The White City by Elizabeth Bear Page B

because he trusted Sebastien enough to let him see when he was wounded—added, “She wants to meet you.”
    “You told her…?”
    Jack shook his head. “She knew. It’s the only reason she wanted me.”
    “Somehow,” Sebastien said, softly and with a sidelong glance, “I find that very challenging to believe.”
    Jack stalked ahead.
    Sebastien hurried a step or two to catch up. “So,” he said, and hesitated. “Do you feel the difference?”
    Jack wheeled and stared, the icy winter night searing his cheeks. If Sebastien were human, he would have shot past him a half-step and had to turn, but as it was, he just stopped lightly, his motion—for that moment—preternatural.
    “You mean, did she make a man out of me? Oh, Sebastien .”
    Sebastien shrugged and said delicately, “One is curious about experiences one has never had. Evie was my first lover, and she was—no more capable of the human act than I am now. I died a virgin, Jack.”
    That counted as the sort of confidence one didn’t expect from a thousand-year-old friend. Jack thought about it for a minute, while his anger withered and drifted, tugged away as petals by the wind.
    “She’s somebody else’s courtesan,” Jack said. “I didn’t know until after.”
    Sebastien might be dead, but it hadn’t robbed his face of expressiveness. His hat angled up on his eyebrows. He pulled his muffler down. “That could be problematic. Did she name her patron?”
    “Starkad,” Jack said.
    Sebastien’s mouth quirked. “Not a name I know,” he admitted. “But he is of course using an alias. And he could be young. I will ask after him at the White Nights.”
    A cart clattered past at an amble over the frozen ground, two heavy-bodied sorrels who obviously knew their own way bearing along a coat-swaddled bundle of teamsters dozing at the reins. Their red nostrils flared around white columns of breath. Jack squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, letting cold down his collar. “I’m not a child anymore, Sebastien.”
    Sebastien shook his head. “We are not having this
argument in the street, Jack.”
    “We’re having it in English,” Jack answered, reasonably. “Who’s going to overhear?”
    “You cannot provide for me, and I will not—I will not do what was done to you before.”
    Jack glanced over his shoulder, because the alternative was to kiss Sebastien in the street. He lowered his voice and said, “You damned fool. Have you forgotten you emancipated me? I want to provide for you, and I know I can’t do it alone. But please—if anything, Sebastien, all today has proven to me is that I do want this, and what happened—”
    “You can’t say his name, even now.”
    “ Jaromìr . And it was no more his name than Sebastien is yours. Or John is mine. You bastard, I want this.”
    Sebastien looked at him oddly. “And what if I say I don’t?”
    “Then I call you a liar.” He turned and stalked away, while he still could. He’d wind up back at the apartment—he always did—but at least he could enjoy the satisfaction of a good exit for now.
    Except— «Jan» Sebastien called after him, in the language of his childhood. «Jan Vražda. That’s your name.»
    Jack stopped, hands thrust in his pockets. He considered for a moment, but could not stop himself from turning back. «And what’s yours?»
    The pause dragged on until the wampyr dropped his eyes, studying the polished tips of his shoes. «It was so long ago. I don’t recall.»
    Jack waited a long moment before he nodded, giving Sebastien time to think about what he’d said. But no answer nor qualification followed. “I’ll be at the apartment if you change your mind,” he said, and turned in his icy footprints to wend along the shoveled, snowy banks.
    —h—

    Sebastien would not have knocked, and so it was not Sebastien’s knock that awakened Jack. The pounding on the door made him think of a woman, in fact—it was light and quick and came in flurries, unlike a man’s