26. I Will Have This Dance #2
Briar just takes a Scotch egg and keeps moving.
Side chambers off the main hall have been decorated in softly twinkling fairy lights, and there are lanterns hanging in the courtyard outside and braziers burning in its centre; Briar glances out through the leadlight, the uneven glass warping the faces of the guests outside as they pass, and thinks they spy a head of grey-shot hair.
Outside, things are messier. A very stoned scholar with curly red hair half-scraped into a top knot bounces off one of her friends, giggling, and careens right into Briar.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘sorry.’ They’re all masked in pristine, virginal white lace. She exchanges a meaningful glance with the other girls, and then turns a very toothy smile on Briar, her hand still resting on their arm. ‘Hey. You’re in Baldwin, right?’
‘No,’ Briar says, stepping back. The redhead’s friends fall about laughing, clutching at each other, straps falling from their shoulders, bags and pearls swinging as they all stagger away.
‘You don’t look like you’re having fun,’ somebody says.
The voice is utterly familiar, but completely wrong; Briar turns to see Bastian standing there in pristine white tie and mask, his cape swept over his shoulders, hair in a low bun.
He’s holding two glasses of champagne. After the shock of him wears off, Briar realises what feels so off: he’s drunk.
He doesn’t wait for Briar to answer before handing over one of the glasses and taking a long pull from the other.
‘Look, I just—’ Briar says, but Bastian cuts them off.
‘I don’t know you, do I?’ he says, gazing out over the party. ‘No. But that’s all right. I’m sick of all the people I know.’
Is he serious? Does he really not recognise Briar behind the mask? He’s drunk, yes, but standing perfectly upright. Briar would still know him one magnum down, from a hundred paces, in the dark.
‘Bastian,’ Briar says, but Bastian shakes his head.
‘I’m so extremely tired of all of this. It’s not fun, is it?
They’re all just pretending it is, because you’re supposed to.
But you’re not pretending. You’re on the hunt,’ Bastian says, his usual deadpan drawl soft around the edges.
Then he notices Briar’s hand clenched on the glass, frowns. ‘You’re not drinking your champagne.’
Briar drinks. Is this the Work? Is Briar in control?
Is Bastian? The wine slips down so easily, a gorgeous burn on their tongue, and Bastian is watching, looking slightly pleased, so Briar keeps going until the glass is empty and then lets it fall from their hand.
It shatters across the cobblestones. Nobody else seems to notice.
‘Good,’ Bastian says. He crooks a finger. ‘Come on.’
Briar follows him.
They leave the courtyard behind, cross the moat, Bastian trailing his fingers along the stone balustrade of the bridge, and then he opens the gate to one of the gardens and slips inside.
It feels wilder than Briar would have expected, paths crisscrossing the space interrupted by bright ornamentals allowed to grow enormous, pale hydrangeas and creamy magnolias in bloom just visible in the last light of dusk.
Tucked among the foliage is a circular, domed temple built of white stone, and this is where Bastian comes to a stop, leaning against one of the pillars.
‘The problem with these fucking parties is that anybody clever enough to know how dreadful they are stays at home, and I am so often told it’s my duty to come, when I would quite literally rather die.’
He touches his face and his mask slips slightly; he reaches up to fiddle with it agitatedly, one-handed. ‘Take this off for me.’
Briar swallows, then goes to him, slips their hands into his impossibly soft hair, finds where the mask is tied at the back with ribbons and works it steadily loose. The knot catches, and Briar has to lean in close to tug at it, Bastian’s shallow breath on their neck.
They pull the mask free and move back, clutching it, triumphant. Bastian blinks back at them, like he’s waking from a dream.
‘Look,’ Briar says, their hand twitching towards the letter in their pocket. ‘I came here to talk to you, I need to know—’
Bastian touches Briar’s jaw, very gently, which stops the words in their throat - and then he kisses them.
It’s soft and hesitant, like he’s not entirely sure he’s going to go through with it, a moment of questing contact and half-caught breath before their lips touch. And then . . . it’s not like before. Not like either of the times before. No grasping hands, no tang of blood. No fury. No panic.
What will memory do to this kiss, once it’s far behind them?
Will Briar get to keep Bastian’s hand sliding down their forearm, fingertips probing past the end of their shirt sleeves, only satisfied once he’s touching skin; how unexpectedly pliant Bastian’s mouth is, languid and wine-slow, yielding and open like he’s trying to take Briar inside himself, like he wants Briar to push?
Bastian moves away slightly, just far enough to take another hitched breath - and Briar chases after his mouth, pressing him against the stone, gripped with temporary insanity in the perfumed dark.
It’s a total and complete betrayal of rational thought, in favour of keeping this impossible moment alive for another few seconds.
Fuck, they think. I’m not pretending. I love him. I still love him.
But then – It must be the Work. Briar pushes Bastian violently away.
Bastian laughs, breathless. ‘I thought you’d kiss me like you hate me,’ he says, leaning unsteadily back against the pillar, eyes drinking Briar in. ‘How disappointing.’
Briar’s had enough of this. They go to remove their own mask, fumbling angrily for the ties, and Bastian straightens up in alarm.
‘Don’t,’ he says.
‘Oh, fuck you, Bastian.’ Briar succeeds, wrenches the mask off, and Bastian sighs, heavy with disappointment.
‘Well, you’ve ruined it now, haven’t you?’ he says - and then he has the audacity to try to walk away.
Briar blocks his path. ‘What the hell was that? Did you just force me to—?’
Bastian shoves them. It’s not a very hard shove, but his eyes are bright with anger now, all listlessness gone. ‘To follow me? To kiss me? No, Briar. Sorry, but that was all you.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Bastian shrugs. He must be lying. He must be. ‘Believe what you want.’
Briar lets him push past them, but they can’t let him leave. They catch up with him just outside the gate, struggling to keep pace, his stupid legs far too long.
‘Wait. Stop. I really did need to talk to you.’
‘Well, perhaps I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘I need to know what happened,’ Briar says, in a rush. ‘That December. At Christmas, the first one, after you left.’
Bastian stops in his tracks. Behind him, Briar can see lamplight from the formal skittering across the moat, hear strains of music and laughter on the air.
‘At Christmas,’ he repeats.
‘Yes.’
He’s turned away, and when Briar gets in front of him, the look on his face is terrible.
A haunted expression, a lost child; the way he’d look back at Grove House, when the kids in the village had been hounding him, or his father had been to stay.
‘Nothing happened at Christmas,’ he says, but he’s not even convincing himself.
‘Tell me,’ Briar says, desperate now. ‘Please.’
Bastian won’t look them in the eye. ‘You’ll hate me.’
‘I already hate you.’
He flinches at that. ‘It’ll hurt.’
Briar shakes their head impatiently. ‘It’s worse not knowing.’
‘I sincerely doubt that,’ says Bastian, but then his shoulders sag. ‘But all right. I’ll tell you.’