Page 21 of Measure of the Stars

“How was...”Wes tried not to choke on his words as he heard the shuffle of clothes being discarded and picked up again.“How was the Swan’s Crown?”

“Enlightening,” Delauney said.

“Good.”Wes thought of the way that Delauney’s cock had felt pressing against him and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over his head.“That’s good.”

“Are you quite well?”Delauney asked.“You just got into bed in your day clothes.And boots.”

“Fine,” Wes said.His voice almost cracked.“Good night.”

“But it’s so early!You must have had an exhausting day at the library, then.”

Wes covered his eyes with both hands and tried not to scream.

He lay there for a while, waiting for Delauney’s inevitable probing questions.When they didn’t come, he tossed off the covers just in time to spot Delauney slinking out the door in the least convincing disguise a noble could throw together.Delauney stared at him with the agonized horror of a dog stepping on fresh laundry, tucked into a massive jacket with a hat that did nothing to cover his hair or face.

“Just stepping out for a drink with Ned,” Delauney said.

“Ned’s on the ship.”Delauney’s rictus of a smile faltered, and Wes got up.“You can’t sneak out looking like that.Take that hat off and put the jacket away.”

“I did tell you that you don’t have to act as my valet,” Delauney said, sheepishly letting Wes pull off his jacket.

“This is a matter of professional dignity,” Wes said.“Not as a valet.I used to slip out of my parents’ house all the time, and they had eyes on the back of their heads.You had to bededicatedto get away with petty crime in my household.”

“I doubt you committed any actual crimes,” Delauney said.“Petty or otherwise.”When Wes just stared at him, he sighed.“Captain Lennox notwithstanding.”

“I wasn’t a criminal by a magistrate’s standards,” Wes said, handing Delauney a simple gray shirt from his bag.“But according to my mother?I was one step away from murder.You can imagine why I learned how to sneak out quietly.”

“What were you doing?”Delauney asked.

“Consorting with fellow commoners,” Wes said in a scandalized whisper.He rolled his eyes.“As though shipping me off to the navy fixedthat.”

He swallowed an unpleasant memory, old wounds threatening to claw their way up from the depths like one of the sea creatures that tangled themselves in nets sometimes.Wes had seen one once, a pale squid with lifeless eyes and a bloated body, already dying as it drifted up from the dark.Some things needed to stay in the world below, and Wes’ departure from home was one of them.

“You should be less conspicuous now,” Wes said at last.“Walk like you know where you’re going and no one should follow you.”

Delauney hovered anxiously in the doorway, his cheeks pink.“Would you like to come?”he asked.

Wes took a step back.“I don’t know if I should go to a late-night meeting.”Not when he was still trying to suppress the desire to feel Delauney’s mouth on him again.

“It isn’t that,” Delauney said.“I hired someone to make something for me.You just have to promise not to laugh when you see it.”

Wes had never seen Delauney look so anxious, even when he’d been digging through the piles littering his room.“I suppose I could use a walk.I might be slow, though.I’m a little sore.”

Delauney flashed him a true, earnest smile, and something strange wobbled in Wes’ stomach.“It must have been all that walking in the library tower.”

It was mostly being admired by a long string of strangers for hours and taking Delauney’s cock through a wall, but he wasn’t about to quibble over the details.“That’s right.Walking.”

The people of Hekate’s Eye were incapable of quiet, even with a tower full of librarians to judge them for it.Most of the eating houses stayed open all night, and the pleasure district was alight with lanterns, torches, and colorful banners.Wes eyed Delauney as they passed the sailor’s library and thought he caught a flush on his cheeks, but it was hard to tell.Delauney was so pale that he tended to wear every emotion on his face for all to see.

Thankfully, they didn’t linger near the pleasure houses.Instead, Delauney led Wes past the next bend, toward the other side of the small island.The houses here were still busy with movement, but some of the windows were dark, and Delauney moved purposely past them toward a house perched on the edge of a small bluff.A large, round building huddled next to the house, and Wes could just see a wisp of smoke rising from a hole in the roof.

“I’m seeing a glassmaker,” Delauney said.“His name’s Fern, and he’s a little...eccentric.Most geniuses are, I think.”

“What do you need with a glassmaker?”Wes asked, curious.

“Well, he was trained by Raul Vitrier,” Delauney said, “which means he can work metal as well as glass.And he can make a prism precise enough to avoid any significant inaccuracies."

Wes looked over at Delauney.He wasn’t speaking in the lighthearted, slightly self-deprecating way Wes had come to expect.He sounded confident, knowledgeable, and Wes thought of the numbers and diagrams scrawled in the discarded papers of his cabin.