PART XIII
Sentinels at War
42
Three days before the Nones of Saturnalis
It was fifteen years ago, and the world had just changed irrevocably.
Ashiol lay on the cold marble tiles of the bathroom, awash in sensation. He was bruised, bitten, sticky, and his mind was such a jumble that he couldn’t concentrate on anything, not the smell of Garnet’s skin, nor the musky taste of come that still lingered on his tongue.
There was a mosaic pattern on the ceiling: a long-winged lizard chasing its own tail. He had never noticed it before.
Garnet made a small sound beside him and Ashiol rolled over, conscious suddenly of the puddles of oil spreading across the tiles, dripping into the now-cold bath. A glass bottle had broken in their first sudden lunge at each other, and it was a miracle that in all their clumsy fumblings neither of them had managed to cut himself.
This. Finally. They had come close on other occasions, there had been kisses and touches and the petting games that Tasha especially encouraged in them, but this was nothing less than momentous, and he knew that when they looked back, it was this that they would name their first time.
They would have to be careful to hide it from Tasha: that her cubs had chosen a pretty bathroom in the Duc’s Palazzo for the occasion of their first f*ck, rather than one of the beds in her own den. Perhaps they would have to act out a similar scenario in future weeks, so she thought she was witnessing it. It wouldn’t be difficult to pretend it was their first time. Ashiol was pretty sure they couldn’t be good at it yet.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he muttered, certain that all of Garnet’s cries hadn’t been of pleasure, but he had been wrapped up in the moment and hadn’t been careful enough.
‘I’ll live,’ said Garnet in a low voice, and then winced when Ashiol lay his palm across the curve of his arse. ‘Ah, hands off.’
‘I did hurt you.’
‘Maybe I like it that way.’
He always talked like that, like nothing mattered, like he was as old and worldly as Tasha or Saturn.
‘Shut up,’ Ashiol said into the nape of his neck, kissing and then licking with a flick of his tongue. ‘I’ll let you do me next time.’
‘Ha, I bet.’
‘I will.’ Ashiol nuzzled in against him, careful not to get too close. ‘You liked it when I held you down,’ he added thoughtfully.
‘Pervert.’ Garnet laughed, then arched back against him. ‘I liked all of it.’
‘Aye.’ Nothing was going to be the same again, not now. ‘So,’ said Ashiol, too pleasantly numb to move, though the cold was starting to leach through his skin. ‘Do we bother cleaning up? Or do we let the maids — you know? Figure it out.’
No servant would say a word to the Duc and Duchessa. He wasn’t sure whether it made him squirm with embarrassment or if it was even hotter, the idea of people knowing what he had been up to, even if they might not guess with whom.
‘We should just scamper out the window and away,’ said Garnet. ‘How’s that for the final “f*ck you” to your fancy family?’
Ashiol laughed. ‘I’d have to come back sooner or later.’
‘No, really.’ Garnet turned and gazed at him, his eyes intensely bright. ‘What’s keeping you here? We have Tasha now, and the others. We’re the frigging Creature Court. It’s time to cut the ties. Leave the daylight behind.’
Ashiol wasn’t sure how serious his friend was. ‘The daylight has its uses. Why give up everything we have here when we can have both?’
Garnet’s eyes did that icy thing that showed he was angry. ‘Because I don’t want to be your f*cking manservant any more,’ he said, as if Ashiol was stupid.
Which, aye, he was. Quite obviously.
‘That was never real,’ Ashiol said, treading carefully now he knew he was in dangerous territory. ‘It was just an excuse to keep you with me.’
‘Real enough when I have to take dinner in the servants’ hall,’ Garnet said, half-spitting the words.
‘I didn’t know it bothered you.’
He should have known. Everything bothered Garnet; he nursed every splinter until it was a bloody great stake through the heart.
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ Garnet said, defensive now and probably lying. He shrugged a shoulder and then smiled one of those secret smiles of his, flashing from anger to sweetness far too fast. ‘Most days, anyway. But there’s nothing for me here except you, and I have you there as well. Don’t I?’
‘Of course you do,’ said Ashiol, and it felt more of a pledge than any oath he had made to Tasha. ‘I’m yours.’
This time Garnet’s smile was better. Warmer.
‘I’ll go soon,’ he said. ‘To the Creature Court, completely. You don’t have to. But if you want to keep a foot in the daylight, you’re going to need to hire a new valet.’
‘I can live with that,’ said Ashiol.
Part of him wanted to order Garnet not to leave him, to stay with him for both the daylight and the nox. He knew better. He hadn’t been able to get away with ordering Garnet to do anything, not since they were twelve years old.
Garnet kissed him suddenly, a rough crush of his mouth to Ashiol’s, and the scent of him almost had them falling to the floor again. Not just sex and skin and oil, but the flare of animor, of gattopardo and cat recognising each other. Ashiol felt hot and urgent all over again, and when he reached out a hand he felt an answering hardness in Garnet’s cock.
‘Bed this time,’ Garnet said, his old bossiness returning.
‘I thought you were sore.’
Garnet grinned wickedly. ‘It’s your turn, remember? Let’s mess up those pretty linen sheets of yours. Make some more work for the maids.’
Later, dizzy and hurting and so deeply in love that he couldn’t think straight, Ashiol thought to remind Garnet that they would have to put a show on for Tasha.
‘You think she doesn’t know?’ Garnet muttered back, groggy and half-asleep. ‘You yelled loud enough they probably heard you in the Haymarket.’
The smell of death filled the room suddenly, swamping Ashiol’s senses. He struggled to breathe, and saw a third figure lurching towards them in the lantern light.
Livilla’s skin was rotting off her in places and the smell was unbearable. She was quite definitely dead, and she leaned over the boy lovers, crooning, ‘I told you I wanted to watch.’
Ashiol woke up. He breathed hard for a moment or two, readjusting to his surroundings. He was half-lying on a window seat in his mother’s library, crushing her favourite cushions. The air was scented with tea.
He had bathed twice, and gargled mint and water until he could no longer taste whatever cack the Duc-Elected had poisoned him with, or the grit of the road, or the soul of a dead city. His mother had offered him brandy but the scent of it sickened him. That probably wouldn’t last.
The house was decorated for Saturnalia, all greenery and silver angels and red paper hearts. He had to count the days to be sure it wasn’t actually here yet. Eight days to go.
The door opened and Augusta Xandelian walked in. Ashiol’s mother was such a neat, respectable matrona. Ashiol had always marvelled at the fact that he had never seen her untidy, not even when she was gardening or surrounded by children. Her hair had far more grey in it than when he had seen her last, only half a year ago. She seemed happy enough here, widowed and still mattering to all of her children as they reached adulthood one by one.
‘Mistress Celeste and her daughter are settled in a room upstairs,’ Augusta said gravely.
‘Look after them, will you?’ he asked, lowering his feet to the floor.
He felt a little shaky, more from the two days of walking it had taken to get here than anything else, though it wasn’t unlikely he was still suffering the after-effects of those damned potions.
‘You’re not staying, then?’ said Augusta.
She was working so hard not to let her disapproval show, but he could feel it radiating out of her. Perhaps that was deliberate on her part. She had always been an annoyingly subtle sort of woman.
‘We’re needed in the city,’ he said.
‘You and those demoiselles.’
It was also clear what Augusta thought of Velody and Kelpie, who looked like the ragged war veterans they were and had no adorable moppet to distract her with.
‘Isangell still needs me.’ A convenient excuse as well as being exactly the truth.
‘You should never have left us, dearling,’ Augusta said crisply.
‘Perhaps.’
Ashiol went to the mantel, which held no less than three of his dead stepfather’s clocks. Tick, tick, tick. He reached out abruptly and stopped one of them, wrenching at the hands. The others continued to beat time.
‘What are you doing?’ Cross at him, Augusta stepped forward to slap his hand away.
‘Diamagne did love his clocks,’ said Ashiol, and he had always known there should be a legitimate reason to dislike his mother’s second husband, hadn’t he? ‘Where was it he got them mended when ungrateful stepsons broke them?’
Augusta huffed, and opened her mouth, because she was not the sort of lady who let a question go unanswered when she knew the answer perfectly well. Then she closed her mouth, because she did not, it seemed, know the answer at all. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’ve never forgotten a thing in your life,’ Ashiol said dismissively. ‘Least of all something to do with Diamagne.’
‘It’s on the tip of my tongue.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ He sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter. I was just testing a theory.’
Bazeppe was gone. Bazeppe had never existed. Bazeppe was forgotten by everyone of the daylight.
‘Will you stay for dinner at least?’ asked his mother.
‘Is there meat?’
‘There’s always meat, dearling. One benefit of living in the country.’
‘We would be glad to stay for dinner.’
His mother waited, and raised her eyebrows.
‘Maybe a day or two,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll see what the others think.’
‘As you say.’ She looked amused that Ashiol might listen to anyone but himself.
When she left him, Ashiol threw himself down on the sofa like he was a child again, his feet piled high on cushions.
Livilla was dead, and inside his mind. That wasn’t a good thing. He could feel himself slipping into dark thoughts, the kind that helped no one. He could not afford to lose his hold on reality, not now.
Priest was dead, too. Poet had fallen in with Garnet. Lysandor had been found and lost again. Celeste was … not his to command. There were hardly any pieces left of the Creature Court that Ashiol recognised.
How much easier would it be just to curl up as a cat and stay here for the season? He could let his mother dress Velody like a doll; let one of his brothers fall in love with Kelpie. Sit in the grass and snooze in the sunshine. There was always meat on the estate and wine. They could wait until Ashiol’s family no longer remembered what the word ‘Aufleur’ meant. Let the cities f*cking fall.
‘There you are,’ said a voice, and of course it was Velody. She looked tired, but Ashiol’s mother or her maids had given her access to a fresh dress and something approximating a bath.
‘Come here,’ he said, and stretched out a hand. She came close enough for him to notice how good she smelled.
‘Oh, your mother would like that,’ she said dryly. ‘Canoodling on the couch with a lowly dressmaker.’
‘Canoodling, is that even a word?’ Ashiol tugged her closer and Velody half-fell on top of him. He liked that smile of hers. He hadn’t seen nearly enough of it.
She breathed out like a sigh as he touched her, and relaxed for a moment, her head resting on his chest, the weight of her body firm on him.
‘We’re going back, aren’t we?’ she said.
‘Of course we are.’
‘I need to tell you something.’
He tensed.
‘Nothing bad, I think.’ She raised her head and he looked into her grey eyes. ‘Someone helped me, when I needed to get Celeste out of the city. Shared their power with me. It’s the only reason we survived.’
Ashiol frowned. ‘That’s not a normal skill.’
‘It was Garnet. He heard my plea from across the country. He shared.’
‘Garnet doesn’t like to share.’ Ashiol cupped her breast in his hand. Not for any particular reason. It helped him to think. ‘Is this the part where you tell me there might still be hope of redeeming him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Velody. ‘I just thought you should know. He’s the reason Celeste and I got out of Bazeppe alive.’
Ashiol blew out a breath. ‘Something to think about. Does this dress come off?’
She laughed and wriggled out of his grasp. ‘Not in your mother’s library, it doesn’t!’
For a moment, Ashiol was overwhelmed by calmness. It was a strange sensation. Pleasure, happiness. For one moment, before the impossibility of what they had to do swept back over him, he felt good.
It lasted just long enough to chase Velody out of the library and up the stairs to his rooms, where he proceeded to f*ck her breathless before they even reached the bed.