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“Then you won’t. We won’t. Do you mind if I stay up and read? I’m awake now, and it’s a very good mystery, and I’m almost at the end. We already know the mad monk is secretly the princess’s father, and the castle has secret passageways, and the hero’s best friend is writing those cryptic messages, but we don’t know who enchanted the suit of armor to walk in the night, or stole the old king’s crown…”
“I don’t know how you can take those novels seriously.”
“Oh, I don’t. But they’re marvelous.” Tir kicked Oliver’s ankle with bare toes, possibly on behalf of the offended terrible novel in question. “I’ll put out the candle; I can see in the dark enough.”
“Fairy magic and all.”
“Whatever would you do without me?” Tir leaned over to blow out the candle, a sign; Oliver settled back down, felt the comforting weight of Tir beside him. They still fit—the bed was royally proportioned, and Tir was more slender than he was—but not as well as they used to. Taller than they’d once been.
Older, too, than the nights they’d stayed up in the same bed, pretending they weren’t getting berry-pie crumbs amid sheets, Tir with horrible penny-press novels and Ollie with books on art and history, sometimes a sketchpad, trying to work out angles and techniques, idly talking in between chapters and drawings, shifting positions, pouring last cups of late-night heated cocoa…
Ollie felt older, now. More than he ever had.
But he had Tir. Tir, at his side, with genuinely awful melodramatic novels and loose shining hair. Like so many nights, so many years.
He knew how to fall asleep with Tir next to him. He knew the soft rustle as Tir turned a page. The sound lay across his frayed edges, soothing.
He wasn’t entirely sure he’d sleep, but he found himself drifting; the last thought he remembered was the vague sense that he needed to find a berry pie for Tir in the morning, and sugared tea, because his fairy liked sugar and might have a bit of a headache…because Tir had said it was fine, but Ollie knew, everyone knew, he couldn’t say much about his reasons for being here, and felt the warning if he tried…
Sugar. Sweetness. Blueberries. Oliver yawned, settled into Tir’s warmth, and let the night slide in. They could handle the morning when it came.
Chapter 3: Preparations
Preparations hardly occupied any time; the kingdom swirled with excitement for him. A Crown Prince, and a Vision Quest—about time, joked the Keeper of the Armory, and Oliver sighed and accepted a shiny new sword—and a Happily Ever After.
Ballads got sung. Women and men cooed happily over romance. Firelight crackled in hearths and homes. Oliver’s sisters both sent messages telling him it was his turn to do something with his life, and rather smugly reminding him that they didn’t have to go on quests to prove their worth, neither of them being the Heir.
Some Heirs, as the records noted, might find neither a prince nor a princess in the Seeing Pool, instead achieving a Happily Ever After with only themselves, content that way. Oliver, mentally sorting through available aristocratic children of the neighboring kingdoms, concluded that this might well be his own case. He made a list, and stared at it.
Most of the appropriate age-group had either married or gotten betrothed already; at least one was far too young, and he was a hundred percent certain that the handsome eldest son of the Firezian royal family wasn’t interested in men, which wouldn’t necessarily preclude True Love but would make wedding-night consummation difficult.
He tried physically turning his list around on the table in case that provided a clue. It did not.
Oliver himself could be flexible as far as gender—he hadn’t hopped into and out of beds as carelessly as Cedric, but then probably no one in the kingdom could compete with his little brother, and Ollie had been discreet both because he was the Heir and because he wanted to at least like the person he was bedding—and he was willing to consider a certain age range, but even so he couldn’t come up with any single eligible person of appropriate rank.
Certainly no one he felt a flicker of interest in.
Certainly no one who seemed to be in need of rescuing. Which ought to be the point of the Quest: proving his worth, and so on.
He ran his list by Tir in case he’d forgotten someone. Tir observed, “You’ve forgotten Princess Marguerite, down in Fleur-de-Lys, but she’s not eligible; you’re some sort of cousin, I believe.”
“Oh. Right.” He sighed melodramatically. Sprawled across the library divan. “I’m going to end this Quest alone with myself. Just me, forever.”
Tir, who’d been already occupying the divan, moved his legs to let Oliver overact, and then plopped them atop Oliver’s own. “Terribly alone. Yes. I plainly am worth less than your furniture in this scenario.”
“Oh, you…” He waved a hand. “Of course you’re there. You don’t count.”
“Ah.” Tir picked up his book again. This one was the next over-the-top sensational novel from the brand-new printing press over at the University, which had been invented by a group of students and consequently produced copies of both serious philosophical texts and gruesome melodramatic romance with startling enthusiasm. This cover appeared to show a ghost rising out of a well and a lady with six fingers standing atop a man’s body; if asked about it, Tir would probably claim, somewhat guiltily, that he was studying humanity. After the first few years, this had become a transparent excuse to vanish into dreadful over-the-top thrills. “Thank you for clarifying.”
Oliver poked him with a toe, which required some flexibility, though Tir didn’t seem impressed. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually I don’t.” Tirian’s tone was oddly defensive; Oliver frowned, confused, but in the next second got a headshake from that direction. “Never mind. Look, there’s no point to you worrying about it now. The Seeing Pool will show you whatever it shows you; we’ll find out what that is when we get there. For all we know there’s a long-lost prince or princess right under our noses, someone we’ve both forgotten, and your task’ll be to find them. Does that help?”
“Um. Yes?” He ought to say more. He knew he ought to say more. He didn’t know what else might belong in that reply. Tir was back behind decadent pages and buried in unlikely plot twists, and the silence stretched out enough to go from normal to prickly to unremarked.
It did help. He could set aside that worry for now. It’d come back later, but Tir was right and the vision of the Seeing Pool was never predictable; no point in racking his brain.
As the pause extended, he figured out that Tir wasn’t going to say anything more; he got up after a minute and got his own book, an account of solitary explorer’s travels through the Northern Territories.
