Another few moments and he began to feel his feet impacting a floor. The space ahead resolved into a small room, wood-paneled and lit by thin daylight through a pair of windows. He stepped into the room, the floor underfoot now scuffed wooden boards with a thin rug he tripped over as it slid. The space had seemed empty when he entered but he heard an intake of breath behind him. He grabbed for the back of a chair, only to have his hand go right through the rail, and turned, staggering. “Silas! There you are.”
Standing behind him, Silas cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Who are you?” But before Darien could answer, Silas’s attention drifted away and he gazed blankly out the windows.
“Hey!” Darien reached for him but remembered the chair and stopped short of making contact. “It’s me. Darien.”
Silas didn’t respond. As the pale light played over Silas’s face, Darien realized he looked different. Not like the thirty-one-year-old powerful necromancer, but younger, thinner, softer… or maybe just less sure of himself. His skin was smooth and taut, not in the unnatural way of Silas-on-the-floor, but like a very young man before life has had a chance to mark him. His dark hair was cropped very short, and no hint of stubble darkened his jaw.
“Silas, can you hear me?” Darien got up close and spoke loudly. “Look at me.”
Silas blinked three times and then turned his head. “You’re very rude. Who are you?”
“I’m Darien,” he said fast, before Silas’s gaze could lose focus. “Your lover.”
“My what?” The expression on Silas’s face sharpened. “Is this some kind of joke? A test? Master Coldwell knows me better than that.”
“Better than what?”
“Than to suggest I’m… that I want… Get away from me! I won’t tell you anything!” Silas pivoted toward the nearest window and leaped at it, diving toward the glass.
Darien’s scream of “No!” and grab for Silas came up short. Silas passed through the windowpane… which didn’t shatter. He was just gone, the glass shining there intact, lit by faint sunshine.
“Shit! Fuck!” Darien slammed up against the windowsill and looked out. Beyond the glass was… nothingness. A brighter mist seemed to drop away at his feet to unfathomable depths. There was no sign of Silas, no dead body on the rocks, no flying necromancer. “Silas! Damn it.”
Now what? Darien stared into the void, his heart hammering.
Follow Silas. Find him. Bring him back. If Silas hadn’t broken the glass, he wasn’t dead, just gone. Somewhere. Darien stepped back a foot and closed his eyes. “Here goes nothing.”
It’s not a real window. That’s not a real drop below it. Lids screwed shut, he threw himself forward. Where he should’ve hit the windowsill, he felt nothing but air. He staggered and his feet found solid ground. After two stumbling steps, he opened his eyes. He was in the dark again, but there ahead was a softly-lit room and a tall, lean figure.
Déjà vu all over again. He walked forward slowly, giving his breathing time to steady. The room looked the same— wood-paneled, two pale windows. Young Silas pivoted as Darien approached. “Why are you following me?”
Because I love you, you son of a bitch. Because you need me. Because we all need you, and it hurts to see you trapped here. “To bring you home.”
“I am home.” Silas waved at the paneling. “As much as anywhere.”
“This isn’t real. Home is a hell of a lot better than this and you live there with me.”
“I’m an apprentice. I live with my master. He commanded me to wait… Who did you say you are again?”
Silas’s unrecognizing stare made Darien’s chest ache but he said steadily, “I’m Darien. I lived next door to you when we were kids.”
“Darien’s a child. You’re a man.”
“Fucking right I am. And you’re thirty-one and a respected necromancer. And stuck inside your head.”
“I…” Silas’s attention began to slide away.
“Look at me.” Darien grabbed Silas’s arm, unbelievably relieved to feel solid flesh under his hand.
Silas yanked free, but his attention had returned. “How dare you touch me!”
“Touch you?” Darien didn’t know how to shake Silas loose of this place, but maybe shock would help. “Hell, I’ve fucked you. And you liked it. I’ve put you on your knees and had my cock down your throat.”
“Nonsense.” Color rose in Silas’s face, making him look less ethereal. “That’s—”
“Hot? Sexy? True?”
“I was going to say libel. Slander. Disgusting.” An odd look came over Silas’s face.
“You didn’t call it disgusting when you were chanting my name as you came.” Something forlorn in Silas’s eyes made Darien want to soften that. “When I was calling yours. We’re lovers. In love. Partners. You and me. With Grim and Pip cheering us on. Although not in the bedroom, thank god.”
Silas blinked slowly. “Grim? That name sounds familiar.”
“Familiar. Exactly. Your familiar.”
“I don’t have a familiar. Coldwell said… He told me to wait. He’s dying.” Silas sounded sad and tired. “The Healers can’t help him anymore. His body doesn’t have the strength. But he’s still teaching me, giving me everything he has.”
“I’m sorry. Although in the real world, Coldwell’s been dead for ten years.”
“Real world. Isn’t this real?” Silas looked around, his gaze sharper. “This is my master’s house.”
“You live in a decaying mansion left to you by Norlington.”
“Norlington’s mansion?”
“With a world gate in the basement. Or there was. Who knows, now that we cut it in half.”
“We cut…” Silas swallowed. “Is Norlington dead too? I just saw him. He and Master Coldwell were arguing.”
“About what?”
“About a gate, funnily enough. About how to tap the energy of the Veil to power it, how to drive it through the Veil and out to the other side. There’s a special twist to the necromantic process you have to use to grab that power and use it—” Silas put a finger to his lips. “Shh. The gate’s a secret. Mustn’t tell anyone about it. I have to wait in the dark until it’s safe to tell someone.”
“Safe?” Darien rubbed a hand across his mouth. “Si, we all know. You and me and Jasper and Mrs. Vaughn and Magda and Grim and Pip, and Lyyll, and Xsing, and half of the known universe, probably, at least among familiars.”
“I didn’t tell.” Silas glanced around the space, eyes wide.
“No, we found it, in the cellar of the mansion. The rats led us to it.”
Silas’s eyes widened. “There are rats who also know?”
“Well, yeah. They were using it to get to an unending food source. Until we cut the gate, which probably broke it. Ooh, y’know, when we get home there are going to be some pissed off rats in your house.”
“Grim will handle them.” Silas reared his head back. “Grim. My familiar. I have a familiar.”