Invoking the name of my brother’s archnemesis is as effective as I had hoped. Kintyre rolls onto his hands and knees, and between them, Kintyre and Bevel get themselves to their feet relatively quickly. Bevel shucks the Shadow’s Cloak finally, balling it into his quiver for the time being. Ahbni gets Pip up, and it is left to me to yank my traitorous creator upright.
“Where is he now?” Kintryre asks, cupping my shoulder in an earnest, manly way.
“I do not know,” I admit, frustrated. “Pip is tied to him, though. When he does magic, she suffers the blowback.”
Bevel shakes his head, and pinches the bridge of his nose, clearing his fuzzy brain. “So, does that mean the Viceroy felt Pip yank us here?”
“Oh, Jesus, probably,” Pip husks, and then coughs, sucking on the air. Ahbni curls an arm around her shoulders protectively.
“Forsyth, I’m so sorry. I—” Elgar jabbers, going paler.
“Shut up,” I say, too livid to add anything more eloquent. I wriggle his dagger holster out of the back of his trousers and clip it instead within easy reach on the front of his hip. “And keep a hold of that. I don’t doubt that you’ll need it, now.”
“Hey, that’s my dagger,” Kintyre says, squinting at it. He wavers forward, and Bevel tugs him back.
“It is not,” I say. “Only a replica.”
“Is there time to get our bearings, or must we be on the move?” Kintyre asks me.
“We have a moment,” I say. “I don’t know what the Viceroy may be planning next, but if he felt the spell as strongly as Pip has felt his, he will need time to regain his strength.”
“Pity we don’t know where he is, so we could just go stab the bastard while he’s recovering,” Bevel says, but his tone is hopeful.
“We do not,” I admit again.
“Shame,” Bevel says with a shrug.
Elgar’s eyes keep cutting back and forth between Bevel and Kintyre, his mouth noiselessly flapping. Bevel and Kintyre ignore him utterly, and I don’t know if it’s because they are peevish about being summoned out of our realm without so much as a by-your-leave, or if it’s because they’re terrified to look their Writer in the face. I am not ashamed to admit that I was frightened when I first met Elgar, as well. I would not blame them if this was the case.
“Well, if we’ve the time, then,” Kintyre says. Then he comes straight to me and engulfs me in one of his habitual rough and hard bear-hugs. “Hello, brother!”
“Oof! Hello, Kintyre,” I say, chuckling despite the way he is making my ribs ache. I pat his massive shoulder. “Well met and well come.”
“Well come to where?” Bevel adds, wrapping his arms around me and pounding my back as Kintyre drops me back to my feet to treat Pip to the same enthusiastic greeting.
“The Overrealm, brother-in-law-of-mine,” Pip says, accepting Bevel’s gentler hug and offering him a kiss on the cheek.
Bevel snorts and looks around, hands on his hips. “Oh yes. Very impressive.”
Pip pinches his arm, and Bevel grins at her.
Bevel then turns to Elgar, and I can see that already, Kintyre and Elgar are engaged in a tense staring contest. Elgar looks desperate, wrecked, his eyes wide and his fingers twitching, his weight rolled up onto the balls of his feet as if he is about to fling himself at his greatest creation. For his part, Kintyre looks just as ready to leap out of the way should Elgar do so.
Bevel moves to stand beside Kintyre, shoulder pressed to his trothed’s bicep. Not impeding him, not holding him, but offering his support all the same. Bevel’s free arm comes around Kintyre’s back. He grips hard, hand fisted on the back of Kintyre’s jerkin. I don’t know if it’s the transition that has them off-kilter and seeking each other for grounding comfort, or if it’s the sudden danger, or the new environment, but I would wager that they wish they had more time than I can, unfortunately, allot them.
“So you’re him,” Kintyre says, and his voice is gruff with an emotion I am having trouble naming. I do know, however, that it is not joy. He turns away then, I assume, to disguise the look on his face, which is oscillating between fear, and disgust, and awe.
“Look at me, please,” Elgar begs, reaching out to snag Kintyre’s wrist. My brother jerks away from him as if he were a hydra attempting to coil one of its necks around his arm and drag him into its lair. “Please! I’ve waited your whole life for this moment.”
“Don’t!” Kintyre shouts. “Don’t! I’m not . . . not yet.”
Elgar swallows hard and nods, though it must be killing him. He turns his attention to Bevel. “Sir Dom,” he says respectfully, with a head bob.
“Lord Consort Turn, actually,” Bevel corrects him, crossing his arms defiantly, as if daring his creator to deny the evolution of his story arc since the book’s ending.
Elgar’s eyes get impossibly wide, and he darts a look between his two lead characters before he looks to me, pleading.
“Elgar, you cannot be surprised,” I say. “I told you. Pip said just yesterday—”
“Yeah, but like I said, there’s a difference between knowing it here,” he touches his forehead, and then his chest, “and knowing it here, and then seeing it.”
In a fit of pique, as if Elgar’s statement was a dare, Kintyre swoops in and lands a possessive, biting kiss on Bevel’s mouth. Bevel, unprepared for his trothed’s display, grunts and splutters, arms flailing to keep his balance for a moment before he grabs Kintyre’s arms and sinks into the kiss.
Pip whistles and applauds. Ahbni looks like she’s been smacked between the eyes with a mackerel. Elgar flushes red and moans, “Christ, I need a drink.”
“I have this flask in my pocket that I don’t remember putting there,” Kintyre offers when he finally lets Bevel up for air. “I don’t know what’s in it, but you’re welcome to it.”
“Oh! Dragon whiskey!” Elgar says, and
