August - Chapter Eleven

Once again, Jeremy found himself staring down Colin’s dark green front door and wondering what on earth he was getting himself into.

The air was warm, but not too warm, and a little humid, but not oppressive. Perfect weather for the mortar to finish setting, Aggie would’ve said. A breeze trickled through the fields and he shivered, glancing over the small herd of sheep grazing in the pasture. Suddenly, he remembered the first night Colin had spent at the cottage — bouillon in the kitchen, wind and rain — and Colin saying that he was thinking of taking a gap year to renovate his family farm.

But, now that Jeremy was looking, really looking at it, the farm looked impeccable. In fact, feeling qualified enough to make this sort of judgment now that he’d seen most of the farms on Rowe, the farm was pristine. He couldn’t imagine what else had to be done to it, unless they wanted to close off more land and build another barn or something. But what would be the point, with Colin going off to university? It wasn’t exactly a secret that he was the one keeping things going, not Thomas, and Jeremy doubted that Thomas would want more animals running around, getting in his way. Was it an excuse? Did it mean something else?

Enough. He swallowed, shifted his shopping bag to one hand, and knocked on the door.

A few, painful, gut-wrenching moments later, the lock turned, the door opened, and Colin appeared. He was dressed in scrappy, worn-out clothes that were splotched with white paint, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were wide, like he was spooked.

It took a second. Then:

“Hi,” said Colin.

“Hi,” Jeremy replied, surprised that he could talk past the heart that was currently stuck in his throat. His gaze flickered over Colin and he realized that the paint was all over him, streaked along his arms and caked around his fingernails. He frowned. “Um… what’s up?”

“Nothing. Just working on the chicken coop.” Colin pointed to the bag. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s, uh.” Jeremy tried and failed to crack a smile. “Peace offering?”

For a split second, he wondered if this was exactly the wrong thing to say, but then Colin gave him a sudden grin, all warmth. “Bring it in, then.”

The house looked the same, because of course it did, and Jeremy couldn’t stop himself from glancing around, trying to make sure that Colin’s dad was, in fact, not there—

“He’s still in Campbeltown,” said Colin, because of course he’d noticed— “Farmer’s having some big trouble with a few of his cows. Da will be there til late trying to sort it out.”

“Ah.” Jeremy swung the bag a little. “And he didn’t want you there?”

“No,” Colin said, with the air of someone humoring a toddler. “That shipment came, remember? It’s medicine, it had to go in the icebox right away.”

Jeremy’s face flamed. “Right, of course.”

“Go on, then.” Colin led him into the kitchen and gestured at the counter with his snow-white fingers. “What’s in the bag?”

“Well,” said Jeremy. “My mom went grocery shopping today and got a little overexcited at the bakery, which, apparently, is somehow my fault, because now I have to get rid of this.” With that, he let the freshly-baked multiseed loaf slide out of the bag and onto the counter.

Colin grinned again. “That is not what I expected.”

“We have three more at home.”

“Wow.” Colin shook his head. “I can see why she got carried away, that’s a very good loaf. You had it before?”

Jeremy shook his head. The smell had driven him insane on the bicycle ride over.

Colin waved a hand, turning away. “Later. Come on, come outside.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said. “Okay.”

He followed Colin around the corner, then through the sunroom directly across from his bedroom. He suddenly realized they were at the back of the house, looking out on the rolling, grassy land that gradually sloped upwards into the walls of the valley. The French doors were open, and a warm breeze drifted in, carrying the scent of wet paint and hay.

Outside, the fenced-in land was divided into a smaller yard for the chickens. There were at least a dozen of them, and Jeremy couldn’t help but smile as they all looked up and clucked at his approach. They were fluffy, well-fed, and keeping a good distance from the nearest cluster of sheep.

“It’s nice out here,” he said, and it was the truth. Between the long grass, the rustle of a few nearby trees, the thick, comforting scent of animals, it felt quite homey. Then, he turned around, and saw what was next to the house. “Oh.”

Don’t say anything about the chicken coop, Aggie had warned him on his first visit to Colin’s house. And now, he knew why.

It was not so much a chicken coop as it was a chicken mansion. It was a massive structure, with multiple levels, what looked to be small windows, a few built-on additions, and several entrances. Then, he saw something that made his heart squeeze — along the top edge of the coop was a line of painted words. The names of the chickens, traced in careful, black letters.

Tabitha. Mrs Slocombe. Petal. Sarah Jane. Arwen. On and on it went.

The coop was enclosed by double-thick chicken wire, and its little gate was shut, probably, Jeremy guessed, because of the wet paint. He had a sudden mental image of a chicken getting stuck in a puddle of paint and had to fight the urge to giggle like a lunatic.

It had been silent for several moments. Colin was standing only a few feet away, staring at the coop, his arms crossed and his foot scuffing the ground.

“Col,” Jeremy tried.

“I know.”

“Yeah, but… Col.”

“I know.”

“Colin, you built a house for your chickens. A house. For chickens.”

Colin winced. “I know. But I just— I come out here when I need a break, and then I get these ideas, and I can’t leave off until I’ve—”

“So what did you add today?”

Colin walked closer to the structure and pointed to a little addition built onto the side. The paint was shiny and fresh, Jeremy now noticed. “I called it the sunroom.”

There were, in fact, plenty of windows. “Very nice. How d’you get the eggs out?”

“Oh, I can show you.” Colin went to the gate and the chickens immediately charged after him, but he managed to slip through it without letting any of them in behind him. The coop looked even bigger with him standing beside it. He reached for something on the side of the structure, then, to Jeremy’s astonishment, the whole front wall of the coop swung open, revealing several levels’ worth of hutches filled with straw.

“See?” Colin said. “I just have to open it up and reach in. Nothing to it.”

“I,” Jeremy tried, then he blinked. “Wow.”

“It’s a lot easier than trying to squeeze through a little door, I can tell you.” Colin closed the coop again and latched the door shut. “I thought about making one for Guibert’s coop, but then I thought it might get rusty, which wouldn’t help him at all.”

“Right,” said Jeremy.

“Anyway.” Colin came back through the gate and shooed the chickens away with his feet. “I guess that explains, well.” He gestured to his appearance.

Jeremy cracked a grin. “I think it suits you.”

“Ta very much.” For a moment, Colin just stood there, looking at him, and Jeremy’s head buzzed with everything he wanted to say.

Why did you ask me to come? Why are you working on the coop instead of studying? Why are you nervous? Or am I nervous? What is this?

“Come on.” Colin turned and headed back to the house. “Have you eaten?”

This complete change of track threw Jeremy for a moment. “Um,” he said, following Colin into the sunroom. “Sort of, I just had some eggs and beans and rice—”

“Hungry, then?”

“Yeah, sure.” It was only about four o’clock in the afternoon, dinner wouldn’t be for ages.

Colin nodded as they walked into the kitchen. He went to the sink and started scrubbing his hands. “I just got some fresh cheese from the Cunninghams. They keep goats,” he added when Jeremy frowned. “It’s the best stuff in town, it’ll be gorgeous with that bread.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said. “Okay.” And then he watched while Colin threw together a haphazard picnic of goat cheese, half a cold roasted chicken, chips, apples, walnuts, and ginger beer. A little bemused, he followed Colin out to his truck.

“Here.” Colin handed him the huge shopping bag full of food. “I’ll get your bike.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said again, and he climbed into the cab on autopilot.

Colin lifted the bike into the truck’s bed and laid it carefully on its side. Then, he slid into the driver’s seat, switched on the engine, and said, “I hope you didn’t have any plans.”

It was teasing. Playful. “No,” Jeremy said.

Colin flashed him a smile. “Good.”

Some ten minutes later, they pulled into Colin’s secret spot at the top of the cliffs, the sea stretching below them in a vast, quilted expanse of turquoise-blue dark green. “Gorgeous,” Colin said, then he killed the engine and hopped out.

Still completely bemused, Jeremy grabbed the bag of food and followed him.

Colin lifted the bicycle back out of the truck’s bed and parked it below a nearby tree. Then, he unlatched the tailgate, clambered up into the bed, and looked down at Jeremy. “Come on, then.”

Heart pounding, Jeremy followed him, and all the breath left his body when he saw—

Colin had lined the truck bed with an enormous picnic blanket, and propped some pillows that had definitely seen better days against the back of the cab. He was busy fiddling with what looked like a Bluetooth speaker, and he looked up when Jeremy sat down with a thud.

“Here.” Colin passed him the speaker. “You can deejay.”

Jeremy fumbled through his Spotify while Colin started unpacking the food. Oh my God, his brain screamed at him. Is he taking me on a picnic? Is this a date? Is this a date? IS THIS A—

“Nice,” Colin said, when the first notes of Saint-Saëns floated through the speaker. He gripped the bread and tore, showering seeds all over the picnic blanket. “Cheese?”

Jeremy could only watch as Colin made him a huge plate of food, even though now he couldn’t even imagine eating. He felt like he’d swallowed a cannon ball. He couldn’t understand what was happening. They’d never done something like this before. Well, his brain reminded him, there was that time at Sadie’s. And all those times you ate dinner together and—

“Listen,” Colin said some minutes later, spreading goat cheese on a piece of bread. He looked nervous, which made Jeremy feel a tiny bit better. “I just wanted to… tell you.” He cleared his throat, and his ears turned red. “I’m not angry with you.”

Jeremy blinked, surprise overtaking him for the third time in the past hour. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I.” Colin was fiddling with a piece of bread, not looking at Jeremy. “I… was upset, when you told me that you heard… what you heard… but not because of what you did, I just.” He let out a rush of air. “Shit. Listen, I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad at… everything else.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said. He blinked a few times, trying to restart his heart. “When you say ‘everything else’… do you want to… talk about it?”

Colin flashed him a pained smile. “You make it sound like surgery.”

“Ah, only outpatient.” Jeremy reached for an apple, tossed it from hand to hand. “Don’t feel like you have to. We’re okay, as far as I’m concerned. You don’t owe me anything.”

Something raw flashed across Colin’s face, but then it was gone. “I just,” he tried. “I’m not sure what you heard, but if you heard… I don’t want you to think I’m the world’s largest arsehole.”

Wow. “I wouldn’t,” Jeremy said, and it was the truth. “I wouldn’t think that.”

Colin shook his head. “Ainsley just has this… way of pushing your buttons.”

“From what I hear,” Jeremy said, “that’s true of all siblings.”

That got him a genuine smile. “Maybe. We have that fight a couple times a year. Nothing new to it, it’s basically how we say hello. Just a way of stretching our legs.”

“Huh, that’s kind of… awful?”

“Ah, maybe.” Colin smiled again. “It wouldn’t happen if my mum just kept herself to herself. She always has to rear her bloody head.”

Jeremy blinked, thrown. He hadn’t expected his guess to be so close to home. “Your mom?”

Colin nodded. “She’s been trying to get back in contact with me for about two years now.”

There were so many things held in that sentence Jeremy wondered how it didn’t break. He cleared his throat. “And you don’t want that?”

Colin’s gaze dropped back to his food. His mouth was in a hard line. “I want,” he said, “to be left alone.”

Jeremy was seized by a powerful urge to close the space between them and hug Colin as hard as he could. Instead, he squeezed his apple. “I get that,” he replied.

“I don’t usually go to Glasgow in the summer,” Colin said. “So when Ainsley told my mum, she thought—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter what she thought.”

She thought it was a gesture, Jeremy finished for him. She thought it was an olive branch. She thought it was your way of saying that it was okay.

“Ains… she doesn’t get it. I think sometimes she doesn’t want to. But it’s all right for her, she’s the one who— And she was older, when they split. She never got along with my dad. It was easier for her to make a clean break.” Colin snorted, his gaze shifting to the horizon. “I don’t try to get her to talk to him. They haven’t said a word to each other since she left. And I don’t push her on it, I don’t try to get her to make happy families. So why does she think it’s okay to do that to me?”

The words hung there for a moment, slowly drifting into the scent and the sound of the waves. They were heavy, but eventually they vanished into the bright, warm air. Jeremy looked up at the sky, squeezing his apple again. “I’ve found,” he said, “that people don’t always know when they hurt you. And telling them doesn’t mean that they stop.”

When Colin spoke again, he sounded surprised. “Shit, Jer.”

Jeremy tilted his head to one side, flashing Colin a grin. “Sorry. Was that too much?”

“Arse.” Colin tossed a stray potato chip at him and Jeremy dodged it.

They fell into silence, and it wasn’t awkward. Maybe it should’ve been, but it wasn’t. If anything, it felt full, soft. Ready for something to fall into it.

What happens now? Jeremy couldn’t help but think. They’d already broken so many of the rules they’d been dancing around since they’d met, crossed enough boundaries to make a lesser man dizzy. Did this change them? Did it make them more friends and less… of whatever else they were? Or did it make them something else altogether? Something that didn’t even—

Another potato chip flew through the air and landed on his leg. “Your turn, then,” said Colin. He looked cheeky, a touch nervous.

“My turn?” Jeremy said, throwing the chip back at him. Colin caught it mid-air and crunched it up in a single bite. Jeremy’s mouth went very dry and he had to remind himself that things like that were absolutely not attractive, not in the least.

“I find,” Colin said, slumping back against the cab, his food in his lap, “that I’m in the mood to be told a story.”

Jeremy let out a surprised laugh. “A story?”

“Aids me digestion, innit?” said Colin, putting on a Cockney accent. “Come on,” he added, nudging Jeremy’s leg with his boot. “I showed you my chicken coop.”

“Chicken McMansion,” Jeremy corrected him. “And you need help, serious, professional help. You’re a compulsive hobbyist with an addiction to white paint.”

Colin looked at his fingers and sighed, rueful. “There might be something to that.”

“I forgot to ask,” said Jeremy. “The names on the side, below the windows?”

“Yeah?” Colin pulled off a strip of dried paint and rolled it into a ball.

“Were all those your idea? I had no idea you were into Lord of the Rings.”

Colin stuffed half a slice of bread in his mouth and nudged Jeremy’s leg again. “Get on with it. I’m not gonna ask twice.”

Jeremy swallowed the urge to laugh. “Col, I don’t have any good stories—”

Colin blew a raspberry. His eyes were very, very blue. “Then tell me a bad one.”

Jeremy leaned back against the side of the bed. He didn’t know what to say.

“You didn’t always live in the house you moved out of when you came here, right?”

Jeremy couldn’t stop himself from staring at Colin in surprise. He didn’t think—

“So then tell me about where you lived before that.” Colin was still looking at him with those impossibly blue eyes. “Where you grew up.”

It’s not fair, Jeremy thought then. How the sky makes his eyes blue and it just makes my eyes squint. “Why?”

Colin smiled then. “Just tell me.”

Jeremy let out a breath. How on earth was he supposed to say no when Colin was looking at him like that? He took a bite of his apple and looked at the horizon.

“Before my mom finished her degree, we lived in this neighborhood called Le Droit Park. I know you don’t know anything about D.C., so it’s a little rough around the edges, okay? But I loved it there. I knew where everything was. And we were living in this old blue house that was divided into three apartments, and none of it made any sense. We had a door in our kitchen that was painted shut, and on the other side of it, we could always hear our neighbor, Mrs. Hughes, gargling and rinsing her dentures. And there was this staircase on the outside of the house, and it just went up and up and up, into the air, into nothing. It wasn’t a fire escape or anything, no one knew why it was there, but it was right underneath my bedroom window, so once I was big enough to climb out, I started hanging out there at night. I was like three stories off the ground, my mom almost pissed herself the first time she caught me.”

Colin tilted his head to one side. “So… stairs on the side of a cliff, not okay. But a staircase to nowhere… you’re fine?”

Jeremy shrugged, giving him a sheepish smile. “Sitting and walking are different.”

“You make no sense,” Colin said. He dished a small mountain of fresh goat cheese onto a plate and tore off a few hunks of bread. Salt and sesame wafted through the air. “Here. Eat. And keep talking.”

So Jeremy did. The goat cheese was soft and tangy, delicious against the crusty bread. And he talked. He told Colin about mowing lawns for spare cash, weeding flower beds, clearing out garages and old sheds, just to keep moving until his mom got home from work or class. He told Colin about learning to make pierogies from Madam Schumacher next door, who was so short she needed a step ladder to get into the freezer, and frying chicken with Mrs. Wallston downstairs, the widower who grew up just two streets over from where his grandma used to live in the French Quarter. He told Colin about the day Mr. Hunt from across the street died, about the whole block getting together to help his daughter clear out the house, and about finding an old clarinet, wheezy and worn-out, hidden in a box in the attic.

He talked about the spare change, the scrap bills damp and weak in his hand when he passed them over to the worn-out grad student who was his first ever clarinet teacher. He talked about playing his scales until he was dizzy and his fingers throbbed, listening to Goodman and Bechet and Mozart and Meyer and Brahms and Bernstein until he couldn’t even hear himself think, begging his mom to walk with him downtown as he played, collecting strangers’ coins and smiles in the pockets of his windbreaker, practicing his breathing until he could play and play and play without stopping, falling asleep with that tough old clarinet in his hands and waking up with the keys and finger holes pressed purple into his cheek.

Colin was looking at him, the scraps of food scattered between them, his eyes wide and blue and— “You really love it.”

Jeremy swallowed, unable to look away. “I guess so.”

They’d shifted closer, in all this, and Colin’s calf was pressed against his shin, warmer than the air and plush and rough. He glanced down at it, half expecting Colin to shift away, but then, as his heart throbbed in his neck, Colin shifted closer.

Colin’s gritty snow-white fingers, grazing his forearm.

“How old were you,” Colin said, “when you moved?”

“Eleven,” Jeremy replied. “That was after my mom landed the job at the Archive, so she had enough money to get us this little house in a better neighborhood. There was a high school, a good high school, and she wanted that, and I wanted that, so we had to move closer.”

“I can’t believe,” said Colin, “I mean, I can, because I’ve met her, but she went back to school just like that—”

“Yeah. When I was six.”

“Wasn’t that… didn’t you…?”

Jeremy tried to swallow again. “Yeah. But I had Jo. And her parents, they really… yeah. My mom found good people. She has a thing for doing that.”

Colin’s fingers, again. But now, his touch was firm. “Your grandparents?”

“Uh.” Jeremy almost laughed. “They weren’t… they live in South Carolina, and my mom wasn’t really on good terms with them at that point, so they weren’t about to come help. I didn’t get to know them until I was in middle school.”

Surprise flickered across Colin’s face. “Why not?”

Jeremy did laugh then, irritation itching across his skin. “Because they didn’t love the fact that their only daughter decided to break off her engagement, move to a completely different city, adopt a Latino kid, and get a PhD in Anglo-Saxon history.”

Colin’s eyebrows were almost on another planet.

Jeremy laughed again, chucking his apple core over the cliff’s edge. “I know. But they got over it, obviously. After she got the job at the Archive, there wasn’t much they could complain about, not even the kid with the weird hair at their dinner table.”

“Your hair,” Colin bit out, reaching out and tangling his fingers in it, “is not weird.”

Jeremy tensed for a moment, but then Colin’s fingers flexed and he melted at the touch, leaning into it until he almost sent them both toppling over.

Colin chuckled, the sound liquid and dark. “Cat.”

“Shut up.”

A kiss, brushed to his nose, then his temple. “Your hair isn’t weird. The rest of you? Up for debate.”

Jeremy shoved him, but without any real force. It was taking all of his effort not to completely ooze into Colin’s chest. “Glass houses.”

Colin’s thumbs pressed into his temples. Keen, telling. “Come swimming with me.”

That took a second to absorb. “Uh… now? Where?”

“Here.”

“Here,” Jeremy repeated. He sat back, breaking Colin’s hold, and frowned at him. “Col, we’re at the top of a cliff.”

Colin’s grin was dazzling. “There’s a path, and a little beach at low tide. Which is now.”

Between his ribs, Jeremy’s heart was doing somersaults. Once again, he was speechless. He had no idea what to make of any of this. So he settled on, “Okay.”

Several hours later, when they finally stumbled, sun-drunk and grinning, into the cool, half-lit interior of Sweet Ray’s, Aggie took one look at them and smirked.

“Looks like you boys could do with something sweet.”

“Oh my God, yes,” said Jeremy, slumping into a chair. “Extra fudge, please.”

Once they were nursing stomach aches from eating and laughing too much, Colin ducked away to take a leak, and Aggie shot Jeremy a glance that was shrewd and kind all at once.

“Thank you,” she said, spinning her spoon in a puddle of leftover butterscotch, “for whatever you did today.”

A bolt of electricity went down Jeremy’s spine, and all too quickly, he became aware of the hickies hidden beneath his t-shirt, the stubble burn between his shoulders where Colin had fallen into a doze as they lay in the truck bed, watching the stars come out. “Uh.”

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“He’s happy,” she added. “So thank you. For making that happen.”

Jeremy bit his tongue hard enough to make his eyes water, but he nodded. “Yeah.”

----------------------------------------

“So there are still soldiers in the Middle East,” said Guibert, frowning, “but there also aren’t that many soldiers in the Middle East.”

Jeremy scoffed. “As far as I can tell. I sort of stopped trying to understand it.”

“But there are still these…” Guibert paused while he searched for the word. “Jihats?”

“Jihadists.”

“Right. They’re still…?”

“Yeah.”

Guibert puffed his cheeks and blew out a gust of air. “The situation is very…”

“Yeah.”

“You grew up with this war?”

Jeremy nodded. “I was a baby when 9/11 happened so I don’t remember it, but the war’s been going on for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it feels like it’s never going to end.”

Guibert slanted him a look. “Lots of things feel that way.”

“Like this ROOF!” Jeremy yelled up to Aggie.

“Hey!” she yelled back. “Shut your geggie!”

“Make me!” Then he had to duck as a small chunk of rock went sailing past his head.

“Children,” called out Guibert, dry as a bone. “Behave.”

“Aw,” crooned Jeremy, “you love it.”

Colin appeared at the top of the cliff, his arms full of rocks. He made his way over to the monastery, a great hulking wall of muscle and frown lines, and it made Jeremy’s mouth go all sorts of dry. “Aggie!” Colin shouted up at the roof, once he was close enough. “Will these do?”

“Aye, you beauty!” Jeremy saw the flash of her trowel as she waved it through the air.

With that, Colin dropped the rocks into a loud, unceremonious pile. His arms were riddled with deep, bright red creases where the stones had pressed into his skin. “Give me a shout when you want to change over!”

“Who says I want to change over?” Another flash of the trowel. “I’m starting to think I might just live up here, it’s quite cozy, got enough room for a bed, maybe a library—”

Guibert looked up, concern flashing across his face. “Aggie,” he called out. “Please, I— I don’t do well… with guests…”

They all laughed at that, much to his irritation.

Company might do you some good, came Amalga’s rich, amused voice. Your manners are appalling.

“They are not,” Guibert fired back, appalled.

“Uh,” said Jeremy. “Remember when you offered us tea even though you didn’t have any?”

“And when you stalked us through the forest,” Colin added, flashing Jeremy a grin.

“And when you pushed us through the time-space continuum without any warning?”

“And when you called us a bunch of hotheaded—?”

“Clearly,” Guibert spat, “I wasn’t wrong!”

“Give him a break,” Jeremy said, “you’d be a little touchy if you’d just learned about Osama Bin Laden and ISIS in the last hour.”

“Ah,” said Colin, “good job he’s dead, then.”

“Who’s dead?” said Guibert.

Colin looked at the monk like he had a third eye. “Bin Laden.”

“He’s dead?” said Guibert, appalled.

“Aye.”

Guibert turned on Jeremy now. “You never said he was dead?!”

“Heh,” said Jeremy. “Oops.”

“That was your country, as well,” said Colin, raising an eyebrow at Jeremy. “Well done.”

“Hey, I have no country now.” Jeremy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m one of those wandering expat lunatics with diplomatic immunity.”

“Yes,” said Colin, “to some of that, you weasel.”

“Hey, Jer?” called Aggie. “Maybe you shouldn’t become a teacher. Given how you just forgot to mention that one of the most famous terrorists in history is actually dead.”

“I second that,” muttered Guibert.

Jeremy stared at him in shock, pretending to swoon. “I’m hurt, Guibert. Genuinely.”

“Such a drama queen,” said Colin, rolling his eyes, but when Jeremy caught his gaze a moment later, Colin grinned, his face doing that warm, glowing thing that was absolutely gorgeous and totally unfair.

Jeremy grinned back, his stomach turning over. Help, he thought, then hoped that Amalga wasn’t listening.

She was curled up on the inland side of the monastery, her head hovering by the roof. Aggie had used Amalga’s neck to climb up there, her harness tethered to one of Amalga’s spikes. Now she was perched on one of the remaining sections of the roof, busy working.

“This is the bitchy part,” she’d said to Jeremy just a few hours before, grimacing up at the roof. “I have to rebuild the wooden frame before I can actually lay the tiles.”

“Ah,” he’d said, stunned. “How on earth are you—?”

“I just have to get the high point done,” she’d said, pointing to the middle area of the chapel, where a few stone pillars supported what was left of a large wooden beam. “After that, it’s just a couple minor repairs. Most of the damage was to the buttresses, so it’ll be easy as pie.”

Jeremy had shaken his head at even the idea of that much work, let alone that much hammering. “Aggie,” he said, “marry me.”

“No.” She’d patted his cheek. “You say the most terrible things.”

He could see, now, how she was knocking the other support beams into place, one at a time, dangling from the side of Amalga’s neck. Once they were all lodged at the midsection of the large beam, she could start laying the material for the actual roof.

“I still wonder at the hypocrisy,” Guibert was saying, “of thievery being permissible in your circumstances, but not in mine.” He glared at the huge, tarp-covered pile of slate tiles resting near the outer wall of the monastery.

“Don’t let her hear you,” Jeremy stage-whispered. “She’s got a mean right hook.”

“I’ll have you know,” Aggie shouted down at them. “I paid good money for those!”

“And it isn’t really thievery,” said Jeremy, “if one of the workers is in on the take.”

“Splitting hairs,” grumbled Guibert. He nudged one of the stacks of tile with his foot.

“Hey!” Aggie snapped, and Jeremy could feel her glare, even from this distance. “You break it, you buy it. And I know you can’t buy it ’cause you don’t have any cash, do you?”

Guibert glared back at her, his jaw set and his eyes flashing.

“Uh, Aggie,” called Jeremy, “remember how Guibert was nice enough to let us use his firewood to repair the roof? Let’s remember that, like right now.”

“Ah.” Colin nodded and turned in the direction of the forest. “Knew I had to be doing something.”

“The axe is by the kitchen door,” said Guibert, all flint.

Colin waved a hand in reply. Every fiber of Jeremy’s body wanted to go with him, because the image of Colin chopping wood, shirtless, heaving an axe in the bright summer air, shirtless, well, it was not an opportunity he wanted to turn down, even if the shirtless thing wasn’t really a guarantee so much as it was just his stupid—

“I can’t keep standing here,” muttered Guibert, glancing up at Aggie again. “I need to do something.”

“Um,” said Jeremy, coming back to earth. “I don’t think she’ll let you up there.”

“Not that.” Guibert turned away. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“Um,” said Jeremy again, and he sat up. “Okay.”

The kitchen was warm with sunshine, its old wooden fixtures looking half-melted and smooth. Jeremy ran a hand along the work table, looking at the marks left by knives from six hundred years ago. The wood was soft, almost pulpy, and it had a freshly-oiled shine.

He looked at the hulking iron stove lying dormant, the wall behind it stained black, like a dragon’s fire had blasted the stone. “When did you get that thing?”

Busy rummaging in what had to be a cupboard, Guibert glanced over his shoulder. “Ah, that old monster?” He shrugged. “Early 1800s, I think. Our Head Acolyte asked the clan if they had one to spare from the castle. Easier than trying to cook over that huge fire.”

“Right,” said Jeremy, his brain crackling at the thought of having to feed a few dozen monks without a stove. He stared at the huge, dormant fireplace, the twin of the fireplace in the dining area, and tried to imagine some young acolyte heaving a pot of stew over the coals without his robe catching fire. “I’m guessing you don’t use this a lot?”

Guibert emerged from the cupboard, a large, empty basket slung over one arm, and he shrugged again. “I live in here during the winter, keep a fire going in the stove. It works a treat, keeps the whole room blazing warm and it doesn’t need as much wood as an actual fireplace. I move my cot in here, pack it all in, and stay until things warm up.”

Jeremy tried to blink and failed. “Really.”

Unconcerned, Guibert nodded. “Closer to the food stores.”

“What about the animals?”

The corner of Guibert’s mouth twitched. “The dining hall. Lots of straw.”

Jeremy tried to blink again and it worked, this time. “Wow,” he managed. It was astonishing to think of someone living this way. In a world without any form of modern convenience, including a heated barn.

Guibert seemed to catch on, because he paused where he stood, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “I like winter,” he said. “It gives me clarity. I have time to think, to contemplate, to pray. There is less time for that in the summer, when there is so much to prepare, or—” with a meaningful glance towards the chapel, “—in our case, to repair.”

“Right.” Jeremy turned towards him. “What now?”

“Now,” said Guibert, hefting the basket, “we look for mushrooms.”

“Oh my God.” Jeremy grinned. “You’re joking.”

“You weren’t joking,” he said twenty minutes later, slumping against a damp, dark green tree that seemed to curdle at his touch.

“No,” said Guibert, far too cheerfully. He was squatting over a thicket of dying ferns, rummaging. “If you pay attention… you may actually learn something.”

Jeremy gulped. “Uh, mushrooms and I… we have an understanding.”

Guibert shot him a look.

“Not so much an understanding… as a cease-fire? An armistice? One of those fancy treaties that people actually listen to—”

“Ah!” Guibert’s muddy hand shot into the air. “Not like the Treaty of Versailles!”

It took Jeremy a moment to catch up. “Yeah,” he said. “Not like that one.”

“You see!” Guibert waggled his hand, then went back to rummaging in the undergrowth. “I pay attention. I listen. I am a great listener.”

“Yes, yes you are.” Jeremy cocked his head to one side. “Does that mean you’ll listen to me when I say we should—”

“No.”

Jeremy sighed, leaning back against the unwilling tree. “Fine.”

“Ah, you beauty!” Guibert lifted something ruffly and golden-yellow into the air.

Jeremy took a step back. “What is that.”

“Chanterelle. There’s tons of them.” And to prove his point, he went back into the undergrowth, letting out a soft whoop of delight.

“Oh my God. You’re going to eat that?”

“Yes, you mongrel. Fried up in a smidge of oil, salt, pepper, fresh rosemary? Nothing like it on this earth.”

Jeremy winced. “Ugh, I’ll take your word for it.”

“Indeed. Respect your elders.”

“You can’t pull that card. You’re literally two centuries—”

Guibert made a noise of annoyance. “Do you really intend to natter on the entire time we’re out here?”

Jeremy blinked, and his face heated. “No, I—”

“And again!” Guibert lifted a handful of chanterelles above his head, nearly spraying Jeremy with a cloud of dirt.

Something twisted in Jeremy’s stomach. “You… keep doing that,” he said. “I’ll just be… over here.” With that, he stepped away from the tree and headed for a small, unremarkable clearing where just a few, watery beams of sunlight were peeking through.

They were near the depths of the woods, far enough inland that he could no longer hear the rushing sound of the waves, or the echoing thwack of Colin’s axe. The trees here reminded him of their hike through the Outer Rolls, but this area of forest was much more dense and damp. Perhaps because the land was not sloped, or perhaps because it had remained untouched for so long — for some reason, the trees crowded together like gossiping mothers, creating a canopy so lush and overwhelming that everything was bathed in a surreal, emerald glow. He wondered just how long it had been since the sunlight had reached the forest floor, how long since any of these lower branches had seen a cloud or felt a breeze. Because the air was stagnant, still, wholly unlike the crisp breeze at the edge of the cliff. Moisture pebbled at Jeremy’s hairline, at the base of his neck, almost as if the forest itself were breathing, trying to lure him in.

Or knock me out, Jeremy thought.

A squishy carpet of moss, mud, dead leaves, twigs, and other decaying plants yielded under his feet, and Jeremy had to suppress a shudder as he watched a cluster of insects — a caterpillar, half a dozen beetles, several pill bugs — come slithering out of the undergrowth and run for new cover. Even as he saw all these signs of life, it was impossible to shake the feeling that this part of the forest was somehow dead, seething and succumbing to its own weight, bent with the exhaustion of shouldering however many hundreds of years it had spent on the crest of this island. The air itself smelled rich and sour all at once, the tell-tale intoxicating and repulsive musk of pure rot.

The clearing, however, gave him a brief reprieve.

Sunshine spilled through the thin upper branches of the trees and tickled the earth below, but even then, he could only catch the faintest glimpse of the sky. It was better than nothing, better than thinking about the heavy, brooding darkness awaiting him just beyond the treeline, so Jeremy wandered a little, pacing the edge of the clearing. His feet tangled in thick, plush grass and prickly ferns, and it was such a welcome change from the damp moss and hidden burrows of insects that he ignored it and kept walking.

Until his toe caught on something hard. Something rigid that was lodged just beneath the surface of the dirt.

Frowning, Jeremy nudged the thing again with his toe. He was several feet from the nearest tree, and it wasn’t soft enough to be a root, so it had to be a stone.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he knelt down and started digging through the grass, thinking that he must look just like Guibert going after some mushrooms. The grass bent and parted at his touch, and as he brushed the damp earth away from the surface of the object, he realized it probably wasn’t a stone or a rock, because it was a pure, cloudy white.

Bemused, Jeremy kept at it, using his hands to claw at the mud and the grass. It worked quite well, and a moment later, he unearthed a long, narrow section of the object, which appeared to be only a part of a larger whole, the rest of it buried deep beneath the surface. Sighing a little, he brushed the dirt away from the exposed end and promptly caught his fingertip on a long, thin, unforgiving fang as long as his hand.

Jeremy jumped as if electrocuted and fell on his ass. Shaking, he tried to scuttle away from the bones — because they were bones — and the teeth and anything else that might be—

He could see it, now, now that he was at this level and this angle. The bones were peeking out of a low mound of dirt, clearly a grave of some kind, raised above the land around it. But what the hell kind of animal was that, all teeth and jaw and—

“Jeremy?” Guibert appeared at the edge of the clearing, basket on his arm, brow raised. “What on earth are you—? Ah.”

It was as if time had stopped. Guibert froze where he was standing, just a few paces away, his gaze fixed on the long, shiny piece of exposed bone, the fang stark and brittle against the deep green grass. Sunlight reflected in his greying hair, giving him a pale, cold aura.

“What,” Jeremy bit out, “is that?”

“That,” said Guibert, still not moving. “Is Reccar. Amalga’s brother.”

It took several seconds for that to sink in, and even then, it didn’t help. Jeremy forced himself into a sitting position, his heart pulsing in his throat, and said, “Explain. Now, please.”

“I buried him.” Guibert’s voice was hazy, low, and his eyes were wide, full of fathoms and depths that Jeremy couldn’t pretend to understand. “I buried him here. We have to. When they die, we have to return their bones to the earth. He died, and I buried him.”

“It was the Flood, wasn’t it?” When Guibert flinched, as if warding off a blow, Jeremy felt his patience snap. “For God’s sake, just tell me! You’ll have to face it at some point, and you can start now or you can start when you add your chapter to the Order’s history of the twentieth century.”

“Fine,” Guibert spat, and he dropped his basket. A few chanterelles flew out onto the forest floor, lost among the green. “We didn’t know it was coming, none of us. Not even the dragons. It was just another spring that rained and rained and rained. We didn’t think it would last, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary, which is why we—” He broke off suddenly and cleared his throat. His profile, sharp, distant, hung in the dense air above the grave. “We weren’t ready.”

“Does that happen a lot?” said Jeremy, his voice quiet. “That the weather does something the dragons don’t know about?”

Guibert shook his head. “Rarely. But it wasn’t the weather that was out of the ordinary, it was— The caves. Remember,” he said, “remember how I showed you the heating system, with the steam and the tunnels that went through the walls?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it.” Guibert nodded. “It flooded, all of it. All of the caves, all at once.”

The words hung in the air like a curse, and all Jeremy could do was stare. He couldn’t believe, couldn’t imagine— “How?”

“I told you the caves came from a river, an old river that had long since dried up.” Guibert finally looked at him, and his eyes were dark and sad. “The river came back.”

“Fuck.”

Guibert nodded. “Yeah.” He knelt in front of the bones and reached out, laying a hand on the exposed section of jaw. “By the time they knew, it was too late. They drowned, most of them. Except for Amalga and Galdar, one of the elders. And he—” Guibert’s voice quivered and broke. “He insisted on staying behind, on performing a few stabilizing rituals while we— We fled, and Amalga got us to dry land. We only found out later that the rest of the island had fled as well. Every old river had reared its head and came rushing down ten, twenty feet taller. People panicked and ran, and who could blame them? Half the land was underwater, some people lost a third of their livestock, or most of their harvest.” He gave a loud cough. “But it ended, the rain. Sooner than it would have, without Galdar’s help. He got it to stop, he forced the elements… back into balance.”

A long, silent moment passed, and Jeremy could still feel his heart in his throat. And he could taste salt, something metallic. Sorrow.

“When it seemed that things were safe, we went back. Me and Amalga.” Guibert bent his head. “We tended to the bodies. And once they were clean, she helped me gather the bones. We buried them all at different points in the island, this is just one of a dozen. Her brother, as I said. He liked this forest, and forests in general. He thought they were mysterious.”

Jeremy made a weird noise, somewhere between a sob and a scoff. “He was right, I guess.” He glanced around. “It’s a good place to… you know.”

Guibert nodded. “Yes.”

Why do you blame yourself, Jeremy wanted to say. Why do you carry it with you? It sits on you, I can see it, we can all see it, you’re heavy with it, and you never put it down. What good does it do? How does it serve you? Why do you want to be angry, to be sad, all the time? Why?

Instead, he said, “You did everything you could, Guibert.”

Guibert nodded again, but he didn’t say anything, and he was looking down at the bones, his face closed and somber. He was years away, Jeremy could tell. He wasn’t going to come back anytime soon, not for anything. Certainly not for some teenager who thought he knew what this felt like, this loss, this tidal wave of memory and burial and regret.

How can he regret it? Jeremy wondered. He couldn’t have known. None of them knew. Not even the dragons. If they’d known— but they didn’t. And Amalga has been able to make eggs, so that’s— there’s still a legacy. There’s still a future. So why does he want to sit in the past?

“She misses them,” said Guibert, breaking the relative silence. Somewhere nearby, a bird — Jeremy didn’t know what kind — let out a thin stream of song. “I miss them, too. Obviously. But they were my masters, my— my devotion. They were her family.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t… know what it means to lose family. Sometimes I wish I did, so I could be a source of comfort to her, but even then—”

“You can’t change it.” Jeremy shifted, sitting forward, getting his weight underneath him again. The mud was seeping into his jeans. “Even if you could feel exactly what she was feeling… you don’t know if it would really do any good. For either of you.”

Guibert finally looked at him, and his gaze was dark, piercing. Bottomless. Unreadable. For a long, unending moment, he just looked, then, somewhat to Jeremy’s surprise, he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Jeremy stood up. “We should go back. Check on the others.”

“Yeah.” Guibert reached for his basket, and as he turned to leave the clearing, Jeremy could’ve sworn he stood taller, more at ease.

But maybe, he thought, it’s just a trick of the light.

----------------------------------------

“Mom,” said Jeremy, carefully stacking purple on top of pink, then yellow, then blue. “What are the odds they’re actually going to read any of these handouts?”

“Uhhh,” she said, neck-deep in name tags. “Fifty-fifty?”

“Oh, great. I love those odds. I love that I’m getting tons of paper cuts just so Professor Buttcrack can dump these straight in the trash.”

“Professor Bradley, Jeremy, but if you can get away with calling him Professor Buttcrack to his face, please do it, and please get it on film. I could use a good laugh.”

He glanced at her over his stack of folders. “How’s it going over there?”

“Good, I think. At least they’re better than stickers.” As if to prove her point, she waved a shiny plastic name tag in the air.

“You got them personalized lanyards?”

“Yes.”

“Personalized lanyards? With the—?”

“— museum’s name on them, yes.”

Jeremy blinked at her. “Do I want to know—?”

“— how much they cost? Absolutely not.”

He nodded. “Okay. Can I have one?”

Now she blinked at him. “Um… why?”

“Because they’re the dorkiest thing I’ve ever seen and if I don’t get my hands on one I’ll probably die.”

Rochelle shook her head, tossing him a spare lanyard without a name tag pouch. “I don’t know where you got the dramatic streak, but I know it wasn’t me.”

Jeremy scoffed, looping the lanyard around his neck. “Uh, excuse me, but did you or did you not threaten me with disembowelment for—”

“That,” she said quickly, “was different. You don’t get to shatter the historical record and act like nothing happened. Anyone else in my position would’ve reacted in the same way.”

“Really? Even…” Jeremy glanced down at the name tag on the folder he was currently stuffing. “Professor Ratherty?”

Rochelle let out a dry, humorless laugh. “I keep forgetting I met him today, that he’s even here at all. He had another commitment in Toronto, I thought for sure he’d say no, but here we are, and today I met him and showed him to his bed and breakfast and pretended like I didn’t publish a very vocal criticism of one of his papers seven years ago—”

“Breathe,” he reminded her, then glanced at the time. “It’s nine-thirty, by the way.”

Rochelle twitched. “What?! Really? Shit.” She got up from the table and started rummaging in the pile of stuff she’d brought back with her from the office. “Can you run something into town for me?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. What is it?”

“Raffle box, for Aggie’s dad.” She unearthed what looked like the oldest bingo drum on the face of the earth. “He forgot to pick it up from the castle today.”

Jeremy stared at it. It was easily twice the size of Mozart. “Do I even want to—?”

“There’s always a raffle at the Games. This year, David’s running it. Therefore…” She shook the drum to make her point, and its eerie rattle bounced off the walls of the dining room. “They’re still open, right?”

“Yeah, until ten. Aggie said later if they needed to make more waffle cones.” Even now, it was hard to believe that the Highland Games were tomorrow, and would be starting in twelve hours.

“Okay, good.” Rochelle pushed the drum into his hands and shooed him out of the room. “Text me if you get kidnapped, be quick, love you.”

“Wow,” said Jeremy on his way out the door, “you covered all the bases in less than ten seconds. I think that’s a new record.”

When he stepped into Sweet Ray’s, his hair all windswept from peddling way too fast, Aggie’s eyes went comically wide.

“We’ll get to that,” she said, pointing at the bingo drum, “in a moment, but first, what in the name of Jesus is around your neck?”

“Like it?” said Jeremy, all smug. He’d clipped his keys onto the end of the lanyard and they clinked gently as he moved. “It’s my new lanyard. Isn’t it awful?”

“Absolutely horrendous. Where can I get one?”

He put the bingo drum down onto one of the tables. “My mom. I’ll steal one for you.”

“They should start having those in the museum gift shop. I’d probably buy ten of them.”

“Now that is just inflation.”

“And that,” she said, pointing at the bingo drum, “is an eyesore. What is it and why is it in my shop?”

“That eyesore,” her dad piped up, appearing from the back room, “is mine.”

Aggie put a hand to her chest, faking a swoon. “Dad, no, don’t tell me— you— you— you play bingo?”

David laughed, wiping off his hands and coming around the counter. He was wearing a ratty t-shirt and jeans with countless chocolate stains on them. “Not yet, thank God.”

“It’s for the raffle,” said Jeremy. “Apparently.”

“Oh, right.” Aggie shrugged and went back to rinsing her ice cream scoopers. “I always forget about that.”

“Not this year, my progeny,” said David. He picked up the drum, winced, then put it back down. “I’ve got us in for ten tickets. Grand prize is a weekend holiday in the Lake District.”

Aggie nodded like this made total sense. Jeremy, meanwhile, was a little surprised. Her family could easily afford any vacation they wanted — why bother taking the chance from someone else? That was a little selfish, for them.

Aggie seemed to read this in his face, because she said, “For my gran. She won’t let us pay for anything for her, and she hasn’t had a real holiday in years. But if we put her name on the tickets and tell her it’s for charity—”

“Which it is,” David cut in with a grin. “At least we’re not lying about that.”

“Then she has to accept,” Aggie finished, and she shrugged. “It’s always worth a punt.”

“Right.” Jeremy smiled. “Got it.”

“You seen Colin today?”

Jeremy shook his head. “My mom yanked me out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn—”

“Ah. You mean 8:30, then?”

“—no, I mean the ass-crack of dawn, Agatha. I had to help her finish up a bunch of stuff for the conference, then I had to help out at the castle while she got everyone situated at their hotels.”

Aggie grinned. “She must be out of her mind.”

“For what it’s worth,” said David, “you both have an open tab at the booth tomorrow.”

“That,” said Jeremy, “is the best news I’ve heard all day. Two questions — is there a cutoff, and does this tab only apply to daylight hours?”

“Ignore him,” said Aggie, loudly, and she came out from behind the counter. “He’s just blowing hot air out his—”

“Agatha,” said Jeremy, scandalized, “your father is here—”

“Hey,” she snapped, even as she grinned and her father laughed. “In case you see Colin first.” She threw something blue and fuzzy at him. Jeremy fumbled and just managed to catch it. “It’s his lucky armband. He left it in my car.”

“Aha.” Jeremy pinched it between his thumb and his forefinger and held it as far away from himself as he could. It was squishy, faded, and the texture of an overloved stuffed animal. It probably hadn’t been washed in quite a while. “Yummy.”

“Don’t lose it,” said Aggie. “Or he’ll have your head. And my head. Just lots of beheadings. So let’s try to avoid that, shall we?”

“Sure,” he said, pocketing it and suppressing a shudder.

“Colin,” said David, “has some very unique superstitions.”

“Really? Like what?”

“My favorite’s that he can only have marmite toast, hard-boiled eggs, and black tea for breakfast,” said Aggie. “And he can’t eat again until he’s done competing.”

“And he can’t wear his socks if they’re not ironed.” David noticed Jeremy’s face and nodded. “Seriously, I’m not kidding.”

“Um,” said Jeremy. “And this is just for the Highland Games?”

“Yup,” said Aggie. “Oh, and he doesn’t talk to anyone until he finishes his first event. Just completely silent, face like a goddamn statue. It’s hilarious.”

“Okay, I have to try to get him to talk to me.”

Something in Aggie’s face softened. “Well,” she said. “Take it easy on him. He’s pretty worked up about it this year.”

Now that— “He is?” said Jeremy, unable to hide his surprise.

“His old rival is competing again this year,” said David. “Lenny Brown. He’s, what, a year older than you lot?”

“Yeah. And he didn’t compete last summer because—”

“—yeah, because of that bum knee.” David looked at Jeremy. “Those two have been butting heads since… what, primary school?”

“Lenny’s one of the kids who called me names,” Aggie said to Jeremy. “Y’know, the ones Colin beat up for me.”

“Oh,” he said, still processing it all. “Okay.”

Jeremy left a few minutes later, a small ice cream cone in hand, his head buzzing a little with all this new information. Colin hadn’t said a word to him about being nervous, or had he? Had Jeremy missed something, some clue in Colin’s face, in his voice, in his words, something—

It was easier to think that way, he realized. Than to remember that Colin didn’t talk to him about everything. Not really.

When Jeremy got back to the cottage, he was shocked to find the front door open and amber light spilling into the garden. And standing in the doorway, their shadows stretching long and dark, were Colin and his mother.

They looked up as he approached and hopped off his bike. “Well,” said Jeremy. “I leave for half an hour and you throw a party? That hurts, mom.”

“Only because you’re a wet blanket,” said Colin, which was hilarious, he clearly wasn’t remembering Glasgow very well. “And your mum’s more fun, anyway.”

She beamed. “Why, thank you, Colin. Can I get that in writing?”

Jeremy pulled the armband out of his pocket and chucked it to Colin. “From Aggie. She says break a leg and all that.”

Colin’s face lit up and he grinned, giving the armband a squeeze. “Knew she had it.”

Jeremy noticed his mom’s expression and said, “It’s his lucky armband, mom. And yeah, it hasn’t been washed in—”

“I get the picture,” she said quickly. “Well, Colin, it’s been lovely, but I have to go finish up a few things and bang my head against the wall.”

“Ta, Ms. Lefebre. It’s been a pleasure, as always.”

She gave him a smack on the arm. “See you tomorrow.” And with that, she left, going back into the kitchen, where Jeremy could hear the thin, bleating whistle of their kettle.

“So,” said Jeremy, his heart giving a weird thump. “Get lost on your way home?”

Colin shook his head, still grinning, not rising to the bait. “Went for a walk. I’m all keyed up, I couldn’t sleep.”

Jeremy nodded, leaning against the wall. The stone was cool and rough, and it grounded him, kept him focused. At least Colin couldn’t see his blush in the low light. “Nervous?”

Colin sat with that for a moment before he shook his head. “More… excited.”

“Better than the opposite, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

They just stood there for a moment, looking at each other, Colin’s face doing that enigmatic sort-of-smiling thing, and Jeremy hated it and loved it all at once.

“Tomorrow,” said Jeremy. “It’s going to be…”

“Yeah.” Colin nodded. “It is.”

Another moment. A stretching, long, ridiculous moment. Jeremy counted how many times the waves crashed — four — before Colin spoke again.

“Where’d you get off to yesterday?” he asked. “With Guibert.”

“Ah.” Jeremy’s mind spun so quickly he wondered how Colin didn’t hear it, and Guibert’s words echoed in his ears. How could he repeat them? He didn’t know how he could begin to talk about what he had seen, about the way the bones had felt against the skin of his palm, plush and dry all at once. “Just… the woods.”

“You were quiet, yesterday. When you got back.” Colin shifted closer. In the fading daylight and the shadows of the cottage, his eyes were dark, bottomless. “You’re never quiet.”

Jeremy tried to smile. “Unless there’s pizza.”

But Colin ignored this. “Did he say something to you, Jeremy?” His voice went hard. “Something… unkind?”

“Oh, oh my God, no, it’s—”

Colin’s hand, warm and insistent, on his. “You can’t take everything he says seriously, Jer, you know he’s just—” He glanced down, frowning. “Why are your fingers sticky?”

Jeremy wanted to die. “Aggie gave me an ice cream to-go. Waffle cones and biking don’t really mix, in case you were wondering.”

Colin shook his head, but his grip tightened on Jeremy’s hand. “You’re a piece of work.”

“Colin,” said Jeremy. “Guibert didn’t say anything to me, it’s just—” He sighed heavily. “Look, I literally walked into a dragon’s grave, okay?”

Several long, tense seconds passed as Colin stared at him. “Okay,” Colin said at last.

“Guibert told me about the Flood. About how they all died in their caves and he and Amalga were the only ones who survived and they had to bury the rest of her family around the island, and—” Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut, shocked by the emotion rising in his throat. “Sorry, I’m still— I’ve never seen real bones before, and I think it just hit me a little harder than—”

Then, to his utter astonishment, Colin closed the distance between them and pulled Jeremy into a tight, warm hug.

For a split second, he didn’t know how to react. But then he was clinging onto Colin like a barnacle, his fingers digging into Colin’s back. “And I know,” he said, muffled, into Colin’s clavicle. “About your tattoo.”

Colin stilled for a moment, but he didn’t pull away. “Everyone knows about my tattoo, you lunatic, you can see it plain as day—”

“No, I know what it is. It’s those Pictish things, right? The symbols?”

Colin did pull away then, his expression doing several different things at once. “Well, yeah. I thought that was obvious.”

Heat exploded across Jeremy’s face and he definitely wanted to just evaporate, vanish into thin air. “Oh.”

Colin squeezed his hand again, and he was still so close, so lovely. “I am sorry you had to get that shock yesterday. Must’ve made your head spin.”

Jeremy managed a very weak attempt at a smile. “Yeah, a little.”

Colin nodded. “You’ll be all right.” With that, he stepped away, slipping his hand out of Jeremy’s. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

Jeremy nodded. “Bright and early.”

Colin flashed him a grin as he headed for the gate. “Better be.”