“So many masks, Sir Christofer.” She raised one hand to her face. “We have that in common.” Her eyes narrowed as he broke, leaned forward, a cold sweat dewing his forehead.

“Your Highness,” he apologized, and she waved him silent.

“Gone too long from Faerie already, she sniffed. There’s a mirror in my chambers that will serve. Come, then. Lean on mine arm.”

“Your Highness. It is beneath your dignity.” But a bubble of pain silenced him.

Elizabeth jerked her chin, dismissing his protest with a gesture. “I am old and a Queen, and you shall do as you are bid. I will not have your life on my conscience after so much contrivance to preserve it!”

“Your Highness,” Kit answered. And for the last time in a short mortal life, obeyed an order from his Queen. She handed him through the mirror, an old woman’s exquisite fingers steadying him. The glass surface clutched like bread dough, then snapped away before it could tear; he tumbled through, striking his knees and hands on stone. When he pushed himself up he thought the Queen’s long hands had come with him. But no, it was a rasping voice, jingle of bells in flicking ears, a strong small figure propping him up. “Sir Poet?”

Puck. Kit struggled to a crouch, the agony in his gut receding. And didn’t understand why his next words were, “Where is Morgan?” And whence the twist of worry and lust that almost sent him back to his knees a moment after he’d toiled up off them?

“Oh, about her tasks, I imagine. Or in her rooms. The Mebd set me to watch for you. She thought you might need assistance.”

“I did,” Kit said, “but I found it. Morgan’s rooms—does Murchaud keep quarters here?”

The Puck’s lips compressed as if Kit had said something unwittingly funny, but there was concern? sorrow? in the droop of the little man’s ears and the set of his eyes. “Aye,” he said. “I’ll show you Morgan’s rooms. And Prince Murchaud’s. And the ones that will be your own.”

“Mine own?” It was a pressure. The beat of a wave. As if being gone from Morgan’s side had pooled behind a dam, and now all struck him suddenly. Gone? Kit, you bedded her not two days since.But gone was the word, and gone stayed with him.

“Aye,” Puck said. “The Mebd’s given you an apartment.”

“Would you like to Morgan,” Kit said, and it came out a whimper. God, what has she done to me, Christ, what has she done

“As you wish it.” Puck reached up to take Kit by the elbow. Kit thought he heard pity in the little Fae’s voice, but it might have been only the jingle of his bells. “The gallery over the Great Hall is by way of these stairs.”

Kit lurched up them half at a run, aware that Robin fell behind on purpose and watched him go, bells jingling. Kit found Morgan’s door as much by luck as memory, tried the latch, slipped within breathing like a racehorse.

Morgan. She sat before the window, embroidering. Her golden hands moved over and under the frame, chasing a silver needle, dragging threads of colors Kit could barely comprehend, through linen white as doves. She glanced up, pushed her stool back from the frame, and stood.

“Safe home,” she said, and he hurried across the floor to her, the iron nails in his boots ringing immunity. She met him halfway, sleeves rolled back from the linen of her kirtle, clad in a gown so antique Kit had only seen the style on statues and in tapestries. “Sir Kit.”

He hadn’t words. Something screamed betrayal in his belly. Christ. Christ. He couldn’t name it. She brought her arms up, laced them about his neck when he froze, suddenly, aching. Craving.

“My Queen.” She laughed, mocking, her black hair tossed over her shoulder, braided into arope to bind his soul. “Long and long since I heard those words,” she said. “Speak more.”

But words abandoned him again. He fumbled at the knots on her gown, tore cloth. Never like this and this is not me but she was lovely, oh, skin gleaming in the light that streamed through the window, thighs like pillars revealing a flash of Heaven’s gate as she stepped neatly from discarded clothing.

He had no words. For the first time in his life, he had no words. He couldn’t kiss her mouth. Couldn’t bear that intimacy. He dragged her into an embrace, teeth against her throat, half sensible that he first crushed her, scratched her against the embroidery and jeweled fixtures of his doublet and then slammed her to the wall, cold stone against his knuckles, her naked body twisting in his grip, her hair knotted in his fist. Christ. It hurt. He bloodied his hand on the rough stone dragging it from behind her, fumbled the points on his breeches, the warmth of her sex against his scraped flesh like a siren song. What am I doing? What

No, he was a juggernaut. Automaton.She whimpered as he tore at her shoulder with his teeth, tasted the salt of her tears, his tears, remembered a mouthfull of more blood than this and the pain of torture, rape, confession. He strangled on a scream he couldn’t quite voice, unlaced an erection he thought might just burst … Christ, she’s pliant and end his suffering, pinned her to the wall as she squirmed against the velvet and silk and rough decoration of his clothes.

No. No. No.

“Christofer.” A murmur. One hand, light on his collar. God. Almost a whisper. More of a groan. His hand cupped her sex. He might have been a statue. “Morgan.”

“Not yet.”

“What?”

He ached, twitched. Writhed toward her warmth…

“I’m not ready.”

“Oh.”

He stroked her breasts with bloodied hands. Caressed the curve of her belly, the amplification of her thighs. Fell down on his knees before her. Kissed the arch of her hips, the black-forested delta below. She tasted of vinegar, rosemary, honey. He wept. He made her scream and knot her hands in his hair, pulling until heat seared his scalp. When she gave consent at last, he took her there, on the floor by the window, her naked body arching against his black-velvet-clad one and she licked hot tears from his cheeks and laughed.

Malvolio:

… Thy Fates open their hands;

Let thy blood and spirit embrace them;

and, to inure thyself to what thou art

Like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night

For once, Burbage knocked before he entered. Or possibly, he tried the handle and found it latched. A new habit. Will rose from his seat against the chimney—his room had no hearth, but the heat from the ground floor’s giant fireplaces kept the corner nearest the bed tolerably warm except in the coldest hours of morning—and carefully laid his quill aside before crossing the wide floorboards to answer. His fingerless gloves made his grip on the wooden doorpull uncertain, but he fumbled it open after a moment’s struggle. December cold flushed Burbage’s cheeks as he came into Will’s drafty single room. He unwound and dropped his muffler on the table next to Will’s squat lamp and the papers, where it shed a few flakes of snow.

“Will, I have word from the lord Chamberlain. He’s spoken to lord Strange, and the playhouses will open in January. We’ll start rehearsals for Titus, and see if we can break the plague once and for all.”

Will leaned back against the wall, stretching limbs, stiff from too long hunched over his writing. “Will it suffice?”

“I don’t know.” Burbage laid his hands against the chimney bricks, warming fingers tinged white. “There’s more. The Queen requests a comedy for Twelfth Night. The word through Burghley is that she wishes to see weddings and beddings in no particular order. Have you something?”

Will handed Burbage the first two or three of the folded sheets scattered across his table.

“Almost the last words I heard from poor Kit Marley were that I should not short myself for comedy.”