“We’re worried about you, Arthur,” was the first thing his brother Dylan said as he stepped into his workshop, eying his workbench and his chisels with a crease between his eyebrows. “You haven’t sold a piece in months, you barely go out. Alasdair told me you missed your own exhibition at the gallery. That’s not like you. You can’t keep holed up in here with your statues.” “They’re better company than most,” Arthur stubbornly retorted, his eyes chasing the marble statue he had hid under a sheet near the far wall, hoping his brother wouldn’t notice it. “And I’m not lonely.” Dylan looked back at him over his shoulder with worry in his eyes, but Arthur dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I’m fine,” he lied. “I’ve just been focusing on a special project.” “What project?” Dylan insisted. His eyes searched the room and found the thing Arthur had hoped he would not find. “That?” he asked, and before Arthur could stop him he stepped around his bench, gaining ground faster than Arthur could scramble to stop him. When he pulled back the sheet revealing the marble statue of a man, Dylan gasped quietly. “It’s not finished,” Arthur weakly tried, anxiously standing behind him, following his brother’s gaze to the man carved out of stone. The perfect curve of his muscles, the casual pose as he sat on his marble pedestal, lips raised in a slight pout, the petulant pout of beautiful men, and curls of stone-carved hair framing his handsome face. “I’m still—” he stuttered. “He keeps me company, I’m not—” Arthur licked his lips, trying to think of a reasonable, sane thing to say that wouldn’t make his brother send him straight to an asylum. “He’s beautiful, Artie,” Dylan breathed out in awe, but concern was still lingering in his eyes when he turned to look at him. “But he’s not real.” Arthur twisted his hands together, feeling his own callouses, his own roughened fingertips. He knew that. But when he looked up at the statue's face, he wished, as he had wished many times alone in his workshop, working late into the night to free him from this stone prison, that he was.

“The world is changing, Mr. Kirkland. As a journalist you should know that,” said the Portuguese agent, blowing out smoke into the night, his black overcoat wet where the rain caught up with him before he could find cover under the marquee next to him. “And are you an agent of change, da Costa?” Arthur boldly asked, fueled by the whisky he had earlier, fidgeting with his own lit cigarette between his fingers. “Does your government know where your true loyalties lie?” Da Costa smirked in the shadows of the marquee, eying Arthur languidly. His short hair was slicked back and shiny, clothes carefully pressed and clean, the perfect agent of the conservative Portuguese regime. But when he looked at Arthur, his eyes gave him away. “My government cannot stop the spring, Arthur.” He smoked, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Neither can yours.”

It was Gabriel’s first assignment as an assistant navigator after finishing his studies at the Royal Navigation School in Sagres. He had promised his mother at the port in Lagos when she came to bid him farewell that he would come back from India with enough money to save their farm. But just as they caught the return winds and approached the Golden Coast in Africa, their fleet was surprised by pirates. “So what’s it gonna be, love?” their Captain taunted him, the sharp edge of his dagger pressed against the underside of Gabriel’s throat. “Your loyalty to your King, or your life?”

You should tell him, Francis had said to him over the phone one day, you should tell him how you feel, but Arthur shook his head. There’s was nothing to tell. Nothing he wished to tell Gabriel especially. They had been living together in England for almost two years now, splitting rent and groceries and sometimes funny anecdotes about their day over breakfast. It was Arthur’s own fault that he had become infatuated with his roommate. He was just so lonely and Gabriel was kind. Gabriel probably didn’t even feel the same way anyway. Then why did it hurt so much when one morning Gabriel called him into their tiny cramped kitchen and announced, his voice shaking like he was about to cry: “They offered me a job in Lisbon.”