"but here I blur into you."

He is standing by the window, lost in thought amid the grey fog of a gathering summer storm, when Dimitri’s low voice pierces through the drumming of the rain on the roof.

“Zen.”

Zhenya turns with a start, unsure why the sound of his name surprises him. Perhaps it is because he so rarely hears it shortened that the novelty has never worn off—or perhaps it is because Dimitri only calls him Zen when they are alone.

He has taken off his mask. It lies discarded, facedown on a stack of letters, and Dimitri’s head tilts as Zhenya approaches his chair. A glass of wine teeters above an open accounts book, and a white feathered quill leaks ink onto an entry marked Novskaya.

Frowning, Zhenya reaches for the glass, glancing at an empty decanter pushed behind a box of cigars. “Should I refill—”

“Here.”

He tilts his chin up. There is a slight flush in Dimitri’s cheeks from the wine, and his red hair, edged in gold from the light of a flickering oil lamp, spills over one side of his face. “Help me with it.” A black tie floats up to Zhenya’s chest.

He stares at it. “Is there no one else—”

Dimitri smiles, sweeping his gaze across the empty room. “No one else.”

For several long moments, Zhenya is still save for the flick of his eyes to the door, before skipping back to the tie dangling before him like a dare. His glove brushes the edge of the silk.

No one else wasn’t an order. He could set the tie aside, call for another attendant. What mattered was the end result. What mattered was Dimitri striding down to his father’s dinner party, his collar starched stiff by a maid, his tie looped tight by a footman, his valet a ghost in his shadow.

But then Dimitri’s smile sharpens, and everything becomes more than a dare.

“As you wish,” Zhenya says at last, his palm closing over silk. “But you’ll have to bow your head.”

“And how else,” Dimitri replies, rising happily from his chair, “would you like me?” His eyes gleam, blue as summer.

“By the mirror.” Zhenya’s steps click across the wood flooring. “Sir.”

When he drapes the tie over his neck, Zhenya wonders if this will be the rest of his life. A piece in a game he only partly understands, uncertainty manifesting as a nest of red spiders in his dreams. Orders masquerading as dares breaking apart to pleas; how long could anyone be expected to stand it? A Kovalyev’s bare face was soft angles, soft eyes, soft mouth.

Fight me, Dimitri laughed, and Zhenya smiled as a hammer cracked open his ribs. If I hurt you, will you finally be happy?

He looks away as he pulls the knot tight.