Chapter Nineteen The Send-Off
Chapter Nineteen
The Send-Off
Where Something Just Doesn’t Feel Right
The party sounded even more raucous now that Saeldian was outside Kell’s cottage, and as they rode the platform up to the rooftops, the voices became clear enough for them to hear that they were toasting everything they could think of.
“To yolk mushrooms!” Verandil cried, to great cheers.
“The moth knight attacks!” Jubilee yelled, and among the cheers, a voice croaked, “I won’t fall for that next time!”
“Well, here we go,” Kell said. He straightened up and strode right in.
“Kell! A song, Kell!” someone cried, and Kell went to Verandil’s side to play a song meant for clapping hands and dancing. Whoops rose in the air, and people jumped up to drag tables apart to make a dancing space. Jubilee guarded the table where a half-done game of lanceboard waited.
A circle formed in that empty space, and Terandis wheeled inside it to tilt his chair on one wheel to spin in a circle.
His arms flexed as Filandior stepped in to dance figures with him, and he made his chair step, circle, and spin for his partner.
He caught his partner’s hand and reeled him in to sit cradled in his lap as he danced his chair back to the edge.
Saeldian clapped along with the music, cheering when Quickwit dove for the center to partner with Jubilee, who kept one palm up for whenever Quickwit wanted to land. The two bowed for wild cheers, and then Jubilee pointed right at them.
“Let’s see how you dance, dreamweaver!” Quickwit shouted, and the platform shook with the crowd’s stamping feet.
Saeldian laughed and tried shaking their head, but Kell leaned to say something to Verandil, who signaled to a drummer, and the music changed to something a little slower.
Kell drew his bow while sliding to the next chord, making the music slide in between a beat that Saeldian thought a drummer would need four hands to play.
Party face time.
Saeldian strode into the center, elbows squared, and stamped as they posed for a beat before unwinding their hips like a silk ribbon falling from a lover’s hair.
Everything about them curved and swayed to the melody until they kicked one foot in the air and then spun into falling on the ground.
A little Tenser’s Floating Disk to raise them into the air, and the crowd cheered so loudly they could be heard in Eightbridge. “More!”
But that was enough time to stay in the center, and Saeldian took a bow.
Kell struck up more music to let the crowd close in.
Saeldian stayed to match steps with people but kept moving to the edge until they could slip away.
A few empty plates in their hand gave them a purpose no one would question.
They dropped them off and glanced backward.
Terandis nodded at Saeldian and set himself gliding toward them. “I know someone stealing away from a party when I see it. Are you on an errand, or are you just running?”
Saeldian studied him for a moment. “Did you spend a lot of time with me while I was recovering?”
“Someone had an eye on you at all times,” Terandis said. “I sat with you for a bit. You didn’t make much sense when I tried to ask you questions.”
“I can imagine.”
“It made the most sense to let you sleep through it,” Terandis said. “I spent my time sleeping through the worst of the healing myself. Were you trying to deflect my question?”
“No. I just thought I remembered you.”
“I was there,” Terandis confirmed. “Why did you act like such a prat before you all left?”
“I knew what you were thinking, and Kell denying it would have made you sure you were right,” Saeldian said. “So I decided it would be easier if you thought I was awful.”
“It nearly worked,” Terandis said with a chuckle. “Then I heard what you did. Tried to do. So I was right. Eh?” He grinned and jostled his elbow at them.
Saeldian shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“Are you sure you’re not just making it that way?”
It was terrible, seeing people think the best of Saeldian, hoping they were worth hoping for. “Believe me. If I could tell you, you’d agree with me.”
“And is that why you’re sneaking off now? Is this your exit into the mists I’m interrupting?”
“No. I’m going back with Jubilee. You haven’t gotten rid of me yet. I left because I have a feeling.”
Terandis leaned forward, interest sharpening his face. “A feeling.”
“You know when something isn’t right, but you’re not sure what, but you can’t leave it alone?”
“Yes. Is it serious?”
Saeldian’s shrug turned into a shiver. “Maybe. I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up. I feel like—” Saeldian laughed. “I feel like I got sent off.”
Terandis cocked one ear toward them. “What’s that now?”
“Con artist talk,” Saeldian said. “It’s probably nothing. But it’s like an itch. I have to go back and make sure it’s nothing, or it will eat at me.”
“And then you’ll come back?”
Saeldian hesitated. “I don’t know. Yes. I will.”
Terandis smirked. “I didn’t think you’d be off-balance at parties.”
“I know how to look like I’m not off-balance at parties,” Saeldian said. “I’ll come back and show you.”
Terandis nodded and spun his chair in a tight circle. “Be quick, or I’ll send a search party.”
Saeldian kept smiling until Terandis was out of sight and they could run back to the cabin, where the Kiss of Enduring Love rested in Kell’s pack.
Dad signaled Kell with the excuse of a mug of beer, and Kell, for one, was grateful.
Bowing every tune with a band of satyrs at a fey party pushed his wrists and fingers to the limit.
But Kell had kept at it because he hadn’t had a chance to sit in with any kind of band in too long.
Besides, it helped him hold back the feeling of wondering exactly when Saeldian would slip out of his life.
He’d never regret the dream the two of them had shared. He was glad that he had it to remember, even if the loss of it had already started burning. It ached in his heart, and it had been getting into his fingers—sweet, and already vanishing.
That wasn’t party music, and the band let him pack his fiddle and join Terandis at a table on the edge of the noise and gaiety to drink a malty beer that smelled like a meadow in the sunshine.
“Boy, what does being sent off mean?”
Kell set the mug down in a coughing hurry.
Dad smirked. “Not the question you expected? Is it salacious?”
Someone started a jig, and Kell tapped his toes in time. “No. It’s when you send the mark off to get the goods.”
“I know what the mark means, at least.” Dad put his elbows on the armrests. “So it’s how you fool someone into giving you money?”
“Close. There’s a thing we’d do, when we were really going to rob someone blind. We’d let a crack show. We’d let something odd happen. A little failure, a risk that it would all go wrong.”
“You’d let it,” Terandis said. “So it was a test.”
“Exactly. If they walked out of the game then, well, we wasted a bit of time, but it was safer to give them that chance to wiggle out, because if they stuck with us after a problem, we knew we could get it all.”
Terandis nodded along to the fast-bowing tune and the drums rushing around each other. “And that’s being sent off?”
“No. That’s the breakdown. It’s what you do before you send them off.”
Terandis’s eyebrows came together. “So the send-off is when you can trust them to stay fooled long enough to rob them.”
The music held its breath. Then one fiddle’s voice soared into the air, accompanied by one person clapping the tempo. “Right. But I don’t do this stuff anymore, Dad. I gave it up ten years ago.”
The fiddle reeled around to the start, and one drummer joined in, rolling and striking like thunder could dance. Terandis folded his arms.
“I quit, Dad.”
“I know. But Saeldian didn’t.”
“Dad. How did you even hear about a send-off?”
A second fiddle, a wide, deep drum, and a silvery flute all chased the first melody. “Saeldian left the party early. They mentioned it just before they left.”
Off to the left, someone dropped a tambourine.
“Mentioned it?”
“They said it was probably nothing.”
“Dad,” Kell said, “do you remember exactly what they said? Can you repeat it?”
When he did, Kell went cold. “Find Lorzok and Jubilee. Tell them to come to my cabin.”
He was already running before Dad’s voice hit his ears.
A set of drawstrings dangled from a side pocket in Kell’s pack. The bag was still there; the gem was still in it. Saeldian prized it open and peeled the bag away from the gem.
It looked just like the gem they’d stolen. Same color, same shimmer, same warmed-air feeling of enchantment—a remarkable copy. Really, excellent work. Side by side, Saeldian wouldn’t know how to tell them apart without an hour with an expensive spell—
—or a simple test.
Saeldian cast the silvery glowing hand and picked up the spell gem with it. They still had their power, and they still felt strong. That didn’t make sense either, but one mystery at a time. Saeldian’s Mage Hand held the gem in its palm, right at eye level.
“All right. You, Saer Gemstone, are a fake, according to our employer, Briona, who claims to be an agent of the Zhentarim. She said that the real Kiss of Enduring Love was stolen from Hearthaven’s Repose and sold to Elezia Tarm, and we were hired to steal it from Elezia and put it back before anyone noticed. And that doesn’t make sense.”
The rose-lilac-green gem was shiny and silent.
“It doesn’t make sense because Kell asked about any visitors besides that nice couple who were getting married before we showed up, and there hadn’t been anyone.
It could have been an inside job, but we didn’t stick around long enough to find out if that’s true.
But even if it was true, how did you, a fake, manage to fool an archfey? ”
The answer was simple. And if Saeldian was right, discovering the truth would be simple. But if they were right, what could they do?
“I should go back to Hearthaven’s Repose and give you back. Explain the whole story. They’ll know I’m not lying, so it won’t be hard.”
Not even a moment of dizziness. No dazzle in their eyes. No pain; no weakness.
“I will go back to Hearthaven’s Repose and return you.”
Nothing.
“I’ll steal this gem and use it to swindle someone into sending me back to Faer?n. Silverymoon, this time.”
That should have awakened the vowstone spell for sure.
Nothing happened. Saeldian’s Mage Hand dropped the stone into the bag.
So they’d fulfilled their vows? That didn’t make sense.
But Briona’s terms never said anything about bringing this forged gem back.
That was a contract hole a mile wide, unless they were wrong about what the job really was.
And that was what Saeldian couldn’t banish from their thoughts. What if they hadn’t been hired to return the Kiss of Enduring Love? What if this really was the Kiss of Enduring Love? What if they had been hired to plant the gem they stole from Lady Elezia Tarm?
Saeldian had been told to put that gem back so no one would know it had ever been gone. But that had taken lifting a spell-web and sliding Lady Tarm’s gem inside. And when the web had gone dim, Saeldian woke it up with a spell.
And if the gem inside this bag now was the real Kiss…
There was an easy way to find out. Swallowing, Saeldian raised the bag, let the gem fall into their palm, and remembered.
A summer night in the gardened Upper City of Baldur’s Gate felt like a warm, overly familiar hand pressing against Saeldian’s skin.
The air carried the night-blooming perfume of the villa’s lush garden.
All the stars in the sky twinkled like applause.
Saeldian was drunk enough to be honestly caught in the giddiness of victory, and Kell played the harp they’d just stolen while Saeldian twirled in place and made their brand-new armor change on every whim—a swashbuckling knave, a hardened sergeant of the Flaming Fist, a dandy-ruffled noble in silk and silver, melting into themself, belling out the hem of a bare-shouldered gown.
The hem settled as they stopped to watch Kell.
The warm lamplight loved him, shining on every enchanting part—his warm smile, the lights in his eyes, the hollow at the notch of his throat.
He played a low, shimmering melody that carried the bright, easy rise and fall of him warming up his voice.
He grinned at Saeldian. Saeldian should grin back, or pick up their gown and dance, but—
He was so beautiful it made Saeldian ache. They quivered like the obedient strings under his fingers, every sensation tuned to wanting him.
Kell’s laughing grin faded into curiosity. The music slid off his fingertips. “What is it?”
“Set that down,” Saeldian said.
He did. “All right. What is it?”
Saeldian let themself cross the distance and stand close enough to brush Kell’s hair away from his eyes. When those eyes widened, Saeldian bent to kiss him.
It was seamless. Kell stood up and caught Saeldian in his arms and saved them from the trouble of standing on knees gone weak.
He kissed them like he’d been waiting to do it for ages.
Kell kissed Saeldian like nothing, no one in the world could mean more than this moment.
Saeldian fit in Kell’s arms perfectly; their head rested in Kell’s steady, cradled hand, and not a single mark in all their life could have taught them what it was like to kiss someone like it should have happened years ago, like it would happen in all their tomorrows—like Kell would give them the shelter of his arms and stop the world for them to kiss like this—
Saeldian’s fist closed over the gem. They looked at the honey-golden wooden bed, the rumpled blankets, and the hourglass still sitting on the bedside table with all its sand in the bottom, because Saeldian didn’t want to remember what happened next, when they had realized what they were doing.
Saeldian remembered how cold their heart felt, how they felt the warmth of Kell’s arms and shivered with what they’d just done.
They had stepped back and made some excuse to stop, lied about talking about it in the morning, and left Kell alone in his room to cast an illusion cantrip.
When it still worked, Saeldian ran away from Kell and Baldur’s Gate and everything they would lose if they didn’t.
“Fuck.”
This was the real Kiss of Enduring Love.
“Saeldian.”
The door opened, and Kell Redsong stood staring at Saeldian with the gem in their hand and their pack at their feet.
“I know how this looks,” Saeldian said. “Believe me, I know. But it’s not what you think.”
“Dad told me what you said,” Kell said. “Were you wrong?”
Saeldian’s relief made them feel sick. Kell believed them. He didn’t reach for the worst explanation. He trusted them.
That hurt worse than they had assumed. Saeldian shook their head. “Get Lorzok and Jubilee.”
Footsteps clattered behind Kell. “We’re here. What’s going on?”
“It’s a scam,” Kell said. “That’s the real Kiss of Enduring Love. The reverse heist was only reversed on us.”