The Key

Chapter 39

In the morning, there is a knock on the door, and Dan doesn’t want to answer.

Then there is another knock, and he rolls over, both toward the door and toward the source of the weirdest blanket of his life. After three full days of being an unresponsive unconscious lump against Dan’s side, Cas has turned into an extremely responsive unconscious lump, and his wing twitches to keep Dan close.

Newly uncovered, Dan’s feet and shins go cold, the hazard of sleeping with an open window during a rainy night. The rain had given up at some point after Dan turned off the magelights and pulled off his boots, but definitely before he woke up halfway through the night and couldn’t figure out if he was dreaming. In the pre-dawn light through the windows, Dan looks at the source of his confusion.

Head pillowed on his arms, Cas lies still, his eyes moving under their lids. That, more than the heat of him, keeps Dan’s staring calm, looking rather than inspecting. Shifting his arm beneath the warmth of Cas’ wing, Dan touches Cas’ shirt at the back, fingers slipping through the gap between buttons and the base of his wing. His arm gives a twinge from having slept on it wrong, but he keeps it where it is. He feels Cas breathe a bit more, the rise and fall of that rhythm, and tells himself he’s just checking for a minute.

A third knock, and a familiar voice calls through the door, “Seraph Casper, are you awake?”

“Jo, go away!” Dan stage-whispers back.

Being Jo, she immediately opens the door. “There you are.”

Cas twitches awake in an instant, and before Dan can blink, he has a tense angel on top of him. Not just the wing, the entire angel. Supporting his upper body with his wings pressed against the bed, Cas secures Dan with an iron grip, his head turned toward the door, eyes fixed on Jo. Lying as still as possible, Dan has the sudden mental image of a bear mistaking him for one of her cubs.

Jo raises her hand in what, from Dan, would be a calming gesture. From Jo, it’s just as easily a threat of flames. “Good morning,” she says, sarcasm in both her voice and grin.

Cas’ eyes narrow. Lips pursed in an unasked question, he looks between Jo and Dan. His cheek is flushed pink from pressing against his arms as he slept.

“I’m missing training,” Dan explains just as Cas says, “I was hallucinating.”

“What?” Dan says.

“I was seeing things while asleep,” Cas says, upper body still braced over Dan. It’s gorgeous muscle control and probably not the most surreal thing Dan’s going to witness today.

“You were dreaming,” Dan says, and a thought hits him. “You don’t have visions, too, do you?”

Cas shakes his head. One hand still pressing Dan down into the bed, he moves the other off Dan’s chest, instead cupping the side of his face, thumb along his jaw. Without warning, despite being in an entirely different place on his body, the tense ache in Dan’s shoulder and arm unravels. Traces of pain he hadn’t known he had abruptly make themselves conspicuous by their absence. The chill in his sock-clad toes fades. He can breathe through both nostrils. In the world’s strangest facsimile of a kiss, the taste inside Dan’s mouth changes from sleep nasty to neutral default.

“You’re all right,” Cas tells him like he thinks Dan’s the one who needs convincing.

Boxed in by wings and held in place by large hands, Dan stares up at him.

From the doorway, Jo clears her throat.

“Jo, go away,” Dan orders.

“Dunno, looks like you need a chaperon,” Jo says.

“Nothing untoward is transpiring,” Cas says, not looking away. His eyes are so f*****g blue.

Jo turns the magelights on bright. Dan winces his eyes shut.

“Nothing’s transpiring yet,” Jo says, reading Dan’s mind. “And it shouldn’t, because you’re still not officially engaged.”

Expression neutral save for his eyes, Cas still manages to look very unimpressed. “What is the current stance on purity laws?”

“On what?” Jo asks.

“Virginity before marriage,” Dan says, because why the hell not give a history lesson under an angel in a borrowed bed. Seriously, Cas seems to have forgotten he’s even holding himself up with his wings. “It was a big thing before healers figured out how to confirm lineage.”

“If it’s no longer in vogue, there’s no issue,” Cas informs Jo, like this bit of political debate isn’t him justifying some bedtime playtime.

“No, there is,” Dan says, groaning a little. He pushes at Cas, an effort that should be futile, but Cas moves over as easily as shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Consummation laws. Doesn’t matter how incomplete the draft is, the marriage contract gets set in stone the second we bump uglies.”

Cas rises back, smoothly pushing himself up until he’s kneeling. A chill rushes in across Dan as his makeshift blanket folds itself against Cas’ back. With Dan still lying in front of him, Cas looks down his body, a scan no less appreciative for its speed or Cas’ seeming lack of expression. His eyes make his thoughts clear.

“Which part of you is meant to be ugly?” Cas asks, sounding sincerely confused.

It would be really romantic if the answer weren’t Dan’s d**k.

“It’s a euphemism,” Dan says with great dignity, sitting up.

“For his d**k,” Jo adds.

When Dan glares at her, she stares him right back down with Harvelle confidence. And then she snickers, because, f**k Dan’s life, Cas is staring at Dan’s crotch with unabashed curiosity.

“My d**k is fine,” Dan says. To his future husband, first thing in the morning, in front of his former squire. Because, again, f**k Dan’s life. “Jo, seriously, go away.”

“It’ll look better if we leave together,” she reminds him. “Unless you want people thinking you rushed the treaty through overnight.”

“All right, fine,” Dan says. “Go away for five minutes, I’ll be right out.”

“Uh-huh,” Jo says. She pops out the world’s most perfunctory bow before closing the door. Her footsteps travel much too short a distance, and the outer door doesn’t open.

It’s not quite privacy, but when Cas looks at him, it feels like it.

“You, uh,” Dan says. He licks his lips with a dry tongue. “You good?”

There, as predicted, is the tilting of the head. “Regarding what?”

“Go down the list, man,” Dan tells him, because, yeah, fair enough.

“My body is much repaired,” Cas says, which is obvious enough from his little stunt upon waking. “My grace still needs time to replenish.”

“If you need to, uh, put your blade back in,” Dan says, but Cas shakes his head.

“Your father will want proof of my compliance,” Cas says, “and I imagine both he and Sir Robert will rest easier seeing I’m as unarmed as I can be.”

“Hell of a qualifier, there,” Dan notes.

“Continue to consider me a mage,” Cas says, all the while shifting his wings so he can sit down in his kneel. The longest feathers of each wing cross behind him, almost like folding his arms. The upper parts of his wings, those joints before the really long feathers start, move out to the sides a little, peeking around his shoulders instead of over them.

Dan definitely stares too long, because those wings go still. Absolutely still, abruptly costume pieces once more. Dan looks back up to Cas’ face.

“My species bothers you,” Cas assumes, expression neutral. Except, no. That’s his expression, natural. It’s his wings that are forced into neutrality. Dan was almost right: Cas doesn’t have a poker face, but poker wings .

For another man, it might be too early in the morning for bravado, but Dan has the benefit of practice. He shrugs, nice and pronounced, and says, “Got fifty years to get used to it.”

The way Cas looks at him, face blank and wings motionless, that was not the right answer.

“We should talk later,” Dan says, because who knows what someone like Cas considers as later . “But I gotta...” He swings his legs out of bed and stands, getting chalk on his socks. “Shit.” He looks down at the broken sigil and, well, screw it. “Right, so you’re not confined to bed rest anymore, but, y’know. Stay in the room.” Not looking at Cas, he tugs on his boots.

Slowly, with the same kind of tentativeness Cas uses to smile, Cas walks on his knees to the edge of the bed. He lowers one foot to the floor. He stands and sways, and his wings snap out. Dan practically jumps on top of the desk, getting out of the way, but all Cas does is stand there, lightheaded and pale and wobbling with those two immense limbs struggling to compensate.

“Maybe stay on the bed,” Dan says.

“That seems wise,” Cas agrees, voice thin. Feet still on the floor, he sits, his wings going through a frankly ridiculous folding routine before he seems to find some vaguely comfortable position.

Dan’s marrying a man not built for beds. Great.

“Where are my old boots?” Cas asks, looking down at his feet. “And Hannah’s belt and pouch.”

“Didn’t survive the lake,” Dan says.

“Did you bring them back?” Cas asks anyway. When Dan nods, Cas says, “I’d like them returned, regardless of condition.”

“Something special about them?” Dan asks, because he has to ask after everything now. For all he knows, Cas’ footwear can level mountains and raise the dead.

“They’re the only boots I own,” Cas says, “and if I want my belt back from Hannah, I need to return hers.”

“Be a shitty trade, but sure,” Dan says. He grabs the thermos of soup from the desk, fiddling with that instead of the books or the bag or, most of all, the blade. He pops the thermos lid as he speaks, but, without enchantments, the heat is gone and no steam rises. Doesn’t matter: breakfast is still breakfast. “Anything else?”

“I’d appreciate physical evidence of your negotiations with Raphael,” Cas tells him. “Yesterday, your father spoke as if our freedom is dependent solely upon his judgment, but you spoke of a parliament.”

“Wait,” Dan says, and Casper waits, head at an attentive angle. It shouldn’t be so easy to tell, but it is. “You saying you agreed to marry me, taking everything we said about the past two weeks on faith?”

“I do trust you, Dan,” Cas says, which means yes . “But I should be as informed as possible, moving forward. I imagine this parliament of yours will wish to hear from an angel directly.”

It’s true. It’s one of the reasons King John went hard at Cas from the start. It’s always easier to loosen the reins than tighten them.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “Gotta get you ready to lie to a bunch more people.”

Cas looks down. He speaks to a point three feet left of Dan’s knees. His voice is steady but quiet, almost lost beneath the sudden cacophony of birds greeting the dawn from the gardens.

“You could send me back,” Cas says. “Another angel would take my place, one better suited to negotiations.”

A gradual shift, his wings look smaller. The feathers press down, a blanket Cas has pulled tight around himself. But Cas holds firm, even looking back up at Dan’s face once he finishes speaking. The tension around his eyes is just as wrong as his wings.

Dan sets down the thermos and takes two steps forward to stand between Cas’ knees. “No,” he says. “You said you promised them sunlight and air. No light and air in that box?”

Looking up at him, Cas says “I don’t need to breathe,” as if this is meant to reassure Dan. Anyone who breathes while sleeping has to need it at least a little, if only psychologically.

He cups Cas’ face in his hands, the better to make his point, to prevent Cas from looking away like he keeps trying to do. “You’re not going back in that box,” Dan tells him.

Cas closes his eyes. Maybe in an attempt to tilt his head, he presses one cheek against Dan’s palm. He presses hard, like he’ll chase the contact to the end of the earth. “If I go in, he might send Balthazar out.” His voice breaks on that hope.

“Yeah, well, if you go in, they might move the portal, and Dad is way too paranoid to risk that,” Dan tells him, working off a mix of assumptions and fears. “You’re staying outside for keeps.”

Cas doesn’t look at him. His face motionless, Cas doesn’t make a single twitch with his wings either. Which just means Dan has to read him the way he always has, picking up on what he doesn’t say, guessing from the tension through his body.

Not yet knowing what to say, Dan pulls, and Cas allows it. Dan hugs Cas’ head against his chest, and Cas wraps his arms around Dan’s middle.

“I’ll get Sam to send you down a report,” Dan promises, dragging his fingers through Cas’ thick hair. The more he scratches Cas’ scalp, the closer Cas presses, gradually scooting to perch at the very edge of the bed. “You can write them letters tonight. Your siblings. And we’ll see if you got any mail last night, too. They know you’re alive and now they should know you’re awake.”

Cas nods against Dan’s shirt, his head framed by Dan’s open jacket. His wings shift, the highest joint rising up and back down, and Dan has no idea what that means until Cas shifts his arms to a tighter hold around Dan’s waist.

“What, I don’t get a real hug?” Dan asks. The moment it’s out of his mouth, those two immense limbs come whipping around, unfurling in one lightning-fast instant. Even braced for it, Dan flinches, and there’s no way Cas doesn’t feel that tension. Though Cas’ wings wrap around him, that circle of feathers doesn’t actually touch him, merely fences him in.

Dan slides one hand down Cas’ neck, down his back. He sets his palm between Cas’ wings, and when Cas accepts that, Dan touches the base of one wing. Cas holds still, breathing Dan in like air isn’t important but Dan’s scent is. So Dan dips his fingers under the back flap. Feathers turn to fluff, to fuzz, to skin. Dan touches sleep-clammy skin, and Cas is so inscrutably tense that Dan has to pull his hand away.

“Jo’s gonna barge back in, in a second,” he warns as an excuse. He leans back in the circle of Cas’ arms, trying to get a look at his face, but Cas only looks up once Dan starts scratching at his scalp again. “You need more sleep?”

His eyes hooded, head tilting whichever way Dan pushes him, Cas rasps, “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do,” Dan decides for him.

“I dislike the hallucinations,” Cas says.

“Dreams,” Dan corrects, still petting Cas’ hair. Once Cas’ eyes fall all the way shut, Dan adds, “Lie back down.”

A grumble low in his throat, Cas complies. He resumes his position on his stomach, arms folded under his cheek, and he cracks one eye open in a silent yet grumpy order for Dan to tell him what comes next. His hair sticks up wildly. His wings, whole and unbroken, stretch down to cover his legs, and the motion is smooth. He looks tired but solid, like a worn statue.

Dan’s half a second from climbing back into bed and letting training go screw itself when Jo’s footsteps come back to the door.

“Give me a second!” he calls preemptively, and Cas’ feathers fluff up.

Dan reaches out to smooth them down, but that only makes it worse. “You cold?”

Cas shakes his head against his arms. “I’ll be here when you return,” he promises, and Dan—well.

“Yeah, I know that,” Dan says, all in a rush. “No, uh, no more dying when I turn my back, all right?”

Through the door, Jo calls, “Dan, that was more than one second!”

“Go,” Cas says.

Dan does, taking Cas’ blade with him, but he opens the second window first.

The next time Casper awakens, he knows the presence at the door isn’t a threat. Whether this is because he is more aware of his surroundings or because Dan isn’t there for him to protect, he’s uncertain. Regardless of the reason, he rises more smoothly, kneels facing the door, and responds, “Come in.”

It’s Sir Robert who opens the door, but it’s Prince Samuel who enters first, moving unsteadily with a cane. The evidence of human healing magics is apparent in his leg’s recovery, but those magics have a curious limit in how far into the body they can reach, as if humans aren’t meant to permeate each other’s bodies in such a fashion.

“Good morning, Casper,” Prince Samuel greets, though the sunlight through the windows would indicate the hour closer to noon.

“Your Highness,” Casper replies, ducking his head.

“I see Dan left the windows open,” Sir Robert says gruffly, wearing a satchel and carrying in a chair from the outer room. It’s a simple thing, wooden without a cushion, and sporting much too high a back, but Prince Samuel sits in it without complaint. Had he wings, even someone of Prince Samuel’s height would find the shape of the chair awkward, but Prince Samuel actually leans back against it when he takes the weight off his injured leg.

“He was very kind,” Casper says to Sir Robert, who stands over the warded prince. There’s no warding visible on either of them, but neither man is a fool. Prince Samuel wears thin gloves despite the warm temperature. To him, Casper adds, “Sir Dan said he would ask Your Highness to send information, not send Your Highness yourself.”

“Cas,” Prince Samuel says. “Seriously, call me Sam. I know my dad’s downplaying it, but you saved my life ten different ways that night.” His lips quirk in a way almost like Dan’s. “Besides, I don’t know if this is how angels see it, but by our customs, once you and Dan marry, you and I will be brothers.”

Casper tilts his head, considering that previously known but very abstract concept. “Will Lady Jessica be my sister?”

“Faintly by custom, but not at all by law,” Prince Samuel—Sam—replies. “Also, your siblings won’t be considered my siblings, but they will be Dan’s.”

“This seems needlessly complicated,” Casper tells him, but the notion of having a full set of four siblings again isn’t a bad one. With two of those siblings human, he will be back to Balthazar and Hannah alone within a century, and yet, it is still a pleasant thought.

“’Needlessly complicated’ is why I’m here,” Prince Sam says. He reaches up without looking, and Sir Robert puts the satchel in his hands. “Have you read any of the books I sent?”

Casper shakes his head. “I’ve been recovering.”

Sir Robert snorts. “Not sure what kind of ’recovery’ has Dan showing up this morning in yesterday’s rumpled clothes.”

Prince Sam’s eyes widen. “Dan did mention the consummation laws, right?”

“He did, and they were not relevant,” Casper replies. Staring down Sir Robert, he explains, “In manifesting my blade to give to Dan, I expended the majority of my energy. I can only assume he remained to monitor my condition. I was unconscious until Dame Joanna woke us this morning.”

“Well, that’s… good,” Prince Sam says slowly. He finishes unfastening the satchel’s clasps and slides out a significant number of letters. “Now, do you want to go through them chronologically, or do you want to start with the letters Seraphim Hannah and Balthazar sent you last night?”

Casper tamps down instinct and goes with reason. “Chronologically. Please.”

Nodding, Prince Sam shuffles the papers around on his lap. He hands the correct ones to Sir Robert, who then relays them to the bed. Casper kneels on the far side, the better to let his wings hang off the edge, and so there is plenty of space for the letters.

Enough space, even, that Casper would have to shuffle forward to reach with his hands.

So he doesn’t.

The eyes of both humans widen dramatically when Casper reaches with his wing. He keeps his flight feathers politely to himself, but both humans look outright amazed when Casper performs the simple task of picking up the letters with his alula, pinching the paper against the wrist of his wing. He pretends not to notice, too busy opening the unsealed envelope of the first letter by hand.

The contents take him by surprise. He doesn’t know the handwriting in ink, but it quickly becomes apparent that it belongs, in fact, to Dan. The letter is a strange combination of terse explanations, distant condolences, and barely veiled accusations. On the back of the page, there is Hannah’s reply. He reads her response with a thumb pressed against the dried blood of her words. He reads her carefully controlled grief, her frustration, her rage. He feels the faded echoes of her grace.

He reads that, in his death, they had promised his blade to Dan, and he tells himself this was merely Balthazar’s final attempt to embarrass him, even beyond the reach of life itself. Surely Casper couldn’t have been so obvious.

He reads the claim that their own arms are full and knows they can’t be; surely if Uriel died with his blade manifested, it wouldn’t allow them to accept it into themselves.

He stares at those lines much too long.

He moves on to the next letter and the next, watching information be exchanged and trust be withheld. These next are all written in ink, and the versions of Dan’s letters are all drafts, many including scratched out lines and blots of ink. He sees Dan’s anger and his siblings’ frustration. Hannah and Balthazar answer Dan’s questions for a tracking spell, and Dan’s replies cut out entirely. After that point, the letters are solely between Casper’s siblings and Prince Sam. Hannah seems to hate Prince Sam less, and, as always, it’s difficult to know Balthazar’s true feelings without seeing him in person.

The letters turn into a side commentary on the political situation. Mention of both Casper and Dan stops entirely. Balthazar takes over the writing, explaining Lucifer’s motivations at the time of his rebellion, the only archangel of the four who felt they should rule over the lowlands as well as the mountains and skies. Raphael had disdained the idea of coming down so low; Gabriel hadn’t cared for organized involvement; and Michael had been too concerned with encroaching dragons to bother about humans.

The tipping point had been Lucifer’s creation of demons. For the first time, an archangel had followers who were solely his own. At least in name, all lesser angels were shared among them. Though the management of their society had been divided, their numbers never were—in theory, if not in practice. It was that consolidation of power, rather than his abuse of lives, that had provoked action from the other three archangels, and the rest was history.

Discussion of that history lasts a few letters before one of Prince Sam’s drafts takes an entirely new direction. As Casper frowns down at the page, Prince Sam says aloud, “Sorry, that one’s a little messy.”

It’s extremely messy. In giving news that Casper might still be alive, Prince Sam had a difficult time picking his words. The hope he’d urged was a cautious one. Every letter after is a discussion-bordering-on-debate as to how Casper could have survived the blood sigil. Hannah was hopeful. Balthazar was outright dismissive of human magic in general and human tracking spells in particular. Each of their letters begins with some variation on “I presume our brother has yet to be found” and continues with Balthazar focusing on politics and Hannah interrogating Prince Sam about tracking spells for creatures living and dead.

Casper reads through them all, every open letter. Prince Sam and Sir Robert merely wait and watch, clarifying only after Casper asks a question. At last finished with the opened letters, Casper arrives at what must be last night’s mail. He pulls the letters close, transferring them from wing to hand, and the number is wrong. “Where’s the other one?” he asks.

Prince Sam doesn’t quite frown, though Sir Robert certainly makes up for his lack. “What do you mean?” Prince Sam asks.

“There’s only two,” Casper says. “Where’s—”

And he remembers.

“There’s only two,” Casper repeats, this time a statement of fact, not an argument. Only two.

He opens Balthazar’s letter first. The message is short, angry and coolly sarcastic in turns, because that is the shape of his worry. Hannah’s following sincerity is harder to bear.

He closes his eyes, holding their words in his mind. They who were five are now three, but his siblings had thought they were only two. And that is not to be borne.

“Am I permitted to reply?” Casper asks of Prince Sam.

“Of course,” Prince Sam says, looking… surprised? At the question. “You’re not our prisoner, Cas.”

Holding his gaze, Casper gestures to the walls, still chalked with warding. “I understand that you can’t risk my leaving.”

Looking up at the wards, Prince Sam nods. The shift of his jaw changes the shape of his face, and then Prince Sam stands, pushing down hard on his cane. Sir Robert shifts, perhaps to support him, perhaps to stop him, but ultimately holds position. Standing on one leg, Prince Sam drags the end of his cane across a chalk line on the wall. He breaks another line on the ceiling. When he sits, only the sigil on the door remains, and Casper could break through the wall to get around that.

“You plucked me out of the sky,” Prince Sam says. “You could have dropped me or used me, but you brought me down. You learned I was a vessel and told no one. Seraph Casper, I trust you.”

Casper bows his head. In humility, in shame, in avoidance of Sir Robert’s skeptical expression. “Thank you,” he says.

“Now let’s get you caught up on everything before Parliament wants to talk to you,” Prince Sam continues.

“Sounded like they wanted to this morning,” Sir Robert says.

“You’re officially convalescing for today,” Prince Sam tells Casper. “Parliament will be tomorrow, plus other heads of state who are sitting in. As far as they’re concerned, you’re still too out of it to sit up unaided, so I’d ask you to stay away from the windows.”

“I’ll remain in bed,” Casper promises. He can feel the air moving from there easily enough. “What must I know?”

Prince Sam outlines the arrangement as it currently stands. Three angels stationed in each nation, in defense against monsters, demons, and natural disasters; they answer directly to the head of state rather than to Raphael until the end of the term, as agreed upon in the treaty. They are forbidden from partaking in armed inter-human conflicts, from war to policing. The line of stipulations is long enough to build a mountain range upon, but there are a few glaring insults.

“The proposed term of service is three hundred years,” Casper repeats.

Prince Sam nods.

“What do you think of this?” Casper asks.

“I think we need a few clauses about countries dissolving or combining,” Prince Sam says. “A lot could happen in that time.”

Casper stares at him.