The Key

Chapter 3

There is training in the morning, because there is always training in the morning. There’s Bobby shouting drills and Rufus running them. Bobby calls for werewolves, and four of their number take on the role, attacking in the established fashion, lunging for throats and clawing for chests, while the other knights counterattack. Bobby calls for vampires, for rugaru, for any number of creatures, and they shift tactics accordingly.

After the monster drills, they break apart for individual weapons. Cleric Jim puts Jo through her paces with knives while Dan claims Victor as his sparring partner. After the late night he’s had, it’s a mistake, but Dan refuses to back down even in the face of superior swordsmanship.

“Too much dancing last night?” Victor says, closer to a real question than a taunt, not the way Jo asked it while they ran laps earlier. Knighthood has made her cocky, and Dan increasingly misses the days of bossing her around as his squire.

“Not enough,” Dan shoots back, and then he gets scrappy. They’re training for survival fighting, not tournaments, and the dignity of his station has never been worth his life.

That’s his excuse, at any rate.

After – after the drills and the sparring, after the mages practice distance spells and the ungifted knights take to the crossbow – Dan showers, dresses, and sets out to find Sam. When no one seems to know where he is, Dan resigns himself to it being one of those days, and he tackles his thoughts alone.

He looks at familiar halls. He ambles through the throne room, taking in the huge stained glass window above his parents’ places, a glass wall of runes and warding. He wonders about a few things he never thought to wonder about, and then he climbs.

The observatory tower is high, but nothing Dan can’t handle. His legs hate him after last night and even more after this morning, and Dan hates them right back, one step after another. At the top of the winding stone stairs is a door, and behind the door, there is glass. Glass walls, glass domed ceiling, glass chambers within multiple telescopes.

Dan opens the door, sees the empty room, and hears Sam say, “Hey.”

Dan opens the door all the way, trapping Sam between it and the wall, quickly turning “Hey” into “Hey, quit it!”

Relenting, he steps through into the observatory and closes the door behind him. Sam straightens his shirt with a glare that turns into an eye roll.

“What’s up?” Dan asks.

Sam shrugs, sitting down in front of the largest telescope. He leans an arm on the metal frame. “You wanted to talk to me,” he says, not asking.

“So you’ve been hiding up here since breakfast?”

Sam shrugs again.

Dan pulls another stool away from one of the lesser telescopes. He sits, legs wide and rude. “What’d you dream about? Besides me coming up here.”

Sam stretches out a leg to kick him in the knee. “Don’t let Mom catch you like that.”

Dan counters by setting his legs apart even wider, more and more crass until Sam snorts. Then he sits normally, before his pants can split at the crotch. “Seriously, what is it?”

“I’m pretty sure it was just a dream,” Sam says, which is weird.

“Dude, the last time you couldn’t tell a vision from a dream, you were, like, six.”

“If it was a vision, it contradicts,” Sam reasons. “And my visions don’t contradict. I’m not like Chuck, I don’t get the whole jumbled mess of possibilities.”

Dan knows this. Sam knows Dan knows this. And Dan knows that if Sam knows Dan knows this, then Sam’s trying to reassure himself.

“So what’s this vision that’s never going to happen?” Dan asks. “Dream, whatever.”

“Look, I already told Dad and he – it’s stupid.”

Dan raises his hand in oath. “I will not laugh. Unless it’s f*****g moronic, in which case, I will totally laugh.”

Sam shoots him a bitchface.

“Don’t let Mom catch you like that,” Dan taunts, and Sam laughs.

“All right, fine,” Sam says. “It’s, uh.” He pulls away from the telescope, fiddling with his own hands instead of the dials. “It was in the throne room.”

Dan nods along. “I have a lot of nightmares in there too.”

“Of Mom and Dad on fire?” Sam asks. He looks at Dan in that way he has, not just with his eyes but with his whole face. “Because they were on fire. They were on the dais and they…” Sam takes a deep breath. “It felt like a vision, mostly.”

“Mom and Dad on fire,” Dan checks. “Dad wouldn’t catch fire if you dropped him in a bonfire. He’s too good. Besides, if anyone’s fire went after Mom, Dad could wrest control of it like that.” He snaps his fingers.

“Yeah, I told you, it’s stupid.” Sam picks at some invisible mark on his hand. “Dad thinks it’s a holdover nightmare from visiting Charlie. Y’know, the rugaru attack on the way back.”

“From Jo blasting the crap out of that thing?” Dan asks.

“That thing was a person, Dan,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “Was. Before it became a thing.” Sam opens his mouth to argue and Dan presses forward. “We’re not having this argument right now. We can hash out your policies on transformed subjects when you’re king. Point is, you saw Jo throw the biggest fireball of her life and you’d never seen anything – anyone – burn before. Yeah?” As the heir, King John has never risked Sam on an actual hunt, not even back in the days when their father was Crown Prince John and Dan was Bobby’s squire.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “It was just… this inferno.”

“Jo was surprised too,” Dan tells him. “Did you know that? She’s been trying to match that fireball for months in training, but no dice. So I don’t think you gotta worry about another inferno.”

“Guess she got pretty inspired, pushing me out of the way,” Sam says, weirdly bitter about it.

“Pretty much,” Dan says. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s pulled off ridiculous magic to impress you.”

Sam shrugs a little, eyes still distant. He looks out an entire wall’s worth of windows.

“What’s the other part?” Dan asks. “Was I a pile of ash or something?”

Still looking away, Sam shakes his head. “You were yelling for me.”

“All right,” Dan says slowly. “What else was weird about the dream? What makes it not a vision? Besides Mom and Dad being on fire, which we both know is impossible.”

“All I could see was them. Their bodies. I think they were still alive when I woke up – I mean, in the dream, they were still alive in the dream when I woke up. I know they’re still actually alive.”

“Breakfast was a giveaway, there,” Dan agrees. Well, he assumes: he’s always in training by the time his parents are breakfasting. “So you’re saying you couldn’t look around.”

“I’m not sure,” Sam says. “It felt almost like something was keeping me from looking anywhere else?”

“Did you feel someone restraining you in the dream?” Dan asks, repeating that word. Dream, not vision. The kid’s got guilt enough for not seeing every disaster in the world coming. He doesn’t need these nightmares too.

“You know how I normally know if I’ll be at the event or not?” Sam asks. “Like, it’s either my perspective from my own eyes, or a viewpoint like I’m watching through a window?”

“This had both?” Dan guesses.

“It felt like I was there but not looking out of my own eyes. I don’t know, it didn’t make sense.”

“Any idea on the time frame?” Dan asks.

“My birthday,” Sam answers immediately. “It was definitely my birthday.” Otherwise known as the day he has to propose. Engagement nerves?

“Okay, so, in three days, we fireproof Mom and Dad,” Dan promises him. “Well, we fireproof Mom and get Dad in his burn-resistant mage robes.”

“It was as real as a vision, but I don’t think…” Sam trails off.

“Stop looking at it,” Dan orders.

Sam’s gaze jerks back from the windows to Dan’s face.

“Whatever you’re picturing in your head, stop looking at it,” Dan repeats. “I’ve seen that face on a lot of knights after hunts, and staring at that s**t never helps. All right?”

Sam nods.

“You said there was a contradiction?” Dan prompts, moving his brother along in every way he knows how. “You’ve had other visions with Mom and Dad alive, right? And further out than three days.”

More firmly this time, Sam nods again. “Uh, yeah.” His mouth twists in a way Dan hates. “Think that’s why Dad told me it was just nerves.”

Because their father is right. “Tell me about the other vision,” Dan says. “What’s after this week?”

“My, uh. My wedding,” Sam says.

Dan grins a little, encouraging his brother to do the same. “Yeah? When’d you have that vision?”

Smiling faintly, Sam looks down at his folded hands. “Guess I can tell you now. Finally told Jess last night, before the party.”

“All right, now I’m really interested.”

“The night before I met Jess, I saw us getting married,” Sam admits. “Us kneeling facing each other, Mom putting the marriage crown on her head, you sticking mine on me, Dad officiating, the whole thing.”

“You serious?” Dan asks. “That’s gotta be, what, three years ago, and you never mentioned?”

“Didn’t want to freak her out,” Sam says. “Besides, once I found out she was a mage and a baroness? Kinda assumed it was just going to be a political match.”

“Bullshit,” Dan calls. “I don’t believe you ever looked at that girl for one second and thought it would be ‘just a political match.’”

“Yeah…” Sam says, dopey and grinning and looking away.

“Point is,” Dan says, “you can’t get married before your birthday, and Mom and Dad are alive at your wedding. So they’re fine. It’s gonna be fine. And to make sure it’s going to be fine, we’re gonna tell Bobby and he’s going to ramp up security as much as it can go, all right? We’ll put our couple of water mages in the throne room and figure out how to supply them with water without it being obvious. Lots of vases of flowers or something, anything we can fill up.” The more Dan talks, the more confident his words grow. “But c’mon, man. There isn’t a fire spell Dad can’t wrest control of. Anyone who tried to burn him would get their own flames back in their face.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, more quiet. He nods. “Thanks.” He picks at his hands a little bit more before adding, “It really might be stress. Jess is pretty worried too.”

“Being queen is pretty big,” Dan says. “Makes sense.”

Sam laughs a little and looks up at Dan, is sitting slouched enough to need to look up. “Would you believe that’s not what she’s worried about?”

Dan pretends to think about it, then snaps his fingers. “It’s being stuck with your snoring forever, isn’t it?”

“She thought I might change my mind,” Sam says. “She thought there was a chance night five would roll around and I’d pick someone else.”

“You are technically looking for someone to kiss,” Dan points out.

“Yeah, to kiss goodbye,” Sam says. “She kept telling me it wasn’t that she thinks I’m disloyal, just that, I don’t know, I should consider every option? But I don’t want another option. I barely even got to talk to her last night, because I was too busy dancing with literally every unmarried person in the kingdom.”

“Not every unmarried person,” Dan says. There’s one he knows for sure didn’t dance.

“It felt like it,” Sam says. “I don’t want to have to keep reassuring Jess I’m not going anywhere.”

“Just four more nights,” Dan promises him. “Then you can cause a diplomatic incident giving your Last Unwed Kiss to a servant with the drinks tray and go off to get engaged.”

Despite the high caliber of Dan’s jokes, Sam doesn’t laugh. “I don’t want to wait to make a formal announcement.”

“Yeah, well, you gotta.”

“I know, I just.” Sam groans. “Dan, I don’t want to.”

“Suck it up,” Dan tells him. “Make it informal if you have to. Tell people you won’t dance unless they bring a partner for Jess too.”

“Dan, she just sat through an entire night of people flirting with me in front of her. I can’t keep doing that to her. If she hadn’t gotten to meet that new doctor the Royal Hospital is flaunting, the entire thing would have been a bust as far as she’s concerned. Which is as far as I’m concerned.”

“Fine, fair point,” Dan says. “So what are you going to do instead?”

“Offend a lot of people, probably,” Sam admits.

“That’s my boy!”

Sam glares. He glares until he laughs, and then they both look out the windows for a bit. The world is bright and nearly warm, and Dan won’t be out in it again until after Sam’s wedding. Inside, looking out, he misses it as much as he misses his mattress when he’s outside, looking in.

“Maybe she could stay with you,” Sam says.

“Between a night with me and a night watching people flirt with you, pretty sure she wouldn’t pick me.”

“You just don’t know each other well enough yet,” Sam says, the way he always does.

“She thinks I’m rude.”

“Dan, you are rude.”

“Hey, regular people think I’m hilarious,” Dan tells him. When Sam only looks at him thoughtfully, Dan asks, “What?”

“Regular people,” Sam repeats.

“Yeah. People who do s**t with their hands. Regular people. Y’know, the ones the knights and I protect and stuff. Those people.”

“I think you’re the only noble I know who would call them ‘regular’ instead of ‘common,’” Sam says, like this distinction is somehow important.

Dan shrugs. “So?”

“So I think you’re the closest Jess has ever gotten to talking to a ‘regular’ person.”

Dan raises his eyebrows. “Pretty sure Jess has met a servant, Sam. Or a guard, or any of the hundreds of people in and out of here we have to keep track of. You may not have noticed this, but they kind of outnumber us. Besides, no son of the king gets to be a ‘regular’ person.” A Knight Prince might be the royal family’s gift to the people, but that doesn’t make him one of them.

Sam looks at him, serious and mystifying. “I’m glad you’ll help me be king, Dan.”

Dan blinks. “Uh, yeah. Not sure how that relates, but yeah. I mean, my job is killing things and keeping you safe, not in that order, but I’ve got your back.”

“So you’ll keep Jess with you tonight?”

“Nice try, but no.”

Sam smiles a little. Only a little, but it counts. “It was worth a shot.”

“Really wasn’t.”

They look out the windows some more. Dan stands, moving around the tower until he can look down into the courtyard. Small shapes clean and redecorate down below, preparing. Sam looks down with him.

“You did want to talk to me, right?” Sam asks, as if he hadn’t set himself in Dan’s path by coming up here. Having a precognizant brother can be strange that way.

It’s Dan’s turn to shrug a little, casual. “You still believe in angels, right?”

Sam lets out a small groan. “They were real, Dan. Chuck – Seer Shurley, from Carver University? He agreed with me. Just because no one’s seen any in seven hundred years doesn’t mean they didn’t exist at some point.”

“This isn’t actually about the time you drew in my bestiary, Sammy.”

“Dan, I was eight and they should have been in there. It was a bad bestiary.”

“Still not the point,” Dan says.

“Then the point is…?”

“That you were interested in all that s**t when you were little. And medium. And stupidly tall.”

“Dan.”

“What stuff do we have with angels?” Dan asks.

This is clearly not what Sam was expecting: always an accomplishment. “Well, there’s that tapestry with the Severing of Lucifer, that’s the biggest one.”

“Yeah, besides that,” Dan says. “I mean, paintings, relics, there’s gotta be something.”

Sam looks at him oddly. Carefully, he asks, “Dan, are you hunting an angel?”

“No,” Dan says, but he thinks of dark wings and it comes out sounding like a lie.

The odd look ratchets up about three notches. “Are you sure?”

“I was having a conversation,” Dan explains, “and now I’m looking for more stuff to talk about.”

“To talk about angels,” Sam says.

Because Dan is an adult man, he replies, “He started it.”

The odd look immediately swaps out for a knowing one. “And ‘he’ is…?”

“Chuck’s plus-one, believe it or not,” Dan says.

“What, Chuck came?” Sam asks. “He didn’t even say hello.”

Dan shakes his head. “He sent this guy in his place. They’re doing some kind of research project, one of those books-and-visions combos you love –”

“Corroborating evidence is important.”

“– and we got to talking. I just figure, Chuck helped you out with the visions and all, so, y’know, it just makes sense. To see if we have more angel s**t. We do, right?”

“To thank Chuck,” Sam says, voice flat.

“It would be polite,” Dan says. “We could show Mom how polite I’m being, she’d be thrilled.”

Sam starts snickering. He doesn’t even bother to hide it behind his hand.

“Shut up.”

“You like a guy who believes in angels,” Sam singsongs.

“I will tell Lady Rosen she still has a chance with you,” Dan threatens. “Shut your face, or it’s Becky time.”

Sam holds up his hands in surrender. “Don’t do that to Jess.”

“Fine, just tell me what we’ve got.”

Sam thinks about it before he begins the disappointingly short list. “Plus maybe some of that stuff in the vaults,” he adds. “You’d want to check that out first, though, make sure. There’s some cursed items down there too.”

“Right, because nothing says a good time like ‘follow me down into this cursed basement,’” Dan says.

“Hey, you asked.”

Dan nods, both acknowledgment and thanks. “Think I’ll hold off on the basement stuff, at least. Even with Chuck’s approval, I’m not bringing a stranger down near the vaults until I’m sure about him.”

“What’s he like?” Sam asks. “Besides pretty.”

“Nope,” Dan says. “I got what I wanted, no more questions. Thanks, Sammy.”

Sam catches his arm before he can take more than a step. Far too serious, Sam says, “I won’t laugh. I just… want to hear something happy.”

Curse his sad little face.

“He’s… weird,” Dan says. “Deadpan. Really deadpan.” His eyes are blue behind a black feathered mask. “Dry enough humor to drain a lake.” He stares at Dan’s mouth and listens to his every word. Not like he’s sucking up, but like every detail is crucial. “But he knows his stuff. We got into it over the Colt Reforms.” He views the measures the same way Dan does, as a means to protect the most people.

“Yeah?” Sam says, like he’s expecting some kind of mushy story.

“He’s just not what you’d expect,” Dan says, shrugging.

“Not what you’d expect from what?” Sam asks. “A friend of Chuck’s?”

“From the kind of person who goes all out on the first night,” Dan says. “A real attention grabber. Guy has these two giant wings magically strapped on.”

Sam laughs but quickly covers his mouth. “Hence the angel thing?”

“More like angel thing, hence the wings,” Dan corrects. “He’s named after one, apparently. The name ‘Caspian’ mean anything to you?”

Making a slight face, Sam thinks about it before shaking his head. “Something about fighting an archdemon, I think? Can’t remember anything besides that. Then again, I haven’t been eight in a while.”

“Oh, please, this didn’t stop when you were eight.”

“That’s it, no more help.”

“Too late, you’ve already told me everything.”

“Dan, you came up to the observatory looking for ‘stuff with angels.’ You need all the help you can get.”

“You know you don’t actually know everything, right? I came up here for a backup plan. See the view, check if there were chairs.”

Sam looks slightly less judgmental at that, but only slightly. “Romantic night of stargazing, huh?”

Dan could tell him about the way Caspian had stopped in his tracks upon exiting into the courtyard. He could try to describe the way the man’s head had tilted back, the feathers of his mask and wings gleaming in the firelight. The line of his neck. The hunger of his body, all directed skyward.

Not even at a clear sky, but a cloudy one. Barely any stars, barely a moon, and yet Caspian had watched that square of sky as if one of the grandest events of the year wasn’t taking place directly in front of him. There was longing in him, first nonsensical and blatant, then quiet and carefully concealed, and Dan… Dan is not immune to this. The most interesting new face at the party, and then that. He had joked about Caspian looking about to fly away, but he’d meant it, too.

If he can’t give Caspian angels, then he’ll give him stars. And if Caspian shows signs of wanting Dan more than those gifts, well, then Dan will have something to think about, won’t he?

Dan could say any of that, but he chooses instead to shrug. “Don’t knock the classics.”

“You do know you have to tailor it to the person for it to actually be romantic, right?”

“Says the guy who courted Jess in a library.”

“Yeah, and she is marrying me.”

Dan waves a dismissive hand. “You done?”

“Never,” Sam says, but he follows Dan to the only stone portion of the wall and through the door. As they descend the stairs, he winces and grumbles, and Dan laughs at him.

“You need more exercise, little brother.”

“Not my fault you get to go everywhere,” Sam shoots back.

Get to. The disconnect rattles Dan’s brain for an instant.

“Not my fault you get to stay,” Dan counters, and is perversely pleased when this seems to rattle Sam too.

Before they reach the bottom of the cramped stairs, Sam stops behind him and Dan pauses in turn, even before Sam catches his shoulder.

“Someone outside the door?” he whispers, thinking of years spent hiding from tutors together.

Sam shakes his head. “Not a vision, just a thought. He doesn’t have kids, right? Did you ask?”

Something clenches inside him, something he chooses not to look at too closely. “Even if he did, no one’s gonna try to claim his kids are my bastards, Sam. He could be a father of twelve tiny mages without it f*****g up the succession.”

“Right, yeah,” Sam says, nodding. “Sorry. I know that. I just don’t want to see you burned again.”

“It’s not gonna be a problem, so leave it alone.” He straightens his shoulders and opens the door, forcing Sam to follow and, more importantly, to shut up in front of the staff.

“Do you want me to look into the items in the basement?” Sam offers as they walk. “I know you’re reviewing security measures with Sir Robert, so if you don’t have the time, I could handle it.”

“Sam, if you don’t get some downtime, you’re not going to enjoy your own party,” Dan tells him.

“Which is exactly why I should rummage through magical artifacts in the basement,” Sam says. “I’ve been looking for an excuse, but I never get around to it. Too many pressing duties. With Parliament out of session, I actually have the time.”

Dan doesn’t actually have a counterargument to that. Instead, he just says, “Nerd.”

“Excuse me, that is not my full title, you ill-mannered swine.”

“Pardon me, Your Royal Dorkness, Lord High Nerd of the Realm.”

“Thank you.”

Dan grins at nothing in particular. “You’re good, right?” Nightmare visions and all. He has to check.

“Yes,” Sam says, nodding. When Dan shoots him a look, Sam leans in close and says, the way he’s not meant to say in public, “Yeah.”

“Then we’re good. You all right with me passing that dream along to Bobby, just in case?”

Sam hesitates but nods, and Dan nods back. If Dan were anyone else, he wouldn’t have seen that hesitation, and it speaks well of Sam. But then, most things speak well of Sam.

They part at the doors to the throne room. Sam returns to their father the king without a backwards glance, and Dan makes his way back to the barracks.