“I fell over because I heard it... I heard itscreaming,” Roy said. He pressed his finger to his left temple, then drifted it over to the middle of his forehead. “It went from here to here; I could feel voices—those vibrations, as we’ve called them—inside my skull, demanding to be freed, to be let out of their cage, but I couldn’tbreathe, Percival.” He clutched his own throat. “I thought the shadow had shredded my lungs apart or torn out my throat, simply by passing through me, but when you walked over to me, it... itvanished.” Tears gathered in his eyes. “I don’t know why it attacked me when it was clearly desperate for help, for someone to hear its pleas and if not obey thenacknowledgethem.”
A flicker of curiosity and fear crossed Percival’s face, but it disappeared the moment Roy saw it. Percival laughed, but it was too curt, too loud. “‘The Phantom-Laird frequented the ill-lit hours of the night, sparing secret visitations to half-mad fools and chroniclers.’” He smiled. “I have no other choice but to believe you’ve gone half-mad, darling.”
Roy was stunned by Percival’s insouciance. “You believe most of the impossible things we’ve experienced, some of which I’m certain you fabricated yourself, butthisis too surreal for you?”
“Is that your question?” Percival asked, nodding to the decanter. “I’d suggest you drink up.”
Roy did, but as he licked the taste of the whiskey off his lips, it wasn’t Percival’s suddenly stunted suspension of disbelief he asked him about. They were veering toward the more troubling topics of discussion now, the intimacies and traumas that were too horrifying to elaborate on in broad daylight and with a clear mind. “You lost someone not too long ago,” Roy said. “Shortly before you were brought here, you said—”
Percival straightened, a deepening red blush flooding his cheeks. “I’m not telling you who—”
“And I’m not asking you to,” Roy said. He held up a hand. “Please, I understand this is hard for you, but... Please, let me finish.” Percival nodded, and Roy finished, “Can I assume that what happened to this person, whatever mistake you made that instigated their death, resulted in your presence here? Is this assignment your punishment?”
Percival took the glass from Roy, the whiskey sloshing against the rim, and drained it without taking his eyes off Roy. “Ask another question, Dawnseve. You have your limits, and I have mine.” Through his spinning vision, Roy tried to find a splinter of sadness in Percival’s anger, a crack in the ice, but when he did, all he felt was guilt, not satisfaction. “Please, Roy. Another question.Please.”
After a long and heavy silence, Roy said, “During our game—not this drinking game, but our competition—you unswervingly pushed on this concept of ambition as the foundation of academia. Where does this concept, for you, stem from?”
Percival replied without hesitation, “My family.”
Roy concealed his amazement at the piece of information he’d been handed. It shouldn’t have come as such a shock to him that Percival had—or had once had—a family, but Roy had begun to think of Percival’s past as a myth, a legend he would never completely grasp. Perhaps Percival’s origins were to blame for his inclination to construct a game out of every given scenario, but from which relative had this trait emerged? A ruthless brother? A heartless mother? Did he and Roy have more in common than met the eye?
The fragment of truth seemed to be too much for Percival. His face returned to its usual sardonic expression, and he said, “This is your opportunity for some leeway, darling. Take it.” He poured, drank. “Do I intimidate you?”
“Yes,” Roy whispered.
Percival snatched the decanter back and finished its contents. “What do I make you want to do?”
The question was brazen, and yet utterly justified based on how Roy had said “yes.” So Roy reclaimed the decanter, his thumb brushing across Percival’s fingers. “You make me want you,” he said, his gaze involuntarily falling to Percival’s lips. “It’s off-putting. I get lost in my head, worried that I might lose track of time, of how much we have left to lose, and it’s costing me because you make me want to have you against the wall.” His breathing was uneven, heavy. “And I can’t have that.”
Percival rested his elbows on his knees, his fingers intertwined. “And how does it make you feel to know that I wove that web?”
“Drink and you may find out,” Roy said, and once Percival did, without a complaint about Roy stretching the rules of the game, Roy went on. “It makes me want to know how you do this. How you can change my mind. How youknowyou will win. No, I know why. I’ve always known.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re convinced you’ll win because you’ve been corrupted by whatever happened to you, whatever brought you here.”
Percival shuffled closer and placed his legs between Roy’s. Their knees were pressed together, their trousers swaying from the sudden rearrangement of limbs. Percival cupped Roy’s left cheek in his palm, stroking his skin, and Roy had no choice but to lean into the touch. With his other hand, Percival poured the remnants of whiskey from the decanter into the glass, civilized compared to his earlier debauched guzzling of the drink, and flicked his eyes back to Roy. He gripped the glass, the vein along his wrist standing out against his skin, then dipped his head low and whispered in Roy’s ear, “Why haven’t you kissed me yet, Roy?”
Roy stiffened, his heart hammering. He reined in the amorous craving to glance at Percival’s mouth again. By the Scribes, he wanted more than a chaste kiss. He wanted to throw the glass into the flames and lace his fingers together against the back of Percival’s neck. If Roy straddled him, he knew Percival would grip his ass, anything to hold him captive.
You want this, don’t you?Roy admonished himself.You want this, you lust-ridden fool, and it’s costing you. He has you in his web, Roy. You cannot give in.But since the day he had picked up Polisworth’sAmbrosia for Curses, his first foray into old-world literature, Roy had set a precedent for defying what was right, what was deemed socially acceptable, and despite his own cowardice, he wanted this one wrong thing.
“Because you never asked,” Roy whispered, his breath shuddering across Percival’s arm.
Percival put the glass onto a nearby table, his palm momentarily leaving Roy’s face, then staggered back to him, stood between his legs, and tucked two tufts of Roy’s black-silver hair behind his ears. Roy could have been mistaken, but he couldn’t seem to see even the briefest glimpse of arrogance on Percival's face, nor feel any hostility in his tender, affectionate touch. Percival traced his jaw with a finger, drawing a small gasp from Roy’s lips, and tipped his chin up so their eyes met.
Percival kissed his forehead. “And I never will.” But his hot breath was sprouting beads of sweat on Roy’s temples, and his mouth was quivering against Roy’s forehead, like he was holding himself back.
Roy closed his eyes, his face upturned. He didn’t know how long he was sitting there like that, but when the cold swept in, he opened his eyes and saw that Percival was gone.
18
When Roy woke, his mouth was dry, hisvision was swimming, and his skull was filled with an incessant, excruciating pounding. It felt as though soldiers were smashing the hilts of their swords inside his head. He groaned and gritted his teeth against the pain. He could tolerate it, he supposed, but the implication was more unbearable than the cost.
Memories of the night before broke through the fog. He remembered the descent into the catacombs and the necropolis snaking beneath the library. He remembered the swords, eldritch and forbidding, resting within the sarcophagi of long-dead Scribes; the anxiety that had followed him on his way back upstairs; and his drinking game with Percival, an attempt to take everything off his mind for a little while.
He hadn’t been anticipating the end of the night to go as it had, though, but he couldn’t refute that a part of him had secretly hoped for it. He laid the back of his hand on his forehead, and sure enough, he was instantly revisited by the memory of Percival’s lips there.Nothing else came to him, though. Had he admitted to any other wild fantasies? It pained him to wonder if he had.
