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“I’m never going to be able to look at him again.”
“We woke up with matching terrible hangovers and decided it was better for everyone if we just…not quite pretended it didn’t happen, we’re friends and we don’t exactly regret having done it, but…we do more or less pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I don’t,” Ollie said, “even know what to say to that. I don’t know how to think about that. That—that—you slept with Fadi!”
“You did ask,” Tir said helpfully, “whether I was a virgin.”
“I thought the answer was yes!”
“Are you jealous?” Tir’s eyes danced. Alive, Ollie thought: alive and merry and teasing him. Firelight ran along his bare back, and tickled his toes. Tir’s body felt warm under his hands: not cold, not unresponsive, but tangible and present, under him, wrapped around him, heart beating steady.
He got out, voice uneven now for a different reason, “Yeah. Yes. A lot. A lot of jealous.”
“Would you like to finish removing our clothing and come here and show me how much you do want me?”
He would like that, and promptly did, but stopped, balanced awkwardly mostly on top, leaning on one arm; he’d caught the unguarded happiness in grey eyes, the absolute beauty of Tir being himself, not a ballad-famous hero or a boy under the shadow of destiny or a tragic wounded prince.
Tirian was all of those—Oliver himself was too, after a tradition gone wrong and a Seeing Pool and the knowledge of grief he’d carried for long weeks and the scars of magic—but here he was simply smiling as if he couldn’t not, framed by tumbled giddy pillows and the drumming sweep of rain.
Their bodies fit together. Even their heartbeats fit, as Ollie gently traced a hand over Tir’s chest, flattened a palm over the thump beneath.
His wayward magical senses chose this moment to return, gradual and abrupt at once, a building swell; he could taste rain, and sugared violets, and fire glow, and the heat of Tir’s skin. He knew that Tir’s breathing was a little ragged, and that this would not be an immediate problem, though they’d need to rest after; he knew that he’d say he needed that too. It would be true. He’d never felt anything this light, this coruscating, this euphoric.
He knew that Tir would get better, not immediately but over the years to come, years containing breaths of Fairy-infused air. He saw glimpses of possibilities, of futures overlaid on thick stone walls and tapestries and the wooden post of Tir’s bed, their bed; he saw children running, a boy and a girl with a fiery pet salamander on her shoulder, and he saw Tir standing on the steps of a public library, from the pose and the crowd having newly dedicated it, bundled up against snow and laughing when Ollie tugged him closer, and he saw wild delicate roses blooming in that snow, rich deep purple and Fairy-tough here in a human kingdom. He saw kingdoms and inhabitants flowing together, merging, becoming one. He saw unpredictable messy enchanted life, and a new world.
He saw a coronation, both of them, hands joined, wearing blue; and he saw a flicker of what might’ve been decades past that, hands still joined, silver in his own hair, preserved in a painting he recognized as his brushstrokes, though he’d never even imagined it yet.
Tir, in the present, lifted one hand—the other one was busy appreciating Oliver’s right bicep—and reached for him, fingers brushing Ollie’s face, warm when they cradled his cheek. “I love you.”
The words thrummed like the rain, buoyed by enhanced perceptions. They purred down his spine, and tattooed themselves on his bones. They sank under his skin and became indelible. He felt them, tasted them, knew them.
Tir smiled a little, watching his face.
Ollie spared a second to feel grief for that too, snarled like copper into the golden exultation of the rest of this moment—he had those senses, that ability, and his fairy no longer did—and then said, “Wait.”
Tir’s smile got wider.
“You said you can still feel magic. Even if you can’t spare any of yours. You can feel mine. Like—like sunshine, you said.” Tir had always been magic-sensitive. Saving up his own for that fateful day he’d need to spend every drop; quivering with it. “You felt that.”
“I felt that,” Tir agreed. “All of it. If you feel it, I will. Sorry, I thought you knew that, I did tell you ages ago, was that a question?”
“I love you so damn much,” Ollie said, and kissed him one more time, surrounded by eager rain light and fire gleam, as they set about making their future come true.
The Physician and the Fairy Lord
A Bonus Story of Bellemare
The fairy lord turned up in Fadil Ahmadi’s office mid-afternoon, in a flutter of snapdragons, and changed the world around him.
This was, of course, literally true: Fairy had come to Bellemare, or possibly Bellemare’d invited Fairy in, and unexpected magic had been busy blossoming in the oddest places over the past three weeks. Lavender roses climbed old stone castle walls, kettles heated themselves for the asking, and constellations performed suspiciously merry dances in night skies, turning themselves inside-out and back again for fun. Tirian said this should settle down after some time, but then Tir also regarded astronomical puzzles with sheer ecstasy; the Prince of Fairy and betrothed True Love of Bellemare’s own heir to the throne was, Fadi considered with fondness, as distractible as a kitten.
He’d been writing in the tiny nook that served as the palace infirmary’s office and general store-room; he’d spent the morning dealing with a few unanticipated minor injuries: children falling from trees which’d abruptly grown another limb, a footman tripping over new-grown ivy that’d snaked across the floor. He liked proper records of cases, everything tidy and neat. He liked his office being tidy and neat.
He set the pen—one of the newly designed fountain-types sent over by the University—back in its proper cup, and got up to put the record-book on its proper shelf, and proceeded to drop said record-book, because: a fairy. In his doorway.
“Oh!” said the fairy, equally startled, “I thought you heard me, sorry—” and caught his book before it hit the ground, and held it out. Flowers crept up along the office entryway and erupted into riotous purple and pink: a theatrical backdrop to a first encounter. “Sorry again.”
“And why would I have heard you? Your lot’s as quiet as moonlight when you want to be—oh, stop that, I’m not angry about it.” The fairy was looking downcast. He looked not like Tir but like Tir’s favorite cousin, no doubt related through some complex familial intertwining; fairies tended to take lovers freely, and Tir had far too many relations to keep track of, Fadi considered. “Did you need something?”
