When the shivers from being touched left him, Zeki ached. “I’m still strange.”
“You’re lonely, with few to talk to,” Theo countered. He seemed to ache, too, sweeping his thumb restlessly over Zeki’s wrist. “I have admirers but only two friends outside of my family. You are one of them. Am I strange?”
“But you’re handsome,” Zeki protested in a whisper, unable to feel embarrassed with Theo’s bright eyes on him.
Theo slowly raised his other hand to put his palm to Zeki’s cheek. Zeki felt some pressure, some heat, but little else. Yet he ached again when he felt that pressure trace over his lips and then return to the arch of his cheekbone. If Theo left flour behind, Zeki did not care. No one ever touched him. No one had ever touched him like this.
“You are who I want,” Theo told him, honest and plain. “I will accept you if you step forward, Zeki.” He brushed his fingertips under Zeki’s chin, tender over the ridges of scars at his neck. “Or, if you left your mark at the stone, I would chase you. I have been chasing you already. But now you would know it.”
Zeki curled his fingers in, covering the charm and pressing the clay. The standing stone whispered in his ear. “People will say things,” he warned. But, of course, Theo must be aware of that. People might already be saying things, if Theo had been as obvious as he claimed. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”
He didn’t see why Theo had. Zeki didn’t say Theo’s name any special way, the way Theo said his. Zeki had given him charms for someone else instead of courting him properly. “I tried not to come here too often, so you wouldn’t guess how much I wanted to.” At this confession, Theo began to smile once more, so Zeki kept going. “Every time I see you again, it takes so much effort to look away and let you go. I felt like a dragon when I thought of you marrying someone else.”
Oh,hehad made Theo’s eyes shine like that. Hehadbeen doing that, and had not realized, fool that he was.
Zeki was helpless for it, and he squeezed the charm in his fist to give him the courage to keep that light in Theo’s expression. “Theo,” he could not speak above a whisper. “Theo, I would accept you if you stepped forward. Of course, I would. I—you should not have had to chaseme.”
Theo made a small sound, like a revelation, and leaned down to brush his lips over Zeki’s cheek. Zeki stopped breathing.
Theo made that sound again. “Now that you know, I think I will enjoy chasing you much more.”
“I don’t want to chase you,” Zeki blurted, reaching for Theo when he thought Theo might pull back. “I want to have you.”
Perhaps he was dragon, after all.
Theo’s slow smile was radiance itself. “If this is the power in just one of your charms, then I am lucky indeed to be courted by so strong a witch.”
No one could have resisted that smile, least of all Zeki. “I’ll make another and leave it at the stone,” he vowed rashly, and would have promised more if Theo hadn’t closed the last bit of distance between them to kiss him.
ZEKI LEFT one charm for an open heart and one charm for strength at the standing stone, pretending that the stone’s hums of satisfaction did not carry through the ground and his boots to leave him trembling with excitement… as well as some fear. This had to be a mistake. Zeki was a good healer and a strong witch, but even his gifts could not be enough.
The stone said otherwise, had possibly been saying so for years. Zeki would have put a hand to it if he hadn’t already been shaking with nerves and anticipation. He heard startled, confused whispers from the people around him even through the cloth of his hood. But he made his way through the streets until he was in front of the Greenleaf’s inn. The common room was still crowded, because word had not yet traveled to everyone in the village.
Zeki was not certain what that meant, despite having learned the feel of Theo’s lips on his yesterday, having discovered what a kiss was, and that there were different kinds of kisses, and the feel of Theo’s waist beneath his palms. He had even learned that Theo could mutter in a mean-spirited way when interrupted in the middle of kissing him.
Violet had been polite and apologetic, but nonetheless had reminded Theo of the food needing to be made. Zeki had left them to it, left in a panic, really, then spent another restless, terrified night worrying that he had dreamed it all. A cold bed was more torturous when he had hope someone—the one he loved—might want to share it. Yet he had finally fallen asleep to dreams of Theo and woken with a smile on his face.
Theo’s parents nodded to Zeki as he entered the inn and made for his usual spot, both of them again grinning wide enough to make Zeki feel as if he should blush. Theo’s other suitors still lined the counters, waiting for a glimpse of Theo. Zeki was hot all over again, sure that he was wrong. He had been spelled or was still asleep and dreaming that Theo wanted him.
But, without going to the counter or giving his order to Albert or one of the others, a plate of flatbread stuffed with vegetables and meat and another plate of sweets were placed in front of him.
Theo smiled at Zeki when Zeki looked up in astonishment, and though Zeki’s nervousness remained, that smile was enough to make Zeki pull a small posy of early flowers from his bag and hand it over. He did not have gifts to offer other than magic.
But Theo put the flowers on the table with the food and sat down next to Zeki, so close their knees bumped beneath the table. He wore Zeki’s charms on ribbons around his neck, and his eyes were shining, and that was all that mattered.
Three Masquerades
TU ONCE AGAIN fidgeted with his mask and the pins holding his hair in place. Longer hair on men had gone out of fashion some time ago. At least, among the upper classes. A fact which Tu, a simple bookseller, could not have been expected to know. But hopefully the crowd of nobles around him were too preoccupied with gossiping, drinking, and dancing to pay him any attention.
The fact that everyone, including Tu, was in costume, might have helped.
Tu’s hair, mostly black except for the strands of silver, was also kept out of his face by a half-circlet of wire, but allowed to hang from the back of his head. The half-circlet held two cat’s ears, designed to match the tight black silk of his borrowed evening suit as well as the felt tail attached to his breeches and the glittering black mask that concealed most of his face. The mask came with thin whiskers and a small, stubby cat nose.
Tu did not feel like a handsome, prowling tomcat. He felt like a commoner who did not belong at a masked ball for a prince, because indeed he did not. The one saving grace, aside from the mask that so far had spared him from too much scrutiny, was that he was not the only one who seemed out of place here.
He kept a watchful eye on a handsome, nervous, young man dressed as a dragonfly who seemed content to be a wallflower, while he avoided the eye of any nobles who might attempt to talk to him and pretended he wasn’t staring toward the dais where His Royal Highness, Prince David, heir to the throne, was in conversation with another one of his many potential suitors.
The Prince could not truly be considered in costume, although someone had painted a paper ruff yellow-gold and put it around his shoulders like a lion’s mane, and a simple golden mask rested over his eyes. Gold seemed warmer next to David’s sepia skin, as if David’s beauty made ornaments look prettier and not the other way around. This masked ball, the first of three to set off a series of events that were to lead to the Prince’s betrothal, was being held in David’s honor. He was the center of attention, unmistakable, even with the flick of a yellow felt tail behind him.
