LOG: NORTHEAST PATRICIAN PROTECTORATE, CONNECTICUT TERRITORY, HARTFORD, AUGUST

  Even with Thena taking point on transportation, they have to stitch together a crazy route up north; short-hop rented hovercars, the occasional uncomfortable hike, and whatever commercial bus trips Thena can find that’ll let a Hastings onboard with the baseline passengers. Hastings-run military convoys are out of the question because they won’t let Basil on, at least not without the kinds of bribes Basil and Thena can’t afford, or the kind of marching orders they’re afraid to spoof. It takes so long to get to Connecticut territory that Basil is already past the one week deadline he gave Mitch before he and Thena even set foot in Hartford.

  He calls Mitch as often as he can with the trashfire landside connectivity, and feels the familiar guilty ache build up like a slowly-growing wound behind his breastbone as he watches his best friend paste a smile over resignation and hurt.

  It should feel better to be closer to home than New Orleans, but it doesn’t. While Connecticut’s climate is more normal, it’s just as weirdly landside here as everywhere else Basil’s been since he left the Fleet. The accents sound even more foreign, and the ground is still stationary and horrifyingly full of bugs.

  Rich must hate that, wherever he is. The bugs, the dirt. It’s a small thought, inconsequential, but surprisingly painful. Basil has more important things to worry about at the moment, like the prospect of meeting Helen Bane in the flesh, and why even the landside houses he’s been told are relatively practical are so ridiculously huge.

  Madam Beaker’s villa has tall privacy walls, and the spotlessly-polished security gate looking out onto the street has a pair of twining peacocks worked into it, every feather pieced together from iridescent wire. There’s an ornately-scrolled letter “B” between them, so embellished it’s barely legible. Comparatively, the Hastings who steps out of it when Basil rings the buzzer is underwhelming; she’s built like a marble statue of a vintage superheroine, and there’s a skull with bullets for teeth tattooed on her forearm, but she looks almost bored and she’s wearing very neat fatigues with an ornate badge on her sleeve and her breast pocket.

  “Solicitors aren’t welcome, deliveries around the back,” she says, and then looks past Basil, done with him, and sizes Thena up instead in an increasingly-familiar sequence, from her build to the muscles in her crossed arms, and then lingering on the color of her eyes. “Hey, cousin. You can’t be out here without livery on, use your broken-ass eyes for a second. There’s rules, especially on streets like this.”

  Thena twitches and then growls quietly. “I don’t give a fuck about—” she starts, a little lower and rougher than usual, like she’s mimicking some tough-guy thug from the movies. “I don’t have any livery.”

  “You looking for an outfit to join? This is a domestic gig, security, you copy? We bodyguard, that’s it. The boss runs a tight detail, and she’s not looking for any scruffy, rowdy cowboys.” That last is said with a sneer that makes clear whatever that is, Thena is one.

  “What,” says Thena. “No. I’m—” She hesitates for a second, and then bulls forward like she always does. “I heard the head of your garrison is Helen Bane.”

  The guard cocks an eyebrow. “So?”

  “…So I need to speak with her, in person,” Thena says. Basil’s impressed—the tense, humming rumble under her voice is the only sign of shock at the tacit confirmation. “Tell her it’s about Finn Merrill.”

  “Yeah?” The guard looks her up and down again, and then shrugs and unclips some kind of basic landside telecom device off her belt and steps back into the security booth.

  Basil is watching through the glass as she starts talking, trying to unlock an unprecedented skill for lip-reading and not getting anywhere, when Thena says, “Hey,” soft and urgent.

  “Uh-huh?” says Basil absently. The Hastings is grinning, leaning on the back of her chair and listening to somebody on the other end of the call. The sarcastic way she waves a hand in the air when she starts answering doesn’t seem like a good sign. “What’s up?”

  Thena doesn’t answer for a few seconds, long enough Basil glances over at her—and does a double-take at the expression on her face, a steeled, uneasy frown like she’s working herself up to something.

  “I’m gonna be a—I’m gonna go in gender-unassigned for this one. Alright?”

  “Huh?” says Basil, blindsided. “Wh—oh! Okay? What do I call you?”

  She—they pause for a long, blank moment, then hazard, “Shark… fucker… nine thousand. No. Fuck. Uh, Lee?”

  “Like Leeward? Or Lee Shore?”

  “Yeah! Whichever. I like that.”

  “Okay?” says Basil again, and squints at Lee, trying to read the intently disaffected expression they’re putting on. “Wait, so. Are you done with being female? Or this is, like, new, this is just for landside…?”

  “Uh,” Lee says, and studies the ornate metalwork of the gate intently. “No? No. I mean, sort of.”

  In the booth, the Hastings cuts off abruptly and straightens up. Whoever is on the other end of the line must be doing a lot of talking all of a sudden; she stands at attention to give prompt, brief answers, shoulders tense.

  “It’s just for fun, on the Fleet, y’know?” Lee says, and Basil drags his eyes away from the Security booth to focus back in. “Sometimes I go to the Isle of Avalon, the one where they have the princess parties for the little kids, and I’ll play prince… But when I’m courier it doesn’t matter how I’m presenting, and when I’m wrestling it feels good, playing… I don’t know. Thena the Lady Wrestler, the Martian Maneater, it's fun. It's funny. It's all a big show, and everyone knows it's a show! And then out here it isn't.”

  Even on the Fleet, Basil’s fairly sure what Lee’s describing isn't universal. Right now doesn’t seem like the time to argue.

  “Okay,” he says. “Yeah I mean, landside people are weird about women, they’re weird about Hastings, they’re weird about—everything. So. Makes sense to me.”

  “No, yeah, no,” Lee says. “People aren’t playing, out here. Y’know? All the baselines act like I’ll rip their head off if they don’t call me ma’am, and miss, and all the Hastings think I look wrong anyway, it’s like a shitty little joke whenever they call me—”

  “Little sister?” Basil says, and sees their face twist in the exact same uncomfortable grimace as he saw in New Orleans. “Uh-huh.”

  “So,” says Lee, pressing determinedly past that. “It’s not like I can just wear a flying fish pin out here. So, I wanted you in my corner.”

  And the fact that they’re meeting their mom again for the first time as an adult and have had the whole trip up north to think about the first impression they want to make—Well, if they’re not going to bring it up, Basil’s not going to either.

  “Sure,” he says instead, and leans over on a sudden impulse to bump his shoulder against theirs. Lee gives him a startled smile, with an uncertain edge that looks more like their brother than ever. “You got it, sen.”

  Inside the security booth, the Hastings guard nods and hangs up the comm. When she steps out, she gives Lee a much sharper once-over than before, and even gives Basil a suspicious, confused glance. Then she says, “Commander Bane will speak to you inside,” terse and crisp, and buzzes open the gate.

  –

  Scene 8: Rich’s quarters.

  Rafael wakes to warm evening light, disoriented and gasping from a dream he doesn’t remember. Finding himself enveloped in huge arms, held, he goes still for a breathless, terrified moment before he realizes where he is and who’s holding him.

  “Hey, sorry,” Rich says, and moves again, untangling Rafael from his arms, settling him down on the mattress. “I wasn’t gonna wake you yet. Um. But the show’s over, and you oughta eat something, you’re gonna sleep right through dinner…”

  “Yes,” says Rafael, and blinks slowly, eyes heavy and head already nodding. “I’m, yes, I’ll be…”

  An apple is pressed into his hand, and he manages to eat a few hazy, drifting bites before he’s asleep again.

  When he wakes again, it’s dark and there’s a massive body climbing into bed with him, ludicrously careful, not grabbing or groping at him. A heavy arm wraps very cautiously over him, and Rafael considers the hungry ache in his stomach, and then his aching head and heavy limbs, and the effort to climb to his feet and find something to eat and drink and…

  He closes his eyes, weighing effort against oblivion, and before he can make a choice he’s drifted off.

  Rich says, “Ope, sorry, hey,” and Rafael is awake again, disoriented and panting—some dream of an audience crawling from their seats and reaching for the stage, tired of watching his fumbling, numb-tongued stammering—“Shh, shh, hon, it’s okay. It’s five-thirty, I’m gonna just…” the massive shadow over him nods over toward the door, the shower. “You’ve been sleepin’ a while, you wanna get up, or?”

  Yes. Yes, he’s been sleeping a while, he’s been—too long, he must get up and make himself useful. “Yes,” says Rafael, and shifts his body against the sheets, the delicious warmth of the place Rich was lying. “Yes, of course. I’ll… I’ll be up directly.”

  He wakes the final time in the golden light of morning because Rich is shaking his shoulder gently with a rueful smile.

  “Mm, ‘m coming,” Rafael says, and drops his head back on the pillow, enjoying the weight of his whole body for another second. “I’m coming.”

  It’s far from the first time he’s slept so long and deeply the real world feels like a thin veil over the oblivion of sleep—in recent years, every infrequent time Carraway has called him to use for a party or for his private amusement, Rafael’s been wretchedly, disastrously tired afterward. But he didn’t have duties to attend to, then, and if he slept a dozen hours or more at a stretch there was no man to care.

  But now there’s Rich, and roused Rafael must be. The needs he ignored have returned full-force, and it’s tempting to continue fleeing from them into sleep… With a heroic effort, he drags himself up from the bed, staggers to the bathroom and begins to make himself some semblance of a decent human again.

  Rich pokes his head into the bathroom just as Rafael finishes half-heartedly brushing his teeth. When he gets a nod, the man brightens and then edges carefully into the small room, fiddling with the cuff on his wrist and looking deeply uncertain.

  “So, uh,” he says. His nails have changed: now they’re painted a deep, glossy green, with brighter green heart-petaled wood sorrel leaves and little yellow star-petaled flowers. It looks good, especially with the clear grass-green of his eyes.

  Rich says slowly and testingly, “I have some errands to run, before work.”

  Oh excellent, so Rafael is going to have a morning jog now. That will be healthy for him, probably.

  “Errands,” repeats Rafael, and plucks up a towel, patting the water away from his face and neck. “Yes. Errands, I’ll… assist in any way I can.”

  “Okay,” says Rich, and hesitates again before lowering his voice and going on, “I’m almost out of nanocream.”

  He pauses, watching Rafael digest that with the quiet caution of a man who has just given a cue and is unsure of the response. Nanocream is a healing ointment Rafael’s troupe only used in dire need, in lieu of even more expensive treatment, but always with marvelously effective results. It isn’t a substance the harem prisoners are forbidden from having, but only because it’s generally a non-issue. There’s no easy source from which to acquire it—none that the boytoys are encouraged to contact.

  So this is a smuggling operation. Not a high-stakes one, but Carraway presumably wouldn’t approve if he heard of it.

  Rafael isn’t sure if that concept delights or terrifies him. Possibly both.

  “I see,” he says. “Well, we must correct that at once.”

  “You can’t get it from the quartermaster,” Rich presses, still testing.

  “Naturally,” says Rafael smoothly. “We mustn’t trouble him—them, I mean. I’m sure they would prefer we reduce their workload—show initiative. Take it into our own hands to provide for ourselves…?”

  “Right,” says Rich, and his huge shoulders untense, some of the wariness leaving his eyes. “Yeah, exactly. There’s not really a medic station ‘round here—not for the boys, I mean, anyway, and they can’t go to the troop medic, so…”

  “Naturally,” says Rafael again, on automatic. Good lord, he’s tired. “Rich, it really is alright. You’re—we’re—simply resolving matters on our own account, that’s what’s needed sometimes to make things run smoothly in a complicated situation, I understand. So, let’s make a start.”

  “It’s not like we’re pirates or anything,” Rich mumbles, but he heads for the door anyway at that rolling stride that makes Rafael jog to keep up. “The boys gotta have something, is all.”

  Rafael has left Carraway’s parties too sore and tender to do more than lie in bed and hobble back and forth to the bathroom for days at a time, and is not inclined to argue. He nods instead, and Rich huffs and speeds up, walking in sharp, purposeful strides.

  “It’s ridiculous, is all,” he says, as Rafael half-runs to keep up with him, already regretting everything. There’s a hint of a growl under Rich’s voice, that deep-chested inhuman rumble that makes Rafael slow, putting more distance between them.

  Rich goes on, growl rising to a thunderstorm’s rolling fury, “Collects all these gorgeous guys n’then gets you all messed up n’doesn’t even keep a medic aboard—”

  He glances back at Rafael on those words, sees him several steps behind in both breathless intimidation and general breathlessness, and looks immediately abashed.

  “Fuck, sorry,” he says, and thumps his chest with one fist. The growl throttles off with the absurd coughing sound of a dying engine. Rich sighs, thumps himself again, follows it up with an obscure but possibly apologetic gesture, then slows to a leisurely saunter that requires Rafael to merely walk briskly at his side instead of jogging along behind.

  “It’s, you’re quite alright,” Rafael manages, and takes a deep breath, trying to get his heart rate under control. “There is a doctor, a friend of Carraway’s. He can be called in, if…”

  “If Carraway wants,” Rich finishes with another soft, rolling rumble, and Rafael only nods, unwilling to aggravate the man further. Rich sighs, and allows his growl to fade again. “Well, it beats a hole in the hull, but not by a lot. Fuckin’ asshole.”

  He’s leading the way towards the northern wing, dangerous territory for one of the captives to be in without due reason. To Rafael’s relief, Rich cuts down through a staircase much like the one linking his room to the harem, away from the looming proximity to Carraway’s third-floor suite. The more mundane offices of the ground floor are largely empty at this time of the morning, tall windows spilling long lines of cool, early-morning light into quiet halls.

  Rich heads unerringly to the rear door of the mansion and pauses there to hitch up his kilted sheets. Does the man meet all his contacts out in the gardens? Until yesterday, Rafael hadn’t been outside in… he doesn’t even remember how long. God, that’s a miserable thought.

  “Ah, so,” Rafael says, to distract himself from it. “Where are we going?”

  “Nitro,” says Rich, like Rafael should have any idea what that means. “She can’t do much, but she can help a cousin out. She’s alright.”

  “Ah,” says Rafael, and then they’re out the back door, cutting through a somewhat overgrown little courtyard into one much larger and grander; a pale expanse of well-maintained stone, with a grand, glittering fountain of marble and bronze at its center.

  The beauty of the morning light on the water and burnished metal belie the grim nature of the tableau itself—a beautiful woman in the trappings of Lady Victory, one hand on the ruff of a massive, powerful wolf, who in turn stands on the chest of a young man in the throes of deadly defeat. Water cascades down from Victory’s upraised hand, from the stones they stand on, and from the young man’s neck, where the wolf’s teeth have left a mess of meticulously crafted bronze-work gore. It’s made with grotesque and loving detail, the gashes in the man’s chest and torn fabric of his shirt, the hands clawing with dying desperation at the wolf’s forelegs—

  “Eurgh,” says Rich with decisive disgust, and Rafael is startled from his own horrified contemplation by an unexpected snort of laughter. He locks it back inside a moment later, but Rich is grinning at him, moving on past the fountain, dismissing it.

  “Bet he wanted to give the wolf a ponytail,” Rich says, and mimes pulling his own short hair back, putting on a mangled imitation of Carraway’s accent. “How else is anybody gonna know the wolf is me. I’m the wolf. Sugar.”

  “Stop it,” Rafael hisses, shocked and half-laughing, and dares to push gently at Rich’s elbow. “What if somebody hears you?”

  “There’s nobody out here,” says Rich, although he does look around to make sure before smiling back down at Rafael in gentle, teasing provocation. “An’ I wouldn’t be scared if there was. Because I’m the wolf.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It feels thrillingly dangerous to laugh at that, but Rafael can’t help it. “Oh, Signore Lupo,” he says, and he’s played Coni enough across the South to feel his accent slip to a cunning Appalachian territories drawl; not any single town or territory’s voice, but a dozen, a hundred, towns small enough to side with the hare and not the wolf. “Whatever you say, only please lock me far away from your silver, sir…”

  Rich laughs. “That’s cute,” he says in a warm, clueless tone with which Rafael is growing increasingly familiar. “I didn’t know you could do real voices too, I thought it was just like. Fancy ones. Which Shakespeare was that?”

  “That wasn’t Shakespeare,” Rafael says, amused and incredulous at the same time. “Does your Fleet not know Coni and Lupo? Or Coniglietto E Lupo D’Argentum, I suppose Sol would have me say.”

  “Do they come as puppets?” Rich says, grinning. “They got boats? We pretty much just do puppets on boats.”

  “No, no,” Rafael says, laughing again despite himself, and Rich beams all the brighter, delighted to have amused. “It’s the hare and the silver wolf. The wolf with all his power and danger, and the hare he always catches and then loses again, made a fool by his own pride…”

  “Oh, yeah, trickster stuff,” Rich says, with a broad wave of a hand. “Sure, we’ve probably got that around, somewhere. It’s like saints, or gods, that kinda thing. Myths from people’s ancestry, and stuff. We had sharing circles for stuff like that in school.”

  “…Perhaps?” Rafael hazards. “Folktales, you mean? Surely your Fleet has some of their own.”

  “Oh, nah, I don’t think so,” says Rich, with the profound unconcern of a man who hasn’t spent a day of his life thinking on stories. “My dad—” His voice hitches for only the briefest moment, a wince of pain he seems hardly aware of. “—He’d always tell stories his family passed along, y’know, the old ones from wherever they transferred in from. Shapeshifters, faeries, cold iron, those fuckin’… horses that drown you… Ireland, that's it. His family was from one of the old countries a long time back, that had folktales.”

  “Yes,” says Rafael. “Yes? Well. Our Coni and Lupo aren’t so grand and storied, but they’re beloved, still. It’s street theater, operatini. Lupo always thinks himself very great and wise and fearsome, with his silver claws and fangs, and at first he often seems proven right. But he always falls to his pride and the cunning of the common man, in the end.”

  “Yeah?” Rich says, and gives the fountain another look, a hint of grim amusement flashing across his pale, rough-hewn face. “Well, hey. Here’s hoping.” He gives a grumbling sigh and turns decisively from the fountain, looking around the yard. “C’mon, let’s go find—oh, hey! Nitro! Cousin, hey!”

  The figure he’s waving at is one of the soldiers on slow patrol. She breaks away from the pack at his wave, and comes jogging over with long strides that nearly shake the earth. When she grabs Rich’s arm and pulls him into a rough hug, the thump of their fists on each other’s backs makes Rafael flinch back in alarm, an impact like planets colliding.

  He can see a certain family resemblance as the two draw apart. They have the same inhumanly blood-red hair, skin as pale as marble. But this woman towers over Rich, a classic Hastings carved in the likeness of an Amazon warrior goddess. Unlike Rich’s bedsheet kilt and joke of a shirt, not to mention the collar and cuffs, this soldier wears professional fatigues, body armor, an entire catalog of knives and guns, and gruesome tattoos along her neck and down her arms. Chains, skulls, flames, tentacles, an uncomfortable amount of erect phalluses in a rainbow of unlikely hues. When she looks over and down—very far down—at Rafael, the look in her eerie copper-red eyes is the mad cold gleam of a dragon’s, inhuman and merciless.

  Hastings soldiers believe themselves to be incarnate avatars of the God of War, and it’s well known that however benevolent they might deign to be in any given moment, they consider the lives of those unfortunates outside their kindred to be disposable. Rafael has done his utmost to steer clear of them, as many do, and under the bright, nightmare weight of this woman’s red stare he could no more keep himself from freezing in place than he could spontaneously levitate.

  “—Rafael, Carraway assigned me to help him out,” Rich is saying. “Some weird new development in the game of whatever the fuck he’s playing at. But Raf’s—Rafael's a sweet guy, real helpful.”

  “Huh,” Nitro says. “Congrats on the arm candy, I guess?”

  “Yeah, I guess!” Rich says. “Anyway, you got any more nanocream I can bum off you? I already burned through most of the last lot.”

  “Those little guys have gone through enough of this stuff for a full platoon, last couple weeks,” Nitro says, but she’s already fishing out a candy tin from her fatigues and passing it over. “Unless you’re using it? You could just come round the infirmary, it’s free for family—”

  “The boys are using it,” Rich says, firm and flat. “Sandgren’s been pissed lately, so there’s more to fix, is all—it’s bad for them in there, y’know? And if they’re not hurt bad enough for a doctor, or he meant them to get hurt on purpose, they sure as fuck don’t have an infirmary. So, yeah, I’m gonna keep needing a lot, especially if Domingo takes a while to heal up from what Sandgren did to him. Is that gonna be a problem?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay, there’s no problem,” Nitro says, shrugging. “Just thought I’d offer.”

  “Well… thanks,” says Rich, and pockets the tin, a taut defiance in the set of his massive shoulders, a bitter fire in his green eyes. “We’re not soldiers, though. I don’t belong out there with you any more than they do.” He reaches out and grips the brutally-defined muscle of the woman’s forearm, and she gives him a sharp, bemused smile and grips back. “But thanks, cousin. I owe you.”

  “Set me up a date with that fancy little elf motherfucker you got on tap,” Nitro says. “Y’know, who’s always doing swords and shit in the courtyards? He seems like he’s got enough juice left in him to be worth a squeeze.”

  Rich gives a deep, appreciative chuckle. “Yeah, okay, if anyone could survive the kind of hooks you’d sink into a guy, it’d be some iron-jaw steelhead like Sol. I’ll see if he’s interested enough to sneak out and say hello.”

  “If he isn’t, I got some spare calories you could work off me,” Nitro says, faux-casual, and rocks her hips in not-so-playful invitation.

  Rich gives a strangled laugh and steps back with his hands raised in surrender. A rosy blush pours from his ears to his face and down his throat.

  “No way,” he nearly squeaks, “do I look as tough as Sol? You’d shred me!”

  “Ha! I swear to Mars’ spear and six-pack, you’re the biggest waste of man-meat I’ve ever met. But okay, soft boy, if you want to be good for something today, I’m stuck at this stupid puzzle—” Nitro pulls a card-sized minitablet out of another pocket in her fatigues and flips it open. It’s some kind of little game console, and Rich goes and leans in shoulder to shoulder with her, studying whatever it is Nitro’s been doing. Rafael watches in fascination as Rich patiently coaches the soldier through some kind of tactical block puzzle.

  “Cool. I hate these levels,” Nitro finally says. “Okay, I gotta get back to work already, get outta my face.”

  “Love you too, cousin,” Rich says amiably, and kisses her cheek. The soldier laughs brightly, boxes his arm with a fist the size of Rafael’s entire head, then leans in and kisses him back.

  Rich waves after her as she goes, and only then looks over at Rafael and notices how he’s standing perfectly still, eyes wide.

  “You okay?” he says. Then his expression shifts from confusion to weary sympathy and he puts a careful hand on Rafael’s shoulder. “Right, yeah. Nitro’s cool, though, it’s cool.”

  Of course, Rafael doesn’t have to explain to Rich that for most people the sight of a Hastings soldier up close has a good chance of ending with injury or death instead of a kiss on the cheek and a case of medical salve. For all his lake-bred innocence, he’s already made plain that he’s unhappily aware of his ferocious relations’ reputation.

  “She seemed… of a good humor, yes,” Rafael says. “I was just startled.” He takes a steadying breath.

  “Well, you did good anyway,” Rich says, and pats Rafael gently on the back. “You were really brave!”

  “I, oh,” Rafael manages, staring up at the open approval on Rich’s face. He can’t begin to compose an adequate reply, and finds himself smiling at Rich instead, self-conscious and warmed. Hastily changing the subject, he ventures, “I’ve heard of Hastings calling each other cousin—surely the line is well-established enough you aren’t truly cousins…?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s just a friendly thing,” Rich says, shrugging. “It's part of their—our, I guess, big fucked-up gang… religious thing. They don’t get me at all, and they can’t help me get out of here, but they do what they can to make it easier on me to be here like this.”

  “Ah.” That makes more sense. For the best, perhaps, that it’s only an affectation of family. If Gabe or Sofia was somewhere in the compound, working for the man who… God, no. The thought of their distress at Rafael’s own pain, having them so close and unable to help, makes him feel ill. He shakes it off as best he can.

  They take a different path back to the mansion, a side passage between two satellite buildings on the compound grounds, which leads them back to the courtyard beneath Rich’s window. It’s a familiar sheltered corner, relatively shaded in the growing heat of the day—and there’s someone already here under the placid, empty eyes of the marble woman and her endlessly-cascading water.

  “Oh, hey,” says Sol, and lowers the wooden practice sword he’s holding, like he had no idea this was Rich’s courtyard and Rich was going to come through at some point. He’s in loose, light drawstring trousers and a scanty black gym shirt now, and as tautly muscled as a hunting cat, with a glittering saint medallion on a long chain around his neck.

  Sol tucks it away a moment later, preening himself back into order now that he has an audience; flicks his short braid back over one magnificent shoulder, and wipes his forehead with a shining bronze arm gilded in sweat and sunlight. Lifting his eyebrows, he meets Rafael’s gaze with the slightest curve to his lips, at once challenging and inviting. “You want something, pal?”

  Rafael swallows hard.

  “Oh, yeah,” says Rich, apparently inured to the view. “I know someone who has a crush on you!”

  Sol’s eyebrows arch higher and he gives Rich and Rafael both a once-over, cautiously intrigued. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Rich says. “Nitro Goresmith thinks you’re hot shit.”

  Sol groans. “Just what I always wanted, a giant warhead’s good opinion,” he says in disgust, and shakes his head, returning to his deft practice. The blade of his sword darts and dances with precise and immaculate skill; lunges, striking at the heart of an invisible opponent, and Rafael spends a breathless moment staring at every defined swell and curve of bunching muscle and then returns to himself in a dry-mouthed rush and lowers his eyes.

  “Yeah, ‘s great huh?” Rich says, and settles on the rim of the fountain, grinning an arrestingly sharp and impish grin, green eyes glittering as Sol scoffs and stabs the air yet again. “I know you’ve been pining over her, so I just thought I’d let you know—”

  “Pining!” Sol exclaims, rounding on him. “That’s a laugh! Pal, I don’t even know which one Nitro is.” He says the name with a healthy dose of high-class distaste, lips twisting disdainfully. “Pining.”

  “She’s the one with the tattoos that’re the Mars sign made out of a dick and balls,” Rich says helpfully. “She’s actually got like a dozen dicks all over her for all the zodiac signs, but I’ve only seen four or five. I bailed out when she went for her belt.”

  Sol snorts. “Sounds like a real winner. Christ, can’t imagine why I wouldn’t be all over that.”

  “I did think you were the kind of guy to appreciate the arts. She’s got a whole theme going, that’s pretty classy! You could come work out with me next time, I’ll help you out.”

  Sol snorts again, more emphatically, and goes back into a lunge. This time decidedly away from Rich. “I mean I wouldn’t say no to a decent gym for once. The rinky-dink staff one’s barely a closet with some free weights in it.”

  “The staff gym?” Rafael repeats, startled from his quiet contemplation of the shift and clench of muscle in Sol’s back and shoulders by sudden alarm. “You’ve gone to the staff dormitories?”

  Sol tosses his head and stabs viciously through the air. “So?” he says, with a defiance that suggests he knows exactly so. “We’re staff. Bedroom staff, maybe, but we’re sure as hell not garrison. I’m not letting myself go soft just because the big man upstairs doesn’t care to give us decent weights, or books, or clothes, or—” he lunges at another unseen assailant, overextends his weight slightly and draws himself at once back to standing, marshaling his temper; his ears twitch and flick and his fine features struggle against the constraint of self-control.

  He finishes carefully, “It’s not like I’m going to hike upstairs and use Carraway’s gym, and the soldiers get handsy if you’re not careful. So I’ll use whatever gym I want, and they can just try to stop me.”

  “No one has a right to complain if you mind your manners and clean up after yourself,” Rich says idly, looking just as taken as Rafael by the delicious show and considerably less perturbed by the thought of breaking such a foundational stricture of their captivity.

  As Sol goes back to his practice and Rich continues to make idle conversation with his friend, Rafael settles himself cautiously down on the edge of the fountain. Considering the men he never before had cause to speak to, and the way things have shifted under his feet. Rich unlocking doors, opening safe passages long closed. Connor running the gardens fearlessly, unintimidated by the looming specter of Sandgren’s punishments. Sol, playing prince in exile, demanding the dignity of a man under the circumstances that would count him among the decoration and toys.

  Rafael doesn’t know where he himself falls, what role there is for him—chillingly, the brief, mad thought occurs of their captors turned aside by his words, directed and defanged. He shakes it away and puts the unease from his mind, leaning against Rich’s monumental arm and watching the flash of sunlight off the polished wooden blade.

  It doesn’t look much like stage fencing, but there are a few steps of the martial dance Sol is engaged in that Rafael has made himself, in more theatrical form. He must find some means to keep himself entertained again, after all, now that he’s alive once more.

  “Is the sword—are there others here, somewhere?” he asks at a lull in the conversation. “Where did you come by it?”

  “Why, you want one?” Sol snorts. “It’s blunt, it’s not like you could actually—”

  “I know, it’s a wooden waster, not Excalibur,” Rafael says, annoyed enough to interrupt, and then shrinks into himself at Sol’s sharp look.

  “You know stuff about swords, too?” Rich says before Sol can eviscerate him with either blade or tongue. “Am I the only guy who doesn’t know how to swordfight, is that something everybody landside learns, or…?”

  “I’m able to… entertain, given a willing partner and an uncritical audience,” Rafael admits, loathing himself increasingly for saying anything. “I’m an engaging enough stage fencer, I warrant, though nothing to compare to an educated duelist…”

  “Well, hell, stage fencing,” says Sol, with withering disgust. “So you couldn’t do a thing even if I fetched you San Galgano’s blade out of Montesiepi. Stage fencing. Christ, I almost got my hopes up.”

  Rafael’s chest quietly crumples into a red-hot ball of shame. He doesn’t—can’t—answer, just smiles politely and drops his eyes to the ground so he doesn’t have to see that look of scornful dismissal, puts his hands very carefully on his knees and sits motionless, trying to breathe through the foolish, useless hurt.

  “Sol, you're being an asshole again,” Rich says, and a big hand lands on Rafael's back and strokes gently up and down.

  To Rafael, low and warm, he says, “He doesn't mean half the shit that comes outta his mouth, it's just cultural. Being an offensive dick is some kinda New York heritage thing, Andy’s just as snippy when he bothers to get outta bed and say hello. They breed ‘em mean up there.”

  “We can't all keep it Family Fleet out here, you big baby,” Sol says, and Rafael can't read his tone: aggressive, defensive… apologetic? He wouldn't dare to presume.

  Rich's hand comes up, thumb rubbing at the back of Rafael's neck above the collar. “Stage fencing sounds cool as hell, honestly. Could I see that sometime?”

  There’s a pause as Rafael struggles for any laggard response, and then Sol says with a put-upon sigh, “Here, you’ll need a sword, then,” and when Rafael looks up, he’s holding his practice blade out to Rafael, hilt first. “It'll be entertaining, right? You said entertaining, I’m willing to be entertained.” He’s not looking at Rafael, disdainful expression replaced by aggressive nonchalance, but his ears are flattened back against his head in a way that surely would mean something if Rafael knew him better.

  He doesn’t, and so it doesn’t. “I couldn’t presume,” Rafael says, too quietly, and drops his gaze again. The urge to run back to his room and crawl back into bed and possibly die there is overwhelming.

  The silence this time is longer, stretching awkwardly out as Rich keeps stroking Rafael’s back.

  “Well,” Sol says finally. “Hey, look, stage fencing, at least you know how to hold a sword, right? So I can show you some real moves from a—a different discipline, if you feel like a little self-improvement.”

  Real moves stings, but Rafael raises his head in startlement, daring to meet the dark, challenging eyes. Actual sword fighting is a pursuit for aristocracy, and nothing an indigent actor could ever hope to approach in normal circumstances—but these hardly qualify, and there’s nothing in Sol’s gaze that suggests he’s joking. He’s willing to teach Rafael, even a little. He thinks Rafael is worth the time.

  “I could venture to try,” Rafael agrees cautiously, and the small smile of satisfaction that curves Sol’s lips is as sharp and bright as the man himself.

  “Right,” Sol says. “I’ll go get another waster.”

  He strides away, leaving Rich and Rafael on the edge of the fountain. Rafael wavers between the lingering desire to curl up small enough that no one can see him, and the uncertain spark of hope and pleasure at the thought of that finely-made man bending his focus—and all that glorious bronze muscle—to Rafael’s education.

  The last bit of cringing shame is closer to his accustomed state of desolation, and wins out. “He’s right,” he says as softly as he can, and his voice still sounds too loud, all wrong. “Stage fencing wouldn’t be much to see, compared to the real thing. It’s mere artifice and misdirection, all sound and fury, to look good for an audience, it’s nothing.” You’re nothing, murmurs his heart, in a quiet, sneering chorus that sounds like Carraway, like Sandgren. He’ll just be disappointed when he tries to see what’s inside you and finds out there’s nothing there—

  “It’s not nothing,” Rich says, and gives the back of Rafael’s neck a tentative squeeze, petting him in long, slow strokes. “I’d still love to see it anytime! I don’t need some kinda lesson on avenues of attack, and zones of defense, and whatever Sol’s always talking about when he shows off. I just like to see you guys have some fun for once. Uh. And it’s okay if messing around with swords isn’t actually fun for you, you don’t have to. I’ll tell Sol to lay off—”

  “No!” Rafael says in alarm. To turn down such a generous offer from that proud man, who must already think so little of Rafael—”No, it’s kind of him, I’m happy to attempt it. It’s only, I may not be fit for much of such a strenuous pursuit, at present. I haven’t kept in practice with stage fencing, all I’ve ever practiced here was… Tumbling. Occasionally.”

  Rich’s eyes brighten. “Yeah? That’s so cool! Like, what kinda moves can you do?” He’s watching Rafael like he’s impressed now, and Rafael can’t bear to see that expression fade back to pity or disappointment. What can he do that merits the attention, though…

  “Or, could you, I guess, I dunno if you still do it,” Rich adds into the pause as Rafael frantically considers. Rich still seems gamely interested, if increasingly worried he might have somehow offended.

  “I’m out of practice,” Rafael blurts out, prickling all over with nerves, and pushes himself up to stretch, heart pounding, clinging to that look of interest like a lifeline. “I can make an effort, though. Here.”

  Tumbling takes a great deal more effort and focus than running his lines over and over again, and draws on the sort of muscle he’s no longer equipped with, but he’s still got the knack for it when he tries. In the space provided—far more generous than the length of his own room—he manages several flips with showy spins in them, a one-handed cartwheel, then comes up short against the wall of the manor and has to kick off of it into a back handspring, landing on his feet again. Nothing too high or daring, and he staggers on the landing, and he knows his form was very nearly disastrous, but thank god he’s still been practicing every so often, it wasn’t completely embarrassing.

  “There,” he says, every muscle hot with the sudden, unaccustomed use, and allows himself a proud, preening backwards glance. “Like I said, I’m out of practice.”

  Rich is staring at him, gratifyingly wide-eyed and open-mouthed. “You—holy shit, man! What were you supposed to do, fly?” He's grinning now, clearly delighted, and steps over to Rafael to hassle him gently about with his huge, pale hands, poking and pushing and grabbing as Rafael dares to laughingly fend him away.

  “What are you made of, rubber? You got antigrav in those legs? Damn!"

  “The hell did I miss?” says Sol, and Rafael tenses but doesn’t let himself cringe, riding on the exhilaration of Rich’s open admiration. Sol is carrying another wooden practice blade and a set of wicker and plex face-guards, and he looks… if not impressed, then at least surprised.

  “I have retained a variety of skills, signore,” says Rafael, and leaves it neatly at that. Sol flicks his ears irritably at him, wrinkling the proud arch of his nose, but he doesn’t sneer at Rafael again, just tosses a practice sword and a face-guard in his direction.

  “Well, now you can pick up another one,” says Sol. “Here, get that on and we can get started.”

  With how sore and winded that single row of flips has left him, Rafael would really rather not, but Rich is grinning at him encouragingly and hiding under furniture isn’t an option outdoors. He dons his helm and raises the sword in sweeping invitation. Ready, despite himself, to learn yet another new role.

  Smashwords as well as your (but not Amazon yet except for After the Storm), under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet. If you missed book one, After the Storm, you can . And check out our new !