He stood up on the roof of a house in the Upper City of Baldur’s Gate. He was in a finely woven linen shirt with bloused sleeves, matching the one Saeldian wore as they played on the silver flute they used when they were posing as performers. Their left sleeve flopped down as they pressed the pads in the pattern he’d taught them, and a loose thread dangled from the narrow handkerchief hem.
Hells.He knew what this was—or, rather, when. Kell stood in the moonlight just as he had that last night, swaying with the hilarity of a mead from just south of the Spine of the World, three-quarters drunk. Resting on the table with the second bottle—half full? Half empty?—lay Hullhollyn’s Storm Harp, its pale wood gleaming in the light of Selûne and her tears.
This wasn’t where he was. The dream had switched, the way that dreams did. There was no holly hedge, no wide stone bowl on a pedestal. Only Saeldian, bathed in moonlight and playing a tune a child would learn on a flute that glowed with magic.
He knew where he was. When he was. And all he could do was watch them. It was all he needed to do.
But they noticed and set the flute away from their mouth. “I’m botching this.”
“You’re doing fine. I was just thinking.”
“Of?”
You.
This.
This was what was in his heart.
“That Hullhollyn lad. He didn’t know what he was helping you do. He’d quite fallen for you.”
Saeldian shook their head, and their curls shone like starlight on water. “Trouble won’t come to him. He didn’t have a clue, and he won’t. He’ll forget Qidan Moonwing in a month or two.”
Saeldian could flirt with a hag without missing a beat. They’d leaned in to the look of a romantic young man for part of the job, leaving Desedmir Hullhollyn breathless with their charm one minute, then they were back to business the moment he was out of sight. Saeldian wasn’t ever their real self with anyone but…
Kell. He’d believed that. The Kell who stood here listening to Saeldian play the flute believed that he was the only one in all the world who knew the truth of Saeldian Charmhand.
Saeldian smiled at him, quite ruining their embouchure. “Well, we did it. Smile, Kell! We never have to work another day in our lives. We’re set. We can do whatever we want. And do you know what I want to do?”
That wasn’t what they’d said. “What do you want to do?”
“Let’s find the Feywild. Let’s find Verandil and Hadthar and Shuahn. Let’s find your family. And…maybe I can ask Terandis to meet Osalor, so—”
That wasn’t what happened. This wasn’t real—
Oh, but it was. It was real. It just didn’t happen.
In the moonlight, Kell took a step closer. “So…”
“So they would—” Saeldian shook their head and laughed. “I’m getting this backward. This isn’t how you’re supposed to do it.”
Kell remembered that night. They’d gotten drunk. They had talked about what to do with the money. Saeldian wanted to sail south and shed their skins, step onto a new dock as new people. They’d laughed and danced away, spinning, and when he caught them, they kissed each other like it was inevitable.
But in the morning, Saeldian was gone.
But this Saeldian, blushing as they suggested that Kell’s father and their mentor meet to discuss their future—it could be real for as long as he held on to the ball. If he held on to the ball, Saeldian would love him, and they would leave Baldur’s Gate, and they would be rich enough to bargain a way into the Feywild, and all he had to do was hold the ball and it would never end.
Kell tightened his grip. “Do what?”
Dream-Saeldian looked so real. This was so real. Saeldian did exactly what they did when they were together and no one could see them. They smiled like just looking at Kell made them happy.
“I want you to find your family. And I hope they like me, because I love you.”
Kell’s heart, now truly faced, ached. They hadn’t said that. But here they were, at the moment when everything could have gone right. He’d be in a world where he would have never been alone, where loving and needing someone didn’t take them away—
“I love you,” Dream-Saeldian said.
“I know.”
