The Key

Chapter 32

The server steps back into position by the wall. Other than those few light footsteps, the rest of the room is silent. Faint sounds of clinking glass and chattering voices filter in through the door, hints at the main dining room beyond, but only hints.

From this small audience, so much gossip will spread.

For that reason, he makes himself smile as wistfully as he can. “I had to teach him how to dance like that, with his wings held back. Imagine ballroom dancing with your arms tied behind you.” All of that fumbling. Every stagger. Dan had thought him clumsy. Dan had thought him out of practice at any sort of martial skill he might once have had. But it was just the wings.

Dan sighs and returns the feather to his pocket. “Anyway,” he says. “If it’s still going to be a marriage treaty, that’s why it has to be someone else. Not sure their mourning customs will allow that, though.”

“I thought Queen Mary didn’t want you in a political marriage,” Charlie says. “Too far from home.”

“He was going to live here,” Dan says, quoting a lie he’d believed himself. “Be a Man of Letters. Angel of Letters. Teach people the lost secrets of ages past and fly to us if we got in trouble out on the road. That kind of thing. His siblings might have come too, we were still sorting that out.”

Charlie reaches across the table. After a pause, Dan reaches back and lets her squeeze his hand.

“Next time,” she says. “Third time completes the charm, right? You’ll get married yet.”

“But definitely not before Sam,” he answers, a weak joke Charlie nevertheless grins at.

“Not unless you can manage it before noon tomorrow,” Charlie agrees. “That’s nearly a full day. I think you could swing it if you wanted to.”

They talk more about Sam’s wedding. How honored Queen Mary was when Lady Jess asked Her Majesty to stand behind her in the ceremony, in place of her own late mother. How Dan’s duties in standing behind Prince Sam now include helping His Highness navigate the difficulties of a broken leg. How the couple’s first dance has already been adapted to one of a brand new style, invented only that week and specifically for the occasion, which involves the taller dance partner standing in just the one spot. Once the dishes are cleared, Dan draws the archangel blade and allows Charlie to lay a hand on the hilt, just to see her face when her powers of metal manipulation can’t alter the blade in the slightest. That, more than the blade’s pedigree itself, earns Charlie’s respect.

Throughout it all, Dan keeps an ear open. Not just to the servers waiting upon them, not merely to the dining room beyond, but to the expectation of a messenger.

None ever comes, but if Charlie ever notices his distraction, she is too much an ally to draw attention to it.

That night, their letters to the angels contain two points in addition to the typical batch of diplomacy. Not that there’s anything typical in negotiating with the ruler of an entire species, or that species being both able to wipe out humanity and allegedly uninterested in doing so. Or that ruler being the best chance at destroying an established threat. Or the face-saving pretense of a tentative alliance.

Really, it’s all very weird, and Dan is lucky he’s not expected to do anything about it.

The point is, they ask for any samples of Casper’s hair there might be. He was in that realm over six centuries; the guy has to have shed a little in all that time.

They also directly call out the angels on the nature of their portal. Not that the warded tarp over the hedge maze is a particular eyesore, but the anticipation of an angel one day popping through is starting to get to people. By this point, Dan’s almost completely certain Cas didn’t want his body sent back for a funeral, but to free up the portal for someone else.

Both of these two points are answered with one curious package: a bundled up shirt.

The note attached reads, The portal is keyed to Casper. While this shirt was communal, any hairs on it that completed the journey must be his. May your search magic fare better with more familiar materials.

So that answers that.

Dan takes the shirt to Victor himself. It’s a curious thing with a normal enough front, but the back has a flap down the center. The flap tapers in the middle, and the lower edges are lined with buttons. Underneath that flap, they find more tiny downy feathers than hair.

What hair they do find isn’t enough.

Victor tries anyway, and Dan keeps him company. Feathers, ash, hair; Victor tries to activate them separately and together. He substitutes ingredients and repeats the incantation until it’s meaningless in Dan’s ears, but nothing takes hold to seek a dead magical creature, aged twelve hundred years. It’s pushing three in the morning before they give up for the night.

Dan tries to get some sleep. After all, there’s a wedding in the morning.

Sam’s half out of his mind with everything that could possibly go wrong, but apparently that’s normal for a wedding. Every time Dan starts to ask “Do you want me to go check?” Sam cuts him off with a quick “No, I want you here.”

While Dan would rather be inspecting the warding, or the security, or any number of important things, Sam insists on smaller things. Dan reassures him about his hair, about his jacket. Dan promises that yes, he will help Sam kneel at the start of the ceremony but, no, he will not help Sam stand at the end, because apparently Jess is doing that. Dan promises to pass off the cane to Bobby while their father officiates, so that the reminder of the violence isn’t present throughout. Dan shows him the marriage crown, and he condescends to show Sam the length of the ribbons attached to the woven band, because, yes , they are long enough for Dad to tie them together with the ribbons on Jess’, and no , it doesn’t look stupidly long, just appropriately long for Sam’s stupidly big body.

Once they’ve been over all of Sam’s insecurities at least twice, Sam sighs and stops, jiggling his good leg where he sits. The truest show of his nerves is him acting like this in front of the servants.

“Thanks, Dan,” he says. He squeezes his hands in his lap, clearly trying not to adjust his own outfit or touch his own hair. “I’m, uh. Well.”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “Big day. I get it.”

“I just want you to know,” Sam continues, “it’s enough that you’re here for the ceremony.”

Dan frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

“That if you don’t want to sit through a party for my successful love life, I’ll understand,” Sam says, like he’s honestly expecting Dan to take him up on that. “I can find some excuse for you to duck out early, it’s okay. I don’t mind you leaving.”

“And miss a party where Dad has to treat Charlie as his social equal?” Dan asks. “C’mon, I gotta see that. He still thinks she’s six.”

Sam frowns at him.

Dan frowns back.

Their eyes widen at the same time.

As one man, they look to the door a second before the knock comes.

“Let Sir Victor in,” Sam instructs the man at the door. The servant opens the door, Victor enters, and the servant closes the door behind him with all due haste.

“Your Highness.” Victor bows fully to Sam. He repeats the motion with Dan, quick and perfunctory, before holding up a small object wrapped in bug netting.

“What is that?” Sam asks.

“It’s the mask,” Dan says, already striding toward Victor. “The netting’s to keep the feathers from ripping themselves off the cloth and flying away.” He holds out his hand, and Victor hooks the band of the mask over Dan’s finger. The mask strains in midair, pulling hard toward the wall. “You did it.”

“A word in private, Prince, Your Highness,” Victor says.

“As he says,” Sam confirms, and the three other people in the room dutifully file out into the hall. “What is it, Sir Victor?”

Victor looks between them before addressing Dan. “One of the parameters you gave me was wrong, Prince.” Victor’s stance betrays nothing of his emotions, but the slight hesitation before he continues speaks volumes. “You may recall, you told me to track a dead angel.”

Less able to read Victor, Sam comes to the wrong conclusion. “So, what, without the wings, he counts as human?”

Mask still straining against one hand, Dan grabs Victor’s shoulder with the other. “Are you sure, ” Dan demands. “Victor, if you are wrong, I’m…” He doesn’t have a threat dire enough. There isn’t one.

“The spell only took once I cast it for a living magical creature,” Victor replies.

“Dan,” Sam says, but Dan barely hears him.

“I,” Dan says. “You.”

“Get Dan’s bag packed,” Sam instructs Victor. “One for Jo, too, and get a combustion carriage ready, the fastest we have. Send word of this to the king and queen. And take a healer with you. However Cas managed to survive activating a blood sigil on himself, he has to be in bad shape. He’d have flown back by now otherwise.”

“He’s,” Dan says, and the mask keeps tugging, the strap a constant pull against his fingers.

“How long will the spell last?” Sam continues. “Do you have enough ingredients to keep renewing it?”

“This one should have six hours to it, Your Highness,” Victor reports. “And I have more than enough supplies for now, and can restock most at a roadhouse.”

“Good,” Sam says, and he pulls Dan off Victor with a firm but unyielding force. “You depart at noon. Oh, and Dan needs his traveling boots. Get a servant to do the packing, but I want you to personally inform the king and queen why Dan won’t be attending the reception.”

“Your Highness,” Victor says, bowing. He holds out a hand to Dan and Dan stares at it, uncomprehending. “You can’t hold on to it through the wedding, Prince,” Victor explains.

Dan looks at the mask, gleaming feathers and old cloth straining beneath a layer of netting. Straining and straining, as if they, too, are alive themselves.

“Right,” he says, but he doesn’t let go.

The ceremony is everything it should be. Their father waits upon the dais in the throne room, the wedding guests before him. He wears his thickest crown this morning, concealing the empty patches where Cas pulled molten metal from his head. Behind him, an immense white cloth covers the space where the stained glass window once sparkled, and the golden sigil warding against angels is its own kind of victory flag.

Sam approaches from King John’s right. Dan follows, matching steps as best he can to Sam’s proud, uneven gait. He accepts the cane from his brother with the same dignity he would receive an award, and he passes it to Bobby, who has been seated closely for this honor. As Bobby returns to his seat with the cane, Dan returns to Sam’s side and helps him kneel before his future throne.

Before them, Jess approaches, Mary keeping pace behind her. In addition to Mary’s crown, flowers have been woven through her braided hair, hiding the same patches her husband conceals. The complex effect contrasts nicely with Jess’ simpler style. In preparation for her wedding wreath, Jess’ hair falls over her shoulders in twisting curls.

In unnecessary yet pleasing symmetry, Mary helps Jess to kneel before Jess’ future throne. Jess looks nowhere but at Sam, and even seeing only the back of Sam’s head, Dan knows the reverse is also true. Standing behind his brother, standing over his brother, Dan meets his mother’s gaze and echoes her smile without a second thought. There’s barely a first thought, that continuous distracted murmur of alive.

He hears his father say the words. He hears the gathered guests rustle as they strain to see. He hears Jess stifle a giggle when John gives the ceremony the rare personal touch of an anecdote. When he hears the words indicating his role, Dan looks to his father and holds Sam’s wedding wreath forward prominently.

“On this day, do you pledge yourself to truth?” King John asks him.

“On this day, I do pledge,” Dan replies, woven crown in both hands, answering his father’s eyes with his own.

“Knowing this man, do you swear to the truth of his love?”

Dan looks to Jess over his brother, and she looks up at him, eyes already tearing. “To know this man is to know the truth of his love.” He holds the wreath over Sam’s head.

“Do you vouch for their union?”

Still looking Jess in the eyes, Dan crowns his brother and answers, “I vouchsafe all my honor.”

It’s not part of the ceremony, but when Jess starts to cry, Sam reaches out and brushes those tears aside before they can reach her smile. Beaming, she tilts her face into his hand to kiss his palm. Someone in the audience begins to applaud, and then another, and another. King John has to hold up his hands for the clapping to die down, but even he is smiling.

They repeat the vouching with Mary. She attests and stakes her honor. She crowns Jess, and when Mary looks up at Dan, they share the same thought: the next time they crown Sam and Jess, it will be to become king and queen, and John will be dead.

Mary looks to John. John looks back.

Even as a welcome sight, it is strange to see his parents love each other.

The ceremony progresses. Sam and Jess hold their hands out, his left palm facing her right. With each question King John asks them, he pulls another ribbon from their wedding crowns through their hands, weaving a knot.

At last, the end draws near as the formal questions finish. “If there is more to bind you,” King John says, “speak it now.”

“I love you,” Sam and Jess say in unrehearsed unison. Jess begins to giggle and cry again, and judging by the slant of Sam’s shoulders, he isn’t much better off.

“I saw this day years ago,” Sam confesses, a truth Jess already knows but their guests do not. He speaks with a carrying confidence despite the hitch in his voice. “I saw our hands tied before I ever met you, but I didn’t speak for fear of frightening you.”

“I would watch you across the campus,” Jess replies. “This handsome man a head above everyone else, smiling in the library when strangers asked him to reach a high shelf. The day someone told me you were the prince, I cried so hard, because I was sure you’d never…” She trails off into smiles and tears both, and Sam takes her other hand. “I love you,” Jess says again.

“I love you,” Sam agrees. Then he turns his head and looks up at King John to say, “Father, by your will, we’d really like to be married now.”

With a hint of an exasperated smile, King John pulls the ends of the ribbons taut. Sam and Jess pull their hands free, and the knot holds.

“You are wed,” King John decrees.

Sam and Jess rise together, and Jess takes his weight. Traditionally, the knot tying their marriage crowns would fall just above their clasped hands, but today, the symbolism of the knot is overshadowed by Jess’ literal support for her new husband. They make their slow but steady way down the center aisle, a new, joined direction that will nevertheless have to turn to the left to exit the throne room. With Sam’s cane in hand, Dan follows the couple with his mother at his side. King John is behind them. Bobby, Jess’ father, grandmother, and siblings, and the remainder of the honor guard fall in behind him.

As processions go, it’s a mercifully short one to the great hall. Halfway there, Sam stoops to whisper to Jess, and Jess looks back between them at Dan, her eyes wide.

Alive? she mouths.

Alive, Dan mouths back.

Jess looks up to Sam to ask him something. He nods repeatedly, reassuringly, and Jess smiles back to Dan in clear permission to bolt at the soonest opportunity.

They reach the great hall and take their positions behind their appropriate seats. Dan passes Sam his cane so he doesn’t have to lean on Jess the entire time people are getting settled. During the hand-off, Sam leans in as close as the joined marriage crowns will allow, and whispers, “Whatever healing he needs, I’ll do it. Now go.”

Jess, pulled in close to the conversation by necessity, holds out her arms to Dan. Sam and Jess embrace him fully, in plain sight of all gathered and all those still trickling in, and so when he hightails it out of there, it’s clearly with their permission.

He doesn’t risk looking at their father, not when King John might still forbid him with a look, and so he doesn’t risk looking at their mother either. He gives a quick nod to Bobby, prompting Bobby to fill Dan’s empty seat as proxy, and Bobby obeys with raised eyebrows. Dan shoots a huge grin to a quizzical Charlie and Gilda, and then he’s in the crowd, through the crowd, and out the door.

Victor catches up with him almost immediately, holding a small and familiar vial on a string. The floating vial taps against Dan’s shoulder before falling limp on its tether, ending the spell, and they’re already on their way out.

Dan breaks into a jog, wedding clothes and indoor shoes or not, and when they reach the combustion carriage, Jo is already in place on the front, Cleric Jim beside her to steer. Tethered to the seat by an additional security line, the mask strains in Cleric Jim’s hand. Victor opens the carriage door, Dan clambers inside, and Victor slams the door behind them. Dan slides open the window to the front and gives the order.

Jo lights it up. The carriage begins to move, and Dan slides the front window shut as Victor passes him his packed bag. Changing clothes in a moving vehicle isn’t the most difficult thing he’s ever done, but the ornate embroidery and fine fabric of this morning’s outfit feel like they’re about to tear at every bump and turn.

Once he’s more durably attired, Dan parts the curtains on the side windows. Victor parts them on the other side, and they watch the city move past too slowly. They’re stuck at horse speeds until they can get out of the capital, and as they pass restaurants and market stalls, Dan’s stomach reminds him that he ran out before the wedding luncheon.

“Did you get food packed?” Dan asks Victor.

Responding with a look people typically aren’t allowed to give princes, Victor wordlessly passes him a cloth bag. There are travel pasties, still hot and wrapped in paper. Dan digs in with more appetite than he’s had in a week while Victor explains his charted route.

“The heading is currently north-northeast,” Victor begins. “We take the north side of the King’s Road until the heading turns northeast and branch from there.”

“Toll road or Quietlake bridge, d’you think?” Dan asks, mouth full.

“Depends on how far he threw himself,” Victor says. “We’ve already had patrols up to Quietlake, so we might be going even farther.”

“How much farther?” Dan asks.

Victor shakes his head. “The spell is pulling hard, but it’s too strange to gauge it that way.”

Hating it, Dan nods anyway and finishes chewing. He stands, moving to that stooped posture the carriage demands, and lurches forward to lean over the backward facing seats and slide open the front window. “Jo, Jim, you eat yet?”

“I’m all set, Your Highness,” Cleric Jim replies.

“Kinda got my hands full, too,” Jo adds.

“Got it,” Dan says. “Knock when you want something.”

“Will do, sir,” says Cleric Jim. “Would you prefer to hold onto this yourself?”

He offers Dan the mask, and Dan takes it in an instant. The tether securing it to the driver’s seat trails inside with it.

“I’ll tell you when the heading changes,” Dan says, fairly needlessly. If Victor thinks they’re heading north as far as the toll road, they won’t be turning tonight.

He slides the window as shut as it will go and tries to settle back down, but he can’t settle. When putting the food bag away, he releases the mask’s band. It thwap s forward against the front seats, pressing itself into the cushion, into the front wall, straining for Casper.

Dan stares at it more than he does the passing buildings.

“You’re sure he’s alive?” Dan forces himself to ask. “There’s no way the spell ingredients could be some weird death combination?”

“Casting for an entirely different species could have that risk,” Victor allows, like he’s perfectly fine with the idea of Dan vomiting in the carriage with him. “But I don’t think so. It’s the same combination that would work on a living dragon or a chimera.”

Alive, Dan’s mind keeps saying. Alive, alive, alive.

“Are you prepared, Prince?” Victor asks.

“We’re bringing a healer,” Dan says. “Maybe Jim can’t do anything for an angel, but that’s as prepared as we can get.”

Looking at him with eyes steadier than the carriage, more knowing than an entire library, Victor says, “The ‘treaty’ was to be cemented with your marriage. That’s common knowledge now.”

“Could you let me be happy for five minutes?” Dan asks. “Five minutes, man.”

Victor says nothing, because Victor is very good at saying nothing. The truths he knows will never be voiced, but neither can Dan acknowledge them.

“When we get him back, he’s probably gonna be… confused,” Dan says. “Blood loss and trauma. Nothing we’re strangers to. I’ll remind him what’s going on.”

“And if he’s too confused to remember?” Victor asks, the pair of them secure behind their shield of euphemisms.

“He’s a quick learner, even if Lucifer did stomp his head into a stone floor pretty hard,” Dan says, firm. “And he has as long as it takes to hammer out the treaty to come around to the idea, if he’s forgotten.”

It won’t be long. The angels want their tablet too badly, and the kingdom needs a defense against Lucifer. All the foreign heads of state gathered for Sam’s wedding are pushing for that defense as well. Even if Lucifer doesn’t come for Sam directly, he’s regained enough power to make more demons. He’s definitely got the wings back enough to fly down south to Heaven and wake up some angel eggs, too.

King John and Archangel Raphael may not trust each other, not by a long shot, but they do need each other, and that will have to force the issue. The stronger bargaining position is currently on the side of the humans, not the angels; to continue to save face before the country, their allies, and their enemies, King John will make Archangel Raphael give Casper to Dan.

“He promised to be mine,” Dan says. “Said if I still wanted him when the world changed, he’d be mine.”

“And if the moon falls down tomorrow, I’ll help sweep up the pieces,” Victor replies, and the truth of it stings. Any conditional promise is easy, if the condition is impossible. Cas must have thought it impossible. But.

That last night. The desperation and focus that Dan had attributed to dread of separation.

Cas had clung to him. Cas had fought for him.

Cas had, he’d thought, died for him.

So Dan clears his throat as they clear the city, and he shoots Victor a look. “Then I’ll find you a broom.”

Jo lasts a full four hours. She’s shaking a little when they stop before the post office, and Dan has to order her to sit down and eat while the rest of them convert the carriage to be horse-drawn. She says she’s good to go for another hour, but even with the speed she can pull the carriage, the next post office they can borrow from would be at least an hour and a half away.

The post office workers hitch the horses up for them while they stretch their legs and empty their bladders. Everyone has something to eat, and when Jo finishes first, she willingly retires into the carriage for a nap. Part of Dan wants to tell her not to push so hard, but the rest of him is more than aware that just because Cas is alive right now, it doesn’t mean he will still be by the time they reach him. Cas shouldn’t have been able to survive that blood sigil in the first place. Wondering about that first part is as bad as worrying about the rest, and “the rest” is plenty.

He’s not bled out, but he could be sick with infection. If no one has found him, that’s hunger and severe dehydration in effect. There’s exposure and sunburn and too many things for Dan to think about. For all Dan knows, someone’s seen a scary wounded monster in the woods and decided to beat the s**t out of it, just to be sure. They have to hurry.

They push the horses hard, too.

The sun sets too early. They stop for the night around seven-thirty, bedding down in a roadhouse. The next one is too far. Victor and Cleric Jim unhitch the horses. Jo inspects the carriage. Dan unties the mask’s tether from the driver’s seat and brings both mask and tether into the roadhouse with him. He makes arrangements for the night with the mask trying to fly out of his hand the entire time. Victor reset the enchantment on the road a few hours ago, and it will be hours more until it wears off again.

Dinner is a tired affair. They keep to their own table despite the presence of another patrol. There are a few civilian guests as well, only prompting their silence further. Watching them all, Dan mops up thick lentil soup with even thicker bread, and he still has to chew the crust for what feels like half an hour before he can swallow it. Cleric Jim and Victor talk about road conditions. Jo eyes the dartboard on the opposite wall but declines to indulge herself even after Dan nods permission. Instead, she joins in on the road talk, explaining to Victor what it feels like to force the carriage up a hill. It’s nothing they can plan their route around, not when they’re trying to reach Cas in a straight line, but it’s something to keep in mind.

They go to bed early and wake even earlier. During the night, the tracking spell wore out, and the mask’s tether is a straight line across the floor, one end attached to Dan’s lower bunk, the other end still pointing to Cas. They eat breakfast before Victor casts the spell anew. Dan’s stomach clenches and turns until the spell takes, proving that Cas didn’t die during the night. When Jo powers the carriage away from the roadhouse, leaving the borrowed horses to be returned to the nearest post office, Dan’s mouth still tastes more of bile than of salty porridge and half-burnt bacon.

Jo nearly makes it all the way until noon, and they do not take the toll road. They’re drawing ever nearer to rivers, to marshland, and, most troubling, the coast. Dan reassures himself that if Cas had landed in water, he would have drowned long before now, which means Cas can’t be lost in the ocean.

Between the road weaving around hills and marshes, and the bumpiness of the carriage, it takes until around two in the afternoon for Dan to be sure what he’s seeing. They check with a compass, and their heading now is definitely more northeast than north-northeast.

It’s the first true sign they’re getting close.