Hell and Earth

She sat up and turned, swinging her legs off the bench. Guests and daughters turned to look, then averted their eyes quickly as she leaned in close, her eyes on his. “Don’t tease me, William.”

“I’d never tease,” he said. “I can make a play here as well as there, and playing’s finished for me. I’m coming home. I love thee, A

She leaned back, eyes wide, blowing air through wide nostrils. She studied his eyes for a moment, assessing, her spine stiff with wrath. Which softened, inch by inch, until she tilted her head to the side and blew the lock of hair he’d disturbed out of her eyes. “Thou daft poet,” she said. “I know.”

Act V, scene xxiv

Why did it suffer thee to touch her breast,

And shrunk not back, knowing my love was there?

–Christopher Marlowe, Dido, Queen of Carthage,Act IV, scene i

Kit rose with the sunset and went to the window, leaving his bed rumpled and unmade behind him. The casement stood open; it might be winter in England, but at the castle of the Mebd it was high spring, and the wood was in leaf as gold as primrose blossoms. He leaned a hand on either side of the window frame and stared out, watching darkness unfurl along the horizon.

«Sir Poet.»

Mehiel?Feeling eyes on him, almost, Kit turned back to the room. The way his shadow fell behind him was warning enough. A glimpse of arched eyebrow, of swan‑white wing followed.

«Surely thou knowest my name by now, my love,» Lucifer said, and opened his wings in welcome.

“What makes you think I would greet you, Morningstar?” Kit folded his arms, trembling in the warm spring breeze. The wall he put his back to was smooth as glass. He would have preferred the purchase of rough‑hewn stone.

Lucifer tilted his head and smiled, and Kit felt his knees turn to water where he stood. The fallen angel wore a white‑worked shirt of ivory silk with sleeves that flowed like water, as full as a second set of wings. The crown of shadows that capped his golden hair seemed to draw a rich dark tint from the crimson velvet of his breeches, and his eyes caught more light than the sunset sky had to offer.

Kit held his breath as Lucifer came to him, tilted his chin up with a wing‑tip touch, wordlessly eased open his tight‑folded arms with the brush of gentle feathers. The Devil’s lips hovered over Kit’s, satin as rose petals, the warm brush of breath on Kit’s skin and the warmth of a presence close enough to stir the fine hairs on his cheek.

Kit drew breath in an agony of anticipation, felt Mehiel’s surrender in the coldness in his brands. The wall stood firm behind him; his hands flattened on the stones, but they gave him no purchase and less strength. The fire in his belly was chill.

“I could give thee wings,” Lucifer murmured. His true voice rang Kit like a bell, with a sensation of flying. Of falling. Kit closed his dark, dark eyes.

Mehiel turned his mouth upward for the kiss.

And Kit’s fingernails found a crack.

A finer and a smaller chink than he had picked away at during his confinement in the pit. But a crack nonetheless, and he drove nails into it, clutching, clawing. Drawing his own bright blood, feeling the pain of the nail bed tearing as the nail folded.

He turned his head away and pressed his fingertips to Lucifer’s mouth, crimson staining palest dog‑rose pink. “I love thee, ” Kit whispered, and Lucifer smiled against his fingers.

“And I thee, poet and angel.”

Kit shook his head, dropped his hand to Lucifer’s chest, and pushed. The Devil stepped back smoothly, offering no resistance, and all Kit could see was the red of his own blood on the whiteness of Lucifer’s breast. “I love thee,” Kit said again. “And thou wilt destroy me. Be gone. And take thy witchery with thee.”

Lucifer’s wings cupped air, a sound like a backhanded slap. Kit flinched, but the Devil flinched moreso. And looked Kit in the eye. And nodded once, slowly, and closed his eyes that were bluer than the twilight.

And ceased to be where he had been.

Kit stood a moment in darkness, the sunset wind riffling the fine hairs on his neck, and slid down the wall until he could bury his face in his arms.

A tap on his door roused him. It seemed as if moments had passed, but as he stood the dawn air felt cold through his linen nightshirt. He limped across the chamber. The knotted red wool of the carpet pricked his bare soles and the tender flesh of his bandaged foot. He lifted the latch without asking a name, knowing from the sound whom he would see.

“My Prince.”

The Elf‑knight stepped past him and pulled the door from his grasp. “Kit, what hast done to thy fingers?”

Kit looked down, startled. “Split a nail or two,” he said. “‘Tis nothing.”

“‘Tis not nothing,” Murchaud answered, relatching the door. “Let me clean it.”

Kit followed in obedience, gasping at cold water spilled across his palms and wrists. And then marveling at the Prince‑consort of Faerie, bent over his–Kit’s–sad, calloused hands with a rag. “My Prince,” he said again.

Murchaud dabbed at a bit of blood, and looked up. He’d dressed, but his hair was still tousled from the night and his eyes were so bruised with exhaustion as to seem kohled. “Is that all I am to thee?”

“No….” Kit protested, Mehiel silent within him. Murchaud took one step away.

“I came to bring thee something. I’ll be quick. I did not mean to presume.” Murchaud cast his eyes down, and Kit’s breath snagged as he understood.

“Murchaud,” he began, and couldn’t find the next word.

The Elf‑knight dug into his sleeve, unmindful of the water pink with Kit’s blood that spotted it, and came out with a scrap of silk. He held the cloth out, and Kit numbly took it. It was like quicksilver, the highlights blue as shadows on snow and the shadows the color of twilight. Kit stared uncomprehending.

“For your cloak,” the Elf‑knight said, and turned away.

Kit’s mouth worked, his tongue dry and dumb as un‑inked paper. Murchaud crossed the room in five long strides, lifted the latch, turned the handle on the door, and opened it, unhesitating, back straight, lean and dark in the half‑light so far from the window.

He stepped into the hall.

“Wait,” Kit whispered, but the door was closing. “Wait!”he shouted, and froze, listening for the click of the latch.

Silence.

And then the door opening again, and Murchaud framed against the gold stone of the hallway. “Kit?” he asked, lifting his chin.

“Do–” Kit took up a breath, and his courage with it. “Dost love me?”

Murchaud considered the question, turning his answer over on his tongue. He dropped his eyes to his hand on the door handle, stepped back into the room, shut the door behind himself. Latched it, and leaned against the boards. “Can an elf be said to love?”

Kit nodded, his sore fingers knotted white on the bit of silk in his palm.

Murchaud did not leave the door. The air between them grew golden with the rising, indirect light. “Then as elves love, aye.”

Kit closed his eyes on the fear, closed his heart on Mehiel’s startled protest. “Wilt prove it?”

Mute, Murchaud nodded. Drew a breath and another, came one step toward Kit. “Anything.”

Kit gasped, and laughed. “Thou swearest.”

“Anything.I vow.”

And Kit felt his own heart break.

“It is not fair or just, what I will ask of thee,” he began, calm now that the die was cast. “I need thee to undo what was done.”

It was the kiss that broke Kit. Not the kisses on his mouth; he lay still, hands clenched into fists on the coverlet, through those. Murchaud lingered over them, a hand on either side of his head, all that black hair freed from its tail and tumbling down around Kit’s face, no contact between them except lips and tongue.