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I n the days that follow, Luka and Theo often walk through the streets of Cesscounthe. Holding patterns lead to restless legs, and together they march from the shining cobblestones of the Abraxi District to the hard-packed dirt of the Gamgy District, arm in arm. The sky turns from pale dawn to twinkling twilight. Flowers begin to bloom. Winter has ended. Spring is coming. Theo smiles as he tells Luka, “I never thought I’d get inside these walls, not like this,” and Luka returns the gesture with an equally amazed and bewildered, “I never thought I would walk these streets, uncaring that any might know I am impyassi .”

Though they do not speak of it, they do wonder in the isolation of their own minds where the future will take them next.

In the evening, they will return to Luka’s childhood bedroom and Luka will guide Theo’s hands to his hips, mouth to his lips. Together, just for that moment, they lose themselves in their shared warmth. Time slows to flashes; Luka’s teeth teasing Theo’s nipple, his tongue on Theo’s cock. Theo’s fingers grasping Luka’s ass, spreading him, kissing lower and lower until Luka comes undone in his arms again and again, like Theo has always dreamed.

On the twelfth day of their stay in Cesscounthe after they have repeated this pattern again and again, three small miracles take place:

First, the Siacchians and Balivartians come to an unsteady peace – so long as Theo does not assume a position of power in the Kiteran armies and the Siacchians allow two impyassi a seat on their council. Theo is unsurprised when he is forced to renounce his title. He has been too prominent in the wars of the past, and too many wish for him misfortune. To continue to lead would be asking for retaliation, which would surely lead again to war. Theo expected it to hurt more as his hard fought Sevell name is stripped away before witnesses –including Octavian –but all he feels is a faint, fragile hope for the future.

Balivartia and Kitera discuss their own peace talks, and Vittoria handles it better than Theo ever could. No decision is made, and the defeat is clear in Cathalan’s slumped shoulders as he leaves the Cesscounthe council every dark evening. His face has hollowed by the time the Kiterans withdraw from Cesscounthe, the treaty yet to be signed.

Vittoria alone stays to sort out the final details of Siacchi and Kitera’s relationship, while Octavian is sent to Akull. He passes Theo in the streets, and their eyes meet for a second time. Oddly, Theo is compelled to stop him.

“I’m sorry,” Theo says when he grips Octavian’s arm. The apology comes out all wrong –it seems he’s sorry for stopping Octavian in the street, and not for all of the awful things he did before.

Octavian looks at Theo’s hand, and a strange shudder seizes him. Theo releases his arm immediately.

“I can’t accept that,” Octavian says, but then, blinking and looking away, he adds, “but I’m sorry, too.”

When Theo finds he can’t accept Octavian’s apology either, he simply nods, and the two continue on their way.

The second miracle: Cesscounthe’s newly installed impyassi leaders abolish the Bombani Exam. It is to the surprise of no one that Damian is selected for one of the two open council member seats, but Theo is shocked to hear that Xyla is chosen for the second. The end of the Bombani Exam is impossibly huge but also still not enough; impyassi are still left with the jobs of unskilled labor and not provided resources to help themselves or their children ascend the social ladder. But it’s a step in the right direction. The first step in that direction in all of their history. People celebrate in the streets of the Gamgy District for days.

The third miracle – Cassian wakes.

Luka and Theo both sputter into consciousness at Cassian’s bedside that night, nearly half an hour past one. As the full moon gleams down, Cassian seizes Luka’s hand with wide eyes, a pleased smile spreading across cracked lips.

Luka exclaims with joy, pulling his brother into a careful embrace –and Cassian winces, his hands going to his throat. When Cassian’s lips part to speak, only silence emerges.

Luka pauses. Though Cassian’s eyes well with tears, Luka shakes with joy. Alive. Cassian is alive.

“I wasn’t sure you would wake up!” Luka whispers, gathering Cassian’s face in his hands. “Oh, Cassian –we made it. We won!”

On the thirteenth day, Xyla leaves the Mobiele compound in the Abraxi District. She departs at night, bidding Luka a brief farewell and giving Theo a curt nod (he should probably be grateful for that much). When Luka presses her on where she will go – who she will stay with, she only shakes her head.

“Don’t worry, Luka.” She kisses his cheek. “I have duties to attend to now – being a council member and all. They’ve only allowed me a short bit for reprieve before I need to get back to work. Besides – someone has to fulfill the promise we made to those wolves. She cracks her knuckles. “I just hope when the time comes your Kiteran wolf mother doesn’t ask too much of me, Theodori.”

Theo and Luka blink at each other, a moment of perfect confusion –and then understanding –dawning between them.

“What did they ask of you?” Luka asks, but Xyla shakes her head

“I’m not sure yet,” she says. “I just know she told me, all those months ago, that she will call upon me when the time comes. And that I might be needing some goat’s milk.” She wrinkles her nose.

Cathalan is despondent because she said nothing to him, though he departs on the fifteenth day – mustn’t get underfoot with these newly elected officials around, after all! And I do have a kingdom to return to.

Before he departs, he looks Luka and Theo over. “I will have to leave you with guards,” he says, “should you ever depart the city.”

Luka presses his thumb against the scar in his palm. His life and the Balivartian king’s life are irreparably intertwined. With this, will he ever know true freedom?

But Cathalan’s face can only remain serious for so long. “That is,” he says, “unless you two decide to go somewhere that has already been cleared by my guards and is kept secret from my conniving court. Somewhere you will be safe, always.”

He shares a conniving smile with them as he whispers the location into Luka’s ear.

Really, it only makes sense when Cassian is well enough to travel that Luka, Theo, Cassian –and little baby Isolde –depart as well.

They take the infant at the Cesscounthe council’s order –though Luka already refused to leave his little sister with his father, part of Carlo’s sentence required his supervision around children at all times, and such a thing was difficult to ensure when he lived with a baby.

Together, the four of them load onto horses and a wagon, jostling down the road, hoods drawn over their heads. Their little family heads into the sunset until the east falls around them with foreign lands of thick forests and ringing birdsong.

It’s only when they reach the beach –roaring shores as the waves slam against dark rocks, turning black stone to sand –that they stop. There, just as Cathalan promised, is a small house. Cassian races from the cart, laughing when he finds the door open. He darts through each room, kicking his boots off so that the sand might stick to his feet, stopping only when finds a bedroom overlooking the rocky shore.

Theo and Luka trail behind, the baby strapped to Theo’s chest. Both pause in the doorway. The air hangs heavy with salt. The first night they have no furniture and they sleep on the floors and listen to the crash of the waves. Luka finds that each rise and fall is an echo of a promise: “You’ve come home. You’ve come home.”

It is just as Cathalan promised.

It is a small home, humble, but warm on chilly nights, firelight highlighting their laughter. They decorate it with fine smelling candles and Cesse and Ravage boards, and when Luka teaches Cassian the moves, he does so with so much patience and kindness, it hurts Theo to watch.

Luka and Theo will play each other late into the night. They don’t play for questions now, but instead quick pecks or sips of each other’s wine. Luka will often hold eye contact as he tips his king in defeat, lips only shaping the word mate as he gazes at Theo.

And it is there, in this house in the east, that they stay. Here, where there are no monsters, no tests.

Just peace.

For now.