Page 147 of Envious Of Fire
He turns, peers at Kyle with his misty blue eyes.
“Am I safe?” He comes closer. “Be honest with me. Are my friends in Nowhere safe?”
Yes, says Tristan.
“The town was swarmed tonight by … well, by Them.”
I know.
“You know?”
It is a delicate situation, I understand.Much like this one.You and me, in a room, preparing for a special event…you as my date.This doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.Really, it’s more of a formality. Tristan lifts the jacket.Leftarm first, please.
“Why did George come and get me? Why didn’t you?”
I’m not allowed to leave the House.I think I wasn’t trusted with the task.I do have a history of making terrible choices regarding you. He gives the suit jacket a little shake.Lefty firsty.
After a pause, Kyle slips his left arm into the jacket, then his right, Tristan guiding him. It is a perfect fit. Kyle peers at himself once more in the mirror, his look complete.
Being in Tristan’s presence again, in such a calm state, with this simple act of dressing before him, prettying up, it is almost mundane enough to lull Kyle into a dream. The two of them, still out there in that cabin, undiscovered, away from the world, free from the burdens of their lives.
This doesn’t have to mean anything, Tristan had said.
What a cruel thing to say. Yet Kyle understands completely.
Suddenly he’s back in Texas, back in his old house, feeling his heart racing as he anticipated going to school the next day and seeing Tristan again. Standing before this mirror, he can almost see his parents behind him with pride in their eyes, like they’re about to send their son to prom. He sees his brother, too, thirteen-year-old Kaleb, wondering what his own prom will be like, if he will even have the courage to ask someone to be his date. Kyle looks at his family in the mirror, all of them.
And then Tristan, lurking there.
“Was coming to Texas one of your terrible choices?” asks Kyle, still imagining his family.
Tristan speaks to Kyle’s reflection.I suppose we may never know the answer to that question.I would like to think it wasn’t.But our happiness came at such a great cost, didn’t it?
“Were we happy?” Kyle turns away from the mirror, from his family, gazes at the very real Tristan.
Tristan appears to struggle for an answer.It is time, he saysinstead, then moves to the door. Kyle glances once more at the mirror. His family is no longer there. They never were. After a breath, he follows Tristan out of the room.
They walk down a long, beautifully furnished hall, Tristan ahead, Kyle close behind. It would be easy to peer around and be amazed, feeling like he’s walking the halls of a great palace or fancy mansion, but he knows better. Markadian’s talent is as an illusionist, tricking the mind into seeing what he wills it to. It has never been clear to Kyle how his ability works, only that it does, and quite strikingly. With each fixture Kyle passes, each expensive-looking chandelier he walks under, each work-of-art vase with an exotic plant spilling out of it, Kyle only sees more and more evidence of Markadian’s exceeding arrogance. He is a proud and terrible man. Kyle only needed to spend a minute in his presence to draw that conclusion.
“What is this new deal?” Kyle comes up to Tristan’s side, tired of following behind. “I think I deserve to know what I’m walking into.”
I do not know the details myself, confesses Tristan,but I am of the belief that it will be favorable to all parties involved.
“All parties?”
A wide archway looms down the hall. Kyle hears laughter, chatter, glasses clinking, the atmosphere of some upscale social gathering growing closer.
Just keep by my side.That will do you best.Keep by my side, and if you start to panic for any reason at all…
“This feels like the old times,” says Kyle.
Tristan peers at him, then catches on.Am I doing that thing I always do that annoys you? Am I being too protective? By the way, you are much too young to use words like “old times”…
Kyle smirks. “And now you’re doing that thing where—”
Where I seem to assert authority over you because of my age?I’m a creature of habit…terrible habits, the worst.
“I used to play a game with myself. I’d try to guess how old you are, how old you really are.”
