[P] DO THE HUNGRY EVER SLEEP?

[Acton]

Acton whatever you feed me I'll feed you right back   He did think about the crush of rocks – the first warning tremble he’d missed in that moment of violence. He often thought about her body, all that bright gold tarnished with dust, and sometimes he tossed in the night, sometimes when he woke his hair was sweat-slick against his skin and his heartbeat was a ragged tattoo. Was it regret? By the time his eyes opened, he’d always stopped thinking about it. There were other things to think about, after all. Raum was back, and there was the drama with Dusk, and there were the whispers that had begun, of the Davke uprising. And then there was his magic. All kinds of gifts, then, as the sun remembered how to warm the earth, as the buds on trees unfolded and the rains swept through and the summer songbirds began to arrive. And all the while the night markets continued, and eventually he stopped looking twice at every girl with golden skin and a cascade of white hair. Tonight was like every other, except for the new feeling under his skin, like electricity, like slow fire. Acton cut his way through the market, sometimes observing another act, sometimes sharing words or laughter with a fellow Crow, sometimes doing nothing at all but glorying in the night, in being alive. Once in a while he performed a few tricks: a coin pulled from behind an ear here, a card properly chosen then vanished away, a row of scarves pulled from nothing, endless and colorful as the passers-by. Later in the evening, when he felt suitably warmed up (suitably liquored up, too, a more familiar buzz in his veins), he began to perform in earnest, to let that new, true magic begin to seep into his show. They were warming to it, he thought, he could see their gazes begin to widen with wonder, and he was almost feeling it too – Wanna see a trick? He heard her voice at the same time he saw the boy’s eyes go from wide-wonder to wide-shock. A change he’d seen before. A voice he’d heard before. Everything in him froze; even his heartbeat faltered. Surely his own eyes were as wide, when he heard her speak. I can make you see ghosts. Acton turned, graceful as any showman, and as he did he seized his mind as with a fist. Neat as any magician’s trick, he put the smile back on his face; he did not vanish the fear but he choked it down. He let the other, stranger feeling – anticipation? relief? pleasure, even, quick and wicked? – take its place, and he looked upon her. “My friend, ladies and gents, Bexley Briar.” They could hear that there was no tremor in his voice, but they could not see the way he stared at her. Your sun-scorched god must love you. But not as much as his god loved him. It (he was not sure, even now, that it was Caligo whose eye was on him) had rewarded him with true magic. It had seen him unpunished. When the Davke had risen like half-dead coals to burn the Solterran capital, when Lysander had been made to taste his own blood for nothing more than Reichenbach’s jealous pride, Acton was free, free, free. He would never again be caught, not since that day when the theater burned down around him. Come to think of it, this situation didn’t feel so very different. His body felt tight, a wound spring. It wanted to tremble with all its desires. Acton kept it still, save for his eyes on her, save for one ear twisting back toward the small group behind him, save for the smile that grew creeping across his mouth. “You’re just in time. I was about to ask for a volunteer for my final feat. It’s a vanishing act.” Nothing could touch him. Most of all her, little golden fool. Her outsides matched her insides, now – she should thank him. It was bold of her to come here, and maybe that boldness was part of why his heart sang, part of why his grin turned real when it had just a moment ago been another illusion. So he stared at her, now flashing a smile as terrible as her own, as the crowd murmured and fell silent. Some of them had slipped away; a handful stayed out of the car-crash kind of curiosity. Acton ignored them all. His burning gaze was only for her, from the crashing ocean of her eyes to the scar he had put on her face. “I always get it right the second time around.” Or, his gaze asked her, shifting like a flame, would you like to do this privately? He wanted to grab her by that delicate little necklace she wore, such a flimsy tight thing glinting in the faint light, and - @Bexley MARRY ME