Oskar von Reuenthal Was Born Innocent

November 486 I.C., Iserlohn Fortress

The news came in late November, catching Reuenthal completely off guard. He opened up his messages one evening and found a letter from a non-government address, with a name that he didn’t recognize. The subject line read, “Condolences; the estate of Peter von Reuenthal.” That being his father’s name, Reuenthal’s breath froze in his throat, and he opened the message, which turned out to be from his father’s lawyer.

It was almost what he had expected. His father had died. This was unsurprising; it seemed only natural that he would drink himself to death one day.

The thing that made him clench his hands into white knuckled fists was the second part of the message, which said that Reuenthal had inherited everything that there was to inherit.

He didn’t want it. Not the money that was listed there in the message, not the investments that his father had made, not the house, not the land it sat on. He didn’t want any of it, and he had thought— by virtue of his father striking him from the family record almost a decade ago— that he would be free of it. He hadn’t given much thought to what would become of the property if his father failed to assign an heir (though the mental image of it crumbling into dust sometimes flashed through his head, when he remembered it,) and he had taken as much pride as he could in making his way in the world without any hope of an inheritance to fall back on.

He was tempted to ignore the message completely, to pretend as though it did not exist, and to let the property sink into ruin, but that was a petty and stupid urge, which he rejected out of hand. As with every other thing his parents had given to him, it was his burden to bear, and he would bear it. So, as soon as he finished reading it, he composed a letter to fleet leadership, requesting enough leave to deal with his father’s estate.

When that was done, he went over to his small liquor cabinet in his rooms on the Ostberlin , retrieved a bottle and a glass, and sat down on his couch to drink, staring off into space. He couldn’t help but think of his father, remembering most clearly— for whatever reason— the many times they had visited his mother’s grave. Dewy grass beneath their feet, staring down at the blank white slab.

He was well into his fourth drink when his phone showed him a text alert from Mittermeyer.

> are you coming to the bar?

> busy?

It took less than ten minutes after that for Mittermeyer to make his way onto the Ostberlin and directly to Reuenthal’s quarters. Reuenthal’s staff were familiar with Mittermeyer’s comings and goings, so there would have been no one who would have stopped him en route. He knocked on the door to Reuenthal’s chambers, once, then twice when Reuenthal didn’t immediately get up to answer the door.

Reuenthal finally stood, a weariness in his limbs that he didn’t recognize and seemed to come from nowhere, and let Mittermeyer in.

Mittermeyer didn’t seem to know what to say, so Reuenthal spoke as he walked away from the door, back to the couch, and poured Mittermeyer a drink as well.

“I put in a leave request to deal with his estate,” he said. “I’ll probably be gone all December, and be back around New Year’s. I have no reason to think my request will be denied.” The words felt heavy and dull in his mouth, in a way that he couldn’t quite chalk up to the drink in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Oskar,” Mittermeyer said finally.

“Don’t be.” Reuenthal sat back down, not looking at Mittermeyer.

The substance of what Reuenthal said finally hit Mittermeyer, and he said, “You have to deal with his estate? I thought you had been disowned.”

“He changed his mind a few months ago, according to his lawyer. You can read the message if you like.”

“No, no,” Mittermeyer said. “Did you know he did that?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “If he had told me, I would have told him to find someone else to give it to.”

Reuenthal suddenly remembered something, and he stood up and walked over to his desk, rifling through the drawers to find his checkbook. He pulled it out, then neatly filled out the top check for several thousand marks. He ripped it off and held it out to Mittermeyer. “You can be the first beneficiary of it. Here’s what I owe you for your car.”

Mittermeyer took the check, but frowned. “I told you that the insurance covered the value of it.”

Reuenthal pursed his lips, but Mittermeyer didn’t argue, merely tucking the check into his pocket. He sat back down on the couch, took his drink back in hand, and kicked his legs up on the coffee table in front of him— hoping that a pretense of nonchalance would grant him some in reality. It didn’t, and he could tell that Mittermeyer didn’t think he was relaxed, from the way that he didn’t sit down.

“Are you going to hold a funeral?” Mittermeyer asked.

“He was a man who was known to few people, and hated by those few, so I don’t know who you think would come,” Reuenthal said. “He wasn’t even particularly religious. I’ll bury him. That’s all.”

“Yang would come,” Mittermeyer pointed out. “And if you wait until I have leave later this month, I would.”

“I don’t want anyone to come,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t need assistance, or sympathy, or pity, or anything else. I need a month of leave, to put the estate in order. That’s all.”

“I know,” Mittermeyer said. Reuenthal finished his drink, and Mittermeyer walked over and poured him another, taking the glass from Reuenthal’s hand. He still didn’t sit down.

“Will you sit?” Reuenthal asked, suddenly annoyed.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to say something that will piss you off enough that you kick me out,” Mittermeyer said dryly. “I was just trying not to get too comfortable.”

Reuenthal scowled. “I should for that.” He pulled his feet off the coffee table and crossed his arms.

Mittermeyer sat next to him on the couch. “You should tell Yang you’re coming back.”

“I don’t need Leigh to babysit me.” Whatever emotion Reuenthal was feeling, it came out in that snap of his voice, the callousness directed at Yang, who wasn’t even there and wouldn’t have deserved it even if he was.

Mittermeyer raised his eyebrows at the change in address. “He’s Leigh when you’re angry, is he?”

“He’s Leigh because that’s his name,” Reuenthal said. “I’m not angry.”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. He took a sip of his drink.

“I don’t know what you think telling him would do.”

“He’d want to see you, for one thing,” Mittermeyer said. “I think he has a lot to talk to you about that he wouldn’t tell me when I saw him.”

The political matter of Braunschweig felt distant and immaterial. “Fine,” Reuenthal said.

He finished his drink and poured himself another. Mittermeyer just watched, saying nothing. Mittermeyer wasn’t wrong that Reuenthal, with his churning, unidentifiable emotions, wouldn’t hesitate to kick him out at the slightest provocation, and they would both be the worse for it in the morning. Even drunk, Reuenthal could recognize his own worst impulses; he just couldn’t stop himself from acting upon them in the heat of the moment. Mittermeyer sitting there silently was prudent, even if Reuenthal wanted an excuse to yell, wanted to quarrel with Mittermeyer just to have something concrete in his hands.

“You remember that time we were on Kapche-Lanka?” Reuenthal asked, after a long, long period of silence.

“Of course.”

Reuenthal just nodded. He couldn’t explain any further, and had to hope that Mittermeyer understood. Thinking about his father always made him feel like his skin was too tight, like he needed something to shatter it off of himself to finally be free. But he knew that he couldn’t goad Mittermeyer into punching him, not tonight, anyway. He didn’t even know if that was what he truly wanted— he knew he shouldn’t want it— but there was this sensation of pressure behind his eyes, an impulse that said the only way to free himself was to crash into something with great force, full body: a train, his face into a wall, a fist. It didn’t matter what. His body hungered for the pressure, a release valve for whatever thought he couldn’t put a name to.

He drank, instead.

December 486 I.C., Odin

Reuenthal didn’t keep an apartment on Odin, now that he was assigned to Iserlohn most of the time. His few possessions were kept in a storage locker in the capital. This included his winter clothing, since he had no need for it in the weatherless space fortress.

This meant that when the taxi dropped him off in front of his father’s house in the dark December night, he was struck immediately by blasts of icy wind that his uniform did nothing to protect him against. The house was pitch black, and the moon was partially obscured by fat clouds that scuttled through the sky, sending shifting shadows across the crisp snow on the ground, hardened into a thick layer of ice. Reuenthal stomped across it, feet leaving craters and sending snow into his own shoes.

The front door was locked, but Reuenthal walked around the side door that let into the kitchen, and felt around with numb fingers underneath the window ledge, finding the spare key that he himself had taped there, probably seventeen years ago. Protected as it was from the worst of the elements, the tape hadn’t given up its strength in the decade that Reuenthal had been gone. He unwrapped it enough that he could stick it in the door, shivering and fumbling blindly until he felt the key slide in place and the lock twist open. The door stuck; he slammed it with his shoulder until it popped open, sending him and the snow spilling inside the kitchen, even darker than the outside world had been. But at least it wasn’t as cold; someone had remembered to leave the heat on enough that the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and he heard the sink dripping.

But when he closed the outside door and leaned against it for a moment before searching for the lightswitch, it was the smell that assured him that he was home. He had been wondering if he would be left with the lingering scent of decay— his father had been dead nearly a week before the cleaning lady found him, according to the coroner’s report— but there was nothing but the smell of the house. It was dry rot, he thought, the pine wood of the house crumbling; paper and dusty fabric; a distant tobacco undertone from his father’s rare cigar; old spices; the metallic scent of water coming up through the pipes. It was exactly as he remembered it, though he wouldn’t have said he remembered it before he was reminded.

Strange, how this kind of thing could be so powerful, could persist in this place and in the depths of his memory, as though there was nothing more pressing to crowd it out.

He took off his shoes at the door and decided against turning on the light. The house was familiar to him, and he fell into his old patterns of moving through it. It was just like he was creeping home again after going out to visit the Mariendorfs. He was opening the fridge to see if there was any food. He stole a beer, the only thing on the bottom shelf of the fridge. It wasn’t as though his father would miss it now.

He held it in hand as he went upstairs, feeling his way up with his hand on the wall, keeping to the edge of the stairs where they creaked less. He was a ghost in his own home.

His childhood room was at the end of the hall, door shut. The knob was still broken, but it was so easy to jimmy it, wiggle it sideways just a little so that he could get in.

Nothing had been touched. His room was exactly as he had left it when he had packed up after the winter break of his senior year at the IOA. There was a layer of dust over everything, and when he flipped on the overhead light only one of the bulbs worked, but other than that, it was unchanged. He stepped inside, crossing the threshold, and closed the door behind him.

There were his old swim medals pinned up on the wall above his bed. There was the IOA class photo of all the top students arranged in a neat pack— the one photograph he had allowed himself to hang of Yang, since it was less personal. They stood next to each other in the photo, one and two, and Reuenthal could just make out his own serious expression contrasted with Yang’s genuine, if uncomfortable, smile. He hardly looked any different from the other students in a photograph this distant and grainy.

Reuenthal sat down on the bed, which creaked underneath him and sent a puff of dust up from the neatly made bedspread. The room seemed smaller than he remembered it, though that couldn’t have been true considering how much time he had spent in the tiny cramped cabins for junior officers in ships. He thought it was probably even larger than his senior dorm room at the IOA had been, though perhaps he was misremembering that, as well.

A careful numbness settled over him, a practiced emotion, where he could think about things without letting his thoughts run wild. Tomorrow, he would need to start cleaning. He should get rid of his father’s things, sort the important paperwork that had been neglected in drawers, make sure that there weren’t any parts of the house that were falling down. He needed to arrange his father’s burial. The body was currently being held in the morgue.

He cracked open the beer and sipped it. It was the kind that his father liked, some cheap local variety. He would have never picked it for himself, but it was just another thing that felt natural in this house.

His thoughts slid away. What would he do with his father’s things? His clothing? No charity shop would want them, certainly. He needed to find an outfit to bury his father in.

Unbidden, he had an image of tossing his father’s clothes in the fireplace downstairs. Shirts, jackets, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole thing up in flames, spilling out onto the floor, rippling towards him, and then up the walls, the whole house a pillar of fire. He lingered on this image, imagining himself immaterial and untouchable as he wandered through the house. Everywhere his mental gaze turned, new flames leapt up, licking the curtains and the paintings on the walls, racing up the stairwell, consuming the books in the library, bursting the wine bottles in the cellar, moving like a tidal wave across the wood floors and roaring over the master bedroom, until the ceiling itself crumbled and the house collapsed.

He was staring into space, thinking about this, when his phone rang. The buzzing in his pocket made him jump, now on edge, and he let it ring for a good twenty seconds before he could get his hand to grab it and answer.

“Reuenthal!” It was Yang on the other end. “Mittermeyer told me you were back in the capital.”

“Did he?” Reuenthal asked, mouth dry suddenly.

“Yeah, he said you left Iserlohn a couple days ago and were supposed to be here— I guess you are— where are you?” Yang’s voice was pleased, which could only mean that he had no idea why Reuenthal was on the planet— if he had known, Reuenthal didn’t know if he would have called.

“I’m home,” Reuenthal said. “I’m at my house.”

There was dead silence over the line for a second.

“You’re with your father?” Yang’s tone was completely different now, guarded and worried, obvious even through the tinny speakers.

“He died,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh.” Yang let out a rush of breath. “I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll talk to you later, Wen-li.”

“Wait— Oskar—”

“What is it?”

“Are you planning on staying there?”

“It’s my house.”

“Come to my place.”

“No.”

“I’d like to see you,” Yang said.

Reuenthal took a long moment to weigh Yang’s tone. If he was offering out of pity, Reuenthal had no interest in seeing him. But if it was a genuine want on Yang’s part…

“Come here, then,” Reuenthal finally said.

“Okay,” Yang said. “I will.”

“Fine,” Reuenthal said, and hung up the phone abruptly, leaving him in the dead silence of his room, interrupted only by the wind creaking around the sides of the house.

He didn’t know if Yang would actually come; he wasn’t sure how Yang would even get there, considering that he couldn’t drive. It had been stupid of him to refuse to go to Yang’s place, but he thought that would have been admitting— admitting what? Defeat? To whom?

He shook his head and stood. If Yang was coming, he could spend the time before he arrived doing what he had said he would, picking out an outfit for his father to be buried in.

His father’s bedroom was just down the hall, past the unused guest bedrooms. Even as a child, Reuenthal had rarely ventured into it, so, strangely, it felt less oppressive than the rest of the house when he walked inside. The bed was unmade, and there were dirty clothes falling halfway out of the laundry basket, but aside from that and the empty beer cans stacked on the bedside table, the room was not terribly messy. Reuenthal pulled open the closet.

His father’s suits took up most of the space, but as he rifled through them, he realized that the closet went deeper into the wall than was immediately visible, and that recessed part was jammed full. Reuenthal pushed his father’s clothes out of the way and reached back into the depths, grabbing blindly at the silky fabric that floated past his fingertips. He pulled.

One of his mother’s dresses emerged from the closet like a ghost in his grip, the pale pink fabric loose and soft, hardly worn. Reuenthal held it up to the light, examining the lace collar and trying to remember if he remembered his mother wearing it. He didn’t, or at least he didn’t think he did.

He could imagine what she looked like, though. As he went to toss the dress down onto the bed, he caught a glimpse of himself holding it in the mirror across the room. He had always been told the resemblance was uncanny. He dropped it, disgusted, and turned away.

He couldn’t fathom why his father had kept all of this. Or, perhaps he could. It was the same reason his mother was buried in the von Reuenthal plot, the same reason his father hadn’t sent him away to live with his grandfather: because he wouldn’t put down the burden of his wife’s misdeeds.

They were alike, in that, at least.

But Reuenthal didn’t need to keep his mother’s dresses as a reminder of anything. He had better ones.

As he waited for Yang to arrive, he selected the plainest black suit for his father, and then pulled all the rest of the clothes out of the closet, piling them into a heap on the bed. He wanted to burn them, but he admitted that this was perhaps better suited to an outdoor bonfire than it was to the fireplace downstairs.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Reuenthal made his way downstairs. Yang was standing in the front doorway, huddled underneath his winter coat, hands stuffed deep into his pockets and a plastic bag hanging off his arm. He smiled at Reuenthal when he pulled the door open, and he came into the house riding on a gust of icy air, some loose snow tracked in with him.

Reuenthal helped him with his jacket.

“I brought dinner,” Yang said, holding up the bag. “Have you eaten?”

“No,” Reuenthal said, and actually couldn’t remember when the last time he had eaten was. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Yang said. “It’s good to see you.”

Reuenthal got a better look at him, now that they were in the hallway light, walking down towards the kitchen. He looked tired, but otherwise much the same as he had when Reuenthal had seen him last, more than half a year prior. Reuenthal hadn’t realized it had been that long until just now, seeing Yang again. Time on Iserlohn was immaterial, without the changing of days and seasons. Everything was measured in hours, and it was easy, if one wasn’t paying attention, to accidentally go twenty five, thirty hours without sleeping, lulled into forgetting how long it had last been by more pressing needs.

There was a tension between them, with Yang half opening his mouth to say something as Reuenthal set plates on the kitchen table. He kept starting, then stopping himself, shaking his head with a little twitch as a personal rebuke to not say something. Reuenthal wondered what it was he had to say, but wasn’t going to ask. Perhaps it was just the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in so long, the reunion was sometimes difficult, neither sure if something had changed in the interim.

The dinner Yang had brought was meat pies, wrapped in foil and still steaming hot. They sat across from each other to eat, drinking the beer from the fridge.

“Mittermeyer told me you had something to tell me,” Reuenthal said after a while. “Or something you wouldn’t tell him, anyway.”

Yang’s eyes slid away from his. “I have to figure out what I can tell you,” Yang said. “About Braunschweig, I mean. Things are very up in the air right now.”

Reuenthal nodded. Yang sounded even more evasive than his words let on, but Reuenthal had never been good at prying strategy out of him when he didn’t want to talk, so he didn’t try. “You haven’t had any trouble with Ansbach, have you?”

Yang let out a rueful laugh. “No,” he said. “We mostly stay out of each other’s way. It suits me just fine.”

“Glad it hasn’t been a problem.”

“He’s mellowed out since we were students, I think.”

“If you say so.”

“Have you been alright on Iserlohn?” Yang asked.

“It’s been boring,” Reuenthal said. “They punish Mittermeyer by giving him too much to do, and they punish me by having me sit on my thumbs.” He swiped his hair off his face. “It’s not much of a punishment. I suppose life at Iserlohn is always a waiting game until the rebels try something.”

Yang just nodded. “How have things been with Mittermeyer?”

“Good,” Reuenthal said. “Do you need me to elaborate more than that?”

Yang’s mouth curled in a strange half-smile. “No,” he said. “Not in particular.”

“And life on Odin?”

“I keep myself busy,” Yang said. “I had gotten used to the way things were at the IOA, so it was a bit of an adjustment at first to leave it, but…” He shrugged. “Did I tell you I spoke to the Kaiser a few months ago?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “What did you say to him?”

“Not much.” Yang frowned. “Picking Braunschweig cost me his favor.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Reuenthal said. “But I suppose it won’t matter for much longer.”

“True. It might even be better that I picked a side early. If I hadn’t…”

Reuenthal nodded. Lacking any protection after the Kasier died would be a dangerous position for Yang. The only person he might have been able to rely on would be Fleet Admiral Muckenburger, and even then, Reuenthal wasn’t sure that he would have been willing to do much for Yang.

They were silent for a moment, then Yang asked, somewhat tentatively, “Did your father talk to you before he died?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. He stabbed his pie with his fork. “He changed his mind about the inheritance and didn’t even tell me.”

“Oh,” Yang said. It looked like he couldn’t decide to say he was glad or sorry about that state of affairs, so he just kept quiet.

“He was always obsessed with money,” Reuenthal said. “He probably decided that the last thing he wanted to do was have everything he owned go to the crown when he died. Even I’m a better alternative than that.” He shook his head and sipped his beer. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t need it, but I have it.”

Yang nodded. “I suppose it’s good that you can have a permanent place on Odin.”

“Yes, like the rest of the noble admirals.” Reuenthal finished his beer. “A family home.”

“It will make some things easier,” Yang pointed out. “My landladies won’t have as much reason to get suspicious, and no more dealing with hotels…” Or Mittermeyer’s wife, Reuenthal mentally added.

“That’s true.”

Yang tugged at the back of his hair. “Are you going to hold a funeral?”

“Mittermeyer asked me that same question.”

Yang was silent and waited for the answer.

“I don’t see what the point of it would be,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll bury him, since there’s already a plot and a stone, but there’s no point in doing anything more than that.”

Yang hesitated. “If you want me to be there, I’ll come. And Count Mariendorf, I know, would come, too.”

Reuenthal stifled his scowl. “Why?”

“Funerals have never been for the dead,” Yang said. “They’re for the living. Count Mariendorf would probably want the closure.” His voice was frank. “If you don’t invite him, I’m sure he won’t hold it against you, but I think he would prefer to be there.”

“And you?”

“I’m not going to presume to say what you want,” Yang said. “But if you want the company, I’m happy to give it.”

Reuenthal stared out the dark kitchen window for a second, the moonlight shifting through the bare tree branches, preternatural shadows dancing on the snow. “All it will be is putting a coffin in a hole in the ground,” he said. “But if Count Mariendorf wants to see it, I won’t stop him.” Yang was right that he owed the count that much, at least.

Yang relaxed, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

“I hope you’re not worried about me,” Reuenthal said.

“Worry is different than care,” Yang said.

“How sentimental of you.” Reuenthal kept his voice light, and Yang smiled at him.

“Maybe.” He finished his pie and put his plate in the sink, then walked around behind Reuenthal. He put his hands on Reuenthal’s shoulders, a gentle, deliberate touch, and Reuenthal leaned back to look up at him.

“Are you going to show me around the house?” Yang asked.

“I haven’t even looked through all the rooms myself.”

“Maybe not the full tour, then.”

Reuenthal got up. “Whatever you like,” he said.

Yang smiled.

Reuenthal led him around the first floor of the house, dining room, living room, drawing room, though he didn’t open the doors to the library or his mother’s study, and Yang didn’t ask. Upstairs, he paused at the master bedroom, and Yang looked curiously at the pile of clothes on the bed.

“I needed to find an outfit to bury my father in,” Reuenthal explained. “But I should get rid of all of that.”

Yang just nodded.

They came to Reuenthal’s bedroom, and he had to jimmy the door handle open again. Reuenthal stepped inside, but he turned back around and looked at Yang. “Wait,” he said.

“Alright.” Yang stood in the doorway, the dusty yellow light swirling around him. Reuenthal sat down on the narrow bed and looked at him. Yang looked back.

“I used to dream about this,” he said.

“Your father dying?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. He certainly had dreamed about that, but that wasn’t what he was referring to. “Whenever I’d come home from school— I’d think about you showing up here one day.”

“And what did I do?”

“Stand in the doorway,” Reuenthal said.

“Nothing else?” Yang asked.

“It was always something different— but it always started with you right there.” His hands twitched on the dusty bedspread. “Sometimes my father would come home. It was usually a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said. Reuenthal shouldn’t have told him that— the look on Yang’s face was one of genuine discomfort.

“Don’t be,” Reuenthal said. “I liked them anyway.”

He looked at Yang for a long moment more, the dream frozen. But then Yang stepped forward into the room, crossing the threshold, and the dream fell away, and it was just them once again, Yang coming towards him as he sat on his childhood bed.

Reuenthal grabbed his sleeve and pulled Yang towards himself, leaning back so that Yang could hover over him, just for a second before climbing onto the bed, cupping Reuenthal’s face with his now dusty fingers, and kissing him, clumsy but sincere.

Reuenthal smiled into his mouth, then laid back, pulling Yang down with him, Yang supporting himself with his elbows on either side of Reuenthal’s chest.

“You really should have come to my place,” Yang grumbled. “My bed is larger than a twin.”

Yang couldn’t leave well enough alone, when it came to Reuenthal. It wasn’t that Reuenthal disliked Yang’s company— in fact, it was Yang’s company that made most of his time on Odin bearable— but it was never not strange to see Yang in the rooms of his father’s house. He invited himself over on a regular basis, and seemed comfortable perched on the counter in the kitchen as Reuenthal cooked dinner, or laying stretched out on the couch in front of the fire, or perusing the books in the library. Yang made the house feel like a different place.

But he wasn’t there all the time. The hours after Yang left were always the darkest, and Reuenthal would often take out something from the liquor cabinet and drink until he fell asleep.

It was not a pleasant place. Yang seemed to understand this, even though Reuenthal said nothing about it. He occasionally seemed to be on eggshells around Reuenthal, or pretending very strongly that everything was normal, as if by pretending he could make it more pleasant.

“You know,” Yang began one evening as they were walking around the grounds, Reuenthal making note of which trees were so rotted through that he would have to have them removed, “in order to enjoy living here, you should do things that you enjoy.”

Reuenthal glanced at him sideways, then stuck his finger into the side of an old, leaning oak tree, feeling the wood come away at his touch. The tree had been struck by lightning at some point, and while half of it was dead and rotted, the top still had whole branches.

“I have you over.”

“Well, sure,” Yang said, scratching the back of his head. “But that’s not everything.”

“I spend most of my time in space anyway. It hardly matters.”

Yang frowned. “At least have other people come here. It might make it feel less gloomy.”

“You’re suggesting I throw myself a housewarming party for a house that I have lived in for most of my life.”

“Just a dinner. It doesn’t have to be big. Invite Mittermeyer over, now that he’s on leave.”

“He won’t come to dinner without his wife.”

“Okay, then invite Evangeline too.”

“She won’t come anywhere near me unless Baroness Westpfale is also in attendance.”

“And invite Maggie, too. See, a perfectly pleasant guest list.”

“I thought you hated parties.”

“It’s not a party,” Yang said. “It’s a group of friends who all want to see the place you’re living in.”

Reuenthal frowned and made a noise that wasn’t agreement, but somehow, later, he found himself sending a message to Mittermeyer, inviting him to dinner. As predicted, Mittermeyer asked to bring his wife, and she asked to bring the Baroness Westpfale. Reluctantly, Reuenthal agreed.

It was on a Friday night that the dinner was to be held. Magdalena drove Yang, the pair of them arriving before the Mittermeyers. Reuenthal suspected that Magdalena had been responsible for dressing Yang, as well, since his outfit was nicer than his usual attire. He allowed himself to spend a moment appreciating the sight of him as he greeted them in the doorway.

“It’s not a terrible house,” Magdalena commented as they walked in. “Though the interior design could use a woman’s touch.”

“I think not,” Reuenthal said.

“What do you think, Hank?” Magdalena asked.

“Hunh? Oh, I don’t know. I never really had a sense of that sort of thing. My father didn’t… He loved art but just… put it places, rather than decorating.”

“See,” Magdalena said. “Now, Wolfgang and Eva— their place is very cute.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Reuenthal said.

“You say that,” Magdalena said. “But I don’t believe it for a second. You think the Mittermeyers have a nice home, right?” She turned to Yang.

“Er, yeah.”

They came to the drawing room, and immediately Magdalena went over to the walls. “Now, this isn’t terrible, space wise. It’s just dark. But even if you don’t want to strip the wood paneling, which I think is the biggest culprit, getting rid of the curtains, and switching these paintings to something less dreary would help.” She was examining a dour looking portrait of Reuenthal’s paternal grandmother, and a painting of sailing ships at night which had been the one picture in the house that Reuenthal had liked as a child.

“I have plenty of spare paintings just lying around to hang up on the wall,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll switch them out right away, Baroness.”

Magdalena scoffed. “I’ll get you something nice,” she said.

“I would hope that you don’t think I need charity.”

“No, but you do need someone with good taste, and of all the people you know, I suspect that I have the most of it.”

“Oh?”

“Well, it’s either me or Eva, and I know that you do not want to spend the rest of your mortal life staring at paintings that Eva has made just for you out of the kindness of her heart.”

“If there is one thing that I am certain that Frau Mittermeyer and I agree on, it is that neither of us would prefer that she gives me her charity.”

Magdalena laughed. “Oh, Oskar, you’re unkind to her.”

“Am I?” His voice was bone dry. Magdalena was testing his patience.

“You know, Eva is perfectly willing to be your friend. She thinks you’re a bit of a sad man.”

“Then why does she require you as an escort?”

Magdalena laughed. “Because if I’m not here, you and Hank and Wolfgang dominate the conversation with things that she does not care about. And you ignore her.”

“And if you are here, you dominate the conversation with things that do not matter,” Reuenthal said, which made Madalena laugh.

“You invited me to see your house and I am here to see it. It hardly seems that I am in the wrong for commenting on it. You’ll have to give me the full tour, after dinner.”

“Of course,” Reuenthal said.

It was at this point that the doorbell rang. “Oh, that must be Mittermeyer,” Yang said, pointing out the obvious in a clear attempt to break the tension between Reuenthal and Magdalena. Personally, Reuenthal didn’t feel like there was that much tension— Magdalena seemed perfectly willing to give better than she got— but Yang had been tugging at his hair watching their back and forth.

“And Eva,” Magdalena said with a smile. She flounced back out of the drawing room towards the front door, as though it was her house, with the right to greet guests.

Mittermeyer and Evangeline were at the door, and Reuenthal glared at Magdalena to get out of the way so that he could let them in. Mittermeyer was dressed in civilian clothes, and Evangeline was holding a bouquet of admittedly charming blue flowers.

“Glad you could make it,” Reuenthal said, clapping Mittermeyer on the shoulder, who grinned at him.

“Thank you very much for the invitation, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said. “These are for you. Magdalena mentioned that you might like something to lighten up the dining room.”

“I wonder how she knew that, considering this is the first time she’s been here,” Reuenthal said, then raised an eyebrow at Yang, who looked away, slightly guiltily. “Regardless, thank you.” Mittermeyer relaxed a little when Reuenthal made it clear that he was not going to be rude. “Please, come in. Dinner is keeping warm in the oven, whenever you’d like to eat.”

He led the group into the dining room, then left to see if he could find a vase to put the flowers in. He didn’t think his father had ever once kept flowers in the house, so this was a more difficult proposition than originally expected. Eventually, he gave up and just found a gold and black beer mug that was tall enough to hold them. He frowned at it, then left it in the kitchen instead of bringing it back out to the dining room.

Everyone in the other room was laughing at some story that Mittermeyer was telling, which Reuenthal only caught the last few words of. Yang had been right that the presence of other people would brighten up the house, but, leaning in the doorway of the dining room, looking over at them, Reuenthal felt about as distant from them as he could possibly feel.

Mittermeyer saw him lingering in the doorway and asked, “Do you need help bringing the dinner out?”

“If you don’t mind,” Reuenthal said, and Mittermeyer followed him into the kitchen. He spotted the flowers in the cup that Reuenthal had abandoned on the counter and chuckled.

“Eva will appreciate the effort,” he said.

“You put them on the table, then,” Reuenthal said. He was removing the dinner from the oven— a side of lamb— and taking out the knife to carve it, when Mittermeyer came behind him and put his hands on Reuenthal’s hips, nestling his chin on Reuenthal’s shoulder.

“What’s put you in a mood?”

“Who says I’m in a mood?” Reuenthal asked. But still, he put down the carving knife and turned to face Mittermeyer, stroking a stray piece of his hair behind his ear as Mittermeyer pushed him back against the counter, hooking his fingers through Reuenthal’s belt loops.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you again before my leave is over,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m heading back out on Thursday.”

“We should go out drinking Wednesday night, then,” Reuenthal said.

“I’ll pencil it in.” Mittermeyer’s hands moved up Reuenthal’s back, and Reunthal shifted, leaning forward to kiss him, hungrily. As Mittermeyer reciprocated, they slid a little sideways along the countertop, and Reuenthal’s hand knocked the carving knife, perched precipitously on the edge, down to the floor, where it clattered and bounced. Reuenthal jumped, bashing his lip between Mittermeyer’s teeth and his own, startling himself and pushing Mittermeyer away.

“You are in a mood,” Mittermeyer said, touching his teeth where Reuenthal had knocked him. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Reuenthal said shortly, heart beating hard. “Fine.” He bent down to pick up the knife, checked to make sure it hadn’t gotten nicked on its impact with the tile floor, and washed it off in the sink. His lip felt swollen already, and he hoped that nobody would notice. At least it wasn’t bleeding.

Mittermeyer helped gather the dinner dishes, including the “vase” of flowers, and brought them back out to the dining room.

“Everything alright in there?” Evangeline asked.

“Oh, Reuenthal just almost dropped the lamb while carving it,” Reuenthal heard Mittermeyer say. He gathered the rest of the food and brought it out.

“This looks delicious, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said.

“Thank you,” he replied, voice tight. He could appreciate that Evangeline was making an effort, but he rather wished that she wasn’t. Life would be easier if they could simply ignore each other.

He poured everyone some wine.

“To your new-old home,” Mittermeyer said, raising his glass.

“To good luck on your next deployment,” Reuenthal said.

There was a general murmur of assent and ‘Prosit’ from the gathered group, and then they dug in to their food.

“Say, Reuenthal, I thought it was my turn to pick the wine,” Mittermeyer said.

“You can pick the dessert wine,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll let you see the cellar.”

“It’s pretty big,” Yang said.

“You spent a lot of time in there?” Magdalena asked.

“A reasonable amount,” Yang said. “I’m not actually that picky when it comes to alcohol, so I’ve just tagged along.”

Evangeline shook her head. “Should you be concerned about his habits, Maggie?”

“Oh, Hank can do what he likes,” Magdalena said. “Maybe someday when he makes up his mind to put a ring on my finger, I’ll be able to use it more like a leash.” She grinned, a little devilishly. Reuenthal glared at her. “What?” Her voice was innocent, but she continued to bare her teeth.

“The same might be said of you,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh, I don’t think that Hank has either the ability or the desire to dictate what I do.”

“Then you would make a poor wife,” Reuenthal said flatly. “And I would not wish you on him.”

There was a moment of awkward silence around the table, then Magdalena laughed, very loudly. “Oh, gods, Oskar, you are hilarious. I hope you come to our wedding and stand up and loudly object when they ask if anyone has a problem with us.”

Mittermeyer and Yang glanced at each other. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Yang said, very clearly uncomfortable, trying to redirect the conversation. He looked at Reuenthal, a strange expression on his face that Reuenthal couldn’t interpret.

Magdalena leaned heavily on Yang’s shoulder, then ran her hand through his hair. “It’s a foregone conclusion, darling.”

Evangeline smiled a little. “I think that would be a sweet wedding. I always love to see the two of you together.”

Reuenthal tried and failed to hide his scowl in his wine. Yang cringed, but Magdalena said, “Why, thank you, darling,” with a broad smile at Evangeline.

“I still think he’s too good for you,” Reuenthal said.

“Psh,” Magdalena said. “I don’t think so. Eva, don’t you think if I was a man, I could have been an admiral like your husband?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Would you want to be?” She seemed to be actually considering it.

“Hmm, maybe.” Magdalena twirled a piece of her hair. “All I’m saying is that if I had been a man, you wouldn’t be saying anything about him being too good for me.”

Evangeline, who was missing the vast majority of the context of this conversation, said, “But you wouldn’t be trying to marry him, so he wouldn’t really have reason to.”

“I don’t believe that’s true,” Reuenthal said, very, very mildly. “There are few men who are Leigh’s equals.”

“You all can stop fighting over me,” Yang said, sounding slightly grumpy, looking to Mittermeyer for help.

“Oh, alright,” Magdalena said. But she wasn’t done being a pain, apparently, because she turned to Reuenthal. “Have you been seeing anyone? Now that you have this house, the natural thing is to get a wife to live in it with you.”

“Natural it may be,” Reuenthal said. “But I have no interest in it.”

“Why not?” Magdalena asked. “I’m sure Eva could tell you that being married is very nice.”

“Being married to Mittermeyer may be nice,” Reuenthal said. “Being married to me might be distinctly less pleasant.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of women who—” Evangeline began.

“I spend too much time in space,” Reuenthal said flatly. “And furthermore, I value my own privacy too much to allow some stranger in it.”

Evangeline sighed a little, “Well, so long as you’re happy, Herr Reuenthal.” She smiled.

“I am,” Reuenthal said curtly.

Perhaps Magdalena had gotten whatever grievances she had out of her system, because she turned to Evangeline and started asking her about how her work was going, a topic that did not involve or interest Reuenthal in the least, so he stared into space and mechanically ate for a while. He didn’t really notice Mittermeyer and Yang both alternately glancing over at him when he hadn’t said anything in a long time.

After they had finished the main meal, Reuenthal stood. “You said you wanted to pick the dessert wine, Mittermeyer?”

“Oh, yes,” Mittermeyer said. “Let me see the selection.”

“What is for dessert?” Magdalena called after them as they walked away.

Reuenthal didn’t respond, but he heard Yang say, “I think it’s a cake?”

He led Mittermeyer down the hallway and then the steps to the wine cellar, shutting the heavy door behind them. As soon as they were alone in the cool and dim basement, Mittermeyer pushed Reuenthal up against the stone wall. They kissed without speaking, Mittermeyer running his tongue gently over Reuenthal’s slightly swollen lip. Reuenthal slipped his hands up underneath Mittermeyer’s shirt, awkwardly maneuvering around the stiff fabric to touch Mittermeyer’s chest: the soft hair, skin that was hot to the touch, and the old, faded scars. When his fingers ran over Mittermeyer’s nipple, Mittermeyer made a soft sound in Reuenthal’s mouth, then pushed Reuenthal’s hands away.

“I don’t think we have time for this,” he said.

“They can wait.” Reuenthal switched tactics and moved to kiss Mittermeyer’s jaw, then neck. Mittermeyer relaxed enough that Reuenthal could free his hands, running them down Mittermeyer’s sides until he was at his belt and trying to undo it blindly. Mittermeyer’s original protest had been a weak one, and he didn’t say anything when Reuenthal knelt, the cold stone floor digging into his knees. He pressed his forehead to Mittermeyer’s stomach for a second, and Mittermeyer’s hand stroked his hair, careful not to mess it up too badly, which Reuenthal appreciated.

He had just gotten his pants down and was about to start on his underwear when he heard the heavy door at the top of the stairs open, and Magdalena’s loud and annoying voice say, “Can you hurry up? Eva wants to have dessert so that we can get the house tour you promised.”

“One minute,” Mittermeyer called back, attempting not to sound too flustered and failing. Mittermeyer reluctantly nudged Reuenthal away and pulled his pants back up. “I told you we didn’t have time,” he said, sounding mostly chagrined. Reuenthal didn’t stand up for a second, and Mittermeyer touched his cheek, solid thumb rubbing from the corner of his mouth towards his ear. “Come on,” Mittermeyer said. “We’ll have time later.” Reuenthal still didn’t move, savoring the touch, until Mittermeyer offered him a hand to pull him to his feet.

Mittermeyer spent about thirty seconds picking a wine from the racks while Reuenthal brushed any dust off his knees and tried to get himself under control. Leaning on the wall, watching Mittermeyer, Reuenthal thought he seemed totally incongruous with the setting. His blond hair caught the muted, dusty light cast by the bare bulbs above, and the odd shadows that fell across his face confused his features.

Mittermeyer was not a creature who belonged in this place. Although the cellar no longer held the same horrors that it did when he was a child, it still retained an unpleasant place in Reuenthal’s memory.

(When he had been seven, his father had locked him down here for hours, and he had been too short to reach the string that turned on the light; when he had been thirteen and home alone, he chose a random bottle and drank himself to the point of illness, though at least that had meant he had cared far less when his father punished him for the theft.)

Before seeing him here, Reuenthal could have never imagined Mittermeyer in this place. Even now, he seemed likely to vanish— and he would, before the week was out. There was a grim sense of satisfaction in imagining what his father would have done, if he had ever caught Reuenthal here in such a position.

Reuenthal was orbiting a realization, or a feeling, that Mittermeyer didn’t belong here, but that he himself did.

So, it was that thought, rather than just the interruption, that turned his mood even further towards the melancholy. Mittermeyer held up a bottle, smiling. His face was pleasantly flushed, and Reuenthal tried to return a pleasant expression of his own.

“Shall we go back?” Reuenthal asked.

“Unless you want Baroness Westpfale to come down here and drag us out, yes,” Mittermeyer said. He touched Reuenthal once more, a lingering press at the small of his back, a reassurance about the ‘later’, and then they headed back up the stairs.

“Took you long enough,” Magdalena said.

“It’s a big place,” Yang said in their defense.

“Mm, I’m sure,”Magdalena said wickedly. Reuenthal narrowed his eyes at her. “If you had been any longer, Eva would have sent down a search party.”

“Leigh wasn’t keeping you both entertained?”

“He can barely handle one woman,” Magdalena said. “Two is far too much.”

Mittermeyer coughed, a half-chuckle, then smiled at Evangeline. “Well, I hope the wine was worth the time we took to choose it.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, darling,” Eva said. “You have good taste.”

“Why, thank you,” Mittermeyer said as he sat back down.

Reuenthal retrieved the dessert from the kitchen— Yang had been right, it was a chocolate cake— and sliced and served it for everyone.

“Dinner has really been wonderful, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said as they ate the cake. “Thank you very much for the invitation and the lovely evening.”

“It has been my pleasure,” Reuenthal said, attempting to be gracious. He looked at the space between Evangeline and Mittermeyer, and saw that she had placed her left hand on his lap. He looked away.

Yang had been correct, in one way, that having guests over would liven up the house. But Reuenthal’s mood was getting harder to control by the second, and that made him further frustrated with himself.

“Do you have any plans to make renovations?” Evangeline asked. “One of my coworkers’ husband, he does major reconstruction to old buildings. She’s always talking about it.”

“I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “Like I said before, I don’t know if I even spend enough time on the planet to make putting heavy work into it worthwhile. If I can do enough to keep it from falling down around me while I sleep, I’ll count that as enough of a victory.”

“Is it in very bad repair?”

“I don’t think my father did any maintenance on it in the past twenty five years, and before I inherited it, I hadn’t been here in almost ten. I’ve been finding a lot of things that need urgent attention. The roof is one.”

Evangeline nodded. “If you need me to recommend you a roofer, I’m sure I can find one for you.”

“Thank you for the offer,” he said. “I’ll let you know.” He would not let her know.

“You haven’t been here in ten years?” Evangeline asked. “Why not?”

“My father and I were not on good terms,” Reuenthal said. “He had me struck from his family record on the grounds that I was not his legitimate son.” He couldn’t have said why he was telling them this.

“But you inherited the property?”

“He changed his mind,” Reuenthal said, voice very short. Yang looked down at his plate.

“What made him do that?” Evangeline asked, curious now, clearly despite herself.

“I have no idea.” Reuenthal sipped his wine. “He knew I didn’t need it. Perhaps he wanted me to no longer be able to claim being my own man.”

“It’s good you inherited, anyway,” Magdalena said.

“Is it?” Reuenthal’s mouth was dry. He drank his wine. He wanted to be much drunker than he was. “Now I have a house that I have never particularly liked, and money that I have no particular use for.”

“Oskar, you should know that there’s always plenty of uses for good money,” Magdalena said.

“Perhaps.”

“It’s a good house,” Evangeline said. “I’m sure that you’ll be able to make it your own, in time.”

Reuenthal nodded and fell silent.

“You could sell it, if you really don’t like it,” Yang said, finally.

“No,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t think so.”

Yang tilted his head, then, and raised his glass. “Then may the house you live in never fall down.”

“Indeed,” Reunenthal said. “And when you stop renting, I’ll say the same for you.”

“That will be when he moves into my estate,” Magdalena said, deciding to be obnoxious once more. Yang sighed audibly.

They finished their desserts, and then Magdalena stood, grabbing Reuenthal’s arm unpleasantly. “Now, give us that long-awaited tour.”

He shook her touch off. “If you insist.”

Evangeline yawned a little. “Please. I’d like to see it before it gets too late.”

Reuenthal shrugged and began walking them through the rooms of the house. “You’ve already seen the entrance hall, and the dining room. I’m sure you glimpsed the kitchen. It’s nice enough…” He pointed down the stairs leading out of the kitchen to the basement. “There’s the cellar. Do you need to see it?”

“Is it exciting?” Magdalena asked.

“No,” Reuenthal said. “It’s an unfinished basement with some wine bottles in it.”

Magdalena laughed. “Fair. Lead on.”

“Here’s the drawing room… You already saw it.” He let them examine the furniture a while before heading back out into the hallway. He showed them the living room as well. “And upstairs—“

“There’s more down this hallway, isn’t there?” Magdalena asked.

Reuenthal had one foot on the large staircase to go up, but paused. “Alright,” he said, a twist in his voice. If Magdalena wanted the tour, he would give her the tour.

The door at the end of the hallway was kept locked, but the key was on the doorframe above his head. He retrieved it and unlocked the door. “This is my mother’s study,” he said. The room hadn’t been touched in years, and a thick layer of dust lay over everything. “She killed herself at that table,” he said, pointing to the desk. He wandered over to the wall, where one of the paintings was precipitously tilted. “When the police came, they suspected that my father might have murdered her, because they had been fighting. But she overdosed.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t use this room.”

The assembled group was almost completely silent.

“I’m sorry,” Evangeline said.

“It’s fine. I hardly remember it.”

He brushed past them all to leave the room, and Yang shut the door behind everyone. The other closed door on the other side of the hallway was not locked. “Here’s the library,” Reuenthal said. “My father died in here. I had to have the carpet taken out.”

“Oh,” Evangeline said.

“There’s a good selection of books,” Yang pointed out.

“I don’t know if my father ever read a single one,” Reuenthal said. “He just liked to sit in here and drink. Well, I don’t know if liked is the word for it, but it’s what he did.”

Mittermeyer touched his arm on the way out the door of the library, giving him a questioning look. Reuenthal pursed his lips and just walked forwards.

“Upstairs is mostly just the bedrooms,” he said.

“The staircase is a nice centerpiece of the house,” Evangeline said as they walked up it. “I like the lines.”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer agreed, though it was clear that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Seems well constructed, anyway.”

“Thank you for your professional opinion,” Reuenthal said, which did succeed at making Mittermeyer chuckle, at least.

“Years of hating engineering, I’m just happy it gives me the right to make unfounded comments about other people’s homes.”

Reuenthal led them down the upstairs hallway. “Here’s the master bedroom. I don’t use it.” He held the door open, revealing a neatly made and clean room, practically sterile.

There was little to appreciate there, and equally little to show about the several unused guest bedrooms. One room had been repurposed into a small office for Reuenthal.

“And here’s my bedroom,” Reuenthal said, holding open the door. The former guest bedroom was still nearly undecorated.

“I didn’t really believe Hank years ago when he said that you hang that sword directly over your bed,” Magdalena said. “I can’t believe that not only was it apparently true, you’re still doing it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s going to stab you to death,” she said. “At least move it so it won’t kill you if there’s an earthquake, or something.”

“This part of Odin is not well known for its tectonic activity,” Reuenthal said, voice dry. “I like it there.”

Magdalena shook her head, then took Eva’s hand. “Darling, promise me you won’t let your husband sleep with an axe or something hanging up above him.”

“I’m sure that Herr Reuenthal has secured it,” Evangeline said, trying to be polite. “If it hasn’t fallen down yet, it probably won’t.”

“That’s what they all say,” Magdalena said, then shook her head. “Well, on your own head so be it.” She went back into the hallway, then went to the last door. “And this one?” She pulled it open, forcing the handle.

“My childhood room,” Reuenthal said, leaning against the hallway wall. He let everyone peek into it. They were able to admire a few remnants of his childhood— the desk and chair that had always been too small for him, the narrow little bed, the bookshelf with old school books and a few assorted knicknacks. “My mother tried to kill me in there, once, when I was a baby,” he said. He didn’t know why he said that: maybe he was more inebriated than he thought.

Everyone had a bit of a different reaction. Magdalena looked him in the eye, raising an eyebrow. Yang sighed a little. Evangeline flinched, and Mittermeyer put his hand on her arm in a reassuring gesture.

“Is there anything else?” Magdalena asked.

“There’s the attic,” Reuenthal said. “But it’s not worth looking at, since the roof is in poor shape. The estate the house is on is somewhat nicer than the house itself. Unfortunately, it’s a little too dark to give that tour.”

“That’s fine,” Evangeline said. “I’m sure we can see it some other time. It’s getting quite late.”

“Oh, are you going to head out?”

“That might be for the best,” Evangeline said. “I have a dentist appointment early tomorrow morning.”

“Did you want any leftovers to take home with you? There’s plenty of cake.” He walked them to the door.

“No, thank you, Herr Reuenthal. Dinner was excellent, though.”

“I’m glad that you enjoyed it.” He took her hand and kissed it, though he met Mittermeyer’s eyes. “You shall have to come again sometime.”

“Of course,” Evangeline said. “Wolf?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll see you Wednesday, then, Reuenthal?”

“Wednesday,” Reuenthal agreed. He squeezed Mittermeyer’s upper arm for a second, then held open the front door to let them out. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your night.”

“And you, as well,” Evangeline said. She smiled at him, then took Mittermeyer’s arm, and the two headed off down the driveway towards their car. Mittermeyer glanced back at Reuenthal once before he shut the door.

Reuenthal turned around, expecting to tell Magdalena that she should probably go home as well, but she had vanished. “Where did she go?”

“The drawing room, I think,” Yang said.

Reuenthal sighed heavily. “She should go home.”

“I don’t know if she will,” Yang said.

Reuenthal went into the drawing room. Magdalena had somehow helped herself to the liquor cabinet’s contents already and was pouring three glasses of whiskey, which she handed to Yang and Reuenthal.

“Whose house are we in again?” Reuenthal asked.

“It seems the house belongs to the ghosts of your dead parents,” Magdalena said. “You scared poor Eva, you know.”

“So?”

Magdalena shook her head as she flopped onto the plush armchair. Yang and Reuenthal sat on the couch, and Yang immediately contorted himself to end up with his feet in a weird position underneath him. When Reuenthal wrapped his arm around him to pull him closer, Yang leaned into his side, though Reuenthal was slightly worried that the glass he was holding was going to tip over onto his pants. Yang was not exactly being careful with it.

“She’s going to pity you even more, now.”

“I don’t think so,” Reuenthal said. “But, even if she does, why should I care?”

“I do not think I will ever understand you,” Magdalena said, taking a sip of her drink.

“I don’t know why you should.”

“Because we’re friends.”

“We most certainly are not.”

“If you say so, Oskar.”

“Baroness.”

She smiled slyly at him and drank. “Too bad you didn’t inherit from your grandfather.”

“I had no desire to be a count. Or to inherit a house and lands that I haven’t set foot on since I was an infant.”

“It would be better for you than this house that you have spent far too much time in.”

“Oh?”

“But why wouldn’t you want to be a count? It’s nothing to scoff at.”

“It isn’t?” Reuenthal asked. “As far as I can see, most nobles did nothing to earn their titles, and do nothing with the titles that they have. I can earn my own way in the world.” He finished his glass. “My father certainly learned that lesson.”

Magdalena leaned far forward, reached across the room for Reuenthal’s empty glass, which she then refilled from the bottle next to her, and then handed back to him.

“When did he strike you from the family record?” Magdalena asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The day we graduated from the IOA,” Yang muttered. “My fault, I think.”

“Now that’s a story I haven’t heard,” Magdalena said.

“It’s not worth telling. If you want it, pry it out of the young Hildegarde von Mariendorf.”

Magdalena’s expression was wide-eyed. “Hildegarde von Mariendorf! I will have to.”

“It’s not that exciting,” Yang muttered. He finished his drink in what looked like one gulp, then leaned further on Reuenthal until his head settled, catlike, in Reuenthal’s lap. “I still do feel bad, though.” Yang’s eyes were closed, and Reuenthal stroked his hair. Magdalena watched, sipping her own drink, and Reuenthal silently dared her to say anything.

“I highly doubt it’s your fault, Hank. Someone’s father ejecting them from the family on the very first day that they could conceivably make their own way in the world seems like a fairly premeditated move,” Magdalena said.

“How kind of him to wait until then,” Reuenthal said, unable to keep the bitter tone out of his voice.

“No, it probably wasn’t,” she said. “What would have happened if he had kicked you out?”

“It depends,” Reuenthal said.

“On?”

“How old I was.” He said this like it was obvious.

“Okay, if you were a child, middle school.”

“My grandfather would have taken me, probably. Or Count Mariendorf.”

“High school?”

“The same.”

“While you were at the IOA?”

“I would have been able to be independent.”

“So it wasn’t really kind of him, then.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted their pity.”

Magdalena snorted. “There’s no pictures of you as a child in this house, but I’m sure I can imagine what you looked like. You’re twelve, thirteen, your father has just kicked you out. You spend a night or two on the streets before the cops pick you up, and they drag you to your next of kin’s place. You might not like your grandfather—“

“I don’t know him at all. We’ve never spoken.”

“He wasn’t a bad man. I knew a few of his granddaughters.”

“Fine.”

“But they drag you to his house, and you’re so stiff and angry, but for the first time in your life, you’re living in a house where no one’s going to hit you.”

“I never said my father hit me.”

Magdalena rolled her eyes. Silently, she finished her drink, then she pulled back her arm to throw the glass at Reuenthal. He jumped, almost dislodging Yang, who made a sleepy sound. The glass never left Magdalena’s hand, though, and she put it down gently on the side table.

“Of course, your father never hit you,” she said. “If I did that to you anywhere else, you wouldn’t flinch.”

“It is the natural reaction to having someone threaten to throw a glass at your head.” Reuenthal went back to stroking Yang’s head, and he relaxed again.

She shook her head. “You are not a very good liar.”

“Oh?”

“If you don’t do something, this house is going to make you crazy.”

“And what do you suggest I do?”

“At the very least, tear out every piece of furniture and decoration in the place, so that it doesn’t look like the exact same house you were in as a kid. He’s worried about you, you know.” She nodded at Yang, who didn’t say anything. Reuenthal realized that Yang had fallen asleep.

“That’s his business, then, and not yours.”

“It’s my business if he’s stressing himself out about you making yourself miserable,” Magdalena said. “Even for just his sake…” She shrugged.

“I don’t have the time to become an interior designer,” Reuenthal said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s worse when you’re alone, I assume?”

“Why is that relevant?”

“You need a wife, Oskar.”

He barked out a laugh. “I told you that I have no interest in getting married.”

She smoothed her fingers across the fabric of her skirt laying across her legs. “People talk, you know.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“Why?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you think that I, of all people, don’t know what it’s like to have their life ruined by something like that?”

“I’m not interested in court life.”

“I’m not talking about court. I’m talking about your career, and probably Hank’s, too.” She shook her head. “At least find some women to sleep with for a while. To stop the rumors.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I am not drunk enough to be having this conversation with you.”

Magdalena silently reached for his glass. He handed it over, and she refilled it. He was careful not to jostle the sleeping Yang as he leaned back on the couch to drink. He was already fairly drunk, and Magdalena had filled his glass up far too high.

“And you should take it from me,” Magdalena said, after several minutes of silence, during which Reuenthal had almost been able to pretend that she wasn’t there. “Sleeping with women is very pleasant.”

“I don’t see the appeal.”

“I am certain that it’s not that different. Like, mechanically.” She put down her cup in order to make a lewd gesture. When Reuenthal was silent, she asked, “Well, am I wrong?”

“No, you have just succinctly described the least interesting possible way to have sex.” Apparently, he was drunk enough to be having this conversation.

Magdelena half coughed, half laughed. “I was under the impression that that’s what you do with him.” She nodded at Yang.

“And does he tell you every lurid detail?”

Again, that infuriating laugh. “Of course not. He doesn’t tell me anything. But if I ask enough annoying questions, he’ll start to blush and stutter and refuse to answer, and I can do a little process of elimination.”

“You are the devil.”

“Thank you,” she said, then took a sip of her own drink, raising her glass in a cheeky little half-toast. “I do try.”

“Why are you still here?” Reuenthal asked. “Don’t you have a home to go back to?”

“I drove Hank here. I can’t leave without him.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But that would be so rude of me.”

“He is perfectly capable of getting back to his own house in the morning.”

“How scandalous.”

“He did say that you were going to stay here to annoy me.”

“He said that?” She laughed. “Hank, I know you’re just pretending to be asleep. Don’t be such a party pooper.”

“I do not think that he has ever once needed to pretend to fall asleep,” Reuenthal muttered. “I’ve seen him fall asleep in the most inopportune places.”

“I think he is pretending so that I’ll leave you two alone. But I don’t want to leave.”

“Don’t you want to do what he wants?”

She laughed. “Oskar, I’m not you.”

He scowled. “What do you want, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just think there’s plenty of entertainment left to be had here tonight.”

“Such as?”

“You’re too easy to get a rise out of,” she said. “There’s a few things I’m thinking about, and I’m trying to figure out how to best put them together.”

“Oh?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear it, probably.”

“I also don’t want you lurking in my house all night for no reason.”

“But if I had a reason?”

“I find it hard to believe that it would be a good one.”

“We could have some fun,” she said. “Hank wouldn’t mind.”

“I doubt it.”

“You don’t think it would be fun for us to—”

“I don’t even think I want you to finish that sentence.” Reuenthal shook his head, then put his empty glass down. Gently, he shifted Yang’s head off his lap so he could stand.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to put him to bed, then I’m going to kick you out, and then I’m going to drink until I pass out on the couch.”

“Sounds intensely depressing,” Magdalena said.

Reuenthal leaned down and scooped the sleeping Yang up in a bridal carry. He was easy to lift, though Reuenthal was slightly unsteady on his feet. Still, he carried him out of the room and towards the stairs. Yang sleepily nestled himself closer to Reuenthal’s chest.

Magdalena followed behind him as he trooped up the stairs, and he ignored her as he nudged his bedroom door open with his foot and walked inside, the room almost totally black, lit only by the moonlight filtering in through the window, and residual light from downstairs working its way through the hallway.

Gently, Reuenthal laid Yang down on the bed. Magdalena had followed him into the room, but he was ignoring her, because Yang had grabbed on to the sleeve of his shirt, and Reuenthal had to pull his fingers off. As he did, Yang clutched his hand for a second, squeezing it, Reuenthal did think that Yang was still asleep— his expression was too lax and peaceful for him to be awake— but it still gave him pause, and he sat on the edge of the bed, holding Yang’s hand, for just a moment.

Magdalena was going through his closet.

“Hank keeps a uniform here?” She pulled out the captain’s uniform from the closet, easily distinguished from Reuenthal’s rear admiral uniforms by the detached breastplate.

“Stop going through my things.”

“Well, it’s his uniform,” Magdalena said. She held it in her hands, running her fingers over the fabric as she leaned against the closet door.

Reuenthal turned away from her again, and began neatly undoing Yang’s shoes, slipping them off his feet and placing them on the floor. Magdalena watched. He wished she wouldn’t. Reuenthal half wanted to linger at Yang’s side and just watch him sleep, but he wanted to get rid of Magdalena, so he stood, then pulled the blanket up over Yang, and gestured for Magdalena to follow him out.

“I can’t believe you really sleep with that stupid sword right above your head,” she said. “Ridiculous.”

“I like it where it is,” he said. “Now, like I said, it is time for you to go home.”

“Indulge me in one thing,” Magdalena said.

“What?”

“I want to try this on,” she said, holding up Yang’s uniform, which he hadn’t noticed her carrying out of the bedroom in the dark.

“Why?”

“I think it would be fun.”

“Why don’t you try it on when you’re at his house?”

“Gods, I never go to his place if I can help it. Don’t you know how much of a mess it is?”

“I’m well aware.”

“Anyway, he certainly doesn’t keep a spare uniform at my house.”

“Good.”

“Please?”

“And then you’ll leave?”

“If you insist.”

“Fine. Do what you want. I don’t care.” Reuenthal turned and headed back down the stairs, returning to the drawing room where he poured himself another glass of whiskey. He stayed standing as he drank. Magdalena had vanished somewhere, but after a minute or so she reappeared, still wearing her dress.

“Done with playing dressup?”

“No,” she huffed. “Unzip me.”

“What?”

“Unzip me. I can’t get my dress off.”

“How did you get it on?” Reuenthal asked.

“It’s easier in the up direction,” she muttered. “I just don’t want to spend a million years fiddling with it. I’m too drunk.”

She walked up to him and turned around. Reuenthal put his drink down on the side table, then spent a second staring at the stiff back of the dress.

“There’s a hook at the top that you have to undo, and then the zipper should be right there.” Magdalena lifted some of her long black hair out of the way. Tentatively, Reuenthal reached for the neckline of the dress with one hand, then discovered that he would have to use both to undo the hook. Annoyed, he pulled at the fabric until the hook came apart, and then he unzipped the dress as perfunctorily as possible. He was glad that the dress was tight and stiff enough that it essentially stayed in place on Magdalena’s body, though she let out a little breath of relief as it loosened.

“Thank you,” she said, then stepped lightly away and out of the room. Reuenthal returned to drinking. After a few minutes, he heard various doors opening around the house, one of them sounding like the coat closet in the front, and he wondered if Magdalena was absconding with Yang’s uniform. If she did, that would be quite annoying, but at least she would be out of the house. But then Magdalena came back in and he got his first real look at her in Yang’s uniform.

It didn’t quite fit. Yang was a bit taller than she was, and it was obviously far too tight against the chest. She was barefoot, having abandoned her heels and tights, and she had let her hair down from its updo completely.

“How do I look?” Magdalena asked.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said.

“Come on,” Magdalena said. “Call me sir. Just once.”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said. It alarmed him how easy it was to indulge her.

“Oh, I like that.” She laughed and stepped lightly towards him. “Though I suppose it’s silly for a rear admiral to be calling a captain ‘sir.’”

“What is it that you want, exactly?” She was playing some kind of game, but he couldn’t tell what it was. On her way towards him, she picked up the bottle of whiskey from the table, contemplated the last finger of it inside, and drank it. Reuenthal frowned at her. “I was going to drink that,” he said.

“I’m sure there’s plenty more where it came from,” she said. “Though if we drink everything that’s left of your father’s, you’ll have to start buying your own, and that would be a terrible thing.” She dropped the bottle back onto the table with a heavy thunk.

“Yes,” Reuenthal said, though he didn’t know what he was agreeing to.

“Hank wanted me to leave so that he could talk to you privately,” Magdalena said. She was very close to him now, and she reached out to trail her fingers down his sleeve. He didn’t move, standing stiff as a board. “But I figured that I shouldn’t leave him here alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because he finally worked up the nerve to tell you something that might make you behave badly,” Magdalena said. “He trusts you not to, but I think you might.”

Reuenthal turned away from her, walking away to the fireplace. “I’d thank you not to insult me.” He stared into the fire.

“I’m not insulting you, just stating a fact.”

“And you’re going to tease me with some secret you think Leigh is keeping from me.” Reuenthal’s lips curled up. “I think he trusts me with more secrets than you know.”

“That may be the case.” Magdalena stepped up behind him. Her hands found his back. “I certainly know what my place is in his heart.”

“Good.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Close your eyes,” she said abruptly.

“Why?”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, mockingly this time. But he obeyed regardless. She pushed him to get him to turn around to face her. When she grabbed at his hand, he pulled it away. “What do you want, Baroness?”

“Give me your hand,” she said.

His eyes were still closed. “Why?”

“I’m going to tell your fortune.”

He snorted. “Didn’t know you believed in that kind of thing.”

“Do you?”

“No,” he said. But when she reached for his hand again, he let her have it, and when she uncurled his fingers from his palm and traced the lines in it, he didn’t stop her. It was a curiously tender touch. “What doom are you reading in there?”

“None,” she said. “It’s too dark in here to tell.” She stopped her tracing but didn’t let go of him, and then after a moment she raised his hand up, turned it over, and slid something cold over his pinky finger.

He opened his eyes.

The gold band, with its central ruby, sat on his finger, while she still delicately held his fingers still. “Hank is going to propose to me,” she said finally.

Perhaps it was how drunk he was— very— that made his thoughts freeze, that kept him unmoving. “Why?” he asked. It was about the only thing that he could get out.

“Because he has to,” Magdalena said.

“Am I the only person in the world who isn’t compelled to perform this farce?”

She didn’t say anything for a second. “Would it make it better or worse if I told you it’s not a farce?”

He half tried to turn away from her, but she kept a hold of his hand. “Don’t fool yourself.”

“Maybe I am a fool,” she said. “And maybe it is a farce.” She shrugged. “Certainly he’s going to continue to see you.”

Somehow, he was more bitter and jealous from Magdalena’s vocal permissiveness than he was about anything else. He twitched his hand out of her grip and looked at the ring, though he didn’t take it off of his pinky. He touched the stone.

When he was silent, Magdalena spoke again. “You will probably have to do this too, eventually.”

He took a moment to respond. “Even if I had even the slightest desire to,” he said, “there is not a single sane woman in this universe who would want to be my wife.” He looked around the room, imagining what it would be like for a woman to live in this house, but the only one he could picture was his mother, with his father lurking just out of frame. The thought sickened him, for reasons that he couldn’t quite articulate. Though perhaps that was the alcohol, too. She was silent for a second, so he said, “You truly want to marry Leigh?”

She thought about this for a second. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Why?”

“I think, Oskar,” she said, still a touch of humor in her voice, “it is because I love him.”

His face twisted. “Is that so?”

“You don’t believe I’m capable of that?”

“Not in particular, no,” he said.

“Well, I suppose you can think that if you like,” she said. “But it’s true.”

“If I objected, would he stop this ridiculous game?”

“I don’t think he believes it’s a game at all,” she said. And then she looked away from him, into the fire. “But yes, he would. I’m sure that’s why he’s barely worked up the nerve to ask you.”

Reuenthal’s jaw clenched. “So what is the point of him asking, if he knows I’d object?”

She looked at him again. “I don’t think you’d tell him not to do it,” she said. “I think if he had come to you about this you would have told him to do as he likes, and kicked him out of your house.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Am I wrong?” she asked.

“He can do as he likes,” Reuenthal said. “I have no claim over him.”

She let out a huff of breath and shook her head. “He is very lucky that I have his best interests at heart,” she said.

“I want him to be happy,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t think that marrying you will do that.”

“Why not?”

“Has marrying a woman ever made anyone happy?”

“Yes,” Magdalena said flatly. “Plenty of people. And it could be plenty plus one, if he marries me.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“You haven’t been looking.”

He scoffed and looked back at the coffee table, double checking that the whiskey bottle was empty. He wanted another drink, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull another bottle out of the cabinet.

“Have you really resigned yourself to being miserable, Oskar? Do you think that’s your destiny?” She reached for his hand again, and he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“I’m neither miserable nor resigned,” he said. “I think you’re confused.”

“Am I?”

“All through dinner, whenever you mentioned this little game of yours, he was the one who looked resigned.”

“I think you’re misreading the signals, Oskar.”

“I don’t think this even belongs to him. I think you’re trying to trick me, for some joke.” He pulled the ring off his finger. He held it up to the light, then moved to toss it into the fire. She let out a yelp of surprise and grabbed his hand before he could let go of it, gripping tight with wide eyes and fingernails that dug into his skin. It was the first genuine reaction he thought he had ever gotten out of her, and he was smugly satisfied by it.

“It is his,” she said. She tried to take the ring back out of his hand, but he slid it back onto his finger. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but she relaxed when he did that.

“You’ve told me what you wanted to tell me. What more do you have to do?”

“I think there’s a part of me that wants to convince you that it would be a good marriage,” she said. “I don’t want him to ruin things, so I have to fix them before he does.” She wasn’t making much sense.

“I don’t know how you could convince me,” he said.

“Maybe I thought I could show you how we could make each other happy,” she said.

“And how would you do that?”

“I have an idea, if you’ll indulge me,” she said.

“Indulge you how?”

“You just have to play along,” she said. “Simple.”

“Why should I?”

“He would want you to understand,” Magdalena said. “He’d want you to listen to me.”

Reuenthal scowled. “That does not mean that I must.”

“But will you?”

He looked at her. “You haven’t explained anything. I’m not really in the mood for games, Baroness.”

“It’s not a game,” she said. “It’s a farce.”

He frowned, but she had convinced him enough that he said, “Fine.”

Magdalena nodded. “Just play along.” She hesitated for a long moment, looking into his eyes, then took his hand again and dropped down to one knee. “Magdalena von Westpfale,” she said, grasping his hand with a sudden urgency. “Would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Reuenthal was nauseated as soon as Magdalena’s intentions here became clear. It was a desperately stupid game, the logical part of Reuenthal’s mind screamed. He shouldn’t allow himself to participate in this. He almost ripped his hand away from her, kicked her out of the house, but she had played him.

It was the fact that she was in his uniform that did it, he thought. He hadn’t ever considered it before, so impossible was it, but he realized now that he would have given anything for the real Yang to be here with him, on his knees and asking for something impossible. This simulacrum was close enough to be disturbing and fascinating, in a way that he couldn’t refuse outright.

He closed his eyes. “Hank,” he said.

“Yes,” Hank prompted, or answered. It didn’t really matter.

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

Hank’s fingers tightened on his, and then he felt him press a kiss to them, first to the ring, then to his knuckles. Reuenthal moved his hand, touching his face, and Hank stood. His hand slid up Reuenthal’s other arm, then to his neck.

“You gonna kiss me, Maggie?” Hank asked.

Reuenthal had never once kissed Hank. Hank had been dismissed as an illusion before Reuenthal had even gotten a chance to try, a shell for people to look at. He felt like a schoolboy again, living the fantasies that had occupied his mind the winter break of his first year at the IOA. He had been in this house, had dreamed of seeing Hank to keep him sane while trapped here. It was easy to return to that state of mind, too easy.

Eyes still closed, he leaned forward. Their lips met. Hank pulled Reuenthal towards him, desperate and hungry; his mouth tasted like whiskey and his breath was erratic. “Touch me,” Hank said. “Please.”

He did. His hand tangled in Hank’s black hair, traced down his back, stroked at his waist. All the while Hank pressed himself into him, his own hands tugging Reuenthal’s shirt out from its neat tuck, undoing his belt so that he could slip his hand through the waistband of Reuenthal’s pants.

Reuenthal couldn’t think properly through the haze of alcohol and the way that Hank’s tongue was insistent in his mouth. His heart was beating wildly, thrumming along with the thrice-illicit dream. All his senses were keyed up to their maximum, attentive to every touch of Hank’s and every sound of their breathing.

Creaking footsteps came through the ceiling— his father— no— his eyes flew open.

Reuenthal shoved Magdalena away, the illusion broken, bile rising in his throat.

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “I could make him happy. You know that.”

There was a part of him that wanted to continue the charade, to see how far it would go, but Yang was walking around upstairs— he heard the pipes rattle as he opened the bathroom tap— and that was too much. He looked at the ring on his finger, then pried it off and held it out to her.

She took it and slipped it into her pocket.

“Have I managed to convince you?” she asked.

“Stay the night or go home, I don’t really care,” Reuenthal said, not answering the question and doing his belt back up. “I’m going to bed.”

She let out a breathy little laugh. “I’ll stay,” she said. She leaned on his arm as he walked out of the drawing room and up the stairs. It was ridiculous.

Yang met them in the hallway, yawning. He had taken off the rest of his clothes at some point between Reuenthal putting him in bed and now, so he was standing around in his boxers and undershirt. Yang didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about the way Magdalena was touching him, or the way she was wearing Yang’s stolen uniform. Or, if he did, he made no reaction or comment.

“What time is it?” Yang asked.

“Two-thirty,” Reuenthal answered.

“You leaving, Maggie?” Yang asked.

“No, I’ll stay,” she said. “Too drunk to drive home.”

Reuenthal pulled open the door to the master bedroom. “Here,” he said.

“Not gonna let me stay with you,” she said with a smile. “I see how it is.”

“You are pushing your luck, Baroness,” Reuenthal said. He pulled his arm off of his, and she went into the bedroom.

“See you in the morning, Hank,” she said.

“Night, Maggie,” Yang replied.

She closed the door. “Sorry I fell asleep,” Yang said. “She wasn’t too annoying, I hope.”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “She just wanted to play dressup.”

Even though Reuenthal had gotten less sleep than Yang, he still woke up first, to the sun spilling in the bedroom window, glinting off the snow. He rolled over in bed to look at him, the way his mouth was loosely open and his hair fell across his face. Reuenthal lingered for a few minutes, then reached out and brushed Yang’s cheek with his thumb.

Yang made a sleepy noise, then twitched, waking up and cracking his eyes open to look at Reuenthal.

“Morning,” Reuenthal said.

“Mmm,” Yang replied. “What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“Shoulda let me sleep.”

“Thought I was curing you of your laziness,” Reuenthal said. “Don’t you have things to do today?”

“Maybe,” Yang said. “I haven’t thought about that yet though. And I don’t really want to.” He flopped over onto his back, hands beneath his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Is Maggie still here?”

“Still asleep, I think.”

“Oh, good.”

He was silent for a long time. Reuenthal wasn’t actually in a hurry to get out of bed, so he just waited to see what Yang would do. As he grew more awake, tension shifted in Yang’s body, his hands tugging at his own hair, and he grew stiffer and stiffer in the bed next to Reuenthal.

“Oskar,” Yang said after a minute.

And here it was, Reuenthal thought, that particular twist in Yang’s voice when he was about to say something that Reuenthal didn’t want to hear. “Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, recently.”

“Such as?”

“Should I marry Maggie?”

Reuenthal closed his eyes. He was tempted, beyond tempted, to lash out, to make this miserable for the both of them. But he didn’t want to prove Magdalena right, at the very least. “You can do what you want,” Reuenthal said finally, the words coming with great difficulty. “I don’t own you, Hank von Leigh.”

Yang flinched at the name. “I know it’s not something you want,” he said. “But nothing has to change, really. Maggie, she…”

“She doesn’t even know your name, does she?” Reuenthal asked.

“No,” Yang said, startled at the question. “I never… It never really came up.”

Reuenthal just nodded.

“Will you— if I do propose to her— will you be alright? With that?”

“And if I wasn’t?”

“I wouldn’t do it,” Yang said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin… what we have.”

“And what will I be left with, Wen-li?”

Yang caught on to the message, the old familiar code, and relaxed a little. “You’ll have me,” Yang said. “If that’s enough for you.”

“It has to be, doesn’t it?”

Yang’s breath caught in his throat. “I wish it didn’t.”

“You can marry her,” Reuenthal said. “If you must.”

Yang rolled over on his side to look at Reuenthal. “Thank you.”

Reuenthal just shook his head and closed his eyes. Tentatively, as if afraid he would be swatted away, Yang touched Reuenthal’s forehead, brushing his hair towards his temple. Reuenthal didn’t move except to turn his face towards Yang, which was taken as a sign of acceptance. Yang’s breath steadied.

He cooked them breakfast, eggs and sausage, and Yang seemed happy, glancing at him every few moments with a small, secret smile. The conversation around the breakfast table was light, all strangeness of the night before forgotten or ignored. If Magdalena had a hangover, she was pretending that she didn’t.

“You should probably go,” Reuenthal said as they finished eating. “I don’t know if I can be having you lurk in my house all day, as well.”

“Hmph,” Magdalena said. “And here I thought you were glad for the company.”

“If I wanted a woman to move into my house,” Reuenthal said, “I would find one.”

She laughed. “I hope you do, Oskar.”

Reuenthal just shook his head.

After breakfast, he walked them over to the front door. He could see Yang fiddling with something in his jacket pocket when he put it on at the door. It must have been the ring that Magdalena had stolen the night before. Reuenthal looked silently and pointedly at the hand in Yang’s pocket, raised an eyebrow. Yang nodded.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Magdalena was saying. “You’d almost think it isn’t going to be New Year’s soon. Will you be around for that, Oskar?”

“No,” he said. “My leave is almost over. I’m heading out next week.”

“Pity,” she said. “I think the parties are going to be spectacular this year.”

“Perhaps.”

“Are you ready, Maggie?” Yang asked.

“I am indeed,” she said. “If I don’t see you, Oskar, take care of yourself.”

“I will, Baroness.”

He turned to Yang. “Hank,” he said. Yang looked up at him, startled. Reuenthal couldn’t finish the sentence, and just nodded. Yang smiled.

“Come on, Maggie,” Yang said.

Reuenthal held open the door for the both of them, and they headed out into the sunny but cold December air. Magdalena’s car was parked far down the driveway, and they walked to it arm in arm. He watched them go, their footsteps glittering across the ice.

As Magdalena stood in front of the driver’s side door, Hank put his hand on her arm and stopped her. Yang gave a glance back at the house, though Reuenthal wasn’t sure if he saw him watching from the window.

And then Hank knelt in the snow and pulled out the ring from his pocket.

They were too far away for Reuenthal to hear what was being said, but he watched the scene play out.

Magdalena held out her hand, and he slipped the ring on her finger. She touched his face, helped him to his feet, and embraced him, standing on her tiptoes and leaning on him heavily. Hank pushed her away just enough that he could look into her eyes, smiling. When he kissed her, Reuenthal turned from the window and walked back into the darkness of his father’s house.