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Jack moved his knight.

Ashley repositioned his bishop. “So, Jack, what’s going on with you and jar boy?”

“His name is Chris.”

The last few days had taken him by surprise. A daily cuddle with Chris, with an occasional wanking session, had left him feeling much better and not just on a physical level. He didn’t know how to label their relationship as he wasn’t sure what to call what they were doing. Friends wasn’t a strong enough word, but lovers seemed too much at this point.

“All right, I’ll play along. What’s going on with you and Chris?” Ashley asked.

“We’re enjoying spending time together. He’s being nice enough to expend his energy to make me feel better, and we’re getting to know each other.”

“Huh-uh.” Ashley raised an eyebrow. “And what about the mutual wanking?”

“How do you know about that?” He hadn’t shared their more private interactions, and he’d made sure any monitoring wouldn’t pick up those sorts of activities.

“I walked in and then walked quickly out on one of your sessions… there was no way that had been a one-off.” Ashley grinned. “You looked really happy, and not only because you were about to come.”

“I’m going to have to lock my door. You should have knocked.” Bloody Ashley, he never respected his boundaries, not when they’d dated and not now.

“Sorry. I worry, and it’s been a long time since I’d heard those sorts of noises from you and I wanted to check you were okay, and you were definitely okay.” He smirked. “But you have to admit your choice of partner is a little… unique.”

“I don’t think you can throw around words like partner . And he might be a bit different, but he’s such a sweet person.”

“He’s some sort of spectre, Jack. Surely there’s a line.”

“If we’re getting technical, you’re the one fucking a dead guy. How’s shagging a vampire going for you in the having-an-alive-partner stakes?”

Jack took one of Ashley’s pawns but lost a bishop in return.

“You can’t equate the two.”

“Like fuck I can’t. Chris absorbs people’s sexual energy, yes, I admit that is a bit creepy and there are consent issues, but he doesn’t drink them dry of blood and leave a husk.”

“Ben usually drinks bottled blood.”

“Are you telling me they didn’t have a live larder at the party the other night?” He moved his rook. “Check.”

“Ben and his vampiric traits aren’t up for discussion, Jack. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Chris is doing the exact opposite of hurting me, and if we are sharing a mutual five-knuckle shuffle, surely that’s only an extra perk.”

“Really? You’ve no concerns about this?”

Ashley stared at him. Once upon a time that would have stopped him in his tracks, but now he was immune. “I’m starting to get better, and I’m enjoying spending time with someone. It’s been a while since anyone has taken a romantic interest in me. He knows what I am, and he doesn’t have a problem with it.”

“But you don’t know what he is.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe I don’t care. I’ve spent years hiding a specific aspect of who I am, to be accepted, I’m not going to judge Chris for not knowing who he is to begin with.”

Ashley huffed. “Now you’ve gone and made me feel like an arsehole. Since Chris has been so helpful, I could look into using some of the WRC connections to help uncover more about him. If he’s just been at Crofton Hall for the last four hundred years, he’s going to have had limited research options.”

“I was planning to do something when I was more recovered. But if you’d collect a few books from the WRC library I could at least start reading around a couple of topics.”

“I wonder if anything is stopping him from remembering, like a spell?” Ashley said, moving his king out of harm’s way. “We can see if there’s any historical references to anything in that vein.”

“I’d have thought you or Alex would have noticed if there was a spell like that in place.”

“We can’t sense the magic we know he does have. Chris is old, there are magics that we no longer use or understand, which might be the key to discovering more about him.”

Ashley had a point, but it brought up questions about why someone would want Chris to forget who or what he was. “I could understand if it was just the matter of forgetting who he was, but that no one has been able to identify what he is that is making this more difficult.”

“He could be an anomaly, a mix of random things conjured up and whoever did it had no clue what they’d done or what to do with him, so they stuck him in a jar.”

The mention of Chris’s jar made Jack pause. “His jar is distinctive. I’ve never seen anything like it. If we can track down its origin, it might be the starting point we need.”

He moved his queen; Ashley moved his bishop. “Checkmate.”

“You know you can only beat me when I’m ill.”

Ashley laughed and stood. “Let me go grab a few books and send off a picture of Chris’s jar to a couple of professors I know. We might be able to identify your fap boy.”

Jack stuck up his middle finger and Ashley disappeared. He was feeling better, even after a few days and he was able to do a few simple pieces of magic without the risk of setting himself on fire. A glimpse of what looked to be a nice day had him pining for some fresh air. He wasn’t up to wandering on his own but since most of the house would be asleep there was a good chance that Alex would be available.

He clicked his fingers. “Alex.”

A few seconds later a portal opened. “Is everything all right?”

“I was hoping you weren’t busy.”

Alex had a way about him of being formal and highly starched yet approachable to those he deemed friendly, and he was much less reserved. “I daresay I have room in my schedule for you. How can I help?”

“I’d like to go outside.”

“I don’t think we should risk a portal, but I can levitate you down the stairs. Do you think you can walk?”

“A bit, but not for long.” He had learnt the hard way not to try to pretend he could do something when he couldn’t. “I’d love to have a cup of tea on the terrace.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

Alex had been one of the ones to nurse him at his worst, and he gathered that he’d seen more terrible things than Jack’s projectile vomit. Jack stood and he took hold of Alex’s arm as his body was enveloped in a cloud of magic that would assist him with walking, meaning he could pretend not to be an invalid.

Even with Alex’s help, getting to the terrace was tiring, but it was worth it to be outside, the soft breeze joyous across his skin.

“I’ll get you some tea.”

He settled onto his chair, facing the camomile lawn, there were worse places to convalesce than Crofton Hall.

“This is a lovely spot,” he said as Alex set down a tea tray. “Join me for a cup?"

Alex conjured up another pot and a cup and a saucer. “I will but a different blend. Human black tea doesn’t agree with me.”

“Is that an elf thing or a you thing?”

“Me, for years I ate and drank what was given to me or when I was on missions, what I could find. Now I don’t have to, I relish pleasing myself, and not drinking black tea is one of those.”

Alex had been a member of a prestigious elf military unit called the Red Stars, and from what Jack knew about them, it was hard to think of Alex being amongst their numbers.

“I drank some shit stuff in my time. But you do what you must to keep body and soul together.”

Alex poured Jack some tea and did the same for himself, but Alex’s was pink and from the smell a summer fruit selection. “That’s not the norm for members of the legal profession.”

He’d been many things before he’d become a lawyer, some of it could be argued was far worse than being a mercenary. “We all have a past, not all of mine is filled with torts and moot points.”

From Alex’s expression, he was interested, even intrigued Jack had probably as many layers as himself. “I wouldn’t think the Warlock Ruling Committee would allow any old yob to handle the important matters that you deal with.”

“You underestimate their ability to overlook inconvenient things if it suits them. As I can offer a service they want with no questions asked, they don’t care what I did before I became a legal Svengali.”

Jack prided himself that he’d worked his way up through the ranks despite his little scaley problem. He’d taken assignments and done things that other people wouldn’t, and he had very little regret to go around. He suspected Alex was in a similar position.

“You don’t come across as a terrible warlord.”

“And you don’t strike me as a bloodthirsty killer for hire, but that’s what the Red Stars are known for.”

“I’m not that man anymore.”

Jack thought that was exactly the point. “Like I’m not the same man who infiltrated a French court in order to sway which aristo would be pardoned or more brutally treated.” The French Revolution was a bloody time, his actions had been dubious, to say the least, but he’d not done anything other than as instructed to safeguard the French magical community. He may have been responsible for the deaths of normal humans but nothing he’d lose sleep over, and the job had allowed him to progress to the next level and get even more accolades than others in his peer group.

“I think we are more alike than many would think,” Alex said with a rueful smile.

Jack was intrigued by how Alex had become a member of the Crofton Hall staff. “You don't have to tell me, but I am super curious, how did you end up being the secretary for the Dark Earl of Crofton?”

“Elf society is very unforgiving, hierarchical, and brutal. I became jaded by some of the things I was being asked to do, but I was also seen as the pinnacle of my kind. Only the elves from the mythologies were worse than the elite cohorts of the elvish military. I wanted to leave, and they didn’t want me to. We had planned to exit the realm and travel, but somehow my squadron found out and we were ambushed as we passed into this world. Let’s just say I am lucky to be alive.”

Jack didn’t miss that Alex had said we and not I. He doubted it was a mistake. “You weren’t leaving alone?”

“No, and he didn’t survive.” Alex’s pained expression told Jack he didn't want to be drawn further on that particular point. “Anyway, somehow I was lucky enough to be on the Crofton lands and Ben found me when the wards went off. He didn’t ask too many questions then helped me get back to full health and offered me a place here.”

Jack had heard stories about elves, but they were mainly about the wrongdoings they subjected other creatures to. “Elves seem to be as vicious to their own kind as others.”

“Oh, I would say we are worse to ourselves. Some of the punishments are inventive, but I always thought it a bit unfair that we are tarred with the evil brush when the fae are as bad.”

Jack sipped his tea. “They don’t tend to do anything to non-fae, elves aren’t known for giving a fuck about other species.”

“I still think it unfair. If you go back far enough, we were the same people, other tribes mixed and then diverged. Then fought the shit out of each other and arrived at the place we are now.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an elf or fae admit to having common ancestors,” he said. They were almost as adversarial as dragons and wyverns.

“There’s a lot of myths and legends, most are about the early warlords, several millennia ago, but scholars have tried to untangle truth from stories, and I do believe there are always some real things that the big myths are based on.”

Jack was fascinated. “I don’t suppose you have anything I can read? I have plenty of time on my hands, and I’m always interested in the history of people.”

“I’ll see what I can find. I don’t have much personally, but I have contacts with access to decent libraries who might be able to recommend some titles we can obtain. You’ll find that the elves and the fae would have buried their worst secrets, but you can’t silence everyone, and something always seeps out.”

Alex finished his tea. “I better get back to work. Do you want to stay here a little longer? I can come by later to help you back to your room.”

Jack surveyed the grounds. “Yeah, I’m enjoying being outside. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

Alex refreshed his tea and brought him a selection of newspapers before returning to work. He was already getting tired and would need to admit defeat and head inside soon, but for now, he’d enjoy the fresh air and doing the crossword.