“Nah, don’t make yourself any later than you already are. I’ll take care of it.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Shoo.” Terry waved a hand toward the door. “I’m going to be around for a few more hours anyway.” Truth—he had a client booked at Raging Art-On in half an hour, to add some color to a lion he’d outlined for the guy last week, so he’d still be around if Mac showed up.
“Okay.” Garrett glanced around one more time before grabbing the hoodie he’d left draped over a saw-horse—D.C.’s November was doing its usual November thing, balmy one day and raw the next. “See you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing.”
The door clicked shut behind the departing pole dancer, the sound satisfyingly solid. It was nice to be able to close off the studio space. Made him feel like they were making some real progress.
Terry huffed out a breath through his nose, and wandered off into the next studio. The front studio, the space where its large window was going to be currently occupied by reinforced plywood, was going to be used mainly for pole and aerial work—the sight of Garrett and the other Purgatory dancers doing their thing would bring people into the new studio in droves, and both of the proprietors knew it. There would eventually be a short hallway leading back from that studio, with a door on one side giving onto a changing room with showers, and another door opposite opening onto the fitness studio-cum-performance space. Right now, all there was was a row of support beams, but Terry’s imagination could fill in the rest, no problem.
And then, tucked into the back, would be Terry’s own pride and joy.
Even when he’d lived in New York City, even when Bryce Newhouse, cursed be he, had been bankrolling his trockadero dance company, he’d never had his own custom-designed studio and rehearsal space. He’d never even let himself dream about it. He’d begged space, and borrowed it, and pledged too much of the box office from every performance for it.
No more.
Terry hugged himself against the chill of the evening air, turning around and around in the starkly-lit space, his imagination filling in walls and floors and brilliant lights. And a room full of dancers, shaping Tchaikovsky and Minkus and Ravel and Stravinsky with their bodies. Making magic, like in the old days.
The best old days had been the days with Josh, before Bryce had entered the picture. Terry knew that, now that it was years too late to do anything about it. Working shoulder-to-shoulder with Josh in their hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor, running out for midday classes and rehearsals. Performances, a season of three performances here, four there, and the chaotic Nutcracker season when the company earned most of its working budget for the rest of the year.
And coming home to Josh every night, or in the chill clear hour before dawn, when even New York City held its breath. Giddy with the joy of another performance, and Josh grinning with delight at Terry’s happiness.
Yeah, well, I took care of that, didn’t I?
The light clipped to a wall stud in the ballet studio space was humming loudly; Terry wandered over to check it out, his footsteps echoing in the open space. Not that he’d know an electrical problem if one leaped up and bit him in the ass, but if felt better to think that he was doing something.
Things with Bryce hadn’t actually been a total shit-fest at first. Not that it had ever been good enough to make up for the way he’d hurt Josh, letting himself be lured away by the investment banker with the fancy suits and the fat wallet. But it had seemed like Bryce had cared, for a while. He really had seemed to enjoy playing Santa Claus to Terry, and to Trock Bottom. Terry had realized the enormity of his mistake fairly early on, though. Bryce had wanted to take him away from Josh, period. And once he’d managed that… well, for Terry, there had been no way to go back.
Terry changed the angle of the clip-on light to keep the built-in fan from vibrating against the metal stud or column or whatever the hell it was it was clipped to. The humming stopped.
What do you know?
He shrugged. Dance was his first love. Always had been, ever since he could walk. And that love made him stupid, made him make bad choices, especially when it came to the other kind of love, the kind of love that involved another man and a life together and being in love. Maybe you only get one kind or the other.
Maybe he was cursed.
Terry rolled his eyes. When he started dwelling on what he no longer trusted himself to look for and was never going to have, it was a sure sign it was time to get back to work on what he did have. He walked down the hallway leading from the back studio to the reception area, though there wasn’t any need to use the hallway given that neither hallway nor studio nor reception area actually existed yet. They would soon. That was enough.
He laughed softly at sight of the piece of sample flooring. Apparently readjusting the angle of the light had done something he hadn’t expected, because it almost looked as if the thick square of sprung floor was glowing, or spotlit. Like the omen he wasn’t looking for, because he didn’t believe in omens.
Like magic.
Magic. Ha.
Terry slipped out the door, locking it behind him as he went. He was only going to be across the little courtyard the reconstruction had added to separate the storefronts—the new studio, Big Boy Massage, Raging Art-On, and the spot where Purgatory’s above-ground entrance would soon stand—but better safe than sorry.
All the magic in the world wasn’t going to keep his dream safe. Because there was no such thing. Any idiot knew that.
Chapter Three
Breathe. Just breathe.
Considering that Maelduin had been unable to do just that, only moments before, breathing felt like an unspeakable luxury. He lay motionless, curled in on himself, his left hand still on the hilt of his oath-blade. Still shivering in the aftermath of what he had just endured.
If it worked, it was worth the pain. It will be worth any pain imaginable.
But for now, breathing was enough.
Maelduin sensed light through his closed eyelids, light that was neither moonlight nor the silver-blue flare of magick—the last thing he had seen as the chaotic wind had forced him through the sieve of blades that was the Pattern.
Maybe I’m safe.
He managed a little laugh as he opened his eyes. ‘Safe’ was, he suspected, going to be a highly relative term for a while, at least until he had adapted to his new world. But anything was safer than the crystal floor falling away beneath him to show him the stars through a net of knives, the whirlwind hammering him through it. And the moon gazing coolly down on it all through a tiny round window.
There was no moon where he was now. A yellowish light coming from somewhere behind him showed him what looked like a mostly-unfinished hall, a maze of slender pillars of wood and metal and a floor of flat gray stone. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if he lay on a dais of some sort. And the wood beneath him glowed faintly, in the unmistakable hue and patterning of living magick. Which seemed wrong, somehow, though he could not recall why.
But he had other hawks to train to fist at the moment. Steeling himself against the pain, he pushed himself up on an elbow. Higher, relieved as the pain proved to be more a memory than a present truth.
Something beneath him rustled.
Maelduin frowned. He wore only leather and linen, and the fastenings of his sword-belt were bronze and copper. He had carried nothing with him from the Realm, or at least nothing that would make such a sound.
The corner of a piece of parchment poked out from under his loose linen blouse.
Reaching under himself, Maelduin pulled out a small scroll, once probably rolled, now flattened. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, more slowly than he would have liked, and unrolled the scroll.
Maelduin, late Lord Guaire, salutation and warning. If you have survived to read this, it is well, I suppose.
Maelduin blinked, wondering how much gratitude it was appropriate to feel for his unknown correspondent’s lukewarm concern for his welfare.
Heart racing, Maelduin touched his face, his ears; flexed fingers, toes; shifted his weight enough to feel the pressure of fabric against his cock. Nothing was missing. Nothing physical.
Your only care now must be finding your human SoulShare, and regaining what you have lost. You can imagine no task more important than this.
Maelduin snorted. He had heard the stories, of course—children’s cautionary tales, mostly, warning of the loss of part of one’s soul to pay the passage between worlds. He could imagine several things more important than regaining something he would not have missed had he not been told he had lost it.
More cautiously than was his wont—in case the pain returned—he gathered his feet under himself and stood.
He stepped on the scabbard of his sword. He staggered, thrown off balance, and fell off the low dais. Or whatever it was.
The sudden sharp pain of his ankle twisting sent Maelduin stumbling to one side. Catching himself, he stepped on the blade of what he had a split second to identify as probably some sort of gardening instrument before the long handle arced up and struck him squarely in the nose.
Tears of pain—and humiliation—burned in Maelduin’s bright blue eyes. Blood poured from his nose and splashed on the floor and the dais. He could feel his ankle swelling in the confines of his boot.
There is a flaw in the Pattern, and that flaw has surely maimed you…
By rendering him unable to avoid maiming himself?
Maybe regaining what he had lost was going to be more important than he had thought.
* * *
“You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to, Terry.” Josh looked up from where he was bent over the light table next to the register. “I doubt we’ll be getting any walk-in business tonight.”
If Terry craned his neck, he knew he’d be able to see the design Josh was working on. Something fabulous, he was sure. Terry’s own designs were good, but he was nowhere near being in his former lover’s league, and he knew it. And as grateful as he was to Josh for taking him in as a business partner after Bryce had ditched him—and no matter how many times Josh told him it had been the best business decision he’d ever made—he was going to be glad to get the studio off the ground and be back on his own two feet for good.
Still, he owed Josh. And despite everything, the easygoing brunet was a good friend. “You’re sure? You aren’t looking for an excuse to get home early?” Terry’s appointment had cancelled on him, a good ten minutes past the scheduled time. Terry would be within his rights to charge a cancellation fee, but he usually only did that if the client was being a straight-up asshole, and that hadn’t been the case tonight.
“Are you kidding?” Josh grinned. “Someone bought Conall a complete set of Keeping Up Appearances on DVD, and he’s binge-watching. I’m not going home till I get the all-clear.”
The red-haired twink’s fascination with TV and movie kitsch contrasted strangely with the brutally elegant bondage demos he and Josh had enjoyed doing at the old Purgatory. Tiernan had promised them a proper dungeon once the club was rebuilt, too. If Tiernan built in a plasma screen TV with a DVR, Conall would be the happiest man in Washington, D.C.
Eyes front, Terrence. “Hyacinth Bucket is enough to make any man’s blood run cold. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, then.”
He was halfway down the block to the Metro station before he remembered his jacket, left back in the studio. He debated leaving it for the next day, but a chill damp gust of wind changed his mind. Good thing I don’t live someplace that has proper winters, I’d be dead of pneumonia.
Idly wondering why catching pneumonia, breaking his neck, and putting his eye out were the consequences for every imaginable kind of misbehavior—at least according to his mother—he fished the studio key out of his pocket and turned it in the lock.
A man dressed like a Musketeer looked up from the square of sprung-floor sample, most of his face covered by his bloody hands, his body hunched protectively over what looked like a sword lying across his thighs. A beautiful sword, going by the gold-chased hilt and the gorgeous tooled leather scabbard.
For some reason, Terry instantly flashed on Duke Albrecht, from the ballet Giselle. A nobleman masqueraded as a peasant to steal the heart of the simple village girl Giselle; Albrecht’s deception was revealed by the quality of his weapon, and the sudden appearance of his inconvenient fiancée the Princess Bathilde; Giselle went memorably mad, and died of a broken heart. Gotta love Romantic ballet plots.
It was, of course, pure coincidence that Giselle was the last ballet he had staged, and Giselle the last role he had danced, with Trock Bottom before Bryce had given him the boot.
And the fact that the bloody-handed intruder staring up at him with impossibly blue eyes made him think of Giselle, rather than about calling 911, was proof positive that he, Terrence Miller, was too easily distracted to be allowed out without adult supervision.
“Who the hell—who are you? And how did you get in here through a locked door?”
* * *
The human who stood before Maelduin, hands on hips, looked nothing like any Fae he had ever seen. Maybe there was a slight resemblance to the adhmacomh, the bark-hued descendants of trees who were possibly the only Fae who came anywhere near being despised as much as the last true scion of the Cursed House… but surely none of the dark Fae were as pleasing to the eye as the male who glared at him. Dusky skin, hair a few shades darker falling in loose corkscrew curls around the male’s face… and if the rest of the human’s body matched the outlines revealed by tight-fitting singlet and trousers, that, too, was more than a match for most Fae.
The male’s eyes would probably be beautiful, too, if they weren’t narrowed in evident anger. Maelduin wondered if he would lose any tactical advantage if he were to lower his hands so he could see better.
The human spoke.
“Who the hell—who are you? And how did you get in here through a locked door?”
Maelduin blinked, puzzled. I must be able to speak human. Either that, or humans speak Faen. Which I doubt.
He let his hands fall—from the feel of things, his broken nose had healed itself with normal Fae speed.
“t’Mé Maelduin.” He did not speak human, apparently. “And who are you?” Well, perhaps a little human. But only words he had already heard.
Anger turned to a puzzled frown. “I’m Terry Miller. And you’re trespassing, Maelduin. I’ll ask you again, how did you get in here?”
‘Trespassing.’ With the word came all its meanings, all its implications. The human—Terry—owned this unfinished place. Maelduin had no idea what rights this might give a human, but it was probably safe to assume that Terry thought he was entitled to evict him. And the prospect of venturing out into the wider human world alone, while helpless under some bizarre curse of clumsiness, was frightening in a way Maelduin was unaccustomed to being frightened.
But how to make Terry understand the urgency of his need? When their current shared vocabulary was some 25 words, none of which conveyed any meaning close to ‘I need sanctuary?’
The answer, of course, was obvious. Or it would have been, to any Fae before the Sundering, and instincts were eternal. Some of them, anyhow.
“Cadagh dom a tacht ar’shúl ó anseo le you.” Allow me to come away from here with you. Carefully, Maelduin got to his feet. Not carefully enough to avoid the mysterious curse, though; his ankle betrayed him, and he staggered.
Terry’s arm shot out. Hands clasped forearms and Maelduin’s breath caught in his throat. Terry’s touch called to something in him, some power. The power surged, rose like a wave—but broke, before it reached the human.
What is this?
“What… did you say?” Terry frowned, blinked.
Whatever the energy was, Maelduin could not let it stop him. Hu
mans were prey, so the old stories had it. Often delightful prey, but prey nonetheless. Letting the hint of a smile shadow his eyes, he channeled magick, the oldest channeling known to Fae, common to all Demesnes, all Houses.
“Ta’bhar mé fhéin le you,” he murmured, watching the human’s eyes unfocus. Take me with you.
And once he had been taken… he would do what needed to be done, to ensure his safety until his curse was lifted and his oath was kept.
Chapter Four
Kevin eased his Mercedes into the gap between buildings that was eventually going to be the new Purgatory’s valet parking area. Letting the steering wheel glide back to center under his palms, he was happy to see that his hands had finally stopped shaking.
Fuck premonitions.
Switching off the headlights, he eased out of the car, quietly closing the door and locking it behind himself. Conall’s ward masked sound at least as well as it did sight, but it was a bare-bones, low-wattage affair, and Kevin didn’t trust it entirely. And some of the subcontractors occasionally had people on the site at night, to whom it would be awkward to explain the invisible back door into Purgatory.
The little rectangle of truesilver set into the stone door warmed quickly under his thumb; with a click more felt than heard, the door swung open, then closed behind Kevin. Truesilver was a damned handy thing to have, Fae-forged metal that knew its own purpose. It was a shame they had so little of it—Conall, Lasair, and Tiernan had arrived from the Realm in chains, and with Conall’s help, or Cuinn’s, the links could be reforged and repurposed. Into, say, a magickal lock for a magickal door.
The lawyer’s footsteps echoed as he descended the tight spiral staircase leading down into the underground sanctuary. Normally he enjoyed the sensation of the stone under his feet—because it was elemental Stone, created and sculpted by his husband while in the throes of multiple orgasms he himself had been more than pleased to engineer.
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