Chapter 9

Blaine made his way to the main entrance of the Smythe's palace after breakfast. Sebastian, dressed in a blue doublet with a black cloak, was already waiting for him there.

"Blaine, it's a pleasure to see you. I'm glad that you've decided to join us for this ride. Where's your husband?" Sebastian asked, greeting Blaine by the hand in a very polite, but yet friendly way.

"We still have some things to solve with the Ram about the Stellata."

"Of course," Sebastian said, "then, if he's not going to join us, let's go. It's been too long since father allowed Marcus to go out of the palace in an official visit with guests. He's very excited about it."

Blaine nodded and together, the two young men made their way to the carriage that was waiting for them. It was a black structure with the Smythe's coat of Arms engraved on both sides. They were very similar to the Anderson's carriages, with the small difference that the Anderson's ones had a Royal insignia at the top of them.

"It's easier for my brother if he can sit comfortably." Sebastian explained as they reached the carriage.

"Of course," Blaine said, "you sound very fond of him." He stated. It was obvious in the way Sebastian talked about his brother that he loved him very much.

"He's the only good thing left in this family." Sebastian admitted.

"You've changed." Blaine pointed out.

"I learned the hard way." Sebastian confessed, climbing into the carriage.

Blaine smiled and trailed in behind Sebastian. Marcus Smythe was inside, dressed in some elegant clothes that matched his also green eyes. Blaine could also notice a pair of sticks placed on the floor next to him.

"We met when we were younger, but we both have changed so much." Blaine said, extending his hand in a friendly way. "Nice to meet you again, Marcus."

"My brother has told me so much about you." Marcus said, taking Blaine's hand and smiling at him.

The carriage started to move forward and in less than two minutes they were out of the palace and in their way to who knows where. It made Blaine feel very strange to be riding out with people he had been taught him from birth to fear, distrust and to consider his enemies.

"Take the South road," Sebastian commanded the coachman, and the carriage rolled out over cobbled streets of the city, got to the Campo and turned South down the broad street of the Stars and the Moon Gate.

"I met one of your husband's people. He's nice." Sebastian said out of the blue. Until now the three men had stayed in complete silence just contemplating the beautiful view through the window.

Blaine turned around dramatically. "I beg your pardon?"

"A itinerante." Sebastian said simply. "Marcus and I had lunch with him yesterday. We liked him."

"Seb liked him more than me." Marcus added, smirking at his brother.

Blaine didn't know what to do or what to say. Was this some kind of trap? "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know the truth, Blaine. I know that your husband is a itinerante and that Elliott, the man we met yesterday, is one too."

Blaine wanted to scream and run and also ask for an explanation, but no words seemed to be coming out of his mouth. How had Sebastian learned about the itineranti? And most importantly, why was he talking about them like that? As if they were...friends.

"I'm sorry, I can see that you're very surprised," Sebastian said, "I've always known it. You and I both know what I saw at your wedding, Blaine. Kurt was a man with no shadow and then suddenly he had one. Now I understand why. He's a itinerante. Don't worry, I'm not interested in the secrets of their brotherhood or anything. That's in the past. I just want some help, for my brother. That's all."

Blaine stopped breathing for a second. He felt trapped inside some sort of nightmare. Sebastian Smythe, the man who no less than five years ago had handed Kurt over to his family was asking help from the itineranti. Blaine didn't know what to make of this unexpected conversation. When he had first climbed into the carriage a few minutes ago the last thing he had expected was this. He wondered if he could trust them. Sebastian seemed pretty changed, he was no longer that arrogant, haughty and cruel boy he had met; he seemed nice and almost sincere. Marcus was all right, a shy boy due to his condition, but a good kid. But they were Smythes...brought up by birth to be evil.

"I'm just telling you this because, like I told Elliott yesterday, we need the itineranti's help." Sebastian said, getting straight to the point. "You better than anyone know how powerful families work in this Kingdom. You and I were supposed to get married just to assure some territory."

Blaine nodded—he knew that.

"My father has plans for us. There are no more important positions for me to take in the Smythe's scheme of power, that's why he wants me to marry one of our cousins, and although that's not what I want, you can say that I'm okay with it. I've done some terrible things in the past and I know that I don't deserve to have a happy ending, but Marcus does." Sebastian said, and Blaine didn't know what to do or say. It was the first time that he had seen sincerity in Sebastian's eyes.

"If my brother cannot be cured," Sebastian continued, "he will be made to enter the church. He's the last marriageable Smythe left and because of his condition, my father doesn't want to pair him up with anyone. He will be Uncle Francesco's replacement when the time is convenient."

"And you don't want that?" Blaine asked Marcus. He was starting to feel sorry for the Smythe boys.

The younger boy looked pensive. "Not really," He said slowly, "not if I have a choice. I'd rather go to the University like you all did and find out about philosophy and painting and music."

Blaine tried to picture Marcus at the university of Padavia. The palace that served as the faculty facilities had thousands of thousands of stairs. It was obvious that Marcus' dream would never come true unless he could walk properly, or else he'd have to be carried to lectures.

"Is there anything the itineranti can do that could help my brother?" Sebastian asked Blaine. There was an edge of anticipation in his voice. "He has the best doctors in all the Kingdoms of Talia and they can do no more. Only a superior skill, such as a natural philosopher knows about, could give him a chance of recovery. I know the itineranti are powerful scientist."

Blaine thought that the itineranti were, indeed, scientist. He was one himself. He knew all about alchemy. He was a learned scholar. Maybe not powerful like his masters, but a scientist nonetheless. And in all his knowledge he couldn't find a way in which they could possibly help Marcus. How could potions to cure the body, powders to make beautiful fireworks and parchments of alchemy treaties could help a boy with a shattered leg?

"So?" Sebastian asked.

Blaine looked around. Marcus was watching him intently. Blaine hesitated and just when he was about to speak Marcus said to his brother. "I don't think that he can do anything for me. We are Smythes after all."

"We itineranti do not discriminate based on family." Blaine said, not realizing the weight of his words. Until now Sebastian had referred to Kurt as the itinerante, but with the way he reacted to Blaine's words, it was evident that he had no idea that Blaine was one himself.

"You are a itinerante too?" Sebastian asked.

Blaine took a deep breath and very reluctantly nodded. He knew he had gotten himself in trouble the moment he had started to feel sorry for his companions.

"Please!" Marcus begged. "If there's anything you know, share it with us. Can the itineranti do heal bodies?"

o-o-o-o-o

Elliott and Kurt were walking around the Ram. Carlo had gone to do some training and left them alone for some time. The two boys decided to go and get more familiar with the streets of the Twelfth. Elliott was still new here and it was Kurt's first time in Remora after all.

"So...how are you finding this world?" Kurt asked when they reached the end of the Ram's portion. They were standing very near the Campo now.

"Like a dream." Elliott confessed. "The first time I went back to New York I thought it all had been that...a dream. I usually take sleeping pills and antidepressants, so I thought I had made everything up. But it felt so vivid that I couldn't help it and I made some google research. I found a lot of interesting stuff, though, but not about Remora but Siena. It was all so bizarre because the city and its traditions looked like this city but not really. This place is even more beautiful."

Kurt smiled, remembering exactly what he had felt when he had first traveled to Bellezza. "I get the feeling, it was the same for me. I also thought it was a dream, sometimes I still think of it like that. The beauty of this place is mind blowing. When I first went to another city that wasn't Bellezza was right after I got married. Blaine took me to see all the places he could. And since I was still kind of new here, more than once I reached inside my pocket to get my phone and snap a picture." He laughed.

"How can you survive without that? I mean, without a phone, technology...WiFi!" Elliott asked a bit alarmed.

"I don't know...I was never the social kind of guy back in Lima, I used my phone to read stuff and to talk to some of my friends, so not having it wasn't a challenge. The internet and the other stuff, well...I guess you get used to it." Kurt said sincerely.

"But when you go there, I mean back to our world, isn't it even weirder?"

"It was at first," Kurt confessed, "but then I started to think of it as something from there that I had to use while visiting. Like you probably feel about these clothes and stuff."

"And Blaine? Does he go with you to see your family?"

Kurt nodded. "We always travel together and he's pretty good with all the technology. My brother taught him all about it."

"You have a brother?" Elliot asked a bit surprised. The last time he had seen Kurt his mom had just died and he was an only child.

"My dad remarried when I was in high school and Carole, his wife, has a son. His name is Finn, we were in the same high school and he was my friend before he was my brother."

"That's kinda cool." Elliott said.

"It is." Kurt said, smiling, but his smile died quickly in his lips.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, it's just that I haven't been able to talk to my family in some weeks and talking about them kind of reminded me of that, but it's okay."

"Talk to them? Can you talk to them from here?" Elliott asked stunned. As far as he knew there was not a single device that allowed such thing in this ancient world.

"I can't talk to them like with phones or stuff, but I have a mirror. It's connected to an equal pair that my dad has in his possession. We can see each other and share written messages." Kurt explained, but noticed that Elliott looked conflicted. He wasn't understanding anything, so he took out from his cloak the red velvet bag that he had been carrying around and showed Elliott the mirror.

"Is this real?" Elliott asked, holding the mirror as if he were holding some sacred child.

"Yes, Ray gave it to me as a wedding gift." Kurt said.

"Cesare says that what they do, I mean what we do is not magic but science, but you have to admit that this can't be science, right?"

Kurt laughed. "It is science," he said, "it took me a while, years actually, to grasp that concept, but everything in here is science."

"Then you'll have to give me the book that explains the science behind a mirror like this one because in my poor understanding of things this can't be anything but magic." Elliott said, handing over the mirror to Kurt, who put it safely inside his pocket again.

"One day I'm sure you'll get the concept. But enough about me, tell all about you. I want to know everything about your life in the big apple." Kurt said.

"Uff, I don't even know where to begin." Elliott said.

"What do you do there? Are you still studying? Working?"

"Both." Elliott said. "It took me a while to get in college, but I'm in my last year now. I'm in the Drama program at NYU." He went on, describing Kurt his life; what he did for a living, all his adventures as a New Yorker, the Broadway shows he had seen and loved, the celebrities he had met. In sum, all the things that Kurt never got the chance to experience in the big old city.

"Are you okay?" Elliott asked after a while. He had finished his rambling about New York when he had noticed that Kurt had zoomed out.

"Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking what my life would have been if I'd never come here."

"Do you regret it?"

"What? Moving here?"

Elliott nodded.

"No, not at all. I'm very happy here, but having you here is weird, you know. Like you're incidentally a walking version of what my life would have been if I had never met Blaine."

o-o-o-o-o

After thinking about it like for five minutes straight, Blaine made up his mind. In a leap of faith he was going to trust the Smythes. "If I tell you what happened to me and Kurt," he said, "you must both swear not to tell anyone else, particularly your father."

There was a short silence, while the two boys wrestled with their feelings about his family. The two brothers looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

"We swear." The both said. And to Blaine's surprise, Sebastian stopped the carriage so that they could both kneel to Blaine and offer him their daggers. It was not possible for Marcus to kneel properly, but he lean forward and bent his better leg, his face creased with pain.

Both brothers solemnly recited together. "By the house of the City of Stars, may its strength never diminish or perish. Our word for it is true, that we are to fulfill the promise. Drink our blood and take our lives if the promise we shall fail."

Blaine's eyes widened. Sebastian and his brother were making one of Talia's most ancient blood oaths. After this, there was no doubt that his secret was safe with them.

They urged Blaine to take the daggers by the hilts and make a small nick in their wrists. The two young nobles held their wrist out to Blaine, each bright with scarlet beads of blood, and motioned him to put his lips to each. Blaine didn't hesitate and tasted, with the tip of his lips, the blood voluntarily shed by the Smythes.

"Arise." Blaine said, and both Sebastian and Marcus stood up.