by J. M. Snyder
“That’s not a lake.”
“Of course it is.”
“That’s an ocean. How many shipwrecks have you lost in it?”
“Just because it’s at the edge of this map—”
“It’s enormous.”
“It’s barely a pond. The Duke of Eversby’s got an artificial one twice this size. Do you not have water in London?”
“Any water in London is highly suspicious. And that’s no one’s idea of a pond. You haven’t got any resident water-demons, have you? Nothing like that?” They had both paused to scrutinize the map; Kit could not resist also scrutinizing the freckles. Like fireworks, they pinwheeled across the sky of Harry Arden’s arm.
He’d meant the flippant pond-related comments as a distraction. A diversion. This had not worked.
His hand wanted to slide up along that arm, to slip under the linen of Harry’s shirt. His mouth wanted to discover whether the freckles would taste of gilt-edged sugar and spice. He wanted to know whether Harry would gasp or moan or cry out without inhibitions; whether Harry would be wild and unrestrained or enraptured and wordless and transported by pure joy.
“No water-demons,” Harry said. “No demon-bargains of any type, I promise; I’ve been through the estate records with Ned. Nothing dangerous or illegal, no forbidden magical contact or gateways to other dimensions, nothing even mildly questionable. We’re rather dismayingly ordinary, historically speaking.”
Water-demons. Estate records. Mundane and everyday. The problems at hand. As it were.
The wind scolded him from beyond the shield of window-glass. The snow piled itself higher. Kit ignored this pointed anthropomorphic commentary.
“Then it’s likely only your singular elemental,” he said. Harry was standing very close. Harry felt large and earnest and strong, those pieces sneaking in around and under empathic shields, entwining like ivy, as if they had always been meant to be there. Harry watched him talk as if the next sentence might hold all the answers, reliably and expertly given; Kit hunted for words. “I might be able to convince it to leave. Persuasion. Empathy. Though that doesn’t solve the question of why it’s here. They don’t normally enjoy the more human realms.”
“More inherently magical. I know. I remember my history lessons.” Harry did not step back. The corner of the map curled up, rising, lifting, when he moved a hand. “Will that work? Your empathy. Of course it will, what am I saying, you’re the Hero of Bow Street.” His smile, his presence, the presence of his previous apology, turned the comment into a shared joke, private and personal. His eyes held Kit’s, and did not duck away. “You’re strong enough for that.”
From another man, in another place, it might’ve been an invitation. It could have been.
Kit’s body, Kit’s senses, prickled with awareness, with potential next breaths, with the closeness of bared skin and the disarray of Harry’s cravat and collar.
And perhaps Harry Arden liked strength. Perhaps Harry Arden liked someone who could put him on his knees, an answer to all those sturdy muscles and that boundless energy and that viscount’s title. Perhaps Harry liked men who could make use of his generous eagerness. Who could command him.
Kit could do that. Kit would be firm with him. But kind, as well; Harry needed that, he thought. Someone who would understand and not criticize exuberance and lack of experience. Someone who would be gentle even while murmuring low-voiced inarguable directives.
That wave of desire hit like the weight of the snow: thick and weighty and all at once inescapable. The fact of the desire did not shock him; he knew himself and what he enjoyed.
The shock landed afterward. Kit had thought that he could be what Harry Arden needed; he’d thought that he could be gentle. Even kind. Because he did not trust that anyone else, other men like himself, would be. Because he’d pictured his own hand stroking Harry’s hair on a sofa.
Because he wanted to be kind. To be good for Harry, who deserved that, even as Harry would kneel and beg and be good for him.
When all that sweetness and innocence might yet be an act. If Harry Arden, proposing this excursion, had vicious concealed plans for disposing of a Preternatural Division constable.
The collision of possibilities left him dizzy, and hot with need, and aching with the impulse to shove Harry to both knees on the library rug on the spot and demand answers. Over and over.
He scraped out, “I’ll do my best. It’s why I’ve been sent here. To assist you.”
“Oh. Yes. You were.” Harry did move away, then: not quite a step but a shifting of weight, a falling of eyes, a hand consoling that wayward map-corner. The map became smoother and more forlorn. “And we’re absolutely grateful that you’d even take our case. You must have so many demands on your time. Both you and the Chief Magistrate. With how hard you work, keeping us all safe. I really do mean that; I’m glad you’re here. Fairleigh needs help.”
That sentence might’ve landed with sarcasm. It did not, because Harry Arden did not think that way. Only honest. Truly concerned about Kit and Sam and the office and overwork.
The world flipped from simmering white-hot desire into bewildered guilt. It shouldn’t; Kit couldn’t think of anything he’d exactly done wrong. And yet he clearly had. Harry had stopped quite looking at him.
Mapless despite the map between them, he said, “That’s why I’m here. To help.”
“I expect I can help best by getting out of your way.” Harry tapped fingers over the lines and shapes of Fairleigh’s lands on the table, drumming a promise across his home. “I can take some of the books on elementals and magical zoology and leave you alone here if you’d like, or—or whatever you’d prefer. Just let me know what would be most useful.”
“Don’t leave,” Kit said, surprising himself; the words came out as an order and a plea. “Stay. I’m only going to try to pinpoint the location more closely on your map. And I wouldn’t mind assisting in your research; I’ve never seen anything successfully settle on this side of the magical veil other than a tame salamander, and even those are rare enough. I’d like to know more about the other worlds where they might live.”
“Oh,” Harry said again, “yes, of course,” and gave him half a smile, a sideways quirk of expression that suggested more but for once did not announce it.
Kit did not quite know how to read the suggestion. Agreement? Acceptance? Surrender? Deliberate acquiescence? Or was that only his own ragged wishful thinking?
Snow heaped itself up against the windowpanes, outside. In the library the tall velvet curtains poured like muffling waterfalls down to the floor, made of plunging scarlet. Harry Arden was gold and blue against them, large and anxious and willing; and took a book carefully from a densely-packed shelf, glancing back at Kit.
Kit put a hand back on the map. Pretended not to notice Harry’s eyes on him. Pretended as well that he couldn’t feel the impression of Harry’s hand on expensive paper.
He wondered whether he’d always know, now, where Harry Arden had been: a blooming presence in the swirl of empathic perceptions, a billow of sapphires and sun, lapidary and illuminated.
He shut his eyes and tried to think of ice. Of hunger. Of drinking in light and life.
He rested fingers over ink. At the edge of a lake, a walking-trail, a garden path, a small building.
He took his shields down, cautiously, a fraction.
Ravenous need hit like starvation: a kind of immediate all-encompassing starvation that did not build slowly over days and weeks but burst open full-blown and gnawed through his gut. He was cold, so cold, and so hungry, and this world did not offer enough—he’d thought it would, had thought this place might, this spot where everything shone so bright and golden and tantalizing, ripe and fruitful—
He lay curled in a hollow along a slope, and dreamed of gorging himself, of fire and sun and beating quick motion, soaking it up and drinking it in—
He did not want to move. He wanted to lie here, wrapped up in ever-growing layers of glittering
crystal cold, as each breath crackled and sighed, as his hunger reached out into the earth and drew life toward itself. He would never have to get up at all.
Clear blue light washed across his vision. The world tasted and felt like a lake in summer: sunkissed on the surface, delightfully cool beneath, wreathed with raspberry bushes and laughter.
Kit, being human, not being an ice elemental and demon-creature, knew what water and summer and raspberries tasted like; he blinked, remembered bones and blood and humanity, came back to the library. His fingers hurt. He’d been trying to dig them through a map.
Harry Arden’s hand rested on his arm. Harry’s eyes watched his face.
Kit said, “You said you weren’t a very good empath, Sommersby.”
“I’m not,” Harry said. “I only thought perhaps you could use an anchor. I’m sorry if I’ve interfered.”
“You,” Kit began, and stopped. Something about that statement was a lie. He did not know what. And Harry had not only recognized the moment when Kit had teetered on the brink of getting lost, but had pulled him out. And apologized. “Thank you. I don’t work with magical creatures much; I should’ve had better defenses.”
“Elementals are mostly emotion,” Harry said. He hadn’t moved the hand. Lying over Kit’s arm, solid and tangible. “And you’re a receptive sort of talent. I expect we can forgive you. What did you pick up? Was it useful?”
Kit looked at the map. At his own fingers. “There’s nothing marked there. Open fields?” His fingers, oddly, hurt less, despite how hard he’d been shoving them into the table.
“It’s out in the park,” Harry said. “I know where that spot is. Isolated. If that’s the burrow we can find it tomorrow, though it’ll be a decent walk. How are you feeling?”
Kit turned his hand. Caught Harry’s wrist. Harry Arden, not having the reflexes of a hardened London street criminal, did not move away in time. “Perfectly fine. As you know. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Harry objected. He did not try to fight Kit’s grip; he looked as if he did not mind being held in place, eyes wide, lips soft, voice soft. Those damnable freckles twinkled, young and bright. “I don’t have very good control. I didn’t think—I just let it do what it wanted. What I can do.”
“And you wanted to help.” Kit might be shorter, less broad-shouldered, less aristocratic; but that was fine, that was not a problem at all, because he had training both professional and less so, back-alley brawls and skills learned from sailors from far-off lands; Kit had authority and power and danger, and they both knew it. “Why? Don’t tell me you didn’t have a reason.”
Harry Arden, caught between the table and Kit’s body, wrist held captive between them, offered a fleeting lip-lick and a whisper: “Because I wanted to. Is that good enough?”
“No. What else can you do?”
“I’m trying to help,” Harry protested. “And I promised Ned I wouldn’t—I don’t even know you, I’m supposed to keep that secret, I gave him my word, even if I—”
“If you what?”
“If I—” Harry’s cheeks had gone pink. Embarrassment swamping all the freckles. “No, I can’t say that—I’m really very sorry—of course you’d be suspicious, of course you’re only asking for answers, and I’m making your assignment difficult—do you want me to break my word to my brother, because—”
“Hells,” Kit muttered, “no,” and let go, shoving Harry back against the table with more force than strictly necessary. Taking a step away. Running a hand through his own hair, fighting to quell his heartbeat, the pulse of desire, the raw scorching heat.
Harry Arden, eyes huge and breathless, balanced hands and weight against the table. His cravat was still loose; his hair, too long, brushed his collar. He was a beautiful tumble of color and confusion, surrounded by books and bookshelves, and Kit wanted him.
And Harry was a gentleman. With a word of honor that meant something. With a code to uphold.
A promise to his brother. And Kit, who was not a gentleman, knew about siblings.
He thought, briefly, of Anne, back in London, back home: of folds of satin and silk and velvet, and a ready quick smile at the wonder of creation, of a gown and a vision taking shape under flashing hands and a magically assisted needle. Of the spotless hard-earned shop that Kit’s salary had gone into starting, and the small and worn but equally wonderful rooms where he got to play fond uncle and bring little Mary brightly colored toys and dolls from the best toymakers he could discover, because he would forever spend every spare penny giving his niece the childhood he and Anne hadn’t known enough to even imagine.
He said gruffly, “I won’t ask you to break a promise to family, Sommersby.”
“Harry,” Harry pleaded. “Please. I’m asking, Constable, I know we’re hardly intimates—you don’t even like me—but I’d prefer it. If you don’t mind.”
I don’t dislike you, Kit thought. I don’t trust you. You distract me and you keep secrets and you look at me as if you’d drop to your knees and part those lips if I told you to. And, gods help me, I want to.
He did. He wanted to.
He said, “What books do you have about ice elementals, and how to deal with them?”
Harry swallowed. Hard. Plainly summoned back self-control. “We’ve got Isidore’s Categorizations, of course…and Marie le Blanc’s Creatures of the Natural and Unnatural Realms…oh, and there’s that recent Royal Society volume of natural history, we’ve only just got that copy, I’ve not even read it yet. And this library actually has an entire section on magically-assisted botany. We think one of the previous Earls must have taken an interest. Though that’s plants, not creatures.”
“It might still be useful. Food sources, interactions with this world and the other world, and so on. We can come back to that. You can start with your new natural history, and I’ll look into the Categorizations.”
Harry, coming back with lavishly bound books, handed one to Kit. Said, quietly, “Thank you.”
“I know about promises,” Kit said. “About family. That doesn’t mean I won’t ask you again if I have to.”
“I understand. And I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but you can trust me.” Harry threw him a grin, in a lightning-quick change of mood, and added, “I promise not to get us lost tomorrow, either. Even in the snow.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Kit agreed, and claimed an overstuffed brocade armchair, and put just a hint of stress on the holding, too, because he couldn’t not.
Because Harry Arden was grinning and rumpled and mysterious and challenging, a dare and a secret rolled up in sunshine, and grinned even more when hearing the emphasis, and then went and flung himself across the sofa, framed by storm light and snowfall and long luxurious curtains, with research in hand.
Chapter 5
The Fairleigh estate library proved half-helpful. Notes on elementals, on magical creatures. On incursions from other worlds, gateways and places where walls were thinner. Kit’s book noted that the elementals who did cross over of their own volition were drawn by curiosity, and that gateways tended to be one-way; most humans weren’t inherently magical enough to manage any crossings into inhuman planes.
He didn’t mind that. His job was hard enough without mystic portals. Enough minor misuse of levitation and illusion and fire-starting for the whole Preternatural Division office for a lifetime, thank you.
Elementals would be tricky. They did not necessarily want anything, or rather they only wanted: instinctive and powerful. They could be controlled, and people had made demon-bargains to bring them over; Kit was hoping that wasn’t the case here.
He was hoping Harry Arden hadn’t struck one of those bargains. Hadn’t chosen to systematically strip the estate of vitality and life, buried under snow and cold.
He thought not. He trusted his instincts. He trusted his empathy. But he didn’t know.
He wanted to know.
They went down for the evening meal unfashionably early, at least i
n Kit’s experience. Harry gave him a sort of apologetic expression and said, “Country hours?” Kit shrugged, pointed out that when on a case he tended to eat whenever and whatever, as opportunity presented itself, and enjoyed the expression on Harry’s face as those blue eyes tried to work out whether or not that had been an innuendo.
It had been. Kit hadn’t been able to resist. Seemed to be true far too often around Harry Arden.
He did not trust that, either.
The meal was small and subdued, only himself and both Arden brothers. Edward was looking tired and pale, and Harry got a tiny concerned line between eyebrows and tried to hover without making too many conversational demands. Service remained informal, though Kit eyed wild duck and oranges and roast potatoes and celery ragout and had thoughts about the wealthy and definitions of starvation. The estate certainly had well-stocked larders; but he noticed too that Harry kept unobtrusively sliding apple puffs and chestnuts onto his brother’s plate, when Ned seemed to be picking at food.
He spotted Grayson the Loyal lingering at the doorway, too. The young butler was watching both Ned and Harry, but caught Kit’s glance and gave him a slight nod and head-tilt before vanishing. Kit pondered this for a while.
Ned apologized, rather wearily, for the early and housebound night. Kit explained that this was quite all right, he did not need entertainments and festivities, and in fact he should write up case notes so far for his official report to Sam later. Harry nodded, offered to come and help if Kit needed anything, and promised to otherwise to be back in the library. “And, weather permitting, we can have this sorted out tomorrow. We can certainly at least walk out there and see what we’re up against. And if we can get it to leave, then that’ll be that, and the weather will get back to normal.”
“I’d be thrilled if the two of you could manage it,” Edward said. “But be careful. You know how bad it’s been, out there.”
“I know,” Harry said. “Still. Between me and Constable Thompson, now that we know what it is and where, we can take care of this. You won’t need to worry.”