The Key

Chapter 23

He watches Dan’s eyes as he does, and is treated to the rare sight of green fire. Only then does Casper lower their hands. He does not let go, and neither does Dan. People are watching, some blatant in their stares, and to say Dan doesn’t seem to care would be a falsehood. Dan revels in the act of ignoring their audience. Regardless of the number of their watchers, this moment is for them alone. Casper clings to it, to the moment, to Dan’s attention, to every last touch.

“Nice touch with the wings,” Dan says. His free hand rises over Casper’s shoulder to stroke the ribbon held in place under his right alula. “Your own idea, or ancient angel records or something?”

“My brother’s idea,” Casper says, not wanting to seem too forward. Whether Balthazar meant it as support or mockery, Casper still isn’t certain, but it is, on a practical level, the only means they had available to enhance his “costume” for the final night.

“It looks good,” Dan says, this thumb brushing over alula and ribbon alike. If Dan touched Casper’s palm that way, Casper would immediately take hold of his finger; not doing the same here is a challenge, limited reach of his alula or not.

Casper instead responds by shifting his shoulder back, and Dan relinquishes the contact. Despite being the one to instigate the change, Casper dislikes it, and he compensates by holding Dan’s hand tighter. “Thank you,” he remembers to say, as if he isn’t dressed for a joining ceremony, ready to exchange the keeping of his blade for Dan’s. Speaking of which: “You’ve taken that into your personal armory, then.”

“Changed up the daily training a little this morning,” Dan replies with a shrug. He leans in close with a private grin. “And now we match.”

“Match,” Casper echoes, irrationally checking that he has not, in fact, summoned his own blade. It would be trapped inside his sleeve if he had, with the way the woven ribbons down his arms are secured into a tighter cuff than the norm.

“Angel blade and angel wings?” Dan prompts, still holding himself close. Beyond their hands, though, they do not touch, and Casper uses the distraction of proximity as an excuse for his confusion.

“Right,” he says, intentionally staring at Dan’s mouth. He pulls his eyes up to meet Dan’s, and now they are both distracted.

“Where do you want to start tonight?” Dan asks. “I’m thinking we steer clear of the throne room, it’s getting pretty formal in there. Plus, if my mom sees you, she’s definitely going to snag a dance.”

Casper looks at Dan’s mouth again. He has slightly over four hours left with this man, and he knows how he’d like to spend at least some of that time. “The library?” he suggests.

“We gotta work on your idea of a good party, man,” Dan says. Despite his words, he clearly understands Casper’s meaning, enough to lick his lips over it. They are still in a crowded hall and people are still watching, but even so.

Even so.

“I would be most appreciative of your tutelage,” Casper promises.

“In that case…” Dan’s grin turns teasing before he pulls away. Though there’s no contact down Casper’s side to sever, he grows cold all the same, even as Dan tugs Casper after him. Dan tucks Casper’s hand into the crook of his elbow and the resulting position is a closer one as they walk. When Casper seeks to turn, Dan keeps him on a different path, one Casper looks askance at.

“Party basics, Cas,” Dan explains as they pass the stairs. “Food and booze.”

They enter the great hall, which is as full of people as it is music and refreshments. Casper cares for none of it, save for perhaps the music. But where Dan goes, Casper follows. He cannot do otherwise.

At the tables loaded with unfamiliar and presumably edible items, Dan begins his tutelage. Casper feigns interest to the best of his ability, which is to say, poorly. Grinning widely, Dan immediately calls him on it.

“You’d think a guy living on university fare would want to take advantage of this situation here,” Dan says, gesturing with his own loaded plate.

“I’m not hungry,” Casper explains.

“Now I know that’s not true,” Dan says, and he closes one of his eyes. It’s clearly a euphemism, but Casper isn’t entirely certain as to its meaning. “I know for a fact you were ravenous yesterday. Don’t tell me you’re already full.”

The euphemism is now clear.

“No,” Casper answers, refusing to look away from Dan’s face. “It’s a more specific hunger.”

Dan smirks, leaning closer. “You got yourself a craving, huh?”

Casper locks eyes with him. He holds Dan’s gaze long and steady, and he does not move until Dan’s smirk slips. Then, and only then, does he permit his eyes to drop to Dan’s mouth. When Dan licks his lips, Casper rumbles, “Yes.”

Already in the shadow of his mask, Dan’s eyes darken further. His nostrils flare. Experience tells Casper that there is a faint pink tinge to Dan’s cheeks, currently hidden. A small pastry falls off Dan’s plate and back onto the table as Dan leans even closer to hiss in Casper’s ear, “Dude, you can’t say that shit.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d said anything inappropriate,” Casper replies, very much entranced by the way Dan bends toward him. Though technically chest to chest, they’re offset slightly, the better to whisper closely. Very easily, Casper could set his free hand upon Dan’s hip, but the presence of Michael’s sword does more to stop him than any number of onlookers.

“You know what you’re doing,” Dan tells him, breath hot on Casper’s ear when Dan’s mouth would be hotter. They’re looking past each other, over each other’s shoulders. If Dan would simply turn his head, they could be kissing. “You can’t do that here, Cas.”

“Then tell me where,” Casper instructs.

Dan does turn his head, but not for kissing. His nose presses against the top of Casper’s ear, the deer mask brushing Casper’s hair. Hotly, so hotly, Dan whispers, “Cas, if you don’t want to end tonight with me taking you up against a wall, you gotta rein it in, now .”

Casper’s eyes flicker shut. He tries to keep them open but the heat of Dan’s words and his own imagination are too strong.

“Not a bad way to top things off,” Dan continues, almost out of breath at his own thoughts as well. “But I get the feeling you’re not ready for that.”

Casper swallows down air and hope and disappointment. “You’re right,” he says, infuriated to know what he could have had under better, more honest circumstances. “My wings would be in the way.”

Eyes as wide as they are dark, Dan pulls away sharply to look him in the face. “Is that the only issue? Because if that’s the only issue…”

“That’s not the only issue,” Casper reluctantly admits.

“That’s fine,” Dan says too quickly. He steps back for further measure, the sudden lack of him as displeasing as an airless void. “That’s totally fine.”

“It isn’t,” Casper says. He would know this man carnally, if he could, with a desire as strong as it is sudden and unsettling. He would know this man in so many ways.

“We’ll have more time,” Dan assures him, a promise as casual as the motions of his hands as he fills Casper’s plate for him. “There, that’s the good stuff.”

Casper accepts both the food and change of subject with as much patience as he can. “I would have thought it was all ‘the good stuff.’”

“Yeah, but that’s going by Sam’s standards.” Dan proceeds to explain Prince Samuel’s standards and why they are awful. Finding the entire thing absurd, Casper doesn’t pretend to understand.

With Dan no longer pressed so closely against Casper’s side, other party-goers presume their conversation to be open for newcomers. Thus, Casper endures a group discussion on matters he knows little about and cares for even less. Each moment is another moment wasted until Casper simply gives up the pretense of being sociable and chooses to watch Dan instead.

Dan is talkative. He doesn’t bloom under the attention but neither does he wilt. It takes debate for him to thrive, even one as inconsequential as the respective merits of various pastry forms. However ludicrous, his arguments are clearly keenly felt. He is drawn most to those who stand against him; though he acknowledges his allies and their contributions, it is his opposition he encourages most to speak, the better to attack them. Where Dan is rude, he is fond. Where Dan is polite, there is another implication.

Standing beside Dan, emptying the plate Dan had filled for him, Casper slowly formulates his own opinions on foodstuffs. Namely, that chewing on them neatly excuses the chewer from conversing, and thus small plates ought to be carried for tactical purposes.

When his at last is empty, he touches Dan’s elbow and excuses himself from the circle of conversation. He returns with a glass in each hand and though his spot has been filled in his absence, it is quickly cleared once more. He passes Dan the extra drink and receives a smile in return. While Casper is uncertain what the beverage actually is, it’s the same as they drank that first night outside in the courtyard and, looking into Dan’s eyes, it’s clear Dan recalls.

How strange, to be so sentimental over something so recent.

They drink while others talk, and Casper is increasingly prodded to speak by those around them. Discussion of fashion garners looks at his sleeves. Mention of current events results in looks between him and Dan. Every manner of comment has a barb of curiosity behind it, and Casper keeps his silence, save for when Dan speaks to him.

Eventually, there comes a question Casper cannot avoid without giving offense. Such are the dangers of being singled out. A nobleman asks him directly whether, having made a study of angels, Casper has also made a study of the ancient tongue. “It’s an area of interest of mine, you see,” the man explains. Had he wings, they would be fluffed and fanning, full of pride and empty air.

“Do you speak it as well as read it? ” Casper responds in the dialect of his youth, the accent coming more easily than modern pronunciation does. Perhaps that’s the reason Balthazar refuses to adapt with the times.

Eyes widening fractionally, the nobleman responds almost in kind. “My, how finery your sounds.”

“I thank you for the compliment and question your understanding,” Casper replies.

Thoroughly answering that question, the man responds by laughing as if at a fine jest. The woman standing across from him, however, says, “The question is fair. Your words do not wear clothes.”

Casper looks to her with abrupt interest, only for Dan to slip his hand through the crook of Casper’s elbow.

“Better stop that here, before you two start talking all night,” Dan says. His empty glass has vanished somewhere, a feat that occurs with remarkable frequency around the prince. “As lovely as your company has been, I need to dance with an angel.” With that, he withdraws Casper from a group of his own making.

“Is there a reason you didn’t want me talking to her?” Casper asks quietly as they move to the portion of the room reserved for dancing.

“Who?” Dan asks.

“The woman dressed as a storm cloud,” Casper clarifies.

“What?” Dan says. “Oh, uh, no, Lady Linda’s fine. I mean, you might have wound up getting grilled about whether you’ve seen her son at the university, but, uh, no. Nothing wrong with her.”

“Then…?” The abrupt departure speaks of jealousy, as does the rapid reclaiming of Casper’s arm.

Dan tugs him into position with firm hands. They count for three beats before beginning to move, and it’s clear Dan views this as a distraction.

“Dan?” Casper prompts.

“I’m just saying,” Dan tells him, feigning irritation, “if you could find some way of talking that isn’t sexy as f**k, I wouldn’t have to haul you away for a bit of privacy.”

“This isn’t privacy,” Casper says. Only says, not complains.

“It’s closer to privacy,” Dan says, and he’s watching Casper’s mouth instead of watching where they’re going. Casper takes the lead easily, but as much as he’d enjoy guiding Dan into twists and turns, there is something to be said for remaining face-to-face.

“We could get privacy,” Casper says. Says, not suggests.

Dan bites his lip, indecision clearly warring across his features.

Casper presses his advantage. He keeps his eyes on Dan’s as much as he can without bumping them into another couple, and he lowers his hand from Dan’s waist to his hip. He speaks in the oldest dialect of his fledgling years, saying, “I would hold you properly before we part. Are you not tired of aching? ”

Through the holes of his mask, Dan’s eyes are wide and round and dark. His lips, parted and lush, faintly shine after he licks them. “I have no idea what you said,” he says, voice low and breathless from far more than the exertion of dancing.

Casper lifts their arms, guiding Dan into a turn, but he catches Dan halfway through, keeping Dan’s back nearly against his front. Dan copes well with the transition, effectively reversing his steps without a stumble. He only makes the slightest misstep when Casper rumbles into his ear, “You know exactly what I said.”

“s**t, Cas,” Dan curses softly, as soft as the brush of his hair against the side of Casper’s face. Casper’s feathered mask forbids much of the touch, but below it, this is a sensation to be savored.

After three more steps, there’s an opening for another turn, and Dan takes it, rotating himself in such a way as to drag against Casper’s hands. Again facing Casper, Dan looks more than half ready to kiss him then and there, regardless of their audience.

Their legs nearly interlaced from one step to the next, Casper shifts closer.

Dan catches him, a hand against his chest.

“Dan?”

“Eleven,” Dan says.

Casper blinks. “Eleven what?”

“O’clock,” Dan says.

“Eleven,” Casper repeats.

“Yeah.”

The hour is still closer to eight than it is nine. Three hours have never loomed so long.

“Why?” Casper asks.

“I, uh,” Dan says, unhelpfully licking his lips again. “I’ve been, um. I’m supposed to be at least a little social at this thing, right? Talk to people besides this one awesome guy I found.”

“You’ve already stopped,” Casper points out.

“A short us-break,” Dan says. “And then back to it.”

“Short?” Casper echoes as the song draws to a close.

“Not that short. One full song, then back in.”

This is almost acceptable, save for the part where there is no kissing involved.

“I know,” Dan says, somehow reading Casper’s emotions by his facial features alone. “Just gotta hold out until eleven.”

“What happens then?”

“Speeches,” Dan explains, taking the lead for this next dance. The beat is faster, and Casper entrusts himself to Dan accordingly. “All the big talk about the future of the kingdom starts around eleven. Eleven-thirty, Sam gives away his Last Unwed Kiss, then more speeches. Midnight, he and Jess kiss and are officially engaged.”

This is even worse news. “Don’t you have to be there?”

Dan shakes his head. “Talked it over with Sam. Everyone else is going to pack into the throne room for a look, so that’s us with the courtyard all to ourselves.”

“And I can kiss you then?” Casper asks.

“You’d better,” Dan tells him with the utmost seriousness.

“The moment you let me, I will,” Casper promises.

The way Dan looks at him then, Casper will remember for the rest of his life. He knows he will.

“Cas, I,” Dan starts to say. He stops himself, locking that thought away behind his teeth where Casper is not yet permitted to taste it. Instead, Dan says, “I don’t have your address.”

“What?” says Casper.

“To write to you,” Dan says, coaxing Casper through a turn. “I don’t have your address.”

“Write to me at the university,” Casper says after a pause.

“Why?” Dan asks, a reasonable yet dreaded question.

“Because if you think Balthazar wouldn’t read your letters before giving them to me, then I haven’t properly explained him to you,” Casper answers. “And if you came in person without warning, I don’t think Uriel would ever forgive me.”

“He knows it’s illegal to open your mail, right?” Dan asks. “When it’s from me, that’s extra illegal.”

“If you write to me at the university,” Casper says, “you won’t have to arrest my brother.”

Dan laughs, shaking his head. “Your family sounds kind of ridiculous.”

For a few precious moments, conversation is set aside in favor of movement and touching and the coordination that comes of longing for that touch.

Then Dan quietly asks, “Is it a bad enough part of town that you don’t want to say?”

“It’s nowhere I’d want you to go,” Casper says honestly. “Write to me at the university.”

Having already pulled Casper close, Dan pulls Casper closer. “We’re getting you out of there,” Dan promises, a kindness beyond what he knows.

“We need that,” Casper admits. “Very much.”

“We’re getting you out,” Dan repeats. As they pull apart in the dance, they’re meant to touch hands before their faces, palm upon palm, but Dan reaches farther, his hand alighting upon Casper’s cheek. Casper reciprocates barely in time, gaining little more than a brush of his fingers down Dan’s jaw.

This song ends soon after, and with linked arms and heavy sighs, they rejoin the rest of the party.

Dan converses with other humans while Casper looks on. Dan talks and laughs and smiles and grins, in full possession of all the charm and social grace Casper has never known. Though Casper has spent much of the past few days wondering how his current situation came to pass, the question makes itself keenly felt tonight. Dan could truly have anyone he desires. Though perhaps not wielding direct power, Dan has a position of influence. When he deigns to use it, Dan has a tongue skillful in far more than kissing. He displays an unexpected level of intelligence for any creature under three mere decades of age. There is much in him to draw anyone in.

Dan will not lack for opportunities to move on from Casper. He will be betrayed and furious, but he will not be alone. Even now, with his body turned toward Casper’s, his shoulder pressing back against the edge of Casper’s wing, Dan draws in a crowd. Once Casper vacates this spot, both literally and metaphorically, others will clamor to take his place. Even now, and based solely on what body language Casper has gleaned from Dan himself, Casper can see the interest toward Dan on more than a few faces.

And that, Casper tells himself firmly, is good. Dan deserves happiness, and Casper has no legitimate claim over his affections. Even in the best of all worlds, Casper could only have perhaps fifty years with him.

And yet, another piece of himself protests, fifty years would be a glut of time, compared to a paltry five days.

The point is moot. His people’s freedom—his own freedom—shall be luxury enough. Someday, when Dan is little more than a historical footnote in the annals of King Samuel’s reign, Casper may believe this with his heart as well as his mind.

For now, he stands by Dan’s side and wastes precious minute after precious minute, listening to Dan discuss a hypothetical plan for Prince Samuel’s visions, somehow involving calendars.

“For every mishap my brother’s visions prevent, there’s a dozen more he can do nothing about because he doesn’t recognize the inside of every house in the country,” Dan is explaining. “That’s just not humanly possible to do, but if every building had a marker to show what town it was in, we could narrow that down.”

“And should these town-specific markers also be calendars, His Royal Highness would know when his visions took place,” another man in the group continues in realization. “A valid point, Your Highness, but the implementation would be quite the undertaking.”

“It would,” Dan readily agrees, all smooth smiles and smoother voice. “But it would be an endeavor worth funding, from manufacture to implementation. I’m sure my brother would be very interested to hear from anyone who thinks they could pull it off.” He looks to Casper as if he hasn’t been baiting a hook for an entire new industry, purely for his brother’s benefit. “What do you think, Cas, paper or wooden tile calendars?”

“Wooden tile would be more durable, if initially more work,” Casper replies, slightly unnerved that stone isn’t considered an option.

Discussion takes off from there, easily cutting Casper back out of the conversation. Through the words of those gathered, Casper pieces together that these are various heads of industry. Having just instigated an impromptu business meeting, Dan stands back, munching on a plate of miniature pastries while he listens. He pipes in with occasional pieces of input but otherwise allows the idea to take off on its own. Apparently pleased at its direction, Dan bows out of the conversation he himself began, pulling Casper with him.

“Business before pleasure,” Dan remarks mournfully, one of his cheeks bulging with food in a way even Casper knows is very rude.

“Was that your idea?” Casper asks.

Dan shrugs, handing off his empty plate to a passing servant and snagging two fluted glasses of something amber and sparkling. As easy and thoughtless as breathing, he presses one of these into Casper’s hands. “A kid, actually,” Dan says. “Can’t remember her name now, it was a while back. Her parents were taken by vamps and her brother blamed Sam for not having a vision to protect them. That little girl stopped crying and told him off. Said something like ‘it’s not like we have a calendar with our address on it,’ so how could Sam have known where to send his knights? Smart kid.”

“And you took her literally.”

“Hey, if there’s a better plan, someone will come up with it,” Dan says, again shrugging. “I figure it can’t hurt to tell a few people, especially if some of those people happen to own a shitload of printing presses.”

Liking Dan is easy. Being drawn to him is complicated in theory, but simple and irresistible in practice.

Admiring him is painful.

“What?” Dan asks.

Casper stalls by drinking, which is obviously a strategy Dan already knows well. Rather than strain Dan’s patience with a second swallow, Casper resorts to honesty. “I think it should frighten me, how fond of you I’ve become.”

For the second time that night, though with an entirely different inflection, Dan tells him, “Cas, you can’t just say s**t like that.”

“You asked,” Casper reminds him.

Dan steers them both back toward one of the refreshment tables. It’s emptier than the rest, empty trays being taken away to be replaced by fully laden platters, and so the space offers the best pretense of privacy to be found in the room.

“Are you?” Dan asks, his hand warm on Casper’s elbow. The woven ribbons over Casper’s sleeve press between Dan’s palm and Casper’s arm, reminding him acutely of the ribbons woven through his feathers. When he returns to their realm tonight, Casper is going to strangle Balthazar for dressing him in a mating display. He’s already berating himself for allowing it.

“Am I what?” Casper asks, his mind having wandered too far. So many lapses around this man, too many.

“Scared,” Dan says, his posture that of a warrior and protector. Everything from the cant of his head to the set of his shoulders indicates a willingness not just to fight, but to do battle. Thinking Casper defenseless, Dan prepares to lay siege on his behalf.

Casper tries to consider the question in the context Dan intends it. Despite his best efforts, he considers it further and longer than that.

Ultimately, he tilts his head to a playful angle he doesn’t feel and replies, “Is that something I’m allowed to say?”

“Cas,” Dan says.

“Your instructions were inconsistent.”

Though Dan leans in, he simultaneously pushes Casper back with a hand on his shoulder. Casper permits himself to be moved. “We can hold out until eleven,” Dan says, and Casper recognizes the rearrangement of their positions as an aborted kiss.

“Maybe we should dance again,” Casper suggests. He borrows a phrase from last night. “It might take the edge off.”

“I think that’s one edge that’s only gonna get sharper with use,” Dan says, exposing the peculiarities of the idiom. It makes sense in context; Casper’s heard that blades made of metal grow blunt.

“Even so,” Casper says, because true relief is still nearly two hours away. Because as much as he wants that time to pass, it’s all he has left , and that is just as unbearable.

“You really don’t like parties, huh,” Dan says. He hooks his fingers into the woven ribbon down Casper’s arm.

“I’m not skilled at socializing,” Casper explains.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dan says. He frowns at the way his words run Casper through, the tension of Casper’s body clearly apparent to him through his touch on Casper’s arm.

To no avail, he bids himself to relax. “You’ll find your abilities compensate for my own.”

Dan frowns deeper. His eyes narrow before widening, a display of familiar motions full of foreign meanings. He lifts his chin, and his hold on Casper’s arm turns from stabilizing comfort to something more authoritative. “Bullshit,” Dan says. “Look, I get feeling out of place. I know I don’t look it, but I do. You can hack this. C’mon, I’ll prove it.”

Taking a quick scan around the room, Dan leads him to another conversing cluster. Lady Linda stands on the periphery, and it is to her they go. Spotting Casper, her face lights up, both in expression and in actuality. The mask of her storm cloud costume features four arching tendrils of tamed lightning, crossing her dark hair like so many headbands.

Dan barely has time for re-introductions before Lady Linda resumes their previous discussion, such as it was. Her accent is at once thick and too round, and it takes a few moments of conversing for Casper to realize that it isn’t truly an accent. It’s pronunciation. It’s the modern reinterpretation of what is, to humans, a dead language.

This time, Dan is the one who stands by without a role in the conversation, truly uncomprehending. Working off of something other than words, he nods along in all the right places until Casper is embroiled in a debate on proper vowel emphasis. Then Dan leans in to murmur “I gotta keep making the rounds” in a tone of explanation, not apology.

To Lady Linda – and to anyone listening – Dan adds, “I expect him back when you’re done with him.”