Chapter Text
The sky was clear. Torrid heat of the midday sun bore down to the bottom of the canyon. The silence of the scenery was broken only by the constant whizz and howl of the wind in the narrows, and by the crunch of stone under Scar’s boots. The landscape was barren, lifeless; few animals lived here, and everything that did had adapted to hide. Scar enjoyed it all the same. He liked the majesty of the steep high ridges, and the special kind of solitude of being the only traveler in the desolate pass.
It was rare to meet anyone at all in the canyon. People told many stories of it, though, at the village of Sem, which was the last stop before the wasteland. The paths were treacherous, the villagers said. They would shift, distort, wound back or form dead ends. Some hapless wanderers had gotten lost for days; and the deeper you ventured, the more dangerous it got. There were tricks to mislead you, traps devious and deadly, and terrible creatures that lurked in the clefts of the walls just waiting for your step to falter. When you fell, they would descend to rip you to shreds with their claws and suck the last of the precious life out of your flesh, until all that remained would be bone-white dust for the winds to blow across the canyon floor.
Don’t go into the canyon, child. Keep out of there, young fool! The village elders whispered the warnings in an eerie voice, and oftentimes it worked. The stories were scary.
It helped that they were more than legends. Besides frightening, these stories were true.
Just as true, however, were the other tales, passed on by the youth and the curious and those who liked to incite trouble.
If you walked deep enough in, they said, if you avoided the traps and eluded the monsters and managed to pick the right path, you would find the witch’s house. An old man lived there, they said, voices trembling with both reverence and disgust; an old man, a hermit, a practitioner of forbidden arts. He stole children and drank blood and worshiped the creatures of the canyon. You would have to be out of your mind to seek him out—or out of options. In a desperate moment of need, he could help you. He could cure your illness, or gift you protection, or create the love you so hopelessly craved, if you were able to pay his price; but those who got to his bad side would never return.
A story old, a story true. For the better part of it, at least. That bit about stealing children, that was possibly an exaggeration, but otherwise, all of it, exactly so. Granted, Scar had never witnessed the blood drinking, but it sounded plausible. Blood was a potent magical ingredient and the hermit of the canyon was fond of experimentation. Probably far from the strangest thing he had put in his mouth.
So the route was dangerous, and the destination even more so, but Scar was not worried. He was welcome here. The witch—okay, that was another tiny falsehood, he was no witch but an alchemist, by his own words not even so much a man of magic than of natural sciences—either way, he knew to expect Scar, or if he by a miracle did not then that would be the first and a cause for celebration. Scar had never managed to sneak up on Cub.
Even now, the back of his neck tingled. He was being watched. The wind carried an echo of a shrill laugh.
The sun had shifted just enough that the bottom of the canyon was in shade. Nothing moved, but he was sure there were eyes following him. They were not malicious, for the moment; not dangerous, unless Cub had decided he was not in the mood for visitors, but Scar shook off such thoughts before they had a chance to take root. He could not think of a single reason why Cub would not want to see a charming, delightful customer (and a friend!) such as him. Unless—
No, surely there was nothing. They had parted on good terms. The awkward part of it had only been in Scar’s head.
The serenity of his travel disturbed, Scar fastened his step. He did not fear an attack, but he had gotten lost in the canyon before, not because of any illusions or misdirection, but due to being so immersed in the landscape he had forgotten to keep track of the route. It was not pleasant here during the night. He rushed past the rock formation that reminded him of a sitting cat (Cub insisted it was a jug), climbed around the remains of a rockslide, then took a wrong turn where the path next split and had to double back. But eventually, right before sunset, he was climbing up a gravelly rise towards where the alchemist resided.
Cub’s home was built of the stones of the canyon; a crooked gray tower with the workshop on the side, topped by a conical roof of copper. Various wooden structures circled it and heavy beams attached it to the canyon wall. Inside the house, there was an entrance to a cavern, though Cub had never let Scar in there. The alchemist was protective of his secrets.
As he should be. The world was a ruthless place. Not that Scar would ever betray him; he owed Cub an old debt, and really, truly considered him a friend, although—ah, no use fretting about it, he would know when they met how big a mistake he had made.
Scar had run out of potions some time ago. He should have come sooner, but he had kept putting off the trip for— For good reasons! First a bout of bad weather, then getting into a fight and needing a few days to recuperate—those had certainly not been intentional delays! Regardless, he was here now, on Cub’s porch, and now he reached for the knocker and now he let it thud the door.
He waited.
“Cub!” he yelled, and knocked again. “Cub! It’s your favorite customer! Come let me in!”
He strained his ears, but all he could hear from behind the door was a faint flutter of wings. The pests. Ready to bring a traveler’s day to ruin. He had never understood how Cub could stand to live with the vex, although they seemed to know better than to annoy him like they did Scar.
He was just about to resort to picking the lock with magic, which would have been—daring, sure, daring was a nice non-offensive way to put it, but there was little choice since he had no intention to set camp in the canyon for the night, when finally there were steps approaching from the inside. The lock turned, the door swung open.
A young dark-haired man stood in the doorway. “Hello, Scar,” he said, casual and relaxed, smiling like he had all the right to be opening Cub’s doors and greeting guests in his stead.
“Uh.” Scar stared. Cub lived alone. He had never had an apprentice. No relatives either, to Scar’s knowledge, although what did he know about Cub’s life really? Not much at all. “I—hello.” Another customer? Or maybe—well. Scar had some evidence to back up the notion that Cub liked pretty young men, and this boy—
(No, that was not fair, he was only a few years younger than Scar at most and Scar had not considered himself a boy for a long time—)
—this stranger, then. This stranger sure was pretty. “Where’s Cub?”
“Don’t you recognize me?” The stranger’s smile stretched to a grin.
“No?” He had never seen this man in his life. “I’m sure I don’t.” He would have remembered! Although there was something unnerving about him, something in his manner and in his features, that now that he looked closer he thought he recognized. The stranger moved like Cub. He was dressed like Cub too; but the real Cub was an old, imposing man, gray-haired and balding but still agile. A renowned inventor, a scholar of occult, a sole monarch of his wasteland kingdom. Not the kind of man whose home and name some faeblood pretender youth (or whatever he was) could usurp. “I know the man who lives here, and it’s not you.”
“Is that so?” said the stranger. “I expected a keener eye from you, Scar. Especially as you claim to know me.” He lifted a hand to run fingers through his hair, and there, on the front side of his wrist, gleamed—
No. No way. “What!” A disbelieving laugh bubbled up Scar’s throat, escaped his control and evolved into a rather inelegant stammer as he stumbled a step backwards. “Wha— how—how do you have—now wait just a second, that’s not possible! Is it actaah—”
The stranger all but leaped forward and snatched a hold of Scar’s shirt just as he was about to tumble down the stairs. For half a second he hung in a precarious balance. Then the stranger (or possibly not a stranger at all; Scar had not yet processed all the implications) pulled him back to the porch.
“Careful.” He sounded utterly unfazed. “You were saying?”
The astonished laughter-stutter was still trying to make its way out of Scar’s mouth in small disjointed huffs. “Is it actually you?” The stranger was letting go of him, but before he could draw his hand back, Scar grabbed it. “You got to be, right? You can’t transfer a mark, no chance, I would have known! If it’s real, then…”
The thin golden lines of magic were etched on the young man’s skin and they glowed like they were shattering sunlight when Scar pressed his thumb on the mark. Wisps of gold reached up and tied their hands together.
Wisps of his very own magic, greeting him, crawling up his arm. Can’t fake that. Scar felt a mix of terror and excitement swell in his chest. He let the stranger’s hand drop (the wisps evaporated to golden mist, but warmth kept spreading) and stepped closer, heedless of manners or personal space, not that he cared of those at the best of times but now he just needed to know. If his eyes lied then the other senses could surely tell, touch and smell and taste and—yes, magic. He peered closely, his fingers caught the stranger’s clean-shaven chin, and he focused on seeing beyond the distracting face, beyond any glamor, to the human essence.
A swirl of black, twisted formulae of fire and creation, a cold blue heartbeat. No illusion to dispel, but—
“Cub,” Scar whispered. Stunned, in awe, still unsure whether to be amazed or terrified.
Oh, this was going so very wrong. He was supposed to meet the alchemist acting casual and charming and self-assured, invite himself in, talk around all the matters that needed avoiding and most importantly, get himself a good deal. That was all. He had psyched himself up to seeing Cub again, his wiry frame and piercing dark eyes and his beard turning silvery-gray—but Cub had gone and changed and thus unwittingly (surely not deliberately?) trampled all over the plans and excuses he had used to keep his head together.
“Me in the very flesh,” Cub said, visibly amused. He rubbed his wrist.
“Ah- unbelievable. How have you done this?” The transformation was flawless. Scar wanted to touch him more, run hands over shoulders and arms and legs and every piece of him, to figure out all the changes. Also because Cub’s skin was warm and he was not flinching away, but some modicum of sense returned before Scar could act on that impulse. He really should not. “How? Did you steal some poor fool’s body? Or, or make one? Or is this a new potion?”
Cub laughed at that. “No, and no. Not even close.”
“How, then—”
Cub took a small step to the side. “Why don’t you come in, Scar,” he suggested, still smiling and still looking like he was getting entirely too much humor out of Scar’s confusion and this whole exchange. “Let’s get comfortable. We’ve got some catching up to do.”
Cub had different eyes. Scar was staring. He could not help it. He was so intrigued by whatever magic had managed this, and also more than a little enthralled by the details because he—well. His attention always was easily drawn to beautiful things. It was only natural, and this man was not just strikingly beautiful, but also Cub. He had smooth hands, and the gestures he made with them were familiar yet changed in minute ways (his joints moved smoothly, he was lighter, he had lost the restriction of the old wounds and scars). He had a youthful face, a head full of dark hair, and sharp eyes. Different in color though, dark green now against the deepest brown of the past, but the intensity of the gaze was still the same.
“Do you like it?” Cub raised an eyebrow. “Be honest, Scar. Is it an improvement?”
Scar ignored the twinge of—not quite embarrassment, no, but some form of self-consciousness about being caught staring. He should not have felt that. He never averted his eyes. He acted open, intimate, and looked at people straight and unabashed, and it was not only his habit. It was a strategy. Everybody needs a strategy to survive.
He was so very used to doing so that it did not matter if he was uncomfortable, or uncertain, or even fearing for his life. Just, with Cub—
Just, with him it had been different from the start. Less audacity, less reliance on pure charm, a little less of seduction. Maybe the isolation of the canyon and the lack of prying eyes had made him act differently before, or maybe it was about respect. Or maybe (though Scar did not like what that explanation said about him) he had thought Cub was too seasoned to bedazzle, too old to seduce.
Or maybe it had not been the age as such but just Cub’s calm and unaffected demeanor that years back had convinced him his normal strategy for survival would not be effective. Still, he had kept coming back.
And then it had turned out Cub was not unseducible after all.
“Why, I hardly notice any difference, Cub,” he said, flippant and hiding his confused thoughts like the expert in misdirection that he was. He leaned his chin on his palm. “Young or old, you are always handsome.”
“Really?” Cub still sounded amused. Affected by Scar’s charm or not, youth had not made him any more susceptible to flattery. “I suppose that makes sense, coming from you.”
Scar could not tell if that was a dig at him or not, so he chose to ignore it. “Trust me, you look strapping. Not a speck of appeal lost. The beard did give you gravitas, but the boyish charm can also take you far, and you still have all those amazing tattoos, so I don’t think you need to worry about a thing.”
“Thank you,” Cub said. “The boyish charm. Truly. How has that been serving you lately?”
“Oh me? I’ve been good. Odd jobs here and there, meeting new people, making friends, you know how it goes, Cub. There is always a need for a sorcerer. People misplace their things or want revenge on their neighbor or there is a monster in the swamp that dragged away half of the cows, and someone needs to step in.”
“So they hire you to kill monsters now? Fascinating.” Cub’s eyebrows rose again.
“Hey, no need to sound so disbelieving! That particular monster I could have defeated just with my boyish charm. But no, they—they try! They try to make me risk my neck, but what I’ll do for them is a few protective wards, and some amulets and charms if they can afford it. I feel like what they really want is someone to blame, but it’s all good as long as they pay.”
“And you of course will be gone before the wards are ever put to a test.”
Scar laughed. “On my smart days, yes. It’s not my fault people expect to get miracles for the price of a decent meal.” Some days, he considered hiring himself off on a more permanent basis. Some lord or lady was sure to need a sorcerer in their hall. Peddling small-time magic was at best a bad business and at worst a threat to his life, but he liked traveling, liked the freedom to leave. He preferred to be gone before he would be thrown out.
Cub nodded. “That’s the nature of man. Can’t fault folks for being out for themselves first.” He smiled, which somewhat unfortunately drew Scar’s attention from his words to his face. Cub was being polite and attentive and very much his own self, but every time his expression changed, it threw Scar for a loop. He could not tell if it was the uncanny quality in having his friend’s voice come from a stranger’s body, or the fact that the body was such an attractive one.
He had missed something. “Say that again?”
Cub’s eyes were knowing. That at least had remained the same. “I asked if there has been any serious trouble lately.”
“No!” Scar could not imagine he would ever answer that question any other way. “No, of course not.” A few minor things: A daring escape, some heat that came with being associated with a known troublemaker like Grian, a scuffle that he had gotten out of practically unscathed—nothing that Cub could or should help him with, so no use bringing them up. “I’m fine and dandy and that’s enough about me! Don’t think I forgot that you still haven’t told me what happened to you. How are you young? Is that a real body? Felt real, I can tell you that much.”
Cub gave another good-natured laugh. “Yes, Scar, l believe it’s a real transformation all the way through. I’m a new man. It’s simple as that. The capabilities of this body still need testing, though. Perhaps you would be interested in helping me out with that later.” Cub paused for just long enough for Scar to start considering what testing a body might entail, for his mind to jump to the dirtiest possible interpretation, then continued with the most maddeningly matter-of-fact tone: “To be completely honest with you though, I couldn’t tell you how it happened. I don’t know.”
Scar blinked. “You don’t? So—what, you got jinxed during the night and woke up like this? Excuse me for finding that hard to believe, mister ‘I know the name of every ant crawling in my canyon’, no way you will convince me someone surprised you. There is no erratic magic loose here, and I’ve never seen a youth spell that actually worked. Except if—ooh, did you make a deal? Cub, that’s so dangerous, you wouldn’t have! You would know if you did though, for sure. Unless. Unless someone did it on your behalf, but even so, there should be a mark of some kind, a seal…”
The understated smugness that had hovered in the corners of Cub’s mouth since he opened the door faltered. He frowned. “Trust, I have not made any deal with the powers. I would never waste a contract for something this frivolous, even if it was an option.” He paused, then added: “It was more like—an accident.”
That did not sound very believable either. “How’s that happen?”
“I was doing an experiment,” Cub said. “Nothing whatsoever to do with age, believe it or not. The last time I attempted eternal youth was decades ago. Before the vex.”
Cub glanced up. Scar followed his gaze. Beyond the heavy wooden beams the ceiling was in shade, but nothing moved there. The vex were still certainly around, Cub’s house was infested with them, but they were difficult to see when they wanted to hide.
“Created a substance, got it in me,” Cub went on, “and it flayed every inch of my body. I thought I would die. Turns out, it worked a miracle. Grew me anew, with a full head of hair for good measure. That was a few weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to understand how and why, but it’s a work in progress. It is also something that is not easy to replicate. It can’t be tested on an animal, and running a test on another person, human or not—I will have to do it eventually, but the results could be messy.”
Cub looked genuinely perturbed. He could still well be lying; no sense in being truthful about something thousands of people would desire if they heard of it. A man could make a fortune by selling even a drop of rejuvenation. Scar chose to believe him anyway, for now. “Oh. That sounds unpleasant,” he said. “Does it still hurt? Do you think it will—that it might even reverse?”
Cub shrugged. “It could. I’m feeling fine, though. Nothing hurts anymore and the change hasn’t progressed in any direction. Truly feels like I lost forty or so years, and I’m not going to complain about that.”
Not many people would. “Wow. This is still your own body, then? This is how you—what you were like forty years ago? You must have been popular at the university.”
“I’ll take the compliment,” Cub said, “but not really.”
Scar found that difficult to believe. People were shallow, and a man looking like Cub could have had his pick of partners. Unless he was not interested, but—
Scar did not try to kid himself; he was not that special. Surely Cub had had a string of lovers throughout the years. Maybe he even had someone now. He was a very private person, he would have kept it a secret even from a favorite customer. Or a friend.
"Whatever you say, Cub. Whoever passed you by was missing out though." Cub chuckled at that, and Scar grinned at him. Felt good to get closer to an even footing. Cub was not unseducible, after all; and even besides that, even when the subject was not without sinister undertones, it was nice talking with him. Almost like this was a regular visit. Friends catching up, no fraught emotions involved. “There was something I meant to—oh, right, I remember now. What was the experiment about? The thing that you were doing when you transformed, what was it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.” Cub spread his hands, then clasped them back together. “Secrets of the trade, Scar, secrets of the trade. I can’t give you everything for free.”
It tended to be an exercise in futility to get Cub to divulge anything he did not offer freely, but Scar tried anyway. Out of principle, if nothing else. "What, are you saying you don’t trust me, Cub? I assure you, any and all your secrets are utterly safe with me. I would never—"
“Don’t push, Scar. I’m not telling.” Cub leaned back. “I believe you are here for potions. Let me offer you something to drink and we can then talk about your order.”
Potions. Right! The alleged reason for Scar’s visit. He needed healing supplies and potions that would rejuvenate his magical energy, or help him see in the dark, or provide any number of other benefits that would come in handy if he was ever in trouble, which he was regrettably often. Through no fault of his own, of course! The universe just constantly conspired to land him in sticky situations. There were other potion suppliers, true, some of them far easier to reach, but the quality of Cub’s product was unmatched, and the pricing fair enough that he was able to make a small profit by selling half of it forward.
Potions were a very good reason to visit Cub. An entirely sufficient reason; no personal interest required for Scar to drop by at the canyon.
He nodded, agreed to the drink, and Cub rose from his seat to go to the kitchen. A small winged beast swooped down from a hiding place behind the chimney, startling Scar and landing on Cub’s shoulder. Blueish-gray, tattered wings, malevolent grin and unearthly eyes of magic. It turned to look at him, unblinking. He failed at suppressing a shiver.
“What will you have?” Cub asked without turning. “I’ve got wine, beer, water with herbs.”
“Wine, please.” Scar scratched his cheek and did his best to ignore the vex. There was no getting rid of them in Cub’s house, so pretending they did not exist seemed like the best policy. “Is it made by you?”
Cub crouched to reach for a bottle wrapped in wrinkled brown paper. The cups he took from a cabinet were unadorned clay. Cub lived simple; most of the items in his home looked like he could have crafted them himself. “The wine? Not at all. This bottle was a gift. The beer is homemade though. Got it with both honey and spice, if you want a taste later.”
Scar watched him as he opened the bottle and poured two cups with steady hand and with the same care as when handling his far more volatile ingredients. Cub had rolled his sleeves up and the tattooed circles on his forearms were in full view. Scar knew some of the symbols, but the formulae were strange, the intricate connections beyond his comprehension. His own magic was half learning, half instinctual, based on imagination and movement and will. What Cub did, he liked to say it was not magic at all.
But even if Scar did not quite understand the science behind the circles, he could admire their visual impact. Ink on Cub’s skin was beautiful, as eye-catching as it had been when his arms had been slightly thicker and his skin tougher, hardened by years and years of lonely work. Scar wanted to trace the lines with his fingers. He wanted to peel off Cub’s shirt to get a look at his back, if his muscles were still as defined as they had been, if he could slide a hand between Cub’s shoulder blades and kiss his neck and if Cub’s eyes would be aflame with barely contained desire as he turned.
Cub put the bottle away, walked back to the table and his eyes had a spark but nothing more. The vex’s claw brushed his cheek and then the creature took off from his shoulder, spinning in the air and diving back to the shadows.
Cub handed Scar a cup. Their fingers touched, their eyes met. He let his hand linger.
Scar’s smile widened into a grin. “Say, is it safe for me to accept a drink from an alchemist?”
There was darkness in Cub’s expression that made Scar’s chest tighten and his mouth dry. “Depends,” he said, and he had to have been remembering. The last meeting, his concoctions. “This is just wine for now, but it could easily be something else, if we wanted.” His fingertips slid on top of Scar’s, he pressed softly and then withdrew his hand.
Outside, the sun was setting. As the light got dimmer, Cub’s lamps flickered to life. They resembled ordinary oil lanterns, with a frame of wrought iron and sides of thick smoky glass, but the soft light had a greenish hue and they lit without Cub doing anything at all.
“Mm.” Scar shivered. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank. “Hey—this is actually very good!”
Cub did not go to his previous seat across the table. Instead, he sat down next to Scar, facing him, and took a taste from his own cup. “It was a gift, like I said. I have been saving it for a proper occasion.”
A pleasant warmth spread to Scar’s chest and creeped up his neck. Maybe the wine. Maybe that his visit, for Cub, was worth a rare bottle. Everything was moving along smoothly; the looks, the touches, a shared understanding of what each of them wanted. Not how he had planned, but how he had hoped. Maybe.
They had been friends for some years now (Scar had admired Cub—his work—for some years now), but never close friends. That is, until his last visit had ended with him on his back in a narrow bed in Cub’s guestroom, moaning incoherent words he might or might not have meant, and then in the early hour of the morning, in a moment of half-clarity between stretches of potion-addled delirious pleasure, he had pressed his mouth on Cub’s wrist and whispered the mark on his skin.
Acting on an impulse as he always did, and they had not spoken of it. He had left early. But Cub had kept the mark even through his transformation. Even now, he saw the golden lines glow faintly as Cub drank again.
“Tell the gift-giver I compliment their taste,” he said. “This is definitely an occasion: Getting a hapless sorcerer drunk so he won’t notice when you charge him double! I have to say, Cub, smart tactic there. We’ll make a businessman out of you yet.”
Cub chuckled softly. “Wish it were so, but I leave swindling to you, Scar. The price is the same as it always is.”
“You expect me to remember your going prices while in the cups?” Scar drank deep. The wine was delicious and strong. One cup of course would hardly be enough to cloud his judgment, but then again, he had never needed the help of a drink to make bad decisions. “I don’t want to risk that, and I’m a little short on funds as well, so I have a better idea.” He leaned closer. In a game of patience against Cub, he would always lose, so he could as well make it a choice. “How about a trade of services? You said earlier that you need help testing the limits of your new body.”
“Is that what I said?” Cub raised an eyebrow, but there was a hint in his eyes of that heat that Scar had craved. He was leaning towards Scar as well, dangling the cup from his fingertips, looking self-assured, expectant and so strikingly young.
“That’s what I heard!” Scar took another sip, but he did not break eye contact. His heart sped up, every beat rising the excitement. “What do you think? I give my help with your experimentation for one full night in exchange for a year’s supply of potions. Sounds good, right?”
Cub’s brows rose even higher. “A year’s supply? That’s mad. You are vastly overvaluing your charm, Scar. Better not forget.” He gestured to his face. “I could have assistants line up behind my door.”
Fair. Oh well, starting with the preposterous offer was not the most efficient negotiation tactic, but it was the one Scar liked the best. Besides, Cub was now thinking on his terms. He took an indignant tone. “Look, I’ll have you know that I’m the best body testing assistant you could ever hope for. I have unmatched experience and great referrals. Ask anyone!” He pressed a hand to his chest and placed the cup on the table, twisting on his stool to fully face Cub. “Oh, I’m sure you could go find some boy from the village to help you out, but would that really be a test of your newfound vigor? I don’t think so.”
Cub’s eyes gleamed like polished stones in the dim light. “You are absolutely right in that, Scar,” he said. “I don’t want some boy from the village.” His voice was low. His shirt hung open all the way down his chest, shadows outlined his collarbones and he was so desirable it was ridiculous he even deigned to play this game.
“No,” Scar said. Posture confident, smile cocky, voice bold. “No. You will pay, because you want me.”
So confident. Pretending so hard that it was true.
Oh, he did not doubt Cub’s attraction. Scar’s looks and forceful charisma combined most people who did not even like him found him attractive, he was well aware, well used to taking full advantage of it. The last time had proven that Cub was no exception.
If physical attraction would give him a night with the lone alchemist, he would take it every time, but—
He hoped Cub wanted him the same way he wanted Cub. Hoped he was not the only one who thought back to the night four months ago, when Cub had molded him as easily as his strange amalgams of metal and left him drained and hoarse and for the first time in ages, wanting to stay.
(He had been gone at the first light.)
“Bold assumption.” A small smile was still playing on Cub’s lips. “I’m not the one who keeps staring. But.” He tapped two fingers to his cheek. “Here’s my offer: Help me out with this experiment and I’ll give you a ten-bottle crate, and you get to pick what goes in it.”
“Deal,” Scar said.
Deal. Too quick, too eager. He was a fool.
Cub was reading it from his face. “Deal,” he agreed. “Good.” He had to know. He got Scar now. The wine circled slowly around in his cup, over and over, with the very slight movement of his wrist. He watched Scar and waited to see what he would do.
The air was still between them, but in every corner, every crook, every dark place of the house the shadowy beings rustled and swirled in restless anticipation.