Dinner had felt like a test. Leon had not summoned him once since they arrived at Langrer, and René could not quite believe that, after so long, he had been called downstairs merely to eat. Yet Leon remained pleasant enough by the end of the meal. Leon inquired about his day over the meal, and René almost choked on his pork chop before he could answer.

What Leon gained by having him dine downstairs, René could not understand. But the conversation ended pleasantly after René confessed to feeding the flock of ravens, and Leon had done nothing to correct the behavior.

So René continued. By the end of spring, he had begun to wander farther than usual, following the sounds of woodpeckers whenever he heard them. 

After a while, he took to drawing again, having found a sketchbook in the drawing room, though he was no better at it than he remembered. He could draw hands, faces, everything to do with human anatomy. What René lacked was a quick eye for moving details and sadly, he could not draw animals well. 

He encountered a black stork once when he ventured deeper into the woods and tried to put it onto paper. By the time the sun began to dip, to René’s disappointment, the bird on the page did not much resemble the one that had flown away.

A chuckle escaped him as he finally stood and returned to the house. He glanced to the left. Heather turned the ground into a beautiful golden-purple carpet, and he might have wandered through the flowers, were it not for Ms. Veller waving at him from a distance.

“Goodness,” Ms. Veller protested, already dusting him off. “Sir, you may take the blanket from the tea room with you next time. Your trousers are green and your shirt has turned brown.”

René laughed, and Ms. Veller’s expression softened. Nevertheless, she still sighed at the mud he had brought into the house.

Leon invited René to dinner every now and then since the first time they dined. There was no regularity. And René’s assessment of their union was a rather peculiar one. Leon liked to mind his work and his rooms and did not seem to care much about whatever harmless oddities René got up to. Leon continued to take most of his meals elsewhere and was seldom seen at breakfast. When they saw each other from a distance inside the house, Leon would greet him and go about his day.

And René was content with exactly that.

At the very least, on the few occasions he saw his husband, Leon was pleasant to look at. René rather liked the length of his face, and the prominent nose that might have looked ungainly on someone else. On Leon, it suited the high cheekbones and deep-set eyes beneath his darker brows. Even his mouth seemed at odds with the rest of him, fuller than René would have expected from a face made up almost entirely of strong lines.

At rest, there was something almost severe about it. René remembered, however, that Leon had smiled at him over dinner weeks ago, and the severity had disappeared altogether. His whole face had changed with it.

And he seemed to have taken to walking too as the weather grew warmer, because on a few occasions, he crossed René’s path early in the morning while René scattered food for the ravens.

The first time René saw him outside, he was picking up a shard of glass a raven had left behind. Leon was too far away for a spoken greeting, but he bowed his head and continued on his way. He did not seem to expect anything in return.

Another time, René managed to coax a few ravens into eating from his palm, and the feeling was almost too much. His chuckle turned into laughter until tears gathered in his eyes. The birds did not seem disturbed by him either. Some flew close to his shoulders.

When he stood, Leon was already out on his morning walk. That day, Leon set off around the lake by himself.

René had made it halfway around by the time their paths crossed. Their eyes met, and they both slowed, each making way for the other.

The morning sun caught Leon’s hair as he approached, turning the brown almost bright amber where the light passed through it. When their eyes met, Leon smiled. The expression deepened as they drew nearer, catching at the corners of his eyes in a way René had not noticed across the dinner table.

“Good morning,” René whispered.

“Good morning.” Leon’s smile deepened.

His scent reached René with the breeze, fresh and cool, with a soothing quality that made him think of morning dew still clinging to the grass.

After his morning walk, René returned to house. 

He took his tea in the sitting room, where he spread his drawing things across the same table despite Ms. Veller’s insistence that there were perfectly suitable desks elsewhere. He ate butter biscuits while he worked, sometimes enough to spoil his appetite for dinner, and left crumbs among his pencils without anyone appearing particularly troubled by it.

He read where he pleased, spent entire afternoons outdoors, and returned with grass on his clothes or dirt at his cuffs. The ravens had begun leaving things behind for him now—bits of glass, bent metal, objects of no apparent value that nevertheless found their way into a small dish in his room.

One morning, René had barely left the birds behind when he saw Leon approaching along the path. Without much ceremony, Leon turned with him toward the lake.

The morning was warm and the sun pleasant, and neither of them seemed interested in filling the silence. Leon walked at a fair distance, his hands behind his back, glancing at the water every now and then. René was content to listen to the birds chirping rather than talk.

Leon plucked a long blade of grass and absentmindedly looped it around his finger, tucking the end through to form a small knot. 

Barely a few minutes into their walk around the lake, Leon glanced toward the house. Odette stood there with her hands behind her back, waiting for him. Leon looked away almost immediately.

A few steps later, he looked again.

“I have letters to attend to,” he said. “Please excuse me.”

René looked at him and nodded, but Leon didn’t seem to move. He followed for a few more steps, his pace slowing until he abruptly stopped. René turned to look at him. Leon took a deep breath.

“Have a pleasant day,” Leon said with a smile.

“You too.” René smiled back.