Scene 20: Sol's courtyard.

  Rafael half-wakes as the light coming in the window changes, and lies awake for a soft, timeless while feeling dislocated not to hear Rich moving quietly about the room, before he drifts off aimlessly to sleep again.

  He’s woken with a start as someone knocks quick and impatient. The room is brighter, but not by much; Rich’s side of the bed is empty and unmade, and the fruit bowl with its handful of cherries sits equally untouched.

  “C’mon, Romeo, wake up already,” Sol calls, still hammering. “Got an urgent appointment for you!”

  Rafael peels himself out of bed and stumbles to the door to wrench it open. “What, for the love of all that’s good, could possibly be happening at six in the godforsaken morning?”

  “Time for your next lesson in Il Terzo Fiore,” Sol says, patting the hilts of the two practice swords he’s carrying. “Go on, do your face, clock’s running.”

  Rafael stares at him with conflicting emotions, chiefly bewilderment, gratitude and resentment. “Do I have any say in this?”

  “Christ, no! Go on, move it!”

  Rafael glares and closes the door in his face. He prepares himself for the day more quickly than usual and opens the door only a few minutes later to find Sol lounging against the opposite wall, ears pricked forward.

  “About time,” Sol says, pushing off the wall. “Let’s go, Romeo.”

  “Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy,” Rafael points out, following him down the hall.

  “Yeah?” Sol says, waving a hand around. “And? What, you hear anybody laughing?”

  “Obviously not,” Rafael says coldly. “But that doesn’t mean the lovers have to die at the end.”

  “Fussy,” Sol snorts. “Fine, Shakespeare, you like that better? Big man, running the whole show?”

  “And wouldst thou give e’en half a shit should I say thee nay?” Rafael shoots back, and Sol slants him an appreciative half-grin.

  “I don’t cater to creatives, it only encourages them. Come on, move that narrow little hind end already.”

  Rafael is unsurprised to find his maestro just as unyielding as before, and his own soreness barely faded. He's pleasantly surprised, however, that he tires less quickly, though the ache that builds through his arms and shoulders and thighs is just as fierce.

  “Eh, not too bad,” Sol finally allows, when Rafael’s arms are quivering with fatigue and rosy sunlight is glowing across the garden beds. “Keep it up and you might not die in your first real duel someday.”

  “And here you had me hoping for the sweet release of death,” Rafael says dryly. “However will I manage the disappointment?” He staggers off to the nearest fountain to drink right from the spray.

  “So, hey, you think you’ll be up for this tomorrow or whenever?” Sol asks, examining the blade of his wooden sword. “I could let you skip a day or two if you think you’ll need it. Rich was fussing, he said I went a little too hard on you, he said you were delicate.”

  He’s trying to hide it behind the challenging tone, but it’s obvious that he’s aching for Rafael to commit to more of this ridiculous endeavor. For some reason, he enjoys having even as inept a partner as Rafael to practice with.

  Reluctantly pleased, Rafael says, in a tone of long-suffering resignation, “I just needed a little warming up. If you insist on challenging the structural integrity of my bedroom door and my bone structure, I suppose I’ll just have to address the insult.”

  “Ey, that’s a little more like it!” Sol gives him a delighted grin that transforms his face into something sharp and bright and stunningly beautiful. Rafael is forced to a halt, staring for a long and foolish moment. If Rich is a carved-marble paean to strength, then Solace King is a bronze cast in celebration of brilliance. Not Aries but Apollo, with the rising sun lighting blue-green fire in his hair, polishing the fine curve of that smile into golden radiance…

  Rafael’s been staring too long: Sol’s smile turns smug, and when he goes past Rafael to get his own drink from the fountain, it’s with a distinct element of swagger. Rafael has no qualms about tipping the man into the spray, then running like hell for the mansion, laughing like a child.

  Rafael eventually manages to lose his pursuer—or more likely, is graciously allowed to escape—then has a quick shower, redresses, and finds him waiting in the dining room. Rafael had been hoping despite himself to see Rich at breakfast. The man never misses a meal, surely…

  But no. If he’s been to breakfast at all this morning, he’s come and gone already. Their usual table is empty as Sol steps up to the window to place his order with stiff, over-enunciated courtesy: a tall mocha, per cortesia, with sugar and cream. Rafael steps up after him to make his own request, and then sits down silently with his coffee and filled plate of eggs on toast. Sol has declined a plate at all.

  Sol eyes him for a bit as they sip their drinks. “Yeah, so, it's maybe not ideal to get hung up on a guy whose heart subdivides into that many pieces,” he says, apropos of nothing. “But for Christ’s sake, you’re still his newest darling. Live-in, even. You can’t tell me that’s not worth something.”

  Rafael will admit to himself that this is true. The intimacy and affection he's received from Rich thus far, and hopes to still receive, has done nothing less than draw him from still-breathing death back into life. But…

  “It's difficult to content oneself with crumbs from a table you know has been set for someone else,” he sighs, feeling pathetic even as the words leave his lips.

  “Sure, tell me about it,” Sol snaps, and for a moment they glare at each other.

  Then Rafael snorts softly and looks back down at his breakfast. Their jealousy of each other, and mutual envy of Rich's beloved, does them less than no good; they’re all of them only playthings collected into this abominable toybox by a monster to go mad, each in his own way. What a tragedy of a romance, what a farce of a tragedy…

  “We should have set our sights on one another, you and I,” Rafael says. “It would have been much tidier.”

  “Yeah, well, I won’t say you’re hard on the eyes, but I bet you snore,” Sol says.

  “Rich snores,” Rafael smiles. “He has that sort of... whistle.”

  Sol laughs his charmingly nasal, imperfect laugh. “Oh, Christ, yeah, it’s piercing. Asked him once why he didn’t get that big beak of his fixed and he looked like I’d slapped him with a pop quiz he hadn’t studied for. Big lunk asked what was wrong with it.”

  “What is wrong with it? It’s the noble prow of a magnificent vessel,” Rafael says loftily, “that has perhaps run face-first into a few piers.”

  Sol laughs again. “You’re alright, Shakespeare,” he says, with such distinct approval it strikes Rafael blind and dumb. He turns his attention back to his plate, nearly fumbling the cutlery, and Sol gives a small, snickering little breath as he attends to his coffee. They finish their respective breakfasts comfortably, with no particular urgency. Then Sol goes and gets a breakfast tray to bring to Andy, who’s been feeling even more poorly than usual, and Rafael thinks to collect more fruit from the kitchen to resupply Rich’s personal stash. That done, he does his best to neaten the room, though all he can think to do is make the bed, straighten the rug, and wipe out the shower drain. He’s sure it won’t hold up to Rich’s admittedly neurotic sensibilities, but at least he’s made an effort.

  After that he finds himself with an hour and a half until work begins, and he takes his notebook and his Compleate Works and tucks himself into the big armchair by the window, which he's grown quite fond of since the other day's interlude on the balcony. It’s not as comfortable as the bed, but the last thing Rafael needs right now is to slip back into torpor and show up late. He spends a surprisingly pleasant while reading and writing in the morning sun, then puts his books away, nervously preens himself in the bathroom, and goes to Carraway’s office all on his own.

  Carraway isn't there yet, as usual, and neither is Rich. Rafael takes a breath and goes over to his chair behind Rich's desk, pulls up a screen and starts work.

  Half an hour later he's still alone, and more than a little anxious. Did he misunderstand? Was he supposed to wait in the room for Rich to fetch him? Is Rich not coming after all?

  He's thoroughly dejected by ten forty-five, when Rich hurries in looking strained and tired and brightens at once to see Rafael in his seat. “Oh, you're here!” he says gratefully. “You’re, okay. Cool.”

  “I am,” Rafael says, startled. “I was here at ten, was that not right?”

  “God, you're the best,” Rich says in a fervent tone, comes over and stoops to kiss Rafael. It's sweet and soft, but not at all chaste, not at all the way a man whose heart is taken should kiss someone else, and Rafael's breathing faster when Rich pulls back to smile at him. “Ten's right, I'm sorry I'm late.”

  “It's alright,” Rafael says automatically, trying to think past the way his heart is singing, the wild mixture of delight and confusion and uncertainty. Rich is sitting down by the time Rafael gets his thoughts straightened out and says carefully, “Does your lover know about me?”

  Rich glances over, thick red brows rising. “My—who?” he asks with every sign of sincere cluelessness. “What?”

  Rafael stares, confused by his confusion. “Your—Liam,” he says, hope rising like a strangling vine inside his chest. “Do excuse me. Did I misunderstand your relationship?”

  “I, yeah, maybe?” Rich says, blushing pink. “I wouldn’t ever say we’re lovers, that’s not, uh, we’re not—do you not have sex friends, landside? Liam’s not interested in—in, um. Love. Likes his fishing but he’s more of uh, a catch and release kind of guy. But it's not like we gotta be married for me to care about him!”

  “Oh,” Rafael says, as astonished relief and hope spread through him. “No, that's true, the bonds of friendship are of course as deep and true as any other—other relationship—but so you aren't—that is to say, I mean—” he breaks off with the sort of terrible, self-conscious little laugh he hasn't made since adolescence, and Rich grins at him, making an encouraging gesture.

  His own face hot, Rafael asks with what little dignity he has left: “Is there any certain someone waiting for you back home?”

  Rich shrugs, his blush spreading further across his cheeks, still grinning. “Sure, boatloads.”

  Feigning stern exasperation, Rafael makes the same encouraging gesture.

  Rich laughs again and sits on the edge of the desk, bringing up his screens. Watching his hands surreptitiously as they move, Rafael thinks their tremor only as bad as yesterday, perhaps even a little less so, where any other man so afflicted could expect a worsening instead. The benefits of his modifications, Rafael can only assume.

  “Okay, okay, I got—you asked!—so I mean obviously my sisters, and my IST department on the Reliant. And then there's Trimmer, my brig buddy—prison wife? yeah—we were gonna get married this summer and apply for maybe a glass recycler, that's a two man operation with a lotta chemistry and engineering involved, it would have given him more to do than babysitting the enzyme tank on a plastics trawler, and I could have had a flexible schedule for balancing hoverboarding and IST work. Depending on how long it's gonna take me to get back home, we're probably gonna have to rework that whole plan. Maybe next year, I dunno.

  “Then there's my boyfriends—”

  “Boyfriends,” Rafael repeats.

  Rich looks extremely proud of himself. “I know, right!” he says happily. “But Basil and Mitch have been in love since forever and they like me alright too so we made it official last year. They're great guys. Maybe a little young but it's just—nice. They're nice.

  “Then there's, let's see—I mean are we counting sex friends? I’m guessing probably yeah, so, Jordan, he's great, he's a sex therapist and holy fuck are we all probably going to need therapy after this, and the twins, they're sex workers too, uh, so’s Anais… And Damian from my hoverboarding club, and Javier and Chip and Brent, they're mechanics on the Reliant, and Dave on the Arcadia—”

  “I think I have the thrust of the thing, thank you,” Rafael says faintly. He had thought his small, sad, petty rivalry with Sol for Rich’s affections was an issue. Against a fiance, two boyfriends, and an uncountable number of ‘sex friends,’ many of them prostitutes, Sol seems… very nearly manageable.

  But Rich is glowing now, smiling not in the smug swaggering way of cocky young braggarts, not as if he's been trying to impress Rafael with his list of conquests. He's smiling like a young lover, like a man in love, thrilled by love, suffused and delighted by love: like a man who could love that many people, and be loved by them in return.

  Rafael thinks he would do a lot for that smile.

  But it would be preferable not to have to wait in line.

  “I can see I’ve my work cut out for me,” he says with deliberate, airy lightness, “to keep you in the style to which you're accustomed. I’ve played many men in my time—now all I have to do is play them all at once.”

  Rich laughs again and bends to kiss him. “You know you don't have to be anyone but yourself for me, right?” he says, warm against Rafael’s cheek.

  “Oh,” Rafael breathes, and leans up to kiss him passionately, desperately, until he has to pull away and pant a little for breath.

  “Okay!” Rich says, hoarsely, and swallows hard, runs his hand over his hair, swallows again. “So! Uh! How'd your day go yesterday? You do alright on your own?”

  “Fairly well, thank you,” Rafael says, settling back down in his seat, newly determined not to mention his pathetic relapse, alone in the dark. “Connor and Sol came by after dinner and paid me in cherries to deal cards for them, and then we watched a movie together. Some sort of surrealist historical drama—I don’t think any of us understood the thing, but none of us were prepared to admit to that. And then this morning Sol came and fetched me for sword practice well before dawn, and I promised to return tomorrow—I had to, he looked so pitiful, begging me to play swords with him—”

  Rich snorts a startled laugh. “I bet. That’s what he’d say, right, if I asked him—?”

  “Well, if you're going to trust his biased perspective,” Rafael says haughtily, and Rich grins.

  “I'm glad you guys had a good time,” he says with heartbreaking sincerity, stroking a hand over Rafael's shoulder. “Thanks for hanging out with them. God, it's so good to know I have friends who can, y'know, keep things together when I'm not around.” He gives Rafael a relieved, exhausted smile, sagging back in his chair, then turns back to his screens and sets to work. His faintly shaking hands move as quickly as ever, but he turns his eyes painfully from the lights as though afflicted with a headache, and there’s a defeated slump to his shoulders. His eyes are dull and sad with sleepless bruise-purple creases underneath.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Rafael is going to guess that things didn't improve much with Liam before morning’s clarion call forced Rich from his side again. It's probably good to have his understanding of Rich's fragility reinforced, for Rafael to remember that the man can't afford another burden, another wound to his heart like Liam's situation clearly is. If Rafael had stayed in his room last night and this morning, moping in the dark, he would've been just one more weight for Rich to haul around. As broad as his shoulders are, and as deft his hands, still the weariness in his every gesture speaks to an altogether human limitation.

  Rafael refuses to burden him any further. He's going to be Rich's helpmate, a second pair of hands, a shoulder—however narrow—to lean on. He'll make Rich's life easier, not be one more weakness. In this, perhaps, he can redeem the grasping foolishness of his heart.

  They work in comfortable silence until Carraway comes in. For once, it seems he has enough work to occupy him, and the office has been quiet for a while when there’s a faint buzz through Rafael’s data rings and a message pops up on his screen:

  Rich Merrill, Werewolf Intern: the guys are here with the book delivery! :)

  They haven’t actually gone over how to handle messaging, but after a few false starts Rafael manages to enter himself a name, and to painstakingly peck out a reply.

  Rafael Caro, Werewolf Intern’s Intern: Do you NEed to supervies?

  Rich Merrill, Werewolf Intern: nah not in person. mx sayegh actually told them to check in with me for further directions if necessary but we can do that in text just as easy

  Work proceeds quietly apace, and Rafael’s nerves have all but settled to a low, tingling hum of excitement when there’s a sound of footsteps growing rapidly louder and Sandgren shoulders through the door without knocking and slams it behind him. Rich jumps—as does Carraway, tensing and crooking his claws before seeing who’s interrupted him.

  “Arthur,” Sandgren says without preamble. “Someone buzzed through some filthy pack of thieves and they’re wandering all up and down God’s green earth stealin’ your goddamn books right off the shelves!” He shoots Rich a sharp, vicious look, eyes narrow, and of course Rich looks from one man to the other with immediate worry. Not quite guilt, but admission enough.

  Sandgren sees it, Rafael sees him see it, and when he says, “And I think your big white bitch over there’s got something to do with it. Getting ahead of yourself, sugar?” delight and anticipation lend a deadly edge to his anger.

  Carraway looks to Rich as well, frowning—only slightly, to Rafael’s relief. “My… books,” he repeats, in a tone that makes it very clear he considers this no great loss, and draws up a screen, typing some brief missive before dismissing it again to turn his full attention back to Rich. “You order up a horde of book thieves to storm the place, treasure?”

  “Nossir,” says Rich, straightening up in his chair with the utmost anxious sincerity. “I just brought it up to the quartermaster, sir. Upwards of ninety percent of your entire library round here’s defective, the books’re just nonsense text. I think maybe whoever installed ‘em the first time was trying to offload a carp for a credit—uh. Trade their, their bad stuff for good money, I mean, they cheated you. So I found a good deal on a functional library and Mx Sayegh took it and said okay—here’s the receipts—”

  He summons up the catalog screen, with all the most flattering text highlighted in radiant gold, speaking on the virtues of scholars and men of letters. Carraway takes the screen delicately in one strong, clawed hand and examines it. He seems uninterested in the flattery of it all, but raises his eyebrows when he finds the quartermaster’s authorization on the order.

  “And how about the filthy pack of looters?” he says dryly. “Stealing my books off the shelves, I believe Will said?”

  “Uh, well, I didn’t handle the logistics part, sir, but I know they got an option on there for ten percent off the install fee if we let ‘em haul off the junk books for recycling. And we don’t have facilities to do that here. Which, oh, actually—” Rich pops open a few more screens with earnest determination. “Next time this comes up, I’ve still got those plans all compiled for composting bins aft of the staff berths, so you could have that all on one deck. I bet Mx Sayegh would agree, it’d be way better for the budget if you put to use all that deck space out back, and for just a couple hours of work you’d be ready next spring to put down vegetable beds for the galley—”

  “Not now, sugar,” Carraway cuts him off. “One thing at a time, and that thing’s apparently my new library. Why don’t you run along and make sure they’re not carrying off anything they shouldn’t? That’s a good boy.”

  “Alright, sir,” Rich says, slumping a little. “We can get back to the vegetable plots later, I guess.” He rises to his full height, forcing Sandgren to take a hasty step backwards and then bristle furiously, then rests an enormous hand lightly behind Rafael’s shoulders and escorts him out past the beginning of Sandgren’s outraged exclamation.

  When they’re a hall away and heading downwards, Rafael finally releases his held breath and says quietly, “That was clever of you.”

  “What was?” Rich asks, glancing back at him.

  “Bringing up the quartermaster’s approval,” Rafael says. “Leveraging their authority.”

  “Sure?” Rich says, broad brow furrowing. “They signed off on it, right?”

  “Well… yes,” Rafael says, and finds he doesn’t know how to explain the relief he’s feeling, much less the thorny trap of Carraway and Sandgren’s combined front and how easily Rich could have been punished for his initiative regardless of the injustice of it. “Well. But, it was certainly clever of you to win free of him as you did. The composting, and so on. Opening a subject he cares so little about to make him send you away—”

  Rich huffs in exasperation and rolls his eyes. “He has like a hundred meters of footage out there,” he growls—literally growls, that saurian Hastings rumble giving his thick accent a serrated edge, “and he’s keeping it in grass. Not even pasture or meadow, just short-mowed grass! He could’ve put down a carpet, for all the use he gets out of that space! It just drives me crazy, he could grow so much food on even a tenth of it, it’s incredibly inefficient, and he’s doing it on purpose because it’s inefficient! This whole compound’s run on Wonderland logic! Swear to god, money makes you crazy, an’ the more money you have the bigger your crazy gets until you think that a hundred fuckin’ meters of footage’s best t’just use for a big green carpet that no one even walks on! Fuck!”

  Rafael watches with startled amusement as Rich goes on a lengthy, impassioned, and almost completely unintelligible rant about all the food beds that could go in, the room for orchards and aquaculture ponds, how close to self-sufficiency the compound could get, especially if all those useless parlors were reclaimed for industry. The man only stops when they get out to the big drawing room by the front hall, where some of the delivery crew is carrying float-crates in with big black numbers stacked across the rough wood, while others are taking books off the shelves and loading them into empty crates to carry away.

  All the workmen freeze when Rafael and Rich come into the room, and it takes Rafael a moment to realize why: as sweet and clean-shaven and scantily-clad as Rich might be, he’s still a Hastings, and he walked into the room growling.

  “Good morning, officer,” the nearest workman says, backing up unsubtly behind his float-crate. “What, uh, what… uh.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Rich says tiredly, and thumps his fist on his chest a few times, visibly swallowing: the monstrous rumble coming from his chest stutters and fades out, and Rafael has to fight the terrible urge to laugh. Rich holds up both hands and wiggles his fingers, drawing everyone’s eyes to the black bands around his wrists and throat.

  “Hi, guys, I’m Mr Carraway’s secretary and these are slave cuffs that shock me if he feels like I’m not doing a good job. I really super promise I’m not gonna go ripping anyone’s heads off and adding them to my fuckin’ death throne, I’m just here to see how the library installation’s going. Anyone need anything?”

  “Um,” the guy behind the crate says.

  “Are you… Mr Merrill?” says a woman, straightening from where she was crouched behind another crate.

  “Yeah, Rich Merrill, that’s me,” Rich says. “I was texting you instructions earlier, I hope they were clear enough.”

  “They were, thank you,” she says, coming bravely forward. She’s Black, much lighter-skinned than Rafael, but no bigger, and although she stops a cautious distance away from Rich, she manages a friendly-looking smile. “We weren’t expecting a domestic residence, sir—we usually kit out private schools and science resorts and stuff. Do you have any instructions on what subjects should go where?” She gestures around at the drawing room and out at the hall. “We can generate some plans if you wanna tour us around, sir, maybe get a sense of flow?”

  “Oh!” Rich says, perking up. “Yeah! So what I was thinking—”

  The workers are stirring back into motion now Rich is safely distracted, the brave woman leading Rich off down the hall. The crew appears to be largely Black and Hispanic, with a sprinkling of white men and women among them, and none of them are looking at Rafael anymore, with one exception. A Black man with a ponytail of long, perfect locs is giving him a meaningful look. The man's hands move in a subtle series of gestures that Rafael fixates on, though he’s not confident on his understanding of them. Too local a dialect, he thinks.

  Tentatively, he signs, “SSL?” his shoulders angled to hide his hand from the rest of the room, and feels something long-tensed unlock in his chest when the guy smiles and nods just one thumb in a “Yes.”

  “Your big man,” the worker signs next, one-handed behind the books he’s loading with the other, “dangerous?”

  “No,” Rafael signs back immediately.

  “For you, or us?” the man asks, skeptical.

  “No danger, he’s safe, he’s good/generous/our friend,” Rafael signs back, as emphatically as he can without getting too obvious or lapsing back into full-body traveler’s cant. He’s fairly sure he’s garbling some of his signs as it is; it’s been so many years since he was called on for conversational sign, especially in southern-state sign language with its half-familiar tiny subtleties of gesture.

  “You enslaved here?” the man asks, loading another handful of books in the crate. Rafael’s never had to see the gesture from this angle before, and rage and grief almost overwhelm him, as sharp as if he hasn’t had years to acclimate to it.

  “Yes,” Rafael signs, touching his collar. “Help?” and his heart sinks as the man shakes his head, apparently while looking at the shelves of nonsense books.

  “Sorry, can’t,” the man signs, and loads up another handful of books. “You write?”

  “Yes,” Rafael signs, excited enough that it comes out more like HELL YES, and follows it up with “You carry letters? Writing? Words? Messages?” excited enough that he can’t remember which sign in what dialect to use.

  The worker gives a really pointed look around at all the crates of books, and smiles wry and inviting.

  “Little bit,” he signs, and Rafael has to smother his own laugh. “Give me your message. I’ll take it out.”

  “Thank you,” Rafael signs, and follows it with a hand pressed to his heart. Every part of him wants to bow to this man, kiss his hands, crown him in roses, but it’d rather defeat the point of such subtle signing in the first place. He turns on his heel, then goes and snatches up a few outgoing books at random with the air of saving them from destruction in the nick of time, and strides off to a deserted parlor clutching the stack with jealous, square-jawed possessiveness.

  Once there, he sets his prize down on a desk that has doubtless never been put to use, flips through a few of the books until he finds one with a good number of empty end pages, grabs up a pen, and at once goes completely blank on what next.

  Gabe and Sofia. He can finally send them word, let them know he’s still alive after all these years, tell them he still loves them, that he still thinks of them. But should he? Would it just hurt them anew, to have nothing more than some hastily scrawled ink on a page, to know that he was here beyond their reach all this time and here he will remain until he’s sent somewhere worse, to die beyond the reach and even the knowledge of his family—because surely he’ll never see them again, just as he’ll never even know if anything he writes here will reach them.

  God, hope hurts so much more than despair. But how could he live with himself if he doesn’t take this single, precious chance?

  “Our doubts are traitors,” he tells himself, voice rough and shaking in the silence, “and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

  He sets his pen to the page, and starts to write.

  My Dearest Siblings,

  You must forgive my rushed hand, since the delivery of this letter depends on the kind help of a Generous Stranger, and I’m loath to keep him waiting. I can scarcely imagine where and how this might find you, but I trust you’re both performing like Stars and wealthy as Kings, by now. I'm well, myself—the food here is delicious and plentiful and I have as much coffee as I please every morning, and play cards for fine chocolate and fresh fruit in the evenings. I am learning Il Tierzo Fiore from an Educated Colleague and practicing my Classics, and I think of you fondly when I recite.

  I have my newest acquaintance to thank for the chance to send you this letter; he’s a Hastings, newly brought here, not as a soldier but as the most competent Secretary one could imagine. He reminds me most strongly of Dad’s friend Dmitri, although you may be too young to remember when he traveled with us; a tower of a man, but a truly kind one. Rich would make no paltry Strong Man, and could doubtless lift us all on one of his arms, but he has shown nothing but Impeccable Gentleness in every circumstance.

  He admirably takes up Sofia’s Campaign to ensure I remember dinner, and Gabe’s Mission to force me out among other human beings, and he is untiringly busy enough to fill my days and keep me from writing any poetry too melancholic. You may both count your duties handed to a well-appointed Surrogate Caretaker, who seems skilled in the care and keeping of the Moody and Absentminded Artist.

  I miss you both dearly, and hope you're well and happy; I hope this letter allays your fears for me and provides some measure of solace to our distance. Be wise and careful and strong for each other, as I know you will—care for each other, and for yourselves. I will always Love you both Very Much.

  Your Brother,

  Rafael

  He manages the mask well, he thinks, even through writing; the appearance of the man his siblings lost, missing them greatly but managing as well as he might. And not a single damning clue, no hint or murmur of where they might find him, how they might come to dash themselves hopelessly against Carraway’s garrison of hard-eyed soldiers. Or worse, fall into the man’s claws themselves.

  Rafael closes the book on the precious words and holds it to his chest for a long moment, as though the embrace might find its way into that single page. Then he marshals himself, and carries on.

  He’s barely halfway down the hall, clutching the book, when a huge hand takes his shoulder in an immovable grip and tugs him aside into a parlor.

  “Hey, shh,” Rich says quietly, and Rafael finds himself pressed into the nearest loveseat, the whole monumental span of the man arching over him, sliding a huge knee between his thighs, a titanic arm along his side. He smells so good, Rafael thinks, bewildered at this sudden turn of events. He smells like lemongrass soap and roses, and underneath that his own deeper, masculine scent that makes Rafael think of comfort, of relief. The arousal that ignites in Rafael is immediate and unforgiving, and he rolls his hips up against Rich’s thigh without a single shred of forethought.

  “What’s? Nnh, you, are we—is Carraway—” Rafael gasps, all in disarray.

  “No, it’s okay, shh, I just wanted to talk,” Rich says, still in that quiet voice, and shifts his weight enough that his free hand brushes over Rafael’s throat, his collarbones. Rafael stares at him, and then breathes out roughly as he understands—no one, compound employee or hired labor, will find it strange to see the boss’s huge Hastings secretary pull a boytoy aside, and certainly no one will get near enough to listen to whatever they might do in an empty parlor together.

  It’s a simple enough deception, carried mostly by Rich’s imposing appearance, but it’s more artifice than Rafael would have expected. Unfortunately, the knowledge that it is, in fact, merely a distraction is not helping the hopeful racing of Rafael’s heart.

  “That guy you were signing to,” Rich says, and taps the book on Rafael’s chest. “He can take a message out for you, right? I saw you went and grabbed some of the garbage books and brought them back here like you were rescuing them. He’s gonna get you in touch with your family.”

  Panting a little, trying not to grind himself any further or more embarrassingly against a man who has entirely different things on his mind right now, Rafael can only nod.

  “I’ll take the books back for you,” Rich says. “Tell them I caught you trying to hoard them, or whatever. And hand the one that’s important right back to your guy, to, y’know, to throw away. To make sure he got it. It’ll look too weird if you go right back to hanging around staring at the guy, right? But I can go back and toss these books out and it’ll just look like I’m being a bossy jackass.” He smiles, hopeful and anxious, wanting to help, even as he smells of soap and sweetness and clean sweat and presses against Rafael deliciously and is even now trying to keep his secrets, and Rafael lets his head fall back against the cushions in giddy wonder.

  “Yes. God, yes,” he breathes, and tries to collect himself, and utterly fails. “You’re—oh, you’re so good. I could kiss everyone who ever had a hand in the making of you.”

  “One thing, before you go and do that,” Rich says, and his smile is tense now. “Can I put a letter in there, too? No one’s going to carry anything out for me. I’m a fuckin’ Hastings, I’ve been asking around for months and no one wants to risk getting involved in whatever the fuck a guy with my coloring’s up to, trying to get a letter out. But if I can tuck one right in alongside yours…?”

  Rafael nods again. How could he refuse?

  “God, you’re the best. Thank you so much,” Rich says. He licks his lips, eyeing Rafael all over, then lowers himself just enough for a press of lips that starts sweetly enough and rapidly escalates to frantic—and then pulls back, panting, drawing himself away with a visible effort.

  “Please,” Rafael gasps, before he can control the urge, and Rich catches his breath and sways toward him and then away, mastering himself.

  “I know,” he says wretchedly. “I know, baby, I’m sorry, I’m not—I’m not gonna get you hurt, okay, I can’t, we gotta—I can’t.”

  “I know,” Rafael says with a mighty effort of his own. Because what else is he going to say in answer to that pleading look? He’s this boy’s senior in years and in suffering, and he can control himself. He can do his own part to keep both of them safe. “I know. I’m sorry, it’s… I’ll be well. We’ve plenty of victories today.”

  He raises the books, and presses them into Rich’s hands, fumbles to his pocket and offers the pen as well, struggling to master himself. “I took the last page of the green—no, blue, the blue binding, silver embossing—”

  “Got it,” Rich says, and plucks up the volume, setting in to writing in heavy but experienced block letters, working with focus as his hand attempts to shake. “Who’s your man?”

  “Who—Yes,” says Rafael, and takes a few deep breaths, looking anywhere except at the mighty body in front of him. Gods and devils, this place has burned his negligible self-restraint to ashes on the ground. “Ah… tall, with locs, he was loading the crates…”

  “I saw him.” Rich punctuates a sentence with a decisive period, and continues writing in quick, urgent strokes. “Okay. Okay.” He snaps the book shut again; holds it for a second, presses it to his forehead and takes a shivering breath against its spine. Then he bundles the stack under his arm and stands, leaning back down only briefly to press a chaste, warm kiss to the curve of Rafael’s forehead.

  “You’re amazing,” he says with devastating sincerity. “I’ll go drop these off.”

  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 !