“That’s what dragon whiskey does,” Bevel says with a frown. Then he turns to my wife. “Pip?”
“Yeah-huh?” she asks.
“What’s that fantastic bit of blasphemy that you enjoy so much?”
Pip beams up at him. “Fuck.”
Bevel beams back. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I also think I need a fucking drink.”
“This way, bro,” Pip says, slinging her arm over Bevel’s shoulder, mostly so she can lean on him, and leads him into the main room of the suite.
Elgar
Elgar knows Kintyre Turn better than anyone alive. It doesn’t matter that Lucy was the one pulled into the world of the books instead of him because she knows more, by whatever metric the Deal-Maker Neris had employed. Nobody knows Kintyre better.
Elgar studies Kintyre’s every gesture as he follows Lucy and Bevel out to the main room. Everyone—except for one security guy—has cleared out, probably uncomfortable or embarrassed by the shouting. Lucy helps Bevel to a glass of wine with a word of warning: “Careful, the wine isn’t watered here.” Bevel winks at her, and Lucy rolls her eyes before offering one to Kin, too. Forsyth demures, Ahbni says she doesn’t partake, and Lucy clearly doesn’t want one right now, though she’s looking at the bottle longingly. She doesn’t offer any to Elgar.
Ahbni insists that Lucy sit on the sofa, and Lucy agrees. Forsyth goes with them, pulling a computer tablet out of its leather pouch on his belt, and tapping through the data he sees there. He’s muttering about Finnar, and traces, and “the Detroit bastard did a live rundown of Elgar’s Q&A, and was revoltingly vitriolic. So why can’t I find the wretch on the internal security feeds?” Ahbni narrows her eyes at him, and pulls out her phone, sneering a little as she sends a message of her own.
Elgar remains in the doorway, clinging to the doorjamb, unsure of what to do. Unsure of what would be welcome. After their cups are empty, Bevel steps up to Kintyre’s chest, pushes him gently to the other side of the room, and tips his head up as they converse quietly. Are they planning? Commiserating? Elgar isn’t sure. He can’t help the small gasp that escapes him, though, when Bevel rocks up on his toes to plant a gentle, chaste kiss on Kintyre’s bottom lip.
Oh yes, Elgar knows Kintyre better than anyone alive. And right now, watching Kintyre and Bevel cling to one another in a small, silent, private moment that is nonetheless happening in public, in the main room of the con suite right beside the drinks table, he knows that Kintyre is sad. So sad that Elgar can barely stand it.
Lucy is leaning on Forsyth, eyes drooping and every line of her body curved in miserable pain. Elgar feels guilty about that. He does. Maybe he should have asked first. But better to beg forgiveness than plead permission, right?
And they would have said “no.” They’d been saying goddamned “no” for two days, and for what? Because they were afraid that bringing Kintyre Turn into the Overrealm might break something? Might make something worse? Except that, yeah, okay, it has. But how was Elgar supposed to know that it would work that way?
The thing is, he’s the Writer, right? He knows Kintyre Turn, and he knows the Viceroy, too. And he knows that he has created a dynamic where only Kintyre can kill the Viceroy. It’s poetic justice. That’s what Kintyre is for. And if Forsyth and Lucy want to save everyone trapped in this building, then they need Kintyre. And where Kintyre goes, so too has to go Bevel, and . . .
Ungrateful, Elgar thinks to himself, face flushing with anger. That’s what they are. I did the right thing. I did.
When Elgar looks back up again, frustrated at his own introspective pity, Bevel and Kintyre have broken apart. They’re talking in low tones, gesturing and clearly making plans. Another step closer, and Kintyre looks up at him.
Kintyre. Staring him in the face, his glacier-blue eyes narrowed, his look thoughtful. His normal blond queue is a windblown mess around his face. He’s gotten older. His hair is going elegantly silver, and the lines around his eyes make him look charming in a movie-star kind of way. But Bevel looks old. Bevel looks tired, Elgar thinks. There are deep pouches under his eyes, and his wrinkles aren’t charming, and his hair is shaggy and thinning on the top. He’s got a little belly.
Elgar has never really thought about what Kintyre and Bevel would look like when they were in their later years. In his mind, they were always the brash, perfect eighteen-year-old hero and the plucky, bull-doggish sixteen-year-old sidekick, no matter how many titles he heaped on them or adventures they went on. Sure, they grew more mature—old enough to drink and swear and . . . and fuck by the end of the first book, which spanned nearly two years. But never old.
And never settled.
Yet here they are, leaning into each other’s warmth, Kintyre’s hand on Bevel’s shoulder, comfortable and sweet like an old married couple. It strikes Elgar that they are an old married couple now, and the realization churns in his gut. Kintyre is looking at Elgar expectantly, waiting for him to decide whether or not to join them. Elgar nuts up and walks closer.
“Hi,” he says, low.
“Hello,” Kintyre replies.
Bevel says nothing. He just narrows his eyes at Elgar, and Elgar is struck, again, by how something he’d written as a throwaway has had so much impact on someone else. Bevel’s eyes are a deep sapphire, and just below his left one, there is a thin white scar.
I did that, Elgar thinks. I did that to him. That’s where Bootknife nearly cut his eyes out to give them to the Viceroy as a gift.
Kintyre finally
