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Sebastian Shaw spared no expense when it came to these Royal Society of Magic soirees.
Charles tried not to look too much like a gawking idiot. He was rich; he was no stranger to fancy parties, although he had sequestered himself in Oxford, with its cheap beer and its raucous rallies, for quite a long time. But this opulence, this glamour… it was on another level entirely. Diamonds dripped from the chandeliers, which danced along the ceilings untethered by any chain, floating high above the heads of the partygoers. The banquet table was luxuriously appointed, the theme swans and birds—watermelon cut into the shape of flying birds, and small roasted songbirds pierced through with golden arrows, as though they had been roasted on a spit made of the fire of the gods—but more stunning was the swan made of ice that craned its neck gracefully and swam about a glistening fountain of honeyed champagne, showing absolutely no predilection towards the nastier side of swan behavior; the work of cryomancer Emma Frost, no doubt, socialite and longtime paramour of Shaw’s. The women swirled around in tulle and chiffon; the men wore shimmering cloth o’gold and silver.
Charles felt very underdressed in his sober black tailsuit. He was a novice initiate to the RMS, plucked straight from Oxford because of his talent in the psionic magicks, and he had laughed when Raven, the skinchanging recruiter they had sent, had warned him that the parties could be… overwhelming. He was a Xavier; he’d attended a ball at the palace once. This was… worse. So much worse. He found a little shadowy corner where his dark clothes and his wheeled chair would not be quite as noticeable, and stayed back to observe. The world of the magical arts was a cutthroat one, he’d always heard; mages either lived forever or for just long enough to get into trouble and end up with their throat slit floating in the Thames. Best to stay out of sight, not piss anyone off, and live to dance at another party.
It was his luck that just as he sank into the shadows, Shaw arrived, fashionably late, and with the creation of the moment on his arm.
Even Charles had heard the rumors. The way Shaw had poured quintessential energy into an iron sculpture and brought the thing to living, breathing life. Shaw was a mage beyond compare; Shaw was powerful in ways that most in the Society could only dream of being; and now he had proven it by borrowing from God’s domain, bringing animation to the inanimate. Immediately, Charles heard the whispers kick up—the jealous hisses, the claims that surely the thing on Shaw’s arm was a puppet, whose every step and bow to the members of the Society was masterminded by Shaw or perhaps Frost, not a sentient creature. Charles craned his head, and caught a lucky glimpse of the thing between the press of bodies that had risen to welcome Shaw, and—
—and fell in love.
The statue was the most beautiful apparition Charles had ever seen before. He was not made of iron; in fact, but for irises of coal-dark material, his body seemed to be flesh as supple and soft as anyone’s. The planes of his face, his body, the piercing quality of those metallic eyes—Charles only met them for a second but when they flashed in his direction his hands spasmed involuntarily on the rests of his wheel-chair. He looked like a statue, a Michelangelo perhaps, tall but not as tall as Shaw, slim, the sheer perfection of the human form, now draped in light gauzy linen and Greek style-sandals to accentuate the broadness of his shoulders tapering to a trim waist, the definition of his calves; he was more than human, greater than vain and vulnerable flesh. Charles’s mouth was very dry. He wiped his hands on his trousers, suddenly grateful that absolutely no one at the party was paying him the slightest attention.
“Sorcerers and witches,” Shaw proclaimed triumphantly, “my greatest creation.” The statue bowed his head, demurely almost, though Charles caught the way he cast a glance at Shaw, insolent almost, like a peasant stealing a glance of a god-king. He knew, immediately, that there was no way Shaw was puppeting this creature; that that look of mingled awe and hatred was so intensely human that there was nothing to believe that Shaw had succeeded, had with alchemy and magicks more potent than any that had ever passed through Charles’s hands, made life.
Shaw clapped. “And now… we celebrate.”
And the party roared into whirling, giggling, shouting life.
Charles watched from the corners, trying to catch glimpses of the statue’s beauty where he stood at Shaw’s right hand, often a possessive arm thrown over his shoulders or around his waist. The statue bore it with grace, although Charles often caught him looking to the side, curiously examining the intricacies of the ballroom, or watching the banquet table with something akin to hunger. Once, just once, the statue’s eyes slid to him, and Charles knew he should look away, but the strength of those eyes on him temporarily deprived him of his senses, and he stared back, helplessly lost in the ocean sway of the statue’s gaze. When the creature glanced away, Charles sucked in a breath, suddenly aware that he had been holding it, that he had gone light-headed from lack of oxygen.
Good God, man, he thought to himself, pull yourself together. It’s just a statue.
“Hello,” the statue said from in front of him, and could he have, Charles would have jumped out of his wheel-chair. As it was, he nearly toppled over.
“I—er—hello,” he stuttered out.
“May I sit here?” the statue asked. Charles inclined his head, dumbstruck. He glanced over; Shaw was gesticulating wildly, Frost at his hip—the statue would not be missed for a while. The statue settled next to Charles on one of the benches that lined the walls, elaborate carvings of griffins and other mythical and less-mythical creatures twining up the legs of the bench. “I saw you staring at me from across the hall. Have you never seen a statue before?”
“I—” Charles choked out, but the statue was—smiling, tinily, more a faint quirk of the lips than anything. “You’re teasing me,” Charles said, astonished.
“Is that what I’m doing? There are so many words.” The statue sighed and stretched out his legs, looking at his bare toes in the sandal straps almost curiously.
“Is it—it must be strange for you,” Charles said curiously. “Life.”
“No stranger than it is for you,” the statue said. He glanced sideways at Charles. “Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Ask what?”
“If I’m my master’s puppet. If I can truly think for myself. Everyone else has.”
“And what would you say?” Charles asked curiously.
The statue shrugged. “I’m not sure. I can certainly think, but is thought enough to pass the threshold of sentience? Perhaps all of these thoughts are simply instilled in me by my master; is that not the same as puppetry?”
“No,” Charles says. “If you think, you are.”
A slow smile spread across the statue’s face. “Descartes. I like that.”
“You know Descartes?” Charles said, surprised into a smile.
“As well as anyone might,” the creature said, with that same faint smile. “Isn’t he dead?”
“Very,” Charles confirmed. He hesitated, remembering the statue’s envious stares at the dessert table, and held out his own small platter of treats that he’d spirited away before the party could begin in earnest. “Would you… would you like something to eat?”
“I…” the statue eyed the platter greedily. “I’m not allowed…”
“I won’t tell,” Charles promised.
Quick as thought, the statue plucked a chocolate truffle from Charles’s outstretched plate. His expression when it burst into colorful life on his tongue was—astonishing. Charles laughed at him, and after a moment, the statue giggled with him, and Charles was treated to a full smile. The statue’s smile was crooked. It was a charming imperfection in the otherwise flawless facsimile of perfect beauty. Charles stared, transfixed, at the dimple at the corner of his mouth.
“Can I ask you something?” the statue said.
“Of course,” Charles said, and was surprised to find that he meant it.
“Why aren’t you dancing? Or at least trying to speak to my master about me. Why were you just—staring?”
“I—ah—I’m not one for dancing.”
“Your legs?” the creature said naively. “My master could—”
“Perhaps one day,” Charles said briskly. “I… I am not learned enough in the physical arts to attempt such a task myself, and… I am no one in the Society. Certainly not someone that Sebastian Shaw would deign to heal.”
“You are a mage,” the statue said. “If not the physical arts, then what do you do?”
“Would you like to know how I know you think?” Charles asked. The statue hesitated, then nodded.
Like this, Charles spoke into the statue’s mind, and the statue’s eyes went round as silver coins. Charles stared into the gray churn of them, felt the delight and the surprise whirling through the creature’s mind, and smiled. The statue’s mind was as sparklingly beautiful as their surroundings. Charles imagined him like—not a palace, but a new and lovely form of architecture just coming into being; high rafters, arches, flying buttresses, and stained glass casting color on everything in sight.
“You are a psion,” the statue said with delight.
“You’re learned in your magical skills,” Charles said.
“I am magic,” the statue replied. “Forgive me, mage. I never asked your name.”
“Charles,” he said, and realized that he had never returned the favor. “And yours?”
The statue shrugged. “Art is titled, not named,” he said with that faint smile—a smile Charles had come to realize was one of unhappiness, not little mirth.
“Would you like one? A name.”
“I—” the statue struggled. Charles wondered if this was the first time anyone had ever asked him what he wanted. “Yes. Yes, I would like that every much.”
Charles racked his memories. He wanted something as regal as the statue was, as simple and straightforward and passionate as his mind; he didn’t want to name the statue after another, lest he corrupt him with the memory of the last person to bear that name. “Erik,” he said after a moment.
“Erik,” the statue said, turning it over in his mouth like an exotic sweet. “Yes. I like it. Erik. Charles. What does it mean?”
“Eternal ruler,” Charles said, and Erik—laughed, just a small thing, but he seemed surprised at himself, and Charles wondered, dazedly, if that was the first time he’d ever laughed, and how lovely the sound was for its newness.
“I don’t know if I’m eternal,” Erik said. “And I’m hardly master of anything, much less myself.”
“Art is more eternal than man,” Charles argued. “And you—you have a bearing about you. A fitness to rule. You are—a king on the chessboard, Erik.”
Erik ducked his head down and flushed, and Charles watched, charmed, as blood spread under his skin. If he had ever any doubt that Erik was proof of the impossible, it was gone now—had been gone, truly, since Erik had sidled up next to him and asked if he could sit there. “I know that game,” he said after a moment. “Chess. But I don’t know how to play.”
“I could teach it to you,” Charles offered, and Erik smiled brilliantly, and opened his mouth to reply—
“There you are,” a cold voice cut into their conversation, and at once Erik was blank-faced, and, Charles noted with terror, looked more lifeless than he had all evening. Sebastian Shaw—god, Sebastian Shaw himself—strode up to them and grasped Erik’s wrist with a firm hand. He barely glanced at Charles. “Come, my beauty,” he told Erik, “time to dance,” and with that same firm grip towed Erik out onto the dance floor. Charles watched as Shaw put possessive hands on Erik’s hips, as he led him in steps that Erik danced with practiced grace.
Over Shaw’s shoulder, Erik met his eyes. Charles watched helplessly and ached—as though the moon had briefly covered the sun, but with no end in sight to this eclipse. As if he were a lover not scorned but bereft, not helpless but hopeless. As if he were a minor mage at a party, and the one he loved was dancing in Sebastian Shaw’s arms, and looking at him, with hollow eyes, and Charles’s arms felt very empty indeed by his sides.