A while later, René opened the window. The wind was soft and humid. Even though it grew cooler the farther they travelled, the window remained open. René took his sketchbook in his hands again and opened a new page. He started to put the grass and farmland onto the paper.

“Have you improved since last?” Leon smiled.

René chuckled as he continued to draw. “Have you?” He glanced Leon’s way.

“Yes,” Leon announced. He stretched out his arm, waiting for René to hand him the drawing.

René had already drawn the beautiful lands and some clouds. He reluctantly handed the sketchbook over. Leon’s fingers curled softly around the pencil, so close they almost touched René’s. The carriage shook and their skin met. The air mixed with something warmer and stronger. René felt his shoulders heat beneath his shirt, and his stomach tingled.

Leon swallowed dryly and managed to take the pencil slowly. He returned to his seat with as much grace as the moving carriage allowed him. His hand moved softly, brushing the page as he tried to draw. A soft chortle escaped him, and René tried to look at the page immediately.

“Please, give me another minute.” Leon held the sketchbook away from him.

René tried his best not to look displeased, but his grimace betrayed him. He had finally managed a decent drawing, and Leon would definitely ruin his progress. Nevertheless, he let him continue.

After a while, Leon nodded, seemingly pleased with his work, and held the sketchbook closed around his finger.

“I think there are some details that are missing,” he broke the silence.

René placed his finger between the pages Leon held open and slowly took the sketchbook from him. In front of his barley and wheat fields, on a thin branch, stood a small bird. It was by no stretch of the imagination perfect, but the lines had been drawn so carefully that the little bird seemed to come alive before him. Its little legs were shaded, as was the top of its head. The creature was round and puffed, the lines soft on paper, its beak coloured black. 

“I hope I did not ruin your drawing.” Leon smiled. “It was… supposed to be a sparrow,” he mumbled.

René’s eyes softened and a smile pulled at his mouth. He tilted the sketchbook so Leon could see and added another black patch underneath the eye and another beneath the beak, stretching longer into the white feathers Leon had drawn.

“It is a sparrow.” René smiled.

René wrote the date in the lower left corner and signed it with an R. Then he turned the sketchbook toward Leon and offered him the pencil again, keeping the page open for him.

Leon took it, but his smile disappeared when the tip reached the paper. He hesitated for a moment before finally settling on an L.

René took the pencil back and added Meren after it.

The sky seemed wider as the last patches of trees gave way to sandy heathland. Grass grew atop it, moving as the salty breeze passed through.

At Leon’s instruction, the carriage stopped in the open. The road stretched empty in either direction. There was no house in sight, nor another carriage. The wind grew stronger. René closed the window and sank deeper into his seat.

Leon took his coat, which had been sitting beside him.

“It is rather cold outside.” He held it out to René.

René supposed Leon had grown tired of sitting, and the horses had not had a proper rest for some time. He said nothing and took the coat as Leon stepped out of the carriage.

René followed him outside, and they stood beside one another. The wind blew fiercely, and René hurried to put on the coat before glancing at Leon. Leon rubbed his hands absentmindedly and tried to relax his shoulders while René pulled the coat tighter around himself.

Leon turned to him. “Would you like to see the coast better? Let us walk for a while.”

They walked on, their steps sinking softly into the grass as the edge drew nearer. Leon’s steps grew slower, but before René had the chance to stop and wait for him, Leon pointed ahead.

“You can go closer,” he said. “Be careful.”

René’s steps faltered as he turned to look at him, but his curiosity drew him farther. He carefully approached the edge. The wind was strong and the ground unfamiliar beneath his feet.

“Here…” Leon stepped closer and pointed. “If you could, step a little to the right and look down.”

René did as he was told.

Below him, grass-covered rocks descended toward the sea. The water was a beautiful grey, and salt swirled in the air. He could almost feel the fine droplets carried upward whenever a wave broke against the shore.

Then something bright orange moved among the rocks.

Gathered here and there were small creatures covered in black and white plumage. Their beaks were orange, as were their flat little feet, and the waves were louder than any sound they made.

“What…” René looked at Leon.

“You can hardly see them, can you?” Leon gave a disappointed sigh. “They are small… Would you like to get closer?”

René looked between the rocks and the animals. He could see them well enough, but still could not make out what they were.

“Could we?” René asked.

Leon stepped to his side and carefully made his way down over the muddied rocks, testing the ground beneath his feet. He gave René a nod, and as René stepped onto the first stone, his foot slipped.

He caught himself before anything worse could happen, but Leon gripped his arm with a soft gasp.

“Are you all right?” Leon cleared his throat as he released him.

“Yes, I only slipped.” René chuckled.

As they drew closer, René could finally see them properly. Dark plumage draped over rotund white bellies, and he thought they resembled fat little tenors. Their beaks were more colourful up close, bright orange, yellow and slate blue covering their thick, triangular bills.

Some were returning from the water, waddling over the rocks and occasionally bumping into them. A delighted chuckle escaped René at the sight.

“What are they?”

“Lundis.” Leon smiled. “They are birds, believe it or not. They swim and fly.”

René looked at them again in disbelief. The little creatures had noticed them as well and were staring back rather blankly. René was delighted, though slightly unsure of them. He would have loved to hold one, but he had never encountered such birds before.

He was about to ask Leon whether they might approach a little closer when one of the puffins began to waddle toward them.

They were indeed clumsy creatures.

René and Leon stepped closer to one another, making way for the bird to pass along the gentler part of the slope. The puffin, however, seemed to have decided upon a different destination. Them.

As it drew closer, Leon stepped back and tried to guide René slightly to the left. His foot slipped beneath him. Leon caught instinctively at René on the way down, and a moment later they both landed in the grass. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” Leon asked immediately. “I am sorry—”

But René was already laughing. He shook his head and pointed toward the approaching puffin.

It continued toward them without the slightest concern for what it had caused. Behind it, two more appeared to have found the visitors equally interesting.

The two behind cocked their heads in curiosity, while the first brave one wandered close to René’s boots. It pecked and nudged at them before shuffling beneath René’s and Leon’s legs to pass between them.

“They are so lovely… and small,” René whispered.

The puffin seemed quite uninterested in his assessment. The other two approached as well, and one came up to Leon and nibbled at his trousers, nearly catching the skin beneath.

“Ah, shoo!” Leon whispered.

The birds remained unbothered and continued closing the distance, one waddling directly between Leon’s legs. René stood first and offered Leon his hand. He took it, and René helped him to his feet, putting an end to further puffin inspections for the day.

They left the birds to themselves and headed back toward the carriage. As Leon walked ahead, the back of his trousers bore a faint green stain from the grass, with mud besides. René did not care to imagine what Leon’s coat looked like after he, too, had fallen.

The servants greeted their return with poorly suppressed amusement, which disappeared the moment Leon looked their way. They climbed back into the carriage, mud and all, and Leon had scarcely settled into his seat before he looked at René again.

“You are certain you did not hurt yourself?”

René looked up from where he had been brushing some dried grass from his trousers.

“Quite certain.”

Leon frowned. “I ought not to have taken you down there. The ground was worse than I remembered.”

“You make it sound as though you led me over a precipice.”

“You nearly fell twice…” Leon pressed his lips together.

René smiled. “I liked them very much.”

Something in Leon’s expression softened. “I thought you might. And… I hoped you would.”

He said it so simply that René was quiet for a moment.

He had grown accustomed to seeking Leon out during the day, and increasingly found himself with some little thing he wished to tell him when they met. The puffins had pleased him indeed. But perhaps more than the birds themselves, René liked that Leon had thought of bringing him there.

He liked Leon.

Leon was kind to him, certainly, but it was no longer kindness alone that René valued. He liked his peculiar humour and the seriousness with which he approached the most ridiculous endeavors. More than that, René found himself genuinely happy that Leon was his husband. 

Leon had already returned to inspecting the mud on his sleeve.

“I am afraid your coat has suffered considerably more than I have,” René said.

Leon looked down at it and sighed, but his small chuckle answered René’s concern. 

꧁༺ 𓆩✧𓆪 ─── ⚜ ─── 𓆩✧𓆪 ༻꧂

Sheep dotted the fields before they reached Ms. Wick’s house in Skellen, though in such numbers that René wondered whether they belonged to the estate. Leon had told him earlier that much of her fortune had been made in wool, and that she still took an uncommon interest in its production.

Ms. Wick’s estate appeared at last beyond the open fields, pale against the great stretch of sky. The house was long and remarkably even, with rows of tall windows beneath a dark, sloping roof. A broad gravel drive divided the lawns before disappearing beneath the carriage.

There were remarkably few trees about the house. René had grown accustomed to Langrer appearing between trunks and branches long before one reached it; Ms. Wick’s estate seemed instead to have been placed deliberately beneath the whole of the sky.

She was not, René had learned, Leon’s aunt at all, but an intimate friend of Mrs. Meren’s who had known her children long enough to claim the title without relation.

Leon had also given him one warning concerning her manners, though René had suspected at the time that he was exaggerating.

As the carriage reached the inner courtyard, Ms. Wick’s servants welcomed them and took the few belongings they had brought with them, politely keeping their eyes elsewhere as René and Leon turned around and presented the dried mud on the backs of their trousers.

Ms. Wick appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, through a servants’ door. She must have hurried down, for she had barely taken the time to fasten her dressing gown. Her hair was undone and unbrushed, raised slightly on one side, the golden waves falling over her shoulder. She appeared to have taken some servant’s shoes in her haste and came clomping down the stairs toward them.

She swept past Leon, brushing him aside, and went directly to René. He was taken so completely by surprise that all he managed was a slight bow.

Ms. Wick took both his hands before he had quite finished his greeting.

“At last. I had begun to think Leon intended to keep you hidden at Langrer forever.”

“Aunt—” Leon managed, smiling as he tried to greet her.

“And you have brought him here covered in mud.” She gave Leon a disappointed sigh at the sight of his husband.

She immediately began patting the dried grass and dirt from the back of Leon’s trousers, despite his protests and to everyone else’s poorly concealed amusement. Before she had the chance to subject René to the same treatment, Leon interjected.

“Dear Aunt.” Leon stepped to his husband’s side. “You have not yet welcomed us inside. We shall change our clothes and join you for coffee or tea.”

“Yes, indeed.” She brushed her hair aside, though it fell immediately back into place. “Come inside, come inside. My servants will show you to your rooms, and I expect you in my boudoir afterwards.”

She turned and entered first without so much as glancing back.

René had rarely formed an impression of anyone so quickly. He liked her.

They changed out of their muddied clothes and spent the remainder of the afternoon being entertained by Ms. Wick. René learned quickly enough that she had a great many opinions and very little inclination to keep any of them to herself. He had assumed, at first, that such unrestrained manners were reserved for the privacy of her boudoir. He would soon discover that Ms. Wick refused to silence herself whether there was a queen or a servant before her.

꧁༺ 𓆩✧𓆪 ─── ⚜ ─── 𓆩✧𓆪 ༻꧂

By evening, the guest rooms had filled considerably.

René entered beside Leon and immediately became conscious of how many faces he did not know—and how many he did.

The first few greetings were pleasant enough. An older gentleman bowed to them both and welcomed René back into society with such ordinary politeness that René almost relaxed. A woman he vaguely remembered from years before smiled warmly and asked after his mother.

Others were less eager. None of it was particularly terrible.

He kept his shoulders straight and answered every greeting offered to him. He smiled when politeness required it and tried not to wonder whether every conversation that quieted as he passed had done so because of him.

Leon, meanwhile, appeared perfectly at ease. He had told René he was waiting for his sister and her wife to arrive, and then he shall introduce them after dinner. 

Leon stopped to greet acquaintances, introduced René when an introduction was necessary, and otherwise seemed unaware that anything unusual was occurring. Before long, an elderly gentleman drew him into a conversation concerning something René knew nothing about.

By the time they were called to dinner, René had almost ceased wondering who might be looking at him. He found himself seated beside Leon.