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“...And now we get to the heart of the letter: we’re trying to track down this phouka and hoping Kieran might have a thought. A phouka who…makes hats? Maybe he likes to wave a silver spatula around? It’s a long shot, but it’s all we’ve got to go on. We don’t want to spook him, so if you do find him, you can tell him we want to commission some hats. I mean, we don’t need holes for cat ears but he does sound like he knows his stuff, hat-wise. My love to K and C. Hope to hear from you soon. J.” Mark glanced up from the letter. “Well?”
They were in the kitchen. Years of rising with the sun—and on occasion, Gwyn, if the weather was foul—had left Mark and Kieran with an internal clock that was impossible to shake. This morning, even, Mark had woken to find Kieran already awake and sitting up, staring out their bedroom window at the silk-pale predawn sky. Careful not to wake Cristina, they’d ventured out of bed and beyond the warm covers for food, almost as they had when they were with the Hunt, and not ten minutes later, Julian’s letter had flashed into being via fire-message at Mark’s shoulder.
Kieran had been looking out the kitchen window while he listened, expression distant, but now he came around to where Mark was sitting with his toast and jam. “I do know of the phouka of which they inquire,” he said thoughtfully, plucking the letter out of Mark’s hand and leaning against the counter beside him. Mark took a moment to admire his partner and the picture he made: his long, lean form, and the shirt he wore over it, which he’d stolen from Mark but left unbuttoned.
“You do?” asked Mark with surprise, who had thought Julian’s question quite a long shot.
Kieran grinned. “Yes,” he said. “His name is Socks MacPherson.”
Forgetting, for just a moment, that Cristina was still asleep in the other room, Mark laughed. “Socks?” he said incredulously. “It is not.”
“I cannot lie,” Kieran reminded him, “and I would not lie about this. He is called Socks MacPherson, at least—that is not his true name. But in any event, I have an answer for Julian.” He looked briefly contemplative, and then pushed himself upright. “Where do we keep pen and paper?”
“First drawer of the writing desk,” Mark said, and Kieran, with a nod, vanished into the front room, where the writing desk they all shared was tucked in a corner. Mark took the opportunity to get up and start making coffee, as the sun was fast rising and Cristina would be awake soon. He thought he heard her stirring even now.
Kieran returned with pen and paper and settled down in Mark’s spot to write. It was comfortably quiet in the kitchen this early, in a domestic, settled sort of way, with the scratch of Kieran’s pen filling the silence, the scrape of Mark’s knife spreading soft butter across bread and the water slowly coming to a boil in Cristina’s moka pot. In the other room, the bed shifted and creaked as Cristina, presumably, rolled out of bed; in no time at all she was standing in the kitchen with them, looking rumpled and sleepy, but, even so, smiling. “Good morning,” she said, knuckling sleep out of one eye. “Is there coffee?”
“Soon,” Mark promised, spooning coffee grounds into the filter basket. Kieran stood, abandoning his letter-writing, and Mark slid the plate of buttered toast down the counter as Kieran made his way over to her. “Five minutes. Ten at most. Have some toast in the meantime.”
Cristina playfully scrunched up her nose at him, but she took a piece of toast and crunched into it and allowed Kieran to wrap her up in his arms from behind as well. Mark set the moka pot back onto the stove to brew and watched Kieran bury his face in Cristina’s shoulder, watched him murmur something to her and heard Cristina laugh. She patted his arm, said something in a murmur Mark didn’t catch and fed him a bite from her piece of toast. Mark’s chest ached with affection for his partners. To distract himself, he leaned over and drew Kieran’s unfinished letter over to him.
Dear Brother, (the letter began, which made Mark smile,)
It always brings a smile to my face to receive correspondence from Blackthorn Hall, and this occasion is no exception. Mark has communicated to me your question, and I am pleased to answer it, although the answer may not, I am afraid, please you overmuch.As you know, the borders of Faerie are hazy and irregular, and no man can know how vast its acres, for it flows on to the north, south, east, and west without end. And as you also know, such an expanse may contain within it unknown thousands of denizens, from the smallest sprite on its fairyfly mount, to the grandest ogre who ever…
Mark grinned. It was so like Kieran to write with such embellishment even in a letter to Julian that he could not help wanting to ruin it a little. He seized the pen and added, in a fit of mischief, ogred down ogre street—
“Mark, what are you doing?” asked Kieran, who had happened to look up at that very moment. He strode over (Mark easily surrendered the letter to him), bent over the paper, read it, scratched something out, and looked up at Mark with an expression so distinctly unimpressed that it was actually quite funny. “‘Ogred down ogre street’?”
Cristina burst into laughter.
“I think I’m hilarious,” Mark said, grinning. He put his hand on Kieran’s chin and drew him in for a quick kiss in apology for his behavior. “Cristina thinks I’m hilarious.”
“It does not make any sense whatsoever,” Kieran said flatly, but the kiss had made his eyes soften. He returned to his seat with the letter and continued to write through breakfast, as Cristina and Mark rattled around with plates and cups and the cleaning up. After, when the breakfast dishes had been put away and Cristina had kissed Mark on her way out to tend the garden, Mark came around the counter to Kieran, who was still writing. “That’s a really long letter about a phouka named Socks MacPherson,” he said, hooking his chin over Kieran’s shoulder.
“It isn’t just about Socks MacPherson,” said Kieran absently. “I’ve offered to arrange an opportunity for Julian and Emma to meet with Socks, if they like. It may be a little premature to tell them this, as I have yet to ask for Adaon’s help in this matter—” He inclined his head towards another piece of paper, glistening with ink, and Mark realized Kieran had been working on two letters at once. “But I am certain he won’t say no.”
“Why do we need Adaon to help Jules and Emma meet with Socks?”
“Well,” Kieran said, pausing in the middle of his writing, “there is the matter of him being allegiant to the Seelie Court. Emma and Julian will have to travel to Seelie if they want to speak with him—I can provide an incentive for Socks to assist them, but only Adaon will be able to extend an invitation to the Court and guarantee them safe passage, being—favored by the Queen.” His lips twitched, briefly, into a grin, but then it faded. “And there is…one other reason I would like Emma and Julian to travel to Seelie.”
Mark frowned. “Which is?”
In response, Kieran passed him the letter to read for himself, which did not bode well. It meant he was worried about Mark’s reaction.
I provide this assistance from the bottom of my heart, brother Julian. But I would ask you for a small courtesy in return: that you tell me about your time in the Seelie Court, with all the detail that you think relevant or interesting.
Mark threw down the letter. “You’re asking Julian to spy for you?”
“Merely a traveler’s account,” Kieran said at once. “He would not be acting on behalf of the Unseelie Court.”
“Would the Queen see it that way?” Mark challenged.
Kieran had thought of it, too; Mark could see it in his eyes, the possibility that the Queen might take offense to two Shadowhunters with connections to the Unseelie King, invited by the King’s own brother, snooping around her court. He had considered it. He had deemed it worth the risk. Mark took a step back. “Julian has done enough,” he warned. “He and Emma both—they’ve fought enough, sacrificed enough. All I want for them is peace.”
“That is all I want for them as well,” Kieran said.
Mark jerked his chin towards the letter, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s interesting,” he said, “considering how the assistance you’ve decided to offer my brother hinges on putting himself in harm’s way.”
It was not a fair thing to accuse Kieran of. But Mark could admit it: he was afraid. He knew very well Julian would agree to it, and he did not want any members of his family anywhere near the Seelie Court. “Mark,” Kieran said at last, his name a soft appeal, “believe me when I say I would not be doing this if I did not have to. But I have reason to believe that the Seelie Court has something to hide.”
“The Seelie Court always has something to hide,” Mark told him flatly. “As does your own court, for that matter.”
“Not like this,” said Kieran. His expression was distant. “This is different.”
It was, Mark realized, not the first time he had seen that expression on Kieran’s face; he’d seen it earlier that morning, while reading Julian’s letter aloud, as Kieran gazed out the window. It was not exactly fear or wariness. He could not say what it was—but he found it reminiscent of a prey animal in an open plain, standing very still and staring at you, trying to determine if you were a threat to run from. He gentled his voice. “Tell me, Kier.”
“I cannot,” Kieran said. “There is—nothing. My scouts have reported nothing, Winter’s redcaps have found nothing.” He drew in a breath and exhaled, long and slow. “There is nothing,” he said again, as though trying to convince himself. “Only a feeling.”
“Only a feeling?” Mark repeated.
“More than a feeling,” Kieran amended. “A strange presence in Faerie I can make nothing of. I can feel it through my connection to the Land. It—unsettles me. That is all.” He blinked several times, like a man coming out of a trance, and looked away—again, Mark noted, to the kitchen window.
“I get that,” Mark said, not unkindly, “but if you’re going to ask Julian and Emma to commit espionage, which is not without significant risk, there has to be more than a feeling.”
“I am the King, Mark,” Kieran said without looking at him. “I have a responsibility to the Land and to my people. If this means I can find out what the Seelie Court is hiding—”
“You do not even know if it is something the Seelie Court is hiding,” said Mark, a little more sharply this time.
Kieran did look at him, then. “What would you have me do?”
Mark exhaled. “Whatever you think best,” he said tiredly. “You are the King, after all.”
There was silence in the kitchen, then. “I will consider your words,” Kieran said, which was a very faerie thing to say. It meant that he would not engage in the conversation any further.
Mark and Kieran did not fight anymore as they used to in the Hunt. They were both older, and wiser, and maybe a little more tired—Mark, for his part, found that he had little desire to have drawn-out screaming fights with his partners when all he wanted to do at the end of the day was curl up with them and just go to sleep. It did not mean, however, that his and Kieran’s argument had not knocked things slightly off-kilter. They were quieter around each other for the rest of the day.
Cristina noticed. “What did you say to each other?” she hissed at Mark, as they were doing the dishes after dinner. Kieran had gone out to tend the garden and provide their grape bowers with his usual king-of-Faerie, definitely-a-misuse-of-power boost, though Mark suspected that Kieran just wanted a moment alone to think.
“We gave each other something to think about,” Mark said. It was not untrue; he had been turning the matter over in the back of his head the entire day, silently arguing with himself about how the conversation had gone. With power came responsibility, and it was not Kieran’s fault that he had to consider what might be best for Unseelie, but Mark could not help the little flare of protective fury that rose every time he thought about how Kieran had actively deemed Julian and Emma worth risking. Emma and Jules were perfectly capable, he knew, and with Adaon’s warrant of safe passage, they would be far safer than all the other times they’d ventured into Faerie. But still.
Cristina raised her eyebrows at him as she passed him a plate to dry. Mark sighed. “We just disagreed on something, Tina. That’s all.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Cristina said, in a tone that suggested that it had better be all.
They went to bed as usual, later that night. Mark ended up in the middle quite by accident—Cristina climbed into bed on his right, and he began to shift over so she would have room, but then Kieran fell into bed on his other side and Mark went still.
Cristina reached up to turn out the lamp as though she’d planned the entire thing. Then all was quiet in the cottage. A gentle breeze from their open bedroom window on the far wall sent the lace curtains billowing and dancing; a mockingbird sang, and then fell silent just as quickly. Cristina was warm against his back. There was space between him and Kieran.
Carefully, tentatively, Mark put an arm around Kieran, across his waist, and Kieran relaxed, shifting into him. He said, falteringly, “Mark,” just as Mark started, “Kier.”
They paused, and then they both laughed, the warm, low laughter of lovers.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Mark murmured, kissing the nape of Kieran’s neck and pulling him close. He heard Kieran hum with contentment. “Go to sleep, Kier.”
But morning came far sooner than either of them expected, or rather the talking about it part did. Sometime later, an indefinite amount of time later, Mark was woken by an elbow to the ribs.
“By the Angel,” he groaned, clutching at the tender spot on his ribs. “What the hell?”
Cristina’s voice, from beside him; she was awake, too. “Kieran?”
Because it was Kieran who’d woken them, whether he’d meant to or not—Kieran who was sitting up in bed, head bowed, gasping desperately for air. As he raised both hands and raked them through his hair, fingers twisting in it like he was trying to ground himself, Mark could see salt-white among the blue-black strands.
Kieran was frightened. Being cognizant of that alone woke Mark up faster than he could have imagined. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said immediately, sitting up and reaching for him. He pulled Kieran into his arms, stroked his hair tightly. Kieran shuddered in his hold but didn’t attempt to break free, only pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “Kier, what is it?”
“The Land,” Kieran rasped.
Cristina touched Mark’s arm to get his attention. Her eyes were alert, and she was already putting her hair up in a messy bun. “Mark, stay with him,” she said, shifting towards the end of the bed. “I’m going to check the perimeter—”
Kieran, the madman, actually laughed. Mark and Cristina stared at him. “No, Cristina, stay,” he said, reaching out to grasp the shoulder of her shirt. “Shadowhunters. There is no danger you can fight, my love. I’m alright. Stay here.”
Cristina looked worried. She didn’t say anything, but her gaze flicked from Mark to Kieran and then back again, uncertain.
“I cannot lie,” Kieran reminded them, “and I say I’m alright. Please. Just come here.”
“Kieran,” Cristina began, almost helplessly, but the truth was that neither she nor Mark could find it in themselves to deny Kieran anything on any given day, and even less so in the middle of the night, in a situation like this. She allowed herself to be tugged into laying across the bed, her head in Kieran’s lap, although she still watched him with big worried eyes.
“I know you can’t lie,” Mark said, “but funnily enough, I’m not inclined to believe you about this.”
Kieran seemed calmer now. He’d started playing with Cristina’s hair. “It is nothing,” he said quietly. “Only a feeling.”
“A feeling that makes you react like this?” Mark asked. “Kier.”
The way he said Kieran’s name was chiding and pleading all at once, and it worked. Kieran took a deep breath. “There is a presence in Faerie,” he said. A strange presence in Faerie I can make nothing of. “I do not know what it is, if it is friendly or if it means any of us harm—but I can feel it through my connection through the Land, and the Land is afraid. Sometimes the fear is so strong that it wakes me in the middle of the night.”
There was a moment of silence. “How long has this been happening?” Cristina asked, her brow furrowed.
“Time flows differently in Faerie,” said Kieran, with a shrug. “Sometime after I took the throne. Long enough afterwards that I was able to note the difference. The—feeling.” He sighed. “It is only a feeling, nothing more, persistent though it may be. I did not mention it before because these moments were so few and far between, but the Land has grown more and more frightened, and it calls on me to protect it. If only I knew what I needed to protect it from.”
“That’s why you wanted Jules and Emma to report on the Seelie Court,” Mark said numbly.
“Yes.”
Mark pressed a kiss to the crown of Kieran’s head and didn’t say anything for a moment. “You know,” he said, trying for lighthearted and probably failing miserably, “you might’ve won the argument, if you’d said all this earlier.”
“I do not need to win any arguments with you,” said Kieran. “No one ever suggests that I might be mistaken in the decisions I make, as King. What I need is for you to tell me if I am wrong, and I was. Julian and Emma are not fey; this does not concern them in the least. It is one thing for my scouts to risk their lives for Unseelie, and another thing entirely to ask your family to do so.”
“This concerns us all,” Mark pointed out. “An unidentifiable presence in Faerie could mean a threat to all of us, Shadowhunters and Fair Folk and Downworlders alike. I know you would never actively endanger Emma and Jules. I only reacted that way because I knew Julian would agree to it, and I was worried about them returning to the Seelie Court. I do not trust the Seelie Queen.”
Kieran’s mouth twitched. “Just between lovers,” he said quietly, “I do not trust her overmuch, either, at present. But that is a sentiment I cannot afford to express if there is to be peace between Seelie and Unseelie.”
“It still wasn’t fair to accuse you of putting them at undue risk,” Mark said. “I know you already thought of everything you could do to keep them safe. I know you love them, too. I’m sorry.”
Cristina was looking between them, her eyebrows raised and a little crease between her eyebrows. “I feel like I’m missing something, and I have no idea what you two are talking about,” she said. “But whatever it is, is it resolved?”
Mark and Kieran looked at each other. “Yes,” Mark said decisively. “Kier, do you still have the letter?”
“Yes. It is yet to be sent.”
“Send it,” said Mark. “Send it and we’ll see what Julian says. He and Emma are capable Shadowhunters. They deserve to make whatever choice they think best, and I will respect that decision. We’ll do it tomorrow morning—or, well. Later today.”
He suddenly felt the lateness of the hour. His jaw cracked when he yawned. “And on that note, we should go back to sleep,” he said. “We won’t wake up until sundown otherwise.”
No one argued against it. There was some shuffling and rearranging and redistribution of pillows, but eventually they were all settled again, with Kieran in the middle this time. Mark could see that the sky beyond their bedroom window was already a few shades lighter than ink-dark—a deep blue that was not quite luminescent, a little like Kieran’s hair. His mind was ticking over. It was not ready to turn off, it seemed. “Kier?”
“What is it, Mark?”
“What does it feel like for you,” asked Mark, staring up at the ceiling, “when the Land is afraid?”
Kieran shifted beside him. His hand found Mark’s beneath the covers, and he drew Mark’s hand to rest over his chest in something like a half-embrace. Here Mark could feel the rise and fall of Kieran’s chest, and, if he concentrated, the steady rhythm of his heart. “It is thrill and fear both,” he said, voice low and drowsy, “like waking to a stranger standing over your bed. But it does not hurt me.”
Leave it to Kieran to know exactly what Mark was asking. “It doesn’t?”
“No,” Kieran said, and there was a warm note in his voice now, something lulling and loving. “Only a shock, a moment of fear. Do not fret over me, my love. Go to sleep.”
Mark fell asleep like that, curled around Kieran, to the sound of two sets of even breathing.