Work Text:
Even in the midst of the Pinhoe troubles, Cat wrote to Tonino. Dear Tonino, he would scribble. I hope you are well today. He would chew his pen. I miss you. Then he would cross the last sentence out. Then he would crumple up the paper and toss to the floor. Then he would set the paper on fire. Then he would repeat the process a few times before he got the hang of it and finished a page.
That was almost every morning. Once every two days he would hand a letter to the same footman along with a coin for the post. He had forgotten, by then, that Chrestomanci steamed letters open if he thought there was anything he should know in them.
=
Tonino wrote back every three days. (The discrepancy worried Cat for a while, until he realized that Tonino’s letters were simply a little bit longer than his.) Their letters crossed, and after a few months, they divided their letters into sections, replying to different letters in each part. Cat would take the letters back to his room to read them. The footman always gave Cat the letters separately from everyone else’s post. For a long time, Cat did not think that any of this was strange. It was natural that, because he wrote so many letters so routinely, he would give them to the same footman. It was natural that the footman would seek him out to give him the letters when they arrived instead of at post time because Cat liked reading them so much. It was natural that he would read them in his room rather than in the playroom or at the table because he wanted to be alone, because then he would feel like Tonino was in the room with him, talking just to him.
It was natural until one night when Cat and Janet were sneaking down to the kitchen to steal puddings. They tiptoed through the Castle’s now-cozy softness, down stone steps and through dark passageways, until they were passing into the warmer, central part of the Castle. Janet threw up her hand suddenly and Cat promptly tripped over a step, bruising his knee. He did not cry out, however, nor make too much sound falling, and so when Janet pulled him up with an apologetic expression on her face he realized that she had signaled because there were voices speaking.
“… whatever the Duke thinks,” Chrestomanci was saying.
“I don’t like that at all,” Millie said. “The Milanese administration is significantly less than trustworthy.”
Chrestomanci and Millie were in a sitting room at the end of the corridor Cat and Janet were lurking in. The children exchanged interested looks and edged forward, listening. Janet loved hearing about Italy, and Cat did not mind learning more about politics, which he found himself rather interested in these days.
“They did sign a thoroughly binding treaty,” Chrestomanci said. “But of course, they were just as upset over the White Devil incident as everyone else.”
“You could go back to Caprona,” Millie suggested. “What do the Montanas think of the situation? Have you written to them recently?”
“Not for a while, no. And I haven’t been reading Tonino’s letters to Cat, of course.”
“They were giving good information, but…” Millie trailed off. “Yes. I quite understand why you stopped.”
Chrestomanci sighed. “I don’t know what to do about that. I am not sure I should do anything. I feel I would only come across as discouraging, were I to say anything to Cat.”
“When really you would only be… cautioning.”
“Yes. We have, after all, some experience in the matter.” There was a pause. “I do hope Tonino will come back soon.”
“We could arrange for him to return. It would also be a good excuse to write to the Montanas.”
“Not that I need one, really, with a cousin there…”
Cat and Janet waited, but the clacking of Millie’s needles began and Cat figured they were done talking. His heart was beating very fast. Tonino might come back! he kept thinking. By the time they got to the kitchen, there was a big, silly grin on his face.
“Ooh, there’s still fudge,” said Janet, messing around in the pantry. “And a mint bar! Here.” She passed it back. “Have you heard anything about what’s happening in Italy?”
“No,” said Cat thickly, chewing on a piece of licorice. “I think it’s all political. Hasn’t made the papers.”
“That’d make sense,” said Janet, emerging with half a slightly stale cake. “Nobody’ll miss this. Grab a knife.”
Janet served the cake and they sat on the counter, munching. Finally Janet put down her plate and said, “Do you know what Chrestomanci meant about—cautioning?”
Cat frowned. “No. I’ve been wondering. I can’t think what he meant.”
“Do you think—he meant about you and Tonino?” Janet said. She sounded hesitant. Cat looked over at her. She was staring at him with a peculiar expression.
“What?” said Cat blankly.
Janet bit her lip. “About—oh, Cat. I don’t know how to say this. About you and Tonino.”
Cat shook his head at her. “What?” he said again.
“You write to him all the time,” said Janet. “And you go off to your room to read the letters and you come back with this expression on your face like you’re—in heaven or something. Like you looked when we came in, you know, since Tonino might be coming back.” Cat was still blank. Janet pressed on, “You like him quite a lot, right?”
“Tonino? Yes,” said Cat slowly. “But what does that have to do with—”
Janet closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. “Good god, Cat. Could you be any denser? Do you love Tonino? No—are you in love with Tonino?”
Cat felt himself grow utterly cold. His confusion, already at a low breeze, whipped into a gale momentarily, making him queasy, then calmed to stagnation. This simply had not occured to him.
“Oh, Cat.” Janet looked pained. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, I—” Cat said in a small voice. “Janet, I—I didn’t… understand. And I don’t—” He clicked his shoes together, trying to find words. “I didn’t know a boy could… love another boy. It… wasn’t something I knew could happen.” He swallowed. “Until now.”
Janet didn’t say anything for a while. Then she put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him so tightly his chest hurt.
=
Cat didn’t write to Tonino for two weeks. Every morning he would get up, wash, dress, go to his desk, and stare at a blank sheet of paper for an hour. Then he would go to breakfast, poke at his food, and stare at more blank paper in the classroom. Mr. Saunders started getting worried. Janet kept trying to talk to him, and he would reply to her easily enough, but he wouldn’t say much, and nothing about… it.
Tonino, of course, kept writing, and Cat read all the letters as soon as they came with epic, bloody wars taking place in his chest. Finally there came a letter that read:
Ciao tesoro,
I have not had a letter from you in five days. I hope there is nothing wrong at the Castle. I know that sometimes you get up to trouble, and Chrestomanci does many strange and busy things and you help him sometimes, and you do many strange and busy things yourself. I hope that you are safe and that your magic is strong.
My family has told me that they have been arranging with Chrestomanci for me to come back to visit. They told me at dinner and I tried to be happy, but I am worried that you have not written. And this is foolish because by the time you recieve this you will have written me, I am sure, and so I am worrying about nothing. You are not angry with me, are you? Ah, I feel stupid writing this. But I must say it because it is what I am thinking. I value you, Cat, above many precious things; you are as family to me, and family is the strongest bond I know.
Con tanto amore,
Tonino
=
There were two problems.
The first problem was that mail took about five days to travel from Britain to Italy, which meant that Tonino had had no letter from Cat for ten days. And so, Cat thought, scribbling a letter to Chrestomanci apologizing for what he was about to do, Tonino must be truly worried by now.
The second problem was that Cat had never transported himself to somewhere as far away as Caprona before.
It was difficult work preparing the spell. Cat drew a pentagram on the floor of his room with water from a vase of flowers, stood in the middle of it and focused. With his hands, and in his mind, he traced the shape of the Earth, the outline of the continents. He held the Castle in his mind’s eye, and turned the globe his magic had built to southern Europe, to Italy, to Caprona.
He opened his eyes when a breeze fled across him, and somebody shouted in a foreign language, and he smelled water.
Cat was standing on a bridge. All around him, people were walking back and forth, speaking rapidly to one another in what had to be Italian. It was surprisingly warm, and Cat immediately reached up to take off his jacket. He draped it over his shoulder and looked around. He was rather impressed with himself.
“Mi scusi,” he said to a woman walking by with a basket of bread. “Casa Montana?”
The woman replied for about a minute, but most importantly, she pointed. Cat nodded, acting like he understood. “Grazie,” he said, using up his Italian, and went the way she had gestured.
It had been obvious to him as soon as he read the letter what he had to do. He felt sick about Tonino. It had been utterly selfish of him not to respond to those letters. Cat thought about when he had first met Tonino, and had tried to keep Janet from getting measles so he didn’t have to be alone with Tonino, and he had felt like an awful person then as well. But this was an entirely different sort of awful. This was a selfishness that truly hurt others, that must have already truly hurt Tonino.
Casa Montana was an impressive place, but Cat was too distracted to look at it much. He marched nervously up the long drive, and by the time he got to the front doors, what looked like the entire family was there to meet him.
The Montanas were gathered in the threshold and had spilled out into the entry. There were simply too many of them, and they all had bits of Tonino in their faces—his nose on one man, his cheekbones on one girl, and so on. Cat stared, and they stared right back. Finally he managed to say, “Er… ciao.” He pointed to himself. “Cat—Eric Chant.”
At which point a boy Cat’s age that looked more like Tonino than the rest of them took ten strong steps forward and socked Cat in the jaw.
=
Cat fell down mainly out of shock. There was an instant uproar. The whole family surged forward, yelling in Italian, and grabbed the boy back. The boy was yelling angrily at Cat and making truly alarming gestures. A woman with straight blonde hair the color of Tonino’s fought out of the crowd and went over to Cat and helped him up, looking half angry, half apologetic. “I’m so sorry, Cat,” she gasped in perfect English, glaring back at the boy. “Paolo has no manners! And you’ve come all this way.”
I deserved that, Cat thought, feeling his cheek. He looked at his fingers. They were smeared with red. Paolo had been wearing a ring. The woman touched his cheek, her eyes flashing. She spun around and yelled in Italian at the boy, who looked chastened for the first time. Then she yelled at the rest of the family, and quite to Cat’s shock, they all disappeared inside, including Paolo.
“I am Elizabeth Montana, Tonino’s mother,” said the woman. Then she stopped, looking like she wasn’t sure what else to say. “Did you… come by train?”
“Er,” said Cat. “No. I came by magic.” He looked at the cobblestones. “I felt bad about not writing to Tonino.” He looked up again. “How is he? Can I see him?”
“Of course you can,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “I think he will be happy to see you. Again, I am sorry about Paolo. You see, to answer your first question, Tonino has not been himself for the past week. Paolo… thinks it is your fault.”
“It is my fault,” Cat confessed. “I should have written.”
Elizabeth looked as if she dearly wanted to ask why he did not, but prudently refrained. She led him into the casa proper, into a great, beautiful courtyard. The edges of it were lined with relatives, all staring at them and whispering in Italian. Paolo, to Cat’s relief, was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth led him out of the courtyard, down a corridor, and up a few flights of stairs until they reached a small door at the end of a hall.
“I’ll leave you here,” she said quietly, and disappeared back down the stairs.
Cat stared at the door.
The door did not exactly stare back, but Cat thought that it might as well have.
Cat turned in a circle, took a large breath, and knocked.
There was a pause, then a soft, obviously negative answer in Italian, and Cat’s heart stopped beating and started tearing itself up from the inside. He had never felt so awful in his life. He was supposed to be responsible for Tonino, and look what he had done. Trying to keep his voice calm, he said into the door, “Tonino, it’s Cat. Can I come in?”
There was no reply. Cat waited for a full minute before pushing the door open.
It was a small, cozy room with a window seat and a sloped ceiling. There were stacks of books on every surface. In the middle of the messy bed, in a nest of pillows and blankets, was Tonino, whose pale blond hair was messy and unwashed, and who had obvious tear tracks down his cheeks.
“Tonino,” gasped Cat, rushing forward. Tonino stared at him, his stained face even more fearful and trusting than usual. “Oh, Tonino, I’m so sorry—I was being an ass—I don’t—”
Tonino surged suddenly out of his blankets and met Cat halfway across the room. He wrapped his arms around Cat’s neck and kissed him.
Tonino tasted like tears, which made Cat feel even worse for a moment. But then he registered that he was tasting Tonino, which quite reversed his feelings. Then he stopped thinking at all and just kissed. He had never felt anything like it—like he could communicate without speaking, like the strongest magic in the world was nothing compared to this. He had no idea how long they went on for. It really could have been hours, and by the way his lips felt when Tonino finally pulled away, it might well have been.
“Cat,” said Tonino, his voice broken. “Cat, I thought you were gone. I was being so unreasonable but I could not help it—I thought you had died and the news was slow in coming—”
“I promise I haven’t died recently,” said Cat, his hand cupping Tonino’s cheek. “Oh, Tonino! I’ve plenty more lives!”
“Why did you not write? What has been happening?” Tonino asked. He took Cat’s hand and led him to his bed. They sat side by side, their thighs pressed against each other.
Cat felt shame rising up in his throat. “I got scared,” he said to his feet. “I didn’t realize that I—that I had romantic feelings for you. And then I did realize, two weeks ago, and—and I didn’t know what to do.”
Tonino stared at him. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” Cat admitted. “I’m so sorry!”
Tonino made an explosive noise and Cat jumped before realizing that Tonino was laughing. Tonino laughed so hard he started crying again. Cat couldn’t help himself. He started laughing too. He put his arms around Tonino and they leaned on each other and laughed until they hurt.
Finally, when they could breathe, Tonino touched Cat’s face and said, “What happened to your cheek?”
“Oh, um,” said Cat, hesitating. “Paolo, actually.”
He felt Tonino grow stiff beside him. “What?”
“Well, when I came to the gates and introduced myself, Paolo came out and hit me—Tonino!”
Tonino had leapt off the bed and was already through the door. Cat took off after him. They wove back through the corridors and stairways and back into the courtyard, where Cat was just in time to see Tonino tackle Paolo, yelling in Italian.
Paolo yelled and hit right back. They rolled around on the floor, a whirling ball of kicking legs and punching fists and screaming Italian. The Montana children immediately gathered around Tonino and Paolo, cheering. It took the adults a few moments to realize what was happening, and by the time they pulled the brothers apart, Paolo’s nose was bleeding and Tonino’s eyebrow was split.
Elizabeth, who had come running up from the kitchen, sighed. “Cat, I think you should probably stay for dinner.”
=
After dinner, which consisted of Tonino and Cat sitting very close to one another and Tonino trying to translate everything for Cat, which was impossible, along with massive quantities of pasta, they went to see Old Niccolo in his study.
“What are we doing?” Cat whispered to Tonino. “Why does he want to see us?”
“So he can see if he approves of you,” Tonino whispered back. “They do this with everyone.”
“But—we’re not exactly—”
“Yes, I know,” said Tonino, turning a little red. “I am—not sure what he will say. I did not expect him to want to bring you in to approve of you. I did not know I had been so… obvious.”
Cat very prudently did not say anything to this.
Niccolo was sitting in a high leather armchair, studying an old spell scroll. He looked up when Cat and Tonino approached, and pulled his glasses down to peer at them.
“You are the English boy?” he said. His voice was thick and gruff, and Cat was immediately dismayed.
“Yes, sir,” said Cat nervously. “Eric Chant.”
“You are to be next Chrestomanci, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” said Cat. “I am being trained now, sir.”
“Are you any good, then?” Niccolo demanded.
“Chrestomanci says I have the strongest magic he’s ever seen,” said Cat.
“Hm,” said Niccolo, looking highly judgmental. “Hm.” He turned to his left. “Benvenuto, what do you think?”
Cat looked over to see a massive, shaggy tomcat leap down from an open window and wander over to sit next to Niccolo. The cat stared at Cat.
“Yes,” said Tonino, apropos of nothing. Cat looked at him. He was apparently talking to the cat.
“That is good enough for me,” said Niccolo, clapping his hands together. “I cannot possibly object. A man cannot be worse than a Petrocchi. And I like this boy. He has virtue.” Niccolo nodded to Cat. “You have my blessing. See you keep my grandson safe, young Chant.”
“Yes, sir,” said Cat. And that was it. Tonino took Cat’s wrist and led him out of Niccolo’s study.
“Do I have to marry you now or something?” said Cat.
Tonino laughed. “Yes, Cat, that is exactly what you have to do.”
=
The next day, Cat drew a pentagram in the middle of the courtyard with borrowed chalk. Tonino and Paolo placed Tonino’s trunk in the middle of it, and Paolo nodded shortly at Cat. There was a lot in that nod: “Sorry about yesterday. You’re decent, really. But if you hurt Tonino again, I will kill you.” Tonino hugged about ten people goodbye and then stepped into the pentagram, next to his trunk. Cat stood across from him and took Tonino’s hands in his. He closed his eyes. The warmth of Tonino’s skin, the pulse in his fingers, made the map in Cat’s head come faster, smoother. And when they arrived in the main hall at Chrestomanci Castle, everything felt right again.
Chrestomanci, Millie, Janet, Julia, and Roger were waiting for them. Cat had barely stepped out of the pentagram before Janet flung herself on him. “I’m so sorry I said anything!” she cried, hugging him hugely. “I shouldn’t have! It’s none of my business! It was terrible of me!”
“No, Janet—Janet! It was good of you!” Cat protested. “Look! It’s all worked out!”
Cat reached out his hand to Tonino. Tonino glanced around shyly. They were all watching him, Chrestomanci and Millie with their enchanter’s eyes gleaming, Julia and Roger with passive curiosity, and Janet as if she were on the edge of her seat. Tonino took Cat’s hand, proprietary, and Cat squeezed it.
“Things have worked out indeed,” said Chrestomanci, and a small smile flickered around his lips as he looked at their hands. “We are glad to have you back, Tonino.”
“I am glad to be here,” Tonino said. “Thank you,” he added.
Chrestomanci nodded, as if to say, It was nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing. Cat led Tonino up to Tonino’s old room, bringing Tonino’s trunk along with magic. They were silent the whole way up. They sat on the bed together, side by side, as they had in Caprona the day before. They looked at each other, and it was everything.