process all over again.

  “Your mam should not be speaking about council business to—”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about my mam, yeah?” Cennydd grinned, but it was flat-eyed, a shark’s smile, and far too mature a look for the boy he actually was. “My point is, Milo, you’re impressively astute about everything except when it comes to what’s good for you.”

  Milo again tried to pull his hand away without causing a scene. Cennydd’s sweaty palm made the grip give a little but not enough.

  “Cennydd, I need you to let go of—”

  “This cariad of yours, for instance. Is it someone of good standing, at least? Someone who has useful connections?”

  Ellis was probably of the best standing possible, and likely had more connections than even Cennydd’s parents, though Milo refused to say so and be drawn into whatever this was. He had no intention of listing Ellis’s assets as though Milo were anxious for the approval of bloody Cennydd, of all people.

  “Or”—Cennydd was all smug confidence, puffed up and self-important like the Somebody he’d always wished he was—“is it merely someone who has nothing more to offer you than the love they profess to have for you?”

  All right, this? Was getting utterly, breathtakingly bizarre.

  “Cennydd, that’s enough. You’ve no right to—”

  “Because things are getting dangerous for people like you.”

  It shut Milo up, just like that.

  Cennydd’s gaze slid down to the newspaper with its blaring headlines of fear and unrest, and then—pointedly, Milo could feel it—up to Milo’s earring. “And you’re going to need someone looking out for you. Someone who is connected to the right people. Someone who has the means to keep you safe when things get.... Well. Shall we say… precarious.” Cennydd squeezed Milo’s hand. “I’ve always liked you. You’ve done me the odd good turn now and then. Let me do you this favor.”

  “That....”

  Milo gritted his teeth and yanked his hand away. He paid no attention when his teacup went over and rattled against the saucer, sloshing tea across the doily and ruining the lace. He didn’t even check to see if the shop’s other patrons were paying any mind. There was an urgent need to wipe his hand off on his trousers, but Milo controlled it.

  “If I didn’t know better, Cennydd—and I had better know better—but if I didn’t know better, I’d say that was either a very strange, very premature proposal, considering you’re nowhere near of age for a contract, or… or it was some kind of threat. Though, if it was, I think you’d best just come out with it or leave right now.”

  “Threat!” Cennydd laughed, weirdly fond. “My dear Milo—”

  My dear Milo. As though he were some middle-aged man of the w
orld, and not the local butterfaced social outcast who wasn’t even old enough to shave yet.

  “—it’s far from a threat. Honestly! And anyway, contracts can be got ’round, if you know the right people. Look at your mam.” Cennydd held his hands up, harmless, when Milo shot him a sharp glare. “All right, all right, that was rude.” With a blasé shrug, he set his elbows to the table and leaned in. “It’s an offer of protection. Because bad times are coming, Milo, especially for someone like you, and you’ll regret not having someone at your back who can keep you safe when it comes. I can do that for you.”

  There it was again. That same frisson Milo had felt on the bridge in Wellech, and then again at a festival in Brookings, and then again as he sat in the middle of a celebration and listened to Folant Rees tell him he wasn’t good enough.

  “Someone like me.” Milo fisted his hands beneath the table. He flicked his glance to the newspaper. “You mean Dewin.”

  Cennydd sat back and lifted his eyebrows.

  Milo tried to keep calm, cool his tone, but it was difficult. “That’s half a continent away, Cennydd. Why in the world would I need ‘protection’ here in Kymbrygh?”

  Cennydd grinned. “See, this is what I’m talking about. It’s adorable.”

  Every goddess save him, Milo really was sitting in the Whitpool Railway Station’s teashop, listening to a teenaged gobshite five years his junior call him adorable.

  “The thing about Dewin is they stick together. And they own everything, including most of the powerful magic.”

  “That’s absurd. The Natur Sect is known to be very nearly as powerful, and the Gwybodaeth Sect—”

  “Yeah, sure, up in Harthoer, maybe, or down in Eskus, but here in Màstira? The continent is crawling with Dewin. They have all the magic, and all the money to go with it, and you know it. Everyone knows it. Dewin don’t use magic—they have magic, they are magic. And they only breed within the sect so they can keep it all to themselves. How fair is that? They were protesting in the streets of Ostlich-Sztym, as though the world was being unfair to them, before Taraverde cracked down on them and put their—”