The Key

Chapter 15

Casper manages it with promises of a new task. He needs Balthazar to help him practice a new skill. Balthazar takes to dancing well enough, but he doesn’t delight in it as Casper had hoped he would. From there, they recruit Uriel, who initially balks. Once Balthazar explains that this is an amusing little thing those humans do to entertain themselves, Uriel joins them with a shared laugh.

To Casper’s surprise, enlisting Hannah requires no cornering. Nor does she share in Balthazar and Uriel’s almost ironic enjoyment. From the interchanging dance with all four of them to joined dances with Casper, her engagement is as sincere as Casper’s. They use their wings, inventing their own movements and negating Casper’s excuse of practice. It isn’t flying. They don’t swoop or soar or circle. It’s not as good as that and it isn’t as good as it was in the world outside either, but it is still moving together.

Balthazar begs off to finish his project and Uriel follows, but Casper and Hannah dance on, united in delight. They have no music, just as they have no wind, but as they mouth words to silent songs and flap their wings, Casper knows he can make even this change.

For the first time, the crowd parts for him.

There is no prince at his side, but the humans around him behave as if there is. They see him and nod to him as equals, some going as far as to visibly defer. He makes it to the door in record time, and a different guard than the usual blonde woman waves him in without checking his invitation. This new man doesn’t tell him where Dame Joanna has gone, but he does smile and answer another question, saying, “Same place.”

Casper walks with long steps through the even longer hall. The costumes are brighter, flashier, tonight. There are enchantments enough to make the eye twitch. There are, for some reason, at least two people wearing small and anatomically incorrect wings. These are almost offensively inaccurate, but it’s the change in theme that has Casper concerned. They’re not expected to switch the themes of their costumes, are they? If they are, it’s an expectation Casper has no choice but to defy.

A high flash of silver reassures him. He approaches the familiar horns until he can see the familiar face beneath them. Prince Dan hasn’t changed themes in the slightest, though perhaps he is as much bound to the royal animal as Casper is to his own wings.

Deep in conversation with humans Casper doesn’t recognize on sight – a group which comprises, approximately, every human, save three – Prince Dan nods along to something a tall woman is saying. When he replies, he gestures with hands sheathed in black leather gloves. They match his belt and boots, and despite having little sense of fashion, Casper immediately dislikes them.

Although Prince Dan doesn’t seem to notice Casper standing perhaps ten feet behind him, Casper’s presence garners attention around them. The guests who see him nudge those beside them, or lean down to whisper, or catch each other’s eyes and nod toward Casper.

Once more, the crowd parts. A path of humans opens between walls of stone, until Casper stands alone with space to spare. It’s not space enough to stretch his wings, not nearly enough for that, but it is vastly more room than Casper has come to expect. That gap stretches between himself and Prince Dan, and it is that movement, that emptiness, that must catch Prince Dan’s attention.

He turns.

He sees Casper.

He smiles.

Casper bows and approaches, and the leather of Prince Dan’s gloves is foreign against his palm. It is supple and warm, but reminds Casper more of the healer mage Nicholas he danced a round with last night. It does not feel like Prince Dan.

“Hello, Sir Dan,” he greets, holding tighter anyway.

“Hey, Cas,” Prince Dan says, drawing Casper forward to stand at his side. “I was just…” He gestures vaguely at the woman before him.

“I wouldn’t wish to interrupt,” Casper says.

“Neither would I,” returns the woman. She politely smiles at them both before bobbing a bow in Prince Dan’s direction. “Your Highness.”

He nods in response and acknowledges her by title rather than name, which tells Casper very little. Much of the group about Prince Dan takes the cue to disperse with her, but a number linger. Prince Dan takes care of the rest himself by the simple act of walking away, swinging their hands between them before pulling Casper close enough for their shoulders to bump. Casper’s folded wing presses against Prince Dan’s back, down the length of him.

What they achieve is not privacy, but the performance of privacy. They are looked at. They are inspected. They are watched as if their mere presence is a marvel. Casper expects to be guided away from the spectators, but, being aware of them, he does not balk when Prince Dan brings him not to a staircase, but to the courtyard.

Though the beat is slow, the music is cheerful. Their arms stretch between them as Prince Dan keeps moving into the center of the courtyard where dancing is already underway. Prince Dan squeezes Casper’s hand tighter while Casper seriously considers halting where he stands. The tablet is not in the courtyard.

Sensing Casper on the edge of refusal, Prince Dan turns back to him and stands close. He slides his free hand up Casper’s shoulder to the back of his neck, and he leans down.

“This is as private of a conversation as we’re gonna get,” Prince Dan explains, breath hot over Casper’s ear.

Casper responds by wrapping his arm around Prince Dan’s waist. Their cheeks brushing, he brings his lips to Prince Dan’s ear and asks, “This is about last night?”

“We’re still having research night,” Prince Dan promises as they begin to move, their steps as careful as their lowered voices. Despite the tension of his body, Prince Dan’s voice remains light and jarringly casual. “Dad’s gonna sign you off for downstairs, but he wants more info on cups, first.”

“The kind of cup Dame Joanna drank from?” Casper asks.

“Exactly that kind of cup,” Prince Dan confirms. “I told him what you told me, but he wants to hear it from you. Plus, you mentioned a story or two last night, and I’m sure he’d be interested.”

Casper has too little time. Last night taught him that he can return to the portal in under fifteen minutes, but already, this puts him at under four and a half hours left for tonight. There’s no telling how long the king will seek to keep him, just as there’s an innate risk in yet another possibility of exposure.

Regardless of the dangers, his path is clear. As he cannot avoid this meeting, he must conclude it as quickly as possible.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t want to do this to you,” Prince Dan adds, squeezing Casper’s hand in his. The glove still feels wrong. Though Casper is hardly rude enough to extend his grace through Prince Dan’s skin without permission, the barrier is still an annoyance.

His other hand shifting from Prince Dan’s spine to his hip, Casper pulls back enough to look Prince Dan in the eyes. “What do I need to know?”

Prince Dan blinks but does not stumble. Their bodies continue to move together as if entirely independent from their minds. “You, uh. We’re going in together. He’s gonna ask you about us, and everyone knows it.”

“What do I tell him?”

“You answer what he asks,” Prince Dan tells him, which is not helpful.

“What do I tell him?” Casper repeats. When this, too, fails to elicit elaboration, he adds, “What parts of you are private?” What does Prince Dan view their relationship to be? What is Casper meant to claim? How quickly do human courtships move? With lifespans of under a century, their courtships must move rapidly, but he knows that none of Balthazar’s dalliances ever lasted more than a decade. What is an appropriate time frame? What can Casper accept or decline without drawing even more scrutiny?

“Cas,” Prince Dan says, and his hand leaves the back of Casper’s neck for the side of Casper’s face. Though there is technically nothing amiss with it, the touch of the leather is wrong in every way. Prince Dan guides Casper back in close and whispers into his ear. “He’s not actually gonna ask about me.”

This seems absurd. “I would,” Casper argues. If an angel would for their siblings, surely a human would for their offspring.

Prince Dan nudges their masked temples together before replying, “I know you would.” This is evidently meant to be a complete answer.

“Is this all I should know?” Casper asks.

“There’s a side room,” Prince Dan says. “A preparation space the musicians are using. We’ll be talking in there. It’s a tight fit, but it’ll be quick, all right? Just gotta get through this and the rest of the night is yours. We can come back out here for air before we go downstairs. Pretty cramped down there too.”

“Will you be with me throughout?” Casper asks. He tightens his arm around Prince Dan’s back to indicate the correct response.

“I ain’t leaving you, Cas,” Prince Dan promises. “Dad doesn’t have an excuse to order me away, either. All right?”

It isn’t, but it will have to do.

“It would be indecorous to keep His Majesty waiting,” Casper replies. He shifts the pressure of his hands and Prince Dan is surprised enough to let him take the lead.

“You’re ready now?” Prince Dan asks. “Just like that? Not to scare the crap out of you or anything, but he is the f*****g king.”

“We should go while I have my nerve,” Casper says with no intention of losing it.

Through the holes of his mask, Prince Dan gazes at him. It’s longer than a look, softer than a stare. At last, Prince Dan says, “I love how strong you are, you know that, right?”

“I do now,” Casper replies. It’s a reasonable trait for a warrior prince to admire. Casper considers smiling but decides against it due to the seriousness of the moment.

They dance only a few steps more, just enough to move them to the edge of the festivities. Prince Dan still doesn’t drop his hand and Casper no longer expects him to. Party-goers part before them with respectful nods, and their progress through the hall to the throne room is swift. When they reach it, the dais and the thrones upon it are empty.

“There,” Prince Dan says, nodding toward the dancing. Though the arrangement is in clusters of four dancers, it’s a very different pattern than Casper learned last night. “They’re with Sam and Jo.”

Casper tilts his head until he catches a flash of a knight’s uniform among the other guests. “She’s been invited to dance by your family?”

“Well, yeah,” Prince Dan says, not bothering to lower his voice. “Sam and Dad are even working on special training with her, since her powers have improved so well. Even my father thinks she has a lot of potential, and you don’t get him saying that about a lot of fire mages.”

“I see,” Casper says, and he does. He searches for an obscure word to continue a previous metaphor. It’s not a word he’s used often, something about the watering of humans, and failing to recall it, he settles for another. “Her training must be thirsty work.”

Prince Dan nods, his eyes on his family. “Yeah, she’s pretty much constantly got a cup of water in hand. Gotta stay hydrated, you know.”

Hydration. The word he wanted was hydration.

Casper nods back. “That seems dangerous for the cup. Surely so much fire would melt most tools.”

“Jo’s careful,” Prince Dan says. He looks back to Casper, his masked face as bare as an angel’s, and Casper understands him much better.

“I imagine she would have to be, to receive the honor of that training.”

Prince Dan squeezes his hand, leather sliding against skin. “Exactly,” he says, perhaps to reassure himself. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

In a feat of timing Casper cannot wholly attribute to Prince Samuel’s better known powers, the dance concludes as Prince Dan leads him closer. Standing at the center of a large circle of humans, Dame Joanna deeply bows to the rest of the royal family. Both the king and queen reach forward, he with his right hand, she with her left, and in taking Dame Joanna’s hands, they bid her to rise. The crowd responds by hitting their hands together, some fervently, some with a mincing politeness. Casper copies the frequency and manner Prince Dan uses.