Episode 126: The Paper Prince (Acheron)

Ach decided this week was forged by the guy that made Sisyphus keep rolling the rock up the hill. Forever.

Only Ach’s rock was people. He was caught in an endless sea of people he had to interact with, and as far as he could tell it was never going to get better.

Plus his mom had some new guy.

The worst person was that girl at the job fair. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and about her name and about the dumb Paper Prince song.

At least the kids were all off playing. It was practically alone time with Spence, at their own table in the corner. It was almost private, almost just them, if only Acheron could block out the noise and crowd of the festival.

And the memory of Lyra with the purple eyeshadow.

“You know that job fair?” he asked Spence.

“No idea,” Spence teased. He had that calmness he got sometimes when he’d had a little to drink, but Ach didn’t think he had because he was working. It was why he’d picked the corner table and his eyes never stopped moving.

Spence leaned and kissed Ach. “What about it?” he asked.

Ach couldn’t remember. He just wanted to keep kissing Spence, melt into aloneness, get some time with no kids in their bed, just them, freedom.

Instead he let Spence pull away, because they were in front of people, complete strangers. “When you went to follow that blonde guy, this girl came up and told me off for offering my chair.”

Failure to summarize adequately: check.

“That’s weird,” Spence said. When he sat back from the kiss, he kept his arm around Ach. Ach leaned into him, home. “Did you burn the chair?” he joked. “You should have.

He started to laugh, but mid-laugh his mom’s boyfriend walked up to her and ran his thumb over her cheek. He probably said something heart melty because she gave him a smile Ach hardly ever saw on her face, and laughed.

Ach tried not to glower too much, but he did tell Spence, “I don’t like the way he looks at her.”

“What about it?” Spence asked. He followed Ach’s gaze to where his mom and Greg stood in their own little world, totally oblivious to reality. They’d worn sapphire and silver, matching, and there was a new silver dragon and Ach didn’t even know this guy and…

He forced himself to breathe.

“Like he wants her too much?” Spence asked.

No. Ach wouldn’t have minded if Greg wanted her. It would mean he didn’t act like he already had her.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, because he didn’t know how to explain that difference.

“So this girl,” Spence nudged.

“Hates me,” he vented. “She gave me her address and I forgot to give it to you. It’s at home. She had purple eyes.”

Talise loved purple, and even she wasn’t that crazy.

“Why did she give you her address?” Spence asked.

“So I’d give it to you,” he told him. Wasn’t that part, at least, obvious? “She wanted to talk to you about how rude I was or something. Disappearing people.” Maybe he should have some of the wine. Just to have a glass of something besides water to glower into. But he hated the way it made him feel like his forehead was muzzy. “Do you think I’m useless?” he asked.

“Hmm,” Spence said, like he really had to think about it. Ach let the blush in his cheeks grow from embarrassment about even asking. This was a pointless and dumb and whiney line of thought. “You cleaned the house today and got the kids settled in the first few hours. That doesn’t sound useless.” With the arm that was around Ach’s back, Spence started to massage his shoulder. “I think you’re incredibly useful and I would be lost without you.”

“Yeah,” Ach complained. “But that’s paper stuff, not sword stuff.” He didn’t know how to get Spence to see the problem, which was that Ach fundamentally was broken. He was just not capable in the way that other people were.

“Oh, right,” Spence said, with a low laugh that did hungry things to Ach’s body. “Remind my scars that you suck with a sword.” He leaned forward, and used his tell me voice. “What’s wrong, Ach?”

He wrapped his hands around and around each other, while the anxiety over this confession built in his neck and shoulders.

After a moment, he admitted in a whisper, “Her name was Lyra.”

It took Spence a lot less time to figure out than it had taken Ach. “So, she needs you,” he said.

If Ach was right, and he was the paper prince. But that would mean talking to Niels to find out if that stupid song even mattered. “Or it’s a coincidence,” he said urgently. “I bet it’s a coincidence because Niels’s songs are always about that junk.”

“Niels wrote one about Talise too, and then he married her,” Spence pointed out. “Why don’t you just ask him about the Lyra stuff?”

Yeah, he definitely needed a glass of wine to frown into. The water wasn’t cutting it at all, for drama. “Because he hates me,” he muttered. “I don’t feel like telling him I met her and let her leave.”

“You could bond over it,” Spence suggested. It actually wasn’t a bad idea, if he’d said it about anyone who wasn’t Niels. “I’ll go with you,” he offered. “Isn’t Li in that song? We could go around Niels.”

He loved Spence, for this help. Spence was amazing. He never would have let Lyra just walk away. He would’ve made the connection right then and sneaked her here, to safety, and justified it to any angry adults and nothing would have gone wrong.

But still, his plan had a flaw. “Yeah,” Ach reminded him, “but we still need to know if Niels meant it or not.”

Spence stopped kneading his knuckles into Ach’s shoulder. “You know you did nothing wrong, right? He’s an ass for hating you.”

“He’s just being protective,” Ach defended, “since I wasn’t.” Brothers had two jobs, Ach thought: Protect their sisters from guys, and protect them from anyone who would hurt their family. He hadn’t protected her from teen pregnancy at all, he’d gone off and been dejected and mopey, and he’d been the guy who hurt her family.

“You know how this twin stuff works?” Spence asked. “You’re exactly what Talise needs.”

According to some legend, anyway. They were supposed to be sets, perfectly-matched. Obviously that didn’t work in the real world, since Acheron sucked at being a brother.

“I should talk to Niels,” he decided. He stood up, and looked back at Spence.

He knew he sucked at feeling like he belonged in the world, and it wasn’t Spence’s fault, but Spence always tried to help him. Spence always tried to help everyone.

“I love you, you know,” he told Spence. Even though Spence deserved someone more competent than Ach, Ach was too selfish to ever admit that to him.

“What was that?” Spence asked. Ach knew he’d heard right away which meant he was teasing. He stood up and went to stand next to Ach.

“I said I love you,” Ach told him. He kissed him, despite all the people around. “Everything.”

“Oh,” Spence said with raised eyebrows. He returned Ach’s kiss with a flurry of his own kisses. “I love you too.”

“I’d still pick you again, if it was a choice,” he told Spence. It was how he knew he was a horrible brother, because it had ruined his friendship with Talise and it had changed Talise’s lives and her kids’ lives and he was just disgusting and selfish.

“Me too,” Spence said, with none of the remorse Ach felt. He wondered how Spence really felt about all of this; probably better than Ach did but Spence got hung up on anxiety too. He just hid it better.

Like right now, he had the courage to tug Ach across the garden until they reached the table where Niels sat, alone. Talise had gone off somewhere.

Niels was watching Spence’s surprise older brother, who was some kind of circle dancing game with Ella and Jax. All three of them were wet, like they’d been in the fountain earlier.

“Hey,” Spence said to Niels.

Niels peeled his eyes away from the new brother and the kids. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

That was such a dumb expression. The entire universe, more or less, was up from wherever anyone was standing. Ach’s up was different from Niels’s up just because they stood a couple of feet apart. It affected their zeniths on the celestial sphere.

After a silence, because Ach was busy answering Niels’s dumb question in his head, Spence finally said, “He met Lyra.”

Niels’s body kind of spasmed into a more alert position. “What? Where?”

Oh, no. He was taking it seriously. “No one,” Ach said hurriedly. “No one,” he said again, in case Niels missed it. He tugged on Spence’s arm.

“In Sylem,” Spence said, ignoring Ach. “She gave Ach her address.”

Why couldn’t everyone see that it turned out Ach was totally okay with being a paper prince?

Niels looked at him. “Why didn’t you bring her here?” he accused.

Ach felt himself go pale, while his heartbeat raced in his chest. Now he’d given Niels a whole new reason to hate him.

“Aren’t we supposed to rescue her?” Spence pointed out. He’d rescued Ach because Ach could breathe again now.

“Ideally, you shouldn’t need to rescue her,” Niels said with a scowl. He got all vague-looking, the way everyone in the family did when they were talking to dragons. Ach checked with Vermillion to make sure Niels hadn’t ordered his dragon, Regnbue, to kill him for being a paper prince.

“What then?” Spence asked.

Good idea. Spence was good at this: He put Niels in charge now and nobody could blame Ach anymore because this was Niels’s thing.

“Let’s go find her,” Niels said, “before she has to be rescued.” He stood up and did another dragon message thing, which meant Ach had to ask Vermillion all over again. This time, Vermillion hinted at some exciting gravity stunts he might do to Ach if he kept bugging him for stupid reasons.

They started to leave, but Niels’s band member Li, who really looked like she should secretly be in charge of the army only no one had figured out that she was dangerous and intense yet, came over. “You found her?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Niels said, in a hold-your-horses way. Niels was very protective of the whole world except for Acheron. Even homeless people. Ach had decided years ago that Niels had protective spheres. There was one sphere, with him and Talise and all their kids, and nobody was allowed inside that.

There was another sphere, with everyone in the extended family, mostly, and good friends he’d known in his life. No strangers were allowed inside that.
There was a third sphere, with the entire world in it, mostly, especially homeless people and victims of pointless crimes.
Then there was the abyssal plane, just like the one at the bottom of the ocean, except instead of there being no light and no happiness and lots of miserable bottom-feeding fish, there was no light and no happiness and Ach and Spence.

Li was in Niels’s second sphere.

Acheron decided Niels probably thought it was his job to convince Li not to get too excited. “I met this girl the other day,” he explained to her. “She said her name was Lyra, so it made me wonder if that song mattered.”

“We have her address,” Niels added, “if it’s her.”

“Can I come?” Li asked.

“Why?” Ach asked before he remembered that Li was dangerous. She folded her mouth down and gazed at him for a second.

“Because,” she said, looking at Niels now. “I’m bored. Let’s go.”

“I can get her address,” Ach volunteered, because he didn’t want Li in their apartment. He ran off before anyone could stop him, all the way into the palace and up the stairs and into their apartment, which was clean for once because all the kids were outside. Orris hadn’t made his bed, so Ach made it and then he remembered he was supposed to be getting Lyra’s address.

He found his dirty pants from yesterday, folded near the bottom of the family’s hamper. Thanks to the festival, everyone was behind on laundry, which suited him just fine because it meant he didn’t have to go back and explain that he’d ruined Lyra’s address and now they would never find her.

He carried it back out to the garden. Some kind of music had started and now people – mostly kids and younger students from the school – were dancing.

“Okay,” he told the group of three that waited for him. “I got it.” He passed the paper to Spence, because Spence knew Sylem. “Do you know where that is?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Spence said in his clipped down-to-business voice. He held his hands out, one towards Niels and one towards Ach. “We can be quick.”

“If it’s not her,” Niels murmured to Li in a gentler tone than he’d ever even thought about using on Ach, “I’m sorry.”

“What are the odds it isn’t?” she asked him.

“Well,” Niels pretended to think about it. “It is an unusual name.” He reached for her hand. “Excited?”

“Yeah,” she said. “A little.”

Ach wondered why she even cared, except that they’d produced the song about her and now they’d found her. He guessed that counted as a big deal.

Ach squeezed Spence’s hand. He squeezed back, and transported all of them.

Clovercrest. Ach had some kind of mental illness that made this place look and smell way better in his memories than it was in real life. Every visit was a shock, when it shouldn’t be by now.

This was a set of rowhouses, seven in a row, only the three on the end were collapsing. The farthest right was almost completely collapsed. The next sagged at a sharp angle. The third one in only sagged a little, but he bet no one lived in it.

That was the one Spence approached.

“Do we just…knock?” Ach asked. “How can you even tell if someone lives here?”

Spence knocked.

Niels and Li stepped onto the porch and the whole thing sank toward the house a little.

“What did she say to you?” Spence asked Ach, after a couple of minutes of no one answering the door.

The door of the neighboring row house opened and a burly guy that reminded Ach of Talise’s super intense bodyguard, Xenos, stepped out.

“Good evening,” Spence said to the man.

Spence was going to get killed. Ach wished they were already married so Spence could be Dragon so Spence couldn’t be killed.

“We’re looking for one of the residents of this house,” Spence kept talking, walking closer to the scary guy. “Do you know them?”

The guy swung his arm out to punch Spence, but Spence dodged and stepped back away from him. Ach hoped the guy wasn’t armed or skilled at some kind of weird martial art that Spence didn’t know.

“Fuck you,” the guy said. Like the punch wasn’t enough of a message about what he thought of Spence.

“Not interested,” Spence said back.

Acheron accidentally laughed, which made the guy look at him like the guy was willing to bet Ach couldn’t dodge punches. Ach agreed.

Spence walked away from the guy. “Home?” he suggested.

“If you’re looking for the gay bitch,” the neighbor called, “she’s dead.”

He turned back toward his house.

Ach’s stomach sank into a chasm of despair.

Paper prince. If she died because of how stupid he was…

“How do you know?” Ach pleaded.

“Someone,” the guy said. “Pays more for them.” He opened the door to his house and went inside.

Ach had a bad, sick feeling that the neighbor might have been the one who sold Lyra. He didn’t usually get instincts, but that felt really loud and important to him.

Sold. “Do people have slaves here?” he asked Spence.

“No,” Spence said grimly. He reached for Ach’s hand. “But there is a slave trade.”

Ach had no idea what that meant. How could they trade something nobody used? It didn’t make sense.

“Let’s talk somewhere else,” Niels recommended, “before someone decides we’re valuable too.”

For once, Ach agreed with Niels about something. He reached for his hand, because he was closer to Niels than Spence was, and to his surprise Nies took it. The four of them transported to the gates outside Spence’s family’s house on the peninsula, far from downtown Sylem.

“Let’s get inside,” Spence urged.

“I bet your president uncle knows all the Lyras they just let out of jail,” Ach said to Spence. He really wanted to find her, before whatever else could happen to her happened to her. He didn’t think he could stand being a paper prince for life, or stand knowing she’d needed him, whoever she was, and he’d let her down. “We can find her family and use them to track her.”

“You didn’t say she’d been in jail,” Niels accused.

“She’s gay,” Spence figured out. “Everyone who was, was in jail.”

“Except you,” Ach argued and then he made himself clamp his mouth shut. Obviously Spence and Niels and Li knew Spence hadn’t been in jail.

“I got a girl pregnant and lied,” Spence reminded him. Niels scowled, which Ach thought was just mean. How could anyone look at Fort and Emma and say they weren’t worth it?
Probably Niels wished his own kids were Talise’s heirs.

That was never happening. Ach squinted at him, trying to figure out if he was a danger to Fort, Emma, Ella, and Jax, now that Talise was having Niels babies.

Ach didn’t think so, but it was something new to be worried about.

“So,” Spence said. “She has to be rescued. What do we know?”

“She was sold,” Li said in a snarky tone.

“Well,” Ach restated defensively, again because he’d already just said it, “I bet they didn’t just let a bunch of Lyras go from jail, so we can just find out her last name and track her by her family.”

He wasn’t actually sure they would help, if they’d disowned her for being gay. But if they hadn’t disowned her then they would probably help them help her. But if she was living alone in that falling-down house they probably had disowned her.

“I’ll visit Xander, then,” Spence decided. “Or Caz.”

Niels made some kind of huffing noise. “Caz is into moral superiority,” he said, annoyed and pacing in the Lavesque living room. “He won’t share personal information.”

“Xander, then,” Spence said. “I can meet you guys here or back at the party.”

What? He was leaving Ach?

Blood coursed through him. No. He was the paper prince, this was his thing to do. He was terrified that she needed him specifically for some reason and that if he wasn’t there Spence would fail.

“Can I come?” he asked. He sounded way too frantic.

Spence reached for his hand and ran his fingertips over the palm, soothing. “Yeah,” he said.

“We’ll be here for an hour,” Li informed them. She slumped down on the couch with a tv remote in her hand and Niels went over by the window to pace some more.

Ach was really glad he wasn’t staying here with them. Niels pacing would probably burn holes in Ach’s mind.

Spence laced his and Ach’s fingers together and transported them to a nearby house – another Lavesque mansion, on the peninsula. This one was the presidential palace.

Xander stood at his desk, with his back to them, bent over some papers he was writing on. “I thought I told you to use the gate,” he barked.

“When?” Spence asked.

Xander spun and looked at them. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “What do you want?”

Spence wasn’t Xander’s favorite nephew, apparently. That was okay, Xander probably wasn’t Spence’s favorite uncle, either.

“A nicer uncle,” Spence suggested.

Xander laughed and put his pen down. He looked at them, with that same calm expression Zero had a lot of the time, only Xander looked like a magnetic surfer rocket hero when he did it, and Zero looked like a thoughtful guy when he did it.

“There’s this girl,” Ach stated.

“That too,” Spence said. “We need to find her family so we can track her.”

Xander looked back and forth between them and laughed. “You two,” he clarified, “want a girl?”

Ach blushed redder than he’d blushed in a long time. Not that kind of girl. They didn’t want a girl, they wanted to find a girl. But not for that.

Everything, for Spence’s Uncle Xander, was about sex.

“Yeah,” Spence said.

“Why?” Xander asked.

“Ach likes her,” Spence told him. “Can we look her up?”

Ach hid his face in his hands and pulled at his lower eyelids. Spence was going to give him a heart attack from over blushing.

Xander scrutinized Ach for a minute or two while Ach’s skin sparked.

“Nope,” he said. “Sorry. If you want to get laid, go to a club.”

Spence walked around Xander’s desk, closer to him. “There’s a prophecy that she needs to be rescued. Ach is supposed to rescue her. Ach met her, but then she was kidnap-sold.”

“Fine,” Xander muttered. “Give me her name, I’ll have security get her info for you.” He picked up a pen and a notepad and looked at them expectantly.

“Lyra,” Ach said.

Xander wrote the first name down and looked at him.

Ach looked at the wall. He had nice walls, with white wainscoting on the bottom half and this kind of turquoise-tinted navy blue color on top, and then white molding all around the border to the ceiling.

It looked easy to keep clean, except the top of the wainscoting. Ach bet that had to be dusted.

“That’s it?” Xander asked. “Lyra who?”

“Lyra, the girl who was just released from prison?” Spence joked. “She has brown hair with a purple streak.”

Ach disagreed. She had blonde hair, just darker blonde, but she had all that purple eye shadow too. That seemed like an important detail to note, so he told Xander all about it.

Xander gave him a blank, kind of rude, look. “You know what prisons don’t have?” he asked Ach. “Eye shadow.” He picked up the piece of paper where he’d written Lyra and Spence and underlined both words. “I’ll have someone find her for you.”

“Keep it between people you trust,” Spence requested.

Xander sat down at his desk, with his little magic computer that somehow didn’t need a power cord, and started typing stuff in. He waited a minute – for a response? – and then looked back toward Ach and Spence. “Why’s she important enough to need a prophecy?”

“I don’t know,” Spence said. “I don’t make prophecies up.”

Ach was in love with the way Spence interacted with his uncle, like he wasn’t terrified of him. Spence wasn’t scared of anyone. Someday, Ach would learn how to stop hiding behind that and be brave on his own. He just wasn’t there yet.

“Fine,” Xander agreed. He pushed his computer away from himself and closed it. “But you have to do me a favor too.”

“What do you need?” Spence asked, a new wariness in his tone.

He was so good at this negotiating stuff. It must come from having Indigo as a mom. Although Ach’s mom was a queen and Ach would make a terrible queen.

“There’s a woman working for you,” Xander said. “Elizabeth Gibson.”

“Emily’s mom,” Spence said, nodding his head. “Yeah?”

“Keep an eye on her, and the guy who’s interested in her,” Xander said. “They may start dating.”

“Why?” Spence asked.

“His ex is giving me a headache and I want something on her. Anything you hear, I want to know.”

Wow. So when Spence pushed back with Xander, Xander treated him like an adult. Not just an adult, a competent adult.

Maybe Ach should start pushing back more.

“Sure,” Spence agreed. “I can ask her about Emily or something.”

“Who the hell is Emily?” Xander asked.

Ach wanted to know that too. How did Spence know names of people in Clovercrest already? He was really good at this.

“Rhyss’s girlfriend,” Spence said. “She’s missing.”

“Zach,” Xander ran his hand through his hair. “I forgot about him.”

“Wow,” Spence said, full of snark Ach never would have dared to use, “You must be close with my dad.”

Xander didn’t even laugh or react. He looked like he had a headache in his eyes, which Ach sometimes got even though he was Dragon and wasn’t supposed to be able to get sick or anything. Zero said it was probably because of tension.

“I’ll get you a message when I know more about this girl,” Xander promised. He sounded like he wanted them to go away. He wasn’t being subtle about it – Ach knew because Ach usually missed social cues and he wasn’t having any trouble getting these. Xander wanted them gone.

“Thank you,” he said to Xander.

“Thanks, Xander,” Spence added.

“What, kid?” Xander snapped.

What did he mean, what? Ach didn’t have anything else to say! He cringed and wished Xander would go away.

“Nothing!” he assured Xander.

There. That should work.

Only it turned out, he’d been asking Spence, not Ach. Spence ran his fingertips up and down Ach’s back a couple of times while he told Xander, “I was thinking about the campaign. We can talk about it later.”

“Sure,” Xander said. “And use the fucking gate. It costs money to maintain, you know.”

Spence shook his head and tapped the paper where Xander had written Lyra’s name. “I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.”

Xander opened his mouth like he was going to say something. He closed it and then opened it again, with sarcasm. “I’ll put out a PSA about it,” he said.

Whatever a PSA was, it made Spence laugh. “You’re still my favorite uncle,” he said, and then he grabbed Ach’s hand and transported out.

Was he Spence’s favorite uncle? Ach didn’t actually know. He’d always assumed Konrad or Nell was, but they weren’t technically his uncle. Or maybe he was Spence’s favorite on the Lavesque side and Konrad was his favorite on the Alandrial side. That would make sense.

He looked around. They were in Spence’s dad’s office at his house in Sylem. Everything was wood-paneled and orderly. Ach liked Zero’s offices when he was the only one in them (or Spence could be there too, he guessed, but not anyone else) because they were sanctuaries of order, in a palace full of chaos.

“You think he can actually help?” Ach asked Spence. “What’s wrong with Emily’s mom? What’s a PSA?”

Spence let out another of his low laughs that made Ach’s body want to melt into him. “Yes, because deep down he still likes me,” Spence answered the first question. “Nothing, she’s just dating a guy,” he said in response to the second. “And it stands for Public Service Announcement.”

He pulled Ach toward him and kissed, tugging on Ach’s bottom lip with his teeth. “Now to tell the other two,” he said.

“No,” Ach protested. He kissed Spence again, pressing against him, with his hands in Spence’s hair. He loved Spence’s hair, the little tight waves of dark brown that smelled like Spence and nothing else. “I have more questions first,” he stated. He kissed down Spence’s neck and collarbone.

Spence let out a low moan and pushed against Ach, pressing him into the wall between the examining table and Zero’s desk. He pinned Ach there with his hips and his mouth.

This was it, finally, alone time. Ach wondered if they were going to stay here or try to sneak upstairs to Spence’s Sylem bedroom. Spence kissed along his jawline and began unbuttoning his shirt, before he pulled away a little, eyes on Ach’s to evaluate his mood.

He stepped back, a move designed to torment Ach, as far as Ach could tell.

Ach raised his eyebrows in surprise. He was so hungry for Spence, he assumed Spence wouldn’t be able to resist this either, but apparently he was wrong.

Okay, if Spence wanted to resist, Ach could too.

“Are you working with Konrad tonight?” Ach asked in a voice that was just a little amused, but mostly serious and deadpan and whatever else might trick Spence.

“Probably,” Spence complained. “He’s thinking again.”

“Why does…” Ach started, remembering Rhyss dancing with Spence’s youngest two like he owned them. It didn’t make sense, why he’d play with them and not Fort and Emma, or why Talise was okay with it, or why Niels…

Oh, no.

He got it. He very got it.

“I get it,” he told Spence. “Nevermind.” He scrambled to think of something else to talk about, that wouldn’t cause problems for Spence. He landed on the very obvious, “What was wrong with Konrad?”

“Are you sure nevermind?” Spence asked. He stepped closer again, electrically close.

Ach tried to remember what he was thinking about. Rhyss, and Ella and Jax. Not saying anything about it. Being the last one to know, again, because he never figured anything out.

“It was just about Rhyss, but I think I figured it out,” he said.

“Yeah?” Spence asked, like tell me more. Then he added, “Konrad had a sidhe and it was dying and killing him too. Nell killed Konrad to hasten the process.”

A sidhe?

Only legendary people got sidhes. They attached to people who got things done, people who were the opposite of Acheron, and helped them get even more done. Sword people, not paper people. They were parasites who lived off their host’s accomplishments.

At least Ach would never have to worry about having a sidhe.

He smiled at that, one thing taken off his list of things to worry about.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Ach said. Then, very carefully because Spence was probably hurting about this and being stoic because that was what Spence thought he had to do, he explained, “And Rhyss…he’s that guy Talise was with before Niels.”

Spence was quiet. He’d been listening to Ach, stuck somewhere between talking and wanting to go back to kissing and touching and holding, but now that light left his eyes and his face kind of sagged.

“Yeah,” he said. “That makes sense.”

What?

He’d known, hadn’t he?

Ach’s skin sparked. He’d never figured something out before Spence before. Spence probably didn’t want to figure it out because Spence didn’t want to see it, and now Ach had ruined it and Spence…Spence.

Tears sprung to Ach’s eyes. Spence’s kids were everything to him.

They’d always known Ella and Jax weren’t really Spence’s, but Talise said the guy had disappeared and so Spence became their dad just to cover for Talise and keep everything stable. No one had ever guessed. It was a secret between just the four of them – Talise and Niels, Spence and Ach.

“We should got tell Niels and Li about the stuff,” Spence said.

No. Ach reached his hand onto Spence’s upper arm. “Are you okay?” he asked.

He sucked at comforting. Spence needed him.

“Yeah,” Spence said. Not really, not even a little.

“Come on,” Ach said. He grabbed Spence’s hand and tugged on it. “They don’t know how long Xander took.”

He led him up the stairs – the back way, through the two-doored pantry that connected the kitchen to the room Ach suspected used to be for hosting parties, and up the stairs to the second floor, into Spence’s Sylem bedroom.

Once in the room, he closed the door behind them. “Come on,” he told Spence again. They sat on the bed. “You always make me talk and it helps.” He started massaging Spence’s shoulders, just like Spence always did for him, alternating between deep kneading and light fingertip touches.

“If they’re his,” Spence explained, “they’re really not mine.”

Ach could guess how that felt. “I might be wrong,” he said gently, running his fingers through Spence’s hair. “Just because he’s different about them…”

“You’re not wrong,” Spence said, like he knew, in his gut, that it was right. “It’s obvious. I just…it sucks. That we can’t just have kids.”

This time the tears that filled Ach’s eyes spilled over onto his cheeks. He was glad Spence couldn’t see that he was crying, because then he’d stop being so open.

Sometimes, Ach fantasized about being a girl. He didn’t really want to be a girl. They were slimy and had unpredictable mood swings and floppy parts where floppy parts didn’t belong.

But he thought about it sometimes, about feeling like a capable person instead of just an effeminate guy. About hearing what a good mom he was instead of the awkwardness of being a boy who liked to clean and childmind and do complex braids in Emma’s hair. If he was a girl, everything about him that was wrong would suddenly be right.

But those were all selfish reasons to want that.

This…

This was the deepest longing he’d ever felt. To be able to give Spence children.

He hated that he couldn’t. He’d put up with any slimy floppy mood-changey body, it it meant he could give Spence kids. And he would never be able to.

“We will,” he promised. They might not be able to have kids that were half Ach and half Spence, but they could have kids that shared a mom. It would be almost the same thing. “When these ones are older, we’ll find a way.”

“Yeah,” Spence said. “You need your pixies.”

“Yeah,” Ach agreed. He ran his hand down Spence’s back, taking in the toned curves that ran along his lower spine. “And Ella and Jax are yours. You’ve always been their dad.”

“Yeah,” Spence argued – Ach promised himself he wasn’t going to say yeah again for at least five minutes – “but Rhyss has been attentive. He obviously likes them. Wants them. I don’t want to get in his way, if they attach.”

Rhyss had been attentive. He’d almost been like a little kid, the way he’d played with them in the fountain and danced with them at the festival. But Ach had this feeling, which was kind of twisting inside him and searching for an explanation, that Rhyss didn’t really understand kids, or how hard it would be to get Ella to settle tonight after being so wound up.

Rhyss would learn, but in the meantime Ach wished Spence saw that he was their dad. Emotionally, supportively, doing what was best for them even if it didn’t always make them happy. At the festival, Rhyss had acted more like a fun uncle than a dad.

“What are you most afraid of about them attaching?” he asked Spence.

“Two weeks ago,” Spence said. He moved his hands like he was about to use them to express something, but Spence always kept his body language hidden. Ach loved that little instinct he suppressed. He reached for, and held, the offending hand. “I was the dad of four amazing kids. I had time for all of them and things were easy. Now…our house is full of kids I don’t know. Kids we committed to raising and I want, but it’s not the same. And the campaign and Konrad. Nothing feels clear.”

Ach thought that was a pretty good summary, plus this Lyra stuff now, of what was wrong with him, plus his fear that Spence regretted giving up being a king someday – why else would he run for governor in Sylem – just for Ach.

But he also knew Spence. They’d grown up together, and he could remember a half dozen times Spence had dropped things from halfway up the rift wall because he’d started the climb carrying too much. There was a little graveyard of broken things at the bottom of the rift, and whenever Ach stumbled on something he remembered Spence dropping it always made him smile.

He smiled now, teasy, and wondered whether head of security or governor would find itself at the bottom of the cliff. He knew Spence would never give the kids up.

Spence gave him a sheepish smile, a gift of openness and admission of faults. Ach kissed his cheek and then Spence said, “I think I fell off the cliff of reason into too many things.” He hugged Ach.

Ach hugged back. Spence wasn’t allowed to be the one at the bottom of the wall. Those weren’t the rules. “So what can you put down?” he nudged.

“I think Rhyss should be governor. He’s more Lavesque than me. More accepted than me. Straight.” Spence met Ach’s eyes, assessing; challenging.

“How am I supposed to answer that?” Ach complained, jokey. He knew Spence needed to let this go, but he didn’t think for a second that Spence was right about Rhyss being a better governor. “I think letting him run, if he will, is probably good. But you could be a good governor too, you know. All that stuff you said…you’re good for people.”

“Yeah,” Spence agreed, and Ach almost laughed. They needed a new word. “I want to help people.”

“So,” Ach suggested, sitting up more. “Rhyss can do the pointless stuff and look all bossy on camera, and you can use his position to help people. He won’t be mean like Xander.”

Rhyss, dancing in the garden like that, probably didn’t have it in him to be mean like Xander was to Spence. That took a kind of arrogance and…Ach didn’t know the word, but Xander had it and it was something about thinking girls liked you just for existing and you were naturally good at everything and never had to struggle…that was Xander. Rhyss had none of that.

“But,” Spence asked. “Is head of security really what I want? Talise has Corban.”

Ach’s shoulders tightened. He’d made a promise, and he wasn’t breaking it. Regardless of what Spence chose, regardless of other jobs he took, he was also partly in charge of Talise’s safety.

Corban was her bodyguard who stood next to her and looked like a bodyguard.

As Konrad explained it, Ach was Talise’s surprise. No one would expect argyle-boy to be competent; anyone who made it past Corban would assume they had a window of time before any other guards arrived. They wouldn’t be prepared for Ach.

But Ach, Konrad made sure, would be prepared for them.

That wasn’t Spence’s job to help with, though. That was all on Ach. His crime, that he’d stolen her husband; his attempt to make up for it.

“You could always do governor first and decided about your Elesara career later,” Ach suggested. Spence could conceivably live out a whole life in Sylem and then come home and start his real career. “When you have to retire in Sylem.”

“I could,” Spence agreed. The first not-yeah substitute. “This place…it’s falling apart.” He turned and looked at Ach, and ran his fingers through Ach’s hair, probably spiking it up even worse than it did naturally. “You’re amazing, Ach. I’ll try to talk to Konrad.”

“No I’m not,” Ach argued, a furious blush spreading like vines upward through his face. “I’m scared too. They’re not just four extra kids, they’re four extra kids with problems.”

“We were insane,” Spence agreed. “But think of their alternatives.”

“I know,” Ach said. He leaned more into Spence, drinking in his cologne and the scent of his skin. “Hugh is doing better already.”

“Hugh likes you,” Spence pointed out. “Seeing him asleep on your arm…he’s been different.”

For a few hours, anyway. They would have to see if it lasted.

“Whatever you did last night,” Spence said, “it was big. You’re a good dad.”

Hugh had woken him in the night, not able to sleep, insisting he wasn’t afraid of fire when he obviously was. Ach held him and showed him fire magic and promised him that no matter what forever they would never let this apartment burn down.

Then Hugh had started on bad guys, and Ach had told him… He laughed and looked at Spence. “I told him he could sword tain with you whenever he wanted.” Ach liked the idea of that, watching Spence patiently teach their kids to defend themselves. Fort needed to start learning someday anyway. “Hugh wants you to like him but he’s scared you won’t so he hides with me.”

Spence laughed and wrapped his arm around Ach. “I like him. I want more time to be there for them. He and Cady, even more than Orris and Olida, have no one else.”

Ach remembered the fire, watching someone lead the two orphaned kids away, the fact that neither of them had cried. They’d just stood there, covered in soot, with the whites of their eyes sticking out against their skin, and looked. They’d just looked and looked, in a way that was kind of scary.

So Ach was relieved they had them. They could give them good things, things they wouldn’t get in Sylem, where they’d just be used for a sacrifice so someone else could have a longer life.

It made him angry, imagining someone hurting Hugh, with his surly vulnerability, or Cady with her soft voice and the way she looked hopeful about the simplest things that other kids took for granted.

“Yeah,” Ach agreed. “Whoever had the O’s did a mostly okay job so far, except for the bad stuff,” Ach said. Like that one time whoever it was burned Olida alive. But she’d healed, she’d been okay except for the emotional terror stuff, and they’d keep on helping her. “I don’t think Hugh and Cady…anything.”

Shoot, he’d said yeah.

He needed to start a tally of this problem.

“I know,” Spence said. “I want Clovercrest and Sylem to have. Even if it’s just a nice park and a functioning house.”

He said that with so much passion that Ach knew he should do the governor thing before he did the Talise thing, which meant that Ach was going to have to figure out how to divide his time between teaching and library and training and protecting Talise and parenting and helping Spence.

He took a deep breath. “I can help you.” He didn’t know how yet, but he would figure it out. He could always give the library to Daisy. It would suck, but he could do it, and she’d do a good job.

He kissed Spence. “My job is hardly any work at all. Don’t forget I’m here.”

“But you like it?” Spence asked.

He liked Spence’s lips against his, their bodies aligned. “Yeah,” he said. “But…I can make my own hours in the library and I’m not teaching for months. So I’m here. I’m yours.”

Spence hugged him, but it was quick, shifting focus.

No.

“Ready to tell them Xander is looking into it?” Spence asked. “And maybe I can talk to Rhyss.”

“Yeah,” Ach said, and then he almost laughed again. He caught it midway out of his mouth and turned it into words, intention. “And then I want to get one of my mom’s empty blueprint rolls and start figuring out Clovercrest.”

“Yeah?” Spence asked, adorable and oblivious. “You’re into blueprints now?” he had a teasy, flirty tone to his voice, less focused on his afternoon plans and more focused on Ach.

Heat filled Ach’s face and neck, even his shoulders, as flames pirouetted across his skin.

Spence gave him a smoldering, demanding look. “What?”

“I’m into you,” Ach whispered.

In a flash, Spence had Ach pinned against the bed, their lips a paper depth apart, breath heavy between them. Ach could feel every part of Spence pressing through his clothes.

He raised Ach’s arms above his head, and finally he kissed him. Unlike before, this wasn’t a passing kiss, this was burning and it called to the fire inside Acheron. He felt Spence’s stubble, and kissed it and then down his neck and collarbone to the short curled hairs on his chest.

He reached down to Spence’s waist and unbuckled his belt, tossing it and Spence’s sword onto the far end of the mattress. His hands made their way up Spence’s toned abs and back to his chest, pulling at his tunic.

Spence shifted, and Ach pulled away at all of his clothes while he still had access to everything and then pushed him down on the bed. He left a trail of kisses down his chest, down his abdomen, and then took him into his mouth.

He loved the way Spence tasted. There was nothing else like it.

Spence moaned, his pupils wide as he tugged on Ach’s shirt and pants, and then pulled Ach up to meet his lips as their bodies became entangled. They devoured each other’s every touch, every reaction, until they lay side-by-side on the bed, struggling for air.

A sheen of sweat curled the hair that framed Spence’s face and Ach kissed it.

“I’m into you, too,” Spence said, pulling their lips together for another kiss. “Which is why I keep wanting my life to be in the Dells.”

Ach twirled his index finger across Spence’s chest. “You only get one lifetime to fix Sylem,” he reminded him. “We get the Dells,” and each other, he thought, “forever.”

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