Page 8 of Threadbound

Not that one could actually spite Fate—at least not without paying serious consequences. Bran could personally testify to that.

This time the half-breed was headed to the museum—Bran knew it was a museum, although he’d never bothered to go inside to find out precisely what it contained. The half-breed spent a lot of time there—the museum, the library, and his apartment, with occasional ventures to places that sold food or beverages. Sometimes alone, sometimes with other humans.

The annoying part about the museum was that, other than the rooftops, there wasn’t a particularly good place for Bran to wait for the half-breed to come back out again, and Bran also knew that he wasn’t likely to do so for most of the day.

It was hot and cloudless, and his dark feathers were already uncomfortably warm. That seemed as good a reason as any to find out what kind of museum had kept the half-breed’s attention for so long.

The nearest Gate between Elfhame and Dunehame—the easiest place for Bran to shift his form and put on human-appropriate clothing without causing complete chaos—was at Greyfriars. Humans had long ago lost the knowledge of and appreciation for magic, and if Bran shifted forms in frontof modern humans, panic and violence was likely to be the outcome. And that didn’t even take into consideration the fact that their prudishness would have an equally upset reaction to his nudity.

Knowing the half-breed would be in the museum for several hours, Bran winged his way to the Kirkyard, finding the ripple of magic that marked the glamour hiding the Gate. Within its safety, he slid from bird to man, his bones elongating and thickening, limbs stretching, feathers shrinking into a fine smattering of hairs on his now sensitive and exposed-to-air skin. He blinked rapidly in the gloom of the Gate’s glamour-shroud, struggling to re-parse the world through the duller colors of human vision.

Unsteady on his feet, he stood, using a scrap of fabric as the basis to spin new clothing—it was a simple enough trick, one he’d been doing since he was a child, yet he could feel a prickle of sweat at the nape of his neck that he couldn’t entirely ascribe to the warm summer weather. The damnable threadbond that tied him to the half-breed made everything more difficult, even the simplest of spinning spells.

Despite the heat, Bran preferred wearing black, and spun himself a simple black t-shirt, dark jeans, and black boots. Dressed appropriately for the mortal realm—although more tired than he should have been—Bran carefully made his way through the dapples and shadows of the Greyfriars Kirkyard. To hear his brother tell it, centuries ago people had avoided the stones and trees of the Kirkyard, superstitious and worried about the influence of ghosts and spirits. But in Bran’s lifetime it had always been crowded with people holding phones and cameras, taking pictures and posting them to share with the world.

Bran’s father despised these new technologies. He complained that one could hardly turn around without findingsomeone taking a picture or sending a video call, and it was a dangerous thing for fae to be so publicly displayed. Bran understood his father’s trepidation, although his experience with humans told him that they were completely self-absorbed and unobservant, and nobody was going to notice in a hundred years if his face had been shared in the background of some human’s social media post.

Bran didn’thavesocial media, of course—he didn’t have a phone or a camera, either—but he’d spent enough time over the past five or so years trying to understand humanity that he grasped the concept. It didn’t make him any more inclined tolikehumans, given how utterly inane the whole thing was. But humans as a whole were fairly inane creatures, and he’d seen nothing to suggest that his half-breed was any better.

As Bran made his way back to Surgeons’ Hall, his legs grew steadier, his steps less uncertain, as he reaccustomed himself to his human form. It had been years since he’d donned it, alternating mostly between his fae and avian forms, and his human body felt strange and vulnerable. He infinitely preferred his raven form when in Dunehame, but he couldn’t very well go inside the museum as a bird, and hereallycouldn’t do it in either fae form or his boobrie form—which he hadn’t worn in years.

He had heard stories of centuries long ago when fae had walked among the denizens of Dunehame and were treated with respect and fear, when humans had come to the Gates seeking aid or adventure. Those days had ended long before Bran’s lifetime, and he knew that if any human saw him as he was, they would run screaming. Or attempt to kill him. Either way, it would be an irritating and unfortunate outcome.

As he walked, the sun made the black fabric on his shoulders unpleasantly warm, and Bran moved more quickly to reach his destination, momentarily grateful for the shade. Cool air hit himas he stepped through the museum’s main doors, an open set of stairs immediately in front of him. He followed the signs that led to a white utilitarian desk, behind which sat a smiling woman.

In Bran’s experience, he didn’t need to speak much in order to navigate the human world—all he had to do was figure out what people assumed he was supposed to be doing, and then do that. Hecouldspeak, of course. He just preferred not to most of the time because the finer points about human rules of conversation eluded him.

“Hello!” the woman chirped, slightly wavy blonde hair falling around her shoulders and framing a fair-skinned face with big blue eyes. “The History of Surgery Museum is just off to your right—are you a student?”

Bran shook his head.

“Eight pounds, then.” The woman smiled again.

Money was one of those things that meant little to the fae in Elfhame, where trades and work-in-kind were the preferred currency of exchange, but they knew quite well that it mattered a good deal to humans. And coin could be replicated easily—spun, just as Bran had spun his clothing. Paper money, on the other hand, they had to acquire—it wasn’t elemental enough, being woven with plastic and other synthetic materials. Metal, cotton, leather—those things were of the natural world and could easily be created through simple spells.

Bran fingered the single pound coin in his pocket—one he’d brought from the Kirkyard’s small stock. As he rolled the coin through his fingers, other coins flaked off it, chiming softly in his pocket as they clinked together.

When he’d made enough, he pulled out the handful.

“Oof. Getting rid of change, eh?” the woman smiled at him again, and he nodded, offering what he hoped was a friendly smile in return.

She took his eight coins, then handed him a ticket. “History of Surgery is up here, and Pathology is across the hall on both floors.”

He nodded once again, offering another small smile. Humans liked it when people smiled, and he was rewarded by another, even broader version of the expression as the woman smiled back.

“Enjoy! And let us know if you have any questions.”

He nodded again, then turned to the indicated doors.

What Bran very quickly learned from the museum was that humans did all sorts of unconscionable things to one another in the name of science and medicine, that he was very glad the fae had healing magics, and that his father would absolutely love it here.

Jamie was re-installingone of the exhibits in History of Surgery when a patron nearly made him drop the pliers he was using to twist in a piece of wire. Well, the patron didn’tmakehim almost drop the pliers—but Jamie did almost drop the damn pliersbecauseof him.

It wasn’t just the fact that the man—slightly built, eerily graceful even while wandering from exhibit to exhibit—was stunning, although he was that. Black hair brushed his slim shoulders, his neck was long and slender, but with just enough muscle that Jamie found himself distractingly curious about what the rest of him looked like. His skin was porcelain-fine, almost translucent, and his features were elegant, but too masculine to be called delicate.

The weird part was that Jamie wasn’t the sort of man to fall suddenly in lust with someone. That just wasn’t his thing—he preferred to get to know people before he thought about dating them or kissing them, much less sleeping with them. But hewas pretty sure that ifthisman had asked Jamie to come home with him, Jamie absolutely would have said yes without even bothering to consult his brain. And that was honestly a little scary.

Jamie was not the type of person who took risks—at least not usually. He’d fled from Bill Eckel’s house. He’d avoided having to make any career choices by going to graduate school. And he hadn’t even really chosen that—he’d applied to Edinburgh because his mother wanted him to go to Scotland, and that was the only way he figured he could justify it.

---