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Illya tapped his fingernails on the sill again, feeling the reverberations as little knocks in his joints. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and he timed the tapping along with it. Thud, thud, thud. Why was the anxiety so bad this time? There was no reason to be anxious. Napoleon hadn’t been gone longer than he’d expected to be. He was in very little danger. It was nothing he hadn’t done a hundred times before.
It was the woman, of course. Much as he liked to pretend he didn’t care who Napoleon was romancing in the performance of duty, he would have preferred a million other women before that one.
The grey overcast was like a coffin lid. The streets were grey, the cobbles shining grey with rain. The tram wires and telegraph wires and electricity wires crossed and passed and swayed in the wind, and the chaos made the back of his skull itch. Everything out there was so cold it should be frozen, but still the water was wet, not ice. Dusk was coming, and the world was heavy as lead. Really he should have taken the opportunity to catch some sleep while Napoleon was out on this mission, but he felt too pricklingly anxious for that.
Then he saw Napoleon. He was coming around the corner at the end of the block, heavy in a black greatcoat, his arm around that woman. She was wearing a striking fuchsia mac, and that was all he could see. Napoleon was holding an umbrella, both of them leaning in a little to keep their heads in shelter. Illya tracked them down the street, watching until they stopped right under the window, two floors below. All he could see now was the black canopy of the umbrella, but he knew what was going on beneath. Napoleon leaning in a little closer, probably murmuring some sweet nothing. The woman smiling, maybe touching his arm. And now they were kissing. He counted in his head, one, two, three, four, five. Enough time for a kiss, but it kept on. Six, seven, eight –
Then the bright fuchsia coat was moving away along the dull street, the umbrella was being furled into a narrow shaft, and Napoleon moved out of sight.
He should look composed when Napoleon finally came in after the flights of stairs. He moved back to the couch and poured himself a small glass of drink, and leant back into the cushions. He took a sip of the sharp liquor, then kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the coffee table. He picked up the book he’d been reading and laid it, open, on his chest. That was all he’d been doing while Napoleon was gone, just sitting there, drinking and reading, not waiting at the window, watching the street. He trusted Napoleon to do his job.
A key turned in the lock, and he turned his head as the door opened. Napoleon leant the umbrella up against the wall and began to undo his coat buttons with one hand. His gloves were wet, and the cuffs and hem of his coat, too. The umbrella hadn’t been enough against this persistent winter drizzle.
‘You found her, then,’ Illya commented.
Instantly he had given himself away. He couldn’t have known that Napoleon had found the woman if he hadn’t been watching out for him.
‘I found her,’ Napoleon nodded. ‘I made the exchange. It’s all done.’
He dropped himself down onto the couch next to Illya. Cold radiated from his partner and pushed through Illya’s clothes. He could smell the woman’s perfume.
‘It must be nearly freezing out there.’
He was avoiding talking about her. He didn’t even want to say her name.
‘Yeah, it’s pretty wretched,’ Napoleon nodded, shuffling a little closer. ‘Not exactly a merry Christmas.’ He poured himself a glass of the liquor and took a mouthful. ‘That warms a man’s insides, though. You make good stuff in your neck of the woods, Illya.’
Illya huffed. ‘East Germany is hardly my neck of the woods.’
The whole place was making his skin crawl. He was used to the pervading sense of being monitored and judged at home, but it was somehow different there. It was part of the scenery. The imposition of Soviet paranoia and strictures on other countries felt so much more invasive. He wouldn’t feel entirely at ease until he was safely back in the West, even though, as a Soviet citizen, he was on a far more secure footing here than Napoleon.
‘So,’ he said after a long silence. ‘How is Angelique?’
Napoleon smiled.
‘As delectable and enigmatic as always,’ he said.
Illya glanced sideways to see him licking a little of the liqueur from his lips. He imagined him using his tongue on Angelique like that, and for a moment the jealousy was like fire.
‘I should have gone with you,’ he murmured.
‘Jealous,’ Napoleon chided him. ‘There was no need for you to come, and anyway, you spent all last night performing the expert cat burglary that got us those papers. You needed to stay here and get some sleep. Did you get any sleep?’
‘No, I didn’t get any sleep,’ Illya shook his head. Maybe that explained some of the irritability he felt at every thought of Angelique. ‘Did you sleep – with her?’ he asked.
He didn’t want to sound like a jealous lover. He didn’t want to sound possessive. But he was a jealous lover, and he felt immensely possessive. Every moment Napoleon was in that woman’s company was danger.
‘I kissed her, mon cher,’ Napoleon told him softly. ‘But I didn’t sleep with her. I hardly would have had time.’
‘You were gone for five hours,’ Illya said. ‘How long does it take?’
He had snapped. He hadn’t meant to snap.
‘Yes, I was gone for five hours,’ Napoleon said patiently. ‘An hour of that involved the tram and bus ride to get to the rendezvous. Two of those hours were spent over a long lunch. Lots of innuendo, a lot of flirting, and some very good food. Another hour or so in getting to the agreed place of exchange, and on the deal itself. Then we walked back here. Unless we’d indulged in a nasty little stand up in a back alley, there really wouldn’t have been the time or the venue for anything like that.’
‘Hmm,’ Illya said.
He could see that scenario in his mind; some wet, narrow street, a dull brick wall, Angelique pushed up against it, Napoleon pressed against her, urgent and lost. Something stirred in his abdomen.
Napoleon stroked his arm. ‘I promise you,’ he said. ‘I kissed her because it was necessary. I didn’t want anything else. I knew I’d be coming home to you.’
‘All right,’ Illya nodded. ‘So it all went well?’
‘It’s done. She has the notes, I have the microfilm. You know, we might never see her again.’
‘We’d better get the film put somewhere safe, then,’ Illya said, suddenly brisk. That was the most important thing now. ‘Where is it?’
‘In my overcoat pocket,’ Napoleon said. ‘Let me go get it.’
He pushed up from the couch and crossed the room to where he had hung his coat. He pushed his hand into the left pocket and felt around. Then he felt in the right.
‘Napoleon,’ Illya said darkly.
Napoleon felt again, and again. Then he flung the coat into the corner, where it fell like something dead.
‘Gone,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ Illya said bitterly.
‘When we kissed,’ Napoleon added.
Illya resisted comment. Of course it had been when they kissed. He despised the idea of violence towards women, but he would have happily conjured one of those trams to knock Angelique down in the street right now.
Napoleon moved towards his coat again.
‘Guess I’d better get back out there and find her.’
‘And where will she be?’ Illya asked drily. ‘She’ll know you’ll be looking for her now. Where are you going to find her, in this whole city? If she even is still in the city, which is doubtful.’
He stalked over to the window and looked out. Cold was penetrating through the glass. The light level had dropped so much in the few minutes Napoleon had been back.
‘You’re not going out there anyway,’ he said, his eyes on the wire criss-crossing the street. ‘Look at that.’
Napoleon joined him. The rain was still coming down, heavier now, and the sheen on the wires was thickening with every drop.
‘Ice storm,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I hope she got – ’
He broke off at Illya’s look.
‘Well, I don’t have to wish her dead, Illya,’ he protested. ‘It’s not safe out there now.’
There was a burning place inside Illya that made all the cold outside seem miles away. But he shook his head and turned away from the window.
‘She’ll either be gone by now, or pinned down like we are by the weather. Either way, there isn’t anything you can do. I don’t mind you facing Thrush assassins, but I don’t want you killed by falling ice, or falling trees, or falling power lines, or – ’
Napoleon took him by the shoulders and turned him around. He stroked a finger down Illya’s cheek.
‘It’s nice to see you care after all,’ he said, and he leant in to kiss him.
‘Of course I care,’ Illya murmured after the kiss. He touched his fingers to his lips. Napoleon’s mouth was still cold.
‘Angelique is an occupational hazard,’ Napoleon told him softly. ‘We all have to play the game, you know.’
‘You shouldn’t touch me like that in line of sight from the window,’ Illya said brusquely, going back across the room to pull the drapes. ‘Anyone could see.’
‘No one saw,’ Napoleon assured him, taking him in his arms again, kissing him again. Napoleon’s hands were rough on his arms. This time Illya responded, kissing back fiercely, pressing himself into Napoleon’s cold, feeling the chill that was inside him. He felt that deep down stir again.
‘You’re freezing,’ he said.
‘Right to the bone,’ Napoleon agreed. ‘I was out there a long time.’
Illya glanced over towards the window again. He pulled himself out of Napoleon’s arms and walked back over to look through the gap between the curtains. He scanned his eyes over the street, the falling rain. There was almost no one out there. A single car was crawling along the road, but as it reached the corner it slipped sideways in a smooth motion, and careered with balletic grace into the side of a building. The sound felt very far away.
‘First casualty,’ he murmured.
He saw the driver getting out of the car safely, shaking his head at the damage. When he tried to step away from the car his legs shot out beneath him, and he landed on his rump. Illya had to force himself not to laugh.
‘You’re a sadist,’ Napoleon said, coming to see what Illya was looking at. ‘Do you enjoy watching strangers’ pain?’
‘It proves it’s not safe out there,’ Illya murmured. ‘With the best will in the world, you can’t chase someone on an ice rink.’
He scanned the street again, moving his eyes up over the hotel façade on the other side of the street. His eyes were caught by a bright splash of colour in a window almost perfectly opposite, a striking strip of fuchsia against the wall.
‘Napoleon,’ he said in a low voice, nodding.
As they watched someone crossed the room, coming very near the window. She had a white towel wrapped around her body, and there was a blaze of platinum blonde hair.
‘Angelique…’ Napoleon murmured in wonder. ‘She must have been forced in by the weather…’
‘I imagine the last thing she wanted was a room opposite ours.’
‘Oh, she has no idea this is where I’m staying,’ Napoleon shrugged. ‘I left her at the tram stop just up from the entrance. I told her I needed to catch my connection out of town.’
‘She’s about to go into the shower,’ Illya mentioned.
‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’
Illya was already moving. He pulled off his tie and loosened his collar. He had thin overalls stuffed into the bottom of his suitcase, because a quick disguise was useful on any mission. He had them on in a moment, and was pulling his shoes back on when he noticed the look on Napoleon’s face. For an unguarded moment, it was a look of pure love.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he promised.
He was back at the case, rummaging for an unexposed microfilm reel in his jumble of equipment, and then he was slipping out through the door…
((O))
He crossed the street with immense care, because every cobble was shining with ice. The cold was like a death pressing down on him. The city had grown eerily silent as everyone retreated inside.
He went in through the hotel door with the confidence of a man who was exactly where he was supposed to be. He murmured, ‘Maintenance,’ to the receptionist as he passed the counter, and the woman barely reacted. It didn’t matter that he had no identification, no permit, that she had no reason to expect him. It was confidence that did it.
He had counted the windows, judged the position of the room, and it was easy enough to find. Somehow he could transpose what he saw so easily into a map of the building in his mind. It was a skill he had always had.
He slipped a pick into the lock of her door and it gave like butter under his careful probing. He could hear the shower running as he entered. If need be he could just overwhelm her physically and take the thing, but he really didn’t want to use force on a woman, even Angelique.
He wouldn’t have to. The fuchsia coat was there, hanging on a hook opposite the window. The bathroom door was open just a crack, and steam was wisping into the room. He ignored that. Napoleon would have been tempted to peek, he was sure, but Illya moved straight across to the coat and felt in the pockets. There it was; the flat, shallow cylinder, just lying there, the metal still cold to the touch. He drew it out, checked it, and levered off the lid. The spool of film was in there, tightly wound. He shook it out and swiftly swapped it for the unexposed reel that he had brought. Weight for weight, it was identical. With any luck, she wouldn’t notice the film had gone.
He was back out into the corridor in a few steps, and locking the door behind him. Down the stairs, back out through the reception, and into the street.
The cold took his breath away. The rain was still coming down in needles, and the ice on the ground was thicker, even in the few minutes he’d been inside. He took the steps carefully, touching the freezing rail with his knuckles for balance because it was too cold with ice to grab.
He stepped out onto the pavement. In an instant, his feet were skidding away from him, and he thumped down onto the ground, pain exploding through hip, shoulder, and skull.
There was a moment of nothing, then pain again, and he realised he was lying, staring at the shining cobbles, which were inexplicably close to his eyes. The street ahead was mercifully empty, because he couldn’t have got away from an out of control car. He lay there for just a moment, feeling the burning of the cold under his hands and face. Then he shook himself out of the daze. He needed to move.
He didn’t try to stand. He didn’t want to fall again. He crawled his way across the street, the ice burning on his hands, until he reached the entrance to his own hotel and pulled himself up and in through the door. He had to get inside before there was a chance of Angelique looking out and seeing him.
Shivering, soaked, and stinging, he limped back up the stairs and slipped in through the door to their suite.
‘Illya!’ Napoleon said as he came in, looking him up and down. ‘You went out a dry agent and came back a drowned rat. Are you okay?’
‘I got it,’ Illya said, proffering the canister of film on an open palm.
‘Not without a fight, I notice,’ Napoleon pointed out, taking Illya’s cold, wet hand and wiping a little blood and dirt from it with his handkerchief.
‘She didn’t see a thing. That was the ice.’
‘I have no doubt. Let me have a look. You banged your head?’
‘Just a little, along with a few other parts of me. I’m all right, Napoleon. I slipped over.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’
‘Napoleon,’ Illya complained, but he let Napoleon peel the rain damp overall from his body. His fingers felt hot as they started on Illya’s shirt, brushing against his cold skin.
‘Nasty,’ Napoleon murmured, touching his lips to the bruise that was blossoming on Illya’s shoulder. ‘You’re going to be sore tomorrow.’
‘I’m sore now,’ Illya said tartly. ‘Don’t worry about that. Get that film put somewhere safe.’
‘Your wish is my command,’ Napoleon said, and he went to slip the cylinder into a zipped pocket on the inside of his suitcase. ‘And now that’s safe, my job is to make you safe. What is it? Head, shoulder, hip, hands?’
‘Yes, I think that’s everything,’ Illya said dryly.
He dropped down onto the sofa, half-dressed, and leant his head back. It was beginning to ache. He kicked off his shoes and socks, but he couldn’t be bothered with anything else.
‘I’ll get some iodine on those scrapes,’ Napoleon said. ‘Then we can just hunker down until the storm is over, and we can get out of here. Thank the lord for Godless communists. There’ll be trains running tomorrow, at least, despite it being Christmas day.’
‘What a romantic way to spend the holiday,’ Illya murmured, and Napoleon laughed.
‘Well, I guess if this storm carries on, they won’t be running, and we can spend a romantic holiday holed up here.’
The lights flickered, and then died. The room was filled with an early evening gloom, punctuated by the spattering of rain against the window.
Illya groaned. He watched as Napoleon walked over to the window and twitched the curtain aside. The glass was completely frosted over with a layer of ice which distorted everything beyond.
‘I can’t see anything, but I guess that’s the power lines down,’ Napoleon told him. ‘Well, Merry Christmas anyway, lover.’
‘Nothing says merry like a power cut and an ice storm,’ Illya mumbled, turning his stinging hands to try to see them in the dim light. ‘Don’t worry about the iodine, Napoleon. It’s too dark for that. I’ll survive.’
Napoleon returned and dropped himself in front of Illya, kneeling on the floor between his outflung knees.
‘Look at you. You look like something the cat dragged in,’ he said, brushing some wet hair from Illya’s forehead. ‘No wonder the women at headquarters go crazy for you. You’re always in need of fixing.’
He trailed his hand down the side of Illya’s face, down between the open flaps of his shirt, and let his fingers lie lightly on the bundle between his legs. He leant forward to kiss Illya’s forehead, then said, ‘Stay there. I’m going to take the chance there’s still hot water in the tank. You need warming up.’
‘Napoleon, really – ’ Illya began to protest, but Napoleon was already gone.
Illya closed his eyes and let himself feel the throbbing of the places he’d hit on the ice. He’d come down with a real bang. Then Napoleon was back again, flashing a torch beam over his face. He blinked and sighed, looking up to see Napoleon standing naked before him, the contours of his body lit in lines and shadows. The idea of a shower suddenly seemed more appealing.
‘Come on,’ Napoleon told him, holding out a hand.
Illya didn’t take it because his palms still stung, but he followed Napoleon into the bathroom, which was dark as a tomb until Napoleon set up the torch on the little shelf below the mirror. The shower was hissing in the cubicle, and the air was full of steam. Napoleon resumed his work unbuttoning Illya’s shirt, stripping it and the overalls to the floor, tugging the button on his trousers open and pulling them away with his underwear in one motion. He discovered the bruise on Illya’s hip, and winced. Illya was shivering, but the heat in the small room was already starting to creep into his body.
‘In,’ Napoleon said, and Illya obeyed.
The hot water flooded over him, and he gasped as it touched the scrapes on his hands, streamed down his back, twisted about his legs. Napoleon stepped in after him and pulled the glass screen closed. The torchlight flickered like a flame through the moving water, catching angles and facets of their skin in a golden beam. Napoleon pushed him hard back against the tiles, and Illya protested in a wordless noise, but Napoleon took no notice, bowing his head to scrape his teeth over Illya’s nipples, drawing another inarticulate sound from his lover.
Illya pushed back, taking control, forgetting about the aching soreness in shoulder and hip. He thrust Napoleon against the shower screen, the spray of water moving from his chest to flood over his back as he pressed his lips against Napoleon’s, kissing him hard, moving his hands over the slick, wet musculature of his back, down to his buttocks, and up again. He could already feel himself hardening, and he could feel Napoleon’s stirring cock too, pressing hotly against his thigh. There was no time for anything more sophisticated than slipping his palm over the wet soap in its tray, then grasping both hard lengths together, kissing Napoleon again as if he were trying to devour him as they thrust together into the tunnel of his and Napoleon’s hands twined together. This was his, nothing that Angelique could have. Napoleon was all his.
He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, the heat of the water filling the air with vapour, his mouth pressed so urgently against Napoleon’s lips. He didn’t know where he stopped and Napoleon began, but everything centred down there, where their hands were grasped together and their lengths were slipping together in hard, hot joy. The crescendo built, and they were coming together into the prison of their hands.
He leant, panting, against Napoleon’s shoulder. The only sounds were the hissing water and their hard breathing. He thought briefly of Angelique, but the thorn of her existence seemed to melt away. She could have shared nothing like that with Napoleon. Everything between them was froth and vanity. This was real.
Napoleon’s lips pressed against the side of his head.
‘You okay?’ Napoleon asked him, and Illya could feel the movement of his mouth against his wet hair.
‘Okay,’ Illya murmured. ‘Just dizzy.’
Perhaps it was the sex, or perhaps he had hit his head harder than he thought. It didn’t matter, he just felt dizzy with endorphins and release.
‘Come on,’ Napoleon said, moving him backwards like a doll. Illya stumbled to lean his back against the tiles again, and stood there just breathing as Napoleon caught up a washcloth and softly passed it over his partner’s body. Then he was turning the shower off, and pulling a towel from the rail to cloak Illya’s body. It was suddenly cold now the water was off.
‘You really are banged up,’ Napoleon said solicitously, using the torch to look more closely at the bruises Illya had gained from the ice. ‘Is your head okay?’
‘Yes,’ Illya promised. ‘Just aches, that’s all. It’s fine.’
He let Napoleon dry him off, wincing as he passed the towel over the bruises. They moved back into the main room and he accepted his clothes as Napoleon passed them to him, pulling them on over damp limbs. The cold was creeping in again now, and the light from the window was a thin, filtered grey through the rime of ice over the glass.
‘Still coming down, I suppose,’ he said.
Napoleon walked over to the window and pressed a palm against the glass for just a second.
‘I guess it is but there’s no way of telling. It’s like having cataracts,’ he said.
Illya dropped onto the sofa, and set the torch on end on the coffee table like a candle. It cast a pallid ring of light up onto the ceiling.
There was a knock on the door, and he started. He had started to feel as though he and Napoleon were the only people in the world. That moment of intimacy in the shower felt far too close to this one. Surely anyone who came in would be able to tell?
‘Stay there,’ Napoleon told him as he went over to the door. ‘Get your breath back,’ he cast over his shoulder in a mischievous voice.
He opened the door to a man in a hotel uniform who was lugging a hod of coal, followed by a young woman with an armful of candles.
‘We can’t expect the power to be back tonight,’ the man was saying in German as he came in through the door. ‘We don’t often need to use the fireplaces, but sometimes we’re glad we kept the old fittings.’
‘A coal fire is just what’s needed,’ Napoleon said warmly. ‘Thank you. Thank you, fraulein,’ he nodded to the woman as she started to set candles about the room.
It wasn’t long before the coals were starting to catch flame, and the candles were flickering about the room. Illya listened vaguely as the man said something about food in the dining room later, but all that felt important was the heat that was starting to breathe into the room. He could feel it on his knees, turned towards the fireplace. All of the tension he had felt in waiting for Napoleon to come back seemed to have melted away.
He closed his eyes, a vague winter memory coming back to him. Something about his grandparents, a cottage out in the country, a fire burning and the cackle of geese in the yard outside as the wind whistled across the land. It was something enormously comforting, even if he couldn’t entirely pin down when the memory was from. Maybe it was a conglomeration of many winters, of many evenings with a blazing fire and the scent of his grandmother’s cooking, a world away from the city apartment he lived in day to day.
((O))
He blinked. He was ridiculously cosy. He moved a hand to feel a blanket had been laid over his legs and chest. He could smell the scent of food, the scent of the coal fire, feel the heat of the flames pushing down to his bones. Was he back in his grandparents’ house, maybe? Maybe he had floated away, and found himself in the past.
His head ached, and he sleepily moved a hand to touch the lump on the side of his head. He blinked again, and saw something like lace. It was something like the shadow of lace, moving across his face, cast by candlelight. Something dangling in the air. He blinked again, focussed, and saw the hotel room where he had fallen asleep. But something had changed. There were the candles, the burning fire, but there was something else. The room had become a blizzard of paper snowflakes. Napoleon was sitting in front of the fire, legs crossed, head bent over a piece of folded paper which he was carefully cutting at with nail scissors.
‘What – ?’ Illya murmured. ‘Napoleon, what are you – ?’
Napoleon looked up with a brilliant smile, the kind of smile that charmed every woman he met, and still hadn’t grown old for Illya.
‘Back in the world, are you?’ He stood up, showering little pieces of cut white paper from his lap onto the rug, holding a half-cut snowflake in one hand. ‘Well, I had to keep myself occupied with something while you slept,’ he said, looking about at the snowflakes hung from everywhere with cotton thread. ‘It was worth bringing my repairs kit, wouldn’t you say?’
Illya looked about again, taking in the magical sight.
‘It’s a ridiculous fire hazard,’ he murmured.
‘You’re a heathen, and a killjoy,’ Napoleon told him. ‘But Merry Christmas. I ran down to the dining room and persuaded them to let me bring our meals up here. They must’ve killed the fatted goose, and I thought, why not have Christmas? We’re unlikely to get it any other way this year. I was just thinking about waking you up.’
‘I’m awake,’ Illya promised. The smell of the food had made him feel enormously hungry.
Napoleon slid a plate over the coffee table towards him, and Illya took it on his knees. It was hard to see clearly in the candlelight, but it did look the closest to a Christmas dinner that he’d had in a long time. Some kind of poultry meat, vegetables, and potatoes with gravy pooling on the plate.
‘Cooking on gas, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Well, I give them credit for managing all this by candlelight.’
He ate until the plate was empty, then pushed it aside, full and satisfied. He turned himself again on the settee and lifted his legs up so they were across Napoleon’s lap. All the light had gone from the window across the room now. It was properly dark outside. He half lay there, watching the dance of the cut snowflakes in the convection currents from the candles, watching their lacy patterns catching the light and casting shadows.
‘I suppose it really is Christmas Eve,’ he murmured. It was easy to lose track of the meaning of dates in his job. Waverly took little notice of holidays.
‘It really is Christmas Eve,’ Napoleon promised, taking one of Illya’s feet in his hands and starting to knead it softly. ‘I wouldn’t have said no to a week’s vacation over the holiday, but this is pretty good, isn’t it? Not quite a New York Christmas but that’s more my thing than yours.’
‘I like New York Christmases,’ Illya admitted.
Napoleon’s hands twitched on Illya’s foot.
‘I thought they were bourgeois constructions of capitalism,’ he objected. ‘I thought religion was the opiate of the masses?’
‘I don’t believe I have ever said religion of Christmas was the opiate of the masses,’ Illya replied as Napoleon started to massage his foot again. The feeling was so good. ‘That quote is unbelievably misused, anyway. We all need a little heart in a heartless world. Why do you think my country softened and allowed our New Year celebrations?’ He gestured at the room, at the candles and the swinging snowflakes. ‘We need light in the darkness. Joy in the gloom.’
‘Candles in a blackout? Roast goose in an ice storm?’
Illya tilted his head back and closed his eyes. The light from the candles was still pushing through his eyelids. He could hear the wind outside, whining through the ice-covered wires, but it was warm and cosy in here. He found himself hoping for the storm to continue for a least another day. Waverly could hardly demand their return if all transport links were down.
‘Snowflakes, and foot massages, and mission success,’ he said. ‘All the good things.’
‘All the good things,’ Napoleon echoed. He moved his hand a little further up Illya’s leg, insinuating his fingers under the cuff of his trousers and starting to rub at the muscle of his calf. Illya smiled and stretched a little, contended as a cat. He couldn’t have slept for long, but the sleep and the meal seemed to have pushed away all his exhaustion.
‘Why don’t we move this to the bed?’ he asked.