“I’m, uh . . . I’m not sure how to answer that one,” Elgar admits. “I mean, Forsyth told me I looked like him, too, but I can’t honestly say that I did it intentionally. I guess that it’s just that . . . well, as the father of the hero, I guess I always just sort of conflated myself with him? And, um, my world had just . . . run with that. That assumption. This is so confusing.”
“Very much,” Kintyre agrees. Beside him, Bevel scoffs.
“You don’t approve of us,” Bevel blurts, suddenly.
“What?” Elgar splutters.
“You keep staring.”
“No, I mean . . . I created you, and you came out of the books, and . . . it’s not—”
“You don’t stare at Forssy like that,” Kintyre says, reasonably.
Elgar bristles. “Well, I’m used to him. Besides, Forsyth’s not . . . I mean, he’s not like I predicted, there’s a bunch about him that I never fleshed out, but you guys . . . I know you so well, and I didn’t, I never knew that you . . .”
Bevel jerks back, his expression open and wounded. Oh, how Bevel’s expressions were always easy to read, easy to write, but Elgar never wanted to see this look on his face.
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” Bevel breathes.
“Do what?” Kintyre asks, hand tightening on Bevel’s shoulder.
“Make me love Kin,” Bevel says, and Elgar feels shame, strangely, curl around his lungs.
“No, I . . . I didn’t. I—”
Kintyre scowls. “I almost see why the Viceroy is so vengeful.”
Elgar chokes on his own teeth. “You can’t mean that you want me to—”
“I mean, he’s a madman. A complete nutter,” Kintyre dismisses. “I don’t want to kill you. But Bevel is the most important person in my life and you never thought so. You didn’t even know.”
Wrongfooted, Elgar blusters. “It never occurred to me!”
“That we would fall in love?” Bevel asks, aghast.
“That it’s something you would want!” Elgar blurts back. “That . . . that domesticity, a house, a family, a kid is what you—” Bevel takes a step back, abruptly. He stalks away, and prowls directly into one of the shadowed corners of the suite.
Bevel makes a slow circuit of the massive suite, making a show of searching for . . . oh, for booby traps, maybe? Elgar thinks. “What’s he—?”
“He’s angry,” Kintyre says. “He does this now, goes for long walks instead of shouting. For Wyndam’s sake. And Bradri doesn’t know better—she’s so young. You can’t yell at a dragonet.”
“Why would he be angry?” Elgar asks. “I’m only being honest.”
“Being honest is not the same as being deliberately cruel,” Kintyre corrects, and Elgar goggles at him.
Is he being talked down to by his own creation? If anyone should agree with him on every opinion he holds, it ought to be Kintyre Turn. Right? “Was I wrong, then? Is that something he wants?”
“He’s a bit baby-hungry, if I can be forgiven for spilling his darkest secrets,” Kintyre says. He is answering Elgar, but watching Bevel pace from corner to corner of the room, peering up and around, disguising his fury by making it look like he’s searching the unknown spaces for unseen dangers. “It’s a bit womanish,” Kintyre adds. “But it’s what he wants, and I wouldn’t say no, if we were able. Are two human men of the Overrealm able to have children together?”
“No,” Elgar answers, stunned.
Kintyre sniffs and shrugs. “Shame.”
“But he . . . really?”
“He is Written with a massive family. A whole gaggle of nieces and nephews. Are you surprised that he misses children? That he wants a large family of his own?”
“Not when you put it like that, I guess. I just . . . I never imagined domesticity for you because it’s not . . . it’s not something I have.”
Now it’s Kintyre who goggles at Elgar. “What, no wife?”
“None.”
Kintyre looks baffled, his dimples drawing down. “But you’re a Writer.”
Elgar chuckles, and rubs the back of his neck, feeling self-depreciative and anxious. “Surprisingly, that isn’t much of a draw here.”
Kintyre snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. “You must be doing something wrong, then.”
“I do everything wrong,” Elgar agrees, sadly. “I see what you have, and I . . . I’m not jealous. I don’t want to take it from you, and hoard it for myself. I just . . . I’m loved,” Elgar says, thinking of the fans who always look at him with quiet adoration. “But not . . . not like you. Not like you have. I wish I could have . . . the difference between us is that someone thinks that you’re worth loving. You came from me—if you’re worthy, shouldn’t I be, too? What am I doing wrong?”
“Perhaps refrain from saying things like that,” Kintyre says, and gestures to where Bevel is returning, his face a study in deliberate blankness.
Elgar chuckles, hollow and angry at himself. “’S funny. That’s exactly what your brother says.”
“Listen to Forssy,” Kintyre says, but it’s kind. He pats Elgar’s back, and the strength behind the affectionate gesture makes Elgar rock on his feet. “He’s the smart one, after all.”
Elgar means to say something more to that, maybe something pithy, but before he can decide what it will be, there’s a resounding, hissing crack.
Chapter 12 Forsyth
The room around us shakes.
“Earthquake!” Ahbni shouts as she jumps to her feet.
“No,” I correct, for beside me, Pip’s eyes are glowing faintly green. Blast and damn it. I move to help her, but Pip bats me away, already seeming to find her focus again. Why so quick a recovery this time? Was the magic only minor? Or is it because the Viceroy is closer?
“How much time was that bastard going to need to recover?” Kintyre sneers at me,
