Sevastyan half turned his head toward them, hair partially hiding his face, listening.
Ellisandre held the end of the knife above one of the slices of peaches. “They dare.”
Ellisandre speared the peach and brought it to their mouth. They chewed, slowly, eyes on him.
Sevastyan waited.
Ellisandre swallowed and dried their lips with a napkin. “Gods and heroes follow through on what the common man is afraid to attempt. Action is where the world breaks apart into colors sublime, saturation not found in the stories of the mundane. That is myth. Not fabulous wealth. Not talent. An element with two names: some call it audacity, others insanity.”
Sevastyan’s shoulders bunched tight. “And what if they are merely fools?”
“Then they are great fools, because to them, there was something for which it was worth being a fool.”
“This is how tragedies are written.”
Ellisandre gathered crackers and meat in their palm, holding the morsel but not partaking. “All stories could be written as tragedies, if they cut off in a certain place. You and I are a tragedy. You loved and lost. I loved and lost. We said goodbye. The final chapter was written.”
Ellisandre turned their head.
Sevastyan was watching them. His mind was caught on the concept, if only to argue against it. “Tragedy is the story of us. What if my entire life is a tragedy? Can you cut me any other way?”
Ellisandre blinked slowly, giving Sevastyan time, then spoke. “The moment you came to me in the cafe in Paris, after I shot you . . . I could cut our story there. It would not be a tragedy. The way your hand lay in mine that day, and then how we went away to that room. Cut the story there, we are a triumph. The children saved, both of us survivors, lovers united.”
Sevastyan looked down. “But real stories never end, not until we die.”
“We are stories forever, Bal. Myths have the finality human lives never reach, so we have to weave stories. Not even death is the final note. We choose, Vast. The meaning is ours.”
Sevastyan took a section of the peach Ellisandre had cut. He ate it, one hand cupped under the other, then cleaned his fingers with a napkin. “I’m a coward.”
Ellisandre picked up the knife. “Then I’ll cut the fear out of you.”
Sevastyan watched the knife. Longing flooded his face. Thoughts of a slow dinner and conversation fled the room.
Ellisandre stood and went to the bathroom. They wiped the blade with alcohol and returned. Sevastyan’s eyes immediately returned to the knife again and then to Ellisandre’s face. He swallowed. His face was the poster child for want.
But why? Why so fast? They were going to have to tread carefully. But Sevastyan leaning into desire of any kind was something. Maybe they could bring him down into the place where obedience and words came easy. They could eat after. It wasn’t late yet.
“Coat off.”
Sevastyan stood, removing the coat, then his jacket. His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. There were arm garters on his sleeves, hugging his biceps.
Dieux. Their boy had only grown more handsome with age. More handsome. More wounded. More burdened.
But not brittle. Something had kept him soft. Human.
Sevastyan turned, shirt half unbuttoned, his fingers moving to the arm garters as if he had forgotten them. “Is Gang Junseo safe?”
A sudden shift in topics. Unless it wasn’t.
“Safe. For the moment. On a private, guarded estate outside the city.”
“They’re going to pressure him, legally, to force him back.”
Ellisandre tilted their head. “Damian Sathers will beat them. Richard will beat them. And if they can’t . . .”—Ellisandre spun the knife around their fingers and caught it by the handle—“then I will.”
Sevastyan’s eyes were on the blade. “I thought they might leave him alone. Too much publicity, too little to gain. That changed today.”
“You could stay here.”
