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“Silverbell?”
The sound of his name makes something flutter under his ribs before he even fully wakes. Silverbell startles upright in bed, sheets pooling around his waist, heart already racing as if he’d been caught doing something wrong.
It’s a familiar reaction. It used to happen in quieter rooms — in a scholar’s borrowed study overlooking the Fount of Knowledge, when Black Sapphire would murmur his name across stacked manuscripts and ink-stained fingers. Back when his master was still spoken of with reverence instead of caution.
Silverbell reaches over for the device Black Sapphire had provided him with just the day prior, his fingers almost reverent as they close around the plastic casing. It’s scuffed at the edges, worn in a way that suggests use. It’s not new — but not impersonal either. The warmth it carries is imagined, he knows that, but he presses it to his palm anyway.
It is unlike the ink-stained letters Black Sapphire used to send when he was still a scholar of the Fount of Knowledge — when his master was merely eccentric, not yet corrupted. Back when their greatest worry had been overdue manuscripts and not war itself.
The casing was silver, dulled in places where it had been handled most. Though it was cheesy, no one has ever tailored anything to him before. Not with quiet intent. He is used to being tolerated, admired from afar, envied perhaps — but rarely considered. The smallest gestures feel monumental to him because they are rare. They feel like proof. Proof that he is seen. Proof that he matters to someone in a way that isn’t tactical.
They have never broken up. Not when the Fount of Knowledge’s studies darkened into something unrecognizable. Not when alliances shifted. Not even when letters became dangerous to intercept. They simply… adjusted. Shorter messages. Coded phrasing. Gem bats instead of couriers.
And because of that, he already feels indebted.
He hates that about himself — how quickly gratitude turns into obligation. He wants to give Black Sapphire something equally meaningful. Something unique. Something that says I choose you too, not just thank you for choosing me.
“Yeah?” he answers, trying not to sound breathless. He fails. He’s pressing down on the button that Black Sapphire had instructed him to lay a finger on the day he’d gifted it to him
“Did you sleep well?” Black Sapphire asks. His voice comes through distorted, textured by static — but it’s unmistakably him. “And how well can you hear me through this?”
Silverbell lets his hand hover over the antenna, not quite touching it. This isn’t like the things he’s seen in Crispia. The Crispian technology he’s seen is polished and decorative, made to be admired. This feels… more practical.
It feels secretive, even. Black Sapphire must have put effort into getting this. An effort that likely required lies, per usual.
“I really like it,” he says quickly. “And I can hear you just fine, I think. The static is normal, right? I can make out what you’re saying!”
Black Sapphire sighed in relief. Silverbell’s chest warms at the sound. That, more than the gift, feels precious. Black Sapphire is not a man who relaxes easily. Not visibly. Not really in private, either.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Black Sapphire says. Silverbell can hear fabric shifting, buttons sliding through buttonholes. The crisp efficiency of his usual suit being put on. “I won’t be able to speak a whole bunch today, okay?”
Though it (likely) hadn’t meant to have that effect, it reminds Silverbell that their relationship lives in margins. In stolen hours. In static-filled frequencies now, apparently.
He wonders sometimes what would happen if someone walked in right now. If a fellow knight saw him sitting in bed, clutching a secret line to a man aligned with the kingdom’s greatest threat.
“Is that why you’re speaking to me early?” Silverbell asks lightly, though something inside him tightens. He tries to sound curious, not needy. “By the way, what exactly should I call this device? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
He turns it over in his hands, searching instinctively for something familiar — a volume wheel, a label, a maker’s insignia. Something recognizable, like the more modern technology he’s seen in Crispia.
He doesn’t find any. That unsettles him more than he wants to admit.
Being with Black Sapphire means existing in blank spaces. It means holding objects you can’t show anyone. Smiling about things you can’t talk about. Carrying joy that must never be visible.
It means never saying, out loud, what this is. He cannot tell his fellow knights why he wakes before dawn smiling more than usual. He cannot admit why his focus sometimes fractures when Shadow Milk is mentioned in briefings.
And he certainly cannot say that sometimes — shamefully, treacherously — he hopes their forces never meet. Because if they did, he would not know which oath would win.
As he’s maneuvering the device, a button click makes Black Sapphire’s voice pause. When he releases it, it comes back immediately. That was certainly interesting, though, did he just cut off Black Sapphire as he was speaking? He hopes not.
He releases it quickly, almost guiltily, as if the device itself might scold him.
“—Talkie,” Black Sapphire’s voice cut off.
Involuntarily, a heat rises in Silverbell’s face making his cheeks flush and he swears he feels a droplet of sweat sliding off his forehead. He’s already messed up their first interaction on the device.
His mistake feels symbolic. He cannot afford to mishandle this. He cannot afford to mishandle him.
“Sorry?” Silverbell replies.
Embarrassment coils tight in his chest. Ridiculous. It’s a minor mistake. It means nothing. He should stop overthinking it.
“What?” Black Sapphire asks.
He imagines Black Sapphire frowning. Imagines him realizing, perhaps, that entrusting Silverbell with secret equipment was a mistake.
“I’m sorry,” Silverbell blurts. “I think I cut you off. I was experimenting with the buttons while you were talking. I didn’t hear what you said.”
Embarrassment coils tight in his chest.
Sometimes Silverbell wonders whether Black Sapphire finds the secrecy thrilling. Sometimes he fears he does not. Silverbell does not feel thrilled. He feels small, quiet grief.
He wants — just once — to smile at Black Sapphire in public without calculating who might be watching. To say his name without lowering his voice. To let happiness exist without disguising it as neutrality.
“Silverbell.”
There’s a faint hum of static, then a quiet huff of laughter that Black Sapphire tries, and fails, to smother.
“Already silencing me?” he asks dryly. “We’ve only just started using it.”
Silverbell squeezes his eyes shut, “I said I was sorry.”
“I’m aware.” There’s fabric shifting again, the soft unmistakable sound of Black Sapphire adjusting his cravat. “It’s impressive, though. Most people wait at least a week before they start interrupting me.”
“I didn’t interrupt you,” Silverbell protests weakly. “I accidentally muted you.”
“Oh, I know.” A pause. “That’s what makes it better.”
Silverbell drags a hand down his face, mortified. He can feel the warmth still lingering in his cheeks. He’s grateful, at least, that Black Sapphire cannot see him like this — rumpled, flustered, too earnest for his own good.
“You’re enjoying this,” Silverbell mutters.
“Immensely.”
There’s something lighter in Black Sapphire’s tone now. The teasing isn’t sharp. It isn’t meant to wound. It feels… indulgent.
Silverbell holds the device closer to his mouth, as though proximity might steady him.
“I told you I’ve never used one of these before,” he says. “The Faerie Kingdom doesn’t exactly use this form of communication.”
In the Faerie Kingdom, messages are inked in curling script, sealed with wax, carried by wing. Music is etched into sheets and memorized under moonlight. News travels by voice or harpstring, not by something like this.
Silverbell turns the device over again, more carefully this time. He studies the button he pressed — small, slightly recessed.
“That button,” Black Sapphire continues, his voice shifting — less teasing now, more instructive. “You press it when you’re speaking. Release it when you’re done. If you keep it pressed, I can hear you. If you don’t, I can’t.”
Silverbell blinks.
“…Oh.”
A beat of silence.
Then—
“Oh.”
The realization hits him all at once, and humiliation follows close behind.
“So I didn’t cut you off,” he says slowly.
“You did,” Black Sapphire answers. “But only because you stopped pressing it. The Walkie-talkie.”
Silverbell stares at the device as it has personally betrayed him. A walkie-talkie. That is what Black Sapphire had called it. Its name wasn’t even something respectably arcane. A walkie-talkie—a name that sounds like it ought to belong to a children’s toy rather than a tool capable of transmitting voices across distance.
The very idea feels transactional, almost accusatory—press here to be acknowledged. Really? Who came up with these kinds of things?
And that, unfairly, makes his chest tighten.
He doesn’t like it.
The thought lands heavy and immediate—and instantly followed by guilt.
Black Sapphire chose this for him. Not something ornamental. Not something ceremonial. Something useful. Something that would allow them to speak more easily across distance. That is thoughtful.
“So I’ve just been—”
“Listening very attentively,” Black Sapphire supplies.
“I’ve been holding it like a decorative artifact,” Silverbell corrects miserably.
He turns it over in his hands again, examining the stubby antenna with narrowed suspicion. It doesn’t glow. It doesn’t hum. It doesn’t even look particularly dignified. The small grille where Black Sapphire’s voice emerges is nothing more than patterned holes in dark plastic.
Silverbell, once again, is thankful that Black Sapphire isn’t here in person to witness this mortifying failure. He can only imagine what it’d be like if he were.
Black Sapphire would notice immediately. He notices everything. The hesitation before Silverbell speaks. The fraction too long he spends examining unfamiliar objects. The way his confidence sharpens when the subject returns to courtly matters or ancient rites. Black Sapphire would file this away—not cruelly, but accurately.
Here, in the quiet crackle of a presumably Crispian device, he feels stripped of that careful poise. His knowledge is precise but narrow. His visits to Crispia have been brief, not long enough to know what a walkie-talkie was.
Silverbell presses the button experimentally, “Like this?”
“Yes. Keep holding it.”
He does.
He does not like that it crackles with static before delivering Black Sapphire’s voice. He does not like that it requires pressure, constant and deliberate, as though attention must be proven physically. He does not like that it feels foreign in his hands, that he must think about how to hold it instead of simply holding it.
But he likes—he admits reluctantly—that Black Sapphire’s voice comes through clear once the static fades. Direct. Immediate. Closer than letters carried by Black Sapphire’s gem bats. Closer than scheduled meetings in guarded areas.
Silverbell keeps his thumb on the button this time, steady and deliberate.
“I guess,” he continues lightly, “it is useful. Discreet. No one would suspect anything particularly sentimental about a walkie-talkie.”
There’s the faintest crackle of static. “Sentimental?” Black Sapphire echoes.
Silverbell releases the button too soon, inhales, then presses it again with a small huff of irritation at himself. “Not that it is sentimental,” he amends. “Just that it facilitates communication. Which is—objectively—valuable.”
A pause.
“You’re avoiding talking about something,” Black Sapphire says.
Silverbell tilts his head, though Black Sapphire cannot see it. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
He considers denying it. That would be the simplest route. Instead, he studies the dull casing of the device in his hand, tracing the seam along its side with his thumb.
“In the Faerie Kingdom,” he begins, pressing the button with measured care, “good news is not kept quiet.”
He releases it, then quickly presses it again before Black Sapphire can respond.
“When a courtship is formalized, there are feasts. Announcements. Entire groves illuminated in silverlight. Even minor alliances are paraded about with flowers and song. It is… tradition.”
“And?” Black Sapphire prompts.
“And I find,” he says airily, “that I am in the peculiar position of possessing good news I cannot proclaim.”
He releases the button.
This time, the silence that follows is not mechanical. It stretches. He presses it again before the weight of the conversation can settle.
“It would be inconvenient,” he adds quickly. “Politically speaking.”
Black Sapphire’s voice, when it comes, is even. “Because of who I’m aligned with.”
Silverbell does not hesitate, though his fingers tighten slightly around the walkie-talkie.
“You are aligned with an enemy of the Faerie Kingdom,” he says, tone careful and almost conversational. “That is just a fact. A very inconvenient one.”
He releases the button, then immediately presses it again, continuing with his habit of not allowing the topic to deepen.
“I cannot stand in the middle of Faeriewood and declare, ‘I am exceedingly happy, and incidentally it is with someone politically adversarial.’ It would dampen the festivities.”
A quiet exhale of amusement crackles through the speaker. “Dampen.”
“Considerably,” Silverbell replies.
“Big words you’re using there.”
Silverbell huffs, he can’t tell if it’s out of amusement or not. He lowers the device slightly, then lifts it again, thumb hovering before pressing down once more.
“It is a minor misery,” he insists, too quickly. “I’m not too tragic about it.”
He smiles as he says it, but he’s sure that Black Sapphire won’t buy it. He hears himself. He knows the insistence is transparent.
He is tragic about it. Not loudly. Not theatrically. But in the small ways that matter — in the way he wakes smiling and must smooth it away before morning routines. In the way, he cannot look too displeased during briefings when Shadow Milk’s subordinates are mentioned. In the way, joy must be disguised as neutrality.
“In Crispia,” he continues, regardless, tone lighter now, “I imagine such matters are less… ceremonious.”
“They can be,” Black Sapphire says. “But not always.”
Silverbell nods faintly, even though the gesture goes unseen.
“In the Faerie Kingdom, joy is communal,” he says. “It is meant to be displayed. Witnessed. Affirmed.” He pauses, then adds with a small, self-deprecating huff, “I did not realize how much I had internalized that.”
He releases the button.
The quiet hum of the channel lingers. When he presses it again, his voice is deliberately brighter.
“It is hardly unbearable. I am perfectly capable of being privately content. Secretly delighted. Covertly—”
“Happy?” Black Sapphire supplies gently.
Silverbell stills.
“Yes,” he says, softer now. “That.”
Static crackles faintly.
“I don’t hate you for it,” Silverbell adds quickly, the lightness returning by sheer force of will. “To be clear. I hate the geopolitical landscape. Very different matter.”
He always clarifies. Always reassures. As though love might interpret honesty as accusation if not properly managed.
“I’m glad you’ve assigned blame appropriately.”
“Of course,” Silverbell says primly. “I am nothing if not fair.”
Fairness matters to him. It is how he justifies loving someone he technically should not.
He lowers the walkie-talkie to look at it again, at the plain casing and inelegant antenna. Discreet. Unremarkable. No one in court would glance twice at it.
Perhaps that is part of why he keeps it close.
He presses the button once more.
“It is strange,” he admits, tone almost thoughtful now. “To feel something so bright and have to hold it quietly.”
On the other end, Black Sapphire does not speak immediately.
Silverbell nearly releases the button too soon out of lingering irritation—but catches himself, thumb steady.
“We’ll find our own way to celebrate,” Black Sapphire says at last.
Silverbell’s expression softens, just slightly.
“I suppose,” he replies, composure slipping into something warmer, “this counts.”
He releases the button.
Silverbell turns the walkie-talkie in his hand again, thumb resting along the button but not pressing it. He imagines, briefly, what it would look like—Black Sapphire stepping openly into the Faerie Kingdom, unshadowed, unopposed.
The image is absurd.
He presses the button, “You are not permitted,” he says lightly, “to start any wars on my account.”
A faint shift of fabric on the other end. “I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good,” Silverbell replies. “Because that would be terribly inconvenient.”
“I could come in disguise.”
Silverbell freezes, thumb still firmly placed on the button, “…You could what?”
He nearly releases it in his surprise but corrects himself at the last second.
Black Sapphire’s voice is maddeningly calm. “In disguise. I’ve done it before.”
Silverbell’s heart does something unhelpful in his chest.
“That,” he says carefully, “is not reassuring.”
“I wouldn’t be reckless.”
“You are aligned with an enemy power,” Silverbell reminds him, tone bright and brittle at the edges. “You are the definition of reckless in this context.”
Static crackles softly.
“I wouldn’t come as myself,” Black Sapphire continues. “No insignia. No escort. Just another faerie, maybe a librarian. I know enough about faeries to pass as one.”
Silverbell lowers the device slightly, staring at nothing.
He presses the button again.
“And what,” he asks with deliberate composure, “would we do, exactly? While you are committing light treason in a borrowed face?”
There’s a faint smile in Black Sapphire’s voice. “Something ordinary.”
Silverbell’s breath catches despite himself.
“Ordinary,” he repeats.
“Yes. Walk through the moonlit paths. Try the nectar jellies you sometimes complain about but always finish. Sit by the reflecting pools. Nothing political nor ceremonial.”
Nothing dangerous, the implication says.
Silverbell releases the button.
The idea is reckless. It is ill-advised. It is threaded with potential consequences he does not even want to name.
He presses it again.
“You would stand out,” he says, because it is safer to argue logistics than to acknowledge how badly he wants this. “Even disguised.”
“I can be unremarkable when I choose to be.”
“That,” Silverbell murmurs, “I would very much like to see.”
A soft chuckle answers him.
His grip tightens around the walkie-talkie. It would be a small rebellion. Not a declaration beneath moonlight. Not a feast. Not a proclamation echoing through the court.
But it would be something shared in the open air of his homeland.
“That is,” Silverbell says slowly, “a profoundly unwise suggestion.”
“Is that a no?”
Silverbell hesitates just long enough to be honest. He is brave in battle. Decisive in court. But when it comes to this — choosing joy despite risk — he falters.
“It is a,” he says mimicking Mercurial Knight’s tone while giving orders, “we will discuss the operational details at a later time.”
Black Sapphire laughs outright at that.
Silverbell feels warmth rise to his face, grateful once more that the device transmits only sound. He is absurdly pleased by that laugh — as though coaxing it out is an accomplishment.
“You’re smiling,” Black Sapphire says.
“I am maintaining composure,” Silverbell corrects.
“Mhm.”
Silence stretches—but it is easy now.
After a moment, Black Sapphire speaks again, voice softer.
“I’ll let you go for today.”
Silverbell’s thumb presses more firmly into the button.
“So soon?”
“I have obligations. And you have court to survive.”
“That is not how I would phrase it.”
“It’s accurate.”
Silverbell exhales, the sound quiet.
The thought of the line going dead unsettles him more than he expects. The walkie-talkie may be inelegant. It may crackle and demand constant pressure and symbolize everything modern he does not fully understand.
But it carries Black Sapphire’s voice.
He presses the button again.
“You will signal tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“And Silverbell?”
He keeps the button down, waiting.
“I’m turning this off for the rest of the day.”
The words land with gentle finality.
Silverbell swallows.
“Alright,” he says, striving for lightness. “Don’t harm anyone… Too bad.”
“I won’t.”
A softer beat.
“Tomorrow,” Black Sapphire says.
“Tomorrow,” Silverbell echoes.
He waits a fraction too long before releasing the button.
A soft click follows and the faint background static disappears.
The walkie-talkie sits silent and ordinary in his hand once more—no hum, no voice, no immediate warmth.
Silverbell looks down at it, thumb brushing once over the now-quiet button.
Then he straightens, smooths his expression into something court-appropriate, and sets the device carefully at his side—already counting the hours until it speaks again.