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The shutters were open to the night.
Portofino slept below, tucked into its little crescent of harbour, moonlight silvering the rooftops and glittering across the black water. Boats rocked gently at anchor, the sound of their creaking hulls mixing with the soft clink of metal on wood. The streets were mostly quiet now—an occasional bark of laughter from a tavern two floors below, the clatter of hooves in the distance, fading into silence.
Inside the inn, everything was still.
The small room was warm with the scent of sea air and old wood polish. Curtains fluttered with each passing breeze. The oil lamp on the bedside table had long since burned low, leaving only a dim glow. Books lay stacked on the desk beside a half-finished letter to Niko, and two wine glasses rested on the windowsill, one still with a fingerprint on the rim.
Charles lay on his back, half-draped in the linen sheets, his breathing slow and even. His arm was curled loosely around Edwin, who had fallen asleep curled toward him—one arm folded beneath his pillow, the other resting across Charles’s stomach.
And for a while, the night held them gently.
Then—Edwin twitched.
A slight movement at first.
Then again—his fingers curling into fists, his legs shifting beneath the sheets. He drew a sharp breath, not from waking, but from something else. Something that had already taken hold.
His brow furrowed.
A soft sound left his throat.
Then he flinched hard.
"Arthur—"
The name tore from his lips like a sob. His whole body jerked, legs kicking as if trying to run.
Charles stirred beside him, murmured something, but didn’t wake.
Edwin’s breath came faster now.
He turned in the bed, sheets tangling around his legs. His hands clawed at the air, the mattress, his undershirt, grasping at something invisible, his face twisted in panic.
"Don’t—please don’t—" His voice was high and thready.
Then he shouted.
"No! Let me go!"
Charles jolted upright, instincts snapping to life.
"Edwin?"
But Edwin was already lost to the nightmare.
His eyes were wide open—but glassy, unseeing. He thrashed beneath the covers, a raw, terrified sound escaping him as he struggled to fight off something only he could see.
"Don’t touch me! Get away—get away!"
Charles reached for him—
And Edwin’s hand lashed out, striking him hard across the cheek.
The blow was wild, uncoordinated, but strong. It sent Charles reeling backward on the bed, more from shock than pain.
"Christ. Edwin! It’s me—it’s Charles!"
But Edwin didn’t hear him.
"Stop!" He roared, "Stop it! I said no!"
Charles moved again—faster this time—grabbing Edwin’s flailing wrists, trying to still him.
But Edwin was in a frenzy, sobbing, gasping, thrashing in pure animal panic. His heels pounded into the mattress, the sheets now twisted so tightly around his legs that it looked like he was caught in a net.
"It’s a dream, it’s not real, I’m here—Edwin, listen to me!"
He was still fighting.
Still trying to get away.
So Charles did the only thing left:
He straddled him, carefully, bracing his knees on either side of Edwin’s hips, using his weight to anchor him without crushing him. He caught both wrists, pinned them gently but firmly against the bed.
"Look at me. Look at me, Edwin. It’s not real. You’re safe. It’s me."
Edwin’s eyes flickered. He tossed his head from side to side, rearing his chin back, as if searching for some escape.
Not recognition—resistance.
He let out a scream, his whole body arching like he was being burned from the inside.
And then—he stopped.
Just for a moment. His chest stuttered and his lips trembled and, for a moment, Charles braced for another scream, hoping to God their neighbours were heavy sleepers.
Then his gaze snapped into focus. He saw Charles.
And his face—his entire expression—cracked like china.
"Charles?"
His voice was barely audible. A dry whisper, raw and frayed.
Charles felt the breath rush out of him. "Yeah. It’s me. It’s alright. You’re safe."
But a broken, gasping sound was already tearing out of Edwin. His eyes searched the room, eventually landing on Charles' face, and his eyes filled. "I—I hit you. Oh, I hit you." He shut his eyes and turned his head. He would have pulled away entirely if Charles wasn't still pinning him to the bed
"It’s nothing. Don’t worry about that—"
"I didn’t know—it felt real—I thought I was back—" His voice rose again, pitching high with panic. "He looked like Arthur—he was Arthur—"
His words fractured. His breath hitched.
And then it hit—a full wave of panic.
Edwin collapsed sideways, trying to curl into himself but couldn’t—not with Charles holding him still. His limbs trembled uncontrollably. His chest shuddered and heaved, like he couldn’t get enough air.
"I can’t—I can’t breathe—Oh God, I can't—"
Charles moved immediately, releasing Edwin’s wrists, shifting to cradle him in his lap instead. He cupped the back of Edwin’s head, guiding it against his chest, his other hand stroking gently down his back.
"Breathe with me, love. In through the nose—slow. I’ve got you."
But Edwin was hyperventilating now, his hands alternating between flailing and clenching into Charles’s shirt, his whole body shaking so violently it felt like he might fly apart.
"You’re alright, just listen to my voice. You’re not there. You’re here. With me. You’re safe. You’re safe."
Charles pressed his cheek to Edwin’s temple, holding him close, rocking him gently. He murmured soft, grounding things—half nonsense, half truth—until, slowly, Edwin began to calm.
The shudders came less frequently.
The gasps softened.
His fists uncurled.
He sagged in Charles’s arms, eyes closed now, breathing ragged but no longer desperate.
They stayed like that for a long time.
The breeze stirred the curtains. A bell clanged faintly in the distance as a boat moored in the harbour. The warmth of Charles’s chest and the rhythm of his breathing were the only things Edwin could focus on.
Eventually, he whispered:
"I thought I was going to die."
Charles’s hand stilled for a moment. Then resumed its slow motion down Edwin’s spine.
"You didn’t."
Edwin nodded against him.
"I thought… he was using Arthur’s face. He said it was my fault. It felt so real. I thought I was drowning in sand. Pressing me down. Couldn’t breathe..."
Charles didn’t speak right away.
Then, quietly:
"You're breathing. You’re not to blame for any of it. And I’m not going anywhere."
Edwin’s fingers curled around Charles’s hand.
"I can't—"
Charles pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes.
"You're safe."
When they finally lay back down, Charles kept Edwin pressed close against his chest, one hand stroking through his hair, the other wrapped tightly around his waist.
Edwin’s breathing slowed.
The panic ebbed.
And when he finally slept again—it was a dreamless, merciful sleep.
And Charles watched over him, just in case.
**********
The light came softly.
It threaded through the open shutters like spun gold, warming the whitewashed walls and honey-coloured floorboards of the little room. Outside, the village was already stirring—fishermen calling to one another in the harbour, the scent of bread rising from the bakery down the lane, gulls wheeling in the brightening sky.
But inside the room, there was quiet.
Charles stirred slowly. He wasn’t ready to wake—his body ached with the familiar dullness of bruises and old tension, and his mind still swam in the haze of too little sleep.
He reached instinctively across the bed, hand seeking out familiar warmth.
And found nothing.
Cold linen.
Empty sheets.
Charles’s eyes snapped open.
His heart kicked hard against his ribs. He sat up fast, ignoring the pull in his muscles, the stiffness in his back.
“Edwin?”
No answer.
The space beside him was undisturbed—no indentation where Edwin might have lain.
Charles’s gaze swept the room—bed, desk, open window. The books on the bedside table. The empty wine glasses. The crumpled shirt Edwin had been wearing the night before slung over the back of the chair.
But no Edwin.
A low panic bloomed in Charles’s chest.
Not again.
Not now.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing slightly at the stiffness in his shoulder. His bare feet met cool floorboards.
“Eds?” he called again, more urgently now.
He crossed the room in three strides, yanked open the wardrobe, as if Edwin might’ve curled himself inside to hide. Nothing.
Not the window. Not the hallway.
His mind leapt to worst-case possibilities—Edwin had fled, too shaken by the night terror to stay. Maybe the dreams had been too much. Maybe he’d wandered out in a trance again, like that time in Athens.
He pressed a hand against the door, breathing hard.
Then—a sound.
Faint.
Water.
Running water.
Charles turned his head slowly toward the adjoining door—the narrow one that led to the private bath.
The handle was slightly ajar. A sheet of steam curled into the main room.
Charles stepped forward and pushed the door open.
The bath was full.
Steam swirled lazily above the surface, fogging the little mirror above the sink and painting the tiled walls in a soft haze.
Edwin was there—not vanished, not gone, not lost to another dream—but alive and very much present, sitting with his knees pulled up, arms resting on the edges of the old porcelain tub.
He was shirtless, shoulders dusted with freckles and a light tan, hair damp and curling against his forehead.
He didn’t flinch when Charles entered.
Just glanced up with that quiet, watchful look that Charles had come to know too well—like he’d been waiting to be found.
"Morning," Edwin said softly, voice rough with sleep and something quieter beneath it.
Charles exhaled. His shoulders sagged.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “You scared me.”
Edwin blinked. “I thought you were still asleep.”
“I was. Then I woke up and the bed was cold and you were gone.”
Charles stepped forward, kneeling beside the tub, not caring that his knees hit the tiles with a thud.
“Edwin, love, you can’t just vanish on me after—”
He stopped.
The words caught in his throat.
Because Edwin wasn’t just bathing.
He was—withdrawing.
His posture was too still, too tight. The water came up just past his ribs, and Charles could see the tension in every line of his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip on his legs.
Charles softened instantly.
He reached out and brushed a damp curl from Edwin’s forehead.
“You alright?”
Edwin gave a faint, humourless smile. “Not sure.”
Charles sat back on his heels, watching him carefully.
"You didn’t sleep after, did you?"
Edwin didn’t answer.
The silence said enough.
Charles sighed, dragging a hand across his mouth.
“You should’ve woken me.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
Edwin looked away. His voice was very quiet. “Because last night… I hurt you.”
Charles blinked. “You didn’t—”
“I hit you.”
“You were dreaming.”
“I still did it.”
Charles reached for him again, this time letting his hand rest lightly against Edwin’s arm, just above the waterline.
“And I still love you,” he said simply. “You don’t need to punish yourself for what wasn’t your fault.”
Edwin was quiet for a long moment. His eyes traced the mosaic tiles across the far wall.
Then, in a whisper: “I didn’t know where I was. It felt like everything was happening at once—him, the amulet, Arthur’s face, your voice… I kept trying to wake up and couldn’t. It was like I was being pulled down.”
Charles moved closer, kneeling properly now beside the tub.
He wanted to climb in, wrap his arms around him, anchor them both with warmth and skin and presence. But he didn’t. Not yet.
“Do you remember some of the stories you told me about your brother?” Charles said, his voice low. “You said you always tried to keep up with him. You’d follow him through fields, up trees, into locked rooms. You broke your arm trying to chase him once.”
Edwin gave a faint nod.
“I think you’re still doing it, Eds.”
Edwin blinked, startled. “Still chasing him?”
Charles nodded. “Still trying to live up to someone who isn’t here to see it. Still afraid that if you fall behind, someone else will leave too.”
Edwin looked at him, eyes glassy. “You make it sound like I’m still a boy.”
“No,” Charles said gently. “I make it sound like someone who’s survived things most people can’t imagine. And doesn’t know what to do with the guilt of being alive.”
Edwin closed his eyes. A tear tracked its way, hot and unbidden, down his cheek.
The silence held them for a moment.
Then Charles leaned in.
“Let me in,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be fine. You don’t have to explain it all. You just have to let me in.”
Edwin opened his eyes slowly. His voice, when it came, was barely a breath.
“You’ll get wet.”
Charles smiled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
And before Edwin could argue, Charles was already climbing in. Fully clothed (well, as clothed as one could be in a singlet and undershorts), one leg over the side of the tub, socks and all.
The water sloshed violently. Edwin gave a startled yelp and tried to shift back, but Charles only grinned and settled in with a soft groan, pulling Edwin into his lap.
“You’re completely mad,” Edwin muttered against his shoulder.
“And you’re mine,” Charles said softly, one hand sliding around his waist, the other curling at the back of his neck. “Even when the dreams come. Even when you panic. I’m still here.”
Edwin was silent. Then his body sank into Charles’s hold, the last of the tension bleeding out of him like steam.
“I was scared you’d be afraid of me,” he whispered.
“I am,” Charles replied. “You throw a mean right hook in your sleep.”
Edwin let out a soft, broken laugh. Then:
“Don’t let go.”
“Not a chance.”
And so they sat in the tub together, clothes soaked, water cooling, the world waking just beyond the shutters.
But inside the little room above the harbour, everything held.
**********
The scent of baking bread pulled Charles into the morning.
He walked with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, the cobbled street still damp beneath his boots from the night’s rain. Portofino had a way of shining in the early hours, all warm stone and sea-slick light, the shutters still drawn on the pastel buildings and the boats dozing in the curve of the harbour.
Edwin was finally sleeping soundly, naked between the sheets with one hand splayed on Charles' pillow, his lips parted just slightly in a rare expression of peace.
It was the sort of morning that felt too gentle for memory. But Charles’s mind was never still these days.
He turned into the side street where the bakery sat, its wooden sign swinging softly in the sea breeze. The warmth hit him before he even touched the door—the mingled smells of flour, rosemary, olive oil, roasted tomatoes, and fresh focaccia.
He queued behind two old women in headscarves debating the merits of different anchovies. It gave him time to think. Not that he ever seemed to need it.
A year ago, almost to the day, he and Edwin had stumbled out of a tomb with bruises on their ribs and the Pharaoh’s legacy stitched into their bones.
A year.
It didn’t feel like time had passed. Or rather, it felt like too much of it had passed all at once.
The man behind the counter greeted him by name now. Charles liked that. He asked after Edwin and passed over two warm rolls wrapped in paper with a kind smile beneath his grey mustache. Charles paid and tucked them carefully into his satchel alongside the small jar of fig jam he’d bartered for the day before.
He lingered outside for a moment, watching the fishing boats bob gently in the bay. The light was softer here than in Egypt. The sea gentler. There were no gunshots or screams or the crack of rock falling above your head. But he still dreamt about the sand.
Of course, the book had changed everything.
Charles hadn’t expected it. Neither had Edwin, though he’d insisted on publishing the damn thing. Quietly, of course. Under initials, at first. A fictionalised account, threaded with metaphor and shadow, like he couldn’t help but keep it at arm’s length.
Saqqara: A Recollection.
It had sold out within a week.
There’d been talk of lectures, of translations, even of film adaptations. Charles had nearly dropped a coffee pot when he heard that one.
Edwin had taken it with his usual mix of gracious horror and wry deflection. The press had started calling him the poet of the desert , which made him want to crawl under the bed and never come out.
But the readers had loved it.
The mystery. The aching prose. The quiet, melancholy boy who had survived it all.
The quiet, melancholy boy with the sharp green eyes and the iron spine.
Charles knew him well. Knew that Edwin wrote in the afternoons now, at the window with a blanket over his legs. That he read aloud when he thought Charles was asleep. That his nightmares still came, but less often. That he touched Charles’s face in the dark, like he still couldn’t believe he was real.
The letter had arrived two weeks afterwards.
Delivered in heavy cream stationery with the Payne family seal stamped in wax.
The script was sharp and meticulous. It smelled faintly of rose water and disdain.
Charles had read it once. Edwin had read it twice, quietly, without comment.
“I am gratified to hear you are in tolerable health. Your father is as well as can be expected, though you will not be surprised to hear he does not wish to discuss you. As for your manuscript, I will say only this: if you consider it a suitable substitute for family, title, or reputation, then I can only mourn what little I believed remained of your good sense.”
It went on.
Cold. Wounded. Contemptuous in the way only the very proud and very afraid could be.
Charles had wanted to burn it. Edwin had folded it neatly and put it in the bottom drawer of the desk. Not to keep it. Just to keep it away from sight.
They didn’t speak about it again.
But Charles had caught Edwin looking out the window a little longer that night. Had held him a little tighter, without needing to ask.
Niko and Crystal had left for the States in the spring.
Not because they were running. But because Edwin and Charles needed stillness.
And the girls were rarely still.
Charles had never expected them to grow so close—Niko with her silk-bound notebooks and soft-eyed, steel-edged insight, Crystal with her brash laughter and thousand-yard stare. But they’d fit together somehow, the same way broken pieces sometimes made a perfect mosaic.
The last night they were all together, Crystal had kissed Edwin’s temple and told him to write something “a little less miserable next time.” Niko had slipped a small photo into his book— the four of them in Cairo, covered in dust, triumphant and stupid and alive.
They wrote now. Postcards, mostly. Crystal’s were filled with wine stains and scandal. Niko’s were quieter—notes on architecture, food, New York jazz clubs. A promise to meet in Rome before autumn.
Charles had one pinned beside the bed, next to Edwin’s sketches of the palazzo. It read:
“Don’t forget to live now that you’ve survived. That’s the hard part. Love, N.”
Charles sat down on a stone bench near the harbour wall and opened the paper wrapping on the rolls. He broke one in half, steam curling into the cool air, and tore off a piece to eat.
His stomach rumbled—finally remembering that he hadn’t eaten since last night.
And still, the same thought returned.
What happens when the tomb calls us back?
He didn’t say it aloud. Wouldn’t. Not unless Edwin brought it up first. But he knew they both thought about it.
That their immortality—such as it was—was not passive. It was tethered. Conditional. A golden chain around the soul.
They would feel it.
When the tomb was threatened.
When someone whispered the Pharaoh’s name in greed instead of reverence.
Charles imagined it like a pull behind the ribs, or a ringing bell only they could hear. Maybe a dream.
Maybe worse.
They hadn’t felt anything yet.
But it was there.
Waiting.
Charles finished the roll and dusted his hands. He sat back and watched a boy run past with a basket of oranges, his mother calling after him in rapid Italian. A cat stalked across the quay like it owned the village. The sea glimmered as though nothing bad had ever happened in the world.
And still, in the deepest part of him, Charles Rowland waited for the silence to break.
**********
He returned to the inn just as the bells were ringing the eleventh hour. The second-floor room was awash in morning light now, the windows open wide, salt air curling through the curtains.
Edwin was awake—half-dressed, still damp-haired at the little table, his chair turned to the window as he scribbled something into one of his journals. He looked up as Charles stepped in.
“You vanished,” Edwin said.
Charles tossed him a roll. “Figured you deserved breakfast in bed. Or breakfast within five feet of a bed, at least.”
Edwin caught it one-handed, smiling faintly. “You spoil me.”
“You love it.”
Edwin made a thoughtful noise, already buttering the bread with the half-used block that sat beside the bowl of rich plumbs and fresh pears.
Charles shrugged off his jacket and leaned against the wall, watching him.
For a moment, the room was quiet again. Just the sound of writing, chewing, the creak of old floorboards.
“Do you think it’ll come?” Charles asked suddenly.
Edwin didn’t ask what it meant.
He just paused, set his breakfast down, and looked out the window.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But I think when it does, we’ll know.”
Charles nodded.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“I know.”
Edwin looked at him then—really looked—and Charles felt something settle in his chest.
“You’re not alone in it,” Edwin said. “Whatever it asks, we decide together.”
Charles swallowed hard.
“Right.”
Edwin reached across the table and took his hand.
And for now—for this morning—it was enough.
**********
It had been early spring in Palermo.
The air smelled of citrus and woodsmoke, the streets just beginning to buzz with the swell of the season. They’d been staying in a borrowed villa outside the city—one of Niko’s father’s many acquaintances, who’d offered it on the condition that Edwin write his memoirs at the stone table beneath the lemon trees.
It had been a good few weeks.
Quiet. Sun-drenched.
Until the knife.
They’d been in the kitchen, arguing about dinner.
Charles had insisted on doing something absurd with capers and sardines. Edwin had been trying, without much success, to teach him how to use a paring knife like a civilised person.
“ You’re holding it like a bayonet, ” Edwin had said dryly.
“ Maybe I’m just traumatised by your chopping technique. ”
Charles had rolled his eyes and flicked his wrist. The blade slipped.
There was a sharp intake of breath. A clatter.
A splash of blood.
It wasn’t a deep cut. More shocking than anything. But it had been enough to make Edwin go pale, grabbing Charles’s wrist with both hands as if sheer force of will could undo it.
“ Let me see— ”
“ I’m fine— ”
“ You are most certainly not— ”
The blood had welled along Charles’s palm, warm and bright. But it wasn’t pouring. It wasn’t even really dripping.
And then—before either of them had moved to clean it—the edges began to knit.
Charles froze.
So did Edwin.
They watched it happen.
In real time.
The red line sealing up, the pinkness fading. Not vanishing completely, but fast—unnaturally fast.
Within a minute, only a faint smudge of red remained, like a memory.
Neither of them spoke.
The silence was longer than it should have been.
Finally, Charles muttered, “Well. That’s new.”
Edwin, still gripping his wrist, looked faintly sick.
They didn’t talk about dinner again.
It wasn’t the only time.
Charles tripped over a low stone wall a few days later, scraping half the skin off his shoulder. It had stopped bleeding before they’d made it back to the villa. By nightfall, it looked days old.
Edwin burned his hand on the kettle. The pain faded in minutes.
They’d tested it, carefully. Small things. A nick with a razor. A stubbed toe. A deep scratch from the rose bushes in the garden.
Always the same.
Quicker healing. Fewer bruises. No scars.
Not invincible. But close.
The kind of body that belonged to something ancient. Something chosen. Something borrowed from another world.
Charles stood by the open window of the inn now, the memory still clear in his mind, even months later.
Edwin was reading back over his notes, muttering faintly to himself and marking off where adjustments needed to be made. There was a faint mark near his temple from where he himself had been victim of his failing limbs during his night terror.
By this morning, it was already fading.
And Charles knew his own bruises—wrist, shoulder, the cut from the brambles they’d walked through yesterday—would be gone by dusk.
He didn’t know if it made him feel safe or not.
All it really did was remind him of the truth.
That they’d walked out of that tomb with more than just memories.
And that whatever else they were now, they were not entirely human anymore.
But then he turned, and saw Edwin stir in the chair, stretching out his long leg all the way to his toes and arching his neck to stretch out his aching muscles, and Charles felt that familiar, aching pull in his chest.
Because the world was different now.
Because they were.
**********
The sun was soft that afternoon, filtered through the flowering vines that curled along the ironwork balconies above. Charles and Edwin had taken to strolling after lunch, winding their way down the narrow backstreets of Portofino, where the tourists rarely wandered and the laundry still fluttered from windows like banners of ordinary life.
They had gelato in hand—Charles had insisted on orange and hazelnut, Edwin on pistachio—and were halfway through debating which flavour was objectively superior when the sound of laughter drew their attention.
A small boy—no more than five or six—darted past them, arms spread like wings, sandals slapping against the stones. He was followed moments later by a harried-looking young woman and her husband, the latter carrying a baby in a sling across his back.
The boy turned and ran back toward his father, who scooped him up effortlessly, spinning him in a circle before setting him down with a warning wag of the finger. The boy giggled, darted toward his mother, and the three of them disappeared around the corner, leaving only their voices lingering behind like a melody carried on the wind.
Edwin had gone still beside Charles, his eyes tracking the space where the family had vanished.
Charles tilted his head, studying him.
“Something on your mind?” he asked gently.
Edwin blinked and looked down at his half-eaten gelato. “Not really,” he said, which was always his way of meaning yes, but I haven’t decided how to say it yet .
Charles gave him a few steps before speaking again. “You looked a little wistful.”
Edwin’s mouth curved into a faint, rueful smile. “I suppose I was.”
They walked on, slower now, the conversation settling into the quiet rhythm that had grown between them over the months.
“I wonder what kind of father I would’ve made,” Edwin said at last, so softly it might have been mistaken for thought rather than speech.
Charles’s eyebrows lifted slightly, more in surprise than anything else. “You’ve never said you wanted children.”
“I don’t,” Edwin replied quickly, then added, “I don’t think I ever did. Not in the way one’s supposed to.”
Charles hummed in agreement. “Same. I think the idea of it was always… theoretical. A box I assumed I’d tick eventually. Part of the whole ‘being a man’ routine they hand you when you’re old enough to tie your own tie.”
Edwin chuckled under his breath. “Yes. First school, then engagement, then children—preferably sons. And through it all, silence and good posture.”
Charles bumped his shoulder lightly. “And then you ran off with a deserter in the desert.”
“I did,” Edwin said with mock solemnity. “I’ve brought shame upon generations of buttoned-up Paynes.”
They walked in companionable quiet for another minute or so, the cobbles warm beneath their feet, the air heavy with the scent of blooming jasmine and baking bread.
Then Edwin spoke again, more thoughtfully this time. “Still… I think I might’ve made a decent father. I mean—I’d have been cautious. Fretful, probably. Terrified I’d say the wrong thing. But I think I’d have tried.”
Charles nodded, contemplative. “You would’ve been brilliant. They’d have come to you with every bruised knee and complicated feeling.”
Edwin tilted his head, more thoughtful now. They watched a small girl toddle after a pigeon with unearned confidence. The pigeon flapped off with barely disguised disdain. Her grandmother was sat on the curb, nursing her aged knees and gossiping in fast, heavily-inflected Italian to the woman next to her, who was fanning herself on a small stool.
“You know,” he said, “my mother once said if I refused to marry, she’d adopt some pitiful boy from the countryside and name him heir. Said it would humiliate me into sense.”
Charles raised a brow. “That’s… diabolical.”
“It’s tradition,” Edwin said mildly. “Among old families. If you can’t produce a natural heir, you mould one. A boy plucked from obscurity, scrubbed up, renamed, remade.”
“Charming,” Charles said dryly. “A legacy built on ghosts.”
Edwin smiled a rare toothy grin, glancing sideways. “And you? What kind of parental figure do you reckon you’d shape up to be?”
Charles made a face. “Terrible, probably.”
Edwin arched a brow.
“I’d let them stay up too late. Give them too much cake. Teach them how to throw a punch before they could read.”
Edwin laughed, the kind of laugh that loosened something in Charles’s stomach every time. “You’d be adored.”
“Only because you’d be the one actually parenting,” Charles said wryly. “I’d be the reckless one they run to when they want to sneak out after dark.”
“Not a bad arrangement,” Edwin murmured. Then, quieter: “In another life, maybe.”
The words lingered. Neither of them moved to fill the silence too quickly.
After a while, Charles said, “Do you ever wish we’d had that? The whole… normal life thing?”
Edwin thought about it. Then shook his head. “Not in any real way. I think I used to. Before Arthur died. Before the engagements. Before you.”
Charles swallowed. He reached out and took Edwin’s free hand.
“But now?” Edwin continued, voice soft. “No. I don’t need it. I believe that I have everything I never thought I could.”
Charles squeezed his hand gently, threading their fingers together. “I don’t think we were made for that kind of life, were we?”
Edwin looked over at him, and for a moment, the world stilled around them.
“No,” he said. “We were made for this.”
For wandering. For surviving. For stolen afternoons in sunlit streets, speaking of impossibilities as if they were memories.
A few paces ahead, a small child squealed with delight as he chased after a loose balloon in the square. Her young parents followed at a distance, watching but not interfering.
Edwin and Charles paused at the edge of the square, shoulder to shoulder, and watched her run.
They said nothing more. But in the quiet, their joined hands said everything.
They wouldn’t have children. Wouldn’t grow old. Wouldn’t settle in a house with a garden and a brass knocker on the door.
But they would have this .
A life of their own making.
And that, they had both learned, was its own kind of miracle.
***********
The town had fallen into stillness.
Portofino by night was a lullaby of soft things—water brushing gently against the docked boats, faint music drifting from a tavern two streets over, the sigh of wind through the fig trees just beyond their shuttered window.
A lantern glowed in the corner of the room, casting long golden shadows along the walls. The flame flickered when the breeze stirred the curtains, then settled again.
Charles stood barefoot on the tiled floor, shirt unbuttoned, sipping from a chipped ceramic mug. The wine inside had gone warm, but he didn’t mind. He liked the weight of it in his hand.
Behind him, Edwin was reclined on the bed, propped up on one elbow, a book abandoned at his side. He was watching Charles, but pretending not to—his gaze flicking toward the window, the lantern, the creases in the sheets. Anywhere but directly at him.
It was an old dance. One they both enjoyed.
"You’re brooding," Edwin said softly.
Charles glanced over his shoulder. "I’m standing."
"You’ve been standing for ten minutes. Do pardon my suspicions."
Charles smiled faintly, but said nothing.
Edwin sat up properly, running a hand through his hair. It fell over his face in a loose wave at the parting, tempered by the sea air.
"Come to bed," he said.
"Not tired."
"An obvious lie, but fine."
Charles turned then, sauntering back to the bed and sinking down beside Edwin with a sigh. He rested the mug on the floor and leaned back against the headboard, one arm settling behind Edwin’s shoulders without thinking.
Edwin leaned into it. Slowly. Carefully.
It still surprised Charles sometimes—how Edwin, who had once flinched from touch like it burned him, now gravitated to it. Not always. Not publicly. But here, in the hush of lamplight and linen sheets, he curled in like a cat by the fire.
"Still thinking about this morning?" Edwin asked after a while.
Charles didn’t answer right away.
Then: "A little."
Edwin didn’t press.
The moment passed like a slow breath.
"You’re wondering again if we’ll be called back," Edwin said eventually, voice low.
"Mm."
"Me too."
Charles turned to look at him. “You hide it better.”
Edwin sniffed. "No, I just have a more refined sense of doom. Comes from years of dinner parties with my mother."
Charles huffed a laugh.
He smiled, pleased.
Another silence settled between them—not heavy, just familiar.
Outside, a soft breeze stirred the trees. The scent of salt and distant lemons drifted in.
Charles stretched his legs out and let his head fall back against the wall. "We could go further south. After Rome."
"You’re suggesting we outrun a magical bond with geography?"
"I’m suggesting we make it harder to reach us."
Edwin nodded thoughtfully. "We’ll have to avoid Cairo, obviously. And Paris. Too many Egyptologists."
"Agreed. Also avoid anywhere where people with hats say 'dig' like it’s a form of seduction."
"That rules out most of Cambridge."
They both chuckled, and Edwin shifted to rest his head against Charles’s shoulder.
"You don’t miss it, do you?" Edwin asked quietly.
"Egypt?"
Edwin nodded.
Charles considered it. Then, truthfully: "No. But I miss the clarity of it sometimes."
Edwin glanced up.
"There was danger. There was a goal. There was no question of whether what we were doing mattered. Here..." He trailed off.
Edwin finished it. "Here, we just live."
Charles nodded.
Edwin was quiet for a long moment. Then he murmured, "I think that’s rather the point."
Charles inclined his head, frowning.
Edwin shrugged slightly. “To remember how to live. That was the Pharaoh’s offer, wasn’t it? A trade. Our souls for his legacy. But what’s a legacy without someone to carry it?”
"You think we’re meant to... enjoy it?"
"I think we’re meant to understand the weight of time."
Charles let that sit.
And then, carefully, he said, “Do you want to go back? Not to Egypt. I mean—to England.”
Edwin didn’t answer right away.
Then: “I don’t know.”
"Still thinking about your mother’s letter?"
Edwin sighed. "That, and what I’d say if I saw her again. Not that she’d listen."
"I’d listen."
"You decidedly don’t count. You’re biased."
"Unashamedly."
Charles reached for his hand then, threading their fingers together. Edwin’s grip was warm. Steady. His hand was a little broader than Charles', the fingers longer and calloused from hours spent holding his pen. Charles couldn't remember the last time he'd held a gun.
"She would hate me, you know," Charles murmured.
Edwin glanced at him. "She wouldn’t understand you. That’s worse, in her mind."
"I don’t want to ruin anything for you."
"You didn’t ruin anything. You saved me. That isn’t the same."
Charles exhaled, his thumb brushing the back of Edwin’s hand.
"You know what I’ve realised?" Edwin asked suddenly.
"Hm?"
"That I don’t have to impress the dead anymore."
Charles turned to look at him properly, eyes flicking over the soft shadow of his face in the lantern glow.
Edwin continued, voice low and certain: "Not Arthur. Not the Payne name. Not the old ghosts of London drawing rooms. And certainly not a bag of bones left rotting in a half-sunk tomb. I lived so long thinking I had to make everything I did an apology. And now I don’t. I can just... write. And wake. And laugh. And love. And it’s enough."
Charles was quiet. His chest ached. In the best way.
"You’ve come a long way from the wide-eyed boy in the tavern."
Edwin looked at him, eyes shining. "Need I remind you that boy had already flown a plane." He bumped his shoulder with Charles' and they laughed quietly. Then he softened. "So have you."
Charles kissed him, slow and certain, and it tasted of something soft and golden and final.
When they pulled apart, Edwin tucked his face into Charles’s neck. "Don’t let me sleep too long tomorrow."
"I won’t."
"I want to go to the harbour before sunrise."
Charles smiled, already picturing it. "You and your poetic instincts."
"You and your bad coffee."
Charles chuckled, wrapping his arms around Edwin and pulling him closer until they fit together like matching halves of something carved long ago.
Outside, the wind turned warmer. The sea sang beneath the moon.
And inside, the lantern flickered low, its light dancing softly across the pages of the book Edwin had left open.
A corner folded.
A sentence underlined.
And two names, scribbled in the margin, as if they had always belonged there.