The Water Thief

by Jane Kindred

  His swift change from stoicism to fury made me stumble back against the door as he advanced on me and gripped my shoulders, fingers digging in like claws. For an unnerving instant, I saw his father in his eyes.

  “It is my fault, damn you!” Macsen shook me, nearly rattling my teeth. “That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it? If I hadn’t gone along with his scheme, if I’d refused to steal from you—if I’d been principled at all—you could never have remained hidden away at All Fates with no one the wiser. You would have been exonerated of any blame in August’s death and you would have had your life of privilege. And I would be your servant, as I ought to be.” His face twisted with bitterness. “I would be nothing but your cur.”

  “Macsen.” I gasped the word, short of breath and bereft of any other response.

  “You can’t deny it, can you?” His fingers loosened on my shoulders as he seemed to realize how sharply he was clutching them. “We speak of fate—my fate was to be beneath you, to keep my place. And yours was to be lauded and indulged. I stole your fate, Sebastian Swift. And I let Emrys steal what little else remained to you, your very breath. So yes, whether you say it or not, I am to blame for giving Emrys all his unearned power, because I wanted to be a man and not a beaten dog, and I was willing to let you suffer to make it so.”

  “Macsen,” I said again. Tears leaked from my eyes when I couldn’t follow it with a vehement denial.

  “It’s all right.” Macsen’s demeanor softened in the same mercurial manner with which it had turned hard, and he kissed the dampness on my cheek. “I’ll fix this. I’ll neuter Emrys. And then your magic will bring me back.”

  Too full of unsettling emotions to challenge him, I shook my head wordlessly and shrugged out of his grasp to pry open the door and sidle out.

  August was waiting for me in my room. I’d hurried to it, believing I was safe to let the emotion out; there was no time to dry my eyes and pull myself together. She came forward to put her arms around me, but I jerked away.

  With an awkward motion, she clasped her hands in front of her. “Sebastian, don’t be angry with me. You must see there’s no other way.”

  “What I see is that you’re very good at getting others to do what you aren’t willing to do yourself.”

  The wounded look on her face made me regret my spite. “Do you really think that of me? Should I return to Llys Mawr after all these years and attempt to find Emrys’s secret stash myself, undetected? Because I will if you believe I’m unfairly burdening Macsen. But in all honesty, I don’t think either you or I should set foot in Cantre’r Gwaelod again. It would be playing right into Emrys’s hands.”

  “And Macsen isn’t? You don’t know what Emrys is capable of.”

  August’s dusky brows arched. “I believe I know quite intimately what Emrys is capable of. He drowned me.” Of course he had. I felt a fool for forgetting it. “Listen to me, Sebastian. No matter what Emrys might do to him, Macsen cannot be used as you or I might be to harm untold numbers of people. To put it bluntly, the worst that can befall him is death.”

  Anger flared in my breast at how cavalierly she could make such a statement. “So to you, he’s expendable.”

  “No. To me he’s a valuable resource. His status in Cantre’r Gwaelod and his devotion to you make him our best hope. I thought last night might cement the latter, and it seems it did. I only hope you haven’t given too much of yourself to him.”

  I sank onto the bed, feeling defeated. So she had contrived to push us together, just as I’d suspected. As much as I resented her motives, it was hard to regret that she’d done it. “And what if he can’t get the vials? What if he tries his best and fails? Then I’ll have lost him for nothing.”

  August sat beside me. “Sebastian. Once he returns to the life he’s known, we have to consider that he may view what’s happened between the two of you differently. He may succeed…and still not return.”

  “You don’t know him,” I said, my words all the more sullen because I couldn’t refute her cynicism. Macsen had bent to Emrys’s will before. He’d spent his life doing as Emrys told him, and under his father’s thumb, he’d wanted for nothing, at least in material terms.

  “I don’t,” she agreed. “Nor do I know you, not really. We’ve been too long apart to truly understand each other. But you’re my brother, and I love you. If you believe nothing else I say, please believe that.” She put her hand out on the coverlet and I let mine drop into hers. August gave my fingers a squeeze. “We’ll find a way through this, whatever happens. Have faith.”

  Macsen’s words came back to me.

  “Do you still believe in fate?”

  August’s expression clouded over like the petulant Welsh sky. “As a force that controls us without regard to will? No. But I believe there are circumstances that shape our future, places we’re meant to be. Things we’re meant to do.”

  Like Macsen, perhaps, was meant to bring down Emrys. I had to believe that. I wouldn’t be able to bear him going otherwise. And perhaps, just maybe, he was fated to come back to me.

  * * * * *

  The plans were settled over dinner on the pier. Tomorrow, we would drive up the coast to Borth—just north of where Macsen and I had arrived—where August said the water was most conducive to opening a passage between the realms, and Macsen would return to Cantre’r Gwaelod. After dinner, we walked the promenade, following the shoreline as the sun sank like the Hundred into the waves. The horizon was a wispy bruise of orange and blushing reds, as if the clouds were slowly exsanguinating. I tried not to see it as an omen.

  Macsen’s hair lashed his face in the wind as he stopped and stood watching where my eyes had been drawn. The sharp line of his jaw had an edge of cruelty to it. Or maybe it was only bitter determination. Whatever it was, he was beautiful.

  He came to my room after, when August had gone to bed. I opened the door at his quiet but insistent knock and said nothing, holding the door aside to let him in. I didn’t trust myself to speak. Things might come out if I opened my mouth that would make him less inclined to return to Aberystwyth. There was nothing to be gained by maudlin declarations.

  We undressed one another without either of us asking permission. It was a silent, mutual seduction that grew more rapid and more aggressive as less clothing remained. Macsen picked me up by the waist when I was naked and hoisted me onto the bureau top, tilting me back with one hand cradling the base of my skull while the other greased his cock with the oil I handed him. He’d become quite adept with such a small handful of lessons.

  I braced myself with both hands flat on the surface of the bureau, a low moan escaping me as he entered me with more force than he had previously. He seemed anxious to be one with me, driving himself deep and rocking his hips into me with a swift, insistent tempo. He’d left our boots on again, grasping my calves below the knees as he fucked me, his focus intense, pulling me to the edge of the bureau to meet his thrusts. With the friction deep inside me, I wasn’t going to last long, but I wanted him to. I didn’t want to let go of him.

  I reached up and dug my fingers into the hair at his nape for purchase, making him growl with excitement, while I began to work myself with my other hand. Macsen let out a hiss of breath as he watched me, his ebony eyes sparkling in the light of the lamp beside me that we hadn’t turned out. I pulled him closer with my legs wrapped around him and felt the spark of my power beginning to ride me as though it too were fucking me. I let it fill me, tingling over my skin as it seeped with the sweat from my pores, and with a groan, I let go, releasing the energy in an enthusiastic burst of sticky pleasure at the end of my fist.

  Macsen lifted me from the bureau as I finished, and I threw my arms around his neck, holding tight with my heels hooked around his bum. He turned and lowered me to the bed without letting go or pulling out, and I gasped against his shoulder at the quickening pace of his thrusts, merely holding on for t
he ride. Breaking the silence only with his rapid breathing and soft grunts, he came inside me, both of us shuddering as the magic I’d conjured in the fluids between us began to ebb.

  “Don’t go,” I whispered at last while he hugged me tight.

  Macsen answered with a kiss, and then another, and another, nearly smothering me. He didn’t seem to want to let go, merely rolling us into the coverlet, cocooned and safe, where we both fell asleep after several minutes of silent communion.

  * * * * *

  We were still tangled together in the morning, the blanket wrapped around our boots. Fate didn’t want us separated, I told myself, watching Macsen as he woke much more slowly than I did. I didn’t bother to try to persuade him again. I knew he was going and I didn’t want to hear him say so. Instead, I slid down inside the blanket and sucked him to keep my mouth from betraying me with anything worse.

  Macsen bundled me against him afterward, kissing my hair. I wasn’t in need of any reciprocity, and he couldn’t have helped but notice; I was too sad to be aroused. It didn’t matter. All I wanted was to feel him against me, to deny to myself that he was leaving me, and to ignore August’s voice in my head that said he wasn’t coming back.

  * * * * *

  The sky was overcast this morning, and we arrived at the beach above Borth just as it began to rain. Standing in it, I felt the ripple of energy where the drops struck me, and I could see that August felt it too. The rift between the realms would be stronger, she said, with both of us. Going this direction, there was apparently no need for me to “drown”. We had only to call the water to us while we stood in it waist deep among the ancient stumps.

  August took both our hands in hers, and Macsen and I completed the circle. “Breathe the magic in,” August instructed. “Then breathe it out. You’ll feel it when the energy has built up enough. The portal should open inside the perimeter we’ve formed. When I tell you to let go, Macsen, we’ll release you to step into the portal. It will take you down like a strong current. Hold your breath.”

  Macsen nodded curtly. “I’ve done it before.”

  August and I began to breathe with purpose, slow and deep, holding it for a beat and letting it out. My skin was already prickling with power. And an embarrassing erection. I ignored it and concentrated on my task—which was, despite what August had spelled out, to withhold the power as long as possible. It was foolish and futile, but I wanted to keep Macsen with me as long as I could.

  The magic had other ideas. Inside our little circle, the water began to churn like a miniature whirlpool without my conscious intent. I broke the circle with an involuntary cry, but it was too late.

  Macsen’s eyes were on me, his mouth open as if he meant to speak, and then the water spun up around him, reversed and funneled downward, and he was gone.

  I cried out and lunged for the place where he’d been only to flounder in the ordinary tide. I swallowed a bit of seawater, bitter and sharp like the punch to my gut at the knowledge that Macsen was gone, before August hauled me up and plunged with me toward the shore.

  We tumbled onto the soggy sand as the tide flowed out and the dripping salt water camouflaged my tears. August and I climbed the slope of the beach beyond the reach of the tide as it flowed back in and dropped onto the dry sand on our backs, staring up at the sky hand in hand. A water-dampened sound echoed across the sea like distant, mournful bells, as if the broken pieces in the bell tower on the promontory in Cantre’r Gwaelod were somehow carrying to us across the realms.

  “How will he open the portal again?” I said after several minutes, only talking to myself.

  August answered anyway. “He’ll use your magic, like he did before. He’ll keep a bottle for himself once he’s found Emrys’s stash and destroyed it.”

  He would have thought of that, I was sure. But we hadn’t discussed it. I shoved down the awful conviction that we hadn’t discussed it because neither he nor August had ever intended for him to come back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Macsen

  Sebastian’s magic was still circling his veins. Macsen sat on the rocks with his head in his hands while the tide rushed in against his feet, the spray showering in droplets around him. Now that he was here, he needed a plan. He couldn’t exactly march into Llys Mawr and go rifling through Emrys’s closets to find the vials. He supposed he might have devised a plan before he’d come back, but he’d been too preoccupied with Sebastian’s anger at him for going. It had unnerved him to realize how much Sebastian had come to depend on him—and how unpleasant the prospect was of being separated from Sebastian.

  But there was no use dwelling on that now. He had to figure out how to sneak onto his own property—or Sebastian’s, his conscience reminded him—and determine where Emrys was likely to be keeping the vials. Upon reflection, it wasn’t sneaking onto the property that would be difficult; he already knew how to do that—he was well acquainted with the network of catacombs. It was getting into the manor itself without being seen. He could come up through the wine cellar, though the door would likely be locked. Would Emrys have told the staff to look out for him? After the way he’d fled, Emrys would hardly have expected him to return. It was his best bet, he decided. The kitchen staff would have no reason to discuss the presence or lack thereof of the lord of the manor, so long as he didn’t make a big production of his presence himself.

  There was, of course, the matter of his odd clothing. He hadn’t thought about that before he’d left. He hadn’t thought about much. Just Sebastian, and the way he tasted and smelled. And the way his skin felt firm and velvety like the petals of a rose.

  None of that was helpful right now. He stood and shook the water from his hair like a dog and began climbing the rocks to the road above. He could cut through one of the tenants’ plots on the outskirts of the property and see if he could scare up something less conspicuous to wear. In fact, there was one tenant along this road he knew for certain had left his belongings when he’d fled home in a hurry just as Macsen had. Macsen had helped him flee.

  He was shocked to discover the small wood-frame house had been razed. The well out back had been filled with the rubble, apparently as a message to any neighboring tenants who might have gotten ideas about stealing water from the earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod. There were clothes, however, among the rubble, and Macsen slipped a loose smock over his formfitting cotton shirt, but swapped his trousers for the pair he found there. The blue canvas reminded him of Sebastian, and he hated to leave it, but the heavy fabric was soaked and took forever to dry.

  He looked like a peasant, but it was better than looking like someone from another world. Macsen made his way to the lakeshore where the catacombs were easiest to access if one knew where to look for them. The openings seemed little more than hollows in the boggy terrain if one didn’t, but required only a bit of determined digging and scrabbling to get through to the larger tunnels they hid. The damp, musty smell of the catacombs was comforting. Macsen had played in them as a boy, hiding from Emrys when he’d brought trouble on himself and sneaking about after the twins when he’d discovered them at it, though they’d never seemed aware they were being followed. There was a certain understandable level of self-absorption that came with being born the wealthiest, most important people in the world.

  It took just under two hours to reach the center of the Llys Mawr estate, and Macsen found the spiraling labyrinth that led to the wine cellar unblocked and unguarded. Emrys evidently hadn’t expected anyone else to stumble upon it. With Macsen gone, perhaps he’d gotten overconfident and resumed his use of the smaller cellar below. But there was no way Macsen was going to get that lucky. He found the door locked, jimmied it with his knife and found the cave of little niches empty and gathering dust.

  The wine cellar was also locked; perhaps Emrys hadn’t gotten quite as complacent as Macsen had thought. Again, this lock was easy enough for Macsen to crack—he’d had years of practice at this a
s well. After being punished for the filched pocket watch, he’d learned his lesson about getting caught. Slipping in and out of rooms undetected had become second nature to him. Sometimes he did it for the sheer joy of frustrating Emrys by moving things subtly about in a room he otherwise should have no access to.

  It dawned on him then he’d spent most of his life reacting to Emrys’s approval or lack of it. Which was foolish, since he didn’t give a damn about Emrys’s approval. Even defying him for the pleasure of the defiance itself was foolish. Emrys was irrelevant. Macsen ran his fingers over the dusty bottles lining the shelves as he wandered through the cellar. Had Sebastian been a similar act of defiance, merely desirable because Macsen knew such a liaison would enrage Emrys? It was difficult to recognize his own feelings of pleasure, having spent so long focused on bitterness and rage. He’d hated Sebastian, and now he wanted him.

  Sensory memory washed over him of Sebastian swaying against him as they watched the dancing at the club, making him ache for the touch of the slender hips against his fingers instead of the curves of these bottles. That was real. The way his heart swelled at Sebastian’s trust in him—and the power over Sebastian that trust gave him—that was real, too. Power, after all, was what he’d always wanted.

  “Well, now.”

  The hair rose on the back of Macsen’s neck at the sound of his father’s voice behind him. He turned slowly, as though every impulse inside him weren’t screaming at him to run like a terrified child.

  Emrys gave him a dark, menacing smile from the top of the cellar stairs. “There you are, Lord Swift. Have you dispensed with that thieving whore?” So Emrys still had no idea “August” was actually Sebastian. Which meant the element of rebellion in Macsen’s desire for Sebastian was meaningless. Which meant it was real… Didn’t it?

  “If you mean Lady August, I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be dispensing with her.”