He had never imagined anything like this. Nothing like the soft growling noise Alastair made as his hands roamed Thomas’s chest, his shoulders, as if they were places he’d been longing to touch for some time. Nothing like the feel of Alastair’s pulse against his lips as Thomas kissed the arch of his throat. And in the moment, Thomas could only think that if he had to be arrested for murder for this to happen, it had been worth it.
* * *
Christopher carefully fitted a rubber stopper to the last of the test tubes. Since Grace left, he had busied himself recording the results of his experiments on the pithos so far, but it had been hard to stay focused. He’d been thinking about secrets, about how other people seemed to somehow know what was good to share with others and what should be kept to oneself, what words could encourage and which caused hurt, how some people surprised him by not grasping the simplest concepts, no matter how carefully he explained them, while others…
While others seemed to understand Christopher even without a considerable effort on his part. Not very many others: Henry, certainly; and Thomas, usually; and frequently—though not always—the rest of his friends.
But Grace, confoundingly, seemed to see Christopher clearly. Talking to her had been so easy that he’d forgotten to filter everything he said, going over it to make sure it would come out right before speaking.
He wouldn’t tell anyone about her sneaking into the lab, not until he’d had more time to think about it. Was this why James had been drawn to Grace? But James wasn’t interested in experiments and science—not the way Grace seemed to be. She’d been so eager to look through the microscope at the gunpowder compounds he’d been studying; so curious to see the contents of his journals.
But it was silly to dwell on it. Grace would likely never visit the lab again. It was too bad—many great discoveries had been made by teams working in tandem. Look at the Curies, who had just won the Nobel Prize for their experiments with radiation. Perhaps if he told her about the Curies…
Christopher’s thoughts were interrupted by a banging at the front entrance. He hurried upstairs to answer it; the rest of the household must have gone to bed hours ago. He opened the door to find Matthew waiting on the stoop. He was bundled in a red wool coat, hatless and blowing on his hands for warmth.
Christopher blinked in surprise. “Why are you knocking on the door to your own house?”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “I think they’ve changed the locks. My mother, making a point as usual.”
“Oh. Well, do you want to come in?”
“No need; I’m just on an errand. James sent me. You still have that pithos, don’t you?”
“I do!” Christopher said, brightening. Excitedly he explained the discovery that the stele removed runes from one person and transferred them to another. Though—for reasons he couldn’t entirely explain—he left Grace out of it. “I must say, I find it very strange,” he concluded. “And inefficient! But the killer must be murdering people and taking their runes for some dark purpose that we do not yet grasp.”
“Right, I see,” Matthew said, though Christopher wasn’t sure he did see, as he hadn’t appeared to be paying attention. “Whatever its purpose, James needs it right away—so I had best take it to him now.”
Of course James would already have a plan of some kind—James was always coming up with plans. Christopher felt around in his pockets and located one of the white rags he used for cleaning his instruments. He carefully wrapped the pithos in it and handed it to Matthew.
“It’s just as well you take it,” he said. “I’m completely exhausted anyway. I’m going to sleep in your room, if you don’t mind, seeing as you’ve got a whole other flat.”
“Of course,” Matthew said, tucking the pithos into a pocket inside his coat. “My home is yours.”
They said their goodbyes, and then Christopher went up to Matthew’s room, which looked oddly bare since Matthew had taken many of his books and belongings with him when he moved. Something tickled the back of Christopher’s scientific mind—something about Matthew, something he’d forgotten to tell him, perhaps? But he was too exhausted to think much on it. There would be plenty of time to sort things out tomorrow.
22 HEART OF IRON
And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea’s broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.