Chapter Twenty-Four
Declan
Declan’s skin itched. Antonio was an ocean away with Mara, and in the past forty-eight hours, they’d barely touched.
Only a brief clasp of hands and an even briefer embrace.
Bloody terrible, their new arrangement. Declan’s fault, for pushing for Antonio to keep the garage and not making noise when the man worked late or had to be there early.
He slept there more nights than he didn’t.
At least this time, their parting wasn’t for Declan to go make nice with the Council. It was time for Hyacinth and a pub.
Stars, but Declan had missed Belfast.
He dropped in from time to time, just to look around or when Eithne wanted company in her ventures, but he hadn’t taken time to frequent a proper pub.
Not since he had all but lived there, traipsing about with his mad lads, as they’d called themselves.
Harmless creatures, the lot of them, except in all the ways they weren’t.
Dangerous, back then, to be different. Dangerous, period.
The only good thing that’d come from that mess was that Declan hadn’t faded, not even after the ridiculous bastards all died. And, he supposed, that it had inspired him to go to the States, where he’d met Hyacinth and Wyte and, for a time, that was the escape Belfast had once been.
He didn’t fail to note the irony.
Nearly three decades since his last run about with Hyacinth–New York, tripping out of his skin and not having the wherewithal to explain what happened–and there they were, at one of the few places Declan had banged about with both of his groups.
Hyacinth was waiting upstairs, the whole of it reserved for them. Typical Hyacinth. Drinks already ordered and situated there with the aforementioned man.
“Florian won’t eat him,” Declan assured, as Lysander, Talia’s Gate friend, departed with the wisp.
“Wasn’t worried.” Hyacinth smiled lazily as Declan dropped into the seat across from him. “Think we’re down one, though.”
“Aye, well, we can call it a practice run. Antonio had something pop up with his niece,” Declan said, leaning back in his chair. “Hopefully you’ll not be too bored with just me about.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage to be entertaining. Your bond’ll make it next time.”
Most fae enjoyed asking questions. Open-ended things, loophole riddled and evasive. Hyacinth made statements. Offers. Questioned things sometimes, if he wanted information, but rarely any of the ‘how am I to know’ many–Declan included–fell back on.
They all had their survival mechanisms.
It did make Hyacinth ridiculously fun. Interesting.
Interesting enough that Declan wouldn’t have time to think about how each time he went somewhere with Antonio–meeting or party–the human retreated a little more.
“He will,” Declan agreed. A simple promise to keep. He just wouldn’t go about with Hyacinth until Antonio could come along with him. However long it might take. “He’s a man of his word, for better or ill. And I’ve assured him you’re the very worst sidhe I know.”
“Good. Someone took my place, I’d have to have them killed,” Hyacinth said, considering Declan over his tumbler. “Hear that you’ve been shaking all the right hands.”
Declan scoffed, tracing a finger over the rim of his own glass. His blunt, human nails, so recently unfamiliar to him with Antonio. Two weeks on the Council, and they were the old new normal. No reason to have his glamour down. No hands reached for his wings or traced his marks.
“Handshaking? Perish the thought. They’d have to touch me.”
Hyacinth’s easy smile twisted into a disdainful sneer. Snake fast, he reached for Declan, long fingers curling around a corpse-pale wrist. He kept his hand there, skin to skin, pointedly, for a long beat, his eyes on Declan.
“Useless fucking cowards. Little death never hurt anyone,” Hyacinth said, voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. And then he let go as if it’d never happened. “Sounds like a little unsavory company would do you both some good.”
For a moment, Declan was left studying his own wrist and the dark grains of the wood beneath. He’d forgotten, almost, how Hyacinth could be. How grateful he was for the sidhe’s pointed rejection of fae norms.
“Yes. A little unsavory company on this side of the veil would be especially well received.”
“You tell me when, and I’ll take care of the rest. Bring Orrim and the crew, even, make it a real good time. Been too long since you and I had a proper party.”
Ah. Yes. It had been. Almost thirty years. Not long for most fae, but Hyacinth was in his first century of life. The longer fae lived, the less time meant.
“About that.” Declan sipped at his drink, turning the words over in his mind. Hyacinth, the patient bastard, waited with that lazy smile, eyes gone keen. “It was poorly done of me, to cut and run the way I did.”
“Everyone needs a rest now and then. You said deathsight was a drain.”
“Poorly done of me,” Declan repeated, answering Hyacinth’s resulting eyebrow arch with a twisted half smile of his own.
“It’s not the death that hurts those caught in the vision the most. It’s the helplessness that does it.
At first, it’s all you can feel. It’s part of the sight.
Overwhelming helplessness in the wake of that knowledge, that inevitable death. ”
That was how most sluagh died. They were more likely to fade from sinking too much into their aspect, rather than from losing the tether to it. The yawning chasm of being unable to change the course of their lives, with little joy to live for.
Declan clung to the time and love he had with Antonio, however little they saw of one another. He had promised the man centuries.
“Sounds like a shit party trick.”
“Oh, aye. The last night, I was on–voids–LSD, I think. Three deathsight visions in a row. They were… I’ve seen things, before and since. I’ve done things. One of those visions still haunts me. And you and I, we understand each other, aye? Of a sort.”
Hyacinth lifted his chin in acknowledgment, or encouragement to keep talking, or maybe, simply to move. The rest of him was very still, expression unreadable; that smile rarely said anything, when set as the default. They did, after all, understand each other.
“Too many people we knew were dying. And that sort of helplessness is not one I’d willingly inflict on you.
Or your crew or Wyte. Myself. And it wasn’t as if we met up in Faerie on the regular.
” Declan shrugged. “I suppose, now, all the humans we used to know are dead, or no longer around enough to trigger.”
“Our Rabbit’s got his bruiser back,” Hyacinth said, easy, stillness gone in favor of a careless recline, tumbler held loose in his fingers. “For a while, now.”
“So he does. Seems quite pleased about it too.”
Hyacinth tapped his glass lightly, then raised it with a rolling shrug. “It’s good to have you back. You won’t make the call for me, next time.”
Declan bloody well would, but he raised his glass in turn. “Out of the things that have arisen from this void-cursed Council position, being in a place for there to be a next time with you is one of the better ones.”
“That’s still got me. You and Wyte both on the Council. Winter’s icy tits, man. Never took either of you for masochists.” He smirked. “Not that kind.”
“Me, not so much.” Declan smiled faintly, if a little bitter. “Something needed to change, and I thought I could. That there was something important to break against and burn for.”
“And now?”
“Now? I’ve succeeded in getting what I wanted. I’ve set a precedent and put myself in a position to fix the system. Except the system isn’t broken. It’s working just as intended.” Declan shot him a smile, thin and razor keen. “And I grossly overestimated the thickness of my own skin.”
Got what he wanted, and lost Antonio at his side, the weight of his arm around Declan’s shoulders. His smile. Instead, he learned that the best way to not hurt when Antonio came to Faerie was to expect the renewed anger and fear, and focus on the relief that came with his closeness. However brief.
Hyacinth fell silent, glancing out the window at the gray sky before turning his attention back to Declan. No pity, there. Consideration again, but heavier. Serious.
“I’m saying this as a friend,” he said at last. “You’re meant to fail. To break or burn or die, so the Council can point to you and talk about how ‘poor death aligned’ simply don’t have the constitution for leadership. Stasis despises entropy. There was no Convergence. There was a coup.”
“My family went from about twenty to one,” Declan agreed.
“You’re playing a rigged game, Declan. You can’t win it.”
He had known that. He hadn’t wanted to win. It had been about making a point. About taking something and setting it on fire because it needed to be.
Light it up and spread the ashes. Destruction wasn’t winning.
“If they succeed in closing the veil, we all die.” Everyone, including those changelings flung into the mortal realm gone as if they never existed. Antonio’s sacrifices and hurt, scorned. “What would you do, in my situation?”
“Burn it down,” Hyacinth said, with an easy shrug. “All of it. Not just the Council. Rot’s at the center, sluagh. Anything you build on what is will go to shit. Have to start again from the ashes. Solves the boyfriend problem too. Hates Faerie? Build him one custom.”
“I’m not sure I’ve the stomach the Monarchs did. The establishment, yes. But all of it?” Declan shook his head.
“You always did have your line.”
“I draw it at infanticide and cutting swathes out of a population. Reducing twenty to one.”
“Good line to have.” Hyacinth’s sharp smile came quick, thin as Declan’s. “Bitch of a time, figuring out what you’re built for.”
Declan wasn’t built for this. Neither him nor Antonio. But what else could they have done?
What else could they do, now? Giving up would mean all of Antonio’s sacrifices were for nothing. The Council was in their vows. Antonio had used violence to make it happen. Endured a world he hated.