An Heir to Thorns and Steel

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “Locke! Have a seat... Locke?”

  I focused on them. “I beg your pardon,” I said. “I’m feeling a little peculiar.”

  “A little,” Guy said, squinting at me. “You’re sodden, Morgan. Did you stand out in the rain all afternoon?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said, and didn’t.

  They exchanged glances. I found this humorous, though I couldn’t say why. As if coming to a mutual decision, they rose as one and approached me.

  “His eyes have gone black,” Chester muttered.

  “You think—?” Radburn paused, then shook his head. “No, surely not.”

  “Surely so,” Guy said. “Obvious as the nose on his face.”

  “God!” Chester said, scowling at me. “Locke, what are you thinking? Do you want to ruin yourself untimely?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” I said. “The doctor gave it to me.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Chester said. “A ‘doctor’, was it? What alley did you find him in?”

  “Or whorehouse?” Radburn said. “Damn, why didn’t you bring me?”

  Their demeanor finally gave me enough grip on myself to find my way through the numb haze. “I did mean that,” I said. “Stirley gave it to me.”

  “James Stirley?” Chester asked, surprised.

  “Sit,” Radburn said abruptly with a briskness of manner that caused us all to stare at him and obey. “What the hell is passing with you, Morgan? Did Stirley give you poppy for that poison spell in the chocolate house?”

  “No,” I said, “He gave me poppy for seizures.”

  “Seizures!” they said in unison.

  An admission that would have mortified me two days ago now seemed inevitable, impossible to conceal. “Seizures,” I agreed. “Since I was born, I’ve had them.” There were cups on the table. I reached for one and misjudged the distance, fingers closing on empty air. I grasped until I found the walls of the cup and brought it close enough to smell, but didn’t drink... wondering if I would miss my mouth as well. What a waste of good chocolate.

  “We can’t let him be seen like this,” Chester said.

  “He’s already been seen like this,” Radburn pointed out.

  “I mean by Ivy,” Chester said, irritated. He stood. “Get him to his flat. I’ll tell her we’ve canceled, that there’s been some kind of emergency. Then I’ll join you.”

  “Lot of trouble just to keep this quiet,” Guy observed. “And for a woman, to boot.”

  “It’s not just about her,” Chester said. “We don’t need it bruited about school that one of us is... well. He might get a suspension. And God! He should be in bed before something happens to him. If we don’t take care of him, who will?”

  “God’s truth,” Radburn said. “We look out for one another. We have enough problems. Or have you forgotten Chester dragging your sorry hindside home a few times from places disreputable, Guy?”

  “Fine,” Guy said. “Let’s go.”

  I realized they were discussing me when Guy shoved a shoulder into one of my armpits and looped the arm over his shoulder; Radburn took the other side.

  “I’m not that poorly off,” I said, though my legs seemed curiously indisposed toward movement.

  “You’re a right mess,” Radburn said. “Come on, Guy.”

  They turned me toward the door and stopped abruptly.

  “Chester! This isn’t your night to be busy!”

  “Oh God,” Radburn whispered.

  Dwarfed by the door, Minda stared at us with great pique. She was a slip of a thing, willowy with champagne-colored skin to go with the golden hair, petite and refined and all those other things women of good breeding were supposed to be... it was just that she had terminally stupid eyes. Vicious and stupid. I wondered, drifting, how I’d never noticed how utterly offensive she was.

  “You are in our way, Miss,” I said.

  “Shut it, Morgan,” Guy hissed.

  “I see that,” Minda said, and leaned forward to peer at my face. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “Seeing the truth so plainly is rather a nuisance.”

  “They were just leaving,” Chester said firmly. “I had forgotten an urgent errand I have yet to run.”

  “You can’t go,” Minda said. “I just got here!”

  “I’m afraid I must,” Chester said. “Please, understand.”

  “She doesn’t actually want to spend time with you,” I said. “She just wants to make sure you don’t spend time with anyone else.”

  Everyone gaped at me. Feeling pleased with myself, I continued, “I note you have left your chaperone behind, Miss. How outré.”

  “What are you implying?” Minda asked, advancing on me.

  “Locke!” Chester exclaimed.

  “I implied nothing,” I said. “Merely proffered an observation.”

  “Chester! Do something about him!”

  “I am,” Chester said. “Fellows, if you’ll remove him? I’ll be along.”

  “But I just—”

  “Spare him your histrionics,” I said. “They don’t move him. They only inspire his disgust.”

  The silence that followed struck me as strange, as if I had said something surprising.

  Minda stepped closer to me, glaring. And then she canted her head. “There is something wrong with you. Are you... “

  “He’s had a seizure, Miss,” Guy said. “If you’ll forgive us, he needs a doctor.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I would have thought—but I suppose not.” She pushed past us into the room. Guy and Radburn hauled me into the corridor and started down the stairs.

  “God and Saint Winifred and all the angels!” Radburn hissed. “What the hell, Morgan! What the hell!”

  “What?” I asked, dizzy. “It was all the truth.”

  “You can’t just go telling the truth to everyone! Especially not Minda! Or do you want to make Chester’s life miserable?”

  “Chester’s life is already miserable,” I observed.

  Guy sighed. “He’s going to be one of them, I see.”

  “One of what?” Radburn asked, exasperated. My feet stumbled on the stairs and almost took them with me; on the recovery, Guy answered.

  “The poppy oracles. You go on poppy, you either make no sense at all... or too much sense.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Guy’s pause struck me as unusual, even as addled as I was. “Later,” he said.

  “Fine,” Radburn muttered. And then, “Thank God you’re not a pugilist, Morgan. I don’t think I could carry someone Guy’s size.”

  They shoved me into yet another carriage and wedged me between them to keep me upright; I thought I could easily tire of staring at the rumps of horses, but I lost a great deal of the ride and couldn’t recall where I’d put it when the two of them wrestled me up the stairs and helped me unlock my flat.

  “Bed?”

  “Couch is closer.”

  “Couch, then.”

  Being dropped awkwardly onto the cushions knocked all the air from my chest.

  “Sorry, Morgan,” Radburn said, tugging me into what he supposed was a more comfortable position. I couldn’t tell, since the edges of my body had become a matter of opinion and I wasn’t feeling up to strong opinions. “Want something to drink?”

  “Don’t give him anything,” Guy said. “He’ll just up it later. Where’s the stash, Morgan?”

  “The what?” I asked, blinking past tears. The light in my flat was too bright... or maybe it was the colors? They made my eyes water. Radburn had crouched, blocking my view—ah, he was re-building the fire.

  “The stash. Where—ah, here it is.”

  “It’s in the open?” Radburn asked.

  “Plain as rain,” Guy said. “Huh. It is in one of the doctor’s satchels.”

  “Said so,” I said, closing my eyes. I heard the cork squeaking.

  “Good God, Morgan, how much of this did you take?”
/>   “As much as he said. Spoon. Came with a spoon.”

  “You’re supposed to dilute it in water. Two parts water, one part syrup. And that’s sweet poppy. This is haze poppy.”

  “When did you become such an expert?” Radburn asked, irritated.

  “My uncle was an alchemist.”

  “I thought your uncle was a politician,” Radburn said.

  “Different uncle.”

  “I thought your other uncle was a dissolute ne’er-do-well,” Radburn said. “Who took all your aunt’s money and spent it and vanished.”

  “That’s the one,” Guy said, and eyed me. “He had a poppy addiction.”

  “I’m not an addict,” I said. “I’m sick.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of sick until you’ve done this stuff enough,” Guy said.

  A curl of flame rose in my mind’s eye, blowing back the fog. I rediscovered anger. “No, Guy. You don’t know the meaning of sick and you never have.”

  “Oh I don’t, do I? Think I didn’t spend enough days on my knees, cleaning up after my uncle’s accidents?” Guy’s shadow fell over the couch, darkening my side. “Think I didn’t hold him through his convulsions? Drag him back when he went poppy-mad and desperate? Think I didn’t watch him almost die in his sleep? His breathing would just... ease... to a halt. And then start up, oh so much later. I know sick. Damned if I don’t know sick.”

  “You think that’s sick?” I asked and laughed. “Oh, no. You don’t know anything. You in your sleek animal body, boxing, playing at archery, riding your horses. All of you, damn you to hell. So... bloody... healthy. You’ve seen sick. You’ve patted sick on the back. But you don’t know sick. I know sick. Come live in my body.”

  “You wouldn’t be so damned sick if you weren’t taking this!” Guy said, snarling.

  “This is the first time I’ve taken it!” I yelled.

  Finally, silence. The crackling of the fire, maybe, but otherwise silence.

  “How’d you get so weak, then?” Radburn asked, eyes wide. “You’re wasted, Morgan.”

  “I told you,” I said, and by my anger knew that the drug was letting go of my body. “I have seizures. And pain. If I eat, I don’t keep it. I vomit once a day, most days.” I grimaced. “Or I did. Now it varies. Once, twice... who knows.”

  “Are you dying?” Radburn asked, horrified.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The knock on the door saved us from that particular quiet. Chester shrugged off his coat as he entered and then stopped, surveying our expressions and frowning.

  “What did I miss?”

  “How long have you been holding out on us?” Radburn suddenly said, fierce. He leaned over me, gripping the edge of the couch so hard the wood creaked. “How long?”

  “I’ve been like this all my life,” I said. “It’s been getting worse slowly. Except now. Now it’s getting worse faster.” I let my head loll back against the arm of the couch. “Can I have more of that?”

  “No!” Guy said. “God, Morgan! This will kill you quickly and without dignity!”

  “Trust me,” I said, eyes closed. “There is not the slightest possibility I will die with dignity. Not the slightest.”

  Another prickly quiet. I didn’t have the energy to pierce it.

  “Well,” Chester said. “How are we going to fix this?”

  “Fix... what?” Radburn asked, his bafflement obvious in his voice. “Him becoming a drug addict? Him dying? Him holding out on us like a goddamned weasel?”

  “He doesn’t have to tell us everything about himself,” Guy said. “Pain is a private thing.”

  “Fix things so he can get to school and back without... incident,” Chester said. “And preferably without being there while drugged.”

  “Is that even possible? How... how bad is this bad pain, anyway?” Radburn asked. “Can you talk? Sit up and pretend to listen?”

  He was my friend and he couldn’t, just didn’t understand, as his patently tentative questions made clear. So I restrained my initial impulse, which was unkind in the extreme. “When it comes, I fall down and either lose consciousness, convulse, or have hallucinations. Or some combination of the three.”

  “How do you feel about taking your retreat early?” Chester said, sitting at the table.

  I struggled to sit up, but my hands had no strength and my elbows refused to lock. In the end I had to twist my head awkwardly to see him, and even so I could only catch half his body. “To write my dissertation? But there’s a year yet before it’s due.”

  “If these episodes are worse now than they used to be,” Chester said, “perhaps this represents a... spike in the periodicity of the disease cycle.”

  “Or it could be worse from here,” Guy said.

  “Guy!” Radburn said.

  “Please,” Guy said. “He’s thinking it, we’re thinking it. Not saying it won’t make it vanish. If we’re planning for contingencies, we have to hit them all. And one of them is that it never gets better.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “Continue, though, Chester.”

  “If you are going to grow worse, there’s not much we can do,” Chester said. “But if this is merely a storm to be weathered, then you can sequester yourself here and no one would be the wiser. And you could get work done between bouts. Once you’re better, you can rejoin the academic circle and no one will have any cause for gossip.”

  “Will you be well alone, though?” Radburn shook back the red lock that fell over his eye. “What if something happens?”

  “I’ve lived all my life with that possibility,” I pointed out.

  “No, he’s got the right of it,” Guy said. “Someone visiting you regularly might make the difference between you living and you drowning to death in your own vomit.”

  “I assure you, I’ve mastered the trick of only vomiting while lying on my side,” I said dryly.

  “This isn’t a joking matter,” Chester said. “I think we should concoct a reason to drop by.”

  “And not one that Ivy can take advantage of,” Radburn said. “If we want to keep her out of this.”

  “The two of you are still absent a dissertation topic,” Guy said. “Why not collaborate on a single work?”

  “I am not giving up my paper,” I said with a growl.

  “It’s a broad enough subject that it could be added to without interference,” Chester said. “And it would be a good cover.”

  “I don’t need nursemaids,” I said.

  “We beg to differ,” Guy said, voice droll.

  “What is this, by the way?” Chester said; I heard the flutter of parchment, and then more hushed, “My God, Locke. Where did this come from?”

  “The Athenaeum at Vigil,” I said. Any topic was better than my sickness, even if it meant sharing the secret pleasure of a rare folio. “Eyre passed it on for study yesterday. I haven’t been able to concentrate on it.”

  “My God,” Chester said again. Again, the sound of pages turning, and then he gasped. “My God!”

  “It’s a folio, Chester, not a religious experience,” Guy said dryly.

  But I was already struggling up, trying to gain my feet and failing. I managed to hook my arms over the edge of the couch and pull myself to peer over its back. Chester’s head, crisply lined in candlelight, was bent over the folio and what I could see of his eyes... well, Guy was wrong. Whatever he’d discovered could more than compete with the visitation of angels, even for Chester, who was one of the devout. “What is it?”

  “The writing,” Chester said. “Here. In the backdrop. It’s the logographs I was studying!”

  “It is?” I asked, stupefied. How had I missed something so distinctive?

  Chester brought me the page, holding it reverently by its edges. “Look!” he said. “Look, behind the figures. On the columns!”

  I squinted at it, ignoring Radburn as he came to hover over my shoulder. It was obvious then how I could have overlooked the writing: it was barely lifted from the ground c
olor with a hue just a few touches paler than the columns. The dazzling renditions of the figures in the foreground easily overshadowed it.

  But now that I was looking... every column was covered in the logographs. And behind them, a wall as well.

  “This is... this is... “ Chester came to a halt.

  “Well, now you have a reason to sequester yourself here with Morgan,” Radburn said.

  “But I had to abandon my topic!” Chester said.

  “Pick a cover. Something you can write with one hand tied behind you,” Guy said. “Something that you can do with Morgan, so you have an excuse to work on the writing.” When Chester stared at him, Guy said, “Who will know? It won’t be published in the school library with the other dissertations.”

  “My parents—”

  “Who will tell them?”

  He looked at us. And then at me. I could see him warring with himself. Finally, he said in a strangled voice, “What good to do the work if it cannot be shared?”

  “A false name?” Radburn suggested.

  “Published anonymously?” I offered.

  “Or not at all,” Guy said. “If you’re chasing it for the sake of knowledge, what more reason do you need?”

  “Are there any more pictures with the writing in them?” Radburn asked.

  Chester returned to the table and resumed leafing through the folio. With each page, he became more agitated. “Here. And here. And here again! Can it be?” he asked. “Could the writing belong to these people?”

  “To elves?” Radburn asked. “Well, why not? It would certainly explain why no one uses it anymore.”

  “Looks like the hunt is on,” Guy said. “You just have to come up with some reason to hide in here with Morgan.”

  “But what? What could be more interesting than this?”

  “It’s not supposed to be more interesting,” Guy said. “It’s supposed to be less, so you have more time to concentrate on deciphering the writing.”

  “Kings,” I said suddenly. They all glanced at me. I shifted my aching arm on the back of the couch, trying to sit upright. “Kings in folklore, and princes, and royalty... and how those stories relate to the fallen nobility and the Revolution.”