The Key

Chapter 5

“Or,” a woman across from them begins to say, but there arises an immediate interruption. Like iron filaments caught in a magnetic field, the humans gathered around the end of the table move themselves into a circle. Each turns, facing the source of this phenomenon, its identity made obvious by glimpses of gold. Casper and Prince Dan sit outside this ring until the circle breaks, revealing its catalyst.

Moving untouched within a bubble of space is Prince Samuel. In either hand, he carries a large glass stein full of brown liquid. Below his mask, he carries a wide smile. With a polite warmth, he thanks the woman across from Prince Dan for giving up her seat, and he finishes speaking before she finishes moving. She doesn’t move very far, instead taking up a position behind his shoulder.

“Did I miss it?” Prince Samuel asks. He slides the second of the steins across the table to his brother. Around them, the circle of humans closes back in, incrementally tighter than before.

“We were telling hunting stories,” Prince Dan replies, perhaps a use of that Royal We which Casper has vaguely heard of. Certainly, no one else had any hunting stories.

“Oh, good,” Prince Samuel says. “I’d hate to have missed a debate on angels.” His smile shifts as his gaze does, and Casper has the impression he’s being viewed warmly. It’s a quick look before the prince twists and looks upward at the woman whose seat he’d taken. “You were about to ask about the rise of demons at the time of the vanishing of angels, correct?”

Even with the barrier of her fox mask, even with Casper’s limited understanding, the woman’s surprise is clear on her face. “I was, Your Highness,” she replies, dropping into a bob of a curtsy, head bowed.

Prince Samuel looks back to Casper and tells him, “Then you were going to explain that the rise of demons occurred over a four hundred year period prior to the angels disappearing, and that many of the demons vanished with them, particularly the archdemons.”

Mind racing, Casper bows his head. “A five hundred year period, Your Highness,” he answers. Casper hadn’t been a century old, at the beginning.

Rather than finding offense in the correction, Prince Samuel smiles wider. He points to his brother. “Then you were going to leave for a drink, but I brought it, and now you have to stay.”

“Why is there hunter’s brew on tap?” Prince Dan asks, looking down into his drink.

“Because Quartermistress Harvelle and I agree that our castle should offer every comfort one of her roadhouses might, and that my brother should be able to drink like a hunter wherever he is stationed,” Prince Samuel replies. His tone makes the meaning of his expression clear: this is pride.

Prince Dan makes a strange motion with his eyes – surely he doesn’t need to look at Casper, the ceiling, and the woman on his other side in such rapid progression – before hefting the stein and holding it out. His brother matches the gesture, and they clink glass against glass before drinking, two horned heads thrown back in unison.

The first to lower his drink, Prince Sam directs his attention back to Casper. Casper does not want his attention, lest his attention bring about yet more visions. “Dan and I have disagreed on the existence of angels for a long time. I understand you’re an expert in the subject. Perhaps you could settle our debate for us. Casper, isn’t it? Like the seraph who vanquished the Archdemon Azazel.”

“With respect, Your Highness, the Seraph Casper imprisoned the Archdemon Alistair. The Archdemon Azazel–”

“Was vanquished by Samuel Colt, you’re right,” Prince Samuel interrupts, nodding. “I haven’t brushed up on the subject as recently as you, I’m afraid. Though by your name, it sounds as if you were born into your research.”

“That is accurate,” Casper replies.

“It strikes me that my brother never mentioned your surname to me,” Prince Samuel says.

Having anticipated this question and discussed with Uriel the risks of claiming a human family, Casper has his answer prepared.

“I have none,” he says.

Around the table, there is a wave of surprise, to the point of murmuring and whispers. Curiously, none of this surprise shows on Prince Samuel’s face. Casper risks a look at Prince Dan and finds another unreadable expression there.

“I studied alongside several orphans at the university,” Prince Samuel tells him, tells all of them. Several of the previously whispering aristocrats abruptly fall silent. “Without exception, they were the most diligent students.”

“To keep the university’s charity, they would have to be,” comments a man in a bear mask.

“To have earned it in the first place,” Prince Samuel corrects, and he nods at Casper over the rim of his stein. “Dan, you didn’t tell me you were recruiting new Men of Letters.” With this remark to his brother, his tone changes, lightens, and the tension in those gathered around them eases.

“Until the day we need to hunt angels, we don’t need a Man of Letters to tell us how to,” Prince Dan replies. He looks to Casper and briefly closes one eye, just the one. “Now, if you know more about demons, we could see about setting up a trial period.”

Rather than give Casper time to decide whether this is a sincere offer, Prince Samuel presses the conversation forward to his own ends. “So, despite all the evidence, Dan doesn’t think there’s any concrete proof angels existed.”

Very telling and equally disturbing, there is a lack of reaction from those around them. As if this is a perfectly normal opinion for an educated human to have.

Casper feels his eyes narrow behind his own mask, the lining pulling against the skin of his face. He looks at Prince Dan and asks, “What do you consider proof?”

“Physical evidence,” Prince Dan answers without hesitation. “There’s a lot of lore on a lot of creatures, but without physical evidence, we just don’t know.”

“Which means Dan doesn’t accept stories, written or oral,” Prince Samuel adds.

“Not without something solid backing them,” Prince Dan says. “Belief without foundation, that’s how we get tulpas. It doesn’t help that for the last few centuries, tulpas are how we get angels.”

Casper c***s his head. “What do you mean?”

“A tulpa is formed through belief,” Prince Dan says, evidently for the benefit of those around them. “If enough people believe something strongly enough, a tulpa forms sometimes. The only credible accounts of anyone seeing a living angel have all turned out to be tulpa sightings or real ghosts with fixations. It’s not that hard to get a tulpa when ‘everyone knows’ an angel lives in that particular spot. Get enough of everyone knowing, and you get the angel to go with it.”

Privately, Casper wonders how many of these “tulpas” were, in fact, Uriel or another member of his spy network. Or perhaps the formation of the tulpas was instigated by too little stealth and subtlety on their scouts’ parts.

“I can understand people wanting to believe, don’t mistake me,” Prince Dan continues, now directly to Casper, perhaps sensing Casper’s desire for him to apologize. “There’s so much out there that’s awful. Things you’d swear were nightmares if you didn’t see them while awake. Sometimes, when reality turns that ugly, hope turns around and tries to find something beautiful.”

It is a very strange thing, to be looked at directly and still be told he doesn’t exist.

“You think angels are a mass delusion,” Casper summarizes flatly.

“I think angels are hope,” Prince Dan says, looking him steadily in the eyes. “I think people look back at what used to be, and nostalgia tells us it was better. So we tell ourselves about a world before demons, before black smoke meant anything other than a fire, before… all of it. And it’s not enough just not to have the bad, we have to have something good, too. So we think of ourselves, but better. Stronger, faster, more beautiful.” His eyes rest on Casper’s scapulars before they meander down the rest of his wings. “Immortal creatures striking down demons in our defense? Who wouldn’t dream of that?”

After far too long not knowing what to say, Casper tells him, “That’s a very idealized view.”

And almost entirely inaccurate as well. Stronger and faster, certainly, but the exposed lower half of Prince Dan’s face disproves that claim of superior angelic beauty. More importantly, the war against Lucifer’s private army of demons had never been on humanity’s behalf. If anything, the battle to re-establish balance between the four archangels had been waged against humans as well, humanity perceived as little more than demonic incubators. No, humans have little cause to think of angels as hope.

Prince Dan surprises him with a laugh, and the spell of his seriousness breaks. “That’s not something I’m often accused of. All I’m saying is, we’re talking about an entire species. An entire species that supposedly lived for an extremely long time, and we don’t have physical evidence of this. We have proof of human cities dating that far back. Farther. But no angel cities.”

“We know those cities were built by humans, but we don’t know if they were solely inhabited by humans,” Prince Samuel counters. “Mosaics of the time depicted angels and humans together. And, this would be predating the rise of demons, so they had no need to romanticize angels into being.”

“It’s only predating the rise of demons if you agree the angel Lucifer made them,” Prince Dan retorts.

“We don’t have proof of demons dating that far back,” Prince Samuel says. “We have some partial mural paintings that might be demons, but are probably ghosts. A black blur within a salt line is a common enough motif for either. There weren’t any of the demon-binding sigils you’d expect.”

“There weren’t any sigils on a partial mural,” Prince Dan points out. “When we already know demons are huge on burning down libraries and always have been.” He shakes his head. “Back to the point, we still haven’t found any angel cities.”

“There’s also the possibility angels wouldn’t need cities, or live in them,” Prince Samuel says. “Having wings for travel would cut out so much infrastructure.”

“Pardon my mentioning, Your Highness,” a woman on Prince Dan’s other side interjects, “but I recall stories about angels living in the mountains.”

“The Kingdom of Heaven,” Casper confirms, if only to see how much knowledge has been truly lost. It would be far easier to tell if he could be certain what recognition looked like on masked human faces. “It perched in the mountains to the south.”

“Conveniently high up, in mountains no one can climb,” Prince Dan says.

“A tactically sound location, Sir Dan,” Casper replies.

Prince Dan smiles with his mouth. “That much, I’ll admit. If it were real, it’d be a great location, provided you could fly and didn’t need to eat.”

“Casper, do you know anything besides the location?” Prince Samuel asks. “Any records from the angels going down, if not humans going up?”

It’s a better opening than Casper could have hoped. “Because of their long lifespans, angels were partial to keeping their significant records in stone. Even with their compact language, it consumed a great deal of space, but the lasting nature of these records was the primary concern. In their dealings with the outside world, they would have upheld this tradition in matters of importance.” He makes sure to watch the younger prince’s face for any flicker of reaction when he adds, “This would have resulted in the exchange of tablets, typically in the dark stone common to the mountains. We do have records of these existing.”

Prince Samuel’s head lifts incrementally. His lips neither tighten nor part, and he says nothing.

“You’d need a strong postal carrier for that,” Prince Dan jokes, and Prince Samuel’s face smoothly transitions into – probably – amusement as some of those around them laugh.

“So now angels can’t be real because their mail is too heavy?” Prince Samuel teases. Another, smaller round of laughter follows.

“Angels can’t be real because every ‘living’ one is a tulpa and every dead one is fake,” Prince Dan counters before finishing off his drink. He looks at Casper while he licks his lips and must take Casper’s confusion the wrong way. “Tell me you don’t believe in those hoaxes.”

“Which ones?” Casper asks, concealing his ignorance while forcing the prince to clarify.

“The human skeletons with the wing bones wired on,” Prince Dan explains. “Except they’re not even wing bones, or if they are, they’re griffin wings.”

“Those are absurd,” Casper agrees immediately. “You won’t find a winged angel skeleton for the same reason you’ll never find a skeleton from a chimera.”

It’s Prince Dan’s turn to tilt his head. “Nice theory, but all I’m hearing are convenient excuses.”

“Surely chimera have bones,” a woman in a mask like fish scales posits from where she stands at the end of the table. “Anything that stands must have bones.”

“Oh, they do,” Prince Dan allows. “Tough ones, too – right up until you kill them. Then what you have is a trio of animal corpses with matching wounds.”

The man in the bear mask laughs. “Casper, are you saying angels separated into humans and eagles upon dying?” There is something in the way he says Casper’s name that is untoward and strangely pointed. Derision at his lack of title here, perhaps.

“An angel is a creature of magic, not a magical fusion,” Casper corrects, eyes narrowed. “In all creatures of magic, the magic burns away at the moment of death.” At that, there are nods around the table, particularly strong from Prince Dan. “As the seat of an angel’s power is the wings, no true remains of an angel would have skeletal wings attached. They would burn into the closest surface instead.”

Prince Dan nudges Casper’s elbow with his own. “There are no angel skeletons because they look the same as humans? Still a convenient excuse.”

“The world exists regardless of any of our perspectives on it,” Casper replies.

Sam salutes him with his glass. “Well said. Though I think that settles it: we’re never going to convince my brother angels existed unless we can show him a real one.”

In response, Casper looks at his own wing where it rises over his shoulder for all to see. He looks at Prince Dan and back to Prince Samuel. “Perhaps not even then, Your Highness,” he replies. A fresh round of laughter proves Casper’s fledgling grip on human humor is accurate.

After that, the conversation wanders into matters of irrelevance. It’s a burst dam of attention and competition for attention as those around them insinuate themselves to the conversational forefront. Clearly, Casper was only permitted to speak as long as he did due to the Mage Prince’s interest. Just the Mage Prince; it becomes increasingly obvious that Prince Dan’s favor is not being so fervently wooed.

Too many people stand too close around him, and his discomfort isn’t simply due to the occasional stray hand touching his wings. Precious moments scrape away under useless chatter. What’s more, each wasted minute is another minute in which proximity could inspire Prince Samuel into a vision.

Beneath the table, Prince Dan’s knee presses against his. Casper looks at him, and Prince Dan gazes back steadily. “You still owe me a dance, you know,” Prince Dan murmurs beneath the conversation around them. He’s quiet enough not to interrupt, firm enough to be readily overheard.

“I wasn’t aware,” Casper replies truthfully, his head angled toward Prince Dan, his eyes on Prince Samuel. This could be a problem, but it would be a problem farther away from Prince Samuel. The younger prince is concentrating on the aristocrats chatting around him, even moderating the discussion, but no unnecessary risk is ever worth taking, not with the stakes so high.

“Consider yourself informed,” Prince Dan tells him. He takes Casper by the elbow and stands. The moment he moves, his brother’s eyes snap to him.

“Dan,” Prince Samuel says, thoroughly interrupting the man in the bear mask with that single word.

“You know me, that’s as long as I can stay sitting down in one go,” Prince Dan says, ostensibly to his brother, in truth to the entire group. He steps back over the bench, using his hand on Casper to hold himself steady. “I hope you don’t mind me stealing Cas here.”

“You don’t have to go,” Prince Samuel argues. His tone is polite and his body plays at being relaxed, but even Casper can tell it’s an argument.

“Can’t dance sitting down,” Prince Dan counters with a shrug. He guides Casper around the end of the bench, a piece of assistance that is unnervingly close to necessary. Rising without moving his wings at all is an unexpected blow to Casper’s balance, but somehow one Prince Dan has anticipated. Perhaps because he assumes the wings are fake, dead weight.

A woman in a fox mask succeeds in drawing Prince Samuel back into the discussion regardless of the way the prince looks at his departing brother. Uncertain of what to say in parting, Casper says nothing and allows Prince Dan to guide him away.

“I’m thinking the courtyard,” Prince Dan tells him. He adjusts Casper, tucking Casper’s hand into the crook of his own elbow. This done, he evidently expects Casper to hold on for himself, as if in preparation for Casper to get lost. It’s strange, and must be for show. They don’t need to weave through the throng of guests, even though Prince Dan’s bubble of space is slimmer than his brother’s. Slower, less responsive.

“I don’t know how to dance, Sir Dan,” Casper admits before they can go far.

Prince Dan almost pauses in his steps; the moment of hesitation pulls against Casper’s palm. “Oh. I thought – right. Of course. They wouldn’t teach dancing at mage school, huh?”

“You thought what?” Casper asks.

“That you disliked dancing,” Prince Dan replies, a little too quickly. When Casper waits for a better answer, Prince Dan adds, “Or that you were being coy.”

“I prefer to be direct, wherever possible,” Casper replies. “Misdirection has as many discomforts as it has uses.”

“You came to a masquerade ball not knowing how to dance,” Prince Dan muses.

“I have the masquerade portion well in hand,” Casper says, and Prince Dan laughs.

“You really do.” Not for the first time, Prince Dan openly admires Casper’s wings. Not for the first time, Casper fights the urge to preen. It’s a very natural reaction to such bold flattery, but knowing this doesn’t help. Neither does the knowledge that Prince Dan doesn’t know what he’s doing, or how much interest he’s displaying. Fascination with a real body part speaks of lust; admiration of a costume does not.

Casper stays quiet too long. He must, for Prince Dan asks him, “You all right?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

He must not appear well enough, because Prince Dan responds to this by guiding him over to the side of the hall to stand between two suits of armor, one metal with a matching shield, the other leather with a wooden shield.

“You like direct,” Prince Dan says.

Casper nods.

“I didn’t mean to mock you.”

Casper hadn’t realized the prince had. He hesitates to admit this, and that hesitation is clearly taken for something more vulnerable.

“I nickname people,” Prince Dan explains. “Calling you Casper Cinderwings, it was just me nicknaming. I wasn’t mocking you for not having a family name.”

“No, you were mocking me for my interest in angels,” Casper agrees.

This seems to distress the prince. “You’re proud of these.” Prince Dan reaches out, hand rising high over Casper’s shoulder, and lays a light palm on the wrist of Casper’s left wing, just above the alula. His hand is as warm on Casper’s wing as it was at his elbow. “That’s all I meant.”

“Then I thank you,” Casper says. He leans back slightly, just enough for Prince Dan to understand the unspoken request and release him.

“When you didn’t offer a surname yesterday, I thought, maybe you were… But I didn’t think I was being rude until I saw the rest of them at it.”

Casper mentally reviews the interactions at the table. “I didn’t care for the way that man used my name.”

Prince Dan nods. “That. Look, Cas – I’m gonna call you Cas instead – if you want a surname, I can do that. I can bestow honorifics, the kind that become names. It’s why I nickname people, half the time. If you wanted to be Casper Cinderwings, or anything else, I can make that happen.”

“Your offer is kind but unnecessary, Sir Dan,” Casper assures him.

“Doesn’t have to be necessary for you to want it. Casper Ravenfeather? Angelseeker? Seraphnamed? Casper Bookburied.”

From what Joshua told him, Casper knows what his response to jesting ought to be. Also from Joshua’s counseling, he begins small. Consciously, carefully, he pulls one corner of his mouth back toward his ear. He repeats the motion on the other side, and Prince Dan shows his teeth in response.

“No, thank you,” Casper says gently.

“Well,” Prince Dan says. “You know. If you change your mind, let me know.”

Casper nods. “Of course.” The motion growing difficult, he allows his facial smile to drop.

Prince Dan leans in closer, his grin disappearing rapidly, if more smoothly than Casper could ever attempt. “Then what’s wrong?”

Casper must have done something wrong with his face. He’d begun the smile correctly, so he must have ended it poorly. Fortunately, there is indeed a topic he’d like to address. He starts with the preliminaries. “I don’t wish to be rude, Sir Dan.”

“I like rude,” Prince Dan tells him, which does explain a great deal.

“Was that a typical interaction with His Royal Highness your brother?” Casper asks.

Prince Dan looks past him, back toward the high doors to the Great Hall. He inhales deeply and exhales longer than usual. “Pretty much.” He looks back to Casper with another sort of smile, this one more static. “It’s a good skill for a king-to-be, taking over just by walking into the room.”

Casper shakes his head. “When he arrived, he knew what we were discussing.”

“Oh,” Prince Dan says. “That.” His smile moves more and the corners of his eyes change subtly behind his mask. “Yeah, that’s normal. Takes a little getting used to.”

“Does he always know?” Casper asks.

“He doesn’t, not that anyone believes it,” Prince Dan answers. “It’s the same problem we have with Mom’s powers, except worse.”

Casper tilts his head, restraining the angle to polite curiosity.

“Some people still think she controls the weather instead of predicting it, for a start,” Prince Dan says. “Advance warning for a drought can be taken as the threat of a drought, which never goes over well. That’s gotten a lot better in recent years, but it still pops up.”

“Do people think His Royal Highness means to threaten them with his visions?” Casper asks.

“Nah, that’s him hitting against Mom’s second problem. See, when Mom’s wrong about the weather, it means there’s a demonic omen interfering with the regular weather. Which means everyone knows the queen is either always right or spotting a demon. They think she’s infallible, but they don’t take human limitations into account.”

It would be too jarring to change direction and pursue that mention of demons. Taking this into consideration, Casper presses ahead. “I was under the impression Her Majesty the queen had an immense range. It is true that she can identify demonic activity as far away as Moondoor, is it not?”

“Yeah, while she was pregnant with Sam,” Prince Dan replies, piling further evidence into one of Casper’s theories. “Don’t know if you’ve heard the saying, but if you want things done, you get a mage. If you want bigger things done, you get a bigger mage.” Here, he mimes a pronounced belly, the motion almost like the final flourish of an elaborate bow.

“Was her range that immense before you were born?” Casper asks.

Prince Dan shakes his head. “It’s cumulative, isn’t it? If she’d had a third kid, I’m betting her range would have touched the sea.”

From his increased research on the royal family, he knows the queen’s second pregnancy was a difficult one. What that entails, he’s uncertain, but it was certainly enough to cap the royal family at a single mageborn child, a single heir.

“Anyway, her range expanded for each of us, but it never stayed at that full expansion,” Dan concludes. “Same as anyone, royal or not. That’s just biology. But the people want to believe she can still do it, so they fault her when she can’t.”

Casper says, “Are you telling me the problem with His Royal Highness’ talent, is that he’s viewed as omniscient?”

“Pretty much,” Prince Dan replies. “A future king who can see every problem coming? It sounds amazing, and people want to believe in good things.” He laughs softly and it sounds incorrect. “You’d think me talking about my brother’s limits would be a security risk, but it’s actually a public opinion we need to change.”

“Because otherwise he’s blamed for every mishap,” Casper reasons.

“Every single one,” Prince Dan agrees. “And if you don’t think he takes that to heart, then I didn’t properly introduce you.”

“If you’re trying to reduce that image, why does he still publicly insert himself into conversations in that manner? He sounded as if he knew what every person in this party would be speaking of.” This is a slight exaggeration, but Prince Dan is a protector. If Casper demonstrates fears, Prince Dan may attempt to assuage them.