Shoestring Theory

TWENTY-ONE

It was a long way to go to the horse and the Margraves. About fifty metres. Had he been an ordinary human, his body would already have splattered onto the garden below instead of following the graceful, hovering arc it needed to do.

Cyril was far from ordinary.

It felt like swimming laps in an icy lake with absolutely no training. He would come up for a breath, a respite from tugging desperately at the threads keeping him floating, and then a second later he would go under again. It was laying down tracks while inside the moving cart.

He was flying – literally – by the seat of his pants, but what else was new?

Cyril kicked his legs as though he were running underwater, in slow, grand movements, navigating the space that separated him from his goal. When Titania was no longer a speck in the distance, Cyril took a deep breath and shouted.

“Incoming!”

He shut his eyes tight to brace for the impact as he collided with the horse. He hoped it did not injure the creature. In retrospect, this was a horrendous idea. But, at the same time, he was committed to it. He knew it would work. All his other stupid ideas so far had worked.

He felt a solid, steadying hand on his waist, grabbing his shirt and drawing him in. The hand snaked around his middle and held him in place, pulling Cyril into an awkward embrace.

Cyril opened his eyes, and he was being held sideways, face centimetres away from Eufrates’s jaw. Tigris was inside a satchel Eufrates had fashioned and attached to the saddle on Titania. She looked like a swaddled babe.

“What the fuck was that?!” Eufrates yelled directly into his already delicate eardrums.

Not even he could dampen how much of a colossal triumph that had been. Cyril burst into a fit of laughter and threw his arms around the prince.

“You are unhinged . Did you have your eyes closed ?”

Cyril smiled so wide his jaw hurt from the strain of it. “I knew you would catch me!”

Eufrates’s face took on an intense ruddiness.

“Is Auntie well? What happened in there?” Tigris asked. There was a glint of fascination in her eye that felt inappropriate for such a serious question. He could not judge her. This was the most fun thing she had ever seen him do.

“Tantie will be fine, I made sure of it.” He felt the dip in Eufrates’s chest as he breathed a sigh of relief, warm against his hair. “I was having trouble with the bubble, and time was of the essence!”

“And you could not have made, I -– I don’t know! A slightly less dangerous exit?”

“If I was having trouble with a bubble , there is no way I would have been able to weave anything to get me out of there safely .”

“What was the trouble?” Eufrates’s brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?”

“Did you get sick ?”

Cyril waved a hand dismissively, though he still clung to Eufrates instead of righting himself on the horse. He would take the intimacy where he could get it, and Eufrates had not yet made a move to push him away.

“Oh, no. I have never felt better! I thought my back would split in half for sure at my old age of fifty, but–”

“ Fifty ?” Eufrates raised a brow.

“Yes? You know how old I truly am.”

“Cyril, I am fifty. You are forty - seven .”

Cyril’s eyes grew huge. “Oh, Eufrates! That is just about the greatest gift you’ve ever given me!”

He pretended, very politely, not to notice how his husband’s face coloured again as his brows knit in mute protest.

They rode on for a grand total of five minutes before Tigris became restless. Inaction did not agree with her and neither did patience. She looked out into the woods.

“ Can’t this horse move any faster?”

“It’s a horse, Tigris. There is only so much it can do.” But Eufrates urged it to gallop on anyway, clearly just as anxious.

She turned her head to Cyril, who was still, all these minutes later, catching his breath.

“What about you ?”

“I am not a better rider than your brother, Tig.”

“No, idiot!” she huffed. “Are you not the greatest wizard of your time?!”

Cyril blinked, repeatedly.

“Oh,” he said. “Yes, I am.”

He should not have been able to do what he did. Not through the exhaustion that soaked through his bones. He didn’t think he had anything left to give, not for a while , but that was wrong.

Cyril was filled with a manic energy that burned inside him as hot as the sun. He had saved his aunt. He had jumped off a building. He felt unstoppable. Something was fuelling him, something good and unconditional and endless and unknown, and it was making him the marvel he had pretended to be for so many years.

He finally untangled himself from Eufrates’s embrace, shifting so he was in front of him on the saddle, riding between his thighs. Were he not so laser focused on the task at hand, he would have flinched at the sudden heat at his back. A warmth that made him wonder if Eufrates had somehow contracted the plague while he hadn’t been looking.

Eufrates still had his arms around him, awkwardly leading the horse, and Cyril placed his hands on his to guide them.

“Excuse me, darling,” he said on instinct, before he could even think about the words.

Since arriving in this timeline, Cyril had felt himself slowly regressing to his youth, buoyed by an agile body and the way he was seen and treated by his peers and, more often, his betters. Now, though, sharing a saddle with his long-estranged husband, addressing him as he used to, his true age caught up with him, not in its usual weary manner, but in a much more hopeful way.

He could not guess at how Eufrates felt, but the heat on his back was volcanic.

“Eufie, you look about ready to pass out.”

Eufrates grunted something unintelligible in response. Cyril laughed, a true and genuine laugh and yanked on the pattern of the reins.

The horse, Titania, took flight. One gallop was now crossing dozens of metres of land and she was running fierce and light as air. They soared over the beaten path with unparalleled grace. Cyril was instantly buffeted by the wind on his face, scattering hair over his eyes and into his mouth and freezing over the tip of his ears, but he still hooted like a madman.

Now they were riding .

Tigris matched his cheers, eyes rapt with delight as she watched tree after tree pass beside her in a flash of greenery. She reached up a paw to pat him on the thigh.

“That’s my grand mage!” she yelled.

“He is my mage, actually,” Eufrates murmured under his breath.

Tigris scowled. “Not anymore! We have developed a rapport!”

“Unless you’ve married him, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“He likes me better!”

“Children, please,” Cyril called from the front of the horse. “I love you both equally.”

“ Shut up, Cyril! ” both Margraves snapped in unison.

They made it back to Cretea in half the time and were heralded by a grey sky bloated with rainwater, tell-tale of the oncoming storm. An omen if he had ever seen one, but Tigris was emboldened by it.

“They will not see us coming. It is a blessing.”

Cyril looked up at the clouds. “Let us hope you’re right.”

They dismounted the horse a short distance away from the palace and Cyril, still high on adrenaline and a warm buzzing in his veins, wove a spell over the trio that allowed them to easily sneak inside.

Tigris took the reins of the operation immediately.

“We take out the pattern first, then we take out the man.”

“There will be mages waiting for us. Atticus himself, perhaps. If he finds we are coming, he will protect his web,” Cyril warned.

“Can you handle the mages?”

“I…” He looked at his own hands, at the sparks at his fingertips. “Yes. Yes, I believe so. I do not wish to kill them, and I am not trained in combat magic, but I can get creative. But…”

“But?”

“But Atticus himself. I do not know if I can take him. He overpowered me very easily last time. He is a duellist. I will have a hard time weaving if my hands are disabled, and I am sure he knows this.”

“He doesn’t expect us… perhaps he is not even in the library.”

“If he is alerted to it, he will find a way there. A weave that big, it is his oeuvre .”

“Then… a distraction .”

“I will do it.”

Cyril and Tigris both turned to Eufrates, who was following them a few steps behind and had not said a word since they dismounted.

“Eufie?”

“You are wrong, Tig. Even if he does not know you are coming now, he is certain you will . He is waiting for you, and he is waiting for Cyril. He is not waiting for me.

“For all he knows, I am still a madman. An imbecile easy to ply. If I show up in his palace alone with a sword in my hand, he will think I have well and truly lost it. Perhaps he might even try to get me on his side. I can keep him busy while the two of you get to the pattern. I am, after all, a consummate performer.”

Cyril shook his head. “You cannot go in there alone.”

“I can. I have two legs and a newfound recovery of my senses.” Eufrates tapped the blade at his hip. “Besides, I have been wanting to duel him since that ball.”

They had been walking enough that now they were in the belly of the beast. Though Cyril’s spell obscured their words and actions, it was still nerve-wracking to wander the palace’s deserted corridors.

Eufrates spotted something in a decorative suit of armour and wandered off to it. The other two followed.

He pulled a slim, bronze sword from a metal scabbard and fastened it to Cyril’s hip before he could even begin to protest.

“I know you are not much of a fighter, Cyril, but be sensible. There is a pointed end and a blunt one. You aim with the point.”

“You cannot be serious about this.”

“You will not convince me otherwise.”

“Take – take Tigris with you, then!”

Eufrates looked at Tigris. “If you try to follow me and leave our waifish little mage to venture alone in a basement, I will kill you myself once you are back in your body,” he said.

Tigris frowned. “Like I’d ever choose you over him.”

“Good.”

Before Cyril could protest further, Eufrates closed the distance between them, lightning quick, and snaked an arm around his waist. He pulled him so close they would meld into one, dipped him back and kissed him so hungrily, with so much desperation that Cyril felt like he was being lit on fire from within.

This was the spark, he realised. He could not believe he tried recreating this with anyone else in the world.

He melted into the kiss, candlewax against the hard edges of Eufrates’s frame, and reached up to tug at his shirt and make sure they would never break apart. He was a million different things. He was jelly, he was a flower in full bloom, he was butter on hot bread, he was a warm summer breeze, he was the nascent flush of first love.

He was Eufrates’s.

If it were up to him, he would stop time again. But eventually, the both of them needed to come up for air. Cyril pried himself away begrudgingly, hot and panting and flushed. He must look a mess and his husband only looked more beautiful than ever.

He was dazed for only a second before realisation hit him, and he grabbed Eufrates’s arm to prevent him from escaping.

“That was a goodbye kiss! You are saying goodbye!”

“Cyril–”

“No! I will not allow you to go!”

Eufrates kissed him again, if possible harder this time.

“Gods, you are always so dramatic. It is a promise .” He held fast onto Cyril’s waist and when he nodded their foreheads came together. “We will continue this later .” He almost growled this last part.

Cyril looked up at him, eyes wide and just about to well with tears that he managed to blink back.

“Oh…”

“Yes.” He placed one final kiss on the corner of his eye and then let go of him entirely. “If I was going to be saying goodbye to you, I would have had you against that wall.”

“Okay, disgusting! Inappropriate!” Tigris wailed. Cyril had briefly wondered how much longer she was going to stand for this. “Get out of here, Eufrates!”

He did. Without a second glance back at them, he dashed the other way into the depths of the palace, away from their protective weave.

Cyril balled his hands into a fist and began walking to the library.

“Cyril…” she called after a moment.

He glanced down at her. “Yes?”

“I never want to see that again.”

Cyril let out a huff of laughter.