After that, Drake doesn’t want to waste their money again, when Gabriel so clearly thinks poorly of the whole prospect. The tension between them comes and goes, like everything with Gabriel; sometimes he seems to be flirting with Drake, but it never leads anywhere and often it passes so fast that Drake wonders if he’s imagined it.
The shorter days make Gabriel more impatient to leave the house in the morning, even when it’s cold, as if he wants to make the most of the daylight when it lasts for so little time. So they find themselves in Market Square one morning, when carts and carriages start to pull up to the auction house.
“Have you ever been to an auction, Drake?” Gabriel asks, perched on a low wall as he eats one of the apples they’ve gotten for their breakfast.
Drake watches the chattel being unloaded from a cart, the one man who’s struggling with his chains and the dull, resigned expressions of the others. “Where would I have done that?” His father always managed the estate, and he’d generally done his best to duck the excruciatingly dull lessons on the plantation’s business.
“I didn’t think so.” Gabriel tosses the apple core behind him. “Come on, then.”
“What?” Drake asks, as Gabriel jumps down from the wall. They haven’t anywhere near the money it costs to buy a slave, and Drake’s not sure he wants to think about what Gabriel would do with one if they did. Which means— “You’re looking for purses to cut again, aren’t you?”
“And it’ll make the morning more interesting. And warm.” Gabriel starts across the square, toward the front door of the auction house, and after a moment, of course, Drake follows.
There’s quite a line forming outside, but it moves fairly quickly. Most of the men in line—almost everyone in the crowd, it seems, is male—don’t look like they have the money for a chattel auction, either, but almost none of them get turned away. When they get near the front of the line, Drake sees why: there are two tiers inside. It’s the opposite of the theater, where the cheapest view is down front; in the auction house, there are proper seats near the platform, and then an open space for standing audience members behind that. Drake doesn’t look too closely at the men in the seats down front. It’s not likely that his father would be here, but it seems as though he’d be uncommonly lucky not to run into anyone who knows—who knew him.
When they get to the front of the line, the auction house guard doesn’t even look twice. “Five pence each for standing room,” he says. He sounds bored.
Colin would have been outraged at not even getting the choice to buy the expensive seats, but Drake doesn’t care so much. He reaches for his coin purse and pays for them both, since Gabriel has the distracted expression that means either he has a fit coming on or he doesn’t have any coin in his pockets.
“Enjoy the show,” the guard says when Drake hands over the coin.
“How much does it cost down front?” Drake asks as they make their way into the crowd. He tucks his coin purse into his shirt, since Gabriel won’t be the only one in this crowd looking to make back the cost of admission with a little sleight of hand.
“Five shillings,” Gabriel says absently. “And you have to show gold, so they know you could afford to bid.” He’s already looking around the room; studying his odds, most likely.
Drake hesitates. “You know, you don’t have to be working. We’ve coin enough for another week, or two if we’re careful.”
Gabriel gives him a dubious look. “Carrion back in the den won’t keep the fox out of the henhouse, will it?”
“Probably not.” Still, at least one or two of the men standing around the edges of the room are wearing the livery of the city guard. “Keep a sharp eye for the hounds, then.”
“Always,” Gabriel says, but he sounds pleased. “Don’t you get yourself in trouble, either.”
“Without you?” Drake says. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Gabriel slips off into the crowd, and Drake starts looking around, trying to decide whether he’d rather push his way down to the front and see if he can get a decent view of the platform, or just stay back and keep an eye on the crowd. There’s plenty of light from the big windows along both sides of the main hall, each one of them taller than a man and requiring dozens of panes of glass. It’s even tolerably warm, thanks to the crowd.
Drake doubts he’d be able to get much of a show down front—right by the rails between standing room and the bidders’ seats, people are already pushing and jostling at each other for the space. And if Gabriel is working, Drake doesn’t want to get into a fight and get himself thrown out of the place.
He turns away from the platform, looking for someplace out of the way where he can watch—along the wall, maybe. He’s picking up Gabriel’s habits, feeling better when he knows what’s at his back. As he pushes his way through the crowd, the auctioneer bangs a gavel against the podium down front. It doesn’t really buy any silence, at least not this far back.
Which is just as well, because then someone grabs at his coat sleeve and says, “Colin?”
The entire world seems to stumble to a halt. Drake turns. He knows that voice, can already see the expression Danny’s going to have on—blue eyes wide and surprised, dusty brown hair unruly and straying loose from its tie to fall over his forehead, too pale and too pretty, Drake can see now, to ever really look convincing in his huntsman’s clothes.
He smiles when Drake meets his eyes, the expression so open and guileless it’s painful to see. “It really is you.”
“Don’t call me by that name,” Drake says immediately. It’s maybe more cautious than he needs to be, but he’s learning as he stays with Gabriel that it’s better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. He shakes off Danny’s grip, grabs him by the wrist, and pulls him through the crowd, toward the back corner where at least the great pillars supporting the roof will give them something approaching privacy. “Danny, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same,” Danny says. He’s standing nearer than he needs to. Drake realizes that he’s forgotten what it’s like to have somebody besides Gabriel talking to him from inside a knife’s reach. “When we came back from Nothwn, the stories about you were awful. They’re not true, are they?”
Yes, they are. “Depends on what you heard.”
Danny leans in closer still. He smells like powder and good tobacco. “I heard you’ve fallen in with a gang of highwaymen on the Hanaein Road.”
Drake laughs a little shortly. “That does sound exciting.”
“Then it’s not true?” Danny takes Drake’s hands in both of his. “I knew it couldn’t be. It’s just you’ve been gone so long, and your parents haven’t been talking about it, and you know how the gossip gets, and— Oh, Colin, I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Before Drake has quite figured out how to explain to Danny that “all right” is perhaps overstating the case, Danny is kissing him, every bit as thoughtless as the first time. And Drake, despite knowing better, is kissing back. He’s missed the way this feels, he realizes, the soft warmth of Danny’s mouth and the solid comfort of having someone else’s body pressed close to his own. He lets it go on probably longer than it should, his free hand curled tight in the fine wool of Danny’s coat, before he finally remembers himself enough to pull back.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t just act like nothing’s wrong.” His heart is pounding, and Danny’s lips are flushed.
“No, I—I know,” Danny says. “There must be trouble, or you’d not have left at all, right? But it’ll get fixed, you know it will, if you just come home. Your mother’s been just heartbroken at every party we’ve been to this season. Anna’s pining for you. Everyone’s worried, Colin. Come home.”
“I told you, don’t call me that here,” Drake says, even though he’s not pleased with himself for being so short with Danny. “I can’t just— I’m in trouble, Danny. I’m not robbing coaches on the north road, I’m breaking heads down by the docks. I owe Barron fifty guine
as I don’t have, I’ve killed enough men that Captain Westfall would be happy to hang me himself, and I’ve fallen in with— Oh, Fates.” He lets go of Danny and steps back, staring past him. “Hello, Gabriel.”
“Who’s your friend, Drake?” Gabriel asks, and Danny jumps, turning to face him. “Someone I should know? You’ve met all of my friends by now.”
Drake tries to picture Danny in any of Gabriel’s haunts, doing anything but looking for a way home. “He’s nobody. It doesn’t matter. Did you change your mind about staying?”
Danny makes a little hurt noise, eyes wide, and Drake feels rotten, but it’s far better—it has to be—to keep Danny out of this. To keep Gabriel away from him.
“I might have,” Gabriel says. He’s staring at Danny, who takes a step back, into the wall. “You look awfully upset for Nobody.”
“Don’t,” Drake says. “Really, Gabriel, it’s fine. Let’s just go.”
Gabriel steps closer, so he has Danny pinned. Danny’s staring in what looks like terror, but he doesn’t back down. “I don’t want my dragon to go anywhere,” Gabriel says, quietly enough that Drake barely hears him over the roar of the auction. “I’ve grown used to him. He brings me luck.”
Danny looks like he’s trying desperately not to panic. Drake lays a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, not quite daring to pull—not when Gabriel’s this focused—but knowing he needs to do something. “Gabriel. It’s nothing to worry about. I’m still here. Come on.”
Gabriel doesn’t move for another few moments, staring, studying Danny’s face. At last he steps back. “Well,” he says. “If you’re not having fun, Drake, of course we should leave.”
“Thank you.” Drake lets out his breath in relief. Gabriel turns away as though he’s lost interest completely, and Drake mouths I’m sorry to Danny as he turns to follow.
“Wait,” Danny says, catching at his sleeve, and Drake wants to curse. Gabriel turns back, but Danny goes on, “How do I find you, if I need to get a message to you?”
“You don’t,” Drake says, even though the crestfallen look on Danny’s face makes him feel like a bastard. “I’m a wanted man, remember? Besides, you couldn’t pay a reliable messenger to go where I’m staying lately.” It’s too jarring, trying to confront a part of Colin’s life when he’s grown used to being Drake. Any answer he could give would be wrong. No matter how much he misses some things about home—not his father’s lectures and demands, but his sister’s company and all the house’s comforts—he can’t see how to reconcile that life with this one.
“Then—then promise you’ll come to Sebastian’s party after the new year,” Danny says, fast and low, barely more than a whisper. “You know how little Sebastian cares for the captain. The guard won’t be there. You don’t even have to come inside, if you don’t want to. I’ll look for you in the back garden. Please. I want to be able to help you.”
“I’ll try.” In the day-to-day troubles they’ve had for these last weeks, he’s not stopped often to think about his old life, but having Danny here brings all those lost indulgences rushing back.
Danny’s smile makes Drake feel like a bastard all over again as he follows Gabriel out of the auction house. It wasn’t fair to give him hope like that, especially when there’s no way Drake will be able to go, not with how Gabriel sticks to him all the time.
They push their way free of the auction crowd, out onto the street, and Gabriel turns to Drake. “Tell me about this Sebastian,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party before.”
It feels like Drake spends the rest of the year trying to explain to Gabriel why they can’t go to Lord Sebastian Dunsmuir’s party. It’s not easy to come up with reasons that Gabriel will accept. The idea of the vast impropriety only makes him stare blankly. And there’s no way anyone Lord Dunsmuir could hire for security would intimidate Gabriel, especially when they’ve already established that the guard won’t be there.
Drake suspects that if he could convince Gabriel he didn’t want to go, that might be the end of it, but that’s easier said than done. He’s only been to the Dunsmuir townhouse a few times—like most of Colin’s old social circle, they usually did their entertaining at their country estate—but he remembers it fondly. In midwinter, he’s sure there would be fires lit in all the rooms, and likely there would be musicians, and card playing. And the food—his mouth waters just thinking of it. There would be roast fowl, baked hams, sweetbreads, pastries, winter fruit from the islands, and every last bit of it more tempting than the hard bread and thin stews they’ve been living on lately.
“They’re your people,” Gabriel says one chill afternoon as they wait in line to buy coal, casual as if they’re already talking about it. “That’s the real problem, isn’t it?”
Drake shifts awkwardly, changes his grip on their empty coal bucket. “What do you mean?” He hasn’t had any cues lately to let him know if they’re talking about Casmile’s lords and ladies or a menagerie of fantastic beasts.
“Fancy like you,” Gabriel says, which doesn’t quite clarify things. “You don’t want them to see you with me.”
“It’s not like that,” Drake says, which might be true. Ahead of them in the line, a woman is arguing about how much coal she should get for five pence. “It’s— It isn’t where I belong anymore, is it? You’ve changed me.” That’s truer than he’d like it to be, really. It’s a wonder Danny recognized him at all, when he often doesn’t recognize himself.
Gabriel hums, turns to watch a private carriage go by on Falcon Street. “You flatter me, Drake. But if I’ve changed you, it’s made you stronger.” His gaze is steady, as serious and reasonable as he gets. In the flat gray light of winter, his eyes have no color at all. “I haven’t made you any less than you were. There’s no place you can’t go now.” Drake waits for—hopes for—some cagey statement about dragons to follow that so he can brush it off, but it doesn’t come.
“We’ll see,” he says at last. “I’ll tell you if I want to go after all.”
“Fair enough.” Gabriel drifts toward the coal seller as the line moves along. “I’m looking forward to it.”
They reach the front of the line before Drake can argue further, which he’d swear Gabriel did on purpose. He’s seen plenty of cases by now where Gabriel managed not to hear things that would make him unhappy.
Really, Drake’s surprised that Gabriel hasn’t asked about the kiss. He almost wishes Gabriel would, for all that he doesn’t know what he would say. The things he and Danny used to do together—well, he’s never entirely known what to make of it. Plenty of men in Casmile screw boys; there are nearly as many boy houses on Kite Street as girl houses, and the really fancy ones are every bit as infamous. But there’s a difference between having a boy whore and . . . doing what he and Danny used to, and Drake’s fairly certain not nearly as many men do that. They definitely don’t admit to it, not when they’re from good families and there’s inheritance to worry about.
Of course, that’s probably the sort of concern that wouldn’t even cross Gabriel’s mind. Maybe it is common for men to lie together down on Cypress Street—though they’d still have to decide eventually which was going to use the other, and there aren’t many men in Gabriel’s circle who seem like they’d put up with that. But still. Perhaps it’s like with him and Danny, touching each other but no more than that, and Gabriel thinks it’s not worth mentioning.
Or perhaps Gabriel decided it was another peculiar habit of dragons, and isn’t curious any further.
That should be a relief, and yet it isn’t. What’s wrong with him, that he wants Gabriel to care? That he wants Gabriel to ask him? That he’d like an excuse to tell Gabriel about the times he’s gotten a hand in some other boy’s breeches to bring him off?
There’s an answer to those questions, and he’s trying to ignore it. Perhaps the only thing madder than going along with Gabriel’s schemes in the first place would be trying to seduce him. But the idea is hovering there, like something Drake ca
n’t quite see out of the corner of his eye. He hears Gabriel laughing as they flee the scene of some mischief they’ve caused, or watches the careful movement of Gabriel’s hands as he sharpens his knives, and almost considers it anyway.
On the day of the Longest Night, it’s wet and dreary, and they’re nearly out of coal again, but instead of going to buy more, Gabriel insists they head nearer to Market.
“You have plans for the holy day?” Drake asks, hands stuffed in his pockets and his head down against the wind-swept rain.
Gabriel nods as he hurries them up the street. “Doesn’t everyone? What would you be doing if you were still with your own people?”
“Feasting,” Drake says. Dancing, he almost adds, except that he doesn’t want to explain how dragons dance. “There’d likely be songs. When I was little, I used to try to stay up until the dawn.” He never managed to last the whole night, not with a warm bed and a warmer fire, but he always meant to.
“You surprise me so often, Drake. I never expect you to be so similar.”
Similar to what? Drake wonders. Gabriel pushes open the door to the Red Ox tavern, ducking into the heat and the welcoming scent of spiced wine. Black Mother, how Drake’s missed spices.
But Gabriel doesn’t get a table, doesn’t even take one of the empty seats by the bar, just walks up to it and waits for the barkeep to come over. “Whiskey,” he says. “One bottle.” He lays three shillings across the worn oak of the bar.
The barkeep’s eyebrows raise a bit—the Ox isn’t bad, but it’s not that nice a tavern—but he nods. “One moment, gents, while I fetch the bottle you’re after.”
Gabriel nods, waiting patiently, watching the room in general and still not sitting down. Nobody, Drake notices, is looking at them. He’s not sure if it’s because they’re so ragged, or if they’ve become so notorious that people know their faces.
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