valley

[wldnst]

part 1

“Yusuf just does that,” Eames said when they’re back on horseback. “We’ve known each other for a long time. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not,” Arthur says. “Worried about it, I mean.”

“Are you sure, because I know some--”

“Do you just ride border patrol, over and over again, and not pay attention to anything else that happens here? Did you not ask around court for gossip when you heard you’d be riding with me? Really, Eames, because you are woefully ill-informed.”

“Oh,” Eames said, drawing out the syllable and giving Arthur a lazy, hooded glance. “Oh. That’s interesting.”

“Interesting isn’t the word I’d use,” Arthur said.

“What word would you use, then?”

“Irrelevant,” Arthur said, tightly. He could feel his legs tensing around Rota’s back, and Rota responding in turn--he tried to relax the clench in his muscles.

“Irrelevant, is it?” Eames asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said. “I thought you said Yusuf wouldn’t know me for a prince.”

“Well he didn’t know you for a witch, did he?” Eames asked sharply. “Maybe he wouldn’t know you for a prince if you didn’t act like one.”

They were quiet for awhile after that, and they didn’t pass through the hollow with the red house on their return to the border. When they were back on the border track Arthur asked Eames how long he’d known Yusuf, for something to say.

“Grew up together,” Eames replied. “More or less, though Yusuf went off to the city to work with an alchemist for a few years. And not long after he came back, I skipped the kingdom, so that was the end of that.”

“The end of what, exactly?” Arthur asked.

“I haven’t seen him since I left Morrow,” Eames said. “I don’t know what his life is like now.”

“And yet you trust him enough to bring him on this?”

“Yusuf is loyal to alchemy and money,” Eames said, shrugging. “It makes him trustworthy, in a strange way.”

“Right, of course it does,” Arthur said, tightening his hands on the reins. “It makes him trustworthy like a mercenary, or a merchant.”

“He has some ideas about using witches to bring other people into dreams,” Eames said. “It’s nothing anyone else is doing. Well--we might’ve done it, the other night.”

Eames grinned wryly at that.

“With alchemy?” Arthur asked. “So does this involve gold somehow?”

“I’m impressed that you managed to restrain that skepticism while we were meeting with Yusuf,” Eames said. “Truly an astonishing feat of self control.”

“It’s alchemy. There’s no evidence that any of it works,” Arthur said.

“Says the witch,” Eames said. “But please do get all your feelings about alchemy out now, because you’ll have to refrain when we reconvene with Yusuf. Though I should note that there is evidence that what he does works, even if it’s not gold.”

“I know you didn’t believe in witches,” Arthur said. “But witches and alchemists are nothing alike.”

“Of course not,” Eames said, before adding mildly: “Let’s talk about this again after you’ve had a chance to work with Yusuf. He is good, for all his faults.”

It was not quite the conversation Arthur wanted to have, but it was a conversation without any undercurrents, which was a start.

They broke for the night early to allow more time for Yusuf to catch up (and his mule, which Arthur really needed to ask about, if they were to ride the rest of the patrol with a mule and a cart), and as a result the pair of them were together in the camp for longer than they ever were with nothing to do. Arthur brushed Rota and Eames disappeared with no clear destination, though Arthur suspected he was doubling back to the hollow with the red house.

The hollow with the red stone house was something Arthur would like an explanation for, though he suspected it wouldn’t come easy. It may just have been Eames’ childhood home--in all likelihood it was just Eames’ childhood home--but there was some secret there as well, and the fact that Eames had secrets at all worried Arthur, who had laid most of his secrets bare.

Except for the fact that he’d been in Eames’ dreams; Arthur still had that, and although he hadn’t learned much from the dream itself, dreamwalking without welcome and without cause was the kind of thing that lead to undue fear, and undue fear lead to witchhunts, flames licking upwards, swallowing flesh.

Those thoughts hovered at the fringes of Arthur’s mind for most of the afternoon. There was only so much to be done about it; he ran through everything the tutors had ever had him memorize, but somehow he wound up back on the Witches’ Law, and that brought him back to Eames’ dream.

He could just tell Eames. It wasn’t like he had learned anything.

Eames and Chilk came clattering into the campsite near dusk, and Arthur had already started the fire and steeled himself up for this, for something. But Eames was riding harder than he typically did and he looked distressed, lips drawn, lines across his forehead and in the corners of his eyes.

“Problem?” Arthur asked, getting to his feet.

“Problem,” Eames replied, frowning. “Mine, not yours.”

“And you’re not going to tell me about it,” Arthur said. It was supposed to be a statement, but it came out tired and distinctly exasperated, colored by something that suggested Eames was more to Arthur than he was.

Eames gave him a measured look, then swung off of Chilk, feet hitting the ground with a thud.

“Not your business.”

“What if I made it my business?” Arthur asked. “What if it already is?”

Eames didn’t look at Arthur, just began to move about the camp, busying himself. Arthur stood and stared after him, at the lines of his shoulders when Eames dropped his cloak to the ground. He was leading Chilk, and after a moment he began to brush him.

“The red house we passed this morning,” Arthur started, and saw the muscles in Eames’ back tense. “You hid something there, and it’s not there any longer.”

“And you know this how?” Eames asked. He was still staring at Chilk’s flank, where Arthur knew there was a dapple of white hairs. He couldn’t see them now--it was blocked by Eames’ head, the bulk of his back.

“I know this,” Arthur said. “And you haven’t told me.”

That got Eames to turn around, and his eyes were dark and sparking.

“You witch,” he said. “You witch.”

He drew the word out, and it was weighted with so much genuine hatred and fear that Arthur physically recoiled.

“Once, Eames,” Arthur said.

“When?”

“L’Dere, the night before we went back,” Arthur said. “But this is about everything you aren’t telling me.”

“Because it’s none of your business,” Eames bit out. He turned around and Chilk just stood there, gazing placidly into the distance. Arthur looked at Chilk’s large, mild eyes instead of Eames’. “So is this what you people do when someone won’t tell you something?”

“You could’ve been a spy.”

“I wasn’t, was I?” Eames said. “I’m not. My vows are to Cadere. I told you that.”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “You told me that in the process of not telling me where you’re from.”

“You knew where I was from,” Eames said.

“And you were lying about it.”

“I’m a liar, Arthur,” Eames said, jabbing a finger at Arthur’s chest. “That’s what I am.”

Arthur held his ground and Eames’ gaze. It was uncomfortable, the air around them charged. Chilk was still staring at an indeterminate point in the ground, though--Arthur could see his blurred outline in his peripheral vision, and he tried to focus on that for a moment: Chilk didn’t think anything was wrong.

“I’m a witch, Eames,” Arthur hissed. “That’s what I am. Am I supposed to ignore it? The dreams are always there. I just need to reach out and touch them. It’s that simple.”

He laughed, and it sounded bitter and strange to his own ears, sadness on all its edges.

“Reading them is never simple, though. All I saw in yours was that house,” Arthur continued. “All I know is that it’s significant in some way. I don’t know how.”

“I could tell you,” Eames said, dropping one hand and drumming his fingers together in the air. “But it would probably be a lie. And would you believe me, anyway? Or would you try to check?”

“It’s not checking,” Arthur said, then he sighed and sat down. “All I got was the house. Do you not understand that? I see the dream, not what’s under the dream.”

“But you still saw it,” Eames said, and they were at an impasse, because Arthur couldn’t deny the brief, watery moments he had spent in Eames’ dream.

“I guessed,” Arthur said.

“Good guess,” Eames said flatly.

“Some would welcome me.”

“Some?” Eames echoed. “Go to them, then.”

Arthur ran a hand through his hair, then looked up at Eames and held his gaze.

“I don’t need to,” he said. “I’m a witch, remember?”

“I could sell you,” Eames said. “I could sell this. Morrow would be so pleased.”

“And I could kill you,” Arthur said pleasantly. “If it came to that. Though I would rather it not. But my sword is here--and I promise you, I’m quicker.”

At that Eames turned to look him, and Arthur ducked to prod the fire, to catch his thoughts and sort them out.

“And that’s without considering the fact that I’m the Crown Prince, since I know you don’t like talking about that.”

“We’re near the border,” Eames said, but he sat down beside Arthur, rested his arms on his knees and stared at the fire. Some of the tension seemed to be draining out of him, sinking from his body into the soil beneath his feet. Arthur turned towards him.

“Yes, and we both know that I turn into dust when I cross the border,” Arthur said, and Eames’ lips quirked into something resembling a smile--not a real one, but close enough to the idea of one.

“You said you could show me,” Eames said.

“I showed you already.”

“But it’s different away from the falls?” Eames asked, and Arthur shifted his gaze back to the horses.

“Somewhat.”

Rota lifted her head, gazed off at an indeterminate point in the distance. It seemed easier, to be a horse.

“Say it plain, Arthur,” Eames said, and Arthur pulled his gaze inwards, to Eames.

“I have,” he replied quickly. “You’re the one who claims to be a liar.”

Arthur’s fingers were twining through the air with nothing to rest on. He took his dagger from his boot and twirled it; it calmed him, marginally.

“We’ll be in Daleth soon Arthur,” Eames said, and his voice was quieter than it had been. “Within a few days. I am loyal to Cadere, my mother was burned as a witch. There is nothing else you need to know about me.”

“And I’m a witch,” Arthur said. “And if that’s going to be a problem, you’d best leave right now.”

“Show me, Arthur,” Eames said.

And so they slept, with no one sitting watch.

“You have to look for me,” Arthur said, when he was curling up with his back to Eames’. “It may not be immediately clear.”

They made the bed on the ground, spreading the two horse blankets and the cloth they usually kept for the bivouac into something wide enough for two people. They slept with their backs together, and while Arthur would like to say it was strange to sleep with a warm weight at his back, but mostly it reminded him of home, of heavy, embroidered blankets and the nights Ariadne would crawl into bed with him and they’d sleep with dreams enmeshed. And if Eames was not his sibling, if Eames was as far from being his sibling as it seemed possible to be--that was a thought best pushed aside. Irrelevant, Arthur himself had said.

When Arthur dreams it’s of Cadere, but he is not there, now; he is nowhere he knows. It must be the Morrow capital--water runs through it like veins. The dream is populated with strangers, quiet figures with stolid faces who won’t meet Arthur’s eyes.

Eames is hiding. He may not even know he’s doing it, but he is, and so Arthur moves through the streets looking, trying to find the real mind amongst all these false ones. He can feel it, somewhere on the fringes, but whenever he looks he sees a stranger, until for a moment he sees.

Everything around is muffled, dimmed, and Eames is there--only younger, thinner, softer around the eyes and dressed in simple clothes--a loose-fitting shirt, worn trousers--meant to fade into the background. This is Eames. This is not Eames.

Arthur blinks his eyes shut, and pushes.

It’s been some time since he’s done this, but he can feel the landscape of the dream shifting around him even with his eyes closed--maybe especially with his eyes closed. When he opens them, he’s in the castle, in the armory. Eames is not there, but there are footsteps behind him, and then he is.

“You said you worked for a swordsmith. But you didn’t.” Arthur is not sure how he knows this, but he does, in the same way he knew there was something hidden in the red house and now it’s gone. “You went to the Vena and you were a thief.”

Eames has so many forms, shapes innumerable. He is hiding in plain sight.

“Who are you?” Arthur asks. “What are you?”

“I’m a knight of the crown,” Eames says.

When Arthur turns to look at him Eames is in full armor. Arthur brings his hand to his brow, and his circlet is there, and Eames is dropping to his knees, and--

It’s easier, almost, to close his eyes, to reach out his mind to Eames’, and see without seeing at all.

Arthur woke up.

They were still lying with their backs together, and Arthur could hear Eames’ breath slip from sleeping to waking. Neither of them pulled apart or rolled over to face the other--they just lay there, and the moments spent like that slipped together until Arthur was uncertain whether they were actually awake or just in another place of dreaming.

“That was not what I was expecting,” Eames said.

“It never is.”

Arthur rolled over so he was staring up at the sky, mapping constellations with his eyes.

“What did you steal?” he asked.

“Everything they loved,” Eames replied. He sounds cracked and hollowed out. “And nothing that they needed.”

He laughed.

“And now they took the thing I need.”

Arthur shifted upwards until he was sitting up.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll sit watch.”

He sat watch all night, and when Eames woke in the morning he turned to look at Arthur for a moment before going to his saddlebags and returning with four eggs that he must have either bought or stolen the day prior. He cooked in silence, then slid two onto a plate for Arthur and kept two for himself.

“I know you’re skeptical of alchemy,” Eames began. “But before I left Morrow I stole a painting for Yusuf, and in exchange he made me--something. A cloak. It makes me difficult to see. I left it when I came to Cadere.”

“Difficult to see?”

“If you look at it, your eyes slide off like water from waxcloth,” Eames said. “No one likes a thief, and I am known in the Vena. I’d rather not go back without it.”

“Known as a thief,” Arthur replied, drumming his fingers into a sudden realization. “But what if you weren’t?”

“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be who I am,” Eames said. “That’s a question for a philosopher.”

“If I attend the Morrow ball it would be suspicious,” Arthur said. “If a foreign prince from the north attends, though, that would merely be eccentric, and no one will recognize him for a thief just because he resembles one.”

“Proclus?” Eames asked. “I couldn’t--”

“Not Proclus,” Arthur said. “One of the northern isles. We will say you were on a diplomatic mission to Proclus, and wished to join the festivities in good will--Saito will be able to tell us whom you might imitate passably. You are fair enough.”

It was true--Eames had the fair hair and broad brow that was common in the regions to the north, and after studying him Arthur wondered how he had failed to notice it before.

“And you?” Eames said.

“I’ll be your page, of course,” Arthur said, averting his eyes. It was an inappropriate thing to do, as a prince, but as a prince the most appropriate thing to do was to defend his country, proprietry be damned.

“It could work,” Eames said, looking at his own hands, laid out in front of him, blunt fingers curled.

“There must be a tailor in Daleth who knows the northern styles,” Arthur continued, sketching this plan in his head.

“I can imitate the northern dialect,” Eames said, in a passable mimicry. Arthur raised his eyebrows in question and Eames shrugged.

“Settled, then,” Arthur said. “Shall we ride?”

They did. They met Yusuf in the late afternoon, and rode with him and his mule cart (his mule cart) until dusk, when the mule cart proved to be useful by virtue of containing significant quantities of food. Dinner was more than they’d had in weeks, accompanied by Yusuf’s ambling narrative about Eames, their past, life in Morrow. He asked Arthur if he knew any witches and Arthur just smiled and said, “Yes, quite well.” Eames caught his eye and grinned, and for a moment everything was easy and comfortable. If it passed--which it did--well, most things passed.

With three they could have split night watch fairly efficiently, except Yusuf refused to participate, and so it was back to the way it had been. Probably for the best; having been in Eames’ dreams twice, Arthur wasn’t sure he could have kept out if he tried. When they reached the capital they would be sleeping in different chambers, in different parts of the city, but with so few other minds around--

And Eames would have known, and the last time they dreamed together it had been too much, too strange.

So Eames and Arthur slept in shifts while Yusuf did not. It was two days’ ride to Daleth, but for two days nothing happened, and soon they were riding across the bridge over the L’Dere delta, Arthur and Eames abreast and Yusuf behind, and Arthur could see his flag creeping up the castle turret. They saw them, then. He lifted a hand and waved in the direction of the watch, hoping Ariadne was with them.

Eames went to the knights’ barracks with Yusuf and Arthur went to the palace. It felt strange to splinter apart like that, to different spaces to sleep. Arthur needed to go back to the palace and do everything he hadn’t while away, Eames needed to file his reports, and Yusuf didn’t need to do anything in particular, but he had to wait for Arthur and Eames before the rest could begin.

“Besides,” Yusuf said when they parted. “Places to go, people to see. I hear your city has a beautiful underbelly.”

“I’m sure it does,” Arthur had replied, because Yusuf made it sound like a compliment.

Arthur rode through the palace gates alone, but Ariadne was there to greet him, trailing after him as he brought Rota to the stables and maintaining a bright monologue about everything Arthur had missed--the litter of hounds Ariadne named, her latest (awful) tutor, and the spiral of other events, significant and insignificant, that comprised palace life.

“Ariadne,” Arthur interjected, ruffling her hair. “Good to see you again, little scoundrel.”

“Not that little,” Ariadne corrected. “Don’t condescend to me.”

And Arthur laughed, and ducked to pull her into a hug.

“Can we dream tonight?” she asked. “Mama and papa say I’m too old--”

“You’re not,” Arthur said quickly, although he should have told her that they were just trying to protect her, that being a witch wasn’t all brightness and light and dreams as vivid as life itself. “You’ll never be too old. It’s who we are.”

The next phase of his return was his restoration to proper princeliness, because upon return Arthur looked insufficiently royal. And so he let himself be bathed, his hair clipped, body wrapped in new, clean clothes that were too soft for days spent on horseback. It was a strange feeling, new and familiar at once. Once appropriately garbed, Arthur had dinner with his parents and they spoke softly about an uneventful border patrol, Ariadne’s schooling, minor disputes the king had recently mediated. They didn’t discuss potential betrothals, and Arthur didn’t ask.

Some would say he was too old already, but there was a calculated diplomacy at play, and none of the neighboring kingdoms had an heir that would suit, which meant branching further afield. Arthur had suspicions that they would be sending him south across the sea on the next trade mission, and he would be polite, bow and smile when he should, kiss knuckles and hands. He was doing the equivalent with his parents at their long dinner table, and it was not precisely painful but it did require maintaining a very thin veneer, always threatening to crack, and Arthur wasn’t sure how long it would hold.

When he went up to his chambers Ariadne was waiting, curled in one of his chairs with her feet kicked up on another, reading a tome Arthur recognized as The Alchemy of Dreams. It was an obscure one, and odd, and the only book with ‘alchemy’ in the title that Arthur had ever respected.

“Do Mother and Father know you’re reading that?” Arthur asked, and Ariadne failed to look the least bit contrite.

“Do Mama and Papa know you keep a copy under your mattress?” Ariadne said. “I’m better at hiding things than you are.”

“They aren’t going to look,” Arthur said, shoving Ariadne’s feet off the spare chair and sitting down. “You were scuffing my chair.”

Ariadne waved her hand imperiously and shifted her feet to the footstool.

“Princess,” Arthur muttered, and Ariadne grinned like that was positively delightful and said, “I am, you know.”

Arthur nudged Ariadne’s feet to the side of the footstool and swung his own up, studying her face. She was precocious for thirteen, but she was still thirteen. She was also better at imposing her own will on dreams than Arthur had ever been, and better at building completely new landscapes, modeled on nothing Arthur had ever seen before. Arthur always wound up in the castle armory, his chambers, a certain stretch of road in the central plains. Ariadne, though.

She would hate him if he did this without her.

“So,” Arthur said, gesturing to the book in Ariadne’s lap. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

Somewhere in the midst of their conversation it occurred to Arthur that he was acting as Ariadne’s dreamwalking tutor, or perhaps she was his, and somewhere later they both fell asleep in their chairs. Their dreams mingled easily, Arthur as comfortable in Ariadne’s as in his own, and their dream together was simple and clear and bright, a whirl of Caderian landscapes that eventually devolved or evolved into Ariadne’s fancies. There were no strange revelations; they hardly even spoke, just floated and ambled. There were no secrets between them.

Except Eames. Until Eames.

They are the wind, or the wind is them, winnowing through rice paddies and leaving tiny furls in the water in their wake. Before them Ariadne is building up something, weaving grains and grasses into an undulating structure. Their feet touch the ground at the arch that serves as an entrance, and they duck inside, and there is a figure in the foyer with his back turned to them and he turns around and--

“Eames,” Arthur breathes, without meaning to. Eames’ eyes are strange and canny, over bright, and Arthur can’t tell if he is part of the dream populace or if Eames himself has simply manifested here, under the mottled shade of Ariadne’s grain house.

Ariadne is at Arthur’s side, looking between the pair of them, and she is the first to step forward, wary and wide-eyed like a young animal.

“Who is he?” she says, then adds, a little louder: “Who are you?”

Eames is looking between them, and suddenly there is a sword at his hip, a long, curved, angry thing, not like the broadswords they have here but like the swords from south of the sea and Arthur is saying “No, no, no,” but Eames’ face is as blank as a sheet of parchment, and his eyes are hollow, and this is not Eames but--

The sword drives through Ariadne, and pierces the back of her dress, and when Eames pulls it out, still dripping with blood, Arthur steps forward and lets the same happen to him.

Ariadne was screaming in her chair. Arthur reached out to her and pulled her up and into his arms, held her close. She was so small.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His dreams had never been dangerous before, and even if he knew in some distant, objective way that Eames was manifesting Arthur’s own fears that didn’t make it better, didn’t solve any problems, didn’t wipe the image of Ariadne’s body slumping on the blade from Arthur’s memory.

“What happened, Arthur?” Ariadne asked. Her voice was soft, but it was not little; she was demanding an answer.

“I think the real question is what is happening,” he said, and he could feel everything drain right out of him, so he was purely exhausted. He sat down on the footstool and pulled Ariadne down beside him, leaving an arm looped around her shoulders.

“When I was at L’Dere Falls,” he began. “Saito of Proclus came to me--”

And then he told her everything, words spilling out of him like stones from a jar, tumbling into one another. Ariadne was his sister, and she was young, but she was a strong thing and as long as Arthur was enmeshed in this she would be, too. Protecting her would not be protecting her.

When Arthur was done, Ariadne leaned her head on his shoulder and says, “I guess I’ll need to meet your knight then.”

“He’s not mine,” Arthur said, and he could feel himself blush. “And he stabbed you.”

“I know,” Ariadne replied. “You said his name, first.”

She went back to her own chambers to sleep and Arthur curled up in his bed, which was large and cold and soft and empty, and he managed, through some great feat of will, not to dream at all.

Ariadne didn’t flinch when she met Eames. Eames did, but not at Ariadne--it was Arthur, and the way Eames touched his fingers to his brow in a tacit acknowledgement. The circlet was there, on Arthur’s forehead. He inclined his head, felt the weight of it.

“Is she even old enough to be here?” Eames asked, looking between the pair of them.

‘Here’ was a tavern near the palace, where Arthur knew the owner and the owner knew to keep her mouth shut, a place decorated in dark wood, with mugs suspended above the bar.

“I have a name, it’s Ariadne, and I’ve been here before,” Ariadne said. “Mistress Tansy knows me.”

She waved to Tansy, as if to prove this point, and Eames shrugged and turned back to the bar. Tansy waved back and poured Ariadne a glass of ginger beer.

“Yusuf will be along in a few,” he said. “You can explain this then.”

Yusuf was along in slightly more than a few, and when he arrived he looked between Arthur and Ariadne, raised his eyebrows, and said “They’ve multiplied.”

“They do that,” Eames said idly.

“This is Ariadne,” Arthur said, and Ariadne tipped down in a curtsey. Yusuf bent to kiss her hand and said, “Princess,” which made Ariadne giggle, so that was alright.

Arthur got Tansy to let them into one of the rooms upstairs, a private one with a long wooden table.

“So where are the witches?” Yusuf asked as soon as they were seated, and Ariadne had to cover her face.

“Uh,” Arthur said dumbly. He hadn’t thought this through, and he can see Eames hadn’t either.

“We are,” Ariadne said, and dissolved into giggles. “We’re the witches.”

“We?” Yusuf asked, looking at Ariadne.

“Me and Arthur,” Ariadne said. “We’re the witches.”

“Arthur,” Yusuf echoed, and then looked between Arthur and Eames. “Is there something I’ve missed? Eames, I thought you weren’t interested in the fairer sex.”

Ariadne looked confused now, and Arthur sighed.

“Yusuf thinks witches are always women,” he provided. “Yusuf, that’s a myth.”

Yusuf grinned like there was a joke somewhere in there, and then he looked between Arthur and Ariadne like he wanted to pin them down, which Arthur supposed was part of wanting to--examine them.

“But you’re witches, both of you? Is it the whole family, then?”

“Yes,” Arthur said, shifting in his chair. “Don’t let that get out.”

“Look,” Yusuf said, and it was only then that Arthur saw the leather case Yusuf had brought with him, which he swung up on the table and unbuckled. The case was lined with wool and filled with neat rows of small amber phials. Yusuf selected one and held it up to the light of the room’s one square window, and Arthur could see a leech suspended in it.

“I’ve been working on these for a long time,” he said. “And it changes my dreams, but I need a witch to test them on.”

He passed the phial to Eames, and Ariadne and Arthur took it and inspected it by turn.

“What is in it?” Arthur asked. “Other than the obvious.”

“Proprietary information,” Yusuf said, looking smug.

“And how is it administered?” Arthur asked. “If I’m supposed to be--”

“What about me?” Ariadne interjected.

“He’s not testing it on you,” Arthur said. “He’s not testing it at all.”

“What?” Yusuf looked taken aback.

“It’s a leech in a phial of you won’t say what,” Arthur said. “Synthesized in a lab full of tin that’s never going to turn into gold.”

“You’ve been to my lab,” Yusuf said. “It contains no such thing.”

Arthur set the phial down on the counter.

“Convince me,” he said. “Convince me that this won’t kill me. Preferably by demonstrating that I didn’t just prove everything you knew about witches wrong with my genitals.”

“I thought I told you to restrain your skepticism,” Eames said, just as Ariadne groaned “Arthur.”

Yusuf was lifting the phials from his case, one by one, and then he removed the wool liner. Beneath it there was a manuscript, also bound in leather. Yusuf placed it on the table, where it shed thin sheets of parchment.

“Usually I make people pay for this privilege, but if you read it in this room it’s free,” Yusuf said. “Everything I know. It covers considerably more than genitals.”

“Charming,” Arthur said, but his hands were already on the manuscript, drawing it towards him. The cover was bare, but scrawled on the first page, under a series of scribbled out titles, were the words The Alchemy of Dreams. Arthur recognized the title, and when he went to the first page he recognized the introductory paragraphs as well.

“How’d you get this?” he asked.

“I wrote it,” Yusuf said, his grin smug. Arthur glanced at Eames for confirmation, but he just mouthed something Arthur couldn’t decipher before his lips settled into a smug grin.

“Is that?” Ariadne asked, slipping over to Arthur’s shoulder and peering down at the manuscript. “Arthur loves this book. He keeps it in his bed.”

Eames coughed.

“His bed, you say?” Yusuf said, raising his eyebrows.

“Under the mattress,” Arthur said.

“Do you--” Yusuf made a lewd gesture. “As well?”

“Yusuf,” Arthur said, glancing at Ariadne. “And no.”

“I know about things,” Ariadne muttered. “Geoffrey from the stables tells me.”

Arthur managed to resist the urge to make a disparaging remark about stablehands, though he couldn’t resist a clipped, “Stay away from Geoffrey.” Ariadne pouted.

“I think we’ve slightly lost the target here,” Yusuf said, fingering one of his phials and then lifting it to the light. “Leeches: yea or nay?”

“How thoroughly have these been tested?” Arthur asked.

“Sample size sixteen,” Yusuf said. “Including myself. Both sexes, range of ages. No known witches, but no known complications, either.”

“Fine,” Arthur said. “Just me, not Ariadne. If anything goes wrong fetch Tansy; she’s a healer, and I trust her more on that than any of you. Where does the leech go?”

Eames and Yusuf glanced between themselves and Ariadne looked sullen for a moment.

“The leech goes on the back of the neck,” Yusuf said, taking the phial back and flipping it upside down. “Below the base of the skull. It needs to stay on throughout the dream.”

“Well,” Arthur said. “Now?”

“What, you’re going to sleep on the table?” Eames asked. He’d been quiet, sitting to the side with one leg rucked up in front of him and his arms looped around it.

“Tansy has rooms,” Arthur said.

“And we’re all going to watch you?” Eames persisted.

“I need to monitor him,” Yusuf said. “To make sure nothing goes wrong.”

And so it was that they all moved to another of Tansy’s upstairs rooms, and gathered chairs around the single thin bed, and Arthur laid with his head on his folded arms and let Yusuf press the cool, slick thing to the back of his neck, felt the press and prick.

“There’s sleeping serum there, too,” Yusuf said vaguely, but Arthur was already slipping under and away.

He is a blank space--he is in a blank space--but as he extends himself others gradually materialize around him, one and then another, rising out of the space like plants from the soil. Arthur reaches out to the first one he approaches, the butcher from down the street, who’s probably napping on the job, only they don’t descend into his dream. They stay in the space, the clean, empty space, and the man looks at Arthur like he’s still asleep. Arthur moves on.

Each person he approaches responds in kind, and Arthur doesn’t understand what’s happening. This is like no dream he’s ever had; it doesn’t feel like he’s touching any other sleepers; it is not right, not normal. And it continues like that, on and on through the empty space, past more people than he should be passing, and all of them asleep, even as they’re dreaming. He recognizes them, but he doesn’t know them, they aren’t real.

Arthur woke up after what felt like an age, and glanced between the three in the room. Ariadne and Yusuf were both wearing questions on their faces, eager and hopeful.

“No,” he said. “It was--strange.”

“Strange how?” Yusuf asked. “I need more than that.”

“Like everyone else was asleep,” Arthur said. “Like I was awake and everyone else I encountered in the dream was asleep. I couldn’t touch them. And the dream itself was empty.”

“Could you push it?” Ariadne asked.

“Didn’t try,” Arthur said, at the same time as Yusuf said, “Push it?”

“Shape it,” Arthur provided. “Change the landscape.”

“Well try then,” Yusuf said, sounding exasperated. “You’re an awful research assistant. I’m going in with you.”

“Me too,” said Ariadne.

“Then I suppose I’m in as well,” Eames muttered, looking at the rest of them: Arthur, hitched up on his elbows in the bed; Yusuf and Ariadne with twinned expressions of eager anticipation.

“No,” Arthur said, shaking his head and turning to Yusuf. “What’s it normally like? Because I didn’t have a normal dream.”

“I said, they’re more vivid,” Yusuf replies, furrowing his brow.

“But are they lucid?” Arthur asked. “That’s the part that matters, I think--are you more aware than you normally are?”

“Aren’t witches always aware?” Yusuf asked.

“This is different,” Arthur said.

“I have to see,” Ariadne whined.

Arthur glanced between them, then shook his head.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine.”

And the leeches came out again, and they went under all at once.

No one is awake, save the four of them, and Arthur stares at the others with his eyes open. This is not a normal dream; Yusuf has made something new.

“This is not a normal dream,” Arthur says, but even as he speaks Ariadne begins to shape it. She raises a city from the void, forming it meticulously. Yusuf is turning in a circle to watch.

“It’s like we’re in a dream that’s empty,” Ariadne says. Her voice sounds distant. “A dream no one’s dreaming. It’s hollow. We can shape it however we want.”

“But secrets?” Yusuf asks, and Arthur shrugs.

“Probably none--” he starts.

“We could give them a place to keep them!” Ariadne interjects. “A hiding place. It wouldn’t be like a true dream, but it might work--and we don’t need secrets, besides.”

“You think this could work better, if we’re to plant an idea?” Eames asks.

Arthur looks over at Eames.

“If we could make this feel like a real dream--we believe our dreams,” he says. “We trust them.”

“Even when they lie to us,” Eames finishes.

“Everything lies,” Arthur says, staring at Eames--the shape of his eyes, his mouth. Around them a city rises and falls, and suddenly Ariadne is at Arthur’s elbow:

“Come,” she says. “Come see.”

So they go, and see.

When they woke, the room was the same, and Arthur had trouble seeing how that could be, even though he knew, objectively, that was the way it should be.

They needed a lie that King Maurice would believe; and, more than that, they needed to be able to carry it off. Ariadne could shape the dream well enough, but Eames and Yusuf couldn’t do anything at all. Well; not in dreams, not yet. Eames had the information they needed on Peter Browning and Yusuf had his leeches, and between the four them--well, it was a start. They had a start. Arthur would have asked for more, but he would have gone ahead with less.

The next week passed in a blur. Eames disappeared to Morrow, and Arthur sent messengers to Saito and Sir Miles requesting Mallorie’s notebooks. He and Ariadne spent far too much time sleeping, so Ariadne could build the dream landscape and Arthur could train her in self defense. She had always been preternaturally good with throwing knives, but Arthur wanted her to know the basics of hand-to-hand combat, and it was easier to practice in the dream than out of it: time passed slower, in dream, and she could feel pain but she couldn’t be hurt.

The notebooks, when they arrived, were stranger than he expected them to be. Arthur gave Ariadne the pages filled with sketches of dreams, but he kept to himself the wildly cryptic journals, filled with information that didn’t make sense, that would be impossible to know accurately. The person Arthur wanted to discuss it with was Eames, and he tried not to read too much into that.

When Eames returned it was at Tansy’s with a pint already in front of him, one hand curled around the glass. Arthur had expected to meet Yusuf to discuss dream theory, which they had taken to doing most afternoons, but Yusuf was as reliable as the weather, which was to say not very.

“You’re back,” Arthur said, sitting down besides Eames.

“Had to happen eventually,” Eames said, and turned to look at Arthur. “Nice of you to give me a royal welcome, Highness.”

“But of course,” Arthur said, then nodded at the glass. “I could buy you another.”

“And he’s generous!” Eames crowed. “But I believe Tansy already put this one on your tab.”

“And he’s taking advantage of my generosity,” Arthur said dryly. Eames grinned at him.

“What can I say?” he said, taking a long swig. “I have information for you, though.”

“Upstairs, then?” Arthur asked, and they went upstairs, to the room with the long table and the square window. The late afternoon light was the rich amber color of Eames’ beer, and Arthur wondered if he needed a pint himself.

“What is it?” he asked instead.

“Peter Browning,” Eames started. “Maurice’s chief advisor.”

“We knew that,” Arthur said, drumming his fingers on the table. “What will make Maurice stop trusting him?”

“If Peter demonstrated himself to be a threat to Robert,” Eames said. “I’m kind of inclined to suggest Robert’s a witch, myself.”

“But Robert’s not,” Arthur said flatly. “And that could fall apart fast. We need a smaller seed. Mustard, roughly.”

“If Maurice dies before Robert’s seventeen, Browning will be the regent until Robert’s of age,” Eames said. “So we suggest Browning wants to extend that--cares more about the throne than the family on it. It’s true, incidentally, so we’d be doing him a favor.”

“Not that he deserves it,” Arthur muttered, and Eames looked up at him and grinned viciously, the tip of a canine catching on his lower lip in a way that made heat flare in Arthur’s chest. He looked away.

“Yes, but we’re going to go wander around his head to do it, which I’m sure he’d be grateful for.”

Arthur hummed and returned Eames’ grin, then paused.

“I’ve been going through Mallorie’s notebooks,” he began. “She says strange things about water.”

“Strange how?” Eames asked.

“She says they’re going to use the water,” Arthur said. “To weaken Cadere. Like Maurice has some sort of thrall over it, like he could just take it.”

Eames looked thoughtful.

“Maybe he does,” he said, finally. “Maybe Cadere isn’t the only lineage with power.”

“Our water, though,” Arthur said. “That’s so far beyond--we’re prepared for a drought, but not a permanent one, nothing of that magnitude. We don’t have alternatives.”

“I believe that’s the point,” Eames said. “I haven’t heard anything about this, though. You should ask Yusuf.”

“I got the notebooks from Saito,” Arthur said. “And he also sent me the information we needed on the Northern Isles. So it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Elroy.”

“Elroy?” Eames asked.

“He rides with their knights, but he’s third in line for the throne, after the prince and princess,” Arthur said. “Though right now he’s dressed inappropriately for his status.”

“You’d like to dress me, then?” Eames asked.

“No,” Arthur said, giving Eames a dry, assessing glance. “But I know a tailor who would.”

“I believe my page needs new clothes as well,” Eames said. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Arthur said. “But we still need to solidify our plans.”

“You have everything I know,” Eames said. “These things require a certain amount of--imagination. Inspiration, if you will. We may need to wait for it.”

“We have one week,” Arthur said. “And then more than my patience will run out.”

Eames just laughed, and then they were going out the door and dipping down the steps, out into the street.

“Am I fit to be seen with the prince, despite being too poorly dressed for a Lord?” Eames asked.

“I’ve kept worse company,” Arthur said, giving Eames a sidelong glance.

“So I’ve heard,” Eames said. “Cobol, was it?”

“You’ve been asking about me,” Arthur stated, and Eames shrugged.

“Figured I should,” he said, and settled into something that might be anticipation as easily as he matched Arthur’s stride.

“Vernon Cobol,” Arthur said. “It was fun while it lasted, but I lack certain--parts--necessary for the production of heirs, and his family wanted one.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t he who was lacking?” Eames asked, and Arthur lifted his shoulders.

“His parents were the ones who pushed him to find a proper consort, so,” he said. “Not that--mine would prefer it, as well, but it never came to that. And frankly, he was mostly--” Arthur waved his hand and hoped that clarified it.

“A good lay?” Eames said, raising an eyebrow and giving Arthur a look that sent a vague frisson down his spine. Arthur cracked his knuckles.

“One could say that, yes,” Arthur said. “We’re here.”

‘Here’ was a narrow door in a narrow building, and Arthur opened the door and ushered Eames inside. The tailor, a trim man who went by Hamish, was one Arthur had worked with before; he lifted a hand in greeting before shifting the bulk of his attention to Eames.

“You’re to be a noble, then?” he said, then turned to Arthur. “Peculiar taste, prince, if you’ll excuse my saying.”

Eames’ eyebrows were inching towards his hairline.

“Which is why we need you, because your taste is exquisite,” Arthur said.

“Yes, of course,” Hamish replied, preening slightly. “I was quite pleased to hear from you--”

“Can we get on with it, then?” Eames interjected, and Hamish turned back to him, frowning.

“Measurements,” he said. “We’ll need your measurements. And--ah--colors, of course. Green, perhaps?”

“Nothing too bright,” Arthur provided. “We won’t be needing extra attention.”

“Keeping him to yourself,” Hamish said, nodding. “The northern styles are loose right now, which--”

Arthur let the babble overtake him, ignoring Eames’ pointed glances. He may have told Hamish that Eames needed new clothing for another reason. It was simpler that way. Hamish eventually gave Eames his full attention, and Arthur settled on a stool in the corner and watched the process. The whole thing seemed to put Eames off kilter, which afforded Arthur the opportunity to watch him.

Eames was, Arthur would allow, quite--something. And a further truth: something about the easy confidence with which he carried himself, the way his hips rolled when he walked, the set of his shoulders--well. Granted a moment to drink Eames in, Arthur had to admit that he had already noticed everything he had been trying not to.

He suspected Eames would be a good lay, and that entire conversation about Vernon--Arthur knew Eames was prodding, feeling him out. They could. The problem was what would happen after.

Only then Hamish was fading into the back room, and Eames was watching Arthur. Arthur was already looking up at him, and it was easy to hold his gaze there, to wait.

“What exactly did you tell our friend?” Eames asked, coming over to sit beside Arthur, though the stool could scarcely hold both of them.

“Just that I had a friend I needed to look like nobility,” Arthur said. “But I let him read into that.”

“And if I were nobility?” Eames asked.

“You wouldn’t be who you are,” Arthur said. “And that’s a question for the philosophers, isn’t it?”

They never talked about anything straight, Arthur realized. It was strangely comforting; knowing that, knowing that it was the pair of them who did this and not just Arthur alone. Eames’ fingers fluttered to Arthur’s thigh, stayed there, and Arthur let them.

When Hamish returned Arthur stepped forward and said, “I’ll need to be dressed as a page, as well.”

“Quite unusual, isn’t it, highness?” Hamish asked after a moment.

“I trust your discretion,” Arthur said flatly, and Hamish’s lips puckered into a grin.

“But of course,” he said. “I’ll just check your measurements, then.”

While he took his turn being poked and prodded, Arthur kept one eye on Eames, who looked--thoughtful. Not especially interested, no dark eyes, no flush to his cheeks, just like someone trying to unlock a particularly difficult puzzle. And while Arthur would have liked to say that he was no one’s puzzle, for a moment--for that moment--he was willing to be.

Hamish finished taking Arthur’s measurements and sent them back outside with instructions to return in two days. Eames and Arthur separated on the cobblestone outside without discussion, and Arthur let himself sink into his own thoughts on the walk back to the palace. Eames. He could--

But it was shit, really, to be some royal’s bedwarmer until he found an appropriate consort. Even though Arthur hadn’t particularly cared for Vernon, he had still found a peculiar shame in the certainty that it would never go any further than their quick tumbles in sheets, hay, dimly lit alleyways, that it would be something gossiped about and never announced. He would not--it wouldn’t be fair to Eames. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone, because Arthur would always be the prince; he could never be easy in the way others were; he was, himself, not the sort of person one wanted to keep on the side: too sharp eyed, too serious.

A faint part of Arthur recalled when they had first met, when Eames had told Arthur he rode well like it was a surprise. Arthur had wanted to tell Eames that his lips were too pretty by half to twist so sardonically, but Arthur wasn’t the sort of man who said that, and they hadn’t met under circumstances that would permit him to. And if they had met under different circumstances, not a prince, not a knight who had been a thief, they would not be the men they were.

Maybe, Arthur thought, they could set a sort of--statute of limitations. Sleep together once, twice, let the heat that sometimes curled below Arthur’s belly release itself. What Yusuf had said about Eames implied he was the sort who might not mind terribly much, if they were clear from the start. If Arthur--if Arthur wasn’t misusing his power. Not that Arthur thought Eames would be pressured by Arthur’s crown, but the circlet on his head would never not be heavy to Arthur, and his own awareness of that would make it impossible to pretend, even for a moment, that he wasn’t the prince.

And by the time Arthur’s thoughts reached that juncture he was at the palace, and was reminded again.

Arthur met Eames at Tansy’s again the next day, and Eames had managed to draw Yusuf away from the city’s underbelly for long enough to join them.

“Water,” Yusuf said. “That’s interesting.”

“But is it possible?” Arthur asked, and Yusuf shrugged.

“When we get to Morrow,” Yusuf said. “The alchemist who taught me is especially interested in magnets--metals that attract or repel one another. It’s not my area, really--”

“And you’re such an expert in your area,” Arthur muttered, at which Eames elbowed him and whispered, “Shut up about your cock, sire,” which was enough to make a blush flare across the back of Arthur’s neck.

Yusuf looked between them, raised his eyebrows, and continued, “Point being, he may have an inkling. I’m inclined to say that this sounds like alchemy more than anything else, but really, everything’s alchemy, so.”

“Everything’s alchemy,” Arthur echoed.

Yusuf shrugged. “If Morrow had been able to do this before don’t you think they would’ve tried? And yet they haven’t, and you’ve seen no mention of it until now. How did your cousin find out?”

“She doesn’t say,” Arthur said. “But she and Dominic lived near the border, and sometimes information travels in strange ways.”

“It certainly does,” Yusuf said, like he was holding something back, like he had intended to say something different.

They got the clothes from Hamish two days later, and Ariadne sketched out dreams, and Yusuf made more alchemically altered leeches, and they still didn’t have a plan, and they were riding out to the Morrow ball. Or perhaps not precisely riding, because there was a carriage involved, one for Lord Elroy and his page and Yusuf’s mule cart behind, for Yusuf and Ariadne and the things that wouldn’t do to be found in a nobleman’s carriage but made perfect sense for an alchemist’s cart. Arthur had persuaded his parents that he and Ariadne ought to visit the border villages, and they had looked at him strangely, but they had agreed.

“What can one expect one’s page to do, then?” Eames said when they were in the carriage, swinging his feet up on the bench besides Arthur. “Clean my boots, perhaps?”

Arthur waved a hand.

“I’ll follow you around,” he said. “Stay in your chambers, clean things--even your boots, I suppose. Make sure all your business is sorted. And you’re to gripe to your fellows about me, about how I’m terrifically lazy and do very poor work.”

“Are you?” Eames asked.

“A page is only as good as his master,” Arthur demurred, letting his eyes drop in false deference. Eames laughed.

“You’re going to be awful at this, aren’t you?” Eames said. “Revenge for my impertinence.”

“A noble would keep his feet on the floor,” Arthur said. Eames looked at him, and left his feet where they were.

“I suspect,” he said. “That a page wouldn’t order his employer about.”

“Merely a suggestion,” Arthur said, kicking his own feet up onto the bench besides Eames.

They broke for the evening at an inn in Morrow, a dark, dank place with a bar downstairs and rooms above. They kept to themselves and took meals in their rooms, and did not speak to Yusuf and Ariadne--Arthur waved his fingers at Ariadne and she grinned back, but that was all the familiarity he could spare. Instead he went to the room he was sharing with Eames and curled himself up on the cot in the corner, facing the wall. Eames came in a few moments later, and Arthur rolled over on his back so he was staring at the ceiling.

“I’ll try not to,” he said. “Tonight. But you must realize this room is a bit on the small side. I would go bunk with Ariadne, but--”

He heard Eames padding over before the other man sat at the foot of his cot, and Arthur took a moment to study the soft lines of his profile in the dim light before Eames turned to look at him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I think I can handle it.”

“Dreaming with others is always volatile,” Arthur said.

What Arthur didn’t say is that dreaming with Eames was especially volatile, and Arthur didn’t have enough experience to say why that was, if it was just that he hadn’t dreamed with many who weren’t witches before or if it was something about Eames, who was a knight and a liar and made even less sense in dreams than he did in real life, and also, perhaps, because Eames was someone Arthur wanted, someone whose dreams Arthur wanted to worm his way into and see clearly and completely.

“I understand,” Eames said.

“Are you willing to, though?” Arthur asked. And then, softer, because he’d never asked anyone before: “Am I welcome?”

Eames’ gaze on Arthur’s face felt heavy and strange.

“Sure,” he said.

Arthur touched a hand to his brow, nodding in acknowledgement, and Eames rose and went to his own bed.

Arthur follows Eames, and Eames takes them to the sea, pooling blue and green on fine-grained yellow sand. It catches in whorls and eddies, wends around their feet.

“This is nice,” Arthur says.

Eames laughs. He’s bare to the waist--Arthur is, too, he realizes, and they’re both wearing trousers of fine linen, rolled up to their knees. The style is not one Arthur recognizes, and must come from the west, or the south. Stranger still, the skin on Eames’ back is marked only by freckles, no chimera.

A fish floats up to them.

It’s dead.

Eames picks it up by its tail, and when he holds it up to the sky the fish is translucent, light shafting right through it--Arthur can see the delicate boning of its tail and fins, can see the soft organs in its rib cage. A bird has pecked out its eyes. The scales catch the light and reflect small shards of it back at Eames, dappling his skin.

“Where are we?” Arthur says, and Eames turns to him and smiles, though the expression sits strange on his face.

“At the seashore,” he says. He’s still holding the fish. He drops it with a splash, then reaches a hand back to Arthur.

“Let’s go for a swim,” he says.

Arthur takes his hand and follows him into the water. They walk in and water rises past their knees, pools around their waists, their shoulders, and then they’re under but still standing, and they’re swimming, and fish are swimming in a flock around them, bright and silver and alive, but none of them have eyes, and Arthur wonders what it is they aren’t seeing. His feet flutter behind him, as if of their own volition. They swim deeper, and the fish follow. A city rises up from the ocean floor, a pure blue thing unlike any city Arthur has seen.

“Where is the king?” Arthur asks.

Eames swirls around to look at him.

“The king?” he asks. “What cause have you to meet with him?”

“The king--” Arthur starts. “The king--”

“There is no love lost between this king and his subjects,” Eames says. “He is a small man.”

Arthur looks at him.

“He is a fish,” Eames says. “His flesh is a fish’s flesh, and through it you can see his bones.”

Eames is floating closer, and his eyes are large and liquid and thickly lashed, and Arthur is not sure if he is underwater or in them, in Eames’ eyes, but the words Eames is saying are important, but Eames’ face is so close, closer than it should be, and before Arthur can open his mouth to speak, or to wet his suddenly dry lips (and aren’t they already wet, from being underwater? shouldn’t they be?)--

Arthur woke in a haze, entangled in his own bed linens.

“Eames,” Arthur said softly, rolling over on his stomach and propping his head up so he could look across the room. The light slanting in the window told him that they were just on the crest of morning.

“Eames,” he repeated, still vague and bleary. “The king--”

“What is it?” Eames asked. His voice was equally quiet, and distantly hoarse. For a fleeting moment Arthur wondered if this was what Eames would sound like, after, if Eames, too, had thought they were on the brink--

“Maurice,” Arthur said. “What if he’s not behind the thing with the water? What if Browning is an alchemist?”

“So?”

“We eliminate Browning, we eliminate everything,” Arthur muttered. “We convince Maurice--Browning is using the witchhunts to turn Maurice’s subjects against him, or Browning will use his alchemy to hurt Maurice when he has what he wants, or Browning--”

“Would that stop the witch hunts?”

“I don’t--” Arthur said.

“It’s a thought,” Eames said, when it became apparent Arthur was ill equipped to finish his thought.

They departed from the inn soon after, though Arthur still felt hazy and unsteady, carrying the memory of the dream with him. The worst part was that he and Eames would almost certainly be sharing chambers again, and again, and Arthur wasn’t sure how many more dreams they could share before they crossed some nebulous milestone from which they could not return, did something in sleep that could not be ignored in the clean light of day.

They arrived in the Morrow capital that evening, and Arthur peered out of the carriage and broad, busy streets paralleling delicate canals, water running through the city, catching and reflecting the light like fine filigree.

“It’s very lovely,” Arthur said.

“Even ugly things can be,” Eames replied. “Morrow is wealthier than your country, and uses its wealth differently. You should see the baths.”

“I know,” Arthur said, turning back to the window. “Don’t I know.”

“Are you ready, then?” Arthur asked. “Lord Elroy, sir?”

“And you, page?” Eames replied. Arthur removed himself from the carriage and held the door, bowing his head as Eames stepped out. When Eames moved forward, Arthur trailed after. It felt strange, yet there was an ease to it, and there was something about the nobility Eames pulled over himself like a mantle, shoulders drawn back and a stride long and easy, that made Arthur want to follow him.

It was certainly inappropriate for Arthur to be behaving thus, and he ducked his head when they passed other carriages on the street, hoping not to be recognized. But this entire charade was predicated on the idea that no one would look, and, with Arthur dressed as he was, it was quite likely that no one would. He was, after all, a page, and as a page he watched through his lashes as Eames was introduced to people Arthur had heard of but never met, nobles from Morrow and from further west still. The nobles were gathering in the finer inns, preparing for the first ball in two days’ time, and Arthur pulled to the side with the other pages. It was only in the evening when he was able to slip out and meet with Ariadne and Yusuf, staying at one of the quieter inns.

“I would’ve liked to go to the ball,” Ariadne said, peering out the window at the side street while Arthur and Yusuf sipped their ale. “I’ve a new dress. It’s blue. But I’d rather do this.”

“Of course you would,” Arthur said. “Is Yusuf treating you well?”

“He let me drive the cart,” Ariadne said, and Arthur looked at Yusuf. Yusuf just grinned benignly.

“She’s a good driver. And Farley’s a good mule.”

“Of course he is,” Arthur said flatly.

“One might think you didn’t like mules,” Yusuf said.

“He doesn’t,” Ariadne supplied. “One bit him, once--”

“Well, are the pair of you ready?” Arthur interjected. “Eames is scouting out an appropriate time and venue to isolate Maurice.”

“We are,” Ariadne proclaimed. “Yusuf even let me make a leech.”

It was only then that Arthur considered that handing his sister over to an alchemist may have been a poor idea, which showed a significant lack of forethought on his part.

“And Yusuf, you can meet with your mentor?” Arthur asked, and Yusuf nodded once, quickly.

Arthur returned to find Eames already in his chambers, sitting on his bed with his hands on his knees. He twisted to look at Arthur when he came in.

“I’ve heard pages are to help their masters dress and undress,” Eames said.

“I know you can dress yourself,” Arthur replied. “Undress, as well.”

“And the nobility can’t?” Eames asked. “I don’t believe that’s the purpose.”

“I’m not undressing you,” Arthur said flatly, and Eames grinned.

“You’re no one’s page in private, I know,” he replied. “I was just making an observation, based on my recent experiences as a lord.”

“If you’d like a proper page we could hire one,” Arthur said. “And he will buff your boots and button your shirts.”

“I’d rather he didn’t,” Eames said.

Arthur tried not to sleep that night, nobly clung to his wakefulness late into the evening while the dim light of street lamps flickered across the ceiling, casting strange, wavering shadows across the walls.

part 3