The Stars Over Bittergate Bay

Chapter 12

12

S idney ate his spice cake in the library as he began the process of learning new celestial skies. It was fascinating to look at star charts for nights he’d never seen. Some of the names and notations looked familiar and others extremely foreign. But like learning anything, with repetition began the early stages of recognition, and something small and hungry inside Sidney delighted in the new knowledge of things strange and mysterious.

Jonas had pulled some of what he called ‘foundational texts’ and left them in a pile on the table by the window. Sidney switched to those after an hour or so of flipping through charts. Some of the texts were a little basic. His own understanding of astronomy helped him quickly through what looked like a child’s encyclopedia of planets, albeit all planets he’d never seen before. Because he was nosy, he lingered on a compendium called ‘Parables of the Stars’ which was a book of stories about constellations. Not his constellations, of course, though it seemed like some of them had made it in other alternate names. But Sidney was really only interested in one:

Peregrine the Traveler was a demonic soldier, a mighty warrior of someplace called the Abyssal Planes. He was unmatched in battle and tales of his heroics traveled far and wide across the realms.

How many realms were there? Sidney added it to his list of questions and carried on.

Though he was the greatest of soldiers, Peregrine took no joy in his work. When the time of his service on the Planes ended, he took a vow of silence and left the demonic world to become a traveler and a seeker of knowledge. His journals were the beginning of the compilation of knowledge of the known worlds. They celebrate the beauty and life of the realms and remind us that all the worlds are more alike than they are distinct.

It was a lovely story and made Sidney wonder what sort of military service Jonas had seen and where. He couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, Sidney had decided. So, where had he served?

It also made Sidney unaccountably pleased that what Jonas had told Sidney was verifiably true. He could have lied about his tattoos. He could have told Sidney anything or nothing. But this constellation was the same one inked on Jonas’s ribs. That meant something to Sidney, even if he didn’t care to think about what.

Sidney mulled this over as he went back to his own charts, relabeling them with the proper names of the celestial bodies, quizzing himself as he went along. As far as what effects these objects had on life on Earth, he had sort of reached an impasse.

There were the obvious things like tides and atmospheric shifts. Those would be easy to examine because there was data kept on them all over the world, and he could align them with his last six months of notes to see if there were any trends. It could be useful as a proof of concept, but wouldn’t be world changing. Meteorology and oceanography were fairly outside his realm of study. His own re-education would be extensive. Not that he minded, just that it would take time. Sidney was beginning to understand why Jonas’s resume was so extensive and varied.

Which brought Sidney’s meandering mind back to Jonas. Sidney could see him out the library window, on his knees, a little way up the garden path. There was a basket beside him and a dirty trowel; his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, tattooed arms flecked with soil. Jonas’s hair caught the waning sunlight through the branches overhead, and it looked more red than it ever had, almost burgundy, against the darker stubble on his jaw.

Sidney shouldn’t have started watching him because then he found he couldn’t stop. All his questions turned toward Jonas Rookwood. How old was he? How long had he lived here? How had he gained witch sight? And was it in a sexy way or a boring one? Sidney shoved his head in his hands and stared down at the chart between his elbows. He didn’t really care about the chart between his elbows at the moment. It had been hours, though. He could excuse himself one break.

Sidney got to his feet, grabbing and eating another slice of cake before walking out the kitchen door. The path to the garden led Sidney under an arboreal arch and onto paving stones lined with purple asters, aspiring toward the same brilliant hue that chased the setting sun across the sky. Stalks of goldenrod were overgrown in places, choking out the asters, and fighting the adjacent shrubbery for root space. Sidney took a deep breath as he walked, letting his fingers brush the tops of the leaves of the barren blueberry bushes.

“Seems like you’ve got a goldenrod problem,” Sidney said. Jonas pressed his dirt covered palms against the knees of grey work pants and glanced over at Sidney. Sidney gestured to the yellow stalks, and Jonas nodded before turning back to his planting.

“What do you know about goldenrod, Quince?”

“More than I’d like. You need to dig it out at the roots, or it’ll choke everything else. My mother planted them once and two years later we spent a whole weekend digging them out of the garden. The roots spread that quickly.”

“I’ll add horticulturalist to your resume too, then. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be working?” Jonas asked. His attention was on his planting, but he smiled all the same. It made Sidney smile too.

“I have a question for you.”

“Of course you do.”

“How did you get your witch sight?” There was a pause, and Sidney could practically hear Jonas considering an answer before giving it. Sidney minded that less than he had before.

“I was born with it,” Jonas said. Not what Sidney had been expecting.

“That can happen?” Jonas nodded. It made sense, he supposed. It couldn’t all be demonic dealings and illicit sexual congress. Sidney walked around to sit on the pavers beside Jonas. In the basket next to him were small bulbs that he was plucking up one at a time and pressing down into the dirt.

“Is there a way to… I don’t know, temporarily grant sight, or something like that?”

“Still working on ways to make your research viable at Holyworth?” Jonas asked. Sidney shrugged.

“I’m weighing my options.”

“There might be some kind of alchemical work you could do to create a non-permanent way to see the other realms. But you’d need a sorcerer for that, at least. And an alchemist.”

“What’s a sorcerer?”

“You’ve not heard of a sorcerer?” Jonas looked skeptically up at Sidney.

“I mean, I know about them from stories. Wizards and things.”

“The stories are mostly right,” Jonas said. “Magic wielders. People who study magic with the intent to grow and use their powers.”

“Humans?” Sidney asked. Jonas went back to his work, broad shoulders hunching as he leaned further over the bed.

“They can be. Species doesn’t matter as much as purpose.”

“But humans can’t do magic,” Sidney said. Jonas snorted.

“Not with that attitude.”

“What do you mean? How?” Sidney asked. Jonas sat back on his heels and studied Sidney with something that might have been satisfaction if it hadn’t also seemed entirely bitter.

“You could make a deal for it.”

“With a demon, you mean? Take a mark and get magic?” Sidney frowned. “That would make me a sorcerer?”

“No,” Jonas grimaced, his gaze turning back to the bed of tilled earth in front of him. “It would make you a magic user. But that’s how all sorcerers start.”

“You don’t like the idea.” This much was obvious to Sidney. But why?

“Power always has a cost. That’s all.”

Power. It was perhaps a little silly that he hadn’t thought of it in terms so frank. Magic was power, in this strange new world. The kind of thing humans would give up their soul for. What would someone like Sidney’s father do, if he knew power like magic existed?

That was a stupid question. A better one would have been, what wouldn’t his father give for it? How quickly would he ruin himself for a taste of something that he could lord over others? It made Sidney nauseous to think about. And all of Jonas’s warnings about marking made a little more sense now.

“Not worth it?” Sidney asked, already knowing his own answer. Jonas chuckled and shook his head.

“I don’t really think I’m the best judge of that sort of thing.”

“But you don’t think it’s worth it,” Sidney pressed. Jonas pursed his lips. After a long moment, he met Sidney’s gaze again.

“No. I don’t think magic is worth the cost.”

“Well,” Sidney smiled and gave a shrug. “Consider it scratched off my list, then.” Jonas blinked at him. Then he laughed, a wide, handsome smile splitting his face as he got to his feet.

“You’re a strange man, Sidney Quince,” he said, offering Sidney a hand up, which Sidney took.

“Likewise, Mr. Rookwood.”

“Grab up that trowel and basket, would you?” Jonas asked as he lifted an obscenely large bag of soil up over his shoulder. The way his arms bulged under the weight made Sidney blush and nearly stumble in his hurry to gather up what Jonas had asked. By the time he’d straightened up, Jonas was halfway to the garden shed, and Sidney had to jog to catch up.

The shed was boxy and only lit from the light that snuck through the single window and the double doors, which Jonas had left wide open.

“Trowel on the wall,” Jonas nodded Sidney toward a series of hooks which held all manner of gardening equipment. “Seeds on the shelves.” Three shelves were mounted on the wall in one of the darker corners of the shed, and Sidney could see the spot on the top where the basket of bulbs was missing. He hung the trowel first, as Jonas hoisted the bag of dirt into its proper place.

Sidney wasn’t used to having to get onto his tiptoes to put things away, but Jonas was much taller than Sidney, and he must have been the one to hang the shelves. Sidney stretched to slide the basket into its spot and froze as the basket knocked into something he couldn’t see.

A lantern fell with a clatter and Sidney’s brain told him to move, even as his arm reached up to try and catch it. He ended up doing neither. He missed the lantern and jerked back, flinching away from the anticipated shattering of glass. Instead, he collided with Jonas’s chest.

Jonas caught the lantern by the handle, his front flush with Sidney’s back. Sidney spun with an apology already on his lips to find himself between Jonas’s outstretched arms. Against his chest. The words got lost and died somewhere in Sidney’s throat.

The moment seemed to stretch out interminably. Jonas’s arm that held the lantern brushed Sidney’s hip. Jonas smelled like freshly tilled earth and the consistent warmth of a strong fire. If Sidney breathed too deeply, his chest would be against Jonas’s. They were closer than they’d been in the boat, and that had already been very close indeed. Arguably too close. Not for Sidney; he suddenly had the inkling that he would actually never be close enough to Jonas Rookwood

His face began to heat and he realized he had no idea what to do with his hands. Last time he’d let himself touch Jonas, Sidney had ended up stroking his shoulder and he memory of that had Sidney glancing toward the bandage. Which probably looked more like he was staring at Jonas’s chest, where lines of ink were just barely visible through Jonas’s shirt, which was stretched tight over Jonas’s muscles. Sidney wanted to peel Jonas’s clothes off and lick the sweat from his skin. God, he was turning feral.

Jonas reached up above Sidney’s head, putting the lantern back in its proper place. There was that darkness in his amber gaze again that Sidney still hadn’t managed to parse, though now it looked a little like hunger.

“Sorry,” Sidney’s voice was low, the flush from his cheeks trailing down his jaw and along the lovely, slender neck that Jonas very much wanted to press his mouth against. Sink his teeth into. He wanted Sidney the way gasoline wanted fire. It was consuming him. Every heartbeat thundered in his ears, as he tried desperately not to let himself touch.

No humans.

He couldn’t have Sidney the way he wanted him without changing everything between them. Even though there was nothing between them. Just because Jonas was a deviant, who couldn’t stop thinking about the way Sidney’s hands had looked clenched in Jonas’s bedspread, and how good they would have felt tightening in Jonas’s hair. The incident on the boat didn’t bear thinking about. Entirely circumstantial. The result of fear and excitement, and Sidney hadn’t known what he was doing. And Jonas still didn’t know what he was doing.

“Supper?” Sidney asked, skirting abruptly around Jonas and moving to stand in the doorway. A safe distance, that Jonas should have appreciated more than he did. The empty space in front of him felt like a missed opportunity. Like he was watching himself actively fail at something.

“Let’s go into town,” Jonas reached up to adjust the lantern with one hand, as he reached down to discretely adjust himself with the other. “I just need a minute to change out of my work clothes,” he said before he could stop himself. Hedonistic and ridiculous. Still, there were only so many showers a man could take in one day before it got suspicious.

“Great,” Sidney said, footsteps already retreating. “I’ll meet you at the truck.”