Snakebite

Shylock liked to think the one advantage of coming from a background as weird as his was that he was rarely left without words. However after hearing Selwyn’s story, he was not at all sure what to say, mainly because he was burning to know if Selwyn’s involvement with Adrienne was solely because of this obligation.

He didn’t know the former Ravenclaw, except by sight. She had married Kaiden but that had been on threat of Azkaban. Nevertheless, he couldn’t imagine her wanting to be carried off to the Highlands to push out babies.

“What happens if you don’t do that?” he asked. “And where does Adrienne fit into this?”

Good question.  Selwyn wasn’t at all sure where Adrienne fitted in anymore.

“The spell binds me to the land,” he said, deciding to go with the easier question first.  “When I’m in The Glen I can feel the land like it’s almost part of me.  If we have a weak crop, I get to feel that.  I hate to imagine what it’d be like if there was a famine.  But it gives back a bit too.  Like, lambs often get lost and I can use it to feel where they are.”

“Not that it’s not hard, mind you.  It’s not intuitive.  It feels like it’s trying to map The Glen’s geography onto my body.”

“So as far as we can figure out, the whole point of the spell is to protect The Glen.  If I don’t get married, I get all that foisted on me when my father dies.  The actual deal is that she doesn’t have to be in love with me, she’s supposed to love the land and the land’s supposed to love her.  I’m just a conduit for the whole affair.”

“And I suppose if I died without issue, the protection would fail.  Or it might transfer to some kid in the villages.”

Selwyn sighed.

“As for Addie, I have no idea,” he said.  “The whole reason I came to see you was because I’d had- I was going to say a fight, but it wasn’t even.  We keep having these almost fights.”

“I mean, I care about her.”  

“I care about you, too," he added hastily.  "Think I might be a bit poly, to be honest.  But she has a lot of anxiety, even if she doesn’t realise it, so I end up feeling like I shouldn’t pressure her and then she gets annoyed that I haven’t made a move.”

At Selwyn’s words, Shylock abruptly straightened. He was livid.

“What does that mean, Selwyn?” he asked cooly. “Earlier you were telling me you’re not involved with her and what you do isn’t her business.”

“Now you’re telling me you only came to see me because you were angry with her? You say I’m not a lab animal but you’re just fine treating me like a puppet in your games with Adrienne.”

“You’re worse than Kaiden. At least he can keep us separate.”

Selwyn was horrified. Both by the comparison to Kaiden and Shylock’s interpretation of what he’d done.

“No!” he protested. “It wasn’t like that. It’s not like that.”

“Look, I admit I’ve got it bad for her,” he said, “but I wasn’t lying about us not being together. We’ve flirted one time and it went down like a dead owl.”

“And I was never using you. When I came over last week, I wanted to get your advice or forget about her for a bit or,” he paused.

“You’re not going to like this,” he warned. “Keiran had told me about you and Kaiden; that’s how I knew where you lived. I was going to see if I could persuade you to give me some memories.”

“Right,” Shylock replied.  

His anger was still simmering, but he was willing to hear Selwyn out, if only because he didn’t think the other man would have been so easily caught out if he were deliberately being manipulative.

“I don’t like it,” he confirmed. “I think I need some time to myself.”

He dug into a pocket and tossed a couple of notes onto the table.

“I’ll get in touch.”

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