Chapter Text
August 18th, 2023
Kit was trying very hard to seem like this was any other day. He was usually good at hiding his feelings from his dad. Although Johnny Rook was an experienced conman, and the person Kit spent the most time with, his father didn’t scrutinize Kit’s actual feelings much.
Of course, he was totally paranoid about Kit’s actions, but that was different.
Regardless, he was doing his best to seem like he usually did when hot people came up to his father’s stall at the Market. His dad rolled his eyes most of the time, telling Kit it would be many years before Kit would be allowed to pursue anything with anyone (which Kit had ignored years ago—he’d had his first kiss three years back with a cute girl his age that helped out at her family’s stall before they moved). Still, as long as Kit didn’t bring attention to himself, he was allowed to get closer and sneak a peek.
It had been a slow day, with only regulars that had known Kit since he was nine coming by, and he’d pushed some crates closer to his dad without a reprimand, practicing card tricks and occasionally scrolling through his off-brand, cracked phone.
And then his dad had huffed a little, briefly meeting Kit’s eyes. “What do you think of them?”
Kit was trained to watch people just like his dad. While he was supposed to keep his head down, Kit knew how to pick locks, pick pockets, and pick hearts. So he looked up, curious, only to pause.
The blond man, Kit didn’t recognize.
But the boy.
They were at a different booth. The obviously part-faerie man was talking to the owner, but the black-haired boy Kit recognized all too well, with those bee-themed headphones, was looking around. His shoulders were tense, but his head moved slowly, taking everything in.
He turned around fully, and his eyes landed on Kit, who was only half-hidden by the blue overhang of the Rook stall. For a moment, their eyes met, and the other boy’s eyes widened fractionally before flitting to try and look at the rest of Kit.
“He’s cute,” Kit muttered to his dad, who for all his failings was at least not a bigot. “And now he’s looking at me,”
“Don’t go falling,” his dad said, moving to cover Kit a little. “Back up,”
Kit pushed his crates back quietly before sitting again.
“Do you recognize him?”
“Never seen him before,” Kit lied. “Or the blond guy either—neither of them seem comfortable, the blond is almost definitely half-faerie, and he’s either carrying a lot of money or something else he doesn’t want to lose. His hand is gripping something in his pocket. He’s shifting a lot, probably asking a question. I’d bet they’re lost. The boy… Well, he’s tall,”
“Don’t start, Kit,” Johnny Rook rolled his eyes. “Don’t throw yourself at the nearest person who you think looks nice and is maybe your age. That’d be a stupid way to get killed or kidnapped,”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Kit tapped on his knee softly, before putting up his hood. He hoped the other boy would get the hint, but Kit didn’t necessarily blame him if he didn’t. It wasn’t like he knew Kit’s reasons for hiding.
Thankfully, something the blond man and the stall owner said captured his attention, and the boy turned away.
“New admirer, little Rook?” an older nymph, Betula, sneered as she passed behind the booths, through the seller’s lane between the stall lines and the brick walls of the alleyways. She must have seen the boy looking at Kit. “It’s been a while since some young, hapless thing became infatuated with you,”
Kit sneered back. Betula was a total creep that had once suggested Kit become a concubine for a random faerie lord passing through the Market. Johnny Rook had kept Kit at home for 4 months without letting him step a foot outside. He’d missed his middle school’s only field trip to the zoo.
And anyway, it was usually the older not-hapless ones that became obsessed with Kit. Luckily, a significant part of the Market viewed Kit as a sort of protected, communal child and regardless, his father’s reputation gave him a certain level of security.
Wren, one of the few teenagers in the Market that had been around for some years, liked to tell Kit about whenever an acquaintance of hers spotted him for the first time and showed interest in him. Kit didn’t know if that inflated his ego or made him more paranoid.
“Scram, Betula,” Johnny Rook glared at her as well, and the tree nymph cackled as she swiftly made her way down the lane, agile despite her age.
Regrettably, she had put his father on edge, and it wasn’t five minutes and a few more glances from the boy when he crossed his arms and told Kit to make himself scarce.
“Stay in Hypatia’s tent,” he ordered, sparing him hardly a glance. “Come back at 2:30 to pack up,”
Wonderful. It was barely 10 at night, and now Kit had to spend almost five hours doing absolutely fuck all and listening to Hypatia go on and on about who-knows-what.
He didn’t bother making his displeasure known, standing up and patting off dust from his jeans. With his hood still up and the practiced, quiet walk he’d mastered by the time he was 10, he made his way into the Market.
As he crossed the corner to a new alleyway, one lined with large tents and glittering blue lanterns, he glanced up again.
Across the long block of stalls, he locked eyes again with the other boy.
Tiberius Blackthorn stared back, walking next to the blond man in Kit’s direction, and even after Kit was out of sight, the silver of his eyes was burned into his vision.
~~~~~~~
Kit did not go to Hypatia’s tent.
He hid for a few minutes in a small nook filled with ladders and a random spear, blending in as well as he could in the shadows—black-on-black clothes helped with that plenty—until Tiberius and his companion walked by. Kit pressed himself against the wall, noting that Tiberius’ head swiveled back and forth, scanning, likely looking for him.
After they were out of sight for a minute, Kit left his hiding place, following them until he was at a safe enough distance to watch without being spotted.
They had gone deep into the Market, in an area Kit had rarely visited in all his years using the otherworldly space as a second home. It was a series of small streets and alleys, with door after door that were small rooms. As Kit understood it, the rooms could be rented, for hours or decades, although who the rent went to, he wasn’t sure. Many clandestine meetings, often with organized crime, occasionally with just estranged family members, took place there.
The blond man led them through a door with a flowery garland nailed to the front and knocked. Kit watched from behind an abandoned collection of furniture (abandoned things always found their way to the Market) as a full-blooded faerie woman, clearly from the Gentry, albeit modestly dressed, opened the door. Seelie, obviously, with pale blond hair the same shade as the man. A relative, from the way they embraced briefly.
She nodded to Tiberius politely, and he gave a small wave. Kit edged closer. He’d always had exceptionally good hearing, so he tried his best to catch their exchange.
“You may not enter, child, for the door is enchanted against it—it only allows those in the contract, and I did not know your brother would bring you,”
Tiberius shrugged. “I can wait out here,”
She seemed hesitant to agree. “Miach, I’m not sure…”
“Mark, I’ll be fine. I won’t go anywhere,”
The blond man, Miach, Mark, whatever, seemed nervous. “I don’t know, Ty… I brought you thinking you would stay by me the entire time, as I didn’t know about the enchantment. I told Julian you would only look around while we found Aunt Nene, not that I would leave you on your own,”
“It’s okay. You only rented the room for a little bit, so I won’t have to wait long, either,”
Mark—Kit decided to go with what Tiberius called him, since they were apparently brothers—hesitated, but after a moment, agreed. Aunt Nene bid Tiberius to keep careful watch, and the two fey entered the room, closing the door gently.
Kit watched as Tiberius tapped his foot, counting off seconds for a half-minute, before decidedly turning from the door and starting to walk down the rest of the alley, looking around. He’d slid off his headphones when they had first knocked on Nene’s door, and in the quiet, almost ghostly back alleys of the Market, he didn’t seem to need them back on.
Kit was 100% sure that Tiberius was definitely not supposed to be going off on his own, if the previous conversation had been any indicator. He began to trail after the other boy slowly.
Only about two minutes passed before Tiberius paused, going completely still. Kit quickly moved to take cover behind a large box, next to a door with a light flickering over it.
Tiberius turned around and looked down the street. Kit crouched low, sacrificing his visual on the other boy to remain better hidden.
He could hear slow and steady steps coming closer, but they seemed to be leaning ever so slightly towards the side of the alley that would be Tiberius’ right, whereas Kit was on his left.
Maybe he would get away with it.
He left himself hope for a short second, before the universe reminded Kit why he was decidedly not an optimist.
The door he was next to burst open and Kit, cursing himself internally, nearly jumped out of his skin, knocking his head against the box he’d been hiding behind.
A decidedly turtle-looking faerie gave him a confused one-over before fast-walking away, slamming the door in their wake.
Kit briefly wondered if he was athletic enough to make a run for it.
He didn’t even have time to tell himself no, because as soon as he had stood, a blur of motion appeared in front of him, and he was pushed against the brick wall, the air in his lungs escaping him as he was knocked back.
He had hardly even processed that before he felt a cold sliver of metal at his throat, and he stopped moving.
There was a long, quiet moment as Kit stared into Tiberius’ face. Time almost seemed to stop.
Despite Kit’s numerous…. Physical encounters over the past year, he’d never quite just looked at a person’s face up close. He hadn’t realized it would be possible to see the ripples of color in their iris, or count their eyelashes, not that he had the opportunity with a knife at his throat.
Still.
Still.
“...Oh,” Tiberius said, sounding curious. “I had wondered where you went,”
His eyes didn’t meet Kit’s.
Kit tried to take a shallow breath, but he found that although the knife was uncomfortable, the true hindrance to his ability to breathe was the fact that Tiberius Blackthorn was incredibly, undeniably, astonishingly beautiful.
Kit was so screwed.
And also a total dumbass—who got a knife to the throat and instead focused on the length of the attacker’s eyelashes??
They were long though, and thick and dark, and Kit felt a ridiculous urge to take a picture—
Right. Knife.
He let a single more indulgent second pass by, before clearing his throat.
“Can you maybe not cut my throat open?” he said. Even if the cut was shallow and small, his dad would notice it, and Kit wasn’t eager to come up with a believable lie for that sort of injury.
Tiberius blinked, before stepping back. The knife had a serrated blade with a simple black handle, and he closed it with a short flick of his wrist. “Oh, sorry,”
Kit traced across his throat, checking his fingers, relieved to find not even a speck of blood.
He pushed his hood down, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed, and shook out his hair. “I like your knife,”
Tiberius ignored his measly attempt at redirection. “You were following me,”
“Well… yeah,” Kit pushed off the wall.
A tilt of Tiberius’ head told him that wasn’t an acceptable answer.
“It’s not every day I see a classmate at the Market,” Kit shifted. “It’s not exactly a place for high school students,”
“True,” Tiberius cocked his head. “So why are you here? I saw you at a stall earlier, but you acted like you didn’t know me,”
They didn’t really know each other. Having nearly identical schedules for a year and a half of high school (maybe more, but the past week had been the first of Junior year and Kit hadn’t been allowed to go, so he didn’t know how they might match that time around) meant very little. He was 99% sure this was the first time he’d ever spoken to the other boy.
Of course, Kit was aware of the two gorgeous Blackthorn twins that had changed out from homeschooling midway through the 9th grade, because everyone was. And also because they had a habit of staring at him a lot whenever he gave teachers and students random excuses about his absences, or did anything suspicious in general.
See, Kit lived a quiet high school life. He didn’t talk to many people, he turned in all his work on time (as often as he could, considering his dad occasionally didn’t let him go to school), he was silent in class unless called on, and he rarely ever participated. In group projects, he gravitated towards either the smallest groups or the ones with the least invasive students, and he didn’t care how much work anyone else did as long as he was able to turn in his work without fuss.
He wasn’t in clubs or sports, although he was in honors and concurrent enrollment classes (and was buttering his dad up to let him take the free college night classes offered by the district), and his behavioral record was spotless (because he never got caught, or because he talked his way out of trouble).
Still, he wasn’t a mean classmate. Most of his teachers liked him, because Kit always spent a significant part at the beginning of the year gently putting himself in their good graces, and his classmates…
Well, Kit didn’t have the best regard for his personality, but he knew other people liked how he looked. It was surprisingly easy to be the “mysterious, hot boy” everyone liked when all he had to do was sit quietly in the back and smile occasionally.
He wasn’t much of a fixture in anyone’s life, except the people at the Market, and even though plenty of people were curious about him, it was shallow, fleeting.
But the Blackthorn twins.
They had always put Kit a little on edge. Their eyes were sharp, and they watched everyone like a hawk, particularly Tiberius. They sat together in every class they shared, worked together on nearly every assignment, and had absolutely captivated everyone when they first transferred in.
They were rich, and had been previously homeschooled. Both were extremely smart, and a couple of altercations over the past year and a half had proved them to also be very strong. And they were both beautiful, of course, because life showered them with blessings, like they were Sleeping Beauty receiving gifts from the faeries.
Both of them tended to watch Kit’s every move for some fucking reason, and he knew Tiberius had once asked around about where Kit went during his off periods last year. Kit had always been aware of their presence the second he entered a room, and similarly, they always spotted him when he was nearby. They had never exchanged words, but it hardly seemed to matter.
Livia was overall more popular with people, because she tended to start conversations and was in Theater, always a bit bubbly. On the other hand, Tiberius had a reputation for being a know-it-all who didn’t seem interested in other people, which Kit thought was ridiculous. Tiberius was smart as fuck and Kit always tuned in whenever he participated in class, because he always had something interesting to say. He was often stoic, but Kit knew he was observant and always looking around at people, and also, whenever Livia made him smile, his whole face changed.
Kit maybe paid a little too much attention to him.
But in the end, he and Tiberius did not really know each other.
He didn’t feel like that would be a good reason to the other boy though.
“I’m not supposed to mix regular life with the Market,” he settled on. It was true for most humans involved in the fey world—you didn’t mix them, because it would get so much more complicated. “I wasn’t about to go and wave you over,”
Tiberius considered him. “That does make sense, but then you followed me,”
Kit kinda wanted to kick himself.
“I was curious. And bored,”
“Mhmm,” Tiberius took another step back, maybe noticing that he was still quite close. “You haven’t been to school,”
Kit sighed. He didn’t bother talking his dad out of it, but he was still mad about missing the first entire week of Junior year. His dad hadn’t really explained it, but he’d been especially jumpy and had told Kit he was just ‘ looking for someone’. What that had to do with Kit’s school, he wouldn’t tell. “I know. I should be back Monday,”
“Good,”
Kit slowly edged towards the direction they’d come from, hoping to get Tiberius closer to the door his brother had disappeared into. Tiberius lifted his brows but followed.
Kit wondered if Hypatia knew he was supposed to be at her tent.
Tiberius was watching him very curiously, eyes going up and down his form. If Kit didn’t know any better, he would think the other boy was checking him out. But Kit knows Tiberius was just trying to figure him out.
“This explains a lot,” Tiberius said after a moment.
“Does it?” Kit sincerely hoped it didn’t. “Also, don’t go around telling people about this. It won’t be a problem just for us, but basically everyone,”
“Of course not. I don’t want to be hunted down by bitter faeries or obsessive high school girls,”
Kit’s step faltered as he looked over at Tiberius, who looked neutral as far as expressions went. He couldn’t quite help the laugh that escaped him.
Tiberius’ expression went from neutral to surprised as Kit shook his head and grinned.
“That's a great way to sum it up, actually,” Kit continued on walking, regaining his rhythm, and after a while, Tiberius caught up.
They had barely made it to the door Tiberius and Mark had knocked at when a voice called out into the alley.
“ Younger Rook, come out immediately,”
“Shit,” Kit sighed. “Hypatia,”
Tiberius gave him a startled look, clearly recognizing the name.
From the shadowy entrance of the alleyway, a tall faerie woman slowly sauntered forward.
Hypatia Vex was a powerful faerie in the Market, running several operations of it, although she wasn’t quite yet the owner. She had brown skin, bronze hair, and gold eyes with star-shaped pupils. When Kit was younger, he’d been intimidated by her.
She crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “I’ve been informed that I was suppose to have you show up at my tent a half hour ago, little Rook, but to no one’s surprise, I’ve seen neither hair nor hide of you,”
Kit gave her a casual finger wave. “I’m sure we can keep this between us? My dad won’t get suspicious if you tell him I was with you,”
She couldn’t lie any more than other fullblood fey, but she could spin a tale.
She rolled her eyes. “Fiendish boy. Bring me that tea with the bubbles and your father will be none the wiser,”
“Fiendish boy, that’s a new one,” Kit said, making his way to her. “I have hardly done anything to deserve it,”
“Would you prefer the bane of my existence or chronic annoyance?”
“No, fiendish makes me sound more intriguing,”
“You exasperate me, child,”
“I live to please,”
“Silence,”
Kit snorted. Hypatia was so easy to aggravate. But she was also very fond of boba tea, which he’d introduced her to when he’d managed to sneak out and buy some about six months ago. Kit couldn’t believe Wren actually thought Hypatia was alluring, not really.
Kit wasn’t sure if Hypatia liked him exactly, and she definitely didn’t like his father, but over the years she’d become someone his dad could trust to watch over Kit for brief moments. Kit never learned exactly how they came to the agreement, since he was sure Hypatia didn’t accept typical payments, but it was apparently solid enough that she was willing to leave her work to locate him.
She glanced at Tiberius and raised a brow. “Oh, my, is that a Blackthorn?”
Kit shrugged. “A who? I just followed him because he was cute,”
He turned and winked at Tiberius to sell it, who turned a little pink, although he also seemed on the alert at Hypatia knowing his last name.
Internally thought?
Why the fuck did Hypatia recognize Tiberius on sight? Why did she know his last name?
“Teenagers,” Hypatia shook her head. “No control. You don’t want to aggravate them, little Rook. Word says they’re involved with the Unseelie Court,”
Kit blinked, not bothering to cover his surprise. “Oh, damn,”
What.
The Market was mostly made up of wild fey, but both the Seelie and Unseelie courts had a presence there too. Kit had been instructed to never get too close to either side, but even more so to avoid the Unseelie.
How had Kit gone to school with people that had a reputation among faeries even as powerful as Hypatia and not known it? How was he allowed to go to his school at all? Did his father not know?
Well, Kit sure as Hell wasn’t about to tell him…
“Truly,” Hypatia hummed. “Let us go now. And to the Child of Thorns, do not bother with this one. He is of the Market, and has no human value nor manners,”
“Jeez, Hypatia, way to tell me how you really feel,” Kit crossed his arms. “Aren’t we supposed to go to your tent now?”
Tiberius opened his mouth, although Kit didn’t have the slightest idea of what he would say. But before he had the chance, Hypatia had grasped Kit by the shoulder, apparently in agreement with Kit’s remark, and started marching him away.
Kit didn’t bother fighting it, and didn’t look back.