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I t rained as they went about their grim business.

While Emery prepared a spell to clean all traces of blood, Ambrose tied heavy stones to Morcant’s limbs and dumped his corpse in the bog. It sank into the murky depths, peat and mulch making it impossible to see to the bottom.

He returned to find Emery scuffing out the sigil. The rain would wash away the rest until the earth looked as though no one had ever disturbed it, and no one had ever died here.

In awkward silence, they returned home. A penetrating cold from the rain and the taint of their deed left Ambrose craving a shower, but he didn’t know if he wanted to be alone or dreaded it.

He couldn’t go about life in clothes covered in blood and bog grime. He stripped out of his shirt, and Emery said, “Bring it here.”

He crouched by the fire, stoking it to life.

In its glow, he didn’t look relieved any longer.

Only tired. He stripped his shirt off, though it only had a few drops of arterial spray.

Underneath, he had the body of a fawn, long-limbed and delicate with ribs showing.

The firelight gave him a fragile look, like filigree gold.

He threw his clothes on the fire and held out a hand for Ambrose’s, too.

Ambrose gave the wadded shirt over and watched it catch and curl. The cotton smelled like paper burning. His pants would have to go, too, but he waited. It didn’t feel like a moment for vulnerability.

Perhaps Emery shared the sentiment. “Leave the rest of your clothes in the bathroom when you’re finished washing. I’d like to be alone.”

Ambrose thought he detected the barest hint of guilt in his words. While leaving, he saw Emery reach for a bottle of wine.

It irked him. Emery hadn’t been the one to punch a hole in Morcant’s chest. Why did he get to drink the memory away, while Ambrose marinated in it?

Something else bothered him more. Now they’d closed the business of ending Morcant, what use did Emery have for him? As the one with blood on his hands, the only thing he’d be now was a loose end.

He dumped his stained clothes on the tile floor of the bathroom and gratefully stepped into the steaming water.

Perhaps it could scald away the feeling of Morcant’s guts congealing around his fist. The hot water did bring some serenity, but in the space of that calm, something else made itself known.

The hunger.

There was good reason Ambrose hated using his abilities to kill.

Every time he did, the magic fed. Upon the death, or perhaps the pain.

He didn’t know. All he knew was this strange spell feasted on something when he killed, and though it would gorge itself, it was never quite sated.

He would feel satisfaction only temporarily, then the hunger would return, worse than before.

Not this time. There was no satiety, only emaciation. Whatever it dined on, it had found Morcant’s table wanting.

When he finished washing, he wrapped himself in a towel. From the hall, he could hear the fire crackling but no sounds from the living room. Curiosity compelled him to check.

Emery lay curled up on the sofa in pajama bottoms, knees tucked to his chest, his fingers still half wrapped around the neck of a wine bottle. He’d passed out, shivering. Evidently the fire and wine were not enough to warm him. In his other hand, cradled to his chest, he gripped something else.

The arcane tether.

It gleamed pearly white in the firelight, but something was wrapped around it. Something Ambrose could not make sense of.

A silky pink ribbon had been tied in a bow around the bone.

The whole tableau was surreal and confusing. Why had Emery done that? Did he use it to tie the bone to his pocket? Why not use a spell? Why use something so … pretty? It was like seeing a wild boar in a bonnet.

As Ambrose watched, Emery nuzzled into the sofa cushions, sighed, and the clench of his fist loosened. The bone slipped from his fingers. The hollow tap of it hitting the floor made Ambrose’s heart plunge, not for fear of it breaking, but for the opportunity it presented.

The laws of his pact forbade him from trying to take the leash from his master.

It also forbade him from harming the witch king, which made interfering with the leash impossible, since it had been quite attached to the witch king at the time.

That he’d even added a pact pertaining to theft might have been ludicrous, but the witch king had seen enough injuries in war to know that possessing all ten fingers was a luxury.

This insurance had still pricked at Ambrose’s pride. The witch king had nothing to fear from him.

Now, seeing the bone lying there on the floor, he wondered if the pact held when he wasn’t taking it off Emery’s person.

If he took it, he’d be free. To do what, he didn’t know. He was not a citizen of this time, world, country. He had no idea how to survive it, let alone integrate with it.

But if he left, he wouldn’t have to wait and discover what Emery planned to do with him now that his usefulness had expired.

Yet he found himself thinking of their breakfast at the stables, the chocolate he’d bought to ease Ambrose through a trying moment, and—he blanched with self-reproach—the soft touch of his hands over Ambrose’s spell-scarred arms. The way his magic felt like an embrace.

He ground his teeth. Emery had killed his familiar then forced Ambrose to kill his enemy for him. Ambrose should not—could not—feel fondness for this man.

He crept closer. The fire crackled and snapped. Emery stirred but didn’t wake as Ambrose knelt next to the sofa. This close, the runes engraving the length of the bone were clearly visible. They glowed the same green as his collar.

He reached for it.

Yes, take it. Take it and kill him.

Ambrose stopped short of touching it. His blood ran cold.

Had he heard that right? The witch king had been fixated on killing Morcant. He’d never fixed his malice on Emery before.

Morcant was an inadequate tithe for the spell to return me. Emery forced your hand. He’s vulnerable. He won’t even feel it.

Stricken, Ambrose looked into Emery’s sleeping face. With his eyes closed, his lashes swept over his cheeks like strokes of ink, slumber easing all the tension from his expression, he looked beguilingly innocent. He shivered from the cold. Ambrose shivered a little, too.

Emery’s was the peaceful repose that begged for a blanket tucked around his shoulders, a press of lips to his brow, not a dagger in the back.

Ambrose could barely stomach killing Morcant. He surely couldn’t stomach this.

If he took hold of the leash, that fragile little piece of bone, what would happen? Would he grasp his freedom, or would the last vapors of the witch king breathing within him use it to compel him?

If that happened, he’d be forced to kill Emery.

No , thought Ambrose. I may not owe him my loyalty, but I owe him more than this.

All that you owe, you owe to me .

Ambrose had acted of his own volition to protect Emery that night. He could contemplate fleeing, but not this. Perhaps the leash was better off in Emery’s hands.

The voice burned with vitriol. You swore an oath to me, to protect and serve me. This witch stole you from me. He will prevent you returning to my side, where you belong, unless you end his life.

“I can’t.”

Ambrose only realized he’d spoken aloud when Emery’s eyes flew open.

He startled back, propped half upright on his hands like an animal ready to bolt.

In doing so, he released the bottle of wine.

It rang against the floor and rolled, clinking to a stop against the bone.

Emery looked down at it, then up at Ambrose, eyes filled with—

Terror.

Ambrose didn’t know what possessed him to act as he did. He should have lunged for the bone and taken it. He should have seized his independence as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Perhaps the fear of the witch king’s wrath held him back.

Perhaps he was out of practice at acting in his own interests.

But more likely he hated to see Emery’s peaceful expression replaced by fear, knowing he was the one who caused it.

Instead of taking the bone, he straightened and reached behind Emery for the blanket folded over the arm of the sofa. He swept it over him, tucking it around his shoulders the way he’d wanted to when he’d first seen him asleep.

“You looked cold,” he said.

Not anymore. Now, he looked flushed and confused.

Ambrose didn’t wish to interrogate how foolish he’d been or the way his heart thundered.

“Goodnight,” he said.

“Wait.”

Ambrose had been halfway to the opposite chair, to bed down and avoid thinking about this night altogether, but he paused.

“I have something for you,” Emery said.

He led Ambrose down the hall. It appeared longer. Aside from trips to the toilet, Ambrose had never ventured past the first door, but he swore Emery’s had been the second door at the end.

Now there were three doors.

“I wasn’t about to leave you sleeping on the sofa every night,” Emery said. He thrust open the second door. “It isn’t much, but I figured you’ll sleep better with your own room.”

Ambrose stepped cautiously past him.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not this.

The chamber was a magical addition. A canopy bed with sheer gauzy drapes dominating the center, with a rustic painted dresser on one side and an illustration of butterflies on the wall. A lit candle on the bedside gave it a quaint warmth.

“I had no idea how you’d want it decorated, but it should be more comfortable.”

Emery’s flippancy covered a layer of awkwardness. It took powerful magic to transform space like this, yet he seemed uncertain if the generosity would be taken well. He stole most of the tithes he used, but it was still an extravagance by Ambrose’s measure.

He didn’t know why Emery would give it to him, let alone feel ashamed on the basis of its decor. He’d only been wondering whether Emery planned on disposing of him moments ago.

This implied the opposite, and Ambrose didn’t know how to feel about it.

“Are you a throw rug sort of person?” Emery carried on. “Do you have artistic preferences? Colors? Honestly, I went with white because of your hair.” He didn’t know what he preferred. The hunger occupied so much space within him, he wondered if it had left him enough space to know himself.

Through a tight throat, he said, “Thank you.”

“Er. You’re welcome. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ambrose waited for the sound of Emery’s washing to end before venturing to the living room, collecting the e-reader and headphones he’d been ferreting under the cushions of the sofa, and taking them to his new room.

Once changed into his sleep clothes, he allowed himself the strange and exquisite pleasure of running his fingers over the bed’s plush coverlet. He got in, sheets caressing his skin, cool but warming to his touch.

Such a simple thing, getting into bed, yet he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so. It felt sinful to enjoy the comfort alone.

He couldn’t meditate on those feelings long. It was too confusing to wonder why something that felt so good should also make him so unsettled.

He turned the e-reader on and navigated to the place he’d left off. If he found information that could restore the witch king to his life and former power without killing Emery, that might stave off the sneaking anxiety.

In browsing for his intended book, he accidentally tapped on the wrong one.

It was something Emery must have already begun, because it picked up mid-chapter, where he’d left off.

It was a dreadful idea to follow Henry into the wine cellar alone, but damn it all, that scandalous wink he threw over his shoulder was irresistible.

Ambrose froze. What was this book about? How was a wink scandalous? He’d certainly never seen such a thing before.

The book continued, “Henry, we shouldn’t,” whispered Simon. “If the gentleman and ladies of the ton were to find us this way—”

“I cannot help how I feel for you,” Henry insisted. “Can you?”

“But isn’t it wrong? Between two men.”

“If this is wrong,” Henry said, his lips a brand against Simon’s throat, “then I don’t want to be right.”

Heat bloomed in Ambrose’s cheeks. He prepared to tap frantically out of this book to find another. Instead, he paused, finger hovering over the screen as the voice droned on, its unenthusiastic tone at odds with the sensuous direction the story took.

Transfixed, he couldn’t bring himself to silence it.

This book was about two men. Two men in love. Two men having sex .

It would have been burned in his time, and the people who wrote it—it didn’t bear thinking what would have happened to them.

Yet Emery had it on an electronic device he’d never attempted to hide. He’d said this era was better for men like them. Not perfect, but better.

Ambrose put the e-reader down. He sank into bed and, with a queer combination of hope and pleasure fluttering in his stomach, continued to listen long into the night while thinking about the way Emery’s breath had caught when Ambrose’s hands smoothed the blanket over his shoulders.