On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

Galahad has collected every insect guide he could find in the mansion's library, and now he is camped out in a laboratory it seems to have created particularly for him and Susan -- the room has its own microscope, so that he can stop borrowing Claudius', and every single shelf is filled with glass habitats or mesh tents for keeping insects.

With his single-minded determination, he has filled many of them -- the tents house carefully potted foot-high milkweeds with tiny butterfly eggs affixed to their leaves, or potato plants he hopes will soon harbor potato beetles, or butterflies resting on the mesh. In the glass habitats there are millipedes, gleaming tenebrionid beetles, huge and bumbling scarabs, the dogbane leaf beetle Lancelot helped him capture, shiny blister beetles, leafhoppers in every shade of green, a pair of picasso bugs, an mantis he found in the greenhouse pretending to be an orchid flower.

Many of these insects stay only long enough to be identified and documented. Galahad and Susan between them take careful notes, make drawings, take pictures. When possible, they identify to species; more often, they identify genera or family, country of origin if they're lucky. Then they let their subjects go again. Neither of them has the time nor the inclination to feed and care for the immense diversity of insects living on the mansion's grounds. Potato beetles are one thing, but catching other tiny insects for the tiger beetles every morning is unsustainable. Galahad doesn't mind. Once he has a picture and the notes, the insect is saved, even if they don't see it again.

In the morning he trains with Lan Wangji, so it's an afternoon now when he's perched on a stool in front of the microscope, inspecting a chlaenius beetle to see whether it's possible to confirm a species. Unfortunately, these beetles are too fast and squirmy to put on a slide alive, so he's ethered it first. Now he's working diligently on his sketch, his pale head bowed as he studies the tiny body.

[Open especially to anyone who needs to be reassured that Galahad is back after the mod event and he's just fine now]

It's a cold, clear day, and the sun streaming through the glass of the greenhouse makes it warm enough even for Galahad, as long as he wears a sweater; Magnus, meanwhile, is fine as he is. They've been arranging everything all afternoon, clearing off the long worktable by moving potted plants to the shelves along the walls or fitting them into the middle like a kind of centerpiece. There's a stack of plates and forks at one end, along with napkins and cups. There are also scorecards, with three-by-three grids, neatly labelled CAKE.

This is because, ultimately, they end up with all nine kinds of cake from Galahad's list (they run out of time to taste test in the handful of days between Ephiphany and the party, and Galahad suggests just making all nine as a group project with Laertes and Tress, especially since two of the entries on the list are cakes Laertes told them about in the first place. The absurd indulgence of having one cake, let alone nine, is the kind of sensuality Galahad wants to take for himself here. There's no reason not to. The day before and morning of the party are a wild flurry of baking, but it turns out Magnus and Laertes and Tress are a good mixture of people. Having Magnus there eases Galahad's awkwardness, and Tress and Laertes are both excited to be trying so many new recipes, and Galahad hardly has to talk at all -- he just has to be around people he likes. The kitchen smells wonderful, like chocolate and green tea and browned butter, ginger and cinnamon and cloves. It's hard to imagine the party itself being better). The cakes are laid out on the table with sprays of fresh flowers Magnus grew and little notecards to identify them, which Galahad lettered himself: Chocolate, Yellow, Almond, Sachertorte, Funfetti. Carrot, Strawberry Matcha, Brunsviger, Ice Cream. 

There are several pitchers of Mountain Dew, cherry Coke, and root beer (neither Magnus nor Galahad actually like alcoholic drinks very much). There's also a fancy bowl and a pitcher of milk intended for Mothwing, and a dish full of delicately flaked fish -- these are all cordoned off in their own little area of the table with a sign in Magnus' block capitals: TWOLEGS BACK OFF.

Magnus tapes blue and pink and green crepe paper around the door of the greenhouse, and uses his einherji jump to get up to the ceiling glass to hang the big paper stars Galahad folded and cut using a book from the library.

Galahad brings out and sets up an extra table for gifts -- it must be said that he somewhat misunderstood what Magnus meant about birthday gifts, and although it's taken him the better part of two weeks he has prepared a gift for every person they invited in addition to Magnus himself, all of which are wrapped and labelled and set on the table in question. All, that is, except the plate of Belgian waffles for Nina, which are on the table with their own notecard and a bowl of chilled whipped cream. When Magnus notices, he quickly encourages a random assortment of eleven greenhouse plants to grow their own flowers and adds them to each gift -- more flowers are always good! Especially this time of year(?? the mansion calendar is weird, but it's obviously winter).

Drosera is playing with an empty plant pot under one of the shelves, grabbing the plastic rim in her bill and shaking it as if it were a mouse she meant to kill. The sound of her paws and talons scrabbling on the ground is audible, as are her squeaky growls. She has a crepe paper bow stuck to her head, courtesy of Magnus, which doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Galahad listens to the noises and rubs his watchband. Now that guests are a few minutes from arriving, he's begun to feel anxious. It's one thing to be around one or two people at a time, or even their baking foursome -- twelve reminds him of the dance, or of feast days at Camelot, and he's worried Gu Xiang is going to be disappointed when she actually meets him, and he's worried he won't be able to understand people again, and he's worried that Claudius will think him childish for wanting this, and he's worried--

Magnus appears beside him and takes his hand, winding their fingers together and sending a pulse of summer into Galahad's body. It doesn't burn off the worries, but it makes them recede, like floodwaters, and Galahad squeezes Magnus' hand.

It's time.