Osric had told Fairhrim she was a safe flirt. Foolproof, he’d said. He wasn’t certain about the foolproof bit: he was too much of a fool.
Given that he was in the throes of emotional hardships, and also a man, Osric stared dramatically at himself in the mirror above a sink.
It would be wonderful if he could stop slobbering on her for five minutes. This had become embarrassing. He oughtn’t have asked to kiss her hand again. He never managed to keep his kisses performative when it came to Fairhrim. The kisses always wanted to become more. They wanted to become real. He must stop yielding to temptation.
But what was the use of having temptations if one didn’t yield to them?
Now he wasn’t sleeping properly, because he was too busy reliving kiss-kissing his way up her hand, and lying in bed with her in his arms, and the scent of her hair, all memories that made him feel delicate and floaty.
He stared at the nobly suffering man in the mirror. Eyebags. He had eyebags. “What is wrong with me?”
“Do you want the list in alphabetical order?” came the voice of the critique cricket. “Or chronological? I could also organise it by theme.”
“Do piss off,” said Osric.
“You look like shit,” said the cricket. It almost sounded concerned.
Osric’s eyebags remained unaffected by his expensive French crèmes. In his defence, it was eleven thirty in the morning. How typical of Fairhrim to force him out of bed at this improbable hour. He was to meet her at noon—a poor choice of time for clandestine meetings, but apparently all of the clinics were in use because of the Pox immunisation push across the Tīendoms, and they must take what they could get when they could get it.
He accepted that he would look like shit, but he refused to dress like shit. Osric pulled on formfitting trousers, because he had a bulge to show off, and swept a rich, claret-coloured overcoat over his shoulders. He stepped out of Rosefell Hall and strode towards the waystone looking well-bred, well-endowed, and fiendishly expensive.
The critique cricket’s parting shot was to call him a Carbuncle. He didn’t know what that was, but it seemed an exaggeration.
When he pressed his tācn to the waystone, Osric equipped himself with a Resolution. The Resolution was that he would not seek to touch Fairhrim for the duration of this session. There would be no weaselling about for permissions to kiss hands or other demonstrations of cretinhood. (If she wanted to touch him, that was another affair; he didn’t see why he wouldn’t permit it. This was a question of his dignity, not hers.)
He materialised at the Deceptive Banana to find Fairhrim already there. She was in a fine white cloak today, like some scientific vestal virgin.
Osric opened his mouth to verbalise this observation, but Fairhrim turned and raised her eyes to his, and her hood fell back, and suddenly, the sun’s only purpose was to illuminate her.
Osric’s tongue flopped uselessly back into his tonsils. No words could describe her anyway, just as no words can capture the loveliness of sunlight upon a petal. Fairhrim reached for his hand with a smile. A flock of doves took flight and scattered the light around them into dappled radiance. The breeze blew; an Aeolian harp rang. He desired to yield his soul to her. Her hand closed around his. His heart moved from its normal place to beat in his throat. She tugged him towards her, as though to draw him into an embrace—
But no. The smile was not for him. It was for the family that had just arrived at the waystone behind him. The grasp at his hand was not to pull him towards her, it was to move him out of the way.
Fairhrim said, “Sorry—he’s always underfoot,” and tugged Osric aside.
Osric’s heart returned to its correct location. He withdrew all of his thoughts about radiance. The doves, as it turned out, were pigeons. Also, he would be keeping hold of his soul, thank you.
They walked to the clinic. Osric slapped his feelings into submission. A Flight of Fancy oughtn’t throw one into such a state of botheration.
Fairhrim was deeply absorbed in her own thoughts and strode along as though Osric wasn’t there.
Osric, who liked to exist, inserted himself back into reality by saying, “I heard what happened to the Færwundor.”
This brought him to Fairhrim’s notice. “It’s horrific. The Dreor knew there’d been intruders and decided to obliterate the evidence. They destroyed the entire place.”
“An impressive bit of fuckery.”
“I’ll pay for any information you might hear about it.”
Osric haughtily expressed doubts that she could afford his fees.
This antagonised Fairhrim, whose glare pinned him to the wall. Osric wished to antagonise her into actually pinning him to the wall—he thought it would feel nice—but he remembered his Resolution: he would not seek to touch her today.
“Obscurantist,” said Fairhrim.
“Tribulation,” said Osric.
“Polyp.”
“Anorak.”
Osric expected more, but Fairhrim walked ahead, and continued to be distracted by something that wasn’t him.
She led Osric into a building liberally plastered over with posters of Platt’s Pox victims, featuring a disturbing amount of pus. Osric grew queasy. Fairhrim, who had been sensitised to these hardships since she was an embryo, strode past them, unbothered. The clinic smelled obscurely of socks.
“I’ve a favour to ask you, before we get started,” said Fairhrim.
“The answer is no,” said Osric.
“I haven’t even asked.”
“And yet: no.”
“Contrariness isn’t a gentlemanly fault.”
“I’m not a gentleman,” said Osric. “I’m a polyp.”
“Mordaunt.”
“What?”
“It’s important,” said Fairhrim. “It’s to do with the Dreor.”
“What is it?” asked Osric. “I’m not agreeing to help; I’m just nosy.”
“I ordered a search of every research and academic library in the Tīendoms for material related to the Dreor Order, and none have anything available—everything’s been lost or destroyed.”
“Someone was thorough,” said Osric.
“I know,” said Fairhrim. “It disturbs me. Have you anything on the Dreor Order in your libraries? After what we found Lord Wellesley up to, I hesitate to ask any of the big houses with private collections. They might also be involved.”
Osric did not answer. Fairhrim told him it was for a greater purpose. Osric made a sound that was noncommittal. She asked him to join her on the moral high ground. He told her it was impossible: she had already taken up all the real estate. She made an appeal to his Better Nature. He told her his Better Nature had died years ago, in sad circumstances. Fairhrim asked, What circumstances? Osric said, Penile degloving.
“Do this one bit of good,” said Fairhrim.
“Doing good devitalises me,” said Osric. “Besides, I don’t let just anyone into my libraries.”
“Just anyone?” repeated Fairhrim. “Are you suggesting that I don’t know how to handle rare books, you—”
She cut herself off when she saw that Osric was checking a grin.
“I’ll have a look for you,” said Osric.
Fairhrim rearranged her ruffled feathers. “Thank you. Very kind of you. I appreciate it.”
“I am bursting with human charity.”
Fairhrim didn’t react to this absurd statement. She pulled out the Franklin diffractor and asked Osric to undress in the distant tones of someone absorbed in something else.
In previous times, she had always left the room as he undressed, but this time, she didn’t, and messed about with the diffractor instead.
Osric did not mind; he was, after all, superbly virile, and magnificent to observe naked. He therefore said, “It’s quite all right if you want to look,” as he removed weaponry and clothing from his person.
Fairhrim was lost somewhere amid the diffractor’s tentacles, muttering about what absolute creature had put it away last time. “Hmm?”
“I was just saying,” said Osric, stripping off his shirt, “it’s all right if you want to watch me undress.”
A bit of Fairhrim’s usual flint made its way back into her abstracted gaze. “You cannot be accused of excessive modesty, anyway. There should be gowns in the cabinet.”
There was nothing in the cabinet but a pair of slippers. Osric put them on.
Fairhrim took no notice of his ongoing nudity. She conducted the usual rites: the hlutoform was sprayed, the diffractor’s sticky wires were attached to Osric, Osric’s seith system was beamed upon the wall. Fairhrim splayed silver instruments against the projection, measuring things between the bright seith markers she had placed in Osric’s system.
She consulted U. Ganglion’s patient chart, looked at the wall again, and said, “The node is, indeed, healed. Good.”
There should have, at the very least, been another smile, and possibly her throwing herself at him in an excess of joy. Instead, she popped the diffractor’s tentacles briskly off Osric’s bare chest.
“Good?” repeated Osric. “That’s it? Good?”
“Very good.” Fairhrim nodded. “Excellent. Scientifically impossible. Fascinating. Let’s see what the next moon brings. What? Do you want a gold star?”
“Yes.”
To Osric’s annoyance, Fairhrim produced a sheet of adhesive gold stars for well-behaved children, plucked one free, and put it in the middle of his forehead. “Well done, you,” she said.
“Fairhrim.”
“Hmm?”
“Fairhrim.”
“What?”
“I’m naked.”
“I know.”
“You healed seith rot. Healed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you reacting to anything? What’s the matter with you?”
Fairhrim scribbled notes upon his chart and stuffed it into her satchel. “Nothing’s the matter. A good thing happened last night. I’ve got to get back to Swanstone.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not meant to tell anyone.” Fairhrim pressed her hands together in uncharacteristic restrained excitement. “But it’s good. And largely thanks to you.”
“Tell me.”
Now that they had touched upon the subject that so preoccupied her, Fairhrim became more attentive. “I really can’t. Why are you naked?”
“You’ve just said whatever happened was thanks to me. Surely I’m entitled to know.”
Fairhrim looked Osric in the eye. Impressive self-control, given that his cock was, you know, right there.
Gravely she asked, “If I tell you, do you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“I promise,” said Osric. (It was untrue. But then again, so was most of what he said.)
“The Wardens caught Tristane,” said Fairhrim.
It took a moment for Osric to process this absurd sentence. “What?”
Fairhrim looked pleased. “I know. It’s brilliant.”
“Caught Tristane?” repeated Osric. “Caught her? That’s impossible.”
“It is possible.”
“How?”
“I implemented the advice you gave me about where to have wards set at Swanstone and expanded on it a bit. We had wards set at the waystone at the Publish or Perish and snag anyone with unknown seith. We had a Warden stationed there round the clock. Tristane was caught as soon as she exited the ley line.”
Osric stared at Fairhrim, open-mouthed. “The advice I gave you was meant to deter Tristane, not result in a capture. You were never meant to actually catch her.”
“Well, we did.”
“How many died?”
“One Warden almost did, but was healed—we are Haelan, after all.”
Osric shook off his astonishment. “She’ll make short work of an escape. No one can hold Tristane.”
“She won’t,” said Fairhrim. With disturbing serenity she added, “She’s got no seith.”
“No seith? What do you mean? What did they do to her?”
“Nothing horrid. Just a little procedure I conducted, for the safety of everyone at Tintagel Castle.”
Osric had never felt a conversation skid so quickly out of control in his life. “A little procedure? Tintagel Castle?”
Fairhrim packed away the hlutoform. “Yes. The Wardens are transferring Tristane to their headquarters, to await judgement at the Stánrocc.”
“Transferring her? When?”
“As we speak,” said Fairhrim. “What are you doing?”
Osric dressed. “I’m going to intercept them while she’s in transit. When she’s at Tintagel Castle there’ll be no chance of getting her out. That place is impenetrable.”
Fairhrim was finally beginning to realise that Osric did not share her elation. “You—you want to rescue Tristane?”
“Obviously, I want to rescue Tristane.”
“But I thought you were helping me. We caught her on the basis of your instructions.”
Osric pulled on his coat. “No. I told you how to deter her; she would never have attempted to bypass those hellish wards if she’d seen them. But she wouldn’t have expected a ward at the foot of a waystone. You didn’t even give her the chance to make a decision.”
“She made a decision when she used the waystone to come to Swanstone,” said Fairhrim.
Which was annoyingly correct, which was why Osric ignored her.
“Why do you care?” asked Fairhrim. “It’s Tristane.”
“Exactly. It’s Tristane. My warchief. She plucked me off the streets and made me who I am. I don’t want her to kill you, but I don’t want her to die, either. Did you say the Stánrocc? They’re going to have her executed for attacking another Order.”
Osric went to the door. He would gather together a dozen Fyren. They ought to be able to take on the Wardens transferring Tristane to their castle. They would need to move fast to intercept them, however. What was the nearest waystone to Tintagel Castle?
Osric clasped at his pockets for his waystone map. When he looked up, Fairhrim was blocking the door. Her arms were crossed. She was steely-eyed.
“You promised to keep this to yourself,” said Fairhrim.
“Promises were made to be broken,” said Osric. “You already know this.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you hare off and free Tristane? So—so what, she can try again later, and actually kill someone at Swanstone next time?”
“She’ll be sentenced to death at the Stánrocc,” said Osric.
“She should’ve thought of that before attacking Swanstone,” said Fairhrim. “She knows the Peace Accords. Don’t go. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise?”
“Otherwise,” repeated Fairhrim, and the word held a threat.
“I’m going.”
Fairhrim reached for Osric with her right hand. Her tācn gleamed white.
Osric danced away from her. “I don’t think so.”
“Let Tristane face the consequences of her actions,” said Fairhrim.
“No.” Osric shadow-walked past her into the corridor. He wiggled his fingers behind him as he strode away. “Until next time, Fairhrim. Thanks for the tip-off.”
“Mordaunt,” said Fairhrim. Her voice was heavy with disappointment. “Please don’t do this.”
Osric blew her a kiss over his shoulder.
There was a flash of light. Fairhrim flooded the corridor with illumination from her tācn. The next shadow was a step too far for Osric to reach it in the shadow-walk.
“Adorable,” said Osric. “But just because I can’t shadow-walk doesn’t mean I can’t, you know—walk.”
“You know so little of my abilities,” said Fairhrim.
Osric had told her the same once—though less arrogantly, surely. Anyway, what was a pacifist Haelan without a single offensive ability going to do from all the way over there?
She raised her tācn. Eight pinpricks of ice flared burning cold in Osric’s body. Her seith, so familiar to him through all of their healings, was inside him, and now took on a frigid, paralytic quality. His joints seized. His jaw locked. He fell to his knees.
She hadn’t even touched him. Impossible. Impossible.
He heard Fairhrim’s footsteps behind him. He couldn’t turn his neck.
“You shouldn’t have forced my hand,” she said.
Osric, lock-jawed, could make no answer. Minutes ago, he had inspected the image of himself on the wall and seen the bright pinpricks of her seith markers dotting his system. Those were what she had just used against him. How long had she had a kill switch inside him? How long had she kept it in her back pocket? Who did she think she was?
Fairhrim stood before him, her eyes aglitter with cold fury. “You’ll be in this state for two hours, which will be long enough for the Wardens to get Tristane situated at Tintagel Castle. I was stupid enough to trust you. I will never make that mistake again.”
Then—to add the sting of insult to injury—she pressed a fingertip into Osric’s shoulder and tilted him into a wardrobe whose door was ajar. She had waited until he had walked exactly there to freeze him, for her own convenience. She shut the door on him. Her footsteps receded down the corridor and out of the clinic.
Fairhrim had, as always, been precise. It took Osric two hours to thaw out of the paralysis she had imposed upon him. The wardrobe was full of skeletons and mops. Two hours in the darkness, in the company of skeletons, with a “Well done!” star sticker on his forehead, was ample time to stew with wrath, and work himself into a filthy temper, and decide that he hated Fairhrim. How dare she?
She was not a Flight of Fancy. She was a self-righteous terror. She was a Means to an End, and only a Means to an End, and would never be anything more.
When he had recovered the use of his limbs, Osric left the clinic.
He had, at least, stuck to his Resolution.
He stole the diffractor on the way out.