by J. M. Frey
“No, I know,” I say. “I know where I belong.”
“Right here?” He kisses my knuckles again.
“Yeah, right here.”
“But?”
“But,” I agree. “But something. But . . . I don’t know. I feel aimless. I was preparing to raise a baby, and now he’s already half a man. So, now what?”
“Mother-hen the rest of Hain,” Kintyre says. When I blink at him in confusion, he puts my hand down and sighs at me like I’m a particularly stupid villain’s henchman. “The mask, Bev. You still haven’t put it on, have you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know. I’m scared?”
“Of?”
“I’m not sure. The mask burned Bootknife.”
“Bootknife was a sadistic sonofabitch.”
“Then maybe of becoming someone else? Of changing? Of . . . not being this, me, anymore?”
“Forsyth didn’t change,” Kintyre points out.
“How would either of us know that? We barely knew him before.”
Kintyre grimaces. I’m not wrong.
“I think you’re scared because you’re afraid you’ll enjoy it,” Kin says at length, in one of his rare fits of a philosophical mood. “You’re afraid of having something that is separate from me, from us, from this.” He makes a gesture between us.
“Hush,” I say slowly. “That’s . . . more insightful than I’m used to from you, trothed.”
“Oh no,” Kintyre scolds. “You know how much I like that word. Now I’m the one who won’t let you derail this conversation. No ‘trothed’ nonsense until this is sorted, Bev.”
I flop down on the bed, frustrated with my inability to articulate my frustration. Again.
“Look. I’ll make it easy,” Kin says, and climbs out of bed. He nips into my office and comes back with the mask. Yes. Of course, he would know where I had stashed it. I have no secrets from Kintyre Turn. I never have. “Put it on. Go have adventures without me. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“But I don’t want to,” I say, and the words, the honesty of it, catch in my throat. “Kin, I don’t want to do anything without you. I don’t want to live any part of my life without you. Not ever. Never again.”
Kintyre pulls the mask out of the bag and holds it out between us, intimate and gentle. “You and I both know that you’ll immediately come back and tell me everything. And Forssy said most of the job was done from home, anyway. We’ll still do this together, only this time, you’ll be the hero.”
“Unnamed.”
“Can’t have all the glory,” he teases. “Come on. I’ve been in the center of things long enough. It’s your turn, Bevel Dom. I’ll be here for you when you take the mask off at the end of each night. I always will be. This doesn’t change anything.”
“I . . .” I reach out and take the mask with the tips of my fingers. “Promise?”
“Always.”
I nod once, firmly, not sure what, exactly, is calcifying in my throat, what emotion or truth is dying to crawl up my tongue and between my teeth. It’s something good, though. Something honest. Perhaps something too honest. I can’t say it.
I kiss Kintyre instead, relocate whatever it is in my mouth and put it into his, so he can taste it, so he can know. And he does. He is smiling when we pull apart, a smug, shit-eating grin that I have come to adore and loathe in equal measure.
“Is this it, then?” Kin asks, shuffling so that his legs are outside mine, bracketing me in like an ornery, overprotective living cage. “You put on the mask, you stop fussing like a woman, and we go back to the way we were?”
“Obtuse and self-important?” I ask with a snort.
Kintyre grins mischievously and pinches my stomach, making me jump and writhe. “No, happy. Arse.”
“Happy?” I muse, turning the mask over so the face is pointed toward my lover. “Is that what we were?”
“Yes, of course,” Kin replies, without the smallest hitch of hesitation. “Always.”
“Even when we were annoyed with one another? Even when I was ready to wallop you?”
“Even then.”
“Okay. Fine. Happy.”
“Put it on,” Kintyre urges. “Go on.”
Under the careful watch of the one I care for most in the world, I raise the mask to my face. “You’ll pull it off me if it starts to burn?”
“It won’t. You’re worthy.”
“But if it does.”
Kin huffs. “Fine, yeah. I will. If it does. But it won’t. Stop stalling.”
“I’m not stalling.”
“You are stalling.”
“No.”
“Then say the Word.”
I’m tempted to keep teasing him. To draw this out. But I also sort of . . . want it over with. The fear of it, the fear of what it might do to my flesh, what the duties of being the Shadow Hand might mean to my life, to my relationship with Kin, to my place in the kingdom . . . it’s exhausting. I’m so tired of second-guessing myself, my worth, every hour of every day.
Time to give in.
“I love you,” I tell him.
He smiles, but doesn’t say it back. He doesn’t need to. I already know.
In the quiet, ember-lit darkness of our bedroom, I Say the Word, and slip the cool, tinglingly magical Shadow’s Mask over my face.
It feels like coming home.
About the Author
J.M. is a voice actor, SF/F author, professionally trained music theatre performer, not-so-trained but nonetheless enthusiastic screenwriter and webseries-ist, and a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, radio programs, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. J.M. lives near Toronto, loves tea, scarves, and Doctor Who (all of which may or may not be related), and her epic dream is to one day sing a duet with John Barrowman.
Her debut novel Triptych was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, nominated for the CBC Bookie Award, was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2011, was on The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011 list, received an honorable mention at the London Book Festival in Science Fiction, and won the San Francisco Book Festival for Science Fiction.
www.jmfrey.net | @scifrey
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Copyright
Also by J.M.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
About the Author
Connect with J.M.
