Seeing is Believing

by Sasha L. Miller

  Sabrel let out a muffled noise of surprise, and Anton turned back—

  Only to watch as Wilheim lunged from the wardrobe and how had they not searched the bedrooms and Anton was going to kill those marshals because there was a sharp sword gleaming in Wilheim's hand and he had it leveled at Sabrel's chest.

  "Did you really think you could get away with double-crossing me?" Wilheim hissed, his face red, and Sabrel stumbled back a step. Wilheim advanced, and Anton stepped towards them, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of one of the throwing knives strapped to his forearms, under his shirt.

  "Don't move, Mr. Homes," Wilheim warned. "I can skewer him easily before you could do a thing to stop me."

  "It doesn't matter," Sabrel spoke up. "Skewer me, then."

  Anton stared. Did Sabrel have a death wish? Perhaps he wanted his father to kill him, but that was a crazy thought and Anton pushed it away, releasing the latch on his knife and letting it slide into his hand. As long as Wilheim didn't see him throw—but he couldn't risk that quite yet.

  "Even if you kill me, you'll still be arrested," Sabrel shrugged, staring straight at Wilheim.

  "Yes, you were quite thorough with what you handed over," Wilheim sneered. "But if I'm going to prison, you're going to hell."

  Sabrel laughed quietly, and Anton decided that Wilheim was as distracted as he was likely to get. Raising his arm, he threw the knife—Wilheim caught the movement though, and Sabrel barely had a chance to move as Wilheim lunged forward, the sword sinking into Sabrel.

  "Oh," Sabrel whispered, crumpling to his knees and wincing. Anton cursed, ignoring Wilheim, who had at least toppled over with the knife firmly lodged in his throat. "Ow," Sabrel hissed, his right hand moving to wrap around the blade of the sword that stuck out of his right shoulder.

  "Let go," Anton admonished, and Sabrel dropped his hand, letting it fall into his lap. It was covered in blood, but from fresh cuts of the blade or from the wound in Sabrel's shoulder, Anton wasn't sure.

  "Anton," Sabrel whispered, reaching out and latching onto the side of Anton's shirt. Anton ignored him, focusing on pulling the sword out slowly. Sabrel winced, breathing in short, shallow gasps, and Sabrel was lucky because he could've had a sword through the chest instead of through his shoulder.

  "I want the garden," Sabrel told him, and Anton nodded, pushing way Sabrel's jacket and the flimsy shirt he wore underneath. The wound was relatively clean, at least, and Anton shoved to his feet, pulling the first shirt he found out of the wardrobe. He returned to Sabrel's side, pressing the shirt to both sides of Sabrel's wound.

  "Of course," Anton muttered, watching in consternation as blood soaked into the shirt at an alarming rate. "Anything you want."

  Sabrel smiled a little, slumping. "Good," he murmured, and Anton barely managed to catch him as he passed out.

  *~*~*

  Sabrel woke up warm, tucked into a soft bed. His shoulder throbbed in protest when he tried to roll that way, and Sabrel shut his eyes, trying to fall back asleep instead of remembering. It didn't really work, so Sabrel searched for a distraction instead.

  Where he was, for one. Sabrel shifted up the bed, careful to keep the weight off his injured arm. The room was big, and Sabrel stared, wide-eyed. It was easily as big as the library had been, and Sabrel blinked and then pinched himself. Surely this was a dream?

  The door peeked open, and Sabrel started, blushing a little as Anton slipped inside. He smiled cheerfully when he caught sight of Sabrel staring at him, and Sabrel smiled back tentatively.

  "Where am I?" Sabrel asked, glancing around the room again. It was infinitely too ornate for a simple owner of inns. Or a kingsman, if that's what Anton was.

  "You're at the house my family owns in this city," Anton answered, which didn't really help. "How are you feeling?"

  Sabrel shrugged, then winced because that hurt. Anton laughed, sitting down casually on the side of the bed. Sabrel gave him a look and pulled the covers up over his bare chest, because he was cold, of course).

  "I'm hungry," Sabrel decided after a moment, looking at Anton expectantly. "Can I have food?"

  "Of course," Anton smiled again, crossing the room swiftly. He ducked out of the room quickly, and a moment later was back, empty-handed. "Give it a few minutes."

  "Servants?" Sabrel asked slowly, wondering how rich Anton's family was. "Your family doesn't own inns."

  "No," Anton shrugged, sitting back down close to Sabrel again. "I would have thought you'd recognize my name."

  "Anton Forscythe?" Sabrel repeated, letting the syllables fall from his lips slowly. "I don't get out much."

  "Still," Anton shrugged. "It's pretty hard to miss the king's nephew's name."

  "You're the king's nephew?" Sabrel frowned, because that didn't make sense. "But—"

  "I'm trying to convince them to let me do undercover work for the country," Anton confessed. "This was my first real mission and I messed it up."

  "You got your bad guy," Sabrel pointed out. "How is that messed up?"

  "He's dead, you're hurt, and I could've prevented it all," Anton replied morosely, the smile slipping from his lips. Sabrel leaned forward laboriously, and pinched his arm.

  "Ow, hey!" Anton smiled though, and Sabrel frowned at him.

  "It was your first mission. You didn't mess it up, I did," Sabrel stared at him intently, breaking his stare only to push the hair from his forehead. "You'll get better."

  "I don't think I was very good at it to begin with," Anton confessed. "And you did not mess it up."

  "Right," Sabrel muttered, not agreeing and Anton could obviously tell that from the look he was giving Sabrel.

  "Anyway," Anton cleared his throat. "What do you want for helping?"

  "Breakfast," Sabrel replied immediately, and Anton laughed, flashing him an amused smile. Sabrel smiled back a little, pulling the covers up to his chin because the room was chilly.

  "After breakfast, then?" Anton asked, his smile still hovering about his lips. "You said something about 'the garden'?"

  Sabrel's eyes went wide before he could stop them, and he blushed. Anton stared, and Sabrel tugged the blankets over his head with his good hand, hiding himself from view.

  "Sabrel?" Anton asked, sounding baffled. "What does it mean?"

  "I had a dream," Sabrel admitted, pulling the covers down and mussing his hair. Staring at Anton for a long moment, Sabrel decided to give it a shot. The worste Anton could do would be to kick him out or something, and he didn't think Anton would, not with how Anton had been in the sitting room.

  "Dream, like vision?" Anton asked, looking a little confused, and Sabrel shook his head.

  "I have visions and dreams. The dreams are … maybes. The visions are more certain," Sabrel explained. "I had a dream, of—" Sabrel paused, blushing. "—of you and me, in a garden."

  "So you want to get a garden?" Anton asked, and he was being difficult on purpose. He had to be, because there was a smile turning his lips and his sky blue eyes were bright with amusement.

  "Come here," Sabrel beckoned him closer, and Anton obligingly slid further up the bed, towards the headboard. "It wasn't the garden, it was this—" Sabrel reached out with his left hand, not trusting his right hand to not give him too much pain, and touched Anton's cheek lightly. Anton turned his face into the soft touch, and Sabrel smiled, brushing his fingertips over Anton's lips.

  "It was you and me, in the garden," Sabrel finished quietly. "I want that."

  "Really?" Anton asked, just as quiet, and he was brushing tangled bits of Sabrel's hair out of his face, tenderly.

  "Really," Sabrel confirmed, wanting to lean forward and kiss Anton, but he was sure he'd mess it up because he'd never kissed anyone before—only Anton had fixed that for him, and was kissing him soft and sweet. Sabrel smiled, pressing a quick kiss to Anton's lips as he pulled back, his hand never leaving the side of Anton's face.

  "Is that all you want?" Anton asked, kissing the corner of his lips, and Sabrel wrinkled his nose bec
ause that was a little funny.

  "I'd like breakfast, too," Sabrel told him, letting his fingertips explore the line of Anton's jaw and back up, along his cheekbone. "But I can settle with this for now."

  Anton laughed, and kissed him again, this time long and hard, but still sweet, and Sabrel did his best to match him, banishing the remnants of his worries and doubts. Anton had promised him anything.

  A Fairy, a Wizard, and a Blacksmith

  "Miiiiiikaaaiaaah!"

  Micaiah Arleau paused, cutting off the music with a sharp motion. It died with a squawk, and he scowled as he turned to catch the distraught fairy.

  "What did you do, Frey?" Micaiah demanded, frowning at the fairy dust that was leaking all over the ballroom floor. Frey sat down on his hands, curling up and burying his face into his knees. Micaiah rolled his eyes and dropped the fairy, letting him catch himself before he fell to the floor.

  "That was mean," Frey sniffled, his gossamer wings propelling him up to hover in front of Micaiah's face.

  "I have no doubt that getting you out of whatever you've done now will more than make up for it," Micaiah replied dryly, crossing his arms. "What is it?"

  "I'm hurt," Frey pouted, tossing his silver hair over his shoulders and affecting a sulk. Micaiah sighed, turning back to the fake musicians he'd set up on the stage across the room. "Fine!" Frey shouted, flittering by his shoulders to get in front of him again.

  "So?" Micaiah demanded, wondering if he'd have time to make a headache potion before whoever Frey had wronged this time was knocking down his door, demanding the little fairy be squished under a book.

  "Well, it's your fault," Frey decided, darting back when Micaiah swatted at him. "It is! You're the one who told me he messed up your order and that it was really simple and so I went to go and—and maybe fix it, and he ignored me—"

  "Frey, my hand is taller than you," Micaiah pointed out. "And please tell me it wasn't—"

  "WIZARD!"

  The shout cut him off, and Micaiah groaned, fighting the urge to zap Frey. It wasn't the fairy's fault, he told himself sternly. Frey's magic was volatile. Untamed. Easy to muck up. No matter that Frey knew that, and knew he shouldn't use it when he was upset, and that when he had problems with someone he was supposed to come back and get Micaiah.

  "I hate you," Micaiah told Frey seriously, and the fairy wilted, leaking more fairy dust onto the ballroom floor. His maids were going to have a fit.

  The doors burst open, and Micaiah fought the urge to do something stupid, like plaster himself to the incredibly handsome blacksmith or hex the stupid fairy.

  "Fix it," Weston ordered angrily, and then paused, staring about the ballroom like he'd entered a foreign country. "You dance?"

  "Fix what?" Micaiah asked wearily, ignoring the second part of the question because it was obvious, what with the ballroom and all. Weston scowled again, and Frey flitted behind Micaiah, burrowing into Micaiah's hair. Micaiah rolled his eyes—his hair was going to have sparkles in it for days now.

  "The curse," Weston informed him, like Micaiah had specifically ordered Frey to go about laying curses upon delicious and unsuspecting blacksmiths. Micaiah stared at Weston wearily, wondering why he wasn't wearing a shirt. Not that Micaiah minded too much, since it gave him an absolutely lovely view of Weston's well-defined upper body. Being a blacksmith was obviously going well for him.

  "What curse?" Micaiah finally asked, angrily gesturing to the magical music box he'd created. It disappeared, and Micaiah drew on Frey's magic to clothe himself properly, not in the court fashions he'd been wearing for the purpose of practicing the newest dances. Weston looked a little startled, but Micaiah ignored that, waiting for him to answer.

  "Your fairy didn't tell you?" Weston asked, almost tentative, his dark brown eyes watching Micaiah curiously, and Micaiah was not blushing, because full-grown and graduated wizards did not do anything as girlish as blush.

  "No." Micaiah reached into his hair, pulling Frey loose. He caged the fairy in his hands before Frey could try and flutter off to hide—he'd done it before, often enough that Micaiah wasn't going to take any chances. Especially not when they were dealing with an irate blacksmith who was twice as wide as Micaiah was.

  "What did you do, Frey?" Micaiah demanded, ignoring the dust that was showering onto his hands. Frey's silver eyes peered through his fingers warily, and Micaiah sighed. "I'm not going to squish you, honestly. Just tell me so I can fix it."

  "It was supposed to be a love spell," Frey mumbled, and Micaiah's fingers twitched. "I was going to make him fall in love with his ass."

  "Frey," Micaiah sighed. "What did it do instead?"

  Frey mumbled something incomprehensible, and Micaiah rolled his eyes, blowing softly into his fingers to get some of the fairy dust off his hands. Weston was crossing the room, his boots loud against the ballroom's floor, and Micaiah tried not to wince because they were beautifully varnished hardwood floors he'd had to craft himself and blacksmith's boots would not be kind.

  "Again, Frey. This time so I can hear it," Micaiah ordered, and Frey scowled, crossing his arms and fluttering his wings petulantly.

  "It makes everyone else love him instead," Frey admitted, and Micaiah sighed, letting Frey loose. Frey took flight, but only took up refuge in Micaiah's hair again, hiding in the back where the metal clasp his mother had given him for his fifteenth birthday held his hair out of his face. Frey liked that clasp.

  "Come on," Micaiah ordered the blacksmith, wondering if that was what had happened to his shirt. Deciding it didn't matter, he paused to give Weston a quelling look. "And take off your boots before they ruin my floors."

  Weston looked properly abashed at least and removed his boots as he followed Micaiah from the ballroom, through the hallways to his workroom. It was cluttered and messy, but Micaiah didn't care, pointing imperiously to the armchair he'd had installed for the far-too-many-occasions this happened. Frey fluttered out of Micaiah's hair with a last spray of fairy dust, and disappeared up to the little nest he'd made in the rafters.

  "So you can fix it," Weston prompted, sitting down gingerly. He dwarfed the chair, and Micaiah tried not to notice because he could sleep in that chair comfortably—and had, once, when he'd been working on a project for two days straight and Frey had been visiting home and hadn't been around to chastise him for it.

  "Probably," Micaiah muttered, slipping between the two tables set up in the center of the room. Bookcases lined the walls in front of and to his left, and there were skylights set in the roof to let light in, and because Frey liked them.

  "Probably?" Weston repeated, sounding slightly stricken, and Micaiah rolled his eyes, poking under a stack of magical parchments. Muttering under his breath, he rolled them into scrolls with an imperious flick of his fingers and dug out the thick book entitled Fairies and Love Spells: An Encyclopedic Troubleshooting Guide.

  "Eventually, at least," Micaiah shrugged, flipping the book half-way open. "You meant donkey, right Frey?" Micaiah called up, and Weston's eyes widened. Micaiah fought a smirk, because it was kind of funny and the blacksmith had messed up his order for fire-gates for his fireplaces. How hard was it, especially when Micaiah had actually included a parchment drawing of how he'd wanted them to turn out?

  "Yes," Frey confirmed, and Weston's gaze flicked up and he stared curiously at the windows in the ceiling before dropping his gaze to Micaiah again.

  "How long is eventually?" Weston frowned, looking upset. "I have a business—"

  "You could go back to it," Micaiah shrugged, flipping to the section on animal-human love spells. "Not sure I'd recommend it, but you could."

  "I don't think I'd make it," Weston replied bleakly, and Micaiah nearly laughed before he remembered that Weston could and probably would make a mushy pulp of him.

  "Right," Micaiah murmured distractedly, peering at the book intently as he found the section on donkeys.

  "Glasses, Micaiah," Frey called, and Micaiah blinked before remembering he'd taken his
glasses off earlier and that Frey would hex them to stay on Micaiah's face if he tried to read without them. It took him a moment to find them, near the treatise on the differences between turning a human into a frog and toad.

  Ignoring Weston's stare, Micaiah bent his head to read. It didn't say much—the properties of that sort of curse were much the same as a few other spells Frey had misfired. So now he needed to look up attraction spells. Attraction spells that didn't affect the magically talented because though he still wouldn't mind being bedded by the built-like-a-wall blacksmith, well, he'd always thought that, and Frey wasn't plastering himself to Weston's chest or anything dramatic.

  "What are you doing?" Weston spoke up as Micaiah crossed the room to study his bookshelves.

  "Research," Micaiah replied absently, pulling off his glasses to stare at the higher shelves. There—he gestured and the book floated gently down to his arms. Turning around, he frowned at Weston, who was staring at his … feet. As though they were edible. Micaiah wiggled his toes, amused when Weston blushed and perhaps he should've put shoes on with his normal work clothes, except he liked going barefoot when he wasn't dancing.

  "That normal or a curse side-effect?" Micaiah asked, almost gently. He didn't want to embarrass Weston, though part of that could be the 'Weston could make mush of him' thing.

  "Normal," Weston admitted, still blushing cutely and trying to shrink down into the chair. "I guess."

  "I've seen weirder," Micaiah replied cryptically, flipping open the book Alluring the Masses. Weston made a disbelieving noise, but Micaiah didn't bother to explain. He was a wizard, and he'd been at the high court for most of his learning. Some really freaky things went on between the supposedly noble.

  Pushing his thoughts aside, Micaiah went back to his research. The sooner he fixed Weston, the sooner Weston took his too scrumptious body out of Micaiah's sight and he could get back to dancing, or working on that stupid project Lord Haccathus was making him do for taxes.

  *~*~*

  Weston was doing his best to not stare. He really was, and he really wished that the wizard who'd been assigned to this area of the kingdom was more like a wizard should be.