Page 12 of Arrows

“Yes!”

“Oh. One second.” Lorre got a tiny line of concentration between portrait-frame eyebrows. “I’m not sure where I sent them. All right, here you are.” The heap of fabric—including the oil-vial, and Van’s sheathed knife—hit him in the chest.

“I’m sorry,” Van tried, clinging to shirt and trousers. The night had spun into an abyss. An arrow gone wide of its target. Wild uncontrolled flight. He knew he’d done something wrong; he didn’t know how to fix it. “I didn’t mean—I’ll stay, if you want company—”

“I told you, I don’t mind either way. But be quiet.”

He almost got up and left. Sitting there with the bundle of clothing, loneliness a vicious spike through his chest even though Lorre remained present, awareness that he’d been dismissed—

If he went back now, he’d wake up Milo. And Milo would fuss over him, and worry about him, and hold him, if he asked for that.

He wanted that, abruptly; he wanted that so badly he thought it must be visible beneath his skin. He wanted to see those blue eyes, lighter and kinder than Lorre’s. He wanted Milo to put a hand on his arm again, so he could feel warmth, not magical, purely human.

Milo would fuss over him, and care for him.

Because they were friends. Because Milo cared about him, as a friend. Had said so, those exact words. While helping Van get ready to be a magician’s plaything for the night.

He put down the shirt and trousers. He curled up into the extravagant bed. It was richly comfortable, a miracle of bed, a perfection of bed. His body hurt; his heart hurt, confused.

He wasn’t sure he could sleep. He wanted to, and needed to, for the morning; but his head buzzed with emotions. He shut his eyes, though, and after a while knew that he was drifting, in and out.

Eventually, after some time, he heard an almost inaudible sigh. Felt a shift in the air, a presence.

Lorre said nothing, only tugged a thick blanket more closely up over him, and tucked him in, and patted his shoulder, once. Then moved away.

It was too big and too complicated and Van couldn’t think about it. The blanket was heavy, and the bed was sympathetic. He let that be all that mattered, for now, and slid into dreamless sleep.

Chapter 4

Van woke up snug and cozy and alone. The pillows and blankets had become a fortress of brocade and velvet and fine linen. They hugged him as if making up for the Sorcerer’s absence.

He extracted an arm. Nudged a pillow away from his face. Stretched, cautiously. The soreness had gone. Some very specific spots reminded him of how well-used they’d been, but not in a bad way.

He’d slept later than usual. He could tell as much from the light, the gilded dust-flecks, the temperature. No one had woken him. The air held murmurs of strawberry-lemongrass tea.

Maybe Lorre wanted him to stay. Maybe no one had come to get him because they assumed he was Lorre’s, now. Nobody wanted to upset a magician who could redirect rivers.

He would’ve liked to wake up with Lorre. Even if this hadn’t meant a promise or a permanence, even if it’d only been a release, a diversion.

He’d given himself to Lorre because he’d chosen to. He didn’t regret it.

But he was still naked, and his backside felt tender, and that was only the third time he’d ever been in a man’s bed.

He wished, for an instant, that he could’ve woken with someone there to hold him. That someone—Lorre—would have cared.

Of course that was ridiculous. Lorre had better things to do. Like stopping a war. An evening’s plaything was nothing, next to that.

He wondered suddenly whether Lorre even knew his name. He didn’t think he’d said it. Lorre hadn’t ever asked.

Sitting up against a heap of the magician’s pillows, Van put both hands over his face and pushed back unruly emotion, until he was sure he wasn’t going to cry. And then he got up, because he was a bowman in Her Majesty’s army, and he had joined up because their home needed protecting, and he was here to do what he could.

His clothes were on the floor where he’d left them. Van pulled them on, gingerly, and ran a hand through his hair. The colors of Lorre’s world—striped tent, flamboyant rainbowed bed-linens, that pink marble—wreathed him in unsettling decadence. The morning was quiet as a theatre the moment before a curtain, nothing visible, no actors on the stage.

He discovered, upon noticing a drift of steam, that Lorre had left him tea in the ruby teacup. And two enormous filled pasties, one savory—some sort of spiced vegetable mash—and one that contained a sweet creamy cheese. Those also clearly had not come from the Army stores; Van thought they might be some sort of Northern specialty. His stomach growled.

He felt more stable after breakfast. Lorre hadn’t left a note, and had left him alone, but had cared enough to feed him. That was something, wasn’t it?

He pulled on his boots, wondered whether Lorre owned any footwear at all or if magicians had some arcane prejudice regarding cobblers, and finished off the tea and went out into the dry grassy amber of the sun.

---