The square-faced guard looked down at the charred black line Naum’s magic had cut into the ground and, for a moment, Hastur thought he might step over it.

Come on, pal, just turn around and walk the other way already, will you?

Beside him, Naum tilted his chin up slightly, feline eyes narrowing in silent challenge, seeming to dare the guard to interfere with a reeve acting in the line of duty. Hastur and everyone else watching the scene play out knew reeves had free license to use force as necessary and this reeve in particular had more force at his disposal than most.

Relief swept the sparse crowd when the guard stepped back from the line.

“We’ll settle this later,” the guard snarled at Hastur then turned on heel and left, his men in tow.

“I’ll wear my dancing shoes,” Hastur called back then turned to find Naum looking at him strangely. “What?”

The reeve’s impassive expression returned and he ignored Hastur’s question in favor to turning to one of the two other watchmen that had arrived and were now dispersing the crowd that was threatening to form. “Call a wagon. I need to transport this suspect back to Central.”

“Suspect? Suspected for what?!” Hastur demanded and took a step back on reflex.

Naum still had a hold on his cuffs, however, so he pulled him back in again with a severe look, “Shall we go ask Count Tsarkaya?”

“…I’d rather not.”

“Then come along.”

Branimir’s tone and striking eyes were both cold as eyes but Hastur couldn’t help the little thrill that ran up his spine when the reeve managed to look down his nose at him despite their being roughly the same height.

Are men allowed to be that damn pretty? Hastur wondered as he was pushed into a barred wagon and the door slammed shut behind him.

~*~

Hastur was no genius but he was bright enough to keep his mouth shut around the cops, especially ones that still had him locked in magical hand-cuffs. The things were not only unbreakable, but came with a tracking spell embedded in them so finding someone with the necessary tools to pick them off you before the Watch caught up was slim at the best of times, let alone when you’d just returned after fourteen years ‘abroad’.

The ‘wagon’ Naum had summoned was a reinforced carriage with the world’s most uncomfortable bench seats drawn by a nag that was in no hurry to get anywhere so Hastur had plenty of time to think. He’d been on the run since unexpectedly finding himself back in his own body after a long time away so it was only just now he was finally able to take stock of things.

For one, he wasn’t in anywhere near the shape he had been when he left— his body had lost a lot of hard-earned muscle mass and gained some extra padding around the middle. He’d been a master swordsman rising in the ranks of the Red Guard before he left and he’d had the physique to prove it. The callouses too, though as he examined his hands Hastur realized those had all gone just as soft as the rest of him. He didn’t particularly mind a little extra weight, but he did mind how soft his muscles had gone.

I worked hard for that, Mike!

The handcuffs made Hastur’s skin crawl where they pressed against his wrists, radiating a faint echo of that same sense of being watched that had come with the magic Naum had cast. Was this a sensation unique to the reeve’s casting or had magic always felt like this and Hastur simply hadn’t noticed?

He frowned at the thought but didn’t reject it out of hand. Despite being the son of Duke Fane, a caster of some renown, Hastur had never exhibited any talent for magic and he was long past the age where it should have manifested. The disappointment he’d felt on his fifteenth birthday still pricked Hastur despite almost two decades having past since and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever be over the disappointment. He’d learned to live with it, of course, but it had still directly resulted in his being sent away from the ducal household, permanently deemed less worthy than his magically gifted younger brother.

Still worth keeping an eye on in case he ever had children who became casters, though— hence his still being supported by the ducal family up until he’d grown enough to join the Red Guard.

Picking at old wounds won’t help, he told himself and rubbed absently at his face. No, he definitely still hadn’t manifested magic; the fact that he hadn’t been able to hear Naum when he said his spell made that quite clear. Only casters could speak Aether-tongue, and only casters could hear it. To anyone without magic the words just sound like… well, silence.  

That meant that whatever he’d felt with Naum had been some sort of fluke, or he’d developed a sensitivity to magic he hadn’t possessed before. It wasn’t impossible— in fact, the more Hastur thought about it, the more likely it seemed. He’d spent fourteen years in a world that had no magic at all so perhaps being away from it had given him the necessary perspective to sense it.

Now that I think about it, I did feel strange when I first woke up over there, Hastur mused as he sagged into the corner and looked out the small, barred window of the prison wagon and watched the city pass.

His landing in Michael Smith’s body hadn’t exactly been a soft one. The whole world had been at war on a scale Hastur hadn’t been able to conceive of before then and he’d been dropped smack in the middle of it. To say he’d been shell-shocked by the experience was an understatement so it was no wonder he’d never put two-and-two together about some of his disorientation being down to a sudden dearth of magic in the world around him.

Mike’s memories had informed Hastur that magic wasn’t a thing in that world and the memories he’d left behind in Hastur’s body now revealed that he’d been just as alarmed by its existence here. Poor Mike, dealing with sudden changes really hadn’t been his thing; it was probably for the best Hastur had landed in his body when he had.

He never would have made it through the war in one piece otherwise.

Hell, even Hastur had barely scraped by— he had the scars and the nightmares to prove it.

Reflexively, Hastur pressed a hand to his abdomen then tugged up his shirt so he could see the expanse of bare skin. Sure enough, the scar he’d received nearly getting gutted by a German bayonet was nowhere to be seen.

Oh come on, I earned that!

Hastur sighed heavily and dropped his shirt, not bothering to check the rest of his body for the other scars he’d earned the last fourteen years. They’d stayed behind on Mike’s body, obviously, and Hastur felt a little cheated. As a fighter at heart he had always felt his scars were badges of honor in a way— reminders of fights won and lost, close calls and lessons hard learned…

Mike hadn’t left behind a single mark that hadn’t already been on Hastur when he landed in his body years before.

Even at the nag’s leisurely pace, it didn’t take long to arrive at the city watch’s central station near the heart of the city. The wagon pulled through an iron gate into the station’s rear yard and the door to the former didn’t open until he’d heard the latter shut with a loud clang. When it did, though, Hastur was greeted by the reeve’s pretty face so the man didn’t even complain how uncomfortable the ride was.

Unable to resist, Hastur ‘stumbled’ on the step down from the wagon and grinned when Naum caught and steadied him, a surprised look overcoming his stern features.

“Saved me again,” Hastur said and straightened when the reeve pushed him back upright. Then, never one to miss taking his shot, asked, “Buy you a drink later?”

“What?” the reeve asked, dumbfounded, clearly doubting his own ears as he stared at his prisoner.

“A drink,” Hastur repeated with a mischievous smile. “You, me, quiet pub somewhere?”

Naum stared at him a moment longer then turned on heel and simply walked away. “Process him and put him in a cell,” the reeve told the watchman that had ridden with them from the scene of Hastur’s arrest.

The watchman saluted, but couldn’t quite mask his confusion when Hastur erupted into laughter.

He’d known from the start he didn’t stand a chance with the stunningly handsome man, never mind that Naum had just got done arresting him, but it felt good to swing anyways— even if he did miss. Hastur had always preferred men, something completely normal here in his own world, but had been outright illegal in Mike’s. Not that there hadn’t been plenty of people with similar tastes there, finding them had simply been… risky, so needless to say Hastur hadn’t indulged much.

Running his gang while keeping two steps ahead of the Prohibition Unit had kept Hastur busy, anyways.