"Don't you have anything other than gin?"

The bartender looked back and forth between Mirk and Yule, his eyebrows arched skeptically. They had to be a terrible sight: two exhausted healers, poorly washed, both clearly in a mood. Mirk dug around in the pockets of his cloak until he came up with his purse, slapping a handful of whatever currency his fingers closed around first down onto the sticky surface of the bar. His stony expression becoming much more agreeable, the bartender swept the coins off the bar and into the front pocket of his apron before retreating into the back room without a word to either of them.

Yule smacked Mirk in the shoulder, shooting him a disgusted look. "That was a whole two weeks' pay, you know."

"Does it matter?"

Yule sighed. "To you? No. But it's the principle of the thing." The older healer propped his elbows up on the edge of the bar, resting his chin on his palm. "Bastard better bring back something decent. Otherwise I'm leaving with half his teeth."

He could feel that Yule meant every word he said, but Mirk still laughed, just a little. In order to keep the turbulent pre-Festival atmosphere of the tavern from overwhelming him, Yule had cast his own mental shielding out over Mirk as they'd entered. It kept the emotions of the other patrons at bay, but left Mirk stewing in Yule's instead. Yule was in a sour, black mood. Mirk was accustomed to feeling it from him. He was more concerned with what Yule could feel oozing past his own pathetic attempts at mental shielding. The blockers were keeping Mirk from spiraling down into a pit of self-loathing and guilt, but not even the high potency ones would have been enough to make him a pleasant companion that night.

Even though neither of them were in the best mood, Mirk appreciated the subtle feeling of intimacy Yule's shields created. An island of calm within all the shouting and laughing, a sense that it was them together against the world. Which was more accurate than Mirk wanted to admit to himself. He had a feeling their shared inclinations were the reason why Yule had decided to take him out that night. However, neither of them were willing to broach the topic lying heavy between them until drinks arrived.

The bartender returned a few minutes later with a bottle for each of them. Yule snatched up the bartender's thick wrist in one hand before he could drop the bottles and backstep out of range, holding the man captive until he finished evaluating the quality of the drink he'd brought. To the bartender's credit, he didn't attempt to twist out of Yule's grasp. He must have worked in the City long enough to know that it wasn't wise to cross a healer in a bad mood, no matter how small and soft they looked.

"Is this local?" Yule asked, as he squinted at the label.

The bartender shook his head. "Spare import from the Third's place. Spanish."

Grudgingly, Yule released his wrist. "Better than gin, at least."

Mirk's curiosity was piqued, in spite of the painful emotions still roiling in the back of his mind. He reached for his own bottle, spinning it around to read the label. Mirk didn’t understand all the words, but he could pick out enough to know what he was dealing with — brandy, not aged for long, but from a good region. "It's worth the price, Yule. Methinks it'll be fine enough."

Pulling the cork out of the bottle, Mirk took a sip directly from its mouth. It was sweeter than he'd been expecting. He didn't feel like he deserved anything better than a drink that tasted the same way Genesis's omnipresent cleaning potion smelled. The fact that was the first comparison that sprung to Mirk's mind made him take a second, longer drink, hoping to banish the thought back to the dark recesses of his mind.

All Mirk's hopes were dashed once Yule had taken his own prospecting sip to confirm his appraisal. The older healer pivoted on his stool to face him, looking Mirk over with another tired sigh. "Tell me what happened."

"Hmm? You were there, Yule. It was the same as always. Everyone was hurt. But we took care of things."

Yule gave him a nudge of a kick on the shin as he took another sip from his bottle. "Bullshit. Something happened. I'm an empath too, you know. A small thing can blow up in a second when you've got everyone else's rubbish in your head constantly,"

There wasn't much sense in trying to hide from him. But Mirk didn't know how to put into words what he was feeling; he barely understood what was happening himself. The emotions lurking underneath the pain and fatigue were foreign to him, something he'd always felt from the outside instead of a heat that welled up from deep within his own chest, provoked by the slightest, most inconsequential things. "It's...he nearly died again. That Death came for Genesis. Danu's...what was it? Uncle?"

Yule frowned, picking at some imperfection in the weave of his robes as he thought. "Something like that. I didn't know that it was that bad. There was blood everywhere when we came to check on you, but that's normal for him. We all thought he had to be fine, considering that stunt he pulled with his magic. Everyone was sure he was going to lose it and strangle every last person in the building."

"Methinks that was part of it. He had to do something to himself to use so much of his magic at once. It hurts him to do that. He..." Mirk thought back to the cuts that had appeared on Genesis's arms atop the runes of the binding spell, at how deep they'd been, how merciless. The binding magic on Genesis was cruel, but not as cruel as those horrible gashes. And the thought of Genesis inflicting them on himself, carving up his own flesh to escape the chains scarred into it, without regard for his own survival, put a lump in Mirk's throat. The brandy he chugged before continuing didn't help to clear it. "He didn't care if he lived or died. All that mattered was that he could reach enough magic to help everyone else."

"I didn't know he could be that short-sighted.”

"It wasn't that. It was just...well...methinks he didn't see any other way to help. Other than hurting..."

"Well. I'd say you were being too soft on the bastard, but the Easterners agree with you. They all said that it was close this time. A death contract. But they made it. And Gen helped with that, I suppose." Yule's frown and the way he was tugging at one of his forelocks betrayed how uncomfortable he was with giving Genesis even that small amount of credit. The frustration pressing against Mirk’s mind was only confirmation.

"Why don't you like him, Yule?" Mirk asked. "I know he can be, euh, difficult sometimes, but..."

"Because he's an ass," the older healer replied, without hesitation. "Thinks he knows better than everyone else. And thinks he's always the one in the right. For someone who's supposedly so hung up on free will, he spends a lot of time trying to force everyone else into agreeing with him." For a moment, Yule looked like he wanted to continue. But he shook his head, reeling in his annoyance and turning it on Mirk. "That's not why we're here. We're here because you like him. For some godforsaken reason."

Mirk shrugged, looking away from Yule, back at his bottle on the edge of the bar. The temptation to slam through it in order to make the conversation easier was there, but Mirk knew he had to ignore it. For a little while longer, at least. "It's...I don't know. It's nothing important, really. It's like you always say, I like everyone."

"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it." Yule made a frustrated noise, taking a long swig from his bottle. "I never should have started joking about it with you. Maybe this is my own doing."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't think you actually fancied men. I was just being an ass. Besides, your mind doesn't respond to things the way a normal man's does. I'd never felt that kind of thing from you before."

Mirk was at as much of a loss to explain as Yule was. Nevertheless, he felt the need to try, if only to keep Yule from blaming himself. It was difficult to tell whether Yule was joking then, with the blockers and the press of Yule's exasperation at the situation in the way. "I...I really don't. Feel those things. I hadn't, anyway. Not until...I thought they'd go away eventually. I've felt how other people are. Those feelings can start strong, but they go away after a time, as long as nothing, euh, happens."

Yule snorted. "You haven't been looking very closely. That's not how it works when there's real feelings involved. It's one thing to look a man over and think you'd fancy taking him to bed, but when you like him as a person too, that's a whole other thing."

"I thought it was just the first one. I really didn't think..."

Yule shot Mirk another pointed look as he sipped at his bottle — so close to Yule, huddled together under the same mental shielding, Yule's skepticism was as clear as if they'd been touching skin-to-skin. "Really? You thought you didn't have any feelings for him? You fuss over him like a hen over a chick. I just didn't think it went any further than that."

Mirk slumped over the bar, ignoring the way the sleeves of his robes stuck to its surface, staring at his bottle rather than subjecting himself to the expectant look he could feel Yule giving him. "I didn't either. It's...like I said, I'd never had those thoughts before. I thought I couldn't have them."

"Couldn't? Why wouldn't you? You're human the same as the rest of us. Well. Half, but obviously angelic blood doesn't keep a man from lust. Look at Niv."

His stomach twisted and churned as he let his mind brush up against the memories just long enough to spit out a reply that might half-satisfy Yule, that would allow him to put together the pieces on his own. "Do...did Emir ever tell you what happened? Why I had the kindling sickness when I came here?"

Yule both sounded and felt puzzled. "Yeah. Some demons killed your family because Gen fouled up the contract. And then..." Yule trailed off, thinking hard. Then he sighed. "Oh. Right. Emir only gestured at it, but we all got the idea, considering who he went to for advice. Something involving a succubus?"

Mirk nodded, biting his lip. He was bound to chew a hole clear through it if they lingered on the topic any longer when he was already so upset. Mirk needed to move things along, even if the matter of Genesis was also uncomfortable. Anything was better than those memories. "I didn't want anything to do with those feelings after that. Even if it's not the same, not really. I see that now. I...I didn't then."

Yule's sympathy brushed against Mirk's mind, though he didn't reach out physically to comfort him. "You've got a point. But, like you said, what's happening now isn't at all like that. You're not broken, or some rubbish."

Broken. More than anything else, that was exactly what Mirk felt like — like everything that had happened, some combination of her and his own weakness, had ruined him, changed him into something he didn't recognize anymore. But talking about it was too painful. There were other things he could say, other excuses he could make. "I took vows. And even after that, I'd been hoping..."

"Vows? You said you never actually became a priest," Yule said. Despite his sympathy, Mirk could also feel Yule's reflexive disgust at the mere thought of him as a priest rather than a healer.

Mirk shrugged. "No, I didn't. But...I thought I would keep them anyway. Or at least try to. If my family ever needed me to, I'd do my duty as the heir, of course, but I was hoping...well, maybe Kae would get married, and that would be good enough, or maman and aena would have another child...I just never liked the thought of getting married."

"Why? Because of those vows of yours, or because you can't see yourself with a woman?"

Mirk shifted uncomfortably on his stool, still gnawing at his lip and staring at his bottle. He needed to save the brandy. Until it became too unbearable to talk without its help loosening his tongue. "I spent years learning with maman. It...well. It let me see things from the other side. All the other young men went with their fathers to train in the guilds, to learn to be masters. But, well. Grand-père was never a member of a guild, and none of my uncles were in one suited to my magic, and my father was a fighter. Maman thought that I could learn more with her than with any of them, and aena didn't protest, since Kae was more suited to learning from him. It..."

He caved, taking as shallow a sip as he could manage from the bottle of brandy before continuing. "I know it must sound silly to you, Yule, but the life of a noblewoman can be very...cruel. So many of maman's friends were unhappy. Either their husbands wouldn't allow them to work with the guilds, or they ignored them and kept mistresses, or kept making them have children past when their bodies were too hurt for it. And some were just...monsters. There were some women who were lucky, like maman and her sisters, but so many weren't. I couldn't ever imagine doing that to someone. If I was going to get married, I wanted it to be like how it was for my parents. Even if I wasn't cruel, a marriage without love...it just felt unbearable to me. I always thought it'd just take time to find someone. It'd be like how it was with maman. Or grand-père. They both said, it was like...like a coup de foudre. It's...thunderbolt, methinks? Vous savez, I don't know how to explain."

And it had been for him too, as much as Mirk hated to think of it. He'd always marveled at his mother and grandfather's descriptions of it, when they'd found the one they wanted to devote their lives to. How glimpsing his grandmother Enora in front of the marvel at Mont-Saint-Michel had touched Jean-Luc so deeply that he'd started going to Mass every day just to see her again. How his father had come to his mother in the big church in Nantes when she'd struggled to reach its side door, bleeding out from a wound in her side, in search of a priest to give her last confession. Instead an angel had come, had pressed his hand to the wound. In that instant, his mother had known that his father would be the one she'd marry, she’d told Mirk. Though getting the message through to his father had taken a bit of work.

Mirk had never felt bolt from the blue with any of the dozens of women his mother had taken him to visit, to give them both an opportunity to test each other's wits and temperaments across the dinner table. Mostly, Mirk had only felt sympathy for them, or interest in the hobbies they put on display to set themselves apart from the other eligible ladies of his generation. But when Genesis had lifted him into his arms after his duel with Laurent...or when he'd watched Genesis's soul sink back into his chest after fighting away the Death...

That sudden awareness, the desire and devotion so fierce that Mirk almost felt like he'd been possessed, was exactly like how his mother and grandfather had described their coup de foudre. Love.

"You're not answering my question," Yule said, his tone a bit harsh, blunt, despite the sympathy Mirk could still feel in him. "Did you ever feel the same way about a woman as you do him?"

"I never knew a woman like I do him. Other than maman and my sister, I suppose, and that's not the same."

"Well. Tell yourself whatever lies you want, but I know what I felt in that room. You have a problem you need to deal with, one way or the other. Dodging the question isn't going to fix it."

Mirk slumped over his drink, closing his eyes. Of course he was dodging the question; he didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about what he'd felt at Genesis's bedside, or about any of the things that had come before that moment: the dreams, the insistent clamoring in the pit of his stomach every night that made him want to fall asleep curled around Genesis rather than a pillow on the far edge of the bed they shared, the dozens of passing observations that plagued him that he tried to let flow through his mind like water in a river. Only glimpsed, never lingered upon.

But it was hard not to linger when he spent so much time in Genesis's presence. The devil hiding in all the small details of Genesis's appearance and mannerisms felt like it could overwhelm Mirk at any moment. How strangely appealing so many aspects of his body were: his slender neck, his delicate fingers, his long legs, all muscle that would twitch and tense at the slightest brush. His eyes that could cut with knowledge as sharp and dark as obsidian one second and be blank with puzzlement over something as simple as a pat on the shoulder the next. His eyes that illuminated, so very rarely, with wonder. And how much Mirk wished that, just once, they'd illuminate that way for him.

Mirk heard Yule sigh and shift closer. The older healer must have been able to catch the edges of his emotions as he had searched for the right words. Mirk wondered which of them had come through the clearest. "You really are hopeless. I should know. I remember the first time I felt all that." Yule paused, his bottle thudding against the top of the bar. "That's when I knew I was damned too."

He turned to look at Yule. His elbow was still propped on the edge of the bar, his chin resting in his hand as he drummed his fingers against his cheek. Yule was trying to keep his emotions to himself, but Mirk could still sense a dark, hot rage burning with him. "Damned?"

Yule hesitated, but answered, only after taking another drink. "My family was like yours. Rich. Noble. Catholic. When they found out what I am, they tried to kill me for it. Well. They were going to have me exorcized, but you should know how that ends. That's how I ended up in this shithole," he said, with a vague gesture around at the overcrowded and overheating tavern surrounding them. "They already thought I was useless before they found out. But after? Better off dead and sanctified."

Mirk had suspected something along those lines must have happened to Yule. No one ever came to the K'maneda for a happy reason. They were always driven to the City by death, disaster, poverty, or simply not fitting in anywhere else, cast aside by mage and mortal society alike. Unlike the rest of the world, the K'maneda would accept anyone. Albeit for a price.

It was his turn to project sympathy to Yule, though Mirk didn't know if it'd be strong enough to pierce through the dark emotions shrouding Yule's mind. "I'm sorry, Yule. Family should help each other, no matter what."

"You think your family would accept you if they knew? Truly?"

He didn't want to think about it. And so the words were out of his mouth before he could think better of them, with a shrug and a shake of his head. "They're all dead. It's...not important. And methinks Uncle Henri and the rest don't have much of a choice, really."

Yule snorted. "That's one way to avoid it. Wish I could say the same about mine. Though, maybe they’re dead too. I've been gone for more than twenty years. One can only hope, I suppose."

"I'm sorry they were so terrible to you, Yule. You didn't deserve that." Mirk took a drink to shore up his nerves before continuing. "Methinks my family wouldn't have been that awful. I would have been sent back to the abbey to take my vows, maybe. Or just allowed not to marry, if there wasn't any need for an heir."

"What if you decided to act on things instead? Be who you are?"

"I'd never do that," Mirk replied in an instant.

"Why not?"

"It's...it's not right. Not right for me, anyway. You're different, Yule."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"That doesn't make any sense," Yule said, his frustration escaping his control and pressing hard against Mirk's mind. "Why should different rules apply to me? You just don't want to look like a bastard."

"You didn't take any vows. You don't believe. So...you follow the rules of your own faith."

Shooting him a disgusted look, Yule jabbed Mirk in the shoulder with his bottle. "I don't have any faith."

"Pas du tout," Mirk said, returning Yule's scowl with the most earnest look he could muster. "You might not believe in the Church, but you still believe in something. And as long as you do what you believe is right, then...c'est ça."

"That doesn't make any sense. I sat through Mass three times a week, the same as you. I'm damned to perdition. Because I'm not repenting for who I am. And I'm not going to go groveling to some bastard in the sky for help with anything either."

Mirk sighed. He understood why Yule was so upset, but he had a hard time reconciling the anger and frustration radiating from the older healer with what he'd learned, what he'd lived at the abbey. There'd been little talk of damnation and sin. There'd only been the work — tending the garden, the washing, the cleaning, delivering aid to the poor and the sick — and the same unadorned Mass and short homilies that repeated with the rhythm of the seasons. The birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection.

And through it all, Father Jean had always been beside him, there to unravel every mystery with a wry smile and a few pointed questions. Mirk tried to think of how he would explain things to Yule as he answered. "If you don't believe, you don't get the rewards of believing. But you aren't punished either. Like I said, everyone believes in something. And it's not my place to tell you what you should believe."

Rolling his eyes, Yule jabbed him with the bottle again. "Fine. If you're going to not follow the rules about all the unbelievers being damned, why do you have to follow the rules about the sex bits?"

"It's...I just..." Mirk gave up on explaining before even giving it a proper try, taking a long drink from his bottle instead. Father Jean had always said arguing theology with a non-believer was like trying to teach Latin to a goose. It didn't help either you or the goose. Better to find common ground, to lead by example. To show with good acts and kindness that the Church wasn't a mallet to crush people with, but a light to guide the way, an outstretched hand to the lost.

Not that Mirk ever thought Yule would believe. Or that he wanted him to. "That's not the only thing, anyway. There's...well. What happened before. And I'm the head of the family now. I'm expected to have an heir. We need to think about our future. There's so few of us left...if we don't marry into stronger families, there's a chance we could be lost after all. If it was only me, I wouldn't care. But my cousins deserve a future. And so does Uncle Henri, for everything he's done for us."

"You can still get married and have a mistress,” Yule countered. “Practically all of you nobles do. Hell, you can be a priest and have a mistress too. I've seen bishops, you know."

"But I wouldn't do that, Yule. I know how much that hurts."

For a moment, the older healer's eyes narrowed. But Yule elected to let the matter drop rather than revisiting his own foray into noble marital politics, his trouble with that healer from the Fourteenth, Ambras. He sighed instead, putting an arm around Mirk's shoulders. "Then you're fucked, I'm afraid. Same as the rest of us. Even if I think your reasons are nonsense."

Mirk nodded, allowing himself to lean against Yule's side. There was a comfort in their communal misery, even if they each had different ways of coping with it. Mirk didn't think he was strong enough to do as Yule did, all the rest of it aside. He'd always been weak. The scorn of others always stung him, made him curl in on himself and wish he could disappear. Scorn only ever seemed to make Yule that much more defiant. "I'm sorry, Yule. I didn't mean to make any of this your problem. I'll try not to let too much of it, euh, get through. When we're working."

Shaking him a little, Yule let his shoulders go, the better to peer skeptically down into his face. "No, you need to do something about this. Get it done and over with."

"What do you mean?"

"Go on and tell him. Best way to sort everything out."

Mirk couldn't force down the wave of horror that rose up in him at the thought of it, not before Yule could feel enough of it to wince. "Oh, no! I can't do that. I'm...I'm not going to do anything. I'll pray on it. And it'll pass eventually, I'm sure."

"You think this will just pass? Like a bad cough?" Yule reached out, only to shake him by the shoulder again. "I told you, Mirk. I felt it. You love him. That's not the kind of thing that passes in a month or two. Not coming from someone as drippy as you are."

"Everything fades with time," Mirk said. Even to himself, he didn't sound very convincing. "It has to. And if it doesn't..."

When Mirk couldn't find anything else to say on the matter, anything to reassure both Yule and himself that things would be fine, the older healer prompted him again. "Well? You'll what?"

"Providence doesn't give us any burden we can't bear," Mirk mumbled into his bottle.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"If we're given a test, then we're strong enough to bear it. God wouldn't be so cruel that He'd give us something we couldn't work through. That wouldn't be fair."

Yule gave an incredulous bark of a laugh, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Do we work for the same people? We see people come in hacked to bits every day! What's fair about any of that? What did they do to deserve to get shredded? To get killed just because some bastard wants more gold?"

All Mirk could do in response was shrug again, helplessly. "It's a matter of faith, I suppose. It's not a thinking thing. It's a feeling."

"You've got a feeling problem, and you need to start thinking about it rationally," Yule said, elbowing him to emphasize his point before taking another drink. "Pining for an eternity is just going to make you a wreck, and you and I both know it. You need to get things over and done with. Tell him how you feel, get rejected, and move on with your life." He paused, thinking. "Or not get rejected. I still think there's something going on there. I've never seen that bastard tolerate anyone the way he tolerates you, and I've known him since he was a boy."

Mirk shook his head. "I'm not even sure he understands this sort of thing. It's...not like him."

"What do you mean, doesn't understand it? He lived with Niv for twenty years, for Christ's sake. You don't spend two decades around Niv and not learn the basics. In detail, knowing him."

He did have a point. Mirk had spent long enough around the half-angel himself to learn more about intimate matters than he particularly wanted to. And he'd felt how antsy K'aekniv was getting after only a few weeks of not having a bedroom to himself. If he'd stayed a week or two longer, Mirk had no doubt that he would have bumbled into something. "It's complicated. Methinks it's...Gen thinks that's something other people do, not him. It's different."

"You said the same exact thing about yourself."

"I...well. Methinks it's not that he likes me in particular, it's that no one's ever tried with him before. You're all kind enough, and so are Niv and the Easterners, but...like I said, it's different. You have to be patient. And listen. And sort of...euh...put everything you know and think to one side. Everything he learned about how people act is different from what we learned. Smiling, shaking hands, it all means something else to him."

"That or he's just a bastard."

Mirk sighed. "He's not a bastard. He's trying. It's just that everything we do doesn't make sense to him, just like everything he does doesn't make sense to us. At least, not to begin with. But once you start talking to him in a way he understands, you start to see a little of it. And Providence gave him a burden I know I couldn't bear. Wouldn't you be a little cold to people too, if everyone either laughed at you or was afraid of you?"

"Excuses," Yule said, with a wave of his bottle. It was starting to run low, and their conversation wasn't making it easy for the older healer to restrain himself from finishing it off. "Easy enough to make those when you're in love with someone, for whatever insane reason."

Cringing at Yule's words, Mirk felt the heat rise up the sides of his neck. And not just from the half bottle of brandy he'd sucked down. "I'm not going to do anything, Yule. It'll pass. And until then...well. Thoughts are a problem, but actions can't be taken back. I'll manage. And I'll try not to let you feel too much of the thinking part of it."

"But why?" Yule asked, knocking him with the butt of his bottle yet again. He was going to have a bruise there soon if they didn't hash things out soon. Despite it, Mirk could feel a different emotion rising up amidst Yule's frustration, something like concern. Or perhaps pity. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Mirk blinked his eyes fast, to clear away the wavering that came from the mere thought of the worst that could happen. "If...if he said no...he might not want to speak to me ever again. And I can't bear that, Yule. I know it's silly, like you say. But I'd rather have him as a friend than nothing at all."

"But what if he said yes?"

"I couldn't do anything if he did. And...well. That might make him leave too. So it's better this way, non? It'll go away eventually. It has to."

"If you're going to spend all your time loving a bastard, the least you could get is some in return. Weird as it is."

"God loves me," Mirk said, his voice nearly too faint to be heard above the laughter and shouting surrounding them, beyond their small, shielded-off bubble of peace. "That has to be enough."

In the pit of his stomach, Mirk knew it wasn't enough. It should have been, but it wasn't. Not if he was honest with himself. That knowledge only made him feel even worse. It made him feel selfish, ungrateful, even sicker than he already was. He didn't feel loved by God. He felt forsaken.

Yule scooted his stool closer to him, wrapping Mirk up in a half-embrace once again. "Nothing I say is going to convince you to give up this nonsense, is it?"

Mirk shook his head.

"Fine. But at least think about what I've said, all right? And if you change your mind or have any questions, I'll be here. I had to go through this hell alone. I'll be damned if I make anyone else suffer though it without someone there to tell them what not to do. Though, according to you, I'm damned anyway."

"That's not true, Yu—"

"I know, I know. Talking in circles isn't getting us anywhere. You need to go back to sleep instead of going back and fussing over your pet skeleton. In a proper bed, not one of those slabs up on the long-term ward." Yule gulped down half of the remains of his bottle, thinking. "You should at least find somewhere else to stay, even if you're not going to tell him. I know you had problems finding a place, but you can't keep living with him now. I'll ask around to see if someone's thinking of moving out. Or maybe if you lend me some of the family fortune, I can bribe someone from the Tenth to move."

"Oh, no. It's fine. I don't want to move again. Besides, methinks it's better if someone stays with him."

Yule cuffed him in the shoulder with the back of his hand, though he didn't release him. "He's not a child. A man needs to learn to take care of himself. And you need space."

"Has he ever lived alone before?"

"I don't think so," Yule said. His attention was divided for a moment, eyeing up a half-empty bottle left behind by a fall-down drunk infantryman a few seats over. But the bartender scooped it up before Yule could try calling the bottle over to himself. "Before he started living with Niv and the rest in the trainees dormitory, I think he stayed with that lunatic Senkov. And who knows what happened before that. I'd say it's nonsense to think a boy of ten could fend for himself, but who knows with him. Though it's hard to picture there being some nursery for baby weirdlings in the Abyss."

Mirk had to cut himself off before he started to defend Genesis against Yule's criticism again. There was no changing the older healer's opinion on anything, not unless he came to his own conclusions first. "Well, it's not good for him to be alone, anyway. He needs someone to remind him of things. Like eating and sleeping." And, if he was honest, even with someone there to remind Genesis, it was an uphill battle getting the commander to do anything other than work. Or soak in his bath.

"Let him learn on his own. Once he drops like a rock in the middle of a fight from starving himself, he'll figure things out."

"Euh...that's already happened once. Remember late this past summer? I had to take care of him for a week."

"So you're going to just hang around and be a man's nursemaid since you can't be his lover?"

Putting it that way did make it sound silly. And made the heat on his cheeks grow worse. "It's not like that! Wouldn't you like someone to help you? Or even just keep you company?"

"Not a chance. When I'm done at the infirmary, I want to be left alone. To sleep, anyway. Having to feel someone else all night long sounds like a nightmare to me."

"Gen doesn't feel like anything. You hardly even notice he's there unless you're paying attention."

And he did pay attention, more than he rightly should have. Mirk had only been sharing Genesis's quarters for a few months, but he'd already memorized all the tell-tale signs that the commander was near: the way that the shadows cast by everyday objects darkened, just a little, how the silence took on an unnatural depth, the staticky feel of Genesis's chaotic magic dampening all the small sounds of the old building, the heating spells crackling in the walls and the creak of wood underfoot. When he was preoccupied, Mirk didn't notice them. But if he was wondering where Genesis had gone, or if he wanted to know if Genesis was working out in the common room in the mornings, Mirk always thought to look for them. And was always oddly comforted when he noticed them and knew that Genesis had to be nearby.

Yule must have been able to feel the edges of his emotions, the fondness and warmth that swelled in his chest whenever he thought of Genesis's oddly endearing habits. He sighed, shaking his head. "You really are hopeless."

Glumly spinning his bottle on the bar, Mirk nodded. "It's just the way I am, methinks."

"You're wasted on that miserable bastard," Yule grumbled. "I know dozens of men who'd murder for a man who'd look after him like that. You could do a lot better than him if you ever change your mind about all your religious garbage. I'd be happy to make an introduction."

"I don't want anyone else. I don't even want him. Not like that, anyway."

Yule didn't seem to have heard him. "Hell, I'd take that offer, if you were my type. The men here are terrible. Overgrown children who can't even wash themselves. Didn't any of them have a mother? Mine hated me, but even she had the sense to teach me to look after myself. Though I suppose my brothers never had to."

Mirk's curiosity was piqued by the mention of brothers, but he decided not to make Yule suffer through any more bad memories than he already had that night. "Gen is very tidy," he said instead, after a moment. "Methinks he'd never go out looking like the other Easterners."

"I suppose he does have that one thing going for him." Yule grudgingly admitted. "But it doesn't make up for the rest. I mean, look at him. He's a goddamn skeleton with a bad wig on. Personality aside, I don't know what the hell you see in him."

Mirk didn't want to dwell on it. But it was better than arguing with Yule over faith, or over why he shouldn't put Genesis behind him like a bad mistake. He allowed himself to consider Yule's question seriously, turning it over in his mind as he mulled over all the things that drew him to Genesis. "It's...vous savez, everyone else is so...euh...normal? The same? Even handsome men are all alike, in a way. I've never met someone like Gen before."

"So you're saying if I go out on the moors and drag something else creepy and weird out of a bush, you'll set your heart on it instead?"

Despite himself, Mirk chuckled. "That's a bit much, Yule."

"Consider," Yule said, turning to one side on his stool, dragging Mirk along with. He gestured with his nearly empty bottle out at the men still packed in shoulder-to-shoulder along the benches that filled the tavern. "A fine selection of eligible men. Low-born, so you're working with raw materials, but I've learned to see potential. It's easier than getting a man with gold to give you a second look. And you have to take into consideration that they might not be like us. But men are more flexible than you'd expect, even if it's only because they've drank themselves half to death."

Though part of Mirk recoiled from the turn the conversation had taken, he decided to go along with it. Yule was just trying to make him feel better, distracting him from the depths of his own worries by putting one of his pettier complaints on display. It reminded Mirk of how K'aekniv tried to cheer people up, by telling them endless stories of his own blunders to make theirs not look so grave. That and Mirk supposed Yule didn't have many people to talk to about his thoughts on other men, even if he didn't exactly keep his tastes a secret.

So he indulged Yule, surveying the men who'd gathered at the tavern that night. It was the usual sort of crowd one got at K'maneda taverns, rough men who paid little attention to their appearance, save for making sure that they were intimidating enough to scare off anyone who might want to challenge them to a fight. Mirk wouldn't have called any of the faces his eyes flitted across fine. But he already suspected he and Yule had very different opinions on that sort of thing. Mirk searched for something pleasant to say. "Euh...is that so? They're...hmm..."

"We've even got a few intellectuals tonight. That combat mage in the corner isn't half bad," Yule said, indicating a man at one of the tavern's long tables who was leaning back against the wall.

Once Mirk took a closer look at him, Mirk understood how Yule picked him out as a mage without having to lower the shields around them both and use his mind magic. He was less of a giant mass of muscle and leather that the others, with the smooth face of a man who had either the money for potions to keep his beard from growing in or the skill to make them on his own.

When Mirk didn't reply, Yule continued on, unprompted. "He'd be a good choice if you were in the mood for a bit of conversation first. Though most of the low-born mages have the worst egos. The poorer they are, the bigger the chip on the shoulder. Which can be good or bad, depending. It makes them easier to rope into things. A bit of flattery...enough smart talk to catch his attention..."

"We're all lucky you didn't stay in noble circles," Mirk said. "You'd have everyone working for you."

Yule shot him a dark look. "Social climbing is a waste of time. This is purely practical."

"If you say so..."

"Now, if you're looking for something simple, I'd go for the infantryman over there. The better type of working K'maneda. Rough, but not hideous." Yule directed his attention to a man a few seats down from the combat mage. He was nursing a tankard of ale, only half-listening to whatever story his fellow fighters were wrapped up in, instead peering down into the depths of his drink with a certain serious, brooding air. As if he was lost in memories that the tavern's weak, cheap drink didn't stand a chance of blurring. He was one of the biggest men in the room, at least double Yule’s size. And he was still more put together than the less muscular fighters. He looked like he'd shaved recently, and his dark hair, though it'd been trimmed with a knife rather than shears, was messy, but clean.

"I see," Mirk said, still unsure of how best to comment on Yule's taste in men.

"What?" Yule's eyes narrowed as he swiveled back around to face him. "Come on! You can't honestly say he's not handsome."

"Well, he is..."

"But?"

But Mirk felt nothing looking at him, other than a vague curiosity about what he had to look so melancholy about. He didn't feel any rush of heat when he considered him, no distant longing, no irrepressible desire to press close to him. It reassured Mirk, in an odd way. If he could just force himself past whatever impulse drove him toward Genesis, Mirk thought that particular vice of his would bother him less than the rest of them. "Methinks I must just have...euh, different tastes than you."

"You won't get far in life being so picky," Yule scolded him, as he threw his head back and finished off his bottle. "You've been here, what, almost a year now? You should know better. In the K'maneda, you take what you can get."

"I'll leave that to you," Mirk said, mirroring the older healer, though he didn't quite drain his own bottle. The liquor was finally starting to make him feel sleepy, despite the worry and guilt still circling his mind. It helped to make his troubles vague, more bearable. And kept him from probing too far into the depths of his own heart.

"There's no harm in looking, you know. Well, whatever. You can't say I didn't try. If you want to make yourself miserable mooning after a freak, then there's nothing more I can do about it. But just know, there's more out there than your pet skeleton. I won't lie and tell you it's a good life. Most people hate us. And there's always the risk of letting the wrong person know and getting beat. But it's bearable. Better than sitting around hating yourself, anyway. Enough people hate us as it is. Why do it to yourself too?"

"Methinks no one would hate you if they got to know you, Yule," Mirk said.

"The world doesn't work like that, and you know it."

"I suppose..."

"Like I said, it's all up to you. But if you ever want to talk, I'll listen. Even if I don't understand. Like has to stick together. It's the only way we'll survive."

Mirk reached out to Yule, setting a hand on his arm, though he tried to keep his emotions in check, so as not to bother the older healer too unduly with them. "I’m here to help too, Yule. Whenever you need to talk."

Yule rolled his eyes again, but Mirk sensed a twinge of relief in him, in the timbre of his emotions and the way his shoulders slumped, ever so slightly. "You'll listen to anyone who comes to you with a sad enough story."

"I like you, Yule. You're a good friend."

"I'd be more flattered by that if I didn't know the quality of the other people you consider good friends," Yule said, leaning back and rapping his bottle on the edge of the bar, to catch the attention of the barkeep. "Let's get you back to bed before you can't walk back on your own. You know how liquor hits when the blockers start to go."

"Do you want the rest?" Mirk asked, holding out his own bottle.

Yule didn't hesitate, snatching it from him and swallowing the rest of its contents in one long gulp. "You really are a charity case," he said, setting the bottle down next to his own. Then he projected a bit of impatience, snapping his fingers until the bartender shuffled over to collect their bottles and toss Yule the two pennies for the exchange. "Can I keep it?" Yule asked, holding the coins out to Mirk.

"Bien sûr. Methinks you’ve earned it."

Smirking, Yule tucked the coins away in the pocket in the sleeve of his robes. "Free drinks and I get to keep the bottle exchange. I should go out with you every night."

"I won't say no."

"And have Gen haunting me for turning you into a drunk? I'll pass."

As Yule led him out of the tavern by the elbow, still keeping his mental shields thick and high around both their minds, Mirk dwelled on this comment, reflexively sidestepping drunk infantrymen and keeping his gaze held down. He understood why Yule didn't think highly of Genesis, but his own words betrayed that the older healer understood that Genesis was capable of caring for others. Even if Yule probably would have said it was out of self-interest rather than genuine concern.

Mirk knew better. Genesis did care. He was always there for him, in his own strange, reserved way. And that was exactly why he was never going to take Yule's advice and confess. Even though the arm Yule put around his shoulders as he guided him out into the night was warm, protective, it didn't fill him with the same sense of security and relief that the touch of Genesis's chaotic magic closing around his mind did. And despite their conversation that night, Mirk still didn't understand why. It was a mystery. Like faith.

And just like faith, perhaps it'd be better not to question it.