Disclaimer: I do not own Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. I also expressly do NOT give permission for AI to use this work for training models.

Chapter Five

A Long Secret

Once Alek had gone and warned Mrs. Sharp about the hawk, he found himself pacing anxiously around the private wings of Konopiště. He knew in his heart of hearts that Dylan had retreated to his own chambers, and Alek did not want to violate Dylan's very clear desire for space. His delusional half, however, was hoping that he'd bump into the Dylan of weeks ago — before all this secret keeping nonsense had come between them.

Instead, Alek bumped into Jaspert.

"Your princeliness." Jaspert looked more relaxed than Alek had ever seen him, which is to say still not very. Dylan spoke of Jaspert like he was a phenomenally laid back man, but that persona seemed to be reserved for persons-not-Alek.

"Mr. Sharp," Alek said. "It's a pleasure to see you."

"Jaspert," Jaspert said. "I keep telling you."

"Right," said Alek, but did not feel quite brave enough to actually say it. It was a familiarity that Jaspert took for himself, but quite plainly showed that Alek didn't deserve.

"Why are you and Dylan not in egg heaven right now? I thought we wouldn't see hide nor hair of you lot for days."

"Well," Alek said. "Honestly, I'm not sure."

"You're not sure," Jaspert said, like Alek was a particularly slow dog. Sharps. The ability to make Alek feel like a dummkopf must be heritable. Jaspert then looked around the corridor. "C'mon, I s'pect this isn't a conversation we should be having in the middle of the hallway."

Jaspert shuffled them into a nearby supply closet.

"Of course," Alek said. "A supply closet."

"You can complain or you can tell me how you bollixed things up today."

Alek could hardly find Jaspert's eyes in the gloom. That alone gave Alek permission to speak. "It was perhaps in poor taste, but I made a joke about Dylan finding a wife, and then more seriously asked him why he hasn't."

Jaspert let out a low whistle, crisp in the confined space. "That's a landmine there, mate. You saw him get ticked at Ma for the same question and thought your best idea was to press him yourself?"

"Not my best moment, I admit," Alek said. "But — and you keep making this point — he deserves better than this. I'm not blind to that."

Alek could almost picture the shrewd look Jaspert shot him then, but thankfully it was too dark to see it. "Better than this or better than you?"

That was another thing the Sharp family seemed to have in common. They always saw straight to the heart of whatever truth Alek was avoiding. Dylan did deserve better than Alek, but that shouldn't have anything to do with a theoretical wife. Shouldn't being the key word there — somehow, the nature of Alek and Dylan's relationship had everything to do with a theoretical wife. "I'm hardly a wife," Alek said, a non-answer.

"Better than you, then." Jaspert distinctly snorted, his figure shifting in the darkness. "I'm going to give both of you shit about this for decades."

"Shit about what?" Alek cried.

"Oh no," Jaspert said. "I've spoken to Ma, I've pestered Volger, and I've spoken to Dylan himself a lot this week. I've got all the details, but, as I know everyone has told you, I'm not the right person to spill them."

"It has to come from Dylan," Alek said. "Deryn."

Jaspert made a satisfied sort of noise. "Exactly, your princeliness, and I truly don't think it'll be long now. Der went absolutely spare about all this years ago."

"Everyone keeps saying that, too. If Dylan "went spare" about all this years ago, why didn't he tell me then?"

"Dylan likes being spare," Jaspert said, laughing again. "Well, no. He's afraid you'll hate him. I know people have told you that, too."

"Right." Alek still just couldn't believe that. "I don't think I could hate him."

Jaspert made a retching noise. "Don't remind me. And on that note — I can't take much more of this. Just have patience, your princeliness. It'll all be fine."

Jaspert opened the closet door then, and for a moment the light was blinding. Alek blinked away the stars in his vision just in time to catch a glimpse of Jaspert's expression. He thought the best word for it might be endeared, but that couldn't be true. Jaspert hadn't ever found Alek endearing.

There was no time to clarify, because Jaspert was already striding away in just the same manner that his brother tended to. Sharps. Alek thought he might love them all.

After emerging from the closet himself, he went straight to Dylan's chambers. Alek wasn't sure that this was his brightest idea, but he nevertheless knocked trepidatiously on the heavy wooden door. "Dylan?" he called. "The chicks are all settled. The hawk foster idea seems to be working."

There was a moment of silence before Dylan answered. "Good." He did not open the door, but there was genuine relief in his voice. "I'll see you at dinner."

"Are you okay?" Alek asked. "I'm sorry for everything I said, really."

"No you're not," Dylan said, but with a good natured note that was comforting. "Alek, I'm fine. I will see you at dinner."

Alek swallowed thickly. "Are you sure?"

"Alek," Dylan said, a warning.

"Dinner," Alek said. "I will see you at dinner. Have a nice day, Dylan."

Cowardice. That's what it was. Alek was a coward.

As he oh-so-bravely ran away from Dylan's chamber door, he felt a sharp pinch of self loathing. He tried to let it go. Hating himself didn't do anybody any good.

There was nothing to it but to wait.

The waiting did not pay off. Dylan was late to dinner.

"Put me on all the cooking, you'd think Der'd have the decency to show up," Mrs. Sharp said irritably.

"He said he would see me at dinner," Alek said. "He must just be late."

Mrs. Sharp shook her head. "The two of you on the outs again? I'd have thought you two would be well occupied with the beasties."

"Alek made a joke about finding Dylan a wife," Jaspert said, rubbing at his temple.

Mrs. Sharp distinctly giggled. Volger, from his spot at the end of the table, gave Alek a look of amused disdain.

"I cannot wait to understand why this is funny." Alek folded his arms over his chest, not caring if it looked unacceptably pouty for a grown man — a reigning monarch, no less.

"I wish I could promise that it would be soon," Mrs. Sharp said before piling another serving of potatoes on Alek's plate. "Alas, I thought it would be soon ten years ago."

That was not reassuring.

"Anyway, it wasn't just about the wife thing. It turned into a whole argument about his secrets. I didn't mean to bring it all up, but."

"Every time I think you might not be an idiot, you manage to prove me wrong," Volger said. "What did I say about letting him come to you? About patience?"

Mrs. Sharp muttered something unflattering in Scots, then sighed. "I 'spose you couldn't keep carrying all that tension around. Something was bound to give."

"What if he hates me for pushing the confrontation?"

Jaspert looked a little like he wanted to die, but said, "I think Dylan has about as much chance of hating you as you have of hating him. Don't worry about it. Seriously."

Just then, the sound of swishing skirts filtered in from the doorway. Jaspert distinctly paled.

Alek turned to look. At first he assumed it was the cook, come to stage an official protest about her work being usurped by a small army of paranoid Sharps. It wasn't. Alek's next instinct was to worry about a second assassination attempt. But the woman in the doorway was familiar, somehow. She was tall — taller than Alek, even — and wiry.

"My God," Volger said. "You stupid woman. I was sure Alek was the dramatic one."

The woman glared at him. "Shut up, Count," she said in Dylan's beloved voice, running a hand through Dylan's close cropped yellow hair. She looked nervous.

Mrs. Sharp, on the other hand, was beaming. "Deryn," she said, and this time it was clearly not a slip of her tongue.

"Ma," Deryn said warily. "Jaspert. Alek."

"Dylan?" Alek asked softly.

"Aye." Deryn said, clasping her hands at the front of her skirt. "That's me. Well. Deryn, really. And I'm wearing it to make a point, but blisters, I think I forgot how much I hate skirts. So don't expect me to wear 'em often. Or ever again."

Somewhere in Dylan's little speech, Alek had risen from his chair. He sent an uncertain glance at Volger, who nodded shortly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I don't know what I was expecting out of you, Miss Sharp," Volger said. "But I don't know that I was expecting this."

"Shut up, Count," Dylan said again. His eyes — her eyes? — were, however, fixated on Alek. Alek stepped hesitantly toward him, placed a hand on each of his shoulders, ran them down the length of his arms.

Her arms. Abruptly, Alek realized that this contact — so normal between him and Dylan — was utterly inappropriate between him and this woman he didn't really know. He blushed brilliantly and pulled his hands away.

Except he did know her. Volger had been clear about that much. Alek intimately knew Dylan, and all those things Alek knew about him were true of this Deryn. Mrs. Sharp's daughter. Jaspert Sharp's sister. This tall blonde woman in a long, vaguely outdated skirt. Something she'd pulled from her mother's wardrobe probably, because she didn't own any herself.

"Alek," Dylan said. "Say something."

"Deryn." Alek said, because Dylan still asserted itself in his head and Alek thought he'd need practice to get this right. He'd need practice to think and say his best friend's real name.

God's wounds, the name Alek had in his head for his best friend was wrong. He looked to Volger for help or guidance. Volger offered neither.

"You knew about this?" Alek demanded, suddenly so very tempted to go back on his promise to take this well.

Volger simply nodded.

"Fencing lessons." Deryn offered.

"Fencing lessons," muttered Mrs. Sharp, looking cross. Jaspert looked vaguely nauseated.

Alek stared at Volger, begging his mind not to jump to wild conclusions.

"What?" Volger snapped. "You have to adjust a student's stances. Certain things are obvious even when touching a student as little as possible, and I wasn't certain until she confirmed it when confronted."

Alek felt his shoulders relax, saw mild relief on Jaspert's face. Mrs. Sharp looked perhaps a little less cross.

"It wasn't like that." Deryn said, rolling her eyes at all three of them. "You know the Count. Only thing he wanted was to blackmail me into protecting Alek, and I was doing that anyway."

There were all sorts of implications to this conversation that Alek decided he didn't want to think too hard about. Instead, he looked back at his friend. His best friend. Perhaps the only friend Alek really had, who was Alek's friend before he — she — was anything else.

"Deryn," Alek said again, awkwardly wetting his lips. "I guess this explains a lot."

He thought about that for a moment. Thought about Lilit and Adela Rodgers. "Except why you're so adamant that you don't want a wife. Maybe Lilit would be interested after all."

"You dafty," Deryn said fondly. "This is why she was interested in the first place. But me? I'm afraid Lilit isn't my type." That last sentence was almost a purr.

Alek didn't care to examine his palpable feeling of relief. Or the odd glimmer that shot down his spine.

"I'm sorry, what?" This came from Mrs. Sharp, but Alek wasn't paying her enough attention to offer explanation.

"Wait, does this mean Lilit knew, too?" Alek asked, feeling stupid all over again.

"She's basically the only person who figured it out right away," Deryn said sheepishly. "I think her crush on me — when she doesn't like men — gave her a clue."

Alek figured that made sense.

"She figured it out faster than Volger, even, if that makes you feel any better."

Volger made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. It was that irritated noise, more than anything else, that did make Alek feel better.

"Deryn," Alek said.

"Yes?" Deryn tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I just wanted to say it."

"Oh. Say it again?"

"Deryn," Alek said. "Deryn Sharp."

Jaspert audibly groaned in dismay. Alek hardly noticed because Deryn beamed at him — that smile that was reserved for Alek and the open sky.

Deryn's smile was Dylan's smile. The two of them truly merged in Alek's head, then.

Alek was beaming, too.

Mrs. Sharp and Count Volger were also beaming, but Alek wasn't watching them. He entirely missed the two of them exchange a brief and deeply out of character high five.

Bovril, however, did manage to get Alek's attention. It was a whisper straight in Alek's ear, clearly meant just for him. "Mr. Sharp," Bovril said. "Your wife."

This time, Alek understood.

Author's Note: *incoherent screaming.* This fic was finished before I ever started posting, but for whatever reason I just couldn't stop picking at the last couple of chapters. I think I just didn't want to be done yet, if that makes sense. It has been so fulfilling to sit with Deryn and Alek again after all these years.

I hope you all enjoyed reading The Greater War as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you for your readership, and for coming along with me on this little ride.

As usual, any comments and concrit are very very appreciated.