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“Tir?” Oliver started happily.
The object of his question stepped out from behind his brother, wary.
“You think I don’t,” he announced. “But I do!” He did. He did. Overflowing with the rightness of it.
They both blinked at him. “Love you,” Ollie explained, desperately. Clarification. Right. Useful. “I love you, Tir.”
Tir’s mouth opened. His eyes were light and dark, rain and slate, wide and framed by the braid of his hair, the strands escaping around his face. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Um. Most? I know you think you’re not good enough for me, but you are, of course you are, I have to tell you, because you can’t think that—”
Those silk-storm eyes held emotion like winter thunderheads. Tir said, and the tone of his voice was one that Oliver had never heard from him before, like the tearing-apart of a wedding-suit or a star or the world, “Then you’re saying it out of gratitude or pity, and I won’t thank you for either,” and disappeared.
Literally. Gone. Astonished air rushed in to fill the void.
“Well,” Cedric considered, eyebrows up, “that’s one way to end a conversation.”
“You idiot,” Oliver breathed, unsure whether he meant his brother or Tir or himself, “no, no, oh no, he can’t—he’s hurt, he’s barely alive, he doesn’t have any magic left, this could—he might be—”
Color drained from Cedric’s face.
Oliver whispered, “We have to find him,” while his heart shattered inside his chest.
Chapter 10: Happy Endings
Cedric summoned searchers; they fanned out across the castle. Oliver, hoping, frantic, shut both eyes and stood in place right where Tir had fled, right there in Cedric’s room, and tried.
His extra senses woke up. They murmured hope like rainsong: the library, books, papery sweetness. Part intuition, part magic, part simply knowing Tir. Oliver ran up those flights of stairs and flung open doors and hurtled himself into book-lined space.
He tripped over a chair. He stumbled. He spun in place, gaze raking across the room. There—
He flung himself over to that crumpled heap of slim muscles and shadow hair. On the floor by the history shelf, the stories of the past.
If Tir had tried to land in a chair he’d not made it. If he’d tried to be unnoticed in a corner that might’ve been true.
He fell limp and heavy into Ollie’s arms. His face was whiter than the pages of priceless manuscripts around them.
He wasn’t breathing.
“No,” Oliver said, “no, that’s not—Tir, no, you can’t, you are not going to die on me again—” and gathered up every ounce of his own strength and shouted into the void. Magical, and conscious of it, and fierce with love and need and certainty: Tir!
Who gasped in a shocked lungful of air. His eyes snapped open. “What—that was so loud—Oliver—”
“You are an idiot,” Ollie said, “you’re hurt, why would you—please never—I love you, will you stay and actually listen to me this time, I love you,” and kissed him.
Tir, frozen by surprise, did not move to kiss back. And then the surprise melted into amazement and desire, and his lips parted, and he was kissing Oliver in turn; he tasted like shared tears and wild berries and cold skin that warmed up under Ollie’s love, and he kept saying words, yes and yes and I’ve always and Oliver’s name into the kiss.
Ollie cradled him there on the library floor and kissed him and told him again how reckless that was, using energy he didn’t have to run away when Ollie was right there; Tir’s cheeks were wet when Oliver dared to touch his face with one big clumsy hand. This time neither of them flinched as every last wall tumbled down. As the universe got reborn in tremulous delight.
“I’m sorry,” Tir whispered, tilting his head into Oliver’s hand. Ollie almost couldn’t believe that they’d never done this, he’d never touched Tir like this before; it felt so natural, those cool clear eyes honest and sweet as candied rose-petals, wholly and heart-poundingly given over to Oliver’s touch and care. “I love you.”
“You were scared,” Ollie whispered back. “I know. Me too. Me too, this whole time, I just never knew—am I hurting you, me, magic, this—”
“You aren’t hurting me.” Tir kissed his palm. “You don’t. Or not much. Warmth. It’s like—feeling sunlight, your magic. Down in my bones. Home.”
“I thought—”
“I know. I’m sorry I scared you. There’s so much I don’t know. I didn’t mean—”
