The Key

Chapter 4

Seventeen hours is not enough time to prepare. There is the debriefing and multiple reports. He puts in requests with Uriel, with Balthazar, with Hannah. He bows his neck and prostrates his wings before Raphael, delivering the salient details in person. At the news that Casper has made contact with a member of the human royal family, Raphael considers being pleased, a rare feat.

Uriel leaves to seek out the few members of his network besides himself who have actually observed human culture in the past sixty years. Balthazar takes Casper aside for conversational sparring. It requires the strain that all conversation in this airless place requires: they extend their grace to thicken the empty void between them, and it is this that carries the flattened sounds of their voices. Casper turns the subject away from himself, toward demons and angels and tablets, and Balthazar tuts every time Casper’s wings so much as rustle. It’s easier when Hannah holds the bubble of grace for him, but the strain is the point of the exercise.

They look at his worn battle uniform and make adjustments to this, the only outfit he has. Some are small alterations, others outright substitutions. To fit in means to stand out, and Casper has little eye for fashion among even his own people.

Balthazar gets started on preparing better outfits for the following nights, and he takes away Casper’s mask for improvements as well. It could stand to be filled out further, which means checking his wings for loose feathers, which leads to a full grooming, which leads to holding still while he slowly lets his wings unclench.

While he stands and tries to push the tension from his body, Uriel returns. He takes Casper’s questions, listens when Hannah adds more, and they all soon discover the very real limits of their knowledge. When Casper asks, they both pronounce themselves mystified over his descriptions of human facial expressions. In a bid for better understanding, Hannah attempts to replicate a few, and at least Casper’s feathers fluffing in amusement helps the grooming along. In return, Casper attempts to demonstrate, or at least better describe the motions of Prince Dan’s face. He doesn’t have words for most of the motions. Hannah asks if he’s certain the bared teeth don’t indicate aggression.

Once she finishes preening him, Hannah excuses herself and returns with Joshua in tow, and the older angel is a much better resource than the angels, such as Casper himself, who were only several centuries old at the time of the Banishing. Most of Joshua’s work is in replicating the world they once knew, simulacra full of magic and empty of substance, serving to fill this void in which they’ve found themselves trapped.

Casper mentions the sky to him, the stars and moon, and the quiet rustling of Joshua’s wings only underscores the importance of Casper’s mission. If the tablet had never been lost, never been stolen, never disappeared from them in whatever manner it had in truth disappeared, so much would be different. An impossible amount.

He’ll get it back.

He steps through the minor portal, contorting the magical core of his being in the way only the young are capable of. Behind him, his compatriots give up their strain and allow it to snap shut. Misting whorls of power spiral off from that point of entry and fade away.

He makes quick work of the hedge maze but long work of the entry line. The guard who checks his invitation is the same as the first night, blond hair braided tight at the base of her neck, beneath a formal helmet. Her inspection is quicker, almost cursory, and Casper imagines she’ll only grow faster as the nights progress without incident.

Inside, he’s less certain where to proceed. Seeking the prince out immediately could serve as an act of punctuality or one of impertinent demand. Deciding it best to make himself known, Casper faces the secondary problem of finding one specific human in a vast crowd of them. He can only hope that the theme of each person’s costume remains the same across all five nights, and he will be able to identify Prince Dan by the impala horns. Glimpses of hair color are a poor substitute for the clarity of wings.

He starts with the great hall, with its equal parts feasting and dancing. He checks the side halls and lingers by the inaccurate tapestry. He braves the temptation of the courtyard and keeps his eyes low, away from the sky, but he still does not see the prince.

He proceeds to the throne room.

The decorations are grand, the music loud and stately. Whereas the courtyard hosts a party, this room houses a state function. Backs are straight, voices are polished. It’s a room of ornamental swords, and Casper’s first instinct is to leave in search of the true blade he seeks.

He sees the horns, then, golden-tipped upon the throne. Moving to stand off to the side, his wings brushing against a pillar of white marble when he settles, he studies the king and queen. The fire mage’s hair is charcoal-black despite his middling age. Her hair as golden as her crown, the queen’s appearance gives little hint as to her own talents; only through prior knowledge does Casper know her magical gifts lie with the weather, more toward prediction than manipulation. It’s thought that this skill in elemental prediction may have sparked her second son’s gift of visions.

They both wear crowns as part of their masks, for there is little point in disguising such power. King John’s mask carries the horns; Queen Mary’s does not. Behind them, behind the tall thrones upon a raised dais, there is an immense stained glass window, patterned with spells and protections. There is vulnerability in such a window, or perhaps arrogance, and then Casper remembers the barrier of water against the back of the castle. For the earthbound, perhaps the grand window is less a tactical mistake than it seems to Casper. When light shines through in the daytime and casts the protective runes across the thrones themselves, it might even be considered to their benefit.

After surveying a number of key features of the room – the positioning of guards, the clustering patterns of humans, the locations of all obvious exits – he allows his eyes to be caught by the dancing. In this way, Casper finds him.

The first pair of horns is as gold-tipped as his father’s, but they rise high over the array of dancers. Near these rises a second pair, tipped in silver. They move together, apart, following patterns in parallel before sweeping away. Each prince dances with a shorter partner. Casper watches and he is not alone in observing. He cranes his neck but refuses to rise on tiptoe, his balance too compromised by his bound wings.

The dancing goes on seemingly without end. At some predetermined mark, the taller prince exchanges his partner for another. Sometimes, it’s when the song changes into another. At others, it’s an almost hasty dismissal. Throughout, the shorter prince maintains his partner, a woman with hair the same color as the queen’s. Her relatively tiny stature provides a challenge in viewing her further through the crowd and the dancers, but Casper does catch a glimpse of a blue mask.

At last, there comes a pause in the music. As they did the night before, the humans hit their hands together into an answering, disjointed response. The prince with the golden-tipped horns even lifts his hands high to lead this burst of percussion. The human standing before the musicians bows on their behalf. Several of the musicians fuss at their instruments while others retrieve drinks from servants standing nearby for that express purpose.

Having learned from the night before, Casper better camouflages himself by striking palm against palm. He stops when those around him do. Ahead of him, the taller prince, Mage Prince Samuel, lowers his hands. The horns of his mask stand in parallel as the prince faces in Casper’s direction. They tip to the side as he speaks to his brother, portraying for an instant the image of two animals butting heads. The silver-tipped horns turn sharply toward Casper.

Casper keeps his breathing steady. He keeps his arms relaxed at his sides. He wills his feathers not to flatten further.

Prince Dan speaks with his brother, abruptly ignoring his dancing companion. With golden hair twisted artfully atop her head, she remains standing near the princes. The brothers discuss something, Prince Dan’s hands waving, Prince Samuel standing still and poised. The woman touches Prince Samuel’s elbow, leans up to say something, and receives a nod. She and Prince Dan nod at each other in turn. She walks away first, toward the musicians or perhaps seeking the servants with the drinks. Prince Dan turns toward Casper, and even across the people and space in between, they lock eyes.

The deliberate motion emphasized by his horns, Prince Dan tilts his head back.

Uncertain of how else to proceed, Casper bends his back in a gentle bow. Those around him take notice, especially when Prince Dan tilts his head again.

Casper replicates this motion.

The movement low, kept beneath the belt, Prince Dan lifts his hand slightly, palm up.

There are people watching now, and Casper does not pull his wings even tighter against his back. He holds them as still and calm as his hands as he replicates the prince’s gesture.

Prince Dan motions again with his hand, holding it farther out from his body, his palm more pronounced. He is clearly indicating Casper has done something incorrect.

Casper adjusts the angle of his hand.

Watching this as so many others are, Prince Samuel leans in close to his brother and places a hand on his shoulder. He says something, receives a light elbow in the side, and pushes his brother smoothly forward. Prince Dan faces his brother even while walking toward Casper, and guests and servants alike back out of his way. The princes say something to each other, and, still walking backwards, Prince Dan makes an elaborate bow that his brother laughs at, teeth and horns gleaming equally.

At last, Prince Dan turns to face the direction he’s walking in, and he closes the gap between them with smooth, almost stalking steps.

Unsure of whether to drop his hand, Casper errs on the side of keeping it slightly outstretched. Prince Dan notices his hesitation and rewards his inaction with a greeting Casper has observed multiple times tonight. Prince Dan takes hold of Casper’s fingers by their tips, lifts their hands, and bows his head over them before releasing. It’s a greeting accomplished without looking at their hands: the prince’s eyes are locked on Casper’s the entire time.

“Do you have something against dancing?” Prince Dan asks. “Is that it?”

Even with Joshua’s coaching, Prince Dan’s expression is difficult to parse. Lips up is a smile, lips down is a frown, teeth showing is a grin, but smiles and grins can both be false when made by the mouth. Casper studies the prince’s mouth and gambles that this is teasing, not true agitation.

“I have nothing against dancing, Sir Dan,” he says, watching the prince’s lips for a change of mood. “I simply have other interests.” Failing to see anything in his mouth, Casper looks up to instead inspect the prince’s eyes.

Behind his mask, Prince Dan’s eyes are wide, a round and pleasing green. “What would those interests be?” he asks, his voice abruptly deeper. It’s not a growl: humans don’t growl.

From the corner of the grand room, the music resumes. Sounds rush in while others rush out, waves of conversation breaking to give way to the swish of cloth and precise steps of feet. It’s strange, to hear so much. He has lived too long in a world where every sound must be deliberately carried.

“Might we discuss them somewhere quieter?” Casper asks. Remembering Prince Dan’s dance partner, he adds, “Unless I’m interrupting. You were already engaged.”

The corner of the prince’s mouth moves. “You want to wait here while I dance with someone else?”

“I’m willing to,” Casper replies. He stands tall, at attention, indicating his readiness to wait. Surely waiting for the prince’s guidance would still be more efficient than searching on his own. Similarly, the more guards who see him in the prince’s company, the better.

Prince Dan’s mouth widens, his teeth showing. “That was Jess. Lady Jessebel. I was keeping her company for Sam, but she’s probably off healing her own feet at this point.”

Casper has very little idea what to make of that. Instead, he focuses on his goal. “Then you’re available to converse, Sir Dan?”

“I’ve got some time,” Prince Dan replies. He indicates a direction, pointing with the horns, and Casper falls into step with him, heading toward the high doorway Casper didn’t enter through.

In the hallway, the music of the throne room clashes against that of the courtyard, an almost pleasing discord. His siblings sometimes sing like this, seeking to drown each other out. Or, they used to sing like this. The centuries and silence have not been kind.

He keeps to Prince Dan’s side, listening to music fading under the murmur of so many speaking, hearing yet more instruments from up ahead. They enter the great hall, its tables laden with food and its benches full of humans. At the far side, there is a small band, all instruments of air, and yet another area for dancing.

“Hungry?” Prince Dan asks. This seems rhetorical, as the prince never stops in his approach to the serving tables.

“I could be persuaded to eat,” he answers honestly enough. He knows he can, though it’s never something he chose to indulge in, back in the days when it was an option. A realm of nothingness, monotony broken only by illusions, is not conducive to the growing of crops or the keeping of livestock. Perhaps if it had been, the boredom of their existence might mean those pastimes would be thought of as more than the hobbies of eccentrics.

“Sam told me all about the grub you get over at that university of yours,” Prince Dan says. “Trust me, it won’t take much of an argument.” He takes a small plate from a stack on the end of the table and begins to fill it, at times using silver tongs, at times picking directly with his fingers. Casper follows his example, recognizing certain items as plants and others as meat. Beyond these basic distinctions, he’s lost.

They move to one of the tables spotted with individual plates instead of trays, and they sit. Prince Dan stiffly steps over the bench, the fabric of his trousers disagreeing with the motion. For his part, Casper sidles around the end of the bench and sits as far back on it as he can, the wood digging into the backs of his knees on one side and pressing against the undersides of his wings on the other. Despite the discomfort, there is a pleasant novelty in having a seat.

As he settles beside the human, Prince Dan watches him. Not his face or hands, but his wings. “You’re all right sitting like this?” he asks.

“Yes, thank you,” Casper answers, surprised by the concern.

He observes the ways those around them eat, their uses of forks and fingers, the size of their bites and the length of their chewing. Curiously, Prince Dan’s eating habits more closely resemble those of the guests in the less elaborate costumes. Uncertain of where his guise as a scholar puts him in social rankings, he decides to split the difference and use a fork. In practice, he’s certain he comes across as overly fastidious, but it’s better to appear fussy about eating rather than ignorant.

This thoughtful plan lasts until the moment he places the first piece of fruit in his mouth. His lips close around the tines of the fork. His eyes close by their own accord. He feels his scapular feathers begin to rise, to fluff up, and he tamps the reaction back down.

Casper knows the tastes of air. He knows it hot and cold, humid and thin. He knows an impending thunderstorm from a drizzle. Beyond this, he knows the taste of his own mouth and his own blood. Last night, he sipped something new and strange from a glass.

This is something new and good.

“First strawberry of the year, huh?” Prince Dan says somewhere beyond Casper’s eyelids, and there’s a laugh in his voice.

Casper chews thoroughly, swallows carefully, and opens his eyes. “Yes.”

“Kinda small, this early,” Prince Dan continues. “I’m surprised we could get so many in April.”

“I like them.”

“I could tell,” Prince Dan replies. The shape of his mouth matches what Joshua described as a “smirk,” a kind of smile that is more complicated than joy and potentially mocking.

Uncertain of how to respond, Casper takes shelter in the very human ploy of putting something else in his mouth. This one is some kind of meat, cut small, and is a strange improvement over the fruit.

“How does it compare?” Prince Dan asks, and there is a horrible moment where Casper attempts to remember words for tastes, for, for flavors, that’s the word, before he realizes the prince is gesturing more widely.

He is careful to swallow before he asks, “Compare, Sir Dan?”

“Sam wanted the food served university style for his birthday,” Prince Dan explains. “No formal courses, everyone filling their own plate. A lot of people think it’s just for the novelty, but he really misses that mage tower of yours. So, how does it compare?”

Armed with guesses, Casper replies, “The arrangement of the tables fits the room. The style has been well adapted into a new setting. And the fare itself is certainly an improvement over what I’m accustomed to.”

“Very diplomatic,” Prince Dan says, another question clearly rising up behind these words.

Casper preempts him, asking, “What style was used for your birthday celebration, Sir Dan?”

The prince’s smirk recedes. Something else takes its place, but Casper has no hope of parsing it unaided. “I was next door over, actually.” When Casper only looks at him blankly, Prince Dan clarifies. “Moondoor. Next door? Anyway. We were visiting at Queen Charlene’s invitation. She threw me a party as an apology for having to miss Sam’s. It’s negotiating season with the fae, so we’ll be lucky if she’s able to come round for Sam’s wedding next week. Gotta say, a party where Sam couldn’t see half of the guests? Hilarious.”

Reflecting upon the properties of a firstborn, Casper says, “It is interesting to see where primogeniture still holds weight.”

“Still?” Prince Dan repeats. “Sam might be the only mage between us, but first mage still gets the throne. That’s how it works.”

“Primogeniture once applied regardless of magehood,” Casper explains. It had when they’d been sealed away from this world. The change is a curious enough one to have been well-documented, but it remains just that: curious.

The oldest son of a king looks at Casper then, silent and inscrutable. After what even Casper can tell is too long a pause, Prince Dan says, “Sounds like a stupid idea.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, Moondoor. That was a good party. No complaints there. Sure, it’s a cold place in January, but where isn’t? Anyway, that was where Sam really locked into the idea of a masquerade. They go all the way out over there.” He gestures at Casper’s wings, the backs of his fingertips brushing from sheer proximity. “You’d fit right in. Ever been?”

Casper shakes his head. “I’m not often invited into the homes of royalty, Sir Dan.”

Prince Dan laughs. “I meant the country, but sure. I think you’d really enjoy doing this true Moondoor style: they pick a person, or a persona, and stick to that the whole party.” He shows his teeth and leans in close, shoulder bumping Casper’s. “You could be the Seraph Casper. That’s what Sam did, he picked Samuel Colt so he wouldn’t have to remember a different name.”

“That would be easier,” Casper agrees in his most neutral of tones, his wings as blank as their position will allow. “Who did you choose to go as?”

Prince Dan’s mouth widens, his eyes full of life. “I didn’t. Charlie picked for me. You know the story of the Handmaiden Knight? That. So there were these contests all night for me to ‘regain my honor’ and in between, I had to stick close to Charlie because I was being her handmaiden.”

Frowning, Casper puts at least one piece together. “You’re… referring to Queen Charlene?”

“Charlie,” Prince Dan confirms, nodding. He tells Casper of the contests, feats of swordsmanship both real and absurd, trials of drink followed by dance. His gestures grow exuberant, his face perpetually about to glow. Those around them listen in with decreasing subtlety until Casper and the prince are within a circle of observing humans, some sitting across from them, others standing. Once this audience begins to solidify, Prince Dan’s speech increases somewhat in formality, though only somewhat. He refers to Queen Charlene as Queen Charlene, and other previously relaxed characters of his story abruptly sprout titles.

Casper listens and nods, and once he has emptied the distraction of his plate, he turns the conversation closer to his goal. “I heard there was an incident on your journey home.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Prince Dan tells him. “We took a combustion carriage with Dame Joanna operating. The quartermistress’ daughter with fire magic, not the archer. When a rugaru tried to attack us during a rest stop, it was one of the foolish assaults you’d expect from an unthinking creature.

“Dame Joanna reacted exactly as trained. She moved Sam back and incinerated the creature at the same time. With one hand, it was as if she were helping him down from a carriage, and with the other, she let off the biggest fireball we’ve ever seen from her. And this was at the beginning of our rest stop,” Prince Dan emphasizes. “She’d been funneling fire into the propelling mechanism over uneven terrain for a continuous hour. But the moment Sam was in danger, it was like she was starting fresh.”

“A credit to her training, and to Your Highness’ troops,” says a woman sitting across from them.

Casper nods along with the rest of those gathered, but he wonders. He decides against drawing attention to his point of interest, but is nevertheless spared from needing to fill the silence himself. Simply put, there is no silence to fill. With that one break in his conversation with Prince Dan, their audience becomes instead a group of participants. The resulting dynamic keeps Prince Dan at the center and sends Casper into the periphery, despite their being physically adjacent.

Being ignored suits Casper’s purposes. He listens to Prince Dan attentively as the prince recounts instances of his knights’ prowess. It seems Prince Dan has at least one grand story for each soldier he or anyone else mentions.

These tales flow from one to the next with the prompting and commentary of those around them, but they all share several common threads. Some are expected. Some are curious, such as the way Prince Dan turns all questions about his own exploits into answers about his hunters’ contributions. While he never features as the primary hero of his own stories, any hunt involving his father the king in his younger days is described as nearly a one-man affair.

Deciding he’s listened his fill to the state of monster hunting in the country, Casper shifts his leg beneath the table, pressing the side of his knee against that of the prince. The motion is out of view of those surrounding them, but it serves nicely to pull Prince Dan’s gaze and overt attention back to Casper. With that attention, Casper is afforded the next pause in the conversation without needing to fight for it. He says, “There’s a pattern across your stories, Sir Dan. Are attacks more common around the border?”

“Anything we can’t kill, we push back,” Prince Dan replies. “Which does mean more monsters getting crowded out to the fringes.”

“What can’t you kill?” Casper asks. He knows the limitations of humans from long ago, but not all the ways these have changed, even with these stories.

“Mostly demons,” Prince Dan says, and this is precisely the answer Casper expected. “Exorcising them from a body is enough to save an individual, provided there’s a healer on hand to reverse the damage. Demons ride their hosts rough for a reason, after all.”

“To make more demons,” Casper replies, nodding.

Prince Dan tilts his head slightly, and his body leans away from Casper for all of an instant before leaning back in. “You’re well-informed.”

“One cannot study angels without studying demons,” Casper replies.

Around them, there are a few smiles. No. Smirks. Not many, but a few. Perhaps Casper sounds needlessly superstitious, or merely unfashionable in his interests.

“Right,” Prince Dan says, nodding without his smile. This could mean anything from disappointment to respect. “Because Lucifer made the first archdemons.”

“He made all of the archdemons,” Casper corrects. “Before he turned against his siblings, he created his army in secret, forging the first from powerful human mages. Alone among their kind, only the archdemons could make new demons without first possessing the human they intended to corrupt.”