David looked up at the night sky. There was nothing to see. No stars, just clouds and streams of gently falling snow.
"Don't you think?" Michael asked, a thread of worry in his voice. David looked at him and saw that his smile had faded.
"Like a story," he said softly, thinking of those his nurse had once told, of brave heroes beloved like Michael was, and Michael smiled again, radiant, and said, "Just like a happily ever after."
David thought that in a story it would be. He was safe and no matter how much he made it snow it didn't ruin the land. He was safe and so was everyone else. He lived with a king in a shining castle, was part of a gleaming gilded world. He was cherished.
In a story it would be everything.
David thought about Alec every day. He missed his black moods, his sharp tongue. His smile.
His touch. The little room they shared, Alec's arms closing drowsily around him and murmuring that he had to get up, that he'd see him later. He missed Alec's scratchy cracked hands on his skin. He missed the gentle way Alec would look at him. He missed how angry he could get. He missed eating potatoes and washing in a tin tub and watching Alec fall asleep after dinner, exhausted and face gone soft in a way it never was when he was awake. He missed the way Alec looked at him, the way he saw who he was and looked past that, straight through to him. He missed Alec and realized that Alec had been wrong.
He knew exactly what love was.
***
The act that had passed through before‑‑dancers, John had said with enough of a smile for Alec to know what that meant‑‑had been cleared out in a hurry, chased out or run off. Either way they'd left behind pots of pinkish and yellowish paint, robes of cheap sheer fabric, and a pile of belongings that had been owned by those who had been there taking their pleasure. Alec had been slow to arrive, waking with a throbbing head from too much drink or not enough sleep or life in general, and when he did all that was left was a pair of shoes, the soles rotted through, and a few crumpled pieces of paper, dispatches of news from faraway places.
The papers had been stamped with an elaborately inked crest, the sign of a minor official wishing to have more power, and it covered most of the print. Roberta came by as he was holding them and said, "Next time get yourself here earlier," in that soft rolling voice of hers and showed him the robes she'd taken, twisting them up small in her hand when John walked by with an ease born of long practice. She'd been with John for a long time. He'd asked her how long once and she'd moved toward him gracefully, as if starting to dance, and then snaked a hand in front of his face, snapping her fingers so that her nails stung lightly against his skin. He knew enough of her by then to know what that meant. He knew what dancing had become to her.
"Enjoy your reading," John told him, his great wide grin eating up his face like always. "Maybe you'll share the news with us later?"
Alec shrugged and let John have his laugh, folded the papers into a tinier and tinier square and watched him walk off to inspect the crowd. John kept the money they made in a lockbox and wore the key around his neck. He complained often and bitterly about how little it was. He also wrote down the amount and kept the figures neatly folded in a pouch he never bothered to guard because he assumed none of them could read. Alec figured that might come in handy someday.
Roberta patted his shoulder. "Best get ready," she said and he said he would, that he just needed to get his things.
The wagon was out back‑‑close enough for them to pile into and flee should a hostile audience or overly interested inspector arise‑‑and he went and sat in it, gathering his gear and sitting cross‑legged, leaning against one side.
There was still joy to be had in the world, he thought, sitting there with the sun shining down through the bars to land on his face, and he almost believed it. Then he read the papers.
There was news of lands he'd never heard of, spice routes and wars and great delegations running alongside ornate lines penned to honor births and deaths, royalty and nobility dancing in and out of the world.
Then there was Michael's name in dusty print swimming across the middle of a page, and Alec held the papers tight and read.
David was to be crowned consort, had been chosen to be forever by Michael's side. There was a description of the crown he would be given, a list of attendees. Judith's name was second from the top, a long title resting next to it. At the end was a notice that the city would be decorated and that a day of celebration had been planned along with a call for blessings, right down to the preferred words one should utter.
He tossed the papers on the ground and looked at them lying there. After a moment the wind carried them away and he pictured them drifting, floating back to the desert he'd crossed and sinking into the hot sand. It didn't make him feel better but he was used to that now.
He'd hoped for a while and that had carried him across an endless sea of sand with a caravan full of traders who tolerated him because he asked no questions about the wares they carried, but then he'd passed to the other side and learned the land beyond contained nothing new. There were mines, resting inside mountains at the far edge of the horizon, and wherever he went that's where he was told to go. Even with the dust on his hands fading he wasn't able to escape who he'd always been told he was supposed to be. He thought about moving on, going farther, but knew that no matter where he went every land would be the same. It always was and always would be.
That was when he'd met John. He was standing in a square in a tiny parched town, singing and watching people stare markedly at his hands, at him, as they walked by and left nothing behind and John had stopped and asked him to sing a song. When Alec was done he asked him to sing one more.
"Miner, are you?" he asked, looking at his hands, and Alec said,
"Do you see me standing in rock now?"
"Surely don't," John said, a grin crossing his face and seeming to swallowing it, and then he'd offered Alec a job. Singing, he'd said and there was a little pause at the end of the word. Alec hadn't much cared about the pause then because suddenly there it was, a chance at the one thing he always thought he'd wanted more than anything.
The watcher John employed came out and squinted yellow‑eyed at him then, cracked the knuckles on one hand slowly, fist flexing. "Almost time," he said and when Alec was ready, the watcher would be the first one he'd tell about how much money John held.
He went back inside. He could hear the crowd, rowdy and laughing, calling for more, more and tossing coins at the stage. He sat down in a corner and painted dark onto his hands. He hadn't lost all the dust and knew he never would but it wasn't enough for John. He wanted Alec to look like he'd just staggered out into the light. He laced up his boots and hefted the pick John had made for him, lightweight and dull‑edged‑‑John was careful when it came to those kind of things‑‑into his hands.
Beside him Roberta shrugged her shoulders and shuddered, her neck and shoulders rippling into pale green flesh laced with tiny moving mouths. She was half mer, she'd told him once, had left the sea town that had been her home in hopes of becoming a dancer. "Wanted more than sliding about in the sea gathering pearls for princes," she'd said and he'd nodded. They didn't talk much but they drank together sometimes or sought out those who sold wormwood and shared a few lungfuls, held each other while they dreamed.
She went out before he did and he stood exactly where he was rolling the pick around in his hands. He didn't need to see her perform, didn't want to. Roberta had wanted to be a dancer and now she was, of sorts. She swam in a small clear tank John had made, dipping and twisting through water so those who had never seen her like before could watch.