Seeing is Believing Read online

  The servant departed, shutting the door behind him and leaving Teofil alone with them.

  "Teo?" Rathiel prompted, frowning in confusion when Teofil couldn't get his mouth to work. "Is everything all right?"

  "Wystan told me," Teofil blurted out, flushing because that hadn't at all been how he'd meant to start the conversation.

  Rathiel froze, his hand clenching where it rested on Cafon's shoulder. Cafon just smiled, unperturbed. He stood, and Teofil half-thought he should make a run for it while he still could.

  "Come sit," Cafon invited, and Teofil didn't—couldn't—protest as Cafon led him to the companion chair to the one he'd been sitting in. Teofil sat down heavily, silently accepting the glass of brandy Cafon poured for him.

  It was their anniversary, Teofil remembered belatedly, feeling even more stupid as Cafon made Rathiel sit in his abandoned chair.

  "Now, what exactly did Wystan tell you?" Cafon asked Teofil, a hint of steel in his voice that made Teofil shiver.

  "That I was an idiot?" Teofil offered weakly, taking a sip of the too-expensive brandy and nearly choking on it as it burned down his throat. "And that you've been … watching me for a year."

  "All right," Cafon accepted, pouring a second glass of brandy and pressing it into Rathiel's hands. "But why are you here?"

  Teofil stared at him incredulously for a moment. "To find out why."

  Rathiel fiddled with his glass, staring at the amber liquid fixedly.

  "I don't understand," Teofil continued, frowning at Cafon. "If you wanted—why didn't you say anything?"

  "Because you'd react like you did last night," Rathiel said wearily, lifting his head a little.

  "That's not fair," Teofil objected immediately. "I didn't know it was you last night."

  "Does it make any difference?" Rathiel asked, sounding completely miserable.

  "Maybe," Teofil said pensively. Did it make any difference? "Why do you want me? You—you both…" Teofil stuttered to a stop, taking a deep breath. "You have each other."

  Cafon smiled ruefully, resting his hand on Rathiel's shoulder. "We should be content," he said, looking thoughtful and infuriately calm. "I daresay we would be still, had I not commissioned a ring for Rathiel last year."

  Teofil flushed, taking another sip of the brandy before he could say anything stupid.

  "I told Rath about you. I don't think you even noticed that I noticed you," Cafon continued, smiling in a completely infuriating way. "Then Rathiel went to your shop—he doesn't trust my taste." Rathiel smiled a little at that. "He recognized you."

  "You never saw me," Rathiel said, his crooked smile widening a little. "I had the worst luck. Every time I visited the shop, you were off on an errand or in the back working on some project."

  "You knew where I was for a year?" Teofil demanded, scowling. "And you still couldn't let me know you were alive?"

  Cafon snickered, looking inordinately pleased about something.

  "You were never there," Rathiel pointed out. "I thought a note was a little too impersonal and then this whole mess cropped up."

  "Rath had quite the crush on you when you were younger," Cafon imparted with relish, getting a dirty look from Rathiel. "He admitted it, then I said I could see what he saw in you, and one thing led to another …"

  "We're not asking for a fling, Teo," Rathiel said, his gaze somber as he stared at Teofil. "It—I wouldn't do that to you."

  "But why the secrets?" Teo asked, but that was easy enough to figure out. Approaching him outright would have run him off far quicker. Now … Well, he was considering it, if that said anything about how stupid he was.

  "That was my idea," Cafon said, grinning widely. "It seemed fitting, given Rath's courtship of me."

  Rathiel rolled his eyes, taking a large swallow of his brandy.

  "I'm sorry, Teo," he said, ducking his head to stare at his lap again. "We should have let you be, like you wanted."

  "I haven't said no," Teofil said lightly, flushing with Rath's head shot up and Cafon gave him a speculative look. "You never asked."

  Cafon laughed delightedly, giving Rathiel an impish look before approaching Teofil's chair. Teofil stared at him, nervous because he might like Cafon, but he didn't know him, not like he knew Rathiel.

  Cafon gracefully dropped to his knees in front of Teofil's chair, clasping Teofil's free hand between his. He was giving Teofil the most sincere, earnest look that Teofil could ever remember receiving, and Teofil blushed, looking up at Rathiel—for support or to figure out what Cafon was up to, he didn't really know. Rathiel was smiling a little, his fingers curled loosely around his glass of brandy instead of clenched tightly.

  "Teofil," Cafon said solemnly, drawing Teofil's attention back to him. "May we court you?"

  Teofil stared at Cafon, flushing again under the intensity of the look Cafon was giving him. Had Cafon always looked at him like that? Little wonder that Wystan was laughing at him about this.

  "Yes," Teofil answered quietly, hoping he didn't regret this. But it was Rathiel and it was Cafon, and he believed them when they said it wouldn't be a fling.

  Cafon cheered, squeezing his fingers tightly and lunging up to plant a kiss on the corner of Teofil's mouth. Rathiel looked a bit stunned, but he was smiling.

  "Do you mean it?" Rathiel asked, gingerly setting his glass of brandy down on the edge of the desk.

  "I'm not looking for a fling," Teofil said, scowling briefly. "I wouldn't say yes if I didn't mean it."

  A shiver of nerves ran along his spine as Rathiel got up and crossed to his chair. He took Teofil's glass from him, setting it aside absently. Teofil was hard pressed to not squirm as Rathiel took his hands and pulled him from his seat, pressing soft kisses to the knuckles of both of Teofil's hands.

  "You won't regret saying yes," Rathiel promised, and then kissed him. He tasted of brandy and spice and Teofil thought briefly that the expensive alcohol tasted much better on Rathiel's lips than it had from the glass. Rathiel tugged him close, drawing the kiss deeper, and Teofil sank his fingers into Rathiel's hair, his world narrowing to Rathiel's lips and fingers and the hot sparks of pleasure they were inciting.

  Rathiel relinquished him only when they were both breathless, but Teofil barely had time to gasp in a deep breath before Cafon was kissing him, slow and sweet. He didn't taste of brandy at all, but of something Teofil couldn't name because he couldn't think past the way Cafon was so tenderly kissing him.

  "Can't breathe," Teo protested breathlessly, breaking away after too short a span of time. Cafon snickered at him, stealing a last, quick kiss before pulling Rathiel in and treating Teofil to the sight of the two of them kissing. It was dizzying and Teofil held tightly to the bit of Cafon's shirt he'd clutched at some point, fighting to clear his head.

  "Still yes?" Cafon asked, staring intensely at Teofil but not letting go of Rathiel. Teofil glared at him, releasing his hold on Cafon's shirt to smack him on the arm.

  "I'm not going to dignify that with an answer," Teofil told him imperiously, startled into laughter when Rathiel poked him in the side. "Still yes, yes until you get sick of me, yes."

  "Good," Cafon declared, and kissed him again before he could get another word in. Rathiel's hands braced him, teasing a little, and Teofil hazily thought that maybe the whole secret admirer thing wasn't so bad after all.

  Jailbreak

  Ty was half-asleep when the hand closed over his mouth. He woke up immediately, tensing but otherwise not moving. Blinking into the darkness above his pallet, he tried to make out the person kneeling there, with no success.

  "Don't make a sound," came the soft whisper. Unsurprising really, considering the hand across his mouth. His uninvited visitor wasn't a guard then, unless he was a guard doing something he ought not—but the guards never cared how much noise he or they made when they visited him in the dead of night.

  He hadn't heard the door open, Ty realized abruptly. The door was a massive, iron sheathed construction that creaked and scraped an
d wouldn't open more than halfway on its best days. If it had opened, he would have heard it.

  "You gonna be quiet?" The man whispered again, impatient for some reaction from Ty.

  Ty nodded slowly, shifting upright on his pallet as the man lifted his hand away.

  "How did you get in here?" Ty asked, keeping his voice soft. The man slapped his hand back over Ty's mouth harshly.

  "Shhh," the voice admonished, the hand slipping away again to get a firm grip on his wrist. "Later."

  Ty half-stumbled and was half-pulled to his feet, his rescuer dragging him to the far corner of the tiny cell. It seemed even darker over here, and Ty couldn't help flinching when the man sent a shower of sparks raining to the floor. Seemingly from out of nowhere, but Ty wasn't completely stupid. There was no way anyone could get to his little cell without magical means or a good amount of bribery.

  So his liberator was a mage. Ty barely had time to wonder who the hell wanted to see him free and had the funds to hire an illicit mage to do it, and then he was yanked into the dark portal the mage had created in the corner.

  *~*~*

  They stumbled out directly into a thicket of bushes. The mage cursed loudly, stomping his way out of the vegetation and pulling Ty along. There was more light here, from the moon and the stars, but he didn't get a chance for more than a glimpse of the mage before he was being pulled further into the forest.

  "Ari!" the mage shouted, far too loudly and close to Ty's ear. Ty stumbled again, the ground uneven, but the mage didn't slow, just pulled him forward and shouted again.

  Twisting his arm free, Ty stumbled back a few steps until his back ran into a tree. The mage turned to him, a frown turning his lips down.

  "Where are we?" Ty asked first, deciding that was the most important question. Though close on its heels, "Why did you free me?"

  "In a forest and because I was paid to," the mage replied quickly, both singularly useless answers. "Come on, we have to meet up with the rest."

  "The rest," Ty repeated, crossing his arms and not taking a step.

  "Yes, the rest of your merry band of rescuers," the mage replied smartly, stepping towards him. He stepped into a patch of moonlight, giving Ty his first good look at him. His hair was slightly mussed, light in color and tied back behind his head. His features were regular except for the long scar that traced diagonally from his left eyebrow to the right side of his jaw.

  The mage took advantage of his distraction, crossing the rest of the space between them and grabbing his arms. Ty resisted weakly, but it wasn't as if he could really get away from the mage. Even if he did, he was in no position to do anything more than starve or get recaptured. Perhaps one of the "merry band of rescuers" would be more forthcoming.

  It took a good half hour and a dozen shouts in his ears before they found the small camp set up by the mage's compatriots. If Ty hadn't already been convinced of the group's less than legal standing, the camp would've made him even more suspicious. There were two more men, four horses, and no campfire.

  There was actually nothing to indicate a camp at all, except that the horses were tethered to the nearby trees and the two men were sitting on the ground, staring at what looked to be a flat, circular serving dish. It was giving off a faint glow, bathing their faces in soft, silver light.

  "I thought you said no more scrying," the mage said accusingly as he dragged Ty into the tiny clearing.

  "He's reporting, not scrying," one of the men replied absently, climbing to his feet. "Any problems?"

  "Nope," the mage replied cheerfully, finally releasing his grip on Ty's arm. He hadn't let go the entire trek here, but Ty was too busy catching his breath to really care. Glancing across the clearing, he saw the glow of the dish fade. "The guards won't notice a thing until the morning."

  "Good, that will give us time to get further away," the third man declared as he approached. "Caj, get them something to eat. Can you ride?"

  Ty nodded, swallowing a protest. He was exhausted from the trip through the woods, and they were going to make him ride—likely for the night, if they truly meant to get away from the city, which couldn't be very distant if they needed to get themselves away during the night before a ruckus was raised about his disappearance.

  "The portal got us close enough," the mage was saying, and Ty decided that he wasn't in charge, and neither was the man handing him a heavy roll. "But I'm completely out of reserves."

  "As we expected. It shouldn't matter—"

  "Do I get an explanation now?" Ty interrupted, drawing the attention of all three men. "Who are you and why did you free me?"

  "Well, isn't that grateful sounding," the mage said, looking amused and dangerous. His eyes glittered in the moonlight and the scar across his face stood out vividly. Ty glared at him, unimpressed and tempted to throw the roll at him.

  "Reid," the one in charge said sharply, and the mage—Reid—shrugged and applied himself to the food handed to him.

  "My name is Ari, that's Caj, and he's Reid," Ari introduced himself and then pointed to the two men with him. "We rescued you because of your magic."

  "What about it?" Ty asked, confused because that wasn't at all what he'd expected, especially with Reid's comment about payment for rescuing him.

  "We're members of the Vasijile," Ari said, almost gently, and that made sense. The Vasijile was a rebel group that protested the use of suppressants in all but the King's Mages. They frequently "rescued" mages in prison for breaking the edict against using magic unlicensed or for not taking their suppressants. Likely they thought Ty was such an offender.

  Ari took his silence as acceptance and turned away to confer with Reid. Ty frowned thoughtfully, debating whether to enlighten them—but he'd been in that cell for longer than he could remember. By his reckoning, almost a year, though that could be wildly off. He wasn't going to throw away his rescue just because it wasn't for the right reason.

  *~*~*

  They didn't ride the entire night through. Ty was well aware they stopped because of him, but he refused to apologize for not having rested before the trip or not having the stamina to do a nightlong ride.

  They stopped sometime in the small hours of the morning, closer to dawn than Ty thought he'd last when they had started out. He all but fell off his horse and into the bedroll Caj hastily set up for him. He fell asleep quickly, the bedding no more comfortable than the pallet in his jail cell.

  When he woke up, it was bright again. He didn't immediately move, aching from more movement than he'd had in ages and the strong urge to just go back to sleep. He could hear movement around him, the horses stamping their feet behind him, the crackling of a small fire in front of him, and the quiet murmur of voices too far away to be anything but indistinct.

  He couldn't get his mind to shut down, now that it was awake. Ty sighed, shifting a little. He should get up and demand more answers—like what they planned to do with him now, and maybe later, when they'd gotten far enough away from the city. Not that Ty really expected much of a search effort, not when it was obvious magic had spirited him away.

  Perhaps they'd even blame the cooks for not properly seasoning Ty's food with the suppressant that kept his magic locked away, even if that wouldn't explain how Ty had managed to get away without ever having learned how to use his magic at all.

  "You should get up." Reid's voice came from too close and Ty tensed, wondering how the mage had managed to sneak up on him. He could have been right next to Ty the entire time without Ty realizing.

  "Why?" Ty muttered, but he was already shifting to get up. It wasn't as if he was going to get more sleep with Reid hovering right behind him, and Ari and Caj's soft conversation nearby.

  "We need to get moving again," Reid informed him cheerfully. Ty stared at him, frowning as he slowly dragged himself out of the confines of the bedroll. The scar across Reid's face was even more livid in daylight, which meant it had to be recent. Reid raised an eyebrow pointedly—the eyebrow the scar ran through—and just smirked a
t Ty.

  Ty dropped his gaze a little guiltily, but didn't say anything as he carefully rolled up the bedroll. At a loss what to do next, he glanced back at Reid to find himself the subject of Reid's stare. It was only fair, Ty supposed, since he'd stared earlier, but the smirk on Reid's lips was just infuriating.

  "What?" Ty finally asked when Reid didn't look away or say anything.

  "Unusual hair," Reid declared, reaching forward quickly and tugging on a dirty, tangled bit of Ty's hair. Ty flinched back, annoyed because his hair was well within his boundaries of personal space. Flushing, partly from his reaction and partly because that wasn't the first time he'd heard such a comment, Ty crossed his arms and glowered.

  Reid just laughed, almost tauntingly, and ducked past Ty to scoop up his bedroll. He casually strolled over to the horses, and Ty wrestled with the urge to … kick him in the shin. He'd probably be laughed at for his trouble, though. Still scowling, he turned his back on Reid, only to almost run into Caj.

  "Eat quickly," Caj instructed, handing him a steaming bowl of what looked to be porridge with a chunk of bread resting on top. Ty took the bowl with a nod of acknowledgement, watching as Ari put out the fire.

  It was obvious they'd been waiting for him to wake, so Ty ate as quickly as he could without choking, not wanting to hold them up any further. He wasn't sure how far they were from the city, but he now that he'd had a bit of sleep he was rather sure the guard wouldn't find it sufficient to throw him back into his tiny cell—they'd probably just execute him instead of keeping him imprisoned for life.

  Reid led a horse over to him, the gentlest, but Ty didn't protest. He wasn't sure he had the energy to handle a more spirited horse. Given how docile the mare was, Ty wouldn't be surprised if they always used this horse for liberated mages who didn't know how to ride.

  Swinging into the saddle, Ty urged his horse into following Caj's, settling easily into the pace of the ride. Reid was behind him, with Ari riding ahead. The next time they stopped he'd ask where they were going and how long it would take to get there ... and what the plans were for him—surely they didn't break mages out of prison just to let them loose on the world again.