Chapter 10: Truce

We kept the practice room past our allotted time and only left when the studio manager came to us and told us the custodial staff wanted to go home so we better wrap up. Sy raised his eyes to me, fierce and dark and expectant. I felt the spark in my own gaze. I wasn't ready to say goodbye.

"There's a good pub around the corner," said Sy.

"What, do you know all the London pubs?" I laughed. I didn't know when I had gone from scowling at him to laughing with him, but here it was.

"More or less," he laughed right along with me. "The magic gives me a hand when I need it, of course. Or Google."

"The greatest magic of all," I giggled. "But yeah, a pint sounds great."

So we sat together in a booth in the pub that was reliably around the corner, as promised (either by Sy's gratuitous use of magic or his surreptitious use of Google). He ordered us strong IPAs—another favorite of mine, but I didn't ask how he knew. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the furtive barrage of phone cameras pointed our way—or rather, Sy's way. I caught his eye, and he rolled his, and we both went on pretending that nobody was staring at us. I wasn't worried. It was way too loud in here for anybody to hear what we were saying.

But then, silence crept in. What could we have to say to one another? The afterglow of the magic was so beautifully settled around us.

We'd been playing all day. Our fingers and throats were sore. We'd practiced together far more than was necessary to play one short set. We'd played for the sheer joy of existing together in the magic we wove between us. And my heart was aching to begin again. To keep going. To never, never stop.

I would never have expected this of myself. I was still half in disbelief. Still fighting off the shame I knew I should be feeling.

But the magic was real. True. My nerves felt as if they were glistening like the warm glow of lit windows on a cold evening: deliciously, goldenly, a cozy natural haven.

We'd woven something together, out of our two magics, our two natures. Somehow. Something. A magic undefined but glorious.

"I don't know what happened back there," said Sy, matching my thoughts as if by…magic. "We sing well together, don't we?"

"It was more than that." I was stating the obvious for the both of us. And I was seeing him differently too now—literally differently. Before today, before that wash of music and certainty, I had twinged away from him, from the very sense of his presence. But we'd seen each other—really seen each other—through the music. It was intimate. And it was true. I'd sensed him not as an oily, squeamish, antithetical magic, but as an expanse of night sky, flecked with brutally hard diamonds and the spill of constellations. A quiet, dark grandeur. I didn't want to ask what he'd seen in me. What he saw now. He hadn't called me 'princess' since we'd started playing. That cruel nickname was gone at least.

"What do you think it was?" Sy sounded genuinely curious. It was like a deva ju alternate universe from where we were back at that first pub, but instead of trading barbs we were somehow on the same wavelength.

"Magic," I said helplessly.

"No, but really."

"Really. I mean we know that's what it was generally—but what kind, I couldn't say. I think we might have made it, but not through a spell or a wish or anything as concrete as that. It's more…Ethereal, if that makes sense. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "I think I do. Unfortunately that doesn't really tell us much…"

"I mean," I shrugged, sipping timidly at my beer. "It tells us something's going right."

"What's wrong with you?" he asked suddenly. "Why are you being so damn nice to me all of a sudden?"

"Why are YOU being nice to ME?" I countered. "I notice you stopped calling me 'princess' too."

He scowled, but now I had a better sense of him, I recognized the scowl as more of the equivalent of a shrug too.

"Truce," he said, tentative.

"Truce," I agreed happily. "Listen, ah, we don't really actually know each other, do we?"

"I guess not, princess."

Now it was my turn to scowl. "Okay, a**hole. What's your favorite color?"

Sy snorted into his beer. "Are you joking?"

"No, I'm not. Mine's green."

"Fucking typical Seelie," he drained the last of his beer through a laugh. "Rolling hills and eternal springtime, am I right?"

"A few centuries of springtime might do wonders for your mood," I countered. "What's it like in the Unseelie realms? Constant winter?"

"They don't call it the land of shadow and waste for nothing," Sy grinned. "My favorite color's black, by the way."

"Typical," I rolled my eyes, laughing too.

Sy lifted a hand in a quick half-wave, and a heartbeat later there was a server standing beside our table, looking terrified and elated.

"Two double bourbons," he ordered. "Whatever's top shelf. You like bourbon?"

"What would mortal life be without good bourbon?"

It was incredibly easy to talk to him, and it only got easier on our second round of whiskey. The conversation got broad and slippery in its details as we both began feeling the effects. I have no idea how we ended up talking about superhero movies, but there we were, debating the merits of one major comics publishing house versus the other and who had the most useless superpower of all superheroes ever. We couldn't agree on anything: not our favorite movies, not our favorite music, not even favorite whiskey labels or favorite guitarists. And yet…It was perfect. It was a delight to clash with him, playfully, like two kids playing cops and robbers but not really caring who won.

"I know we don't have rehearsal scheduled again until the day of the show," he said, pronunciation sliding at the edges. "But what would you think of playing again tomorrow?"

"Yes, of course," I said too quickly. "I'd love to."

We grinned at each other, and I knew my grin looked just as sloppy and blankly happy as his did.