Chapter 18

ETHANIEL

Waking to warm breath on his neck and soft skin under his palm made Ethaniel never want to leave the bed. Calix was curled around him, one leg shoved between his knees and a limp arm flung over his waist. And when Ethaniel managed to pry his eyes open, he saw Aubrey staring at him over Calix’s tousled curls.

With liquid grace no human should have at God-knows-what time of the morning, Aubrey slid out of bed, only to cross the room and crouch at Ethaniel’s side. “We’ll need to leave soon,” Aubrey said quietly as he stroked a hand down Ethaniel’s bare arm. “But I’m going to bathe, since I don’t think we should stop again before arriving at Rosehill.”

Ethaniel wrinkled his nose at Aubrey, trying not to chuckle at his lover’s steadfastness to cleanliness. If he laughed, he might wake Calix up, and he didn’t have the heart to do that quite yet. “Go,” he whispered, unable to resist putting a possessive hand on Calix’s bare hip. “I’ll pack up once I can extricate myself.”

Aubrey shook his head but gave Ethaniel a fond smile. “I think you can spare a few minutes for him. We don’t have much with us.” Aubrey’s eyes flitted to the corner where their few bags — including Calix’s satchel — sat. “I have thoughts on what to do with the book. As you might expect.”

“I anticipated that.” With the book now looming again in his mind, Ethaniel had to look away from Aubrey. The memory of Vincent wouldn’t be put aside any longer, but the guilt that came with it made a sour taste rise up in Ethaniel’s mouth. “We need to talk when we arrive at Rosehill. There are…complications I wasn’t expecting. We were so hurried in leaving the city and—”

“Whatever it is can wait,” Aubrey replied, still stroking Ethaniel’s arm. “We’ll figure it out.”

He left Ethaniel only after placing a gentle kiss on his mouth. Ethaniel knew the truth of Vincent’s reality, and his betrayal, would be a shock, but Aubrey would understand how deeply it wounded Ethaniel. Aubrey knew some of his past with Vincent, knew how distant they’d become over the years. And he would have questions to which Ethaniel would have some answers, but not all.

With a sigh, Ethaniel turned back to Calix, trying to settle himself by pushing those copper-brown curls out of Calix’s face and studying the lines of his jaw, his nose. Ethaniel breathed in the man curled so tightly against him, and wondered if this journey, and their destination, would provide a satisfying conclusion to so many questions that rambled through his mind.

When Calix stirred, brown eyes fluttering open, Ethaniel didn’t hesitate in kissing him until he was fully awake. Calix was loose-limbed from sleep, cheeks flushed a gentle pink, and it took everything Ethaniel had to not roll the man on his back and kiss his way down that wiry chest. But it would have been a distraction, and Ethaniel needed to stay clear-headed. They all did.

Whatever waited for them rested in the fate of the book sitting twenty feet away.

The day in the carriage felt as if it lasted a week, and Ethaniel felt every rut in the dirt roads as if they were trying to realign his spine. He switched places with Calix when the afternoon sun began to finally warm the spring air, giving Calix and Aubrey a chance to rest. They were riding straight through the night and rest would be in very short supply.

Ethaniel spent the time at the reins trying to figure out how to reveal what he knew about the Golden Order, and his half-brother’s involvement, to them. On one hand, it made all the sense in the world that Vincent’s hunger for power would have led him to a group like the Golden Order, but the ambition was what stunned Ethaniel more than anything else.

The Vincent he knew of their youth had often been angry, but it had been the type of anger young people who grew up in poverty carried with them. When you fought for everything you had, from oil for lanterns to the meager food on your plate, anger was easy to lean into. The clarity of anger could be refreshing, letting you ignore the hunger pains and the backbreaking work, the abusive supervisors and holes in your shoes. They’d spent more time apart than together as the years passed, but every time Ethaniel saw Vincent, he saw his younger sibling’s fury written clear in the too-soon lines decorating his face. The factory work, then the slaughterhouse, and always the same stories of twelve and fourteen hours days for little pay.

When you were born into poverty, there was no way up or out. Not for most people. Some were lucky enough to marry money, or catch a break due to natural talent or skill — magical or mundane. Ethaniel would never forget when he told Vincent about helping Uncle Jeremiah in the shop and working on his patterning guild apprenticeships, studying for the tests that seemed to only grow more expensive each time he passed into another rank.

Ethaniel gripped the reins tighter, trying to shake loose from the memory of Vincent in that moment. How he’d told Ethaniel how lucky he was, how fortunate, how it must feelso good to be the chosen son in a family of fuck-ups.

But you have skill, too, Ethaniel had protested. Why not harness it for your own ends? Why not use your magic to make your life better?

God, the absolutely righteous fury on Vincent’s face. Even now, it made Ethaniel’s hands clammy. Why should it all fall on the poor to fix their lives? Why do we get the added weight of uplifting ourselves, when the rich snobs that fill this damn city can’t be possessed to look beyond their gold and gilded edges? Why? Why, Ethaniel? Tell me!

Ethaniel let out a hard breath and stared out at the fields and small farmhouses that dotted the landscape. Everything was newly green and hopeful, and yet his stomach was all lead and acid.

Ethaniel stopped the carriage near a river and unhooked the horses to let them drink. Aubrey ambled out of the carriage and handed him a few strips of jerky and a canteen of water. “Calix is asleep. We should swap out here,” Aubrey said as they both stared out at the river. “But your expression tells me there’s more on your mind than the remaining journey.”

Ethaniel shook his head, but the movement only made him dizzy. The exhaustion written in his bones had been temporarily forgotten in the midst of passion, but now the road forward felt endless and aimless. “What are we going to do, Aubrey?” he said as he turned to face Aubrey head-on. “Even if we can somehow lock this book away, the Golden Order will still come after us. Calix’s friend could easily lead them right to us. And that book…why is it even bothering with any of us? What does it want?”

Aubrey sighed. “I wish I had the answers. I do. Calix has been talking of some kind of plan, and I fear he’s far too clever for his own good.”

That made Ethaniel snort. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’s young, you know. It might inflate his ego.”

To his surprise, Aubrey’s expression grew serious. “He’s not that young. And after our…time together, I think it would behoove us both to remember there’s another danger here. More than how emotionally entangled we’re all becoming.”

“You’re being shockingly forthright,” Ethaniel said, brow now furrowed. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve realized my many mistakes, Ethaniel.” Aubrey took Ethaniel’s hands in his own, holding them tight. “And I will keep apologizing for how I treated you, how I disregarded your present, and your past. Now we have someone else in the equation, and he’s not…”

“Like us,” Ethaniel finished. “Or, at least he doesn’t come from a life of hardship.” He squeezed Aubrey’s hands, then linked their fingers together. “Or one of family disappointment.”

Aubrey smiled sadly at that. They had shared a fair bit about their pasts between bouts of lovemaking, and Ethaniel remembered the stories Aubrey had told about his family, how the cloud of fatherly disappointment had hung over his head for so long.

“And I’m so sorry about your apartment,” Ethaniel continued as he stepped into Aubrey’s space. “I know you kept very personal mementos there.”

“Perhaps it was for the best,” Aubrey said, looking down and away. “I kept clinging to those old rituals, even when they did nothing but dredge up the worst memories.” Then he glanced back at the carriage, his tone not nearly as superfluous as his words. “Perhaps it’s time to move on. And besides, you brought along the only thing I really would have kept out of it all.” When Ethaniel furrowed his brow in confusion, Aubrey said, “That little velvet pouch in the vault? It’s a sending stone. A gift from my grandmother. They’re very rare Cunning Folk artifacts, and mostly passed down from grandparent to grandchild. It’s a fair bit faster than a letter.”

Ethaniel brightened at that. “Could we use it to talk to my uncle?”

“Maybe. It would be a very short message, and we’d need to do some adjustments to attune it to you.” Aubrey’s tone went thoughtful in a way Ethaniel recognized and it made him smile. “But at the very least, I can use it to get a message to my superior about what’s happening. He may have some advice for us concerning that damn book.”

“Good. That’s good. It’ll be a relief to have someone else to rely on,” Ethaniel replied, already feeling a bit lighter now that Aubrey’s brilliant mind was working on their predicament.

Above their heads, the bare branches of an elm creaked as the wind picked up. One of the horses raised their head, then the other. A chill ran down Ethaniel’s spine, and from the expression on Aubrey’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

Something on the air promised more than a simple spring storm.

Ethaniel slept rather soundly in the carriage, his body finally becoming adjusted to the bumps and ruts of the road. Calix proved to be a deft hand at steering around the worst of it, and being curled up next to Aubrey on the hard bench helped even more. When the sun broke over the horizon, Ethaniel woke to take up Calix’s place at the reins. He found the younger man smiling to himself, and that smile was quickly turned on Ethaniel as he swung up into the seat.

“We’re close,” Calix said as he pointed out to the shadowy jut of low-slung buildings to the west. “A few hours out, now that we can see the village. It’s not Auburn proper, not yet, and the road home doesn’t take us there, but I can adjust our route if you wish to see it—”

“Calix.”

Calix turned to him, biting his lip in that way Ethaniel had come to understand as nervousness. “Yes?”

Ethaniel rubbed his thumb over Calix’s cheek. “I think I can speak for Aubrey and myself when I say we will go where you wish. Rosehill seems a special place, and a safe one, and if that will make you feel better, that’s where we go.”

Every bit of tension seemed to leave Calix’s body and he leaned into Ethaniel’s touch, his smile grateful. “Thank you,” Calix said. “I truly mean that. Some part of me was…”

“Afraid we’d leave you alone?”

Calix didn’t answer. Ethaniel didn’t need him to. He understood how vulnerable Calix must feel; he felt something like its cousin echoing in his own bones. They were all on fragile ground, and the quaking beneath their boots wasn’t composed of a single source. Ethaniel only wanted them all safe, so they could sort out the tangled knot of Convergence in peace.

He doubted Vincent would leave them alone to do that, however.

“When we get to Rosehill, we must all talk,” Ethaniel admitted.

“I agree,” Calix said as he snapped the reins, steering the horses around a particularly deep hole in the road. “But you sound like you’re….”

Calix cut off as the sound of hoofbeats thundered behind them. A single set, moving too quickly — and too urgently — to be a rider out for a morning trot. Immediately, Ethaniel was pulling the still-shrunken sword from beneath the carriage seat and leaning down to alert Aubrey. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the figure on horseback behind them, the sunlight striking red-orange curls. As Ethaniel registered this, he realized that the figure was also slumped over the horse in a way that looked painful.

Lawton might be either bone-tired or injured, from the way he clung to the horse’s neck. But his body jostled hard with every beat of the creature’s hooves, and the strange limpness of his movement made dread pool in Ethaniel’s stomach. If he’s dead… Ethaniel thought as he straightened up to say to Calix, “You might not want to look back, dove.”

Calix’s face brightened at the new pet name, but then realization struck him. “No. No. He can’t.”

“I don’t think he’s well,” Aubrey called up as he leaned out of the carriage window, his monocle affixed to his right eye.

“Fuck.” Ethaniel stared hard at Calix, knowing the other man would be torn. And he was. Calix’s face was a mirror of panic, his knuckles white where he gripped the reins. “Calix. It’s your call.”

“It could be a trap,” Calix croaked. “He could just be bait.”

“I don’t think so,” Aubrey replied as he turned to them. The hand holding his revolver was as steady as anything, and that sight made Ethaniel relax a little. Aubrey’s surety was a balm, even as his own nerves began to jangle with the threat of danger. “Someone’s used magic on him. He looks very wounded.”

“Wounded?” Calix echoed.

“Blood. Bruising.” Ethaniel heard the click of Aubrey’s throat. “Burns. Magical ones.”

“No, no, no,” Calix muttered. He had grown even more pale, so Ethaniel took the reins from him and began to pull the carriage over.

“I don’t think it’s a trap,” Ethaniel said as Calix leaned into him, breathing hard. “We need to help him.”

“This is so stupid,” Calix said, his eyes now wet with tears. “I shouldn’t care about him. Not after what he did.”

Ethaniel’s heart twisted as he watched Calix try to pull himself together. His friendship with Lawton was clearly a complicated thing, and when loyalties ran that deep, it was nearly impossible to completely cast them aside.

“It’s not stupid, Calix. We will do whatever you wish,” Ethaniel said. “Aubrey?”

“Hmmm?”

“Is there anyone else on the road?”

“No.”

Ethaniel turned back to Calix and said, “What do you want to do?”

Calix took in a deep breath, then another, then straightened to his full height and threw his shoulders back. “Stop the carriage.”

As soon as Ethaniel guided the horses to a spot off the road, near a bank of elms that swayed in the wind, Calix hopped down, his expression grim but determined. Ethaniel wasn’t about to let him go up to the horse - and a clearly injured Lawton - on his own. While Aubrey took charge of their horses, he and Calix made their approach.

Ethaniel had no defense in this situation, aside from the sword still in dagger form. Any protective patterns he knew took time and energy; they were meant for warding buildings and possessions, not people, and not at a moment’s notice. And there was nothing tangible for Aubrey to mend or use in their defense.

But he would not let Calix go on his own.

The horse slowed as they approached, and as Lawton weakly raised his head, Calix gasped and ground to a halt. The man’s right eye was swollen shut, a bruised mass under which a crusted-over wound split his cheek. The hand Lawton had tangled in the horse’s reins was bruised and cut as well, and Ethaniel would bet there were more contusions under Lawton’s stained and ripped clothes.

Calix rushed toward his friend, hands trembling as he reached up. With a groan, Lawton slid from the saddle and crashed into Calix, taking them both to the ground. Ethaniel ran toward them, yelling for Aubrey as he did.

Lawton rolled his one good eye upwards, locking onto Calix, then Ethaniel. “I wasn’t followed,” he rasped. Anger swelled within Ethaniel’s chest, but his words were lost to the wind as Lawton pulled his grimy shirt aside. “It’s a traitor’s brand,” he whispered before he lost consciousness.

The jut of Lawton’s collarbone was marred by a burn roughly shaped like a circle bisected horizontally by a thick line. “It’s the same symbol I use in some castings,” Calix whispered, his expression full of horror. “Salt.”

The implications of that one word made Ethaniel shudder. Salt was for binding, but also for curses. One could not grow crops on land that had been salted. Salt was a part of unhallowing sacred ground. It was powerful. And permanent.

Salting a body, and the soul inside it, shouldn’t be possible.

Calix’s arms failed him, so Ethaniel dove forward. “I’ve got him,” Ethaniel said. Calix shot him a grateful look as Ethaniel bundled Lawton into his arms. The man was far lighter than he’d anticipated, and the shock nearly sent them to the ground, but Ethaniel regained his footing just as Aubrey dashed up.

“I’ll handle the horse,” Aubrey said, giving Ethaniel — and Lawton — a worried glance. “Calix, use what supplies we have on Mr. Adler. Ethaniel…”

“I’ll get us there,” Ethaniel replied, feeling the weight of those few words bury themselves deep.