Present Day
"Do you know where I might find Kell?"
Holland knew that voice. He knew it well, and he didn't want to: as sharp, cold, and cutting as a knife. For a moment, he considered simply pretending not to hear the inquiry, that the chattering of the ball around him had drowned out her voice, but she was too close and too clear for him to pass it off.
"Lila." He didn't turn all the way to look at her, just shifted slightly to indicate his attention and lowered the glass from his lips. She was now directly to his left, neither in front nor behind him—not that he expected her to try to kill him again, but it would be unwise to give her the opportunity to. Holland could shatter the glass in his hand and send the shards at her, if he needed to. Or use a dozen other spells. Not, either, that he objected to being killed, necessarily, except that now was not the time nor the place.
"Kell," Lila said again, insistent. "I'm here to see him."
"All this way?" Holland actually didn't know where Lila had come from; he knew only that she'd been sailing the seas since everything ended, trying to "see everything," as Kell had told him one night over slices of cake on the balcony outside Kell's room. "Careful, Bard, or people will think you've got a soft spot."
Who didn't have a soft spot for Kell? If anyone Kell met hadn't immediately found their heart a touch softened, it would be news to Holland. Even Alucard antagonized Kell only after Kell resolved on relentlessly and decisively treating him with utter contempt.
"Just point me." Holland could hear the scowl in Lila's voice without looking. The truth was Holland had been spending the entirety of the event trying not to catch sight of Kell. Unlike trying to keep your eyes on someone, which required a very small amount of skill, trying to keep your eyes off of someone was a game of chance. Holland had steadfastly kept his eyes away from Kell's favorite places to hang about: the balcony, overlooking the courtyard; the food tables where Kell would inevitably get caught up in polite conversation with the scores of nobility in attendence. The safest place to keep his eyes was on the rim of his glass—the contents of which he was hardly drinking; it was largely for appearances. He had arrived late, and it was his first. When he eventually finished it and poured himself another, it wouldn't be another of these. The second safest place to let his eyes drift was the dance floor; Kell wasn't much for dancing.
"I'm not Kell's keeper." Holland tipped his head slightly. "Try the dance floor."
"Sanct, he is here, isn't he?"
Even with his precautions, Holland had seen Kell a handful of times: once, when he first stepped foot inside the courtyard, he'd scanned the space—he could never feel safe if he didn't get a grasp on the situation—and he'd latched onto Kell's bright figure weaving easily through the crowds without thinking. Kell had looked even better than he had in Calla's tent; the sun was sinking over the rooftops of the surrounding buildings by then, dyeing the sky a warm orange that plunged into a deep red. Reds and oranges, they belonged to Kell. Later, he had made the mistake of glancing towards the tables set up around the edges of the courtyard, where Kell had sat chatting with a young blonde woman, his mouth turned into a polite, courteous smile. Yet another time, Kell was pouring a drink. And another. And another. He still moved and smiled as if he was completely unaffected, and it was both curiosity and a nagging concern that convinced Holland to watch Kell, deliberately, as he poured his fifth drink. Kell, he soon found out, was offering to get people drinks: the blonde woman from earlier, a stately noblewoman, a bright-eyed young man who gestured energetically.
Every time Holland's gaze got caught on Kell, it was harder and harder to wrest it away.
Holland lifted the glass to his lips again and turned slightly towards Lila. "He should be. Is something preventing you from searching for him yourself?"
If there was anything Lila Bard was good at, other than displaying reckless irreverance for magic, it was making a severe scowl even more severe. "His letters suggested you had become—" and even more severe, "—friends. That's all."
Holland met her eyes evenly and pressed his lips thin. "He thinks everyone he tries to save is suddenly his friend." It wasn't true. Kell had, after all, tried to save Holland long before they ever became friends, before they had even become allies.
Holland hadn't known Kell was in touch with Lila—he had thought no one had heard from her. He thought he could recall Kell explicitly saying he hadn't, even, but that was just like Kell—full of foolish, trivial secrets. Sometimes Holland speculated that perhaps this was the mark of someone who cared deeply about things, who found that the trivial things mattered to them. The mark of someone who had invested themselves in their life.
In spite of Holland's even stare, Lila seemed to discern some of Holland's surprise; her mouth curled in a mean sort of triumph that she didn't try to hide. "I'll look for him myself, then." And Lila turned, abruptly, as if shutting a door in his face, and strode off into the crowd with purpose written into her step.
Holland watched her leave. She would have been a good ally to pursue—not for battles already won but for whatever was sure to come; peace never kept itself, it had to be actively kept. It was a shame, Holland thought mildly, that he'd killed that man in the tavern. He hadn't known at the time how much the man had meant to Lila, although he still wasn't sure if that would have changed his decision at all.
The sun sank lower and the stars came out; torches were lit and lights Summoned; Holland finished his drink and took a glass of water offered to him on a tray, nodding his gratitude at the server.
Knowing how bad of an idea it was, Holland scanned the courtyard. For Lila Bard, he told himself, because she had tried to kill him before and she could again, and it was good to keep tabs on a situation like that. But a small part of him knew that she wasn't going to try that again, and an even smaller part knew that she would be—
Yes. With Kell.
It had taken a moment for Holland to spot them, because he had not thought to consider the dance floor. Lila Bard, a dancer? Kell Maresh, her dance partner? Not in a million years. It wasn't that he was blind; he knew the two had been involved. Were probably, in some distant, across-the-sea, tragic separation way, still involved. It was only that neither of them seemed the type to dance, or to put their arms around each other in such a public display—Kell because of a respect for propriety he didn't like to admit he had and Lila out of aversion to showing her soft spots.
But there they were: Lila's arms around Kell's neck, her head tilted up, her red-lipsticked mouth moving; Kell with his hands placed solidly on her waist, turning her about with a sure step, a quietly entertained expression on his face.
Holland's throat prickled viciously.
Not here, not now.
But when if not now; where if not here? This was a ball, perhaps one of the only times at which romantic matters actually surfaced in the castle—unless you counted Rhy and Alucard, who made their romantic matters everyone else's matters, too. Of course, Holland's sickness would flare up tonight.
Turning quickly, Holland drank the rest of the water left in his glass, the water cool and smooth against his raw throat for a moment, and made his way towards the nearest entrance to the castle. As soon as he finished the water, the prickling returned. It wasn't going to stop until he coughed up the flowers crowding up his air pipe.
"Challan." He recognized the guard posted at the doors and mustered a commanding gaze, though his voice sounded as if he had just been strangled nearly to death. "Let me in."
Challan was new, and too careful. "What for?" he asked, his brow furrowing suspiciously. "His Majesty and the Queen of Makt are still engaged in disc—"
"I'm not here to see them," Holland interrupted. The prickling was beginning to make his eyes sting and water. Another few minutes of this, and he might resort to forcing his way in. "I'm just not feeling well."
"You never seem to be," Challan returned, but dryly, and he pushed the heavy wood door open with a creak.
Holland gave a nod of thanks, stepped in, and shut the door behind him with a thick thunk. For a moment, he stood in the shocking silence of the stone hallway, so different from the clatter and movement of the ball just on the other side of the palace door.
And then, violently, he doubled over and threw up six flowers, and about a dozen loose petals. It was more like throwing up than coughing: he gagged, he retched, he hacked, one hand braced against the nearest wall as he hung his head, as if gravity could encourage the roses to find their way out faster. Blood trailed warmly down his chin.
"Sanct," he cursed lowly.
He straightened. Carefully cleaned away all traces of blood. Two floors above him, Rhy Maresh, Kell's brother, was meeting with a Queen who had swept into White London, harnessed the breath of life Holland had given his world and begun to turn it carefully into something tangible and growing. For the first time in a very long time, the two Londons were approaching each other with something like hope.
Here Holland was, choking on his heart.
He went up to the balcony.
He shouldn't have.
Kell—Holland knew this, had thought very deliberately about avoiding the balcony for this very reason—Kell liked to go up the balcony and look down at the festivities whenever an event was held in the courtyard.
Holland had asked once, sarcastically, you like to lord over all your citizens, do you? Kell had been quiet for a moment, gazing down at the celebration before them. I just like to watch them, he had finally said.
Holland had gazed at Kell, expressionless.
Without having to talk to them, Kell had added. It's exhausting.
Holland had hummed lightly, then turned to go.
I didn't mean—Kell had reached out, catching at Holland's sleeve. Not you. You know that.
Holland had breathed in quietly and rejoined Kell at the railing, holding it too tight. He hadn't said: what does that mean?
So he should've thought about where he was going before he let his feet guide him here, because he easily could have guessed he would find Kell here, arms folded, resting on the balcony railing, gazing out down on the dance floor.
He turned at the sound of Holland's footsteps, arms unfolding, leaning back against the railing, before Holland had the time to turn himself, and go back inside the way he came. Kell watched him approach, so Holland made himself keep walking forward, hoping Kell hadn't noticed the falter in his step.
"Beat you," said Kell.
Holland suppressed a sigh. To finally be here, face to face with Kell, after avoiding him studiously all night was a relief. It was as if he had been waiting anxiously for the inevitable end of the world, and it had come.
Now that the sun had gone down, Kell's hair, his face, and his suit seemed to glow in the torchlight; he looked both ethereal and solid against the midnight blue of the sky, stars twinkling around him. His coat a brilliant red, a two small white roses pinned to his lapel. Holland hadn't remembered white flowers coming with the piece, nor Calla mentioning anything about adding one, but they looked perfect with the rest of the suit, as if they belonged. The high balcony railing, shining white, came up to the middle of his back. From where Holland was standing, at the open arched doorway, Kell looked like the only person in the world. Quite literally—the city behind Kell sparkled with small household fires and hanging lamps, but the people were mere shadows, moving about their mundane lives in obscurity.
Holland moved to join Kell. "I wasn't aware there was a race." You were dancing with Lila a moment ago. He didn't say it.
Kell gave a distracted half-smile, his gaze roaming over Holland's face, and then up and down his body. Holland was instantly grateful he'd magically cleaned up after his coughing fit, instead of trying to wipe away all the blood. "How are you feeling?" Kell asked it apprehensively, as if expecting a negative answer.
"Alright." Holland glanced away from Kell's worried gaze. "White London isn't in a very advantageous position here, politically speaking," he added, deliberately misinterpreting Kell.
Kell made a dismissive noise in his throat, as if he refused to acknowledge such an obvious evasion. "A guard came and told me you weren't feeling well."
Challan. Sanct. Holland didn't even try to suppress his sigh this time. Kell's concern made his chest feel tight. "Why bother asking if you already know the answer?"
Kell ignored that, too, with a friendly roll of his eyes. "Anything I can get you, Holland?" He was only adding the name to be pointed. Holland had no intentions of thanking him. "You don't look so good."
Well, I am not too far away from dying, Holland imagined saying. "You don't look so good either," is what he actually said. It was true—Kell appeared to have had a couple recent sleepless nights, at the least, if you looked closely enough. It was hard to notice because he had a way of turning your attention elsewhere: his engaging conversation or his iconic coat or his striking eyes, blue, black.
Kell frowned. He blinked several times, as if to blink any traces of sleep away. "Don't I?"
Holland twisted his mouth. Neither of them had moved closer to the other, but having turned slightly to face each other, the distance between them felt as if it had shrunk. "No, you look as if Rhy himself might be jealous."
"His Majesty to you," Kell muttered with no real energy.
Holland made a gravelly hum, relieved that he could get away with talking about Rhy like that. Perhaps a month ago, Kell would have had him against the wall in a forceful gust of wind for mentioning Rhy's penchant for looking good that occasionally bordered on endearing vanity. It was gratifying that Kell hardly reacted now. "Not my king."
Kell didn't seem disturbed by this comment either, though he loved his own country and was often quite defensive of it. He only said "yes," and paused. Then he said, "But thank you. I made the flowers myself."
Holland's lungs ached. "They match nicely."
Kell was watching Holland carefully: sharp, sparking blue and pure black, searching Holland's face as if Holland was the object of some experiment. When he spoke, he did so with unusual deliberation on each word. "I believe that was intentional."
Holland swallowed. His breath was stuck somewhere in his chest, not moving its way up. He swallowed again, wishing Kell would stop looking at him like that, since Holland didn't seem to be able to look away himself. Kell was truly too close; Holland's thoughts faltered and spun around his mind.
"Is Miss Bard waiting on a dance from you?" he asked abruptly.
With an odd expression of frustration, Kell leaned back on his heels a little bit. Holland dragged in a breath. "No. I don't suppose you could be persuaded to dance."
"Me," Holland said flatly.
"I thought so."
"I need," Holland said. To not be so close to you that I can smell the roses pinned to your suit. There were two things he could have said: you. Or, barring that, to be far away from you. He understood, perhaps, why Lila had decided to take to the seas. "A drink."
Kell glanced at Holland's hands, as if for an empty glass, but both Holland's hands were closed around the top balcony railing. "Let me get one for you. What would you like?"
Let me get one for you, he said it so easily and thoughtlessly at once, automatic. Kell was so very Kell. Holland's throat ached, raw, as he pulled in another breath of air. He felt as if he was drowning—fifty feet above the ground and he was drowning. "Nothing sweet," he said, voice scraping.
Kell shot him another concerned look at the rough quality of his voice, but Holland said "thanks" firmly, and, with another dubious look, Kell turned and strode off.
As soon as Kell turned the corner, Holland let his shoulders drop and stopped trying to hide the drag in his breaths, gulping the air noisily. Something was tightening and curling in his chest; he imagined a vine winding in a tight coil around his lungs and squeezing.
And—he knew it had been coming, especially with his encounter with Kell and Kell gazing at him with such intent—Holland fell to his knees on the balcony.
He clutched at the vertical bars of the balcony rail, heaving, pain shooting through him as flowers pushed their way past his sore throat. The pain was so sharp that his eyes stung, warm when they welled up and cold when they dried in the gentle breeze.
Just when Holland thought the fit had passed, another round of coughs wracked his body. He slammed his fist against his own chest, hoping to speed up the process; Kell would be coming back with his drink. He could see Kell through the bars, making gestures of polite decline at people approaching him to converse, a drink in his hand.
Holland gasped for air, wiping quickly at the corners of his eyes. He realized after that he had blood on his hands from the coughing, and had likely gotten some on his face.
"Holland?"
It took Holland a moment to identify the voice, because he had been so expecting Kell's that he thought first that's not Kell before he thought whose is it, then?
It was Rhy. Holland pressed his eyes closed for one long moment, his head pounding, his stomach still turning. He felt around weakly for the roses, disintegrating them with his touch in a half-hearted attempt to hide them from Rhy. He knew it was a lost cause even as he ran his fingers over the stone, looking for escaped petals; it was already clear something was very wrong with him.
Footsteps hurried up to him. "Sanct, you—"
Rhy's hand closed around his shoulder, and without thinking, Holland was on his feet, a hand pressed against Rhy's chest, directly over his heart, his fingertips tingling with magic.
Rhy looked down, his face flushed from his rush. "Calm down." He shook his head. "Why do I even attempt diplomacy with you bastards?"
Holland considered seriously hurting Rhy—Rhy might not be able to die, but he could suffer pain—but he knew any harm that befell Rhy would be felt by Kell, too. "Don't ever refer to Her Majesty—"
"Yeah, alright," Rhy knocked Holland's arm away. "Care to tell me why you sounded like a dying…" A dying animal, Holland figured Rhy was going to finish, but Rhy trailed off and was staring at the balcony, where there were still smears of blood and a handful of Kell's-red-coat petals. "That's…"
"The color of your brother's coat?" Holland finished for him with affected apathy. A note of resignation had found its way into his voice.
At first, Rhy looked confused, and then his eyebrows raised in a way that perhaps would have been comical if the whole moment weren't so excruciatingly painful. "Oh," Rhy breathed. "I was actually looking at—"
And Holland noticed it, too. It was hard to miss; he wasn't sure how he had, except that he had been so focused on the roses.
Bending at the knee, he picked the leaf up from where it lay on the white stone. It was young and green, thin and weak. He felt faint.
The first leaf.
Two weeks left to live.
Suddenly, abruptly, he wasn't sure he was ready for that.
"You know," Rhy was saying. Rhy had been talking, hadn't stopped. "You don't have to die."
Holland sighed. He had heard that enough from Rhy's brother, who, coincidentally, was the one killing him. If you looked at it in a particular way. "What was that," he prompted blandly.
Rhy peered at the leaf in Holland's hands with an expression of morbid curiosity. "I was saying, I don't know what Heart Sickness is like in—your world, but we have treatment here for it that—"
"Removes your feelings for the cause of your affliction," Holland finished. He'd read it before, plenty of times. "We don't have Heart Sickness in White London."
"Oh."
"There isn't enough magic in the air to grow flowers in your lungs." Holland watched Rhy's face as he said this, trying to catch hints of what happened in negotiations with the Queen of Makt, whether White London's thirst for magic was quenched.
Rhy, in a tone that suggested Holland was not being subtle in the slightest, said, "We're working on it."
"Good." Holland twitched his fingers and the leaf decomposed in his hand, becoming a minuscule pile of soil. He twitched his fingers again and the soil disappeared. Then he said, "I wasn't going to get treatment."
"Well that's a relief."
Holland whipped around to stare at Rhy, unsure he had heard correctly. "Pardon?" And then, against his better judgment, "If you wanted me dead, you could've ordered it."
"What?" Rhy's surprise at his words appeared genuine; his expression cycled through offense, confusion, consideration, and then tentative realization. He let out an incredulous laugh. "You're joking?"
"What?" Holland snapped.
Rhy shook his head, opened his mouth. Shut it again. "Kell's in love with you."
Past 6Holland finds Rhy in the map room.
On the center table, a rectangular map of the country is spread out and pinned down in all four corners by rounded, polished stones, and a light hangs over it, illuminating the web of roads criss-crossing the country, like veins on a leaf. A bowl of no-longer-steaming stew is perched on top of a pile of books.
"Holland." Rhy's voice is neutral, carrying none of the warmth that Kell's does when Kell says Holland's name. "Can I help you? Are you here to talk about this?" He doesn't look up from the map, though he doesn't appear to be doing anything other than standing, staring.
Rhy picks up the scroll nearest to his hand and spreads it out, crooked, on top of the map of Arnes. It's a different paper, newer and thinner, written over with what looks like fresh ink. It takes Holland a minute to realize this isn't Red London at all, it's his London.
"No." Holland finds he does want to talk about the Londons, but not right now; there's something a little more important. He pushes the words out. "I'm here about Kell."
It doesn't appear to be nearly as significant Rhy as it is on Holland, that sentence, though Rhy's hands pause and he does finally look up, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead.
"What happened?" Holland opens his mouth to protest this, but Rhy interrupts: "Don't cast me as a fool; an imbecile would be able to tell something happened."
Holland doesn't know what to say. "Your brother's a busy body, and it can get quite annoying."
"I'm allowed to say that, you're not."
"Just—" Holland's memory has run over that day so many times, he thinks someday the scene might rip, like an overworked piece of paper. "I was rude to him about getting in my face."
Rhy releases his incredulous laugh, the one that conveys he suspects he might be the butt of a joke and is searching to find the punchline first. "He's this pissed at you because you didn't want to spend time with him?"
The phrasing throws Holland off balance. Spending time with Kell. Because… that is what he had been doing; it was never about the meal, only about how Kell had brought it, and sat beside him as he ate, asking about his day.
"No," Holland admits. "Said a handful of—" he pauses, but he can't think of a better way to say it. "Of things about you."
Rhy laughs again, this time even more incredulous. "I can't help you," he says.
"Do you expect me to apologize to you for—"
"No," Rhy cuts him off. "If he's mad at you about something to do with me, no one in this world or any other can help you."
Holland raises his eyebrows. "He seems to have largely moved past my worst offense."
He knows he's not the only one who's noticed; Alucard once made a passing comment about Holland getting off easy, partly humorous and partly bitter. "You quite literally killed him," Alucard said. "I would've seduced Kell myself if I knew it worked so well." Holland hadn't acknowledged that with so much as a nod.
"Well," Rhy concedes after a beat, "It is you."
When people say things like that, Holland's chest flutters around uncomfortably, as if leaves are brushing against the insides of his lungs, but something about it is pleasant, more so than Holland would like to admit. It concerns him, faintly, that he feels a sort of happiness when people say Kell has some affection for him—something warm, something like success blooms without his permission. He shouldn't feel like that, given that he isn't trying to win Kell over, or anything even remotely similar; he doesn't want to associate Kell's affection for him with success.
But he does.
Because it's something he wants, even when he doesn't want to want it.
"Just tell me what I can do." Holland can identify the place he and Talya lived together on the map of White London. Unthinkingly, he runs his finger down the roads, towards the edge of the map.
Rhy eyes him warily. Holland somehow always manages to forget that every ounce of loyalty that Kell has for his brother is returned in full. He should have known he wasn't going to get much out of this conversation. Why did he even come to Rhy in the first place?
The answer to that is, of course, he's putting off facing Kell.
"Where's that?"
Holland looks up. Rhy's following Holland's finger on the map with his eyes, though his words suggest his mind is elsewhere. "This is…" Holland looks back at the map. "This is where Kell came back for me."
Kell found me, he could have said, or where I almost died, but instead it leaves his mouth as Kell came back for me. He swallows after he says the words, and withdraws his hand. Evening is falling, and Holland had hoped to catch Kell for dinner.
Holland draws in a breath and looks up. "I'm going to find him." He sounds more ready than he feels; he has never attempted to cultivate an emotional connection with anyone since Talya, and he'd never dedicated much thought to how one was supposed to conduct oneself. He hadn't thought it would take much skill, just a level of recklessness that he didn't have.
When he reaches the door to the map room, he turns to nod goodbye to Rhy and pauses. Rhy is watching him, something inscrutable in the flat line of his mouth, his finger tapping idly on the spot where Holland knows the tree grove to be on the map of White London.
"Yes?"
Rhy sighs, as if giving in. "He likes to eat in the gardens when it's this warm out."
Holland nods his gratitude. He says, genuinely, "Thank you."
Rhy blinks, and then he grins. "That has to be the first time I've ever heard you truly thank anyone for anything."
Holland turns and makes his way down the hall, down the stairs, turning Rhy's words over in his mind. He likes to eat in the gardens when it's warm out. Holland didn't know that, not because he doesn't pay attention to Kell—on the contrary, in the absence of something to think about, his mind always invariably turns to everything he knows about Kell, and despite his best efforts, it's very hard to turn it off course.
He hadn't known that because since the day he arrived at the palace, Kell has eaten dinner with him. Somehow, it hadn't even occurred to him that Kell had other habits, other preferences, before Holland arrived—but no, of course Kell didn't simply sit in an empty bedroom and eat his dinner alone before Holland… happened.
Holland hasn't taken any dinner for himself, but he doesn't think he would be able to eat it anyway; his stomach turns and turns on itself, cold and then hot again. It's pleasant and unpleasant at once, a kind of delicious discomfort.
Kell, he keeps thinking nonsensically as he makes his way down the stairs. I'm going to talk to Kell. He's afraid it's not even going to be enjoyable, he's afraid Kell will answer him shortly, with pointed words and either without looking at him or while staring him down with impatience. He even expects Kell to make it difficult; he wouldn't be Kell otherwise.
He finds himself jarringly eager anyway.
Kell is there, just as Rhy suggested he might be, a plate of steaming flatbread and a bowl of thick soup on a small table before him. He's sitting on a bench set in a small area of grass, encircled by pink rosebushes that rustle against each other in a gentle breeze. The breeze plays in Kell's bright curls and, as Holland gets closer, carries the sweet, spiced scent of carrot soup. Kell's shoulders tense perceptibly when Holland's ten feet away.
"Can I?" Holland asks when he's near enough to gesture to the spot beside Kell on the bench. If there had been multiple benches, he would have just sat somewhere else, but there is only one bench, and he finds himself strangely grateful to be forced to ask. It's as good a way to begin a conversation as any.
Kell looks up with feigned surprise, as if he hadn't heard Holland approach. "Yes." He watches Holland sit with an unimpressed expression, the corners of his mouth turned down. There's a telltale attentiveness in his eyes, though, betraying an interest.
Holland crosses his ankles and sits there, feeling cold and unable to find he minds it very much. He has always been able to sit in silence, not because silence doesn't make him uncomfortable, but simply because he is able to suffer through it more than other people, Kell included.
So they sit there, tension radiating off of Kell as if he's a ticking time bomb. Holland watches single petals fall from the pink roses and fall to the grass as Kell resolutely tears off pieces of his flatbread and dips it into his soup. He counts the ones already fallen as Kell, finishing the bread, picks up his bowl, leans back, extends his legs out in front of him, and stirs the remainder with a spoon, then heats it quickly with a bit of magic, as if he will die if he is not doing something with his body every second.
Holland sits, knowing he should stop trying to wait Kell out and trying to convince himself waiting Kell out will be fine, after all. Kell is about a foot away from Holland, and Holland thinks about that, too, how the breeze is finding its way through the fabric of his cloak and Kell is probably warm to the touch. Despite the warm night, Holland, as always, finds himself pulling his cloak tighter.
The closer Kell gets to finishing his soup, the smaller his spoonfuls get.
Holland almost sighs. "Sanct, Kell, just finish your food."
Kell puts his bowl down pointedly. "What are you trying to do."
Unexpectedly, Holland's mouth turns up without his intending it to: Kell and the way he speaks his questions like demands. "Talk to you when your mouth isn't full."
Looking pointedly at the bowl of soup he had not picked back up and then evenly back at Holland, Kell raises his eyebrows. "What about?"
His options: About what I said about your brother, or If you'll eat dinner with me tomorrow? Or even, The Queen of Makt sends her regards.
Holland says, "I miss you."
Kell's even gaze falters for a moment, surprise evident on his face. He seems to forget himself: he blinks twice, and then he opens his mouth, but there's a pause before he says anything. When he does speak, it's, "Is that so."
To answer yes would be redundant, and get him nowhere, so Holland swallows leaves that at that. "Kell." There's no purpose in taking conversational detours. "I apologize."
Once again, Kell looks caught off guard, though less so. His eyebrows lift. "You apologize." He seems to be at a loss.
Holland finds his mouth tugging up again. "You seem unprepared for me to apologize."
"You've never made it a habit before," Kell returns.
"Perhaps I should, if it stumps you like this every time." Holland doesn't mean to tease, or to be flippant, but apologizing makes him feel light, as if restrictions have been lifted off of him and he doesn't know how to control himself without them. He forces himself to sober. "I apologize for the way I spoke to you, and for being ungrateful. Helping my magic grow and keeping me alive has been… it's been deeply appreciated." It may not be true, but it may not be false, either. At moment, Holland finds more truth in it than he has before.
Kell, who Holland had been looking in the eyes, turns away from Holland, fixing his gaze on a spot in the distance. Holland follows his eyes, but it's just sky. He has always been good at waiting Kell out. "Alright."
"Alright," Holland echoes. What did that mean? "Should I try to apologize for what I said about your brother, or is that a losing battle?"
Kell's laugh is sudden and short, but gratified. He ducks his head down, as if giving in to it, and Holland's throat tickles. "I shouldn't have pushed it." The words are reluctant but deliberate.
"I shouldn't have said anything about Rhy."
Predictably, the hint of a smile drops from Kell's face. "No, you shouldn't have."
They sat there. Holland breathes in with care and puts his hands on his knees, turning even more towards Kell, aware that his fingers clutching tight to his knees are a tell and finding that he's okay with that. Kell, once again unable to sit still in silence, picks his bowl of soup back up again. The spoon clinks quietly.
The sun has sunk, and the air is getting colder; by the time Kell finishes the soup, the sky is only orange just above the roofs of the city houses and Holland is spending magic to keep himself warm.
Kell, always frivolous with his own magic, radiates warmth as if he's a sun in his own right. To Holland, he is. "Is there something else?" he asks, as he picks up his dishes and stands, moving at a leisurely pace. He doesn't seem to have completely warmed up to Holland again, but he has softened noticeably, his frown becoming more thoughtful than displeased.
Holland steels himself. "Will you join me for dinner tomorrow?"
Kell laughs the same gratified, surprised laugh again. "Yeah, alright."
"Just come," Holland says, the urge to smile finally overwhelming him, buzzing inside of him with building pressure. He smiles. "I have the dinner covered."
It looks like Kell is about to say something when he turns to Holland, lips parted, but he doesn't. Instead, he looks at Holland as if Holland as begun to glow against the evening sky, as if he has just witnessed a natural wonder.
His voice is raspy when he speaks. "You look happy."
The buzzing feeling rushing through him dissipates. He is happy.
When he gets back to his room, he coughs up several more roses and crushes one in his fist. It is a rose, soft in his hand, and it gives him no satisfaction to loosen his fingers and let the crushed rose, petals damply creased, fall to the table. He lies on his back in his bed, looks up at the ceiling, and wishes there were cracks he could trace with his eyes, or tiles to count.
He's not sure he's ready for happiness.
It's as if happiness is a guest he promised to host one day, when it was in the area, and it has suddenly shown up on his doorstep. Perhaps he could have known it was coming because of the postcards, but he hadn't put any thought into it. The house isn't ready, he doesn't have enough food, he doesn't have practice with guests and doesn't know how to make happiness content to stay.
When Kell arrives at his room and Holland pushes open the doors, leading him onto the balcony, where two settings are placed across from each other, Holland feels like running.
They sit, watching the sun go down, making small conversation about what Kell has been up to in the time they weren't speaking.
"What about you?" Kell asks.
Missing you, again comes to Holland's mind, heavy in his mouth. "Running errands," he says. "Visiting… home."
Kell leans forward when Holland mentions home, mismatched eyes flickering with interest. "Home?" he repeats. "How is it?"
Holland swallows nothing, and then he swallows to sips of wine, slightly faster than he usually does, without lingering on its taste. It's good wine; everything the palace serves is good.
"Or," Kell says, interrupting his thoughts as he tries to find the words, "Do you not want to talk about it."
It doesn't escape Holland's notice that Kell's watching him, again, his words careful. Kell, he realizes, is trying not to push it. There it is again, the buzzing feeling: happiness.
Holland struggles to breathe around it. Kell Maresh is being careful with him, and he's sitting silently, letting Kell Maresh be careful with him. He puts the wine glass down before he spills it.
"It's not anything like what you grew up in," Holland warns. It's not a challenge, a competition; Holland has probably suffered more in a year than Kell has in his entire life put together. It's just a preface.
Kell reads it as such, leaning back with his glass in his hand as if preparing to hear out a long story. Showing he's listening.
Holland considers his sentences before he sends them out, picking at them and moving them around, speaking slowly. He has never tried to express his life to anyone, not even in the privacy of his own head: to explain requires an imaginary audience, and he had no one to imagine speaking to. He doesn't know what to lead with, or which moments to emphasize.
"I was never safe, even when I was naive enough to be happy. My memories there are not good," he settles on. "But it's where I grew up, and it's what I know. I have to love it."
Consideringly, Kell murmurs, "Like family." His voice is scratchy when he murmurs like that, low. Intimate.
Holland exhales through his nose sharply, something akin to a laugh. "I killed my brother," he said. Kell's mouth opens slightly. "He tried to kill me first," Holland clarifies swiftly, "I killed him in self defense."
He has spent a long, long time winning that word over in his heart, letter by letter. Self-defense. It had been, of course, there was no question—but Alox had been his brother, no matter what he had done, and the only person in the world Holland had. Holland could have maimed him instead. Something other than turning him to stone and watching him shatter.
Holland watches Kell's throat move up and down as Kell swallows hard, looking upset. "Your brother tried to kill you," he says. And then, as if he finds it ridiculous to ask, "Was he older?"
Holland lifts one shoulder, struck with the urge to make light of the incident—despite the years it had haunted him—to alleviate Kell's obvious distress. "Yes. We were young, it was a long time ago."
This appears to be worse; Kell's eyes harden with a familiar righteous anger, except that it's turned in defense of Holland instead of against him this time. "You were young?"
Holland looks away. "The kind of power I had was…" Dangerous. "One of a kind."
"I'm sorry."
Holland doesn't have to see Kell's face to know he means it. The lantern on the wall lights the rim of Holland's glass, and he stares at that. "We don't all get lucky."
"I suppose we sometimes have to find our families," Kell says quietly. "We have to put them together ourselves."
If he apologized for Rhy, would it do anything? Holland hadn't been joking when he'd asked, but having not gotten any real answer, he's reluctant to ask again.
"I tried that too," Holland says wryly, instead. "My first lover tried to kill me." This is how, he supposes. It feels easier and more natural than he could have ever imagined, telling Kell about his life before everything else happened. "I killed her too. I turned her knife back on her when she tried to."
Kell stares. His wine is untouched in his hand, his body still, his gaze intent. Something unreadable passes over his face, but all he says is, "Sanct."
The sky is fully darkened now, and it's clear that aside from the wine, both of them are done eating, but Kell is making no move to get up and leave. Holland is acutely conscious of every passing minute, knowing that Kell will eventually have to return to his own rooms. Holland's own desire to savor each moment goes unheeded by the steady passage of time.
Holland drains the rest of his own glass. "She thought that the life she would have with me wasn't as good as the life she would have with the money they offered her for me." Part of him wants to admit that he understood her, at least somewhat. He had been bright-eyed and idealistic even then, hopeful enough to allow himself to fall in love and to believe the world could be turned around enough that he might live in peace one day. A few years afterward, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't have made the same choice in her position, if it guaranteed him a painless life. Or even a painless death. Hell, even a painful death he may have taken.
Kell says "Sanct," again, under his breath, and then, "Fuck. Anyone… since then?"
Holland shakes his head. "I knew better. And then, soon enough, I couldn't have even if I wanted to." Kell knows enough about the Dane twins that Holland figures he doesn't have to elaborate.
Kell is quiet for a long time. Not the tense silence from earlier, but a thoughtful space between words, filled with nothing but the occasional person's footsteps on the stone streets below, or a crackle from the fire inside Holland's room that Kell had lit with a snap of his fingers when he stepped in through the door. "If we're eating out there, you'll want your room warm after," he'd said by way of explanation. "You're always cold."
Fussed over by Kell Maresh: food, friendly check-ins, lit fireplaces.
Eventually, Kell lets out a long, heavy breath. "That explains why you act as if anyone who gets within a ten-foot radius of you will have approximately five seconds left to live."
Holland doesn't attempt to deny it; keeping people away has likely saved his life several times over, and he's never found an issue with the strategy. The problem is Kell, it's always Kell, clawing up his throat and making him taste blood.
Holland takes a breath. "That's what's at home."
With a nod, Kell downs the rest of the wine, like a shot. He seems to be considering responses. "But you never stopped fighting for White London." There it is again: the way he looks at Holland as if he's privately witnessing a wondrous natural phenomenon that he doesn't entirely understand, one that he wants to study in depth and then keep every discovery to himself.
It strikes Holland directly in the chest, that look. "I did once," he scrapes out.
It's obvious Kell understands what he's referring to, because his wondrous expression becomes muted, his brow creasing the slightest bit. "It was hardly a moment."
Holland looks at Kell. "You saved my life."
"I'm not really sorry if you didn't want to be saved."
Holland looks harder. Kell's mouth is pinched; he's staring at his empty glass. "Kell. Thank you."
"How much did you drink."
There's still more than half a bottle left on the table; they've only had a glass each. "Kell."
Kell finally does look up, but only to say earnestly, "White London is lucky to have you."
Holland grits his teeth. "Kell, I'm thanking you. Are you incapable of accepting gratitude?"
Kell's eyebrows raise in a way that suggests yes, he is. He just gazes back at Holland. Blue eye, black eye. He's leaning forward now, his forearms resting against the edge of the table. "Yeah. Alright."
Holland nods at him. "Rhy's lucky."
Kell badly suppresses a flinch at his brother's name. "Rhy," he says, "isn't sure if he would have… chosen this."
"To be alive?"
A laugh, darker this time, a touch bitter. "If you can call it that."
"He walks. He talks. He runs the fucking country—"
"His life is bound to mine—he can't even die."
"Good." Holland studies Kell. "We don't want him to."
"We," Kell echoes, and then says, "It should have been his choice."
Yes, well. Perhaps it should have been. Holland doesn't know how he would feel if he was Rhy, if he had watched a blade cut through his heart and steadfastly not died because, technically, he was already dead. He didn't know how he would feel, knowing Kell's death would mean his own, knowing he was a burden to Kell because of this.
To be resurrected irreversibly without being asked.
But neither could he imagine being Kell, crouched over his dying brother, the world in crisis around him, only a handful of moments to make his descion. Bringing a king back to a country who desperately needed one, clutching a young man who shouldn't be dying, who had loved and protected him and who he had always pledged to love and protect in return.
To look his brother in the eye, later, and to know that he could never take that choice back, even if Rhy wished he never had made it.
"I'm sorry," Holland tries.
"No," Kell says, after a surprisingly short pause. "It wasn't your choice."
"No. I meant for starting it all."
Kell's eyes find his. "You didn't. It wasn't your choice."
And Holland knows he isn't talking about tethering Rhy's life to Kell's own; he's talking about the locket and about Astrid and Anthos Dane. It wasn't your choice.
They sit together and finish the rest of the wine. They clean up the dishes from dinner, remarking dryly on the late hour, and go into Holland's room, closing the doors to the balcony behind them. Kell was right; Holland is very grateful for having lit the fire earlier, allowing it time to warm his room, because the tips of his fingers and ears are numb with cold by the time they go in.
When Kell leaves, Holland listens to Kell's footsteps get farther and farther, and then they halt.
Through the door, Holland can hear Kell coughing.