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Getting caught on the job is not one of Hugo’s ideal situations.
And, alright. He probably should have seen this coming. The job itself might have been a bit of an impossible one to take on. Even though it was big, he knew he could get it done. Rather, he would get it done, because then he'd be able to kick up his feet for the rest of his life and be known as that legendary scoundrel who stole the unstealable Moonstone. It didn’t matter that no one had seen it before. It didn't matter if no one was even sure if it existed. If it was real, he was going to find it, one way or another.
Sneaking into the Dark Kingdom was easy. The kingdom was already in shambles. The castle followed basic schematics; dungeons at the base, throne room in the middle, bedrooms in the towers…On all accounts, the treasury should have been directly under the throne room, a stronghold protected by the rest of its castle.
But it wasn’t.
There was a door—a door that in all accounts should have led there. But it was boobytrapped with some kind of splattering pink goo that went off the second Hugo jimmied open the lock. It was some kind of chemical compound—the scent of isocyanate hit his nostrils first, the only thing that indicated something was wrong. He leaped back to avoid the solidifying goo, but he hit a suit of armor and made a loud and very obvious clatter when he fell.
Now he was being lead down the damp, dark halls to gods-knew-where by a guard that was anything but friendly. Hugo has no idea where he’s going, rising panic overtaking the mental map of the castle. The Dark Kings of legends weren't exactly known for being merciful, especially to thieves who were here to steal their kingdom's pride jewel.
Thankfully, Hugo was just as good at concocting escape plans as he was picking locks.
He thinks fast, trying to weigh his options. He doesn't actually have any coin on him, so bribery is out of the question. He could go the physical route and swing a punch, but his hands were bound behind his back, so that was out. He could try kicking the guy, but he was kind of huge. One hit from his tree-trunk-like arms might give him a concussion.
Yeah, he might be screwed.
The guard approaches an unassuming door, arched and black just like everything else in this damn place. Hugo’s heart pounds as he undoes the latch. This was it. Whatever was behind that door was going to be the end. Don would host a brief funeral. She wouldn't cry, but Cyrus totally would, the baby that he was. The rest of his stuff would get auctioned off in the market and oh gods if Olivia got sold he's going to start biting—
All thoughts of impending doom abruptly slam to a halt when the door opens to reveal a room that glistens.
It’s practically a cavern, the inky black walls curved and shimmering, reflecting the light off the gold. There are piles and piles in here, some reaching as high as the ceiling. Gemstones, too, cascading down mountains of coins in a rainbow of wealth.
Hugo’s mouth waters.
This is the real treasury, he realizes. Locked behind a false door that people must mistake for a storage closet. He never would have found it in this corner of the castle.
There’s a boy sitting in a plush chair in the center of it all, reading. He doesn’t look up when they enter, even though the guard marches right on up to him. He’s wearing weird, black and teal-colored robes. Not a guard then—but if not a guard, then what?
“This one set off your trap,” the guard grunts.
The boy doesn't look up, but his eyes stop moving across the page. There's a slight furrow between his eyebrows at being interrupted. “No, he didn’t.” His tone sounds bored, but his voice seems to echo eerily around in the air, like a physical vibration in the space.
“I—um,” the guard shuffles his feet. He suddenly looks less gruff and oddly nervous in this boy's presence. “He did, we caught him trying to escape—”
“If he set off my trap he wouldn’t be able to move,” the boy insists. “He’d be glued to the wall.”
“I had five seconds,” Hugo protests. He realizes two seconds too late he probably shouldn’t have said anything because now the guy has turned his gaze to look directly at him. His eyes are big, and…well, Hugo would call them innocent, but somehow that doesn’t seem right. Being locked under that gaze makes something crawl underneath Hugo’s skin. He's pretty though. Startlingly so.
The boy’s voice is soft, but it could have been like he screamed. “What?”
Hugo doesn’t answer, not until the guard jostles him roughly at the shoulder. “Uh, your trap—it was a combination of isocyanate and polyol, right? To make solidifying foam? That takes five seconds to react with oxygen before it hardens. I just got out of the way.”
Slowly, the boy tilts his head. His expression is still unreadable. “You know alchemy?”
“I know of it.”
“What’s the atomic weight of gold?”
Hugo blinks, then snorts. “Is that a joke?”
Freckles looks way more interested in him now than he did a few seconds ago. Hugo can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. “You want to steal it so bad, sneaking into the treasury. You should know the value of—”
“One-nine-six point nine seven.” Hugo can’t help but preen a little when the boy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Obviously.”
Freckles get an odd little smile on his face. He turns to the guard. “Leave us.”
The guard frowns, readjusting his hold on Hugo's upper arm. “But—”
“Leave.” His voice is quiet, but his tone leaves no room for doubt. "I can handle him." The guard looks like he wants to argue, but swallows his tongue and slips back out the door.
...And now Hugo is alone with the guy whose trap tried to kill him. This couldn’t be good.
Positives, though. That guard was gone, meaning he can work on his escape. Slowly, so slowly to make it look like he's not even moving, Hugo starts to wriggle against the bonds. There’s a simple trick to undoing your hands being bound—all you need to do is create enough slack with your elbows to slip your wrists out. Don taught him how to do that when he was seven. He’d be out of the ropes in a matter of seconds, and then he’d knock Freckles out and get out of here.
“So,” the boy says, breaking the silence. He smiles brightly, showcasing a pair of adorable buck teeth. “You want to steal the Moonstone.”
“Correction,” Hugo says, “I’m going to steal the Moonstone.”
“Great job so far.”
“Who’s to say this isn’t part of my plan? Got me into the real treasury, didn’t it?” He jerks his chin to gesture to the general piles of glistening treasure. His fingers twitch. He’ll be sure to take a few extra seconds to stuff his pockets before he makes his escape. "I bet you anything it's in here."
The boy giggles. “You'd be right.” He stands up, moving closer. A skitter of unease drips down Hugo’s spine. This guy is small, but he walks with the air of a predator—slinking and quiet. Hugo carefully adjusts so that he can’t see him undoing his bonds. “But what makes you think you can take it? There have been plenty of thieves who think they're worthy of it.”
Hugo snorts. “Who said anything about worth? Stealing isn't about destiny or some bullshit like that. It's about being more clever than the other guy."
"And are you? More clever?"
"Course I am." Hugo shoots him a toothy, flirtatious grin. The boy's face is pale, so it's easy to see the soft dusting of pink that rises on his cheeks. Ha. "I’m one of a kind, Freckles.”
This boy’s gaze is intense—addictive. It makes something flicker in Hugo’s lower belly, a fire that really shouldn’t be there because he is technically still on a job, thank you.
“You’re right,” Freckles admits. He taps a finger to his chin. “Not every thief knows enough about alchemy to avoid getting stuck in my trap.” Freckles gets right up into his space, so they're practically chest to chest. The bonds are loose enough now that Hugo can get his hands free, but...he finds himself distracted by the other boy's eyes. They're stunningly blue and sparkle with impish mischief. “You’re smart. Cunning. You seem like the type to make a wager.”
Despite everything, Hugo perks up. He didn’t usually spend his time in the gambling pubs—that was more of Cyrus's pastime—but he knew from experience that his sharp tongue and quick wit could wriggle a win out of whatever bet he makes. “What kind of wager.”
The boy grins, knowing he's caught Hugo on a line and now is reeling him in. “It’s not every day I meet someone who knows science as well as I do. So, as a thank you, I’ll give you the Moonstone.”
It’s only by pure dumb bravado that Hugo’s jaw doesn’t hit the floor. Give him the Moonstone? Just like that? No way. You didn’t just give up your kingdom’s most precious jewel. His face hardens into cool indifference. “What’s the catch?”
Freckles’s grin widens. “You have to find it.”
Hugo glances around the room. Likely an impossible task considering just how many gemstones were in here. Searching through them all might take hours. “And if I can’t?”
The boy’s eyes glitter like tiny sapphires caught in starlight. “Then I get to steal something from you.”
Hugo's stomach tightens. This boy didn’t look particularly mystical, but everyone knew the rumors about this kingdom. About the sorcerers that raised the dead and the destructive rocks that were unbreakable to any knight’s sword. This guy might look normal, but for all Hugo knew he could be a soul-eating demon. He could take anything. Hugo’s left pinkie finger. Ten years off his life. His still-beating heart.
Agreeing would be a bad idea.
But fuck. The idea of coming home with the Moonstone… Don would shit a brick.
Hugo makes the dumb choice. “I want three guesses.”
“You get one.”
“Two.”
“Fine.” The guy sends a sweeping hand out to the treasures behind him. It makes the robes he’s wearing shimmer, almost as if there were constellations caught in the fabric. He smiles again, an expression that’s a touch too wolfish for Hugo’s liking. “Guess.”
Hugo drops the rope, fully foregoing all pretenses of still being trapped, and approaches a large pile of gemstones. If the legends were true, the Moonstone was supposed to be a drop from the heavens. Celestial magic in its purest form that no man was ever supposed to touch.
He eyes a particularly large diamond with a princess cut. The white rock reflects a kaleidoscope of color as the candlelight flickers across the surface. It looked moon-ish enough. “This one.”
“Nope!” The sound of Freckles’s voice makes Hugo jump. He’s standing way closer than he should. Hugo didn’t even hear him move. No one has snuck up on him in years—it's more jarring than he expects.
Well, shit. One guess down. He takes a step away from that pile and slaps a smug smirk on his face to disguise his disappointment. “I knew that. I was just testing you.”
One raven eyebrow shoots up. “You’re testing me?”
“Yeah. How do I know that you know which one is the Moonstone? What if you’re just lying to me to steal something off me?” That’s what I’d do.
Freckles gives him a funny sort of smile. There're standing so close they're almost breathing the same air—wow, his eyelashes are long. Was that a normal thing to find attractive on another person? Probably not. Hugo likes it anyway.
“Guess you’ll just have to trust me,” the boy breathes, eyes lidded and dark.
It takes effort for Hugo to ignore the heat that curls at the base of his spine—but goddamn, you could cut through butter with that voice. Don hated it when he flirted on the job, and if he fucked this up she would kill him. Not to mention there’s a good chance this guy might do that first, and Hugo would very much like to keep his head attached to his shoulders, thank you.
He had one more chance. He had to get it right this time.
He takes his time moving around the room, picking up this gemstone, squinting at that one. He takes a lapis lazuli and breathes a hot breath on it to see if the surface of it changes. He picks up a ruby and holds it so close to his eye it clinks against his glasses. His frown deepens with every pile.
Thieving 101 says never waste your time on the thing that's not valuable, but there’s no denying that all of the gems in here are real. All of them were born from heat and crushing rock. The problem is he can’t tell which ones came from the Earth, and which one fell from the stars. Honestly, he doesn't even know what he's looking for. No one has ever seen the Moonstone, so his assumptions are all based on legend and general guessing. But it's got to be in here—he knows it's in here. He can feel it.
As he stalks around the room, getting more and more frustrated, Freckles follows him like a shadow. He doesn’t so much as walk as he glides, movements as graceful as the starlight falling in from a midnight window.
And look—any other time, Hugo would be Very Okay with a pretty boy getting all up in his personal space. But right now, it's nothing short of annoying. He has a job to do here, and Freckles is distracting. So the closer the boy gets, the more space Hugo tries to put between them. He needs to breathe. He has to focus, and with the guy right there he’s going to do something stupid—
“That one,” Hugo blurts out, pointing at a random zircon. He winces, immediately knowing it’s wrong as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Damn.
Freckles smiles again—more gentle this time. Like he knew Hugo knew he’d just royally fucked up. “You’re not very good at this.”
“I’m great at identifying what’s real.” He huffs and kicks at a knight's helmet that was probably made out of pure copper. “It’s literally my job.”
“It’s a royal treasury. Did you think they’d have fools gold in here?”
“No.” Hugo scowls, dropping to the ground and sitting on a pile of wealth that a mere fraction of would feed him, his children, his grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren for the rest of their lives. “I just—no one has actually seen the Moonstone. How do I know if it’s real?” He tugs at his bangs, glaring down at the floor. He doesn’t even look up when bare feet slide into his vision.
“If no one’s ever seen it,” the boy says slowly, “how do you know it’s a rock?”
The words hang in the air between them like the final light of day—bright, longing. Hugo snaps his gaze up. He takes in the boy’s midnight hair with that streak of bright blue. The freckles that looked like splattered constellations on a pale moonlit sky. The robes that glistened with tiny stars woven into the fabric.
“You,” Hugo breathes.
Freckles bites down on a coy grin. “Me?”
Hugo’s on his feet in an instant, wide eyes running up and down the boy’s small frame. None of the legends ever talked about the Moonstone hosting inside a person. But knowing it now, he can see it so clearly—the ethereal energy that whispered of something greater than. The boy doesn’t move back as he inches closer.
Hugo’s voice is down to a whisper. “How?”
“An explanation wasn’t part of our deal,” he chirps, smug that he's won. Fuck, he probably knew Hugo never had a chance. “And you didn’t guess right.”
Hugo’s heart thumps hard, blood singing with anxiety. He’s lost the bet. He’s also in a room with a living breathing bioweapon that could bring a kingdom to its knees with the flick of his finger. He should probably run, but finds himself rooted, helplessly mesmerized as he gazes into those baby blues.
“So that means,” Freckles steps closer, so now that they’re practically chest-to-chest, “I get to take something from you.”
Hugo’s spine stiffens, but not from fear. Anticipation sparks under his skin and runs through his nerves like lightning. The boy tilts his head, standing taller, and if Hugo only has a few more seconds on this earth, he at least wants to know who’s killing him.
“What’s your name?” Their faces are so close that the words are puffed out against petal lips.
The boy blinks, pausing for a moment. He's clearly taken aback by this. His smile turns a little more genuine, as though he’s releasing a precious secret that no one has thought to ask for.
“Varian.”
“Varian,” Hugo repeats in a whisper. His heart squeezes in his chest. Even though they’re totally alone in this large room, it feels as though the world has narrowed down to just the two of them. Hugo swallows against the dryness in his throat. Varian’s eyes glisten like deep pools that he wants to drown in.
His lips, though, taste like starlight.