Heist

“Sea,” Valor said, hand moving to his other shoulder to pull him close. “Eyes on us.”

“Location?” Seaben muttered around the lip of his wine glass.

“Starboard, far wall.” Valor pressed his face to the crook of Seaben’s neck, but Seaben could feel their tension as they watched the room.

“Person?”

“Dog. Oozing magic, probably a shapeshifter.”

Seaben chanced a glance at the animal; a sturdy beast, the kind of wolfdog common to the nobility and their sporting hunts. It was watching them, though with Valor’s own magic in the way he couldn’t be sure of what enchantment was in play. He let his gaze wander, as though he’d looked at the dog out of chance.

“Guards around the room,” he observed.

“Normal for a party this size at a place this expensive. We’re not known in this city.”

“I think our reputation precedes us. You are making it incredibly hard to focus, dear,” he said, leaning his cheek against Valor’s head. “They’re at the doors.”

“We take the window.”

“Better rush it, then,” Seaben said, taking off at a run as the doors around the room slammed shut. Valor was a few steps behind, biting out clipped syllables of magic as the crowd parted around them. Seaben felt his own disguise fading as Valor’s focus slipped to weaving a new one, and he pushed forward with an urgency that wasn’t quite panic.

Seaben flung his hand out and the window shattered; two long strides and he was on the precipice, another and he was leaping into the cool night air, briefly weightless and three stories off the ground. The gardens spread dim and crowded below him, and his breath caught -

- and then Valor took off behind him, fully transformed into an avian, and caught him, birdlike talons clamped tight around his wrist. Seaben pulled himself up to Valor’s chest. He felt Valor’s feathered wings straining against the wind, and then the resistance vanished as they corrected their angle and dove properly, the faces below them a blurred, startled rush as Valor swooped overhead and the glass behind fell in glittering shards.

“Lead them away,” he said, and Valor held him closer as they swerved over the maze of city streets.

“Group behind,” Valor said. “Slow them down.”

“Give me a boost,” Seaben answered, and twisted in Valor’s grip to look behind them. Mounted soldiers, a few crossroads back. He felt Valor’s touch grow hot, a warmth that spread through his veins like molten gold. Barely even thinking, he wrenched a hand upward, and the road twisted and buckled as magma surged up to the surface. 

“A little too much boost, darling!” Seaben shouted, giddy. 

Valor laughed with him as they angled down a narrow alley and broke out into the outskirts of the city. They banked wide over the open fields, dropping towards a little farmhouse that looked mostly abandoned. They slowed down until Valor was able to land with a running stop, still carrying Seaben against their side as the transformation receded back to human.

“Not quite a success,” they said, running their free hand over their forehead.

Seaben shrugged noncommittally, peeling himself away from Valor’s side to press himself into their chest instead. “But we made it.”

“We made it,” Valor agreed, kissing the top of Seaben’s head. “Let’s not hang around outside and undo all of our hard work.”

He sighed dramatically, stepping back from Valor; he held their hand tight as he pulled them towards the ramshackle little building. Valor obligingly followed, lifting the other hand as they passed through the doorway to summon a little wisp of light over their palm.

Seaben groaned as the room lit up. “The tent collapsed again.”

Valor looked at the lean-to with exasperation. “You take it apart, I’ll go see if I can find anything more useful.”

Seaben squeezed Valor’s hand - a small promise, an unspoken come back safe - and let go, kneeling down to start dismantling the pieces. Valor swung the little light over Seaben’s shoulder and, briefly running their hand over that same shoulder, carefully stepped around the wreckage and left through the back door.

He was trying to shove clumps of clay-heavy sand back into one of the bags they’d been using as weights when he heard someone sit down behind him. He stood up with a dramatic sway, ready to welcome Valor back, and found himself staring at a total stranger.

A woman was in their house. She looked incredibly out of place; wearing a kind of loose-fitting, gown-like garment that shimmered in green and gold silks. Despite the dirt on the floor of the building and the spilled clay, and the impenetrable dust and chipped paint of the chair under the window, she looked as though she’d just stepped down from a carriage directly into their landing. She was watching him with an attentive politeness, a very direct look of assessment that made Seaben want to stand a little straighter. 

They looked at each other in silence for a few moments, and then the woman tilted her head a little, her focus shifting in some subtle way that reminded Seaben of a cat satisfied with a catch. 

“So you’re Valor’s man,” she said. The dim light in the room caught like gold in her brown eyes as she smiled. 

Seaben tried to discreetly wipe his hands off on each other. “We’re each other’s. I didn’t see you at the party.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she replied kindly.

Seaben’s reply was stalled as he heard another person walking up the path. He quietly crossed the room, unthinkingly gesturing for the woman to be quiet as he looked out through the gaps in the ill-fitting door.

Guards. Damn.

He opened the door, stepping out onto the porch so they wouldn’t try to come in. He hoped his disguise had held long enough - and their flight had been unexpected enough - that he wouldn’t be recognized.

“Are you the one who caused all that trouble on the roads in town?” One of them asked, not bothering to finish the walk up to the house. “Big mess. Made lots of traffic.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Seaben said, not really thinking. “I haven’t been in today.”

The guard who spoke looked unconvinced, but the others looked irritated enough at having to be this far out to begin with that they started to leave. After a moment of hesitation, the remaining guard followed them away.

Seaben tried to look equally bored as he reentered the house, and was surprised a second time by the woman still sitting there, calmly turning to look at him instead of out the window. 

“Busy day,” she said, that smile still in her voice. 

“...Yes,” Seaben said. He blinked, re-sorting the events of the past hour. “Damn, the lava was me, wasn’t it?”

She just tilted her head again, giving him that inscrutably kind look.

The back door popped open as Valor walked through, and as Seaben turned to face him the little wisp brightened happily. They smiled back at Seaben, but the expression faded as their gaze drifted past him and to the woman.

They put their supplies aside and crossed the room, looking more serious than Seaben expected; but he was pretty sure he wasn’t personally capable of calming down that yet.

“Mother,” Valor said formally, smothering a worry Seaben hadn’t noticed he had. “I didn’t expect you to visit.”

She stood up, giving Seaben a little bow. “If I may speak in private?”

Seaben glanced at Valor, who nodded, a grimace twitching in their cheek. Seaben raised his hands in surrender, half-tripping over the tent poles as he stepped backwards towards the back door. “Get me when you need me?”

Valor’s expression softened when they looked back at him alone. “Of course. Always.”

Valor’s mother just smiled.