The morning lay cool and crystalline across his shoulders, spring kissed by diamonds. He went out to the half-done road, headed down to the edge of it: where flat comfort for carts and boots dissolved into rocks and grass and hillside. If he made it easier—
He lost himself in the shaping, the making, for some time. Earthworks stirred inside his bones, under his hands: fingers resting in dirt, among pebbles, asking the movement of continents and stardust to reform itself a little here. To build a bridge, a connection.
He felt more than recognized a tall dark shadow, eventually: shade falling across his face. He drew himself back from thick profound depths, and shook out his fingertips, and looked up, and then had no words.
“Well.” Alex sat right down on the moon-grey slate with him, long legs stretched out, getting comfortable. The road curved all the way down into the capital city before them, an arrow. “That was definitely an invitation. Don’t get up. Here, I brought cider.”
Apples, spices, sweetness, a light burn: almost the same refreshment as the sight of dark eyebrows, merry amber in that glance, the way Alex had sat down beside him. Garrett had to have another drink.
“As it happens, I would’ve come anyway. I have gifts.” Alex produced a small box from someplace in his fitted lavender waistcoat, and a small scribe’s copy-book from someplace else. “For you, for the School.”
“Gifts.”
“I’d already bought the first, and the second was easy enough, and I thought you’d want it.”
Garrett took both because his prince was holding them out. And did not open either. “Where have you been?”
“Were you worried?”
“Yes!”
“Ah. I was trying not to be one of the things you’re worried about.”
“I built you a road.”
“So you did. I suspect my offerings are less impressive. Go on.”
Garrett opened the book first. Absorbed, with some shock, the first lines: a tidy graceful scribal hand sharing astonishing secrets out of the past. “Where did you get a copy of Julian’sMagics of the Winter Empire? There’s only one I know about!”
“And it’s in the personal library of the rulers of Averene.” Alex leaned back on both elbows, contented as a cat on sunny stone. “I copied it. It wasn’t that difficult; nobody asked why I wanted it.”
“That’syourhand. Your writing.”
“I told you I was good at one or two things.”
“Alex—”
“As a friend. As you said. I take your school seriously. The other one’s for you, but, again, I’d already bought it.”
As a friend. The words twisted like ice, sank like rock. Garrett opened the tiny box. Nearly dropped it.
The small carved ruby leapt upward, a flame captured mid-flight. Red and carnelian, scarlet and garnet, the facets glimmered, caught light, flung it back joyously. The shape would light up a room, when set on a desk, a bookshelf.
“It’s not an obligation,” Alex said. “It only…seemed a waste not to give it to you. Since I had it.”
“So,” Garrett said, shakily. “You were…shopping. Was there poetry?”
Alex sat up more. Then laughed. “Lady Claudine. I’m not sleeping with her.”
“I didn’t—”
“Your expression. I went to her poetry reading. I listened to her weep about the young painter who’d just abandoned her in order to elope with his beautiful artistic muse, whose name is apparently Elodie. I held her hand, and I suggested that she might know how her daughter felt. Being sensitive to love and sacrifice.”
Garrett cradled the carved lapidary flame in one hand. A stone, a gemstone, a riot of color. “You rescue everyone, don’t you?”
Alex, for some reason, looked away: down at the towers and rooftops of the city. “No.”
“We’re friends,” Garrett said. “We…we are. Aren’t we?”