The Key

Chapter 34

They load Cas up into the carriage at first light. With a stomach full of breakfast and dread, Dan wonders how long Cas can go without food and drink. The disquieting answer is, apparently just as long as he can go without breathing.

Dan and Casper sit on the rear seat, Dan on the right, Cas on the left. His left wing is splinted and wrapped and wrapped again against Cas’ body, and his longest feathers go down farther than the seat can allow. On his right side, however, those feathers are cut short, courtesy of Lucifer’s blade, and for this reason, Dan can keep Cas tilted against him. His arm around Cas, his chin atop the crown of Cas’ head, he sits and he holds on and he waits.

The carriage bounces and rumbles. The weather stays cloudy but refuses to fully rain upon them. When they change over from Jo to horses, Dan stays inside with Cas. Though Dan’s pants fit Cas just fine, Cas’ new modified shirt is loose over the bandages, and not simply because they had to slice the back open to fit over his wings. The overall effect makes him look oddly small, dwarfed by his own wings. The bruise marring his face is just as dark as it was the day before. Dan touches it gingerly but, as both expected and feared, Cas makes no sound, no attempt to avoid Dan’s probing finger.

Jo settles down opposite them. She hates the rear-facing seat, claims it makes her sick, but there’s not a word of complaint out of her for hours, for long, slow miles. Victor and Cleric Jim push the horses just as hard as they did on their way north, and it’s time to switch back to Jo by mid-afternoon. This shifts Victor around to the indoor position, and they more or less try to ignore each other until it’s time for the carriage to stop for the night. It’s one thing to have Jo napping across from them. It’s another to have Victor watch him physically support the angel they both, unofficially, know to be an infiltrator and attempted thief.

They stop at an actual roadhouse tonight, which only helps discretion so much when they’re carrying in an unconscious angel with them. They ease Cas into one of the lower bunks and Dan sleeps across from him.

In the morning, they get up and repeat the whole day over again. Cas doesn’t start breathing, but he doesn’t start stinking either. More and more, all he looks like is an injured man sleeping it off, eternally frozen between breaths. During the late morning changeover from Jo back to horses, Dan risks a moment of privacy for a moment of stupidity.

Dan has no magic. He knows this. The kingdom and perhaps the entire known world knows this. He has no magic and he is no vessel, and yet, for one pointless attempt, he tries.

He tilts Cas’ head. He presses his mouth to slack lips and breathes into him.

As it had when the doctor had done it, Cas’ chest rises, but the breath doesn’t take. Up and down, Cas’ chest goes, just the once and no more than that.

Nothing else happens.

Nothing else was ever going to.

“If you wake up right now, I won’t be pissed,” Dan promises, fetching yet another broom for the moon. “Wake up and I’ll forgive you.”

Limp against Dan’s side, Cas doesn’t wake.

“Fine,” Dan tells him. “Be that way.” And he reflexively holds Cas closer when Jo opens the door to climb inside.

Another night, another roadhouse.

On the final morning of speeding back to the capital, Victor decides to call him on it.

“I imagine you’ll have to wait until he heals for the wedding,” Victor remarks. “Has the king set a date yet?”

A bump in the road sets them all bouncing, and it’s almost as if Cas nuzzles against Dan’s neck. But though his hair brushes against Dan’s jaw, there’s no warm breath to accompany it. Dan smooths his hair back down in a gesture that’s grown all too natural during this journey.

“You’d have to ask him,” Dan replies. “I just do as I’m told. You know that, Victor. What with treason and all.”

“A heavy word,” Victor says.

Dan looks him in the eyes and says, “We need the alliance. Unless you have a better idea for stopping an archangel who can make demons at will.”

“No,” Victor admits after too long a pause. “But inviting in more angels who could destroy us feels foolhardy. Of course, the king must know many things I do not.”

The angels already have their own kingdom. They claim not to care for land, or at least not, as they phrase it, for the land below. They have powerful magic and possess such long lifespans that they could probably nap through a human monarch’s entire rule. They’ve expressed disdain toward the very idea of trade goods and declared themselves self-sufficient.

“The king knows many things,” Dan agrees. He adjusts his cheek atop Cas’ head. “And we will follow where he leads.”

“Will he?” Victor asks, nodding toward Cas. “After all, your father has never appreciated threats toward his plans. If the angel were to die now, after the kingdom has seen proof that you would have married him, His Majesty’s plans hold.”

And Dan did leave the archangel blade at the castle.

He doesn’t hesitate.

“When we change to horses, ride ahead,” Dan instructs. “We’ll reach the castle before Jo’s ready for a second round, so you’ll get there at least an hour before we do. Go to Sam, tell him we’re close, and let him know Cas is unconscious and dehydrated. He’ll know what to do. You tell him that, and then you take the rest of the week off unless he has further need of you.”

Victor weighs him with his eyes, but against what, Dan has no idea. Against King John, he almost wants to think, except Victor doesn’t seem to find him lacking in the comparison. “As you will it, Prince. Shall I report his condition beyond the unconsciousness and dehydration?”

“Sam already knows the rest,” Dan explains. He shrugs with his right shoulder only, so as not to jostle Cas. “It being Sam and all.”

Victor nods, for once not questioning something. Sam’s good for provoking that kind of lack of reaction. “And should His Majesty seek to question me?”

“Tell him Cas’ entire condition,” Dan replies. All the better to hide the code word. Dehydration for liquid, liquid for cups, and cups for vessels. Sam will be waiting for that signal, even if their father has already expressly forbidden him from acting upon it. It’s exactly the kind of disobedience Sam can get away with. “After all, the king should know everything.”

“Yes, Prince,” says Victor in the tone of a man who knows the shape of what is withheld from him.

“I can get Cas on board,” Dan says, no if or condition about it. “Don’t worry about that.”

“If you’ll listen to the advice of a man three times divorced,” Victor replies, “that is a very poor way to start a marriage.”

Dan snorts. “It was a f*****g awful way to start a courtship, but here we are.”

Victor very nearly grins.

Cleric Jim drives the team. Victor rides on ahead. Jo lightly dozes in the front seat. As always, the horses are jarringly slow after Jo, but Dan can feel his heart racing with them.

Broken and bruised, Cas lies still against him. The angel blade hasn’t sunk any deeper into his arm. For all Dan knows, Cas could stay in this exact condition for years. Dan could stow him somewhere safe until he’s certain about everything else. Dan could hide him for the rest of the day and then shove him through the portal at seven, or midnight. Dan could do a lot of things other than risking his father’s wrath and his brother’s life.

“Hey,” Jo says, sitting up with the slow ache of travel-stiff joints. “We there yet?”

Dan shakes his head, cheek brushing against Cas’ hair in a way that might be deliberate. The guy might need a more thorough scrubbing than a roadhouse sponge bath, but at least he doesn’t smell like the bottom of a lake anymore.

“If he doesn’t marry you, I’ll stab him,” Jo offers, like that’s something they’ve actually been talking about.

“Leave it,” Dan says, and Jo shrugs.

“If you need to do a Last Unwed Kiss in front of your dad,” she says, “me and Bobby would agree it was the first time.”

“I know,” Dan says. “But leave it.”

The carriage rattles on.

Through the outskirts, through the city proper, and up the castle road, they go. They continue past the circle where all the carriages unloaded the guests for Sam’s party and wedding, and head straight on to the mews.

When the carriage comes to a stop, the door opens before Dan or Jo can reach for it.

“Prince,” says Victor.

“Been a while,” Dan greets him.

“The angel’s to be brought upstairs, to the stable master’s apartments,” Victor says.

Dan goes with the obvious question. “Why?”

“Because this is one of the only buildings left in the palatial complex that isn’t warded,” Victor explains, which is admittedly a very good reason. “Where the stable master is staying, I couldn’t tell you.”

“He moved in with the head cook two weeks ago,” Jo says, climbing out of the carriage ahead of Dan. “Things have been a bit too busy for most people to notice.” She turns around, braced, as if expecting Dan to simply dump Cas’ entire weight on her. If anything, their arrival on the castle grounds makes Dan hold onto Cas more tightly than ever.

“Where’s Sam?” Dan asks.

“About that,” Victor says.

In the two hour period until Parliament takes a recess, Dan slowly goes mad. To her credit as his new sister, Jess slowly goes mad with him.

Or maybe Dan’s the one who goes mad with her. After the past few days they’ve both had, it’s getting hard to tell.

“The king knows Sam wants to heal him,” Jess tells him the moment they’re alone. As much as Dan wants to insist otherwise, Cas doesn’t really count for company at the moment. “So of course he hasn’t let Sam out of his sight for days.”

“Must have made for an awkward wedding night,” Dan only half-jokes.

“The broken leg is more of the problem there, actually,” Jess says, which is more information than Dan ever needed to know. “In any case, they’re currently putting to Parliament whether we should send Casper back through immediately or wait until he wakes up.”

Careful to avoid his wing, Dan sits down on the bed next to him. His back to Cas’ face, he keeps his eyes on Cas’ boots. On his own boots, actually, the dress pair he’d worn to Sam’s wedding. Cas’ boots hadn’t survived ten days submerged in the lake, and that was the only other dry pair they’d had on hand. The trousers are Dan’s extra road pair, too. The shirt, plain and off-white, Jo had bought off… someone. Cut the slashes down the back herself.

He tucks the shirt back under Cas’ side. The front side, more of a front flap now, keeps trying to lift up in odd ways and leave his sides bare. If Cas’ body is warm now, does that mean he can feel cold?

Dan forces his mind to questions he can find answers to. “Why does Dad say he’s pro-chucking Cas through the portal?”

“It would speed up the treaty by allowing the angels to send another emissary,” Jess replies. “He keeps stressing that we don’t know how long it will take Cas to recover, or if he even will. Sam says the most infuriating part of His Majesty’s argument is that Sam can’t tell anyone he can wake Cas up himself.”

“How’s Sam countering instead?”

“He’s not let anyone forget for a minute that Cas saved all four of you,” Jess says. “He’s been stirring up egos, saying we have to try to return the favor ourselves.”

“Sensible action versus ego?” Dan says. “Sounds like Sam is going to win.”

“To keep him here, at least,” Jess says.

Nodding absently, tiredly, Dan looks around the room. As bedrooms go, it succeeds in being more room than bed. The stable master certainly has cleared out thoroughly, too; while the furniture of the apartment remains, all personal touches are gone. A desk with no chair sits in front of one window. A bookshelf and wardrobe frame the other. Though all three are of slightly mismatching wood, each appears equally empty. It’s a room in transition, and it sits with Dan poorly.

“We’re going to need to ward the room,” he says, sighing.

“Do you think Lucifer-”

“No,” Dan interrupts. Then, gentler: “No. But that’s what we’re going to tell people. Gotta keep that threat out while Cas is recovering.”

Gotta keep Cas inside, once he’s conscious. Whether Cas is severely weakened or not, he can probably bolt out of an unwarded room as easily as opening a door.

The door is the first thing he does, drawing with the chalk Jo brings him. She comes with the writing kit as well. She and Jess jointly remove Cas’ shirt and bandages, the better for Jo to copy the blood sigil, the better for Jess to try to heal it, after.

Cleric Jim had described trying to heal Cas as being like trying to spread solid metal with a paintbrush. Jess’s reaction is a less poetic, “He won’t budge.”

Dan wards the windowsills, not wanting to leave the warding sigil somewhere so easily seen from outside as on the panes of glass themselves. He stands on the desk and draws on the ceiling. On the rationale of mandatory bed rest, he continues on the floor, pushing aside the one remaining rug. He completes the warding as thoroughly as he’s ever completed anything, but even secure in the knowledge that Cas can’t escape, he’s still unsatisfied. He may have wondered once or thrice about confining Cas to a bed, but in those dreams, Cas had featured as an enthusiastic participant, not a political prisoner. The wards surrounding the unconscious angel are as unnerving a sight as they are a necessary one.

As he works, he half-listens to Jess and Jo talk magic. Jo describes the sensation of having her flames wrested away from her by King John, and Dan steadfastly does not think about Lucifer. Jess talks about Cas’ stubborn body’s refusal to let her heal him, and the pair of mages seem to find similarity in this, that maybe the magic of Cas’ life simply outclasses Jess’ ability to heal.

It’s all theories, all ways to bide the time, and then there’s nothing left but to wipe his hands on his pants, sit next to Cas, and wait.

When it happens, it happens like this:

King John has Dan’s sword. Michael’s sword. He wears it in the warded sheath Dan commissioned, a speedy turnaround at under two weeks.

Sam wears his gloves but Dan holds Sam’s warded shirt. If anything goes wrong, Sam is to take a step back, planting his feet on the warding sigil chalked onto the floor.

Jo is stationed outside the bedroom door, in the stable master’s former office, to ensure their privacy. Herself now warded, Jess is there for Sam. Bobby is ostensibly there as a security measure, though there’s very little he could actually do. Still, when the king and the back-up king are in the same room, certain things are obligatory.

King John wants Cas strapped down in warded restraints. Sam has a few choice words about diplomacy. King John relents, if it can be called relenting when his hand remains ever upon the archangel blade.

King John also wants Dan out of the room. Dan swears his silence and promises not to intervene, save where Sam’s safety is concerned. Sam adds that Dan’s presence might make Cas more willing to talk. Dan is allowed to remain.

With all debate settled, they take their positions. A statue of flesh, Cas lies in the center of the room. Sam remains on the side of the bed closest to the door, their father directly beside him. Opposite them, Dan leans against the desk below the window, arms crossed, hands tied. On his side is Jess, who demonstrates the proper method to administer a breath of life. She tilts Cas’ head back, pinches his nose, and breathes into him herself. His chest rises and falls, just the once.

“Like that,” Jess tells Sam.

Leaning over Cas, half-kneeling over the bed with his cast hanging off, Sam puts his gloved hands where Jess guides them. He inhales deeply, holds the breath, and lowers his head.

For three days, their entire journey, Cas hasn’t moved an inch. Not a breath. Not a twitch.

The second Sam touches him directly, Cas’ entire body jerks. His feet, his fingers. His wings, the left straining against the splints. The red lines cut into his chest pull together. A deeper wound in his side begins to close up. The immense bruise of his face lightens. The blade set into his left arm, however, doesn’t sink in any further.

Sam holds on and exhales steadily. He lifts off, inhales, and goes back in, already looking paler than he should. Jess moves forward, but Sam waves her back, his other gloved hand still on Cas’ forehead. He exhales a second time.

Cas’ hand flies up off the bed.

In rapid, heart-stopping succession, Cas grabs Sam by the back of the head, fists his hand in Sam’s long hair—and pulls Sam off him.

He coughs in Sam’s face. Twice.

Then, squinting, still holding Sam by the hair and using the most offended tone Dan has ever heard out of him, Cas rasps, “You’re not Dan.”

An incredulous laugh bursts out of Sam, coughed on or not. “Um. No.”