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There was something almost fay in how the familiar weight of the smoke on his tongue and the same old burn of the whiskey in his throat could make such a place as this seem so like home. Through that veil of ash and memory, the tall, silent pines rising out of the black forest floor could almost have passed for the great old cypress trees of Augway, rooted in the waters of the bayou. They were just as silent, just as strange.
Kremy took a long drag from his cigarette, rolling it between his fingers, observing the orange dot of its reflection waver and dance on the surface of the water. He chased it with a pull of whiskey straight from the hipflask stowed in his breast-pocket. They had left the eerie swamps of Hither behind, tangled in a net of promises. Caught up in something like that, just about anywhere would feel like home.
The night was quiet, the sounds of living things muffled by the dark weight of the wood. The stream gurgled past, oblivious, and the coals simmered in their beds. He could hear Gricko’s distant snores. A firefly floated by, casting eerie shadows in the grass that Kremy didn’t like to look at. He shivered in a moonless breeze.
‘What, you hoggin’ all that for yerself?’
Kremy looked up at Gideon, and it was difficult to focus under the combined weight of whiskey and exhaustion. Gideon was glowing in the dark; the rekindled flames in his beard and the ends of his hair danced softly in the night— a walking bonfire.
He sat down on the bank beside Kremy and held out his hand, chain swinging. Kremy passed him the hipflask silently, watched as Gideon took a swig. Twig was still strung over his back, inanimate. Guilt had always been Kremy’s least favourite flavour.
‘Why ain’t you sleepin’? Y’seem just about half dead from trickin’ them pixies earlier, n’ then everythin’ with the Carlfish…’
‘I feel it, Gid.’ Kremy took the hipflask back, savouring the more palatable notes of woodsmoke on his tongue. In his periphery, he watched Gideon take out a cigar and light it with a fingertip. ‘Been a while, eh?’
He stubbed out his own used-up smoke and withdrew another, placing it between his teeth and leaning towards Gideon, who dutifully raised his hand to light it. Kremy caught his wrist, halting him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The other way. Like we used to.’
It was hard to read Gideon’s face in the dim amber light. His eyes were unlighted black, his features danced in shadow. He hesitated only a moment before leaning close and holding the end of his cigar to Kremy’s cigarette. They drew breath in time with one another; smoke curled into Kremy’s lungs, heat bloomed on his face. Then Gideon drew back, turning to look out over the brook. Kremy leaned back on his hands, craning his neck up to stare at the blank sky.
‘You thinkin’ about what that pixie said? About Garue?’
Kremy shook his head slightly. ‘I dunno, Gid. These days, all these deals we’re makin’, I find I’m thinkin’ about Garue more often than I’d like. Gricko was right. We’re kickin’ the can down the road, and one day it’s gonna catch up. Every day, that day grows closer.’
‘We’ll figure it out, Kremy. We always do.’
‘Yeah? And what if they take your fire again, Gid? What if we can’t get it back? What if they ask for more? For your chains, or your mind, or your heart? What then?’
He felt a broad, warm hand settle on his arm. Gideon was looking him in the face, brows drawn, expression deeply earnest. Kremy’s agitation sat like an itchy blanket over his skin. ‘Hey, we’re gonna be careful out there, man, alright? You wouldn’t let ‘em take anything we couldn’t bear to lose, or couldn’t trick ‘em into gettin’ back.’
Kremy could see it in Gideon’s eyes; his loyalty was true. He really believed in the words he was saying. ‘Careful? Like how careful we’ve been so far? Jesus, Gid, you just about went grey back there! All the fire gone, quick as that…’
‘I thought you said I looked ‘distinguished’.’
‘Well, you did. But that’s besides the point! First they took the jig in your step, then your flame… just look at Twig, for God’s sake!’
Gideon’s hand reflexively rose to the strings wrapped around his chest, binding her to him. He glowered, beard flaring. ‘Imma kill that hag one day, Kremy. I don’t care what deals you try an’ make. I’ll kill ‘em all.’
And he would, Kremy knew— or, more likely, die trying. ‘It weren’t Bavlorna or Scabitha or whoever the fuck that did that to Twig, Gid. It was me.’
‘What’re you talkin’ about, man?’
‘I’m sayin’ that if it weren’t for me, she never woulda gone in that stupid fuckin’ frog in the first place.’
Kremy pulled his hat from his head and held it tightly in his hands. The brim was a little frayed where Twig had tried, in her dying moments, to grab it.
Gideon was silent for a long, torturous while. When at last he spoke, it was little more than the rumble of low burning coals. ‘That’s just about the stupidest shit I ever heard, Kremy. It’s like you said— Twigsy knew what she was gettin’ into when she decided to come with us. She just wanted to do right by you. You know I’da done the same.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘I’m just sayin’… Twigsy did it by herself. You didn’t do it to her. I don’t— I don’t blame you,’ he added, softly.
Kremy sighed and replaced the hat back on his head. He stared absently at Gideon’s wavering reflection in the stream. ‘Just how much am I gonna make you sacrifice to pay for my own sins, Gid?’
The whiskey tasted bitter in the back of his throat. His shadow laid heavily beneath him, even in the dead of night.
Gideon squeezed his arm. ‘Look, Kremy. It ain’t nothin’ I can’t take. We’re partners in crime, ain’t we? Don’t be hoggin’ all the sinnin’ for yourself.’
Kremy wanted to sink into the earth; he wanted to pull his teeth out. He pressed his face into his hands, and wondered when he had ever felt so exhausted. A firefly meandered past and he crushed it with a smack of shadow, extinguishing the little pulsing sun.
‘You shouldn’t joke, Gid,’ he said lowly. ‘This is serious fuckin’ business. Will you stop offerin’ up parts of yourself to random strangers in meaningless fay pacts?’
‘Well, hang on, you can’t blame me for the shadow people takin’ my groove! And— okay, well, the fire one was maybe a little bit on me—’
‘And if I hadn’t made that stew exactly right, God knows what shape you’d be in now!’
‘Alright, jeez, man! I was just tryin’ to help!’ He ran a hand through his wild hair. ‘Thanks, I guess. For gettin’ it back. Though,’ and he leaned close, elbowing Kremy in the ribs, ‘it wasn’t so bad in the end, if you know what I’m sayin’—’
Kremy stubbed out his cigarette in the grass and shivered harshly, like there were eyes trained on the back of his head. ‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Well, I never kiss and tell, but just between you and me, pixies really know how to—’
‘Alright, well, goodnight, Gid. I’m pretty tired, so—’
‘But I ain’t finished my cigar yet—’
‘You can finish it with the lightning bugs and the Carlfish, for all I care.’
‘What, you jealous or somethin’?’
Heat shot up Kremy’s neck, as direct and intense as a slap. It was unlike the comforting warmth of Gideon’s proximity, though it was equally linked with his presence. Woodenly, he tucked the hipflask back into his breast-pocket, deciding that he had definitively had enough.
‘What makes you say that, Gid?’
‘You’ve been in a mood all night, man. First with the stew, then not knowing how to play twenty questions— I mean, who the fuck doesn’t know how to play twenty questions? And then everyone else went to bed and you didn’t, and I waited for you, and you still didn’t, and then here you are.’ He glanced at Kremy from out the corner of his eye. ‘And you’re doin’ that thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘That thing where you go all weird and stiff when you feel cornered. Like one of those old Augway street dogs, or like in the Witchlight carnival, when you couldn’t lie no more.’
Perhaps there was such a thing as knowing someone too well. It was a strange and excruciating privilege.
‘Well, so what? I ain’t never claimed to be generous with— with my patience, I mean to say.’
‘Not even with yer husband?’
‘Ironic—’
‘Didn’t sound so ironic when you said it in that mushroom forest. When Gricko said I was an embarrassment.’
‘Well, it felt pretty fuckin’ ironic when you were eatin’ the face of that pixie.’
‘So you are jealous!’
‘Jesus, Gid,’ Kremy hissed, ‘will you keep your voice down? People’re tryin’ to sleep over there.’ And he wished dearly that he was one of them.
Gideon, predictably, twisted around and raised his hands to his lips. ‘Gricko! Frosty! Torbek! We’re bein’ horribly killed out here! Aaaaaaaaaauuugh!’
Kremy cringed in the ringing silence as not one sound of bodies rousing could be heard. Gideon turned back to him with a triumphant glint in his eye and blew smoke into Kremy’s face.
‘What’re you tryin’ to say, Gid? What do you care if I don’t like to see you kissin’ some random pixie? It’s not like it’s the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. We never made no promises. I know you, Gid.’ He found himself too exhausted to try and deceive the one who knew him best. There were no secrets between them, only delusions.
‘We just never talk about it, is all. I can’t read you, Kremy.’
‘Yeah,’ Kremy said, ‘you can.’
It’s you I can’t read, he thought.
Gideon lowered his cigar. The flames in his hair and beard had grown low, gentle. Not like earlier, after being rekindled. Gideon looked at him for a long time, ash gathering at the end of his cigar, Kremy shivering in the night. Then Gideon leaned close enough that Kremy didn’t have to shiver any more, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Heat flared strongly between their faces, as though Kremy were kissing the sun. It surely felt like it.
‘What for?,’ Kremy murmured.
‘Jus’ relightin’ my spark.’
‘How could a shadow light anythin’?’
‘Can’t be light without shadows.’
Kremy took Gideon’s silent apology with an empty head and a full heart and found that he hadn’t the strength or will to refuse it. ‘You’re a smooth talkin’ bastard when you want to be, alright. All the feywild seems to want you, Gid,’ Kremy breathed between them, ‘and I ain’t no wiser.’
‘Thought I was meant to be the dumb one.’
Gideon’s hand slipped around the back of Kremy’s neck, holding him close. With the way Gideon always managed to smooth down his ruffled feathers and swing him back round, Kremy wasn’t so sure any longer.
‘Nah, I’m just stupid for you, Gid. You drive me crazy.’
‘You make it sound like some sorta curse.’
Ain’t it?
‘C’mere.’
Kremy curled his fingers into the short hairs at the nape of Gideon’s neck, marvelling as always at the way the flames did not scorch or burn him, instead washing over his scales like gentle breaths, and kissed him firmly. He tilted Gideon’s head back, tugging sharply before breaking away.
‘Jesus,’ Kremy breathed, ‘how’d we get so tangled up, Gid?’
‘Dunno. It’s the feywild, man. Pretty sure Mr. Witch and Mr. Light had it out for us from the start.’
‘It ain’t just the feywild. I think we’re married, Gid. Like, actually.’
‘Not… ironically?’
‘It ain’t funny enough to be ironic.’
‘Well… shit, man.’
Gideon had said that it was Kremy who seemed backed into a corner; now that was irony.
‘What in the hell are we gonna do, Gid?’
Gideon was quiet for a long moment, brows furrowed in genuine cognitive exercise.
‘Go to bed?’
Kremy surrendered to a rush of fondness. He tilted his head back, staring up at the canopy through the glow of Gideon’s halo, as though it were the far distant and debt-free dawn they might one day awake to. Gideon clambered to his feet and extended to Kremy his hand.
‘Alright,’ Kremy said, letting himself be pulled upright and led by a hot hand into the night.