Chapter 19
The back garden was a lot less wild than the front, but from what Theo could see, Laurette really loved his winding garden paths.
They crossed between beds where flowers grew among tomato plants and herbs, and smooth stones of varying sizes were piled up or arranged in spiraling patterns amid the greenery.
It wasn’t your average kind of garden, not by a long shot.
They quickly arrived in the center of a patch of lawn. It wasn’t big—a rough square of maybe three steps on each side. In the center of it, mushrooms grew in a circle.
“Huh.” Theo wondered if they were edible or deadly.
“Your abode is made more convenient by this,” Cloudtree said as he shouldered into the circle, followed by Gertrude. “I did not know there was a path to the human plane that was so well located.”
Laurette stepped in as well. “That’s the point.” He looked at Theo. “Okay, last chance to stay behind and plan a dramatic reunion.”
Theo shook his head. “No, thank you.”
Peter had the audacity to growl, and the hand he’d been resting on Theo’s hip tightened possessively. Theo knew he was about to say Theodore and possibly—worse—please with that warm timbre in his voice again, and Theo just couldn’t.
He wiggled out of Peter’s hold and stepped over the mushrooms, followed by a shifted Carl, whose fluffy hair made it difficult to resist the urge to pet him.
“Very well.” Peter followed last. He then looked at Theo. It was a soul-searching kind of look, and it was scary.
Not because Theo thought Peter was going to do anything to stop him. No, the issue with Peter was that he was too nice, and he made it by far too easy for Theo to just…give in.
Theo had given in once before already, and that had gone so badly.
There were many things he didn’t remember from his time with Bernard, but that wasn’t true about the early days.
Bernard had complimented his eyes once and then brushed a soft kiss over Theo’s lips.
Theo remembered how that had felt, how long he’d kept the memory of that single moment like a treasure and proof of Bernard’s feelings for him.
It scared him now. He should’ve run then. He didn’t know why something like a simple compliment and the smallest bit of affection had worked like an emotional stun gun on him then, but he didn’t want it to happen again.
I know Peter isn’t like that. I know it not because he told me, but because he showed me. Celeste told me that’s what matters. Never what comes out of a person’s mouth, but how they treat you, and Peter has never treated me badly.
Theo’s eyes widened, and while he heard Laurette say something, it barely registered with him. Celeste had given him everything he needed to know. Don’t ever trust what comes out of a person’s mouth, pay attention to how they treat you.
Peter could’ve given him a confession of love every day.
Bernard had said it often enough, and he had meant no part of it.
It didn’t matter what Peter had said. Theo balled his right hand into a fist while pushing down a bundle of emotions he didn't want to have to examine too closely and promising himself that he’d forget what Peter had confessed, wouldn’t put any stock in it.
He wouldn’t let himself be influenced by it.
All that matters is that what we have now is good.
He’s nice. He likes my company. He’s weird with the lunches and the way he makes sure I can get all my studying done and with driving me to school, but I shouldn’t read into that.
I like him, a lot, and that’s fine. That’s all it is. That’s all it is. That’s all it is…
Theo repeated that thought a few more times while also doing his best to convince himself that the way they had met had made him more attached to Peter than he normally would’ve been, and the same was likely true for Peter.
Him liking Peter and Peter being nice to him was what he had, and he was going to enjoy that. He wasn’t going to risk it by trying to get more. The contract, a reasonable framework for their relationship, suddenly felt like a guiding light in a midnight sea.
A jolt pulled Theo out of his thoughts, and he stumbled. Around them, the garden had disappeared, vanishing in a blur of movement and color. Peter’s arm came around Theo, and Peter soon had him pressed against him, holding him steady.
The colors washed out, turning into pastels, and as the swirling maelstrom around them began to spark, it also grew noisy. At first, it was the sound of wind chimes in a breeze, but those high notes dropped until all Theo could hear was the echo of a giant gong.
With a pop, it all stopped. The whirlwind died down, and their surroundings came back into focus. They were no longer in Laurette’s garden.
Where the garden had been, there was now a forest, or at least trees as far as Theo could see. Some of those trees even had your average green foliage, but most were a soft pastel pink.
A gust of wind blew through them, and Theo realized his mistake—it wasn’t foliage, but petals. The trees around them were in brilliant bloom as if spring was in full swing. It was still September though, and this made no sense.
Theo narrowed his eyes. “Are we on the Southern Hemisphere? Are those cherry blossoms?”
Peter ran his hands over Theo’s front. “No. It’s Faerie.”
Cloudtree sighed and stepped toward the trees. “The Elvish Woods? It is close. My stepbrothers would sometimes hunt here, but they always said there was no good game.”
Laurette snorted and placed one hand on the pommel of the sword he’d picked. It was curved and sort of short. Theo had no idea whether it was going to be any good for fighting.
“That’s because they are the Elvish Woods, and we don’t like you lot coming in here and killing things.” He turned to Theo. “Elvenland borders on Faerie, you see, and our two countries have historically had…tensions, you could say.”
Theo made a surprised sound. “That’s why you don’t like Fae?”
Laurette huffed. “No one likes Fae because they are pretentious, present company mostly excluded. Now, let’s grab some deer and go do the rescuing. We don’t want to keep Theo and Peter’s friends waiting.”
Carl made a questioning dog noise, and Laurette looked at him.
“You’ll be running alongside. I assume you have the stamina?”
Carl sniffed indignantly.
“Excellent. To the deer, then.”
Peter’s hands were still on Theo’s belly and chest, moving up and down, while he kept Theo’s back pressed to his front. It was an absentminded gesture. When Theo turned his head, he could see the focus in Peter’s eyes, and it wasn’t directed at him.
“You’re going to make us ride deer.”
“Aren’t they too small though?” Theo asked. “Also, I can’t ride. It’s really bright here, isn’t it?”
The more he looked around, the more he noticed it. And it wasn’t the kind of brightness you got on a very sunny day, either. It was almost like there was an innate brightness to everything around them, like a glow coming from the flowering trees, from the ground, from the few green leaves.
“Welcome to Faerie,” Laurette said. “And yes; no cars here. Although there’s this Fae that stole one a couple of years back. No idea what she did with it after the fact. Anyway, short walk. Follow my lead. Gertrude! Rear, please. Make sure we don’t have any stragglers and such. Cloudtree, with me.”
They fell into line. Peter kept holding on to Theo, which wasn’t at all uncomfortable.
Faerie was like a bucolic landscape painting with lots of pastels, right down to a flurry of hand-sized butterflies that shimmered like gemstones.
It shouldn’t have been scary, but something about it creeped Theo out, a lot, and Theo had been mostly fine with Peter showing him the decapitated head of Bernard, so he had a certain tolerance. Faerie was testing it.
Peter let out a long exhale. “You’re all right. Just stay close to me.”
“I can take care of myself,” Theo mumbled. It was a reflex, and he could hear the lack of conviction behind the words.
“Everyone is going to be all right.” Laurette’s voice was bright, like bells almost. Theo was pretty sure it hadn’t always been like that. “Stay by the trees.”
As he said it, they broke through the foliage and underbrush and arrived at the edge of a field.
Low tufts of grass stretched out here, though Theo could see the trees continued on and curled forward on their right.
Without the branches all around them, it was even brighter, and Theo sheltered his face with a hand when he looked up and around.
“Where are we?”
“The moors.” Cloudtree came closer, which in turn had Peter stepping up and slightly in front of Theo.
Cloudtree reached out a hand and pointed toward the grassy landscape.
“They stretch on for a while. My stepfather and stepbrothers reside in my mother’s old house, right on the border of the moors and the waterlands.
They often come to hunt here, but it is treacherous.
” He shook his head as if banishing a painful memory.
“There are stories of hunters perishing because the moors took them.”
“Or more likely, they crossed into the forest, either went to the human plane or to Elven lands, and found consequences.” Laurette sounded…pleased about that. “Bet there aren’t any stories about that.”
Cloudtree frowned. “There are stories about Elves. But I do not wish to give offense. I wish…to become neighborly.” He raised his chin. “I have heard that in the human realm, it is most customary to pursue a daily labor. I am prepared to do that.”
Laurette turned. “You want to work to get paid so you can afford food and shelter. Well, fuck me, but that was not in the daily horoscope for today, was it, Gertrude.”
“You don’t read the horoscope, my lord.” Gertrude was absently polishing the flat side of a claw hammer against her coat.
Theo sighed. “Okay, the chatter is great, but can we please go and get my friend and his fiancé? It’s only a rescue if we get them back.”
Laurette smiled at him. “We will, but it takes the deer a moment to get here.”
Theo opened his mouth to ask, but he never got the chance. He felt the vibrations from his feet all the way to the tip of his nose. “What in the fuck—”
With a crash, something large and pearly white broke through the trees on their left.