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Essek didn’t have much experience in comforting anyone. Verin, once or twice, when they were younger; his mother, briefly, during a moment of grief after his father’s disappearance. He hadn’t been much good at it. But as he and Caleb left the ruined T-Dock, he took in Caleb’s sickly pallor, the deep-etched lines of exhaustion on his face, and felt a pang of tenderness. “We should rest,” Essek said. “Find a secluded corner, make shelter.”
“It’ll have to be the dome,” Caleb said rustily. “No hot meals or fireplaces for us tonight.”
They found a quiet spot without any sign of Aeorian life, and Caleb collapsed heavily to a seat on the ground. Both of them were wounded, Caleb worse than Essek, and Essek sat down next to Caleb and searched his pack for the healing potions they had brought with them. Caleb shook his head when he saw Essek hold out one of the few remaining vials. “I’m not that bad off,” Caleb said. “We should save it.”
Essek glanced at Caleb’s heavy coat. There was a bloodstain on the cloth near his side, dark and wet and slowly growing. “Call it insurance for the next ten minutes,” Essek said. “If we’re attacked while you’re casting, at least you won’t be actively bleeding.”
Caleb glanced down at the bloodstain and looked chagrined, as though he’d been hoping Essek wouldn’t notice. He hesitated for a moment longer, pain warring with thriftiness, until finally the pain won. He took the vial and drank it.
The two of them fell wordlessly into routine after that: Caleb, facing the wall with his spellbook in front of him, so he could concentrate on casting; Essek, facing outward, keeping watch for danger. As the minutes passed, Essek felt the growing charge in the air around them: the ethereal energy of magic being woven and knit into substance. Five minutes passed, six, in a silence that Essek had come to think of as companionable.
Then the charge in the air dissolved. It was a sudden absence, minutes too early, and the scattering energy ruffled the ends of Essek’s hair. He glanced back at Caleb in surprise. “Are you—” he said.
Caleb’s shoulders were trembling.
Essek was not good at things like this. He had spent so long disdaining the company of others that his manner was naturally cold, and he had no idea what to do with the tender warmth he felt whenever he looked at Caleb. Caleb’s breath was audible in his throat: too-rapid aspirations followed by an abrupt, too-long silence, like he was trying to stopper it up. “Caleb,” Essek said, moving closer. He touched Caleb’s back with a tentative hand. “Are you all right?”
“Lost my concentration,” Caleb said, his voice strained. “I’ll need to start over. Sorry, I’m...not handling the cold very well.”
There was a glint of truth in that—Caleb was lean, and complained about the cold at times when Essek found it tolerable—but it was not the whole story. Essek knew very well what it looked like when Caleb was cold. He had spent their weeks in Aeor soaking in the sight of Caleb, cataloging his little mannerisms, studying each facet of him with quiet hunger. When Caleb was cold, he shivered, but right now he was trembling. It was a small distinction, but a key one.
There was no profit in pointing that out, however, when they urgently needed the dome up for protection. “Here,” Essek said, and shrugged off his heavy mantle, wrapping it around Caleb’s shaking shoulders. Caleb made a noise of mingled surprise and protest. “I’ll trade ten minutes in the cold for eight hours in the warmth of the dome.”
Caleb’s throat worked wordlessly for a moment. “At least lean against me, so you get back some of the heat,” he said.
Essek moved over and sat so his back was pressed against Caleb’s. It was a strange contrast: the biting cold against his front and the warmth of Caleb’s bulk against his back. He had never previously been drawn to have physical closeness with others, but these last few weeks in Aeor had awoken something ravenous inside him. Now he kept a mental list in his head: every time Caleb’s hand brushed against his, every time Caleb’s arms encircled him, every time Caleb clutched Essek’s arm at the sight of a new Aeorian wonder. When they left this place, and Essek returned to his solitary ways, he wanted to remember each touch with piercing clarity. This was something new to add to the catalog: the two of them sitting back to back, a slow gorgeous thrill running up Essek’s spine at the feeling of Caleb’s body pressed against his.
Caleb started casting again. From this intimate position, Essek could feel the small shifting movements Caleb made as he did it, his arm lifting occasionally to turn the pages of his spellbook. He could feel, too, the energy of the spell building up again, lifting the small hairs on the back of his neck. Ten minutes was a long time to be exposed without defenses to the dangers lurking in Aeor, but from Essek’s perspective, the minutes ticked by abnormally fast. Ten minutes of this stolen intimacy was a feast for his hungry heart, and so of course the time would slip too quickly through his fingers, like sand through the neck of an hourglass.
The energy built, and built, until finally the dome popped into existence around them. The chill of Aeor was replaced by a bubble of warmth, and Essek let out a quiet sigh of relief. “One more night of safety,” he said, turning around to look at Caleb.
Caleb’s hand had gone still on the open page of his spellbook. His head was still bowed over it, unmoving; as Essek watched, a teardrop slipped from his eye and splashed against the page.
And—Essek had little experience in comforting others, he had no practiced gestures to fall back on, but it was intolerable to think of keeping his distance from Caleb in that moment. Raw instinct took over, moving Essek clumsily in front of Caleb. He set aside the spellbook and took Caleb’s face in his hands. Caleb’s pale, exhausted face was streaked with tears now, and his eyes held such a fragility that it made Essek’s breath catch in his throat.
“It’s all right,” Essek said softly. He fanned his thumbs along the wet skin under Caleb’s eyes.
“Yes,” Caleb said. His choked voice was more air than sound. “It’s all right. And it’s also not all right. Two things can be true at once.”
Essek recognized the expression on Caleb’s face now. He’d seen the same expression many times of late, as he looked at his own reflection in the mirror: regret, mingled with fear. Caleb had consigned the greatest desire of his life to dust when he disintegrated the T-Dock, and the choice was permanent. Irrevocable. “You regret it?” Essek asked. “Destroying what we found?”
“It was the right thing to do,” Caleb said. “And if I were a strong man, I’d have the courage of my convictions. But I’m not a strong man. Every voice in my head is screaming at me that I made a mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Essek said.
“It wasn’t,” Caleb repeated. “It was the right thing to do. And every fiber of my being regrets it.” He inhaled brokenly. “Two things, both true at once.”
Essek knew he loved Caleb—had acknowledged it to himself months ago, with the knowledge that he had destroyed any chance of its reciprocation—but he had never loved him more than he did just then, in that fractured moment. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Caleb’s. “There is no rewriting time now,” Essek said. “That opportunity is gone. And so there is no way to erase the strength you just displayed in that chamber. Your strength is inscribed upon history, whether you like it or not.”
Caleb took a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut. Essek drew his face forward and, in a moment of selfish trespass, kissed the wet skin under Caleb’s eyes. “You’re a good man, Caleb Widogast,” he said. “It’s not weak to grieve for what might have been. Perhaps, given the power to manipulate time, you and I could have kept each other in check and done good with it. But perhaps not. Even if we had harnessed that power and been its most perfect keepers, the world would be at risk once we were gone.”
Caleb said, rustily, “So you think we’re leaving this place better than we found it?”
“As much as the loss of knowledge eats away at me,” Essek said, “I can’t argue in good conscience that my curiosity should outweigh what vindictive and power-hungry mages would do with such a power. So yes. When we leave here, and you return to the Empire, and I return to...some safe seclusion away from the eyes of the Dynasty, I believe we will have made the entire world safer. Not just our own lands.”
Caleb pulled his head back slightly to look at Essek, and all at once Essek felt guilty for the presumptuousness of his touch. He let go of Caleb’s face. Caleb reached out with one hand and caught Essek’s arm as it was pulling away. “Some safe seclusion,” Caleb repeated. His fingers traveled down Essek’s wrist. “I suppose...you want solitude after so many weeks of danger and company?”
Caleb’s fingers interlaced with Essek’s. For a moment Essek forgot to breathe, his keen mind taking in the soft, delicate pressure of Caleb’s touch. “I anticipate solitude is what waits in my future,” Essek said. “But if there’s somewhere else you want to go, just name the place and I’ll follow.”
“It wouldn’t be for research or learning,” Caleb said. “It wouldn’t be very interesting at all, in fact. But I need to—” His breath caught, and his grip of Essek’s hand tightened. “—I need to go home. Not just to the Empire, but home. To the place where I grew up. To the place where—” His throat worked momentarily. “—where my parents are laid to rest.”
It seemed wrong to hear those words come out of Caleb’s mouth and feel any sort of gladness. But Essek was a selfish creature, and in love. He put his other hand over Caleb’s and squeezed. “It would be my honor to go with you,” Essek said. “If you’ll have me.”
The ghost of a smile touched Caleb’s lips—the first one Essek had seen in hours. Caleb leaned forward. There was very little space between them to lean, and for a moment, absurdly, Essek didn’t know what Caleb meant to do.
Caleb’s lips met his: softly, shallowly, carefully. The touch was so delicate that Essek’s physical reaction seemed disproportionate—a huge, blooming thrill washed through his nerves, speeding up his heartbeat like a rush of water accelerating a waterwheel. For months he had fruitlessly dreamed of this: Caleb’s touch, his attention, his forgiveness. Things Essek didn’t deserve, but longed for all the same. One of Essek’s hands slipped unbidden back to Caleb’s cheek, and he returned the soft pressure of that kiss. “Caleb,” Essek whispered.
Caleb pulled back, and his face—tear-stained, tired, grieving—was softer than Essek had seen it in weeks. “You’ve been very patient with me,” Caleb said. “I told myself that this—” He squeezed Essek’s hand. “—was not something I could permit myself until I atoned for what I’d done. And...I don’t think what I just did was atonement, but it was a conclusion. Almost. There’s one more thing I have to do.”
Caleb’s hand lifted, and he touched his side: the spot where, underneath his coat, he kept a holstered book.
“I need to go home,” Caleb said. “And I would like you to come with me, because your talk of seclusion makes me worried that I have kept you waiting too long."
Essek traced his thumb over Caleb’s rough, unshaven cheek. He felt almost as though he were dreaming. “I wouldn’t presume you were mine to wait for,” Essek said quietly. “After what I’ve done, I don’t deserve you.”
“Well,” Caleb said. “You have me, nevertheless.”
“I suppose two things can be true at once,” Essek said.