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**
The first negotiation had taken place when they were fifteen, at the Station on a brilliant autumn day when the world was otherwise going mad. She proposed the alliance, he said yes. Despite how messy love was, he couldn’t help falling in it a little for her treating with him seriously and clearly. Many had tried (and failed) to challenge his authority, but few had respected it while still making their own clear. Very few. Very few. That Capella knew to do so made her the second.
The second negotiation took place a week later, when they chose not to wait to inform their families of their decision. Everyone was recovering from the plague and needed something new to worry about. Khan likened it to pulling an arrow out of a wound. (Sticky later told him that you’re not supposed to do that quickly no matter how much it hurts, and Khan revised his metaphor.) Their families had questions, of course, but few objections. Big Vlad even had a contract drawn up.
With all that out of the way, Khan’s future marriage became a simple criteria of his existence, an eventuality for which to prepare. He had other concerns, many more pressing; the loss of his home base, healing and rebuilding, and an increasingly irrational gang war among them. He entertained conceptions of himself as a husband and father occasionally, and privately decided it wouldn’t be all that different than how things had been in the Polyhedron. He would be the master of everyone in his house, except her. He had grown up with the same. As far as he knew, his parents had loved each other in spite of the distinct and obvious power imbalance. If anything, to Khan’s eyes, it had worked in their favor; they hadn’t made war of things, mostly because Mother was truly formidable and Father knew how to pick his battles from years dealing with Khan’s uncles. Khan would not have either of these problems. No one crossed him, and Capella was…
Formidable was not the word. Capella was powerful, yes, but she wasn’t a foe to be overcome. But she was convinced that she would be steering the ship, so to speak. And strictly speaking, she was correct. She was correct about a lot of things.
For a few years, they didn’t negotiate thereafter, exactly, but checked in with one another and tried to include each other in their social lives. The town held an autumn fete a year after the plague, and he attended dance lessons with her so that they could show everyone in Town how beautiful and easy things would be. On sunny days she came to meet him at the Nutshell or the Station and they would talk until dark, and he would walk her home. They traded books. When he left town to study in the Capital, he wrote to her ten times as often as anyone else, and she always wrote back.
Then one day, the summer Khan turned eighteen, he got into an argument with Notkin, and his body decided to breach the rules of engagement. And then launched a second offensive when Khan went to bed that night. And a third salvo the following day, when he went on a figurative scouting mission and watched Notkin and a few other laborers sluicing mud and sweat off by a water barrel and – well. And a fourth, much more punitive, expedition when Khan bathed that evening. And then a few other thoughts and dreams he’d had throughout his late childhood started to make sense. The closeness of soldiers and brothers-in-arms. The way he’d felt reading the Iliad and Plato. The kind of body he pictured pressed against his own in the dark.
The third negotiation would be more delicate than the first two.
**
There was a balance to strike between pointing out a lapse and admitting an inherent weakness. Khan’s allies should be kept appraised of any difficulties he might have, yes, but that would mean admitting those difficulties existed.
Capella was an ally. Eventually she’d be, essentially, the body politic he supported and defended. She had every right to know. There was no question in Khan’s mind that he had to inform her. But thus the manner in which he told her would be crucial, and he gave this at least as much consideration as the revelation itself.
Privately, of course; in her territory, as a matter of concession; carefully breached; on a day when nothing else had gone wrong; with as much information available as possible. Thus: In Capella’s music room (it had a door that locked), after supper, after a month of discreet research and one somewhat awkward conversation with Doctor Burakh (awkward in part because he now knew more about Burakh than he wanted to, and had to write a letter to Dankovsky as well, which meant reading a letter from Dankovsky, which he couldn’t burn because it had literature recommendations). Khan almost risked bringing notes, until he remembered that if Big Vlad killed him for breach of contract the notes would then be found on his corpse and that would be unspeakably embarrassing.
Capella finished talking about some German composer or other, who’d written an opera where women wear men’s clothes and kiss each other, and he pictured it and asked, before he was quite ready but because it was on his mind, “Do you find that more attractive?”
“Women in men’s clothes?” Capella asked, to clarify.
“Yes.”
“Not as attractive as women in women’s clothes,” she said, shrugging against the curve of the couch as if it didn’t matter. “Do you?”
He spent an impolite amount of dead time trying to figure out what to say. Long enough that the first part of her answer had time to catch up with him. “Wait. Do you find women attractive generally?”
Capella had a lovely smile, one that made her freckles seem like stars. Khan knew she was beautiful, and moments like this when that smile was turned on him soothed something in the back of his head, but it didn’t feel the same way it did when he thought about –
“Yes,” Capella said. “More than men.”
Khan stared at her. Here he’d spent weeks trying to come up with a plan of attack, taken all avenues into account, and planned for every contingency except, apparently, this one, and she just said it.
He was poleaxed enough that the next words out of his mouth – “You too?” – sounded far more childish and stupid than he’d intended.
She laughed. She laughed, and it was probably at him. That was unacceptable. He stood up from the table immediately, bowed, told her excuse me and good night, even got as far as turning for the door when she reached out and took his hand.
“Oh, Khan,” she sighed, shutting her eyes that way that diminished none of her power and pride, “I thought you knew. Forgive me.”
“Knew? About you?”
She tugged on his hand, as if to guide him to sit back down. And didn’t let go of him either – in fact, she sandwiched his hand between hers, so cool and smooth. “About you. I’ve known about myself for years, so I assumed.”
He sat. Maybe he sat a little too hard. “But I love you.”
“I know. But you don’t think of me sexually, do you?”
That she was so forthright about it was simultaneously refreshing and concerning. He also wasn’t prepared to answer that, because to say he didn’t, at all, would be untrue. He thought of her as the mother of his future children. That counted as sexual thoughts, right? After all, sex would be required. But the act, and her body, separate from the eventuality…
His hand was sweating, so he withdrew it. He took a strategically deep breath and gathered himself to ask, instead of answer. “Is this clairvoyance?”
“Some,” she admitted. “I anticipated difficulties from the start, before I even proposed to you. I know how important it is that we get married, and I know you know that as well, but in dreams…” She looked down at her palms, now that they weren’t surrounding his. “I would hold your heart, but it wasn’t warm in my hands. The metaphor was somewhat unclear.”
All he could do at that was nod. “But it’s not all clairvoyance.”
“No. Not all.”
She’d shared so much. He couldn’t allow that to go unreciprocated, he’d look like a coward. And he’d planned so much to say that she deserved to know. “I think I anticipate some of the same difficulties you do,” he said, carefully. “I will do my marital duty, anything you need of me, I swear it. But...I think you’re right. About me. And considering what you just said about yourself, we’ll have to discuss what that means.”
“I’m prepared to do the same.” Her smile, already soft, crinkled up toward her eyes. “What do you want from our marriage, Khan? I don’t think we’ve ever asked each other that.”
He shook his head, agreeing. “We haven’t. One term at a time?”
“Of course.”
“Ladies first?”
She chuckled. “All right, then. I want the Town to come first. It’s why we’re to be wed, and in a way, it’s our first child. Whatever else we need from each other, I want us to remember where we stand. Literally.”
He’d been prepared to offer the same – this was almost like getting one for free. But he wouldn’t say so, just accept that and nod. “Do we need to draw this up?”
“Later,” she said. “Your turn.”
The first to come to mind was, unsurprisingly, “I want it to be clear to me when you’re treating with me as the White Mistress and when you’re just Capella. Especially in public. It won’t change how I respond to you, or what I want, but it will sometimes change why.” He didn’t have to add that, if there had been a time when his mother had not been the Dark Mistress and had been, simply, his mother, he didn’t remember it at all.
“I’ll try my best,” she conceded. Outside, a bird rustled by; she turned to glance at the window, then back to him. “Next, then. I want you to always call this your home, wherever else you go. You’ll be married to it as much as to me.”
He had a feeling most of her criteria were going to be metaphysical, if the first two were like this. “That means you’re expecting me to go places.”
“Yes,” she said. “You already have. But I won’t be able to. It’s entirely possible that I’ll never leave this town. If one of us must, it will be you. And you’ll be my eyes, and you’ll speak for me out there, and see things I’ll never see and probably do things I’ll never know about, but whatever else, you’ll need to come home.”
He knew, somehow, that this was meant to keep the both of them talking. “Yes. I swear I will.”
“Your turn, then.”
“I want a business of my own,” he said. This, he’d thought about a lot, before certain other revelations. He wasn’t stalling. Much. “I don’t know what it’ll be yet. But your stake in your father’s Enterprise is yours, not mine. I want us to be able to take risks without hurting each other, or hurting the Town, and that will be safer if we’re not living in each other’s pockets.”
“Sensible,” she said. “And I agree.” She took a breath that looked almost unsteady, and some of it came out on her next few words like the crackle of rain. “I want us to talk to each other like this, every time we need to.”
“Then negotiations won’t ever end,” he almost laughed.
“That’s marriage.”
“I suppose so.” They’d abstracted a great deal, and fine, Khan had to admit, to himself if not to her, that he was stalling. He consoled himself that perhaps she was too. “I want children,” he said. “Exactly two. Far enough apart that they won’t have to compete with one another, but not so far that they’ll be strangers.”
It may have been the dappling of light through the green leaves outside, but he thought he saw a hint of wetness across the bottom of her eyes, though the rest of her was smiling still. “I do too. And two is a good number. But that will mean starting relatively soon. Within the next five years, I think.”
“That’s up to you. And...how we get them, I suppose.”
Well, the door was open now.
“We can adopt if we must, but I do want us to try,” she said, leaving precisely what she meant by try to Khan’s imagination. There was a flush across her cheeks, barely noticeable under her freckles, but frankly he was looking for any sign that this was as awkward for her as it was for him and glad to see it. “If I must be with a man, it should be someone who loves me.”
“Everyone loves you.”
“No. They love the White Mistress. You love me.”
“Both,” he admitted.
“Fair. But yes – if it’s at all possible, I want us to. I’m sure there’s a way to make it work. And a way to make it so we don’t have to try terribly often. Scheduling and such,” she offered with a shrug. And then, with a giggle that was mostly breath, she added, “And more talking. So that we know what works.”
His cheeks heated and he couldn’t stop it. More talking, like this, but about that. Something curled up at the base of his spine and spread upward like a wake. It was embarrassing and dangerous and vulnerable and searing. He looked across the table at Capella, found her eyes and held them with his, and found challenge on them.
He’d rise to meet it.
“Have you kissed any girls yet?” he asked, his voice a little lower than he’d meant it to be.
She smiled and didn’t look away. “Two.” The awkwardness wasn’t gone but it had transformed, coiled up with this new tension in Khan’s chest and gut like a snake seeking heat. “Have you kissed any men?”
“Not yet,” he conceded. And as much to keep this going as to deflect from that, he went on, “What was it like? Kissing those girls.”
Her breath caught, and he watched understanding dawn on her face, rising up from her lips as they parted, to her eyes as they widened, then creased inward with something almost like pride. “They were both different,” she said with a lilt. “Clara was rather enthusiastic.”
“Clara Saburova?”
“Yes.”
Khan could picture it, Capella’s hands cradling Clara’s skull, the symmetry of their bodies. The image wasn’t nearly as enticing as the enjoyment he pictured on Capella’s face as their lips nestled together, or the tension in their arms as they drew each other closer. He gulped involuntarily. “And the other?”
“The other, I confess, is over, and I have to protect her privacy,” Capella teased. Fine, he’d figure that one out on his own later. “But, Clara. You don’t object to my kissing her?”
“Not at all,” he said automatically, and only after the words came out did he realize how honest they were. He didn’t mind. If it were Clara, this would have to have been after he and Capella were already engaged, since Clara’d only come to town just before the plague, which meant she and Capella had kissed and Capella was still committed to this marriage. “I guess you’ll want to do more of that.”
“More of, and more than.” She shifted in her seat, her legs realigning and the cushions creaking, but her eyes didn’t leave Khan’s. “I know you, Khan. You don’t want your inclinations to be...hypothetical,” she decided on. “Is there anyone in town you want like that?”
The image of Capella and Clara was fresh in his mind, and it was all too easy to superimpose a different redhead over Capella – broader now, and getting taller, with scars instead of freckles, and rough lips and raw hands –
He shut his eyes and wet his lips, scraping his teeth over the driest parts. Capella already knew. She already knew. Telling her would keep this feeling going, it wouldn’t make him weak, just be another pass, another salvo, another thing they could build on together. His heart was racing. He’d make hers race too.
“Notkin,” he said, and opened his eyes.
Capella had tilted her head but held his gaze. Her cheeks were even pinker, some of the freckles lost in the heat. “Thought so,” she said, barely a whisper. “And I don’t mind at all.”
“Are you picturing it?” He leaned in a little, as much to ask as to adjust his posture around the tightness in his lap. “Are you thinking about me and him?”
“I have before,” she laughed.
“Yes, but right now? Are you picturing it right now?” If she was, if she was thinking about him making out with someone not her, right here, while he was here –
She rubbed her knees together under her skirt. She didn’t have to answer that. He looked her in the eye until she did anyway, because when she did, with a simple “Yes,” there was heat in her eyes and a rasp in her voice that he’d never seen or heard before.
He wondered how he looked to her. How he sounded, to her. But he knew just from that word that she was intrigued, as anxious, as excited as he was.
He’d asked the last question. It wasn’t his turn. But he leaned further forward, putting his elbows on his knees and putting just slightly more pressure on his groin. “Would you want to watch us for real? If I ever told him, would you want to be there while I kissed him?”
He didn’t even know if Notkin was into men, let alone into him or into this. But the look on Capella’s face, slackened speechless but glistening from the cheeks up, was completely worth it.
And he didn’t let Capella answer that before he kept going, this felt too good, “Or when I do more than kiss him? Would you want to do more than watch? Get yourself ready? Tell us what to do? You’re the only one I’d let do that, you know. Ever.” He could see it so clearly, like it was reflected back to him in Capella’s blown pupils: her sprawled on a chaise like this, somewhere between the White Mistress and Capella, shimmering with heat or maybe magic, watching him, watching them, guiding his and Notkin’s bodies together so it matched her fantasy. She might not even have to speak aloud, just command him in his head and watch them like a goddess, like they were Achilles and Hector. Shit, she’d probably have a hand between her legs. He wanted one between his, right now. But he kept his hands folded tight together and kept looking her in the eyes.
Her chest rose and fell, stretching the row of buttons on her blouse. He didn’t want to rip it open but he did want to see her skin, if it was as sweaty as his, maybe put his fingertips to it and chase her heartbeat. Maybe this would work out after all. He wanted it to.
“If I wanted to tell you what to do I don’t think you could stop me,” she said.
Fuck. He had to shut his eyes and catch his breath. He didn’t know if that made this worse or better. The rush of his blood said better. That was as terrifying as any fight he’d ever been in, and his body loved that fear in a way he barely understood.
In the black behind his eyes, he saw himself as Capella would see him, his hand carded through hair a darker red than hers, fucking Notkin’s throat until Capella told him to stop, she was ready for him. He saw Notkin pull back and wipe his chin and laugh, and Clara lick her fingers clean, and he’d walk across the room barely feeling the floor, giving himself over to Capella’s power, letting it fill him and giving it back to her, creating something with her, with Notkin’s sure hands on his back and Clara’s devious whispers in his ear and Capella astride him, full of wonder, full of him –
“We need a new contract,” Khan said, far too quickly, forcing his eyes open. “Another,” he corrected, “another contract.”
Capella’s laugh rang out like bells. She covered her mouth, but her grin was too big to hide. And then she stood up, crossed the table between them at almost a leap, and took Khan in her arms for the first time.
It was just a hug. Their bodies fit together in a way that should have been obvious, and could have been embarrassing. But if she felt the heat in him, and knew it wasn’t all about her, then he could hold her just as tight, knowing the same.
**
They drew the document up a week later; that was enough time to make a second key for the chest they’d keep it in, under Capella’s bed at the Lump. It was a living document, they decided, so they folded it with four extra blank sheets of paper and locked a fountain pen and a case of ink in the box beside it. There’d be no witnesses to this one, not even the other partners they’d choose: that was one of the terms on the very first page. But the others were filled with ideas and fantasies, their own, about themselves, about each other. Capella wore her key on the chatelaine she’d inherited from her mother. Khan wore his on a thin bronze chain around his neck, for now, long enough that it rested close to his heart.
Some terrain was inherently complex. There were ecosystems and weather cycles and local guides and landmarks that looked different depending on where you stood.
Marriage was going to be a minefield.
Khan looked forward to it.
**