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“That’s it,” Peter said with a laugh as everyone headed to the very back of the garden and against the wall. “That’s the tree.”
I knew what they were looking at. I’d seen the chunks that Jace’s stolen sword had taken out of the tree several times before, so I held back with Avenel while the others took turns running their hands over the bark.
“I can make tea,” Avenel told me quietly. “I…I assumed I would anyhow. Everything is ready. It would take just a few minutes to boil the water and get things ready.”
I smiled at him with all the pride and love in my heart, then leaned in to kiss his rosy lips. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, love. Go along.”
As Avenel turned to go, I smacked his backside playfully. Avenel glanced over his shoulder at me with a shy, adoring grin, then hurried into the house.
When I turned back to the tree, I caught Magnus watching the two of us with a sly look. As Peter and Neil continued to relate their tale of escape to Lefric and Olympus, and as Ox and Katrina jockeyed for positions to prove that they could have climbed the tree without a sword and in half the time Peter, Neil, and Jace did, Magnus wandered subtly closer to me. Gennadi did as well, but I thought part of his reason was to get away from the others, who were getting noisier and rowdier by the minute.
“So, you set out to find one lover and ended up with another,” Magnus said. It was a statement, not a question. Magnus was clever, and he cut right to the point of things.
“It was unexpected to say the least,” I said with an apologetic smile. “Avenel was given to me as a body servant the first night I was in Hedeon.”
“I always found the term ‘body servant’ to be amusing,” Magnus said, his mouth twitching into a naughty grin. “I could never decide if the person who first invented the term intended for it to mean all bodily functions or not.”
I felt my face heat. “Well, I found Avenel irresistible from the start,” I said. It was strangely easy to speak of these things with Magnus. Maybe because I knew he’d seen it all and done it all.
“I can see why,” Magnus laughed, glancing back to the house, even though Avenel wasn’t in sight. “He is quite beautiful. Sweet and young.” He paused slightly, his mouth twitching again, before adding, “Subservient.”
I blew out a breath, knowing I couldn’t hold onto the details of the confession I’d made at the docks for long. I had a feeling Magnus already knew the full implication, and my friends would wheedle the whole story out of me in no time. I needed to just get the explanation part over with.
Still, I inched closer to Magnus and turned away from the tree, as if making sure the other Sons wouldn’t hear, before saying, “He’s my pup. I wasn’t making things up when I said that at the dock.” I rushed on with, “He insisted on it. As soon as he learned what a pup was, he practically begged me to make him my pup. He…he had a conversation with Jorgen and Hati’s pups when we met outside of Yakutsk, and even after they explained everything the position means and what it implied for him, he was adamant. He wants it, wants everything the position implies, and I feel so awkward about it. It feels wrong, but it feels so right, and I can’t…I don’t know how….”
Magnus held up his hands as if to settle me. “Calm yourself, Sebald,” he said. “I understand. Believe me, I very much understand.”
He glanced back toward the tree, at Peter and Neil. I noted that Gennadi was standing so close to us that he must have overheard my blurted explanation. He didn’t look furious with me, the way I expected the Sons all would. Actually, he looked more intrigued than anything else.
“Take a deep breath, Sebald,” Magnus went on. “And welcome to adulthood.”
I snapped back to face him, my brow shooting up.
Magnus laughed at my reaction. “Isn’t that the way wolves mark a boy’s transition into manhood? From when he takes his first pup?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Magnus, are you teasing me? I didn’t think you believed in pupdom.”
Magnus shook his head with a smile and rested a fatherly hand on my arm. “I am teasing you,” he admitted. “But I am also serious about you clearly being a man now.”
I frowned in confusion, so he went on.
“While I do not know you as well as my darlings do—” he glanced to Peter and Neil again, “—I know you well enough to see a change in you. I saw it in how you behaved after Maldurik’s death as well.”
I glanced down momentarily, my heart lurching with unhealed grief.
Magnus’s hand tightened on my arm. “I don’t know your full journey, Sebald Nizhny, but you left your childhood behind on the bloody streets of Gravlock.” He looked back at the tree, “As did Jace…and Gennadi.” He gave Gennadi a sympathetic smile.
Gennadi looked like he might weep for a moment before schooling his features to stoic acceptance and nodding at Magnus.
Magnus nodded back, then looked at me again. “All of you Sons are making the passage, all in your own ways and at your own speed. You’re not a man now because you’ve taken a pup, you’re a man because the implications of that act prick at your conscience.”
“They do, Magnus,” I said with sudden feeling. “And I don’t know what to do about it. Nothing has ever felt so right and so…comfortable, but at the same time….” I glanced back to the other Sons. “They’re going to hate me for engaging in exactly the practice they’re trying to abolish.”
“And now you know why I couldn’t just declare an end to pupdom and free every young man who has been claimed by another,” Magnus said in a deep, sage, serious voice. I turned back to him and saw the grave expression he wore that matched his words.
That expression disappeared a moment later as he added, “Peter will give you a thorough dressing down, of course. Prepare yourself to be shouted at for several hours. Lefric probably won’t be pleased either.” Magnus chuckled at that, then turned serious again. His gaze settled on Gennadi for a moment before he said, “Jace will take your side, though.”
My brow shot up. I glanced to Gennadi too and was alarmed to find him watching me and Magnus openly, making no secret that he was listening in.
