All Night Awake by Sarah A. Hoyt Page A

conviction that he was doing something horribly wicked and out of bounds for a Christian soul.
    Which—Silver knowing precious little of mortal souls, Christian or else—he might very well have been.
    But she remembered Kit’s eager enthusiasm, once his hesitation had vanished.
    Silver remembered Kit’s lips searching, seeking, attempting to drink her very soul, his lust such as only a young man can feel in the early spring of his years.
    She remembered their bodies entwined beneath the ancient copse of trees in the abandoned monastery at the outskirts of Canterbury.
    Once he’d lost his reserve, how he had loved, and how the love of elvenkind had maddened him, beating upon his heated blood like the smith’s hammer upon red-hot iron.
    Kit had loved Silver and Quicksilver both, the elf in both aspects, not caring under which form the elf embraced him, so long as the elf did.
    Silver herself hadn’t loved Kit, couldn’t pretend to. As for Quicksilver, as much as Silver could understand that side of her nature, Quicksilver had nurtured for Kit a tender infatuation that yet fell as short of true love as the light cast by a firefly fell short of the shine of a star.
    But she remembered that fevered love of Kit’s, that adoration that had perfumed her nights like incense.
    Remembering it, her heart beat faster, her heart beat kindly for the man she’d just seen—his face pinched by some unnamed worry, his smiles all cynical pretending and his generosity a strange, imposing one that made no sense and seemed to strike against the normal way of courtesy.
    “Was that Kit Marlowe?” she demanded, grabbing Will’s sleeve and holding it until the man, seemingly waking, blinked at her.
    “Kit? Yes, it was Kit,” he said. “And look you here, he has given me an introduction to the theater owner and told me if I go early, I’ll surely get a job. Look, and he signed it with his own hand.”
    Looking over Will’s shoulder, Silver read the signature and felt a sick turn in her stomach.
    Merlin.
    Oh, Kit was of that race well enough. It had been the unused elven magic burning in him, the unaware icy power hidden beneath the eager human fire that first had called her to him. But his being of Merlin’s race meant not that he had Merlin’s power. With Sylvanus raging free, Kit’s heritage was a dangerous flag that he should not wave.
    She wished Kit would not blazon forth that name as a shield, when it would shield him from precious little.
    When it could well call the attention of Sylvanus, Sylvanus who fed on death and suffering, Sylvanus . . . .
    Silver felt as though she’d swallowed a lump of ice whole and it had nestled in her stomach, leeching her limbs of strength. She’d thought she cared not for Kit and yet, at the thought of what might happen to the man should Sylvanus find him, both her heart and Quicksilver’s outraged feelings rose in alarm.
    She had thought she cared not for Kit, but still something in her did care for him or for that memory of their joint youth so conjoined with the tender memory of his love for her.
    Once more, Silver fell short of true elven ice and detachment. Sylvanus would have laughed at her.
    But she’d thought Kit away from London. She’d thought him safe. She’d kept track of his movements over the years. Some protective quality remained after the lust had burned out.
    And she’d thought Kit away from London. She’d thought him safe. She’d never thought to worry for him as she worried for Will.
    Now panic quickened and outraged dormant affection. It was as though her youth itself were threatened and her tender memories under siege.
    “Why is he in London? What brought him here?” She felt something like a premonition, though her power didn’t run to prophecy. She felt a cold despondent fear, a thing somewhat like what humans talked about when they said as if someone walked over their grave.
    Will waved her away. “It matters not. Look here, it gives me the power, it