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The dance ends, and Hanneman is alone again.
The music in his ears, the press of another body against his—all of it leaves him in a rush. He staggers away, away from the dancefloor and the masked attendees who want nothing to do with him.
It makes no sense, is the thing! Why attend a masquerade hosted by an academic conference and refuse to partake in intellectual discussion? Certainly, the mage convention will only begin in earnest tomorrow, but why welcome attendees to an inaugural ball if not to invite them to put forth their ideas in a milieu sans judgment, faces unattached to names—the perfect icebreaker. And yet!
The indignation of having been brushed off four times now burns beneath the feather tucked in Hanneman’s breast pocket. He’d taken such care selecting his attire for the soiree, coordinating suit and bowtie with the most prominent hues of a blue jay’s plumage. His sister crafted him a stunning mask that she promised would make him a Valuable Commodity at the ball.
Perhaps he could have been, if he’d just shut up and dance rather than open his obtrusive mouth.
Presently, he occupies said mouth with another melted cheese and mushroom tart from the hors d’oeuvres table against the far wall of the ballroom. Some punch next, to take the edge off, to blunt the sting of rejection. And then he’ll join the next dance number.
It would not be such a loss, to discard one of his two goals for the evening. After all, there is the entirety of the conference to speak to like-minded academics about recent advances in Crestology; it will be far less likely to find a warm body for the night once everyone shows their faces, once the literal masks are replaced with professional ones.
Who knows when Hanneman will stumble upon such an opportunity again? In Essar, everyone knows his name, his title, his eventual inheritance. He will marry, produce a wealth of crest-bearing offspring, and manage the estate from afar. No time for crest research. And certainly no clandestine encounters with handsome young men who will never know his identity.
Hanneman pours himself another glass of punch and slugs it down in one long gulp. Around him, folks desert the food table to gather at the edge of the dance floor; the current musical number is about to end.
The next one is traditional to Essar, one with rotating partners. Most of the dances this evening are common to either Essar or Enbarr, as is the way of things: the host and the capital take precedence. It suits Hanneman just fine; this is his chance to vet potential companions.
A sliding accordion scale marks the dance’s debut, and Hanneman lines himself up with a woman dressed in flamingo-pink. He bows, she curtsies, and they’re off.
The steps come naturally; Hanneman’s body leads with ease while his mind wanders. She is objectively lovely, but he keeps envisioning a man in her colors instead. Or in any colors, really, as his gaze sweeps over the ballroom. He can bide his time until the switch, and hope his next partner better fits the mold. Or the next. Or the next after that.
So there is no reason for him to open his mouth just as the fiddle signals the upcoming change and blurt, “What do you think about Schumer’s predictive model on crest inheritance?”
“I couldn’t care less right now.” She pushes away from him with a smidgeon more force than their separation requires; Hanneman fumbles before resuming the lead with someone new.
How dare she! It is impossible not to have an opinion on Schumer’s model—there are far too many gaps in his logic, and of course models tend to be of bare bones to avoid having to come up with unique specifics for every single exception in existence, this is why they are based in theory and not fundamental laws of the universe, but surely there must be more viable designs out there—
“Can’t you just lighten up and have fun here, mate?” his partner groans. “You can go back to being an uptight scientist tomorrow.”
Ah. He’d said all of that aloud. To a man suited in browns with impressive antlers protruding from each side of his mask.
There go his prospects.
He’s grateful for the next change of partners, even though it’s another woman, this time in a green dress with flowers wreathed across her mask and through her hair. Unexpectedly, she assumes the lead, and it takes all of Hanneman’s focus to match her spirited steps. He succeeds in not treading on her toes more than once, and when the fiddle kicks in, he glances out around him, at the area his next partner should pivot in from, and hones in on a woman in red—
A towering figure in black swoops in to take Hanneman in his arms, firmly steering him away. Hanneman blindly follows, momentarily dazed. Shouldn’t it have been the woman in red?
His new partner stands a head taller than him, a feat in and of itself, yet unlike Hanneman this slimness could not be described as lanky. Wearing only a simple black suit, the most unobtrusive outfit of the evening, the man’s frame is strong and imposing in a manner that is not at all unwelcoming. A sheet of straight black hair reaches past his shoulders. Most noticeably, his plain black mask hides the entire upper half of his face, even his eyes. There is, however, no mistaking his grin as he leans his lips to Hanneman’s ear.
“Without a doubt,” this stranger murmurs, his voice low and thick as molasses, “not enough meat on those bones.”
Hanneman thinks he might faint.
“I—beg pardon—”
The stranger says, “No model with as egregious an omission as the branching of the Daphnel line is worth our time, my little blue jay.”
Oh. Oh.
This is so much. It’s too much. Here he is, held in the dominant grip of a man with the most sensuous voice he’s ever heard, the most attractive frame he has ever seen in his life—Goddess, how is it that even possible in such a simple black suit—and this man is soliciting a Crestology discussion with him mid-dance?
The drinks must be catching up to him.
By the time Hanneman regains the use of his tongue they’re separating, changing partners. He doesn’t even track any details about who he dances with next, spending this round with his head on a swivel, desperately searching for the stranger in black, and he spots him, twirling nearby, close enough that they can maybe—
They do. By some miracle maneuver, Hanneman finds himself back in his stranger’s arms.
Who are you? he nearly asks, then remembers himself, where they are. Instead, he opts for, “Did you travel far for the conference?”
“Farther than you, I’d wager,” the stranger replies, his lips quirking. “Enbarr.”
The capital! Surely, if this man hails from Enbarr and holds an interest in Crestology, he must have access to countless imperial artifacts. Oh, the information they could trade!
But he mustn’t get ahead of himself. No, there is a proper way to these things. Hanneman cannot afford to botch this.
“You are correct, good sir,” he says. “I am rather local in comparison.”
The stranger grins with all his teeth. Ravenous, Hanneman’s brain unhelpfully supplies.
“But you are well read.”
Hanneman’s cheeks heat; something about that tone strikes deeper than mere scientific observation. “I try, of course, but while Essar boasts a sizeable library, it is nothing compared to Enbarr’s facili—”
The fiddle shrieks through the air, jarring Hanneman violently away.
So continues their distinct duet, a dance within a dance. Each time they separate, Hanneman hastens to relocate him, sometimes spying him spinning so far away—how did he cover so much ground? Each time, Hanneman laments that this must be a sign: their game has ended. But each time, the man in black finds his way back to Hanneman for another exchange of knowledge in what little time together they have.
Hanneman learns that his stranger has a vested interest in crestological manifestations, which sets Hanneman off on a tangent about the lack of research papers in Essar’s library. The band cuts him off at the punch, giving his stranger every chance to escape his rambles, yet he returns to Hanneman as soon as he can with that same hungry smile.
The dance concludes in each other’s arms. Just as when the man in black first spoke, Hanneman is rendered breathlessly dumbstruck. He gazes into his stranger’s eyes, or rather, the sheer fabric of the mask where the eye slots are, and so dearly wishes to see into their depths, to know him, to affirm this transcendent experience they’ve cultivated here together.
“Come with me,” his stranger offers. “It is stifling in here. Let us have a drink, a little breather.”
Stifling is an understatement. Hanneman’s perfectly fitted suit is now several sizes too tight, and he feels warmth from high in his cheeks to the tips of his ears to, admittedly, much lower as well.
He wants this to last forever.
A profuse nod is all it takes for his stranger to extend an arm around Hanneman’s waist, nudging him down the path of fellow masqueraders. Even once Hanneman settles by his side, his stranger’s hand never leaves the small of his back. It burns, and Hanneman wonders if this is what it is like to be possessed.
“Tell me, my blue jay,” his stranger says as they walk down a hallway. “What is your deepest desire?”
Hanneman nearly chokes.
The hand on his back digs in, ever so gently, and Hanneman suppresses a frisson of want. “What do you wish for Crestology to accomplish?” his stranger clarifies.
“Oh,” he answers on a sigh—of relief, of frustration, he can’t tell the difference anymore. “It is an impossible question, I’m afraid. We have only just scratched the surface of what crests can do. With the right research, the right magic, the right technology, the possibilities are endless! Predicting whether offspring will bear a crest—surely we can go further. Surely we can find a way to harness that power outside of just breeding.”
“How would you do it?”
Hanneman bites back a response. He cannot speak more of his own research without revealing his identity, even though in this moment he is ready to throw caution to the wind. No one wants to hear the privileged woes of a noble heir, after all. But he cannot just give his stranger nothing.
“I am limited,” he says finally, “by the lack of laboratory technology here in Essar. While our library is grand, our resources do not extend much further.”
The hand on his back caresses downwards. Hanneman’s lip trembles.
“There is a simple solution to that,” his stranger says, stopping in front of a closed door. “Come to Enbarr. Your intellect would be quite the precious commodity. And,” his free hand twists the door open, “you’d be surrounded by like-minded individuals.”
“I—I’m afraid I have responsibilities here that prevent such a venture,” Hanneman says weakly. His awareness muddles, a combination of the fingers teasing over his arse, the recognition of how deep they’ve gone within the manor, and the confusion of how they got here.
The moment he is guided inside the room is the moment Hanneman clocks that this is the broom closet. Then the door shuts behind them, and Hanneman’s back is to a wall, and broomsticks are clattering around him, and his beautiful stranger is boxing him in.
“Come work with me in Enbarr.” His stranger leans in, teeth grazing Hanneman’s neck, and he has to tilt back to grant him better access, and both hands are on Hanneman’s waist now, his thighs, his—his—oh, Goddess—
“Think of what we could do together,” his stranger growls in his ear, drowning out all of his responsibilities, and nothing else matters but this, the heat searing through him, coiling up tight in his gut, so tight, too tight, and he knows the shape of salvation as he bucks recklessly into that goading hand, because he could have this, he could follow his stranger to Enbarr and be damned with it all and it would be so good, just like this, and—
The door to the broom closet swings open.
Hanneman frantically flings himself away as a voice from beyond the threshold says, “An update for you,” and then he is instantly abandoned.
Doused in ice and rooted in place, all of his fantasies crashing around him, Hanneman watches as the stranger huddles with an individual in a black cloak, a beaked mask, and…working boots hardly befitting the occasion. They whisper to each other, and all Hanneman can do is try to catch his breath as the whiplash of regret and mortification stings through his veins.
The stranger straightens. “I will be with you shortly,” he says, and the intruder disappears down the hall. Then he turns back to Hanneman, a lopsided smile playing at his lips.
“Regrettably, my evening has been cut short,” he says. “But I so look forward to seeing your crest identifier prototype at the conference.”
As Hanneman’s brain short-circuits on that, on a memory of the conference schedule, listing names and topics for each presentation—his stranger vanishes in a flash of violet light.
~o~
“Bertrand’s presentation has been cancelled?”
“—saw him at the ball last night—”
“Damn, I’d been looking forward to—”
“I heard he was involved in an assassination plot—”
“Goddess save us!”
It’s those tones, hushed and strangely foreboding, that filter through Hanneman’s headache. Not a consequence of too much drink, no—merely a restless night, assaulted by a devastating maelstrom of what ifs from a cold, empty bed.
Now, in the conference hall, he blearily listens to the gossip swirling around him while he stares at the big X crossing out the subject of the conversation from the schedule posted on the wall.
“Lucky that young Marquis Vestra was there, you know nothing gets by hi—”
“My good scholars,” a low, smooth voice slices through, and Hanneman’s head snaps over before he can stop himself. He watches the tall, handsome man dressed in mage robes insert himself into the circle of whisperers. His hair, long and black and slick, falls neatly behind him. “I must advise you not to spread such rumors so prematurely, before any proper investigation has concluded.” His voice drips saccharine silk, and yet it chills Hanneman to the bone. “It could lead to terrible consequences for innocent parties.”
One of the perpetrators stammers while others nearby dip their heads, all of them red-faced. “I’m terribly sorry, Marquis Vestra. I won’t speak of this again, promise.”
“You have my sincere thanks.”
As the crowds scatter, the marquis himself fixes his sharp green eyes directly on Hanneman, and breaks into that familiar, crooked, covetous smile.
“Ah, my blue jay. So good to see you here.”