Present

The streets were abuzz with activity, as was to be expected.

Those who would be in attendance pushed around, looking for jewelry, bouquets of flowers, dresses and scarves and shoes to match, gifts to give their partners and bottles of scent. Supply rose to meet the sudden spike in demand, filling the streets with two shop tents for every one spot, salesmen shouting twice as loud, and the displays spilling over one another in riots of color. Even those who weren't invited to the ball were holding their own simultaneous celebrations in their own homes, with families and friends, and buying bags full of freshly harvested produce and neatly sealed boxes of sweets.

"Have you spent much time here?" Now Kell was just blatantly initiating conversation.

Holland found himself walking closer to Kell's side. Just a little bit. Just enough to feel their shoulders brush every few steps. The streets were crowded enough that it didn't seem too odd for Holland to press into Kell's side as they wove their way through the streets.

"I'm not much of an explorer," Holland replied dryly. It was true; he had once felt the world held such wonders, and he'd wanted nothing more than to discover each of them in turn. But that feeling had faded like cheap ink in the sun, quick and irreversible, leaving him squinting to see if there really had been anything there after all. It was best, he'd learned, to stay with the places and the people he knew; even if you couldn't trust them, you knew them. You knew how to navigate a situation gone wrong. "I don't think there's a single moment of peace anywhere on this street."

Kell seemed to consider this, following Holland's gaze to the woman two stalls ahead, shouting about her charmed amulets. "You'd be surprised how much peace you can find in a crowd."

Holland noticed, not for the first time, that Kell moved through these streets as if he could pick his way through them in his sleep, melting into the crowds as if he belonged no where but here. He was good at that, Kell. Fitting himself into places and groups of people with a sense of belonging.

Kell, Holland remembered once again, was a prince. A well-known figure among these people. Crowds had always made Holland tense; the only things that people gathered in crowds for were fights or executions, and to be in a crowd was to invite violence towards your person from all and any sides, so Holland had had to be constantly vigilant whenever he unwillingly found himself in one. Sometimes Holland had even been the spectacle, bleeding so hard that the crowd whipped up into a frenzy from the taste of magic in the air. But the anonymity that the swirling eddies of people gave Kell must've come as an uncommon relief.

"Maybe," Holland conceded instead of voicing this.

Holland decided quietly that he could bear the crowds anyday if they allowed Kell to walk like that: as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Kell stepped easily around a spill of some brightly dyed drink that stained the stones of the street, and turned to look back at Holland in askance. He was always hearing the whispers of what Holland wasn't saying.

It was a thrill to be known, to be understood in that way. Holland wasn't sure if it was a pleasant thrill or a terrifying one, but when he felt it, he often felt as if there were rose petals stuck in his air pipe.

"Crowds in my world never meant anything good," he explained. It was hardly an extensive exploration of his aversion to crowds, but Kell's eyes softened and he knew Kell had inferred enough.

"Save for the last one." It didn't come across as a contradiction or invalidation of what Holland had said, but rather a hopeful observation.

The last crowd in White London Holland had seen had, indeed, been a celebratory occasion. It was the only truly celebratory occasion Holland could remember taking place in his world at all—pretending to celebrate the rise of new blood thirsty leader out of fear not counted.

Sometimes, Holland went to bed with that memory fixed in his mind, warmth settling in his chest, a new aquaintence.

Kell had, without a word of protest, followed Holland towards the center of the city, where they could hear the faint buzz of a chattering crowd as they drew nearer. Holland had thought his ears were deceiving him, but no.

They heard the news before they saw the woman for themselves: White London had a new leader. A queen.

She's powerful, people around them had been saying, over and over. White London still hadn't learned how to value much else. Maybe it wouldn't for a while, Holland wasn't sure, and he had hoped that they would rather numbly, as they pushed their way to the front. It would take time for the world to change, and Holland wasn't going to be around for much longer. Heart Sickness was deadly, unless treated, and though Holland hadn't coughed up a leaf yet, the ache in his lungs told him it probably wouldn't be long.

Getting treatment seemed an exhausting prospect, and not worth staying alive when he felt lukewarm about staying alive in the first place. Perhaps Holland had escaped, but he lived in the worst of White London when he dreamed. He had altered the course of his world like turning the course of a river: he did not need to continue in order to have changed it wholly and irrevocably. He had lived for his world, and it did not need him anymore. There was no other way to put it.

If he had… fallen in love…

He hated the words. He hated even thinking them; they had frightening power.

If he had fallen in love and come down with Heart Sickness, he might as well die of it.

So, with Kell Maresh, the death of him—though he was also the one who had saved Holland's life—by his side, Holland pushed his way through the crowd around the ruined palace of White London to make sure the world was in good hands before he left it alone, for good.

There had been other whispers swirling around the crowds: she's beautiful, and isn't she a bit young?

It had heartened Holland to hear a man at his shoulder saying, they say she's kind.

Kindness. At least one person in this crowd knew what truly mattered.

The girl on the throne—for she was really a girl; she must've been twenty, at the most—was thin and hollow-cheeked, but bright-eyed. He didn't recongize her, which came as a relief. He had not known a single person alive that he would trust with the throne.

She had clean and simple clothes, striking white hair that made Holland's blood freeze in his veins for a moment. Kell must've noticed, because he'd placed a hand lightly on the small of Holland's back and murmured something. Though Holland couldn't make out his words, the comforting tone eased him.

"It's not—" he began, stopping himself before he finished.

"No," Kell had said.

And she didn't look like it: she stood with none of the imperious arrogance that Astrid had, and when she finally began to speak to the crowd, her voice was firm but not hard. Her words were requests and not orders.

Holland breathed out.

Now, beside Kell in streets full of the preparations for the first in-person meeting between the queen of Makt and the king of Arnes, Holland allowed himself to indulge in hope. Hope was a sweet: so rare that to have it felt illicit and slightly dangerous, as if he was forgetting why he shouldn't have it, but there was a reason lurking in the darkness, ready to pounce and seize if from him. It was intangible and empty. Nothing real, nothing of nutritional value. You could gorge yourself sick on hope and come away with nothing but a stomach ache. But it felt good, it felt so good, it made the rest of him ache, too. "Times are changing." When he said it, it sounded even to his own ears as if the words had cost him something to speak aloud.

Kell heard it too. He smiled the smile that reached right into Holland's chest and seized his heart: foolish optimism, power, and determination, wrapped up in one. "We're changing them."

Past

"Holland." The knocking on the door can only be one man, and the voice that calls his name confirms it: Kell Maresh. One bright blue eye and a stubbornness that drives Holland mad.

Holland doesn't open the locked door. He clutches the sink and looks at himself: both of his eyes green despite the return of his magic, dulled. Perhaps from not eating enough, or perhaps from a lack of desire for life, or perhaps from the sickness that claws up his throat.

The sink is pink with half-washed away blood and rose petals are plastered against the sides of it.

When Holland attempts to call "A moment please," nothing comes out but a strangled hacking sound. Kell's nearness makes it harder to get all the flowers out of his mouth, since more seem to grow to replace the ones he spits out. "A moment please," he tries again. Again, he fails.

"Are you alright in there?" Kell's voice comes, deeper with urgency. The concern he appears to hold for Holland creates a sudden anger in Holland's stomach: Holland is none of Kell's business, and he cannot fathom why Kell returns to him over and over, to make sure he's okay.

He wishes Kell would turn around, take Holland's dinner and throw it in the trash, bother his brother. Anything but banging ceaselessly on Holland's door as if he is entitled to Holland's time simply because he saved Holland when Holland didn't even want saving.

He can practically feel Kell having a furious argument with himself outside the door: his moral objection to bursting in on other people's private spaces—for he does make a point to knock every day—versus the sounds of a man losing his stomach violently.

Heart racing, Holland Summons water himself to spray down the sink, watching the bloodied water swirl down the drain. The rose petals stay stuck stubbornly to the sides of the sink. Holland has never felt this kind of panic before: he's feared for his life before, for the fate of the world, the threat of pain. This time, he can't tell what it is he's afraid of specifically, but he cannot bear the image of Kell opening the bathroom door to find Holland coughing up flowers the same shade of red as his beloved coat.

Holland sweeps the petals out of the sink with his own fingers. They're soggy, cold against his skin. They fall into his palm as he moves to drop them into the trash.

After, even though he rinses his hand, his hand feels tainted, as if Kell's eyes should be drawn to it, as if it is a hand that has just committed a crime.

Holland unlocks the door and stands between the door and the doorframe, blocking Kell's entrance. "Kell." The name scrapes its way out.

Is there blood on his lips? He can't remember if he checked.

"Holland," Kell returns, raising an eyebrow in askance. His mouth turns up bemusedly. Holland is sure there's no way for Kell to know what ails him, but the knowledge doesn't quell his heartbeat. "Might I come in?"

"What do you want?" Holland asks tiredly.

Kell raises the tray in his hands: rice full of spices, some unidentified meat, water with three cubes of ice, and a bowl of creamy looking soup. Two sets. "Dinner? You look like you could use it."

"I'll just take it." Holland holds his hands out, watching Kell's expression. He doesn't know why he's watching Kell's expression; he's not a masochist, and he knows the drop of Kell's smile is going to hurt. He's right.

But Kell hands the tray over, making no comment about how there are two settings on the tray. When Rhy asks his brother why he's coming back for more dinner, Kell probably won't even tell him.

"Thank you," Holland says. Curt. Impersonal. He moves to shut the door.

Kell sticks his foot in.

Holland wants to scream. The suddenness of the urge is so jarring that he's struck dumb by it for a moment. Holland's numbness has disappeared entirely; it often does when he's with Kell.

"Kell." When he says it this time, it comes out much more personal. A growl.

Kell's eyes flash at him. There's something in them that wants. "Holland," he replies with similar emphasis. "Are you alright?"

Holland gives him a hollow smile. He doesn't even attempt to make it appear genuine. "Quite."

Kell stares him down. Holland stares back, still holding the tray, blocking the doorway.

"Thank you for dinner," Holland adds for good measure. Under Kell's sharp gaze, he feels thrillingly alive. Kell is a drug: destructively pleasurable. Holland closes his eyes, the sight of Kell too much for him.

"Are you occupied with something unmentionably important, then?" Kell presses.

Holland seizes the excuse like a lifeline. "Yes." It isn't entirely a lie: he'd been drafting a letter to the queen of Makt when the coughing fit arose, covering the cream paper with a faint spray of blood. "Busy."

Over the past couple weeks, he has put his growing magic to better use. He always hoped there would be something he could do with being an Antari, some way the powers he's been granted can be used to help in ways others can't. Right now… right now that means running letters between the Red and White Londons, instilling a tentative correspondence between Rhy and the woman who has filled White London's power void.

Kell audibly drags in a breath. "I just want to check whether you're okay."

"I wish you wouldn't," Holland says, which is a lie. I'm used to you. The words weigh on his tongue. He doesn't speak them. You're a constant I can count on. Your self-seriousness and your good-doing and your old, peculiar coat are the same when everything else is changing.

Kell looks as if he's been slapped: hurt and shocked, and rapidly growing angry. "Pardon me for worrying about you," he replies after a pause, sarcastic.

"No, pardon me for being such a source of your stress." Holland matches Kell's acidity. This, he's used to. Before he can consider his words, he says, "Keeping myself alive is just as much of a chore for me as it is a chore for you."

There is another pause, longer, heavier.

It's when he says the words that it becomes clear to him: part of him is truly angry with Kell for denying him an end he would have been satisfied with, for making decisions that should've been Holland's to make.

Kell seems to consider several sentences before settling on: "Should I apologize for saving your life, too, then?" Though still sarcastic, there's a real question in his voice, too, a carefully concealed honesty.

Holland doesn't want to answer that question. He doesn't even know what his answer is, but lingering on what it might be makes him feel sick. "You seem to have a penchant for saddling people with lives they didn't ask for," he says instead.

"Would you rather be dead." Though it's a question, Kell speaks it flatly. The allusion to Rhy hardens something in his gaze.

"I didn't say that. I didn't ask to be saved."

Holland can track exactly when Kell realizes Holland is dodging the question. His expression drops, and in a moment, the sharpness of his gaze softens. Even his shoulders drop nearly imperceptibly. His throat bobs. "Hol—"

The absence of Kell's antagonism leaves Holland adrift again. He grasps for it again, once again without thought. "Neither did Rhy."

Until this moment, he hadn't realized that he'd felt so off-balance because of this thing with Kell specifically, but snapping back and forth feels more like something he knows than anything else he's come across over the past few months.

To hint towards Rhy is one thing. To speak of him outright is another entirely. Holland realizes this only once he's spoken the words, and Kell's expression slams closed so instantly and so completely, Holland feels it like a physical blow.

"Don't talk about my brother," he says coldly. "I had to make that choice—"

"Yes, of course. You had to."

"And don't pretend I had to out of pure happenstance."

"Oh." Holland raises his eyebrows. "It's your brother's fault for letting himself get seduced?"

In a moment, the tray is gone and Kell is yanking Holland by the collar out into the hallway. Reflexively, Holland twists out of Kell's grasp, Summons a knife to his hand, and presses the blade to the soft skin of Kell's throat.

"Trying to fight me is the stupidest idea you've had yet," he murmurs.

Kell's eyes blaze back at him, true fury burning in them. At his side, his fingers flick, and Holland is slammed back against the stone wall by a wind so strong, it keeps him pinned and forces him to drop his knife.

Kell catches the knife deftly.

The torches lighting the hallway flicker wildly in the swirling air, lighting Kell erratically: in one moment, his red hair seems luminous, in the next moment, it's Kell's collarbone, and then his pale hand open-palmed in front of him.

Holland lifts a hand and dispels the wind. "Feel better?" he asks, deliberately condescending.

"Don't talk about my fucking brother." Kell's chest rises and falls. His hands curl tight around Holland's knife, as if he's considering running Holland through the heart with it. It won't be the first time he's stabbed Holland through the heart.

Just like last time, Holland finds the idea a welcome one.

"Alright, I won't talk about fucking your brother."

Too far.

Holland knows it instantly.

He also knows that if they fight now, Kell will give it real effort, Holland will win, and there won't be a thing in any world that Holland will be able to do to fix it with Kell.

And.

Fuck.

He knows he'll miss Kell.

So, while Kell is still spluttering, Holland says, "Thank you for bringing dinner by, but I'm not hungry this evening."

He closes the door and coats it with his most complicated wards, the ones he knows Kell can't break.