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The flagstone path to the orchard is quiet in the twilight, the only sound rustling through the leaves a salt-tinged susurrus off the lagoon. Armand draws his kimono jacket tighter about himself, making a bow of the dangling ties. He smooths the heavy sashiko weave, noting the rub of indigo left on his fingertips, tucking his hands in the roomy pockets as he slows to a walk. There’s a figure beneath the fruit trees.
“What’s the matter, my lady?” Paola says in passably archaic Venetian, flicking ash from her cigarette as she contemplates the magnolia blossoms before her. “I can tell from here that you’re upset. Come, I’ll spend what’s left of my smoke break diagnosing your woes.”
“You’re worse than the fledglings,” Armand scolds, halfhearted and teasing, demonstrating the proper accent in which his century’s dialect should be spoken. “Sharp-tongued, disrespectful…” He breaks into a weary smile, accepting the unlit cigarette Paola offers, lighting it as he brings it to his lips. “Yet you have made yourself professionally indispensable and proved your company most enjoyable. A conundrum.”
“Do you want me to leave or not?” Paola asks dryly, switching to her faintly British-accented English. “The router’s all set. I appreciate you paying me to do other odd jobs like hang artwork and assemble bookshelves, but we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
Armand shrugs, taking a drag on his cigarette. “Your housing situation is crowded, last I checked.”
Paola snorts, flicking more ash onto the flagstones, but she nods. “Understatement of the century.”
The echo of Ricky’s words sticks in Armand’s mind, prophetic. “You know too much about this mess.”
“There it is,” Paola says with feeling. “Part of what’s ailing you. You fear you’ve compromised me.”
Armand wraps one arm tightly around his middle. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Paola nods, blowing smoke toward the stars. “It’s not as if I was doing anything with my undeath to make a difference. Maybe now…”
“I’ve endangered those dear to me over and over,” Armand says. “That’s what’s the matter. Sam and Rashid in particular, I’ve…failed them.”
“Oh, don’t be so fucking melodramatic,” Daniel says from behind them, startling them both nearly enough to jump. “Easy, princess. Just me.”
“I’d better get back to those shelves,” Paola says, pinching out what’s left of her cigarette as she breezes past them, heading back toward the villa.
Armand doesn’t say anything for a while. He watches Paola retreat into the hazy blue darkness, taking drag after drag on his cigarette until the cinders burn the knuckles of his index and middle fingers. He hisses, drops it on the flagstones, and then glances at Daniel, chagrined.
“I have failed them, beloved,” Armand insists, folding both of his arms tightly, shifting his stance. However hard he may try for defiance, he can already tell Daniel isn’t having it, and that’s as it should be. That’s what Daniel has promised he will always, always do: call Armand’s bullshit.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Daniel takes a step toward Armand. He sets his hands on Armand’s elbows. “What’s my next line, babe?”
Armand lowers his eyes, lifts his chin, and sniffs. The indignity of knowing exactly what’s coming never gets any easier. “We’re not doing this.”
“Damn fuckin’ straight we’re not,” Daniel agrees, firmly taking hold of Armand’s chin. “What else do you think I came out here to say to you, huh?”
Meeting Daniel’s patient gaze, Armand works his jaw. “Sam and Rashid could’ve refused to have anything to do with us from the moment we walked back into their existence…” He rolls his eyes, counting back to mid-January. “Nearly three months ago. So there.”
“Correct,” Daniel replies proudly, gathering Armand against his chest, rocking him where they stand. “Jesus, though. What a mindfuck.”
“The part where they’ve been together for almost eleven years, and Sam was in Dubai with Rashid?” Armand retorts. “You’re telling me.”
“Looking back, what gets me most is how dumb Raglan played about all of this,” Daniel laughs. “Go find Rashid and the script for us. We have reason to believe he might be with Sam Barclay.” He snorts. “Reason to believe? He watched their entire courtship! Years of it!”
Armand rests his head against Daniel’s shoulder, closing his eyes. The memory of what he’d pulled from Rashid’s mind on the day of his interview for the job in Dubai, delicate as gossamer thread—no, he’d never be over the shock of that being how he’d learned his maker still lived.
“What were the chances,” Armand whispers. “What were the chances of any of it?”
“Can’t read you right now, sweetheart,” Daniel reminds him. “Chances of what?”
“Rashid having been accosted by Marius as a teenager,” Armand says, lifting his head. “Sam having been assigned by the Talamasca to follow Marius, which led him to save Rashid’s life and seal his future career. The two of them—both my employees, at one point or another—becoming this to each other. Becoming this,” he whispers, his eyes filling with tears. “At least if they die on my account in this folly, they’ll die together?”
Daniel doesn’t say something flippant. He looks gutted, which makes Armand feel vindicated. “They could’ve refused, but they didn’t.”
Armand nods once with fierce, miserable pride. “True. They agreed to this madness of their own accord, because that’s who they are.”
“Sentimental schmucks like us who’d do absolutely anything for the kids?”
“That, and…Sam’s guilt over what happened in Paris runs as deep as mine.”
“Who knew dredging up vamp history would cause a crisis of conscience?”
“Oh, Daniel. Surely you must’ve known Dubai wouldn’t be the end of it.”
Daniel tucks Armand’s curls behind his ears. “With Raglan breathing down my neck and Rashid playing double agent…even odds there’d be shit.”
Armand smiles wryly as Daniel wipes away his tears. “You just didn’t know what kind of shit, I’d guess is the next claim on your tongue.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” Daniel sighs, pecking Armand on the lips. “You know me so well.”
Armand laughs in spite of himself. “Did I worry the fledglings when I left so abruptly?”
Daniel releases Armand and pulls his phone from his back pocket. “Yeah, but I’ll let ’em know you’re okay,” he says, opening a blank text.
Stepping off the flagstones and into the cool grass, Armand approaches the magnolia tree. He sets his palm against a branch. “Thank you.”
“Meanwhile, they say…” Daniel makes a disgruntled noise. “Sam and Rashid are fine, and yeah, judging by the photo, I’d say more than. Look.”
Armand turns, met with Daniel’s phone screen an inch from his nose. Paige has photographed Sam and Rashid in the hot tub. Sam straddles Rashid’s lap, his back to the camera, his head resting on Rashid’s shoulder. Rashid’s vivid eyes are fixed directly on the camera, a challenge to the viewer. His arms are possessive around Sam’s waist, his fingers genteelly tucked just beneath Sam’s waistband.
“That’s polite compared to some of our conduct,” Armand remarks. He ponders the effortless devotion he’s witnessed between them, constant touches as a source of affection, pleasure, and reassurance. “Do you know,” Armand murmurs as Daniel takes the phone back in both hands to type, “that in over five centuries, I’ve never seen the first decade of a companionship go quite like theirs?”
Daniel smirks as he finishes typing, and then hits SEND. “Why, because Rashid was human for most of it?”
“Partly,” Armand agrees. “Petronia turned Rashid for Sam when they arrived in London less than a month after I turned you on Night Island. Before you say anything, Daniel, I know that you were human for our first decade and change. But we didn’t…we weren’t…”
Daniel nods in recognition, pocketing his phone. “Yeah, babe, I know. We were a fuckin’ disaster. The drugs, the fights, the breakup.”
Armand gestures helplessly. “Something so precious,” he whispers. “They have never lost each other, and I cannot be the reason they do.”
Taking Armand’s hand, Daniel leads him back toward the villa. “That’s why we’re not splitting them up. Not at any stage, not for any reason.”
Swallowing hard, Armand turns Daniel’s words over in his mind. “I suppose they’ve already taken far greater risks for each other. With each other.”
“Yep,” Daniel agrees, squeezing Armand’s hand. “And do you know what we have in common, everyone in this fucked-up, but familial coven?”
“More things than most of us would care to admit,” Armand mutters, “but humor me. I’d love to hear your take, because it’s undoubtedly unique.”
“None of us are happy unless we’re constantly risking our necks for the idiot we’ve decided, for whatever irrational reason, is our idiot,” Daniel says. “Those two? Whoosh. Talk about assigned each other’s idiots at first sight. Fate wasn’t even half that dramatic with us.”
Armand glances sidelong at Daniel, unable to squash the bleakly amused thought that had just occurred to him. “Marius will try to take credit.”
“What, as the matchmaker? Please,” Daniel groans. “Credit goes to the Talamasca, and you know I hate to give them credit for anything.”
They walk a few more circuits of their tiny, idyllic island in the Venetian Lagoon. When they finally slip back inside with cheeks raw from the chill, Paola thrusts the iPad into Armand’s hands with a shrug. There’s a FaceTime call on the screen.
“Question, maître,” Sam says urgently, his flushed face taking up the entirety of the frame. “Has anybody been crashing in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés townhouse lately? Haven’t put it on the market, or been letting it as an Airbnb, have you?”
Armand blinks at him, baffled. “No, unless I’ve recently acquired squatters of whom I’m unaware,” he replies. “Why do you ask, Sam?”
There’s a scuffle over custody of the laptop on their end, and then Rashid is calmly regarding Armand with Sam peering over his shoulder.
“With your permission, we’d like to stay there,” Rashid says. “Having our numbers spread out geographically would be safe and strategic.”
“I told ’em the fledglings won’t like it!” Petronia calls from somewhere out of frame.
“Ricky and Paige can fuckin’ deal!” Daniel shouts back. “They dealt with Jesse, right?”
Armand hisses, waving for them to be quiet. “I’ll have my staff prepare the house for you and Sam,” he tells Rashid. “When do you plan to go?”
“Sooner than not,” Sam admits, relieved. “Let’s say…three or four nights to pack, another in transit? Within five or six nights, thereabouts.”
Armand studies Sam’s restless, glinting gray eyes. They’ve changed little from what he remembers, although with one notable exception. The sadness that had once so starkly defined them, vast and fathomless, has been replaced with a steadfast, stubborn hope.
“I thought you said it mustn’t arrive,” Armand says. “But I’m glad you let it.”
Sam tilts his head, his brows knit. “You thought I said…what mustn’t, now?”
Rashid turns his head, bumping his nose against Sam’s cheek. “Think,” he says.
“Fuck off,” Sam grouses. “That outlook was both avant-garde and unsustainable.”
“Question!” Petronia calls from offscreen. “Seeing as I’m their maker and I’m Italian,” they venture, “does that, in theory, make me Guido?”
Sam takes the laptop and casts his gaze askance. “I’ll throw this fuckin’ thing at your head if you don’t shut up, swear to all that’s unholy I will.”
Rashid grabs the laptop back, flashing a bright, strained smile at Armand. “Thanks for agreeing to this,” he says in a rush. “Have a good morning!”
Armand turns off the iPad, letting his arms fall at his sides. He looks at Daniel and says, “There’s no world in which this plan succeeds, is there.”
Daniel cups Armand’s cheek. “I don’t know about that,” he replies. “Insanity usually works to our advantage, and those two? Are deranged.”
Armand kisses him. “I’ll make the arrangements in Paris and come to bed shortly. Set Paola up in the guest room, won’t you? Dawn’s too near.”