WHAT: Edwin says goodbye to Sutton Cottage and maybe possibly attracts some unwanted attention while doing it WHERE: Sutton Cottage WHEN: The morning of March 28, 2033 WARNINGS: Some mild passively suicidal thoughts (along the lines of going down with the ship), some mild sexual allusions STATUS: Complete
The book on Edwin’s lap slid off, and hit the ground with a loud thump. He roused, suddenly, from his sleep, blinking, panicked, into the dark. It didn’t take him long to realize what had roused him, and he picked up the book with a sigh, gently smoothing its bent pages. The fire he’d had in the fireplace had burnt itself to embers, giving off only enough light to see the shapes and the shadows of things, but the sun was already rising, the glow coming through the large library window.
He thought again of just not leaving. Going down with the ship, as it were. It would be preferable. Preferable to losing Sutton Cottage so soon after Nikolai. After all this, he wouldn’t even be getting Nikolai back, even temporarily. He’d seen the list. He’d looked for Nikolai’s name, and had found Daniel Arlington’s instead.
There was a crack, and Edwin looked down at horror at the book in his hands: the book whose leatherbound cover he’d just snapped.
“Fuck,” he swore, and made to smooth the cover. He laughed bitterly instead, and it threatened to turn into a sob. What did it matter? In mere hours, the chances were good that every book in this library would be destroyed.
Last night, he had promised Sabrina and Blue that he would be gone from the Cottage before Essek and Caleb returned with the travellers, and that, more than anything, was why he forced himself up from his chair.
He laid the damaged book on the table, and considered a small spell to repair it. What harm could it do, really, when soon enough the largest bit of magic any of them had performed in a a decade would be taking place just yards away? He resisted the temptation. He’d not endanger the entire operation for the sake of one book.
He unpacked the duffle bag on the table; some of the books he’d packed the night before got set aside, but the rest he packed again. Those he’d set aside he brought back to stacks to reshelve, and pulled down different ones.
They, perhaps, weren’t especially useful. The first erotica he’d bought from Nikolai, all those years ago, when he’d nearly run out of the store with it still clutched in his hands for the embarrassment of it all. Nikolai’s favourite novel. The terrible smutty novel Nikolai had somehow scrounged up after their wedding that they’d spent an evening laughing at.
And when he finished packing those up, and the duffle bag was filled to bursting, nearly too heavy for Edwin to carry, he looked back at the walls of books. Thousands of books. Thousands of books on magic – magical theory, magical history, practical magic. Thousands of books on the natural sciences and history. Of literature and poetry. Hundreds of romance and erotica novels. When he was twelve years old, he’d spent an entire summer devising a cataloguing system all of his own, and had spent months systematically entering every book into it, and then he’d spent the next 24 years growing the collection.
It was his entire life. A life that had followed him into another world.
He had other things to attend to before he departed, but was rooted to the spot. He couldn’t move. And then the floorboards under his feet gave a lurch, and he found his feet again, and tore out the roots that held him.
Perhaps it would have been wisest to take what books he’d decided to save and leave, but that’s not where his feet carried him. He went instead to the bedroom he’d once shared with Nikolai.
Edwin rarely left the library these days, but when he did, he avoided this corridor. He’d taken to sleeping on the chairs and benches of Penhallic Library, had kept a small chest of clothes there as well.
It was too painful to go back to the room he’d shared with Nikolai, to lay in the bed that had still smelled like him. When he looked at their bed, he could see Nikolai there.
But now, he made his way to their closet and removed his own shirt so he could slip on Nikolai’s favourite sweater, and then crawled under their covers. He hadn’t changed them since Arlington had killed his husband. There’d been no point, really. It wasn’t as though Edwin had slept here since.
He wondered now why he hadn’t. He was warm, and comfortable, and surrounded with Nikolai’s scent. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe that Nikolai was warming the bed beside him.
And this, of course, was why. Because when he opened his eyes again, he’d be confronted with the fact that Nikolai wasn’t there, watching him.
Edwin didn’t open his eyes for a long time.
The sun was much higher in the sky when the bed rocked violently under him, and he started awake. He’d been dreaming, and it had been a wonderful dream, of Nikolai and his hands, and his lips, of Edwin’s body rocking over him. He laid in bed, trying to force the real world away from the dream one, and the bed gave another lurch, the lights in the bedroom pulsed brightly.
Edwin thought again of remaining where he was. There was a good chance that Interitus would sense the travellers coming back, and even Sutton Cottage’s wards wouldn’t hold up to him if he focused his attention on the land here.
You’d better not. I know I’m irresistible, Darling, but if you come back to me like this, then I won’t forgive you.
He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed the heel of his hand into them, and stifled a sob. If he’d truly wanted to remain here, Sutton Cottage wouldn’t be trying so hard to make him leave. The house didn’t think for itself. It responded to his wants, and to his feelings, and as much as Edwin wanted to stay here, wanted to see his husband again and spend his final moments in the house that had taken care of him for more than a decade, he wanted to survive more.
Finally, he pulled himself out of bed. He pulled a few more of Nikolai’s clothes out from the closet and regretted that he hadn’t thought of packing them up sooner, and that he hadn’t left room in the bag for them. He’d have to carry them separately. He piled what he could on top of the duffle bag, and stared in resignation at those that were left.
There were too many. He wouldn’t leave them to Interitus. He might have taken everything from Edwin, but Edwin wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of keeping them.
On the threshold between Sutton Cottage and the front gardens, he laid his hand on the door jamb and closed his eyes.
Liminal space. The space between worlds, between indoors and outdoors, between the warmth of Edwin’s past, and the desolation of the future. The space where magic was the strongest.
The ground shook. Behind him, came the sound of tearing and slithering as the wooden ivy carvings on the wall tore themselves free and came to life, filling every hall and every chamber with looping, writhing vines, covered in lethal thorns. Glass cracked and shattered and tinkled, nearly musically, to the grounds as the vines spilled from the windows and curled at his feet through the open door.
If he couldn’t have Sutton Cottage, if he couldn’t have Penhallic Library, then neither could Interitus.