“We’re done in any case. Do you have any requests?”
“For the sand sculpture?” Paris looked up. The creations had made an unruly pile at this point. “Can you make it sparkle?” Iason shook out his hand, letting the excess magic build, and a sheen of glitter fell over the pile. Paris’s smile widened. “Yeah, I prefer this to the horns and beards, for sure. Thanks, Mr. Bassett.”
“Ellas,” Iason said as Paris ran off, and sighed. A shadow passed over him, and he looked up to find Lazaros standing there with a jug of tea.
“Mandatory break, Iason.” He sat down in the chair Paris had just vacated and poured a cup. It was iced—a Mislian specialty, with lemongrass and fruit for sweetness—and Iason downed his almost like Levi, all in one go.
“They’re calling me a wizard now,” he said.
Lazaros refilled the cup with a wry smile. “Better than other things they could call you.” He poured himself a cup as well and leaned back. “I can understand it, though. You seem more like a wizard than what you were.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
Lazaros was looking out over the beach. Kids were playing in the surf, lines of people were discussing supply runs and living situations, and more of the tents were being taken down as the rebellion continued its move into the city. Even Lazaros looked a little less worn—as though he’d finally found the chance to breathe. “I prefer knowing you as you are now,” he said at last. “Don’t you?”
Iason let out a long sigh, and Lazaros smiled. “I like the way I am around Sophie,” he said. “And Levi.”
“You aren’t around either of them right now, you know.”
Iason paused, staring into the melting ice in his cup. He hadn’t considered it that way before. What was he? Not a killer, as he’d thought the night he dove into the sea after Sophie. Not the Archmage’s puppet. He was something else now: a wizard who made poison trees and sand sculptures, who gamely ate whatever new concoction Sophie and Levi made for breakfast, who cared if a kid was running around with a slave tattoo on their chest. Someone who cared in general. Someone Ophelia could have been proud of, if she’d lived to see it.
Could he be a man like that forever?
“Levi’s been an influence,” he said at last. “They’ve both been, but Levi is like walking headfirst into a hurricane, except the hurricane knows your name. He’s strange and powerful, but he’s also wild and… liberating. I think that’s the word. He’s liberating. Whatever I am now had to be freed first before it could live.”
“Good thing he didn’t eat you,” Lazaros said. “Whether he’s an Old One or not.” He looked Iason up and down. “Of course a wizard would fall in love with a hurricane.”
“Fall in— I didn’t say—”
Lazaros smiled and looked away. “You didn’t have to.”
They sat there for a while, watching the waves roll in. After a few minutes, Iason set down his drink and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You don’t think,” he said, as Lazaros turned to look. “If a wizard and a hurricane… Do you think it wouldn’t be too outlandish, then, for a wizard to befriend a rebel mage? Despite everything.”
Lazaros looked at him in silence, then leaned over to top off his drink. “Not too outlandish. Despite everything.” Iason’s mouth twitched in a half smile, and Lazaros lowered his voice. “Does this mean I’m invited to the wedding?”
Iason almost choked on his own tongue, and Lazaros burst into laughter, startling a group of mages walking past.
That night, Sophie dragged Iason and Levi to a show people were holding on the beach. Fire dancers worked with demons to make complex shapes in the dark, mages cast illusions and clever little spells to delight a group of younger children, and a number of older mages gathered with instruments, playing songs meant to guide lost demons back to Mislia.
“Their lives are so rich,” Levi said, sidling up to Iason. He slid an arm around Iason’s waist with an ease that surprised Iason even as his body responded to the comfort of Levi’s presence. “They live briefly, but they fill their lives with so many stories and rituals. They pack centuries of history into a song, and children dance to it just because they like the tune.”
They, Iason noticed Levi was saying. As though Iason were already apart from humanity, an old creature watching the world move on around him.
“I want this,” Iason said. Levi gave him a curious look, and Iason gestured to where Sophie was dancing with Paris and a girl about their age with a demon made of smoke. “To feel connected to it, somehow. To care about them. I’ve only just started to, really.”
“You’re free to.” Levi laughed. “What did you think I meant when I told you to be untamable?”
“Pretty sure you meant you wanted me to fuck you.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “You know it was more than that. You’re happier now. Maybe not always,” he added, pressing a thumb between Iason’s brows. “That line keeps coming back. You’re always overthinking things.”
“I’m human.” Iason shrugged. “That’s what we do.”
“No, that’s what Iason does.” Levi moved his thumb as though to smooth out the wrinkle.
Iason tugged on Levi’s braids, making him bow his head just a touch. “Don’t try to charm me, dragon.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Levi said, smiling, and kissed him.
