Chapter 25: Edges

eorge had returned with his full barbery kit, and was now standing behind Aix, having offered to cut the damaged bleached parts of Aix’s hair off, and Aix deciding why not, it was about time, and launching into a story about the only time he’d gotten a haircut he liked, when he’d just come out as a boy, at 19, and had brought a photo of Ronald Colman in A Tale of Two Cities to the hairdresser (who had been delighted to be handed a black and white photo from the Golden Age of Hollywood). When he finished, though, he went a little quiet, and started humming to himself.

René was sitting close beside Aix, and realised he recognised the tune Aix was humming.

‘I’m nervous about the straight razor,’ Aix said. ‘It’s just stuck in my head now—sorry, George.’

‘I have a very steady hand, sir,’ George said in that low murmur, the silvery, shivery sound of the scissors accompanying, the soft pull of the comb.

Aix loved having his hair cut, but he’d not often been able to find anyone who knew how to cut curls without yanking or ironing them straight, so he’d gone without haircuts for most of his adult life. It didn’t help that salons and barbershops were extremely gendered spaces, and Aix avoided those.

‘Mm, but George, you are from a time when people were used to straight razors being wielded other people on a daily basis. I’m not.’ Aix winced internally at how that probably sounded argumentative when really he was scared—but you couldn’t just say you were scared to people, Aix had learned that; they didn’t listen, in fact they usually got offended and scarier if you did.

‘That is understandable, sir, might I offer the comfort that I am also well-versed in how knives and other implements may be used in the boudoir, and the necessary precautions of checking your consent with every stroke?’

‘Oh that—that does help, yes. Making it—making it kink helps. Are you… okay with that?’

‘I’m—aware,’ Aix said, his pulse quickening, now that kink had been brought up; but he didn’t know, he never knew, how to address it, so he just said, ‘I used to be in service.’

‘Most in service these days are not aware,’ George said, and Aix noticed the dropped honorific immediately. Nothing else had changed, but nothing else needed to.

‘Most in service didn’t grow up on stories involving Downstairs, sir,’ Aix said, picking the honorific up.

Pippin, who had been happily sitting in René’s lap until now, suddenly perked up, her Flash brightening and turning violet, which was a colour she hadn’t done before. She got down and walked out of the bathroom, carefully picking around the locks of bleached hair on the floor.

‘Where you goin’, baby bean?’ Aix cooed, even though he couldn’t turn to watch her.

She beeped in affirmation, which was a little distant now that she was in the next room.

‘Cthulhu’s on his way from the library,’ Aix told René, who got up, tracing Pippin’s path out of the room—and quietly shutting the door behind himself.

George let the scissors be the only sound for some time, quietly not simply trimming away the damaged hair, but also shaping just slightly, so that it would look flattering while growing out—he had no doubt Aix would grow it out, witches and pretty boys ought to have long hair, and Aix was both.¹ It was a great insult that everyone had such short hair these days, given that fleas and lice were so very rare, and easy to keep away.

Well, soon, George would be able to touch that long and beautiful neck… and to have the Hunter submit to him was more than George could ever have dreamed, let alone submit to him while he had a razor in hand….² And, perhaps, perhaps he would be granted dominion over these curls, as he had them over so many others.

He set the scissors down on the sink counter, which was made of one solid piece of carefully-polished labradorite. The scissors gleamed, but Aix did not see them, he was not facing the counter, having asked to face away from any mirrors.

That was part of the reason that it was a relief to have his glasses off. It also made the fear less, made the world quieter—because his brain was quite happy to start ignoring most of the input from the eyes in favour of being able to devote more bandwidth to everything else, all of which worked much better than the eyes ever had.

When he heard the scissors get set down—distinctive noise, scissors, nothing else sounded like them—Aix swallowed, nervous as he never was with René, or Dmitri, or Victoria. None of them were his peers in quite the same way. George… was. But he was more properly educated, more practised, more skilled.

‘Tilt your head back, pet,’ George murmured, and Aix closed his eyes, doing so, knowing he was tense, and scared, and… he wasn’t sure he could do this.

George’s hands were just warm enough, as they carefully pulled Aix’s curls back from his face.

‘Good boy.’ George watched the tension relax a little, but not as much as he’d thought it might. Ah, but this was a divorcé, so that phrase was not untainted…. Gently, he moved his hands to Aix’s throat, just stroking it, tracing the curves gently with his fingers. ‘It’s all right, pet, you’re safe with me.’

‘I think we should keep going with “pet”, and not “boy”,’ Aix said softly. ‘Please, sir,’ he added, but not nervously.

Aix appreciated the reminder to check his politeness at the proverbial door. He thought for a few moments, decided that he was as ready as he could be. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good, sir,’ Aix said, and gave it some thought. ‘ “Boy” is still being decontaminated. “Sweetie” is right out, though you don’t seem the type.’

‘It is a very American endearment,’ George commented, as he clipped the strop to the hidden ring beneath the edge of the sink counter, fastidiously set the roll that contained the razors out on the counter above it and unfastened it, unfurled it, and turned on the hot water. There were towel-warmers, but George did not much like them; running water was quite enough technology for him, and the hot water here was both nigh-instant and nearly boiling, because vampires liked warmth and had no need to fear burning. Thankfully, Pippin seemed to not have any interest in faucets.

He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in, concentrating on Aix’s scent, and thinking on the soaps in their carefully-separated compartments in his barbery case. Which would go best with Aix’s scent? It was a unique scent, not quite female and not quite male either, something in between—which was challenging, given perfume was reliant on elements that differed between sexes.

Well, he’d noticed the state of Aix’s skin was dry and delicate, so perhaps the merrowmade whale soap that was scented only with the faintest ambergris, it was nourishing.

‘I have just used straight-up olive oil before, that seems to be the best thing,’ Aix said. ‘It’s a big production to put on all the time, even though I should.’

Ah, then the merrowmade soap was the best choice. George came back over to the chair, taking care to make his steps audible, and moved slowly. ‘I’m going to lather your face with a brush, pet, are you ready?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Aix was glad for the warning; he needed those, he startled easily when people touched his face.

The brush was soft, much softer than any of the ones Aix had ever used (he’d briefly flirted with traditional shaving methods, though he’d used a safety razor), and after the lather with the brush, Aix felt George’s fingers exploring the lines of his jaw and face gently.

‘Mm,’ Aix hummed, and lifted a hand, wobbling it. When George drew his hands away slightly, Aix answered, carefully. ‘Jaw didn’t grow. Was surgically fixed. Is okay now.’

George took the explanation without follow-up question or comment, which Aix realised he… really appreciated. There were times he was ready to joke about it and go into detail for an hour, and this was not one of those times. Instead, George’s hands carefully, gently continued pressing along the lines of Aix’s jaw a little more, probably making sure he knew the weird crooked lines of it, and then, just briefly, Aix felt the lightest of kisses on his forehead.

‘I’ll be back with a hot towel in a moment, pet. You’re being very good for me.’

Aix had to work hard not to wiggle in submissive delight, at that, before he felt Cthulhu’s voice in his mind.

Jasper taught me a little of human history last night, and stories from both sides of colonisation, to help me understand it better. I still do not, but it is a more comprehensive lack of understanding now. And there are so many languages in this world! I did not even realise what a language truly was, when you called me a linguist.

I’m so happy for you, beloved, and am eager to talk about this later; I need to concentrate on the physical right now, though. Remind me to tell you about my conversation with Morpheus.

Aix could feel Cthulhu’s eagerness, and it was sweet, but part of him missed the sort of alien and isolated feeling of their conversations before; still, he knew it was better this way. Cthulhu wasn’t a dream, didn’t solely belong to Aix, he was his own man and could do as he liked, and Aix wanted him to be happy.

He just sort of wished he’d actually been able to find Cthulhu in the mountain, rather than whatever had happened to make it so he’d met the Averays first. He’d wanted a quest. And it wasn’t fair, and all, but… Aix made sense of the world through stories, and this wasn’t really fitting into a story pattern yet, and so it was Upsetting.

The hot towel was very hot, but just hot enough, and soon, Aix heard the sound of the blade being drawn across the strop. He tried to breathe, tightened his grip on the arms of the chair. His brain, helpfully, started on the Sweeny Todd again.

These are my friends,
See how they glisten!
See this one shine!
How he smiles!
In the light!
My Friends!

Aix felt Cthulhu’s confusion at this, but he withdrew. Aix felt a little guilty—had that been too harsh?—but he hadn’t said anything untrue….

George took the towel away and set it aside, glad to see Aix’s eyes were still closed. They were large, doe-like eyes, sad and soulful, which was rather difficult for blue eyes to do, unless they were—like René’s and Aix’s—very dark, violet blue. Certainly, George’s blue eyes were far too pale to be anything but piercing.

Aix was very still, fearfully still, like a cornered rabbit. After the first stroke, he calmed down, and every subsequent one as well. George had a pattern, for new people—warning, stroke, praise. It usually worked very well, and Aix was no exception to the rule.

George spent most of his time inside Nepenthé, being of a temperament and profession that did not weather the modern world very well. He did, however, like certain advancements to things that helped this part of his profession—numbing agents and antiseptic, barbasol and borosilicate glass. The green and white bottle of numbing antiseptic, with its red spot, had been a new but steadfast replacement for his previous astringents. The aftershave was merely ritual and scent, after that—but for Aix, considering the dryness of his skin, George went for a bit of oil instead, to put moisture back in the skin.

And Aix was no longer frightened, and no longer even speaking—he was a chatty little bird, and so that George could have gotten him to the point of soft humming and intense arousal (and it was intense, scenting the air, mingling with all the other perfumes interestingly) said there had been a great success, perhaps even the revelation only submissives could attain during a session. Certainly, George felt the similarly trancelike counterpoint to that state.

‘We’re done now, pet,’ he murmured softly into Aix’s ear. ‘You were so very good. Can you come for me?’

This was a gamble; George never knew if someone was the type to be so affected, but he had gotten, over his relatively short (for a vampire) two centuries, very good at predicting such things.

It was difficult to tell when someone of Aix’s form actually did come, but you could, if you were paying attention. If you had a supernatural sense of smell.

René sat at the vanity, going over his colours of makeup and listening, watching Cthulhu in the mirror. He had picked up human mannerisms so quickly—things like pacing, which is what he was doing now, in front of the fire René had lit. In borrowed clothes (he had simply changed shape to fit into them), he looked very… not human, there was nothing human about his face, his head, his hands… but he was more tangible, perhaps, in the suit he was borrowing. It looked extremely fine on him, and also made his worry, his sadness, seem more understandable somehow.

I have been distracted. And he pushed me out. Does he tire of me? We have not connected since he freed me.

René, also, found himself seeing a side of Aix he had not before, through Cthulhu. It was his policy to listen, when he had little knowledge of the facts, and not to speak.

I know nothing of what has happened to him since then, and have been told something very frightening has happened, and I have seen the change in his mind. Is he different? Is he the same Aix? Humans are so changeable, it frightens me.

But I feel he does not miss me. I feel I have done him harm somehow, though I do not understand what I did.

…but. But, René had a feeling he knew what Cthulhu had done—or rather, what he hadn’t done. ‘You said what you did to harm him, just now,’ René said, gently. ‘You have not connected. This early, you must do that more often.’

Cthulhu stopped, looking at the fire for some time. The only sound was the crackle-dance of the flames, and the soft click as René set down containers of loose eyeshadow one by one, or the shuffle as he slid them between categorical groupings. He’d worked out all the neutrals, that was easy enough, but picking out what colours to adorn his new boy with, that was always difficult.

And they kept shifting, he wasn’t sure how until he saw a little tail reach up from under the desk and scoot a blue one back into the ‘yes’ group.

He leaned down to look under the vanity, to see Pippin there, her eyes gleaming in the shadow. She waved.

‘Non, Pierrette,’ René said softly, and beckoned her. ‘Viens ici, viens t’asseoir avec moi, si tu veux m’aider; mais,’ he said, softly, getting an idea, ‘je pense que ton frère aîné a besoin de ton aide. Il est tellement triste.’

She beeped, running out of her hiding place immediately, all concern, squeaking and beeping as she ran over to Cthulhu and jumped up and down until she caught his hand and his attention. René watched them speak in clownish mime to one another, and reflected it was nice to see Cthulhu learning such a language that so many humans already understood, and learning from a peer.

Aix floated dreamily out of the bathroom, a little while later, still wrapped in René’s robe—it looked well on him, René always liked to see his clothes on lovers—and looking even more statuesque. He went over to Cthulhu and wrapped around him in a hug.

René glanced at George as he lingered in the doorway, and smiled. ‘Your skill never ceases to amaze, George.’

Aix found Cthulhu clinging to him, and was happy enough to cling back, before he felt Cthulhu push softly at his mind. May I come in? Please.

Cthulhu gazed into Aix’s eyes, opening more to focus, his own swirling, and…

Aix paused, and then blinked. Oh right! Morpheus. He borrowed the memories of you so he could show the family. So they would understand you weren’t a god or claiming to be. It’s okay. He’ll bring them back.

That is what is wrong. That is why you have been distant. You don’t remember our bond at all, it isn’t there. How is this possible? It wasn’t possible, that was the terrifying thing; you couldn’t just take a memory like it was an object on a shelf. That wasn’t how the mind worked, that was only… metaphor that humans used. Metaphors weren’t real.

They are in the Dreamscape. They are to Morpheus. He’s the god of dreams, and I suppose that means he’s god of the mind, a bit. Have you learned about gods yet?

Jasper told me a little, but he said your gods were different than his, more… human. Cthulhu couldn’t shake his visceral horror, and Aix hugged him tighter, surprisingly seeming to understand, but remaining calm and not simply for Cthulhu’s sake. It didn’t bother him, he knew it was a terrifying concept but he trusted Morpheus, and that trust… somehow inoculated him from fear.

Aix giggled. ‘It is, yes. Goodness, we need to get going, too.’ He kissed one of Cthulhu’s tendrils. ‘I’ll remember when Morpheus comes back, don’t worry. He didn’t steal them.’

‘He does not strike me as the type,’ René said, though he had no idea what Aix was talking about, as Aix came over to sit down.

‘Isn’t Mr Gold going to be wondering where we are?’ Aix said, as he took off his glasses and René tucked them safely in a drawer, where they wouldn’t get anything on them.

‘Close your eyes,’ René said, and started to apply the foundation with a brush. ‘It is not so much time as it seems,’ he said. ‘We both woke early. Don’t stand in my light, chéri,’ he said gently, as Cthulhu came up behind him. Pippin beeped and pushed him to a different spot, before climbing up on his shoulder for a better vantage. She loved watching humans put on Faces. Clowns couldn’t really see a human’s face without a Face on, and it had to be a Proper Face, not subtle. She conveyed this to Cthulhu in her conversational sort of way, though to the humans it sounded like babble, she was speaking to him in their shared psionic language.

‘Oho, we have narration,’ Aix said, smiling. He loved the sound of clown-babble, and Pippin’s was especially cute—being small, she had of course a high little voice, but she used her voice in a throaty, almost husky way. A Stout voice, Aix would describe it; a sort of Determined undertone to everything she said.

René chuckled, sitting back and looking at the finished layer of foundation, seeing if and where any concealing or colour-toning was needed.

She is explaining what you are doing, but not why. She does not understand the question when I ask.

‘It’s fun,’ Aix said, ‘makeup is a fun toy for shapeshifting. Are you going to contour me, René?’

‘I’m a little worried about the veil getting makeup on it. Oh—can we go for kind of a 1780s vibe?’

‘Mais oui, if you like. And we can make you a veil that does not press on your face,’ René said, starting on the contour powder. ‘Do you have thoughts on eyeshadow colours?’

‘Something to make my eyes look violet? I don’t know what colour that would be.’

‘Oh, baby, I can’t wear blue eyeshadow with blue eyes, that would wash them out,’ Aix said, between René’s sweeps of colour to the edges of his face.

‘I have blue paillettes,’ René said, as always avoiding the English word, because he absolutely mangled it when he tried to pronounce it. ‘We can perhaps tack one on as la mouche.’

Aix didn’t know what a paillette was, but it was fun to turn the word over in his mind, and try and suss it out, as he felt the soft brushes on his face, smelled the soft scent of the makeup.

‘I am not going to shape your brows just today, chou-chou, but they hardly need it,’ René said, as he finished up with all the contouring and blush. He wanted to use the whimsically-named ‘unicorn’ highlight, which meant it would be saved for last. He sat back, tilting Aix’s face this way and that, both admiring his handiwork and seeing where he needed to make something symmetrical, or how the colours were sitting. ‘Have you preferences for colour?’

‘I’m bisexual and submissive and you want me to make decisions?’ Aix joked, and René chuckled.

‘Honestly I just want to be pretty and I don’t know what colours would do that,’ Aix said, as René started on shading his eyes.

‘Then do not worry, chou-chou,’ René assured him, starting to gently brush colour into Aix’s brows. ‘Domine knows what would flatter you.’

Aix felt warm and tingly, at that. The soft kiss and gentle scrape of the various brushes was so soothing, and gave him sparkly tingles all down his scalp and neck and shoulders.

What René is doing to your face. It is a story, is it not? It begins with one thing and that thing changes to something else by the end.

…Oh, darling, that’s poetry. Aix said, and Cthulhu felt a rush of emotions there, an admiration, surprise, pleasure. Aix adored poetry, and it was something he saw as very attractive, and very loving. It’s one of the ways humans shapeshift, but I like your description much better.

‘Can you do your own eyeliner, tesoro?’ René asked, unaware of the conversation going on. Aix blinked, and nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, that’s the one thing I do well. Do you have something sanitary, because I do my waterline.’

René turned back to the vanity table, looking through the drawers until he found a clean and empty brass container for kohl. He had many of them, collected over the years; they were a common trinket that he had once used to hold medicines, since they were so much sturdier than glass or porcelain jars. ‘I have this, you can keep it,’ he said, opening it and waiting as Aix wiped the applicator with one of the alcohol wipes and then paused.

‘A particular soot from Faerie that mimics the antiseptic properties of lead and antimony without the deleterious poisoning, and a bit of coconut fat. It is,’ he said, with a little smile Aix couldn’t see, but could hear, ‘much safer than anything in a human shop.’ He paused, just a hair of a second, and then made his voice low and purring. ‘I took an oath, tesoro, I am a doctor, after all.’

It was a calculated risk, and yet—Aix shivered, bit his lip, practically purred at the reminder, his generous thighs pressing together again. But he didn’t say anything, and René didn’t push further, enjoying the buzz of pleasure from just that little bit of his favourite sexual game. Learning how to push someone’s buttons, to give them that particular pleasure, had always been better than even the finest liquor—particularly when it was a kink René had never played with, before.

Watching Aix put on kohl was one of those little actions that had remained the very same for thousands of years, and it was always comforting to an old soul like René to see something like that, a small reminder that no matter how the trappings changed, humans were humans still.

And his blue eyes looked so beautiful surrounded by black. It made René hungry for him. He knew, in that moment, what he wanted to do with the eyeshadow, and augmented those bedroom eyes in a way that everyone in the early days of cinema wanted, making them look bigger, darker, fresh-fucked and sensuous. It would be such a shame to cover them with spectacles, but René considered it a challenge, and made them look bigger, as though they weren’t big and doll-like already, because of how the spectacles would affect them; but in contrast, the brows Aix had been given were arch and villainous. It made the whole effect that of a sultry homme fatale rather than an ingénu.

Pippin saw what René was doing—she remembered when makeup looked like this—well, when it was supposed to look like this, anyway. Makeup had not been so very good back then. Now, humans had better Mask than clowns themselves.

‘Bientôt, petite,’ René said in reply to Pippin’s fussy little noises, as he lined Aix’s lips in dark red. ‘Bientôt.’

I’m impatient too, babybean, but it’s important I let people take care of me. I haven’t in so long that there’s a lot to do. Aix said, trying to be gentle, and share with Pippin how excited and worried he was to get going as well. He didn’t know what time it was, and he didn’t want to keep Amber waiting.

Pippin jumped from Cthulhu’s shoulder to the tête-à-tête, and hopped from there to a chair, then the closed escritoire.

‘Pierrette!’ René said, firmly but not sharply, pulling the brush away from Aix’s mouth to look at her.

‘She’s looking for a clock—babysweetheart, come here sugar. Come on, stringbean—there, we go, come sit with Duckie,’ he said, lifting Pippin up to sit on his lap as she came over at his beckon. ‘I just need my mouth put on, and then powder, and then I get my clothes on and we go see little brother, okay? I can’t smile at anybody without my mouth on, can I?’

‘Okay, I know it’s hard to wait. You’re being very good. Putting face on takes a long time, and we’re almost done.’ He skritched her ruff as he spoke. ‘You wanna help with powder?’

‘Okay, well just let René finish painting my mouth on, and then he’ll show you how to do powder puff, okay?’

René was put in mind of Simon, and smitten all over again in the same way. They were of similar cloth, René thought, as he went back to painting Aix’s mouth with dark red. He didn’t even need to falsify the shape, because Aix’s mouth simply was a Cupid’s Bow on its own.

But if René kissed him, and smudged the lipstick, then he’d smudge everything else, and they’d end up fucking on the floor, and they had things to do today.

René finished with filling in those unfair lips, and gave Aix a tissue to blot with, and Pippin climbed into his lap while he was putting aside his brushes. ‘Ah, chere petite miette,’ he cooed at Pippin, petting her and taking out the down powderpuff, opening the jar. It was no longer the old style of powder, because newer formulations were so, so much better. Pippin reached for the puff, but René held it away from her little hands. ‘Laisse-moi te montrer comment, cherie.’

Pippin put her hands down with a beep, and Aix closed his eyes and mouth, and held his breath. René was soft, touching the puff to his face rather than even tapping it, and it was less scary that way. Aix felt Pippin shift on his lap, heard René say something that Aix vaguely understood as telling her to take the puff, and try it, and Aix felt the puff again, a little less graceful, but no less gentle.

Aix felt shivery as René swept it over his face, and pressed his thighs together as he felt the brush swirl over his bare neck, his bare shoulders…

He really wished they were alone, suddenly; but if they had been, Aix wasn’t sure they would have gotten out of the door at all.

‘All done!’ Aix agreed, smiling at her. ‘Good job being patient, Pippin!’ And good job me too, Aix thought to himself.

Getting dressed was much faster, and after Aix had put on the underscarf, tied on the niqab, and was wrapping the hijab over it to hide the knot, he vaguely saw, through the black chiffon of the veil, René come over.

‘Oh—’ Aix let fall his hands. ‘Yeah, I can’t see very well through the veil, indoors.’

René arranged the thin black jersey, and pulled the veil back over Aix’s head, revealing his pretty eyes, bare of their spectacles for the moment, and carefully folded and gathered the fabric, pinning it in a more artful shape.

‘Oh wow, that’s gorgeous. Thank you, René.’ Aix said, when he saw it in the mirror. He happened to catch sight of Cthulhu, and realised with a start he hadn’t noticed him for the past… while. ‘Cthulhu? Why are you so quiet?’

You aren’t yourself, I am… unsettled, as much by that as your lack of concern over it.

‘Withdrawing and not making new memories with me isn’t going to help, sweetheart. And maybe you can share with me your version of that memory?’ Aix didn’t like the feeling that he was withdrawing, that he felt like a stranger. That was weird, but a sinking feeling in the back of his mind said it was also because the reality of knowing him was Too Much, that he was somehow disappointing, or that… because he knew a lot of people, wasn’t isolated and alone, that meant he wasn’t wanted anymore. He tried to share all of this, reaching out to a connection that was sort of not there.

I… I miss you. But you are different, in the Mindscape. You are different than you were.

You set loose a ripple effect, Cthulhu. You changed my life. You’re the reason I met all these people. And I’m grateful, by the way. I’m happier.

‘Because you’re blaming me for protecting you!’ Aix snapped, and immediately felt terrified. René paused.

‘What is going on? May I be included in this conversation, please? You’re both distressed.’

‘I had to give Morpheus a memory or two, and now I don’t remember those memories I gave him, and apparently that plus the fact that I’m moving has changed me beyond all recognition and that’s “unsettling”. And that hurts!’ he flung it like a weapon at Cthulhu, folding his arms where he sat in his wheelchair. ‘You’ve been ignoring me for this whole time because books are more interesting than me, a person, and now that you deign to notice me again I’m the fucking problem? You. Weren’t. Here. Maybe I wouldn’t seem so different if you hadn’t left me alone!’

Several colours and patterns rippled over Cthulhu’s skin in succession, for a few moments. Pippin squeaked, distressed, looking between them, tail switching back and forth, unsure which of them to go comfort. She went over to Aix when she noticed his thoughts were crying, and climbed gently onto his lap, letting him hug her as she purred as loud as she could.

‘Aix,’ René said, gently, knowing a person in high dudgeon didn’t take suggestions well; but René had authority over Aix, authority he had been given. ‘Go upstairs and tell Cammie to bring the car around.’

Aix nearly snapped, and René expected him to—but he visibly calmed, sinking into a softer mindset. ‘Yes, Domine,’ he said quietly, and left the room, Pippin still on his lap, clinging to one lapel of his waistcoat.

He went a little ways down the hall, toward the elevator, before stopping, putting the brakes on and just sitting there, holding Pippin, who touched his cheeks softly with her little fingers, tracing the paths of tears.

Oh, sweetheart, I can’t cry anymore when I need to, somebody hit me for it when I was little and broke it. He tried not to share the memory, but Pippin saw it anyway, and hugged him. For the first time, she shed her mask of being Small Babie and was a little more honest about how old and wise she really was, putting her hands on Aix’s cheeks and looking at him deeply with her big seal-eyes.

Aix cried, finally, and held her, and felt better. He didn’t know what she’d done, exactly, but he was grateful. Crying usually only happened when he was being bullied, now, and tears would get him hurt more; rather than when he was sad and in pain and could have felt relief from it.

Aix didn’t recognise the voice, but already tried to ‘calm down’, Pippin petting his face and doing… something to make him able to ignore that panic, and keep the tears flowing. Pierrot Magic, Aix decided. ‘Yeah? Who is it?’ he said, taking his glasses off and setting them carefully on Pippin’s lap.

‘It’s Cammie. Are you… you’re not okay, obviously, but… can I help?’

‘Huggins,’ Pippin said, peering over Aix’s shoulder at Cameron, who circled wide around Aix (it was a wide hallway) and knelt down to hug him, Pippin between them.

‘Hey,’ Cameron said softly. ‘You want to hang out in my room? It’s just this door right here, next to René’s room.’

‘I’m supposed to tell you to bring the car around,’ Aix said, sniffling. ‘I wanna get going—oh god, is my makeup ruined?’

‘No,’ Cameron said, getting out a tissue and gently drying the tears. ‘You’re fine, it’s faerie makeup, theirs is breakup-proof.’ He paused. ‘Oh no, you didn’t breakup with Cthulhu, did you? I mean, he deserved it if you did, but—’

Aix gave a watery, half-hysterical laugh, at that. ‘I don’t know. Let’s get in the car, I just wanna go get my kitten and look at houses.’

Aix nodded, sniffling, and Cameron got behind him, pulling the handle from the back of the wheelchair and pushing him down the hall.

The Car turned out to be, to Aix’s utter delight, a vintage limousine, painted dark Prussian blue. He gasped as Cameron turned on the lightswitch and revealed the vintage curves gleaming in the dim lights the garage normally had were,

‘1938 Packard twelve, though the interior is was re-done in the eighties,’ Cameron said, opening the back door and the trunk, which was nowhere near big enough for even a corpse, let alone the wheelchair.

But then Cameron folded down the back seat, which made room. That was definitely a modification, Aix could tell—but masterfully done, and the interior was seamless, as though the back seat had never existed at all, when Cameron was done. Aix whistled, impressed.

‘That is my Boy Thing That I Like, yes,’ Aix said, holding Pippin to his body as he flipped the footrests up and got out of the chair. ‘My dad was a Car Guy, and California is full of vintage car culture.’ Pippin wiggled to get down, and he looked at her. ‘Stay close, darlin, we’re gonna go soon.’

Pippin beeped her affirmative, and he set her down. She went over to Cameron for a hug immediately, her Flash lighting up red and amber and white—the colour of a car’s Flash—while Aix walked around the car to admire it.

‘She’s armour-plated, with bulletproof tinted windows,’ Cameron said, used to the car’s details by now, and enjoying them. He’d never thought of himself as into cars, until coming to René and slowly becoming, among other things, one of the drivers and mechanics, learning from the last one, Edgar, before Edgar had passed on. It had given him something else to fall back on, for when he retired from dancing full-time (something he’d done a year and a half ago, when he’d turned twenty-eight). ‘The seats have hand-tied springs—that’s original, we just had the springs cleaned and re-tied in the eighties—with wool and horsehair stuffing and velvet with leather piping, and wool carpet.’

‘Wow,’ Aix said, letting Cameron help him inside, Pippin following, climbing up and into the car herself, her Flash shining on the wood and the blue of the textiles inside.

‘Lu!’ she said happily, climbing up on the seat beside Aix. ‘Lu! Lu!’ She wiggled, her Flash turning blue.

‘You like blue, huh? Is that your favourite?’ Aix asked. She nodded, beeping. Cameron leaned down to look into the door.

‘I’ll get the chair inside—I think it’ll fit just fine—and then I gotta leave you for a minute to get some rope or something to tie it down, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Aix said, utterly confident that this parking garage wasn’t a danger to be in alone. It wasn’t a public one, after all. Still, his brain suddenly jolted with terror as Cameron closed the door. He leaned over and opened the door again, pushing it wide. ‘Hey uh, I’m gonna leave this open, okay? Can you leave the lights on?’

Cameron came back. ‘Oh yeah, sure. You wanna come with me? I’m just gonna be a few yards away at a little cabinet.’ He pointed to a metal cabinet that Aix could see from the doorway.

‘Sure,’ Cameron said, in a tone that said clearly he understood what Aix was suddenly nervy about. He gave Aix a hand in getting down to sit on the edge of the car, his legs out the open suicide door. Pippin stayed with Aix, humming softly and playing with his hair, which helped him feel better.

‘I’m so glad the chair fits, though,’ Cameron said, as he opened the cabinet. ‘There’s a few loops I can flip out that I can use to secure it, but we don’t use bungee cord on the Packard.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Aix said, understanding this immediately. Bungee cords were rough creatures, really for use with rougher vehicles, like trucks. Not like this… this limousine. ‘Does the car have a name?’

‘You can name her,’ Cameron said, shutting the cabinet, a coil of black rope hanging off his arm. ‘I bet Domine would let you,’ he said with a mischievous smile, going back around to the open trunk—hatchback, really, Aix thought, and they must have modified it to do that, for whatever reason—and starting to mess about with the rope.

‘Ooh,’ Aix said, privately agreeing—he had a strange ability to name things, so that even if the person hated him and the name, the name stuck anyway. He’d named all the pets his family had when he was a child, which had infuriated his little sister to no end. ‘I’ll have to get to know her, first.’

‘Where’s your kitten?’ Cameron asked, after he finished tying off the last knot. Aix realised he didn’t know, and dug around in his purse for his phone, sending Amber a message to that effect. She sent back an address, and Aix read it out to Cameron.

‘Oh, that’s not far. We’ll be there in… maybe half an hour if the traffic is truly horrendous.’

① And it was something of a relief to finally know he was a boy—George, like many immortals from bigendered cultures, had a very hard time understanding what ‘non-binary’ meant on a practical level, in terms of how the person wanted to be treated. And modern people did not understand the idea that there were no instructions for how to address and interact with someone that didn’t have a rôle, when ‘rôle’ was very much the important part of ‘gender rôle’, to people like George.

② Being the butler, George had borne more of the Heeren’s frustration than most, as he was the face to the ‘no’ she often got when trying to barge in at all hours, particularly when the Master was busy. Aix was nothing like her, but the idea of turning the tables was still rather gratifying.

Chapter 25

Edges

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