This is so much more difficult than I thought it would be. I tried so very hard to tell you in Tirryderch, but I’m afraid I’ve turned out to be more of a coward than I thought I was. Which is going to make doing what I have to do very difficult indeed. But I came to realize I couldn’t tell you without explaining why, because you deserve that, you deserve so much more. You would’ve wanted answers, and I couldn’t give them to you. But I think I would’ve, had I taken the chance. I think I could endure tortures and torments and cruelties, but I could never endure hurting you without at the very least telling you why.
Since you’re reading this, I reckon you know now.
By now you’ve had a discussion that was likely as unpleasant as it was necessary. I won’t apologize for orchestrating it, because I meant what I said—you’re the best man I know, and the situation couldn’t be in better hands. I will apologize, though, for what it means for us, and how I’ve gone about it.
Your mam told me not too long ago that I’m more like Ceri than I think I am. I’m beginning to understand what she meant by that. It’s not an entirely happy revelation, but quite possibly a useful one.
We’re each in unique positions. Please just remember that. There are things you can do that no one else can, just as there are things I can do—hope I can do—that no one else can. I need you to keep that, to hold to it, when you grasp what I must say next.
I’m keeping the key. Do you understand? I’m keeping the key, because you will never not be my home. But I’ve filed for a dissolution to our contract. It’s done. You’ll receive the paperwork from Merfyn by month’s end.
Please, Elly, please think about it all with your head and not your heart, and I know you’ll come to understand why. Maybe not now, today, but you’re cleverer than most, and I know it won’t be long before you see the sense.
We can’t know how any of this will end, we can’t know what will happen, and I won’t leave you wondering and waiting. I know too well what that’s like. I won’t do it. We each have our duties that are bigger than those we have to each other, but I won’t balk from this one duty I have to you—I won’t have you waiting. I won’t.
I love you, Elly. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, but if I don’t, I hope you’ll make that your memory of me. I’ll always be the man who didn’t deserve you but loved you ’til the end.
Yours always,
Milo
Chapter 16—Improvisation
: “on-the-spot” creation of music (while it is being performed)
The first thing Ellis thought after reading the letter was No. Absolutely not.
The second thing he thought was rather incoherent, with a lot of furious swearing and threats aimed at the devious bloody gob of grem who called himself Mastermind, of all things, and skulked out of Ellis’s kitchen—out of Wellech altogether, for all Ellis knew—before Ellis opened the letter and understood bloody Mastermind was in serious need of a good throttling.
The third thing Ellis thought was, again No, and then No, and then I’ll kill him.
And that was how Ellis found himself on the overnight train out of Wellech and on his way to Whitpool, jaw set so hard his teeth hurt and his head was pounding. He slept, fitful and badly, right there in his uncomfortable seat in the main car, and Dreamed, though it was odd and gauzy and made him wonder if his mam had missed something in her instruction of Ellis’s meager talent. All broken and bizarre, it didn’t seem like a Dream at all—Milo was playing the violin, of all things, and quite well. Milo didn’t play. Ellis would know.
He woke with a headache, sore neck, and the dragonstone all but burning a hole in his pocket. He distracted himself by peering at all angles out the train window, trying to spot the dragon that must be flying close, but couldn’t find it.
The afternoon sun was bright and the sky, for once, nearly cloudless when Ellis stepped onto the platform in Whitpool and barreled out toward the waiting rank of hire cars, that same expression of Ugh, do I have to? on the driver’s face when Ellis gave the preserve as his destination. Ellis had found it rather funny when he’d been here last, and then frustrating enough that reasoning his way into buying Howell a car had seemed worth the wrath from Milo. But the people of Whitpool were funny ones, with a core of those who’d lived here all their lives and viewed the dragons as just another part of the scenery, albeit a part needing practical caution, and another entirely different assemblage that—
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Ellis nearly slapped his forehead.
Maybe it was that he’d had his eyes opened last night to something he hadn’t known to look for. Maybe it was the ostensibly insignificant fact that Whitpool seemed to attract more transplants from the rest of Preidyn than any of the other Kymbrygh parishes. Maybe it was the simple existence of Ceri and the knowledge of who and what she was—and why hadn’t Ellis ever wondered about her presence here and the more or less open knowledge of it? Did spies retire? Really? Could they?
And if not, how would that work?
Whitpool’s Home Guard was the command post for the divisions of all the other parishes. Whitpool’s Home Guard was the specialized training ground for those who’d done their obligatory stints in the ranks of whatever parish and were meant to move on to the Royal Forces. Whitpool’s Home Guard had stepped into a matter for the Wardens when Cennydd had tried his audacious abduction, had shut it all up with contracts and secrets and disappearing parents—disappearing Cennydd, for all anyone knew. Whitpool’s Home Guard apparently had more power than the Royal Forces when it came to orders direct from Parliament and information that couldn’t have come from anywhere else before it was cut off. Whitpool’s Home Guard had a relationship personal enough with Ceri Priddy that they refused her son admission by her request.
Milo was of age. Refusing his application was borderline illegal. Ceri’s word should’ve meant nothing. And no one was rejected from the Home Guard, not if they were fit for service. Everyone did their stretch, everyone but the Wardens, and even they were subject to Home Guard rule in times of…
“Ohhh,” Ellis breathed, “well, what d’you know,” not entirely surprised he’d never noticed, never even thought about it. Why would he? Why would anyone, unless they were one of the many citizens of Whitpool who were not from Whitpool?
He eyed the car’s driver and wondered. Hair trimmed short and neat, shoulders back, spine straight, even in the car’s plush driver’s seat. And, just like almost every other driver Ellis had hired to take him to the preserve had done, eyeing the sky every five seconds like he was afraid a dragon might swoop down on the car once they turned on to the access road to the forge.
Military or former military. Clearly.
Not from Whitpool. Clearly.
Because, honestly—who would purposely move to a place crawling with dragons, a place with one of the few dragon preserves, if one was afraid of dragons?
It was a good way to keep an eye on things, Ellis reckoned, an entire network of people who could keep track of who was coming and going merely by waiting for someone to hire them and tell them. What other jobs could a person do that would provide information no one would even realize was being noticed? Someone in the telegraph office, maybe? Post office? Servers in the tearooms and pubs and inns?
Were these people training to become spies, or were they actively spying? And what would they be spying on? Whitpool wasn’t exactly a hub of intrigue and political interest. It didn’t even have a port!
Then again, Ellis supposed, what better place to plunk a secret web of spies or potential-spies-in-training than somewhere no one would think to look? Ellis certainly hadn’t. He didn’t think Milo had, and Milo lived here.
Ellis was looking now, though, watching the driver through the rearview. Thinking back to Eira telling him everything he wanted to know, First Warden to First Warden, until the Colonel-in-chief of the Home Guard told her not to. Remembering last night in his kitchen and a stranger with delusions of “mastermind” grandeur telling hi
m they needed a united Kymbrygh, from Wellech to Tirryderch to Whitpool, and now Ellis wondered if the placement of Whitpool in that arrangement of seemingly careful words had been incidental or indicative.
And also—Mastermind.
For pity’s sake, the man had done everything but semaphore and interpretive dance!
Ellis didn’t try to be clever with the driver or sneak in a few leading questions. Firstly, he wasn’t even sure he’d know how. Secondly, everything that had just barged through his head was important and a bit terrifying, but not why he was here. He merely sat quietly until the car chugged its wobbly way up the bumpy, pitted access road that in truth was little better than a deer path, and pulled into the forge’s yard.
“Shall I wait?” It was dubious and reluctant, said with an eye out the windscreen and pointed at the sky, tracking a dark shape coasting slow and lazy over the ancient but still stately jut of Ty Dreigiau.
Every child in Preidyn, and especially Kymbrygh, was schooled on dragon breeds and dragon habits and dragon dangers, though Ellis couldn’t tell one from another in the sky the way Milo could. He’d got to know the shape and build of a razorback fairly well, since he’d had such up close and personal acquaintance the last time. And the spitters were easy to spot just by the frill. He wasn’t sure what this one was. Spear-shaped and slick, it moved like a snake with wings, curling into updrafts and widening into thermals with all the grace of a silk banner in a warm breeze.
For a moment, Ellis considered demanding that yes, the driver should wait, just so he could point and laugh when he finally cornered Milo and told him exactly how numb-brained he was being. Then again, Ellis didn’t suppose there would be much laughing, and he could see Howell’s car poking its shiny grill from one of the outbuildings by the barn. Ellis didn’t suppose Howell would begrudge him a ride back to the train station, should he need one.
“No. Thank you.” Ellis heaved himself out of the car, and swung the door shut. “I’ll figure it out from here.”
EXCEPT HE couldn’t.
“Wait, explain it to me again. More slowly, please.”
Glynn heaved a breath that was more like a growl. “This isn’t an explanation, because I don’t have one! I’m only telling you what happened!” Clearly frustrated; angry tears were misting her eyes.
“All right. Yes. I’m sorry.” Ellis tried to make his tone soothing. “Start from when you noticed something was off with him.”
He skirted a glance at the strange man standing in Milo’s dooryard, hovering behind Glynn and looking concerned and anxious while occasionally muttering heavily accented Preidish. His syntax was formal, borderline archaic, and broken by a language with a cadence blurred at the edges, swaying on the vowels and smudging the gutturals. Ellis wasn’t any more alarmed than he’d been since Mastermind showed up in his kitchen—too young, too skittish, this man hardly seemed a threat, and if Ellis had understood Glynn correctly, he was dragonkin fled from Colorat. Ellis just didn’t understand why the man, barely more than a boy, was here and Milo wasn’t.
“Something’s always been off with Milo,” Glynn groused, that same familial annoyance-affection Ellis had seen between her and Milo when Ellis had been here at Sowing. “And I thought that after… well, after Cennydd”—her mouth crimped tight—“it wasn’t all that surprising, yeah? Of course he’d be… different.” She wrung her hands, dirt in the creases from whatever she’d been doing before Ellis showed up. “But it was… I mean, he got… calm.” She frowned, shook her head. “That sounds daft, but he got calm. And sad. And he kept sighing. Like a character in a tragedy.” Her hands were pulling at the hem of her shirt now. “I thought about writing you, actually. I thought maybe something… that you two maybe…” She huffed. “But then he went off to Tirryderch, just like he planned, and he came back like he was supposed to, but then he just… left. All he took was his violin, and I—”
“Wait, his what?”
“—don’t know where. I don’t know why.” She stopped there, clearly trying to keep her tears at bay.
“You said—” Ellis had to pause to swallow down the clump of disquiet gathering in his throat. “You said he took his violin.” He leaned in. “He plays?”
“Well.” Glynn looked taken off guard. “Yes?” She waved out toward the preserve. “Mostly to the dragons, but sometimes…” She trailed off, frowning. “You didn’t know?”
Ellis didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
It wasn’t only the Dream that came flaring back to life, Milo in some dim-lit tavern, turbid with smoke, one musician among four playing something quick and lively. It was the hollow realization that no, Ellis hadn’t known. Because Milo hadn’t told him.
Such a small thing, some new facet Ellis would’ve been pleased to learn any other time, would’ve been fascinated by and insisted Milo play something for him, just for him, right now. Hearing it like this, like a secret betrayed, when there were apparently so many of them Ellis hadn’t even guessed were there…
He tried to stay calm. It was unclear if the roiling in his chest was worry or wrath. Wrathful worry, probably.
Howell hadn’t been in the forge, though the fires had been burning when Ellis wandered through, and the runner had been in place in preparation for rations later. Ellis had been just as glad he wouldn’t have to explain his unexpected appearance and small-talk his way through the forge before making his way to the house.
Except, when he’d climbed the porch steps and pounded on the door, righteous and livid and organizing everything he’d decided he wanted to say, it hadn’t been Milo who answered the door. Aleks, the man was called, young and swart and disturbingly fit, and blinking at Ellis from the other side of the door like he was the one who belonged there.
So many things had gone through Ellis’s mind—No, Milo wouldn’t, and Would he? and How could he? and No, he wouldn’t—and none of them came out his mouth, seeing as how it’d been busy flapping like lackluster bunting in the warm sea wind. But then there had been Glynn, tearing in from the pastures, breathless and flushed but looking strangely relieved at seeing Ellis, and maybe a bit guilty, explaining that this was Aleks, dragonkin from Colorat, helping to look after the place while Milo was gone.
Ellis was still trying to wrap his head around that “gone” bit when Glynn started bossing him into the house. He couldn’t help frowning at Aleks, moving much more agreeably than Ellis, as Glynn bullied them through Ty Dreigiau’s backdoor.
“Here,” said Glynn, pulling composure around her as she shut the mudroom door and waved Ellis into the kitchen. She set her shoulders, blinking away her obvious disquiet, determined, and nudged at Ellis until he moved from in front of the stove. “Sit down, I’ll make tea.” She set the kettle on the cooker and pulled out the tea tin.
Aleks, looking thankful to have something that would remove him from beneath Ellis’s probably somewhat hostile scrutiny, pushed out a string of babble and took the teapot from Glynn’s hand. He smiled, polite and gentle as he said… whatever it was he was saying, but Ellis definitely heard “tea” in there somewhere, and he was pretty sure there was “let me” in amongst the muddy glottals and slippery diphthongs.
Glynn seemed to understand it well enough, clearly pleased and maybe even charmed. Smiling, she allowed Aleks to take the makings from her hands and shoo her to the table across from Ellis. When she sat, her smile slid down into something troubled.
“He started teaching me to run things.” She shrugged when Ellis frowned at her. Like it was habit, she slicked a glance toward Aleks as he clinked and measured and absently hummed something low and offkey, before she looked back at Ellis. “Balancing the books. Reports to the council. Requisitions and applications. That sort of thing. Told me someone else should know how to do it.” She smiled, wistful. “I was really happy. I was a real apprentice, you know? And he thought I was smart enough, and good enough, and that I could learn to…” Her eyes teared up again, and she blinked. “When Aleks came, I just thought Milo was bein
g generous.”
Aleks’s humming quietened at the sound of his name, and he stilled, as though worried about what was being said. He looked over his shoulder, searching out Glynn, and when she peered back with a reassuring smile, his shoulders relaxed, and he went back to the tea.
It had almost been fearful, the look on Aleks’s face, wary and alert, like it had been when he’d reluctantly opened the door to Ellis’s pounding. Ellis reminded himself this man—this boy—had managed to escape a warzone where his neighbors had literally tried to kill him. And one look from Glynn had coaxed the guarded apprehension away as quickly as it had been triggered.
Ellis started to wonder if Howell had witnessed any of this, and if he had, why he thought leaving these two alone in the same room was a smart idea.
Glynn shook her head, fond, as she turned back to Ellis. “He told me and Tad to keep it quiet. Milo, I mean. Told us Aleks wouldn’t want the notice, and maybe not everyone in Whitpool would be happy to have a foreign Dewin up here with the dragons. But Milo said it was the kind thing, the right thing. And I thought he was thinking about how he would feel if he got chased from his own home and the dragons he loves so much. Dragonkin with no dragons—how sad is that? But really, he was only—” Her hands balled into fists on the tablecloth, and she leaned in and lowered her voice. “He planned this. He brought in a replacement. Trained me as one, and didn’t even tell me.” Her bottom lip wobbled, and the tears sprang to her eyes again. “It’s like Rhywun Ceri all over again, and I was going to write you, Ellis, I was, but I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what was I supposed to—?”
“You weren’t supposed to do anything, Glynn.” Ellis reached out, intending to take up Glynn’s hand, comforting. “It wasn’t—”
Aleks was there instead, setting the steaming teapot in the middle of the table and laying his hand to Glynn’s shoulder with soft, shuddering words, stresses in all the wrong places but nonetheless discernable as a question. He gave Ellis a narrow-eyed look.
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