He went a little red. “Don’t worry about me. You need to—”
“I ain’t worried. Them bruises are a couple days old. But I really do want to know what the fuck you did.”
He broke eye contact, jerked his chin up. Said, “Your grammar clearly broke along with your fever. ‘Those bruises’ is the correct form.”
Oh shit. I glared at him, best I could do, and said, “You know perfectly well I don’t give a rat’s ass. What. The. Fuck. Happened?”
He gave me a nasty look back. “We were out of money, and you were out of your head.”
“Money? But you don’t . . .” Know the first thing about making money, I was about to say, but then I remembered my dream and the wolves and what Felix had been before he’d been a hocus. He did know the first thing about making money. “Oh sacred bleeding fuck tell me you didn’t.”
He looked down at his hands. I followed his gaze, and oh fuck me sideways, more bruises and scabbed over patches, and what the fuck had he gotten himself into while I wasn’t around to keep him safe? “It is what I was trained to do.”
“Trained?” I said, and I would’ve gone on, but I started coughing. Not out of the woods yet, Milly-Fox. And by the time I could breathe again, I didn’t care so much about chewing him out.
But then he went and opened his mouth. “You need to rest. What happened while . . . Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“The fuck it don’t,” I said, and I wanted to shake him again. How stupid did he have to be? “How bad are you hurt? Tell me that.”
“Mildmay, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“What?”
“Why don’t it matter if you’re hurt? It’d matter if I was hurt. So why the fuck don’t it matter if you’re hurt?”
And he was giving me his crazy-blank stare again, like I wasn’t even talking the right language. He didn’t have an answer. And, I mean, I knew that, but it hurt, it hurt worse than anything, to see it up close and where he couldn’t dance around it or pretend it wasn’t there.
“How bad are you hurt?” I said.
“I’m okay,” he said. “It’s just bruises.”
“That ain’t bruises,” I said and didn’t quite touch the nasty scabs on his left wrist.
“It’s healing,” he said.
“Well, yeah. Shit does. But that ain’t the point.”
He got his head up enough to glower at me. “Do you want me to just tell you everything that happened?”
“You could,” I said, and the horrified look he gave me, like I’d said he could take one of my kidneys out and barbecue it for dinner, was almost funny. Almost.
“Maybe later,” he said, meaning never, and bounced up off the bed. “Corbie will be here soon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
And I let it go. And I ain’t even pretending. It was because I knew it would come back.
Felix
The fantôme waits for me in my dreams. It tries different shapes to seduce me, taking them from my memories: Murtagh, Gideon, Vincent. It offers me a boy with Corbie’s long nose and violet eyes; it offers me Mildmay, and I wake—vilely, achingly hard—and slink away to the lavatory to deal with myself as best I can. I don’t want him anymore, not like that, but I cannot control what the fantôme finds in the murk of my dreams.
The fantôme shows me the night in the Clock Palace again and again, and I wake shuddering and sweating, but I don’t change my mind. I don’t give it what it wants, and it retaliates by dragging out all the worst memories it can find. This can stop anytime thou wishst, it tells me, insouciant in the shape of Malkar Gennadion. It is up to thee, Felix.
But I know that trick—know it, ironically, from Malkar himself—and I shake my head, unspeaking, fearing that the fantôme will have the same gift for twisting my words that Malkar did.
It drops me into St. Crellifer’s; I see myself, all bones and dirt and staring eyes, scrubbing floors, and crouched beside me, weeping, is Isaac Garamond. No matter how hard I work, the floor will never be clean, for his tears track red across his face and make a spreading pool of blood at our feet.
I jerked out of sleep again and again, and by the third morning after Mildmay’s fever had broken, I was in no shape to deal with his sharp eyes and sharper mind. He expressed a bone-deep desire for a bath, and so I helped him limp to the bathroom and ran the hot water for him. The plumbing fascinated him, and he had a thousand questions about it, none of which I could answer.
He stripped off his nightshirt, as unconcerned as ever with his nudity; that abhorrent dream came back to me, and I looked down at my hands where the bruises were fading to yellow and brown. He used my shoulder to balance as he got into the tub, and I gritted my teeth and stood still for it. He needed me, not my airs and fancies.
He gave an audible sigh, of relief or pleasure or both, as he sat down, and then said, abruptly, “Why didn’t you hock your rings?”
“I beg your pardon?” I said, as breathless suddenly as if he’d hit me.
“Your rings. Remember ’em? Big gold and garnet things I been carrying since we left Mélusine? If we were so fucking hard up for cash, why didn’t you hock ’em?”
I stared at him. The words barely even made sense. “You want me to sell my rings?”
“No,” he said, as slow as if he were talking to an idiot child. “Pawn them. You do know about pawnshops, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Felix, I could’ve gotten them back for you. Two days, tops.” He leaned forward, carefully, and put one wet hand on my wrist. “And I’d rather’ve done that than have you go out and let yourself get fucked for the money. Okay?”
I felt myself going scarlet, and I pulled away from him. The truth was, it hadn’t even occurred to me, and I couldn’t help resenting his easy assumption of superiority: he could deal with our financial difficulties in two days, unlike his poor stupid brother. It was a relief to find an objection: “It wouldn’t have been enough.”
“No?” he said skeptically, as if he could hear my wounded pride.
“Doctors are quite phenomenally expensive, darling,” I said. “We can do the math later, if you want.”
“I ain’t trying to—oh fuck it. I’m just saying, I hate that you got hurt because of me.”
My face was burning; I turned away from him and said, “If you’re going to bathe, you might as well do it.”
“Felix—” I didn’t turn, and after an excruciating pause, I heard him sigh, this time undoubtedly with exasperation. “All right. Have it your way.”
I didn’t turn around until I was sure he wouldn’t try again.
At least with Mildmay on the mend and alert, the arguments with Corbie stopped. Half the time, I didn’t even know what we were arguing about, which was not a situation I was used to being in. But Corbie was like a handful of needles, every angle bringing a different attack.
She thought I should “lay a charge” with the House of Honesty against the people who had hired me for their thaumaturgical orgy; from the newspapers, we knew who they were, and she insisted furiously that they were in breach of contract.
“It’s not that simple,” I’d said, more than once.
“They fucked you up,” she said, glaring up at me balefully, “and I don’t care about them fancy words, that wasn’t the agreement.”
“Corbie, it isn’t—” But I didn’t know how to explain without betraying my own weaknesses. I didn’t want her to know what had been done to me any more than I wanted Mildmay to know.
And when we weren’t arguing about that, she was apt to go off like a firecracker, defending herself aggressively against what she called “talking down.” She said she wouldn’t put up with it, and I certainly believed her, but I couldn’t figure out what constituted “talking down,” or why she thought I would want to do such a thing in the first place.
Mildmay made her wary and unnaturally quiet; that afternoon, after less than fifteen minutes of the strained atmosphere in our room,
she said, “Felix, can we go walking or something? Get some fresh air?” Her eyes cut over at Mildmay, and I knew what she meant.
Of course, so did he. “Yeah, since you can’t throw me out.”
“It ain’t that,” Corbie said.
If I’d had the chance, I would have told her it was useless, but Mildmay said, “Sure it is. And I ain’t even a hocus, so I don’t know what you’re so twitchy about. But go on. Least I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Mildmay,” I said, although I didn’t know quite what I wanted to say.
“Go on,” he said, and Corbie gave me an imploring look; I gave in.
We walked downhill, away from the Clock Palace, for reasons neither of us was prepared to discuss. The farther we walked, the more anxious and unhappy she looked, and I finally said, “Corbie, what is it?”
“I, um.” She fiddled with the lace on the cuff of her coat. “You’re going to Esmer, right?”
“When Mildmay’s well enough to travel, yes.”
“To go to the Institution?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need to present myself to the governing body of the wizards of Corambis, but I don’t actually know what that is.”
“The Congress. That’s the Institution.” She frowned up at me. “Why do you got to ‘present’ yourself to them?”
I wasn’t prepared for that question, even though I should have known it was coming. I nearly tripped over my own feet, and then had to school myself not to jerk away from Corbie when she reached to steady me. “I, um . . .”
“Oh,” said Corbie. “It ain’t a good reason, is it?”
“Depends what you mean by ‘good.’ It’s certainly a cogent reason. But, no, it isn’t a very nice one.”
“Are you sick?” she said, and the anxiety in her voice was rather embarrassing. “Some kind of magicians’ disease?”
“No, nothing like that. I . . .” I couldn’t lie to her; I should have told her the truth days ago—should have told her the truth the instant she asked me to teach her. “I’m exiled from Mélusine because I . . .”
I’d said it to Thamuris, but Thamuris knew me and knew what dreadful things I was capable of. And although I had taught him some things, being a far more experienced wizard than he, I had never thought of myself as his teacher.
“I destroyed a man’s mind,” I said, the words hard and flat and not even half as ugly as they should have been to describe what I had done.
Corbie’s eyes were wide and very dark. “Why?” she said.
“Does it matter?”
“Well, yeah, actually. Because if you did it for a reason, that’s one thing, but if you did it just for fun, that’s something else.”
“No, I didn’t do it for fun. He murdered—” My throat closed, the words so much harder to say awake than they had been in the Khloïdanikos. “He murdered my lover.”
The fantôme stirred hopefully in the back of my mind, and I denied it.
“So you had a reason,” Corbie said.
“I don’t know,” I said wearily. “But you were going to ask me something else.”
She gave me a doubtful look, but let the subject go. “Yeah. I was. Because I was wondering . . .”
She was going red. “What?”
“Can I go with you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Tomato-red now. “When you go to Esmer, can I go with you?”
“Why in the world would you want to?”
And she might be deeply embarrassed, but she got her chin up and answered the question. “Because you’re teaching me. Because you don’t think it matters that I’m a girl. Or that I’m a jezebel. Because I want to learn more.”
I felt strange and cold and rather remote. “I’ll have to talk it over with Mildmay,” I said. “Let’s just call today a wash, and I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
“You ain’t mad that I asked, are you?” she said. “Because I know maybe I shouldn’t’ve, and maybe you’re sick to death of me, or, you know, you don’t—”
“Corbie,” I said. “Shut up. I’m not mad. I just . . . I need to think and I need to talk to Mildmay. Tomorrow, all right?”
“All right,” she said with a quick, jerky nod, and darted away.
I walked back rather more slowly to the Fiddler’s Fox, where I found Mildmay awake, despite what he had said. I told him what Corbie wanted. “That’s kind of a mess,” he said.
“You have no idea,” I said and sat down beside him.
“Well, I kind of do,” he said. “Because I know how you feel about taking apprentices.”
“This isn’t—” But of course it was. That was exactly what it was, and I realized that I was actually shaking, very slightly.
“Felix,” Mildmay said. “You ain’t him.”
“No?” My voice cracked.
“No,” he said, steady and patient. “You wouldn’t hurt a hair on that little gal’s head. I can see that just as well as she can.”
“Are you jealous?”
He snorted. “I’m sick, is what I am, and it’s making me say stupid shit. No, I ain’t jealous. I wouldn’t be a hocus if you paid me. And she’s a good kid. I knew kids like her at home, and I would’ve wanted them to take this chance if they had it.”
“Which chance?”
“The chance to get out,” he said. “To not be so fucking stuck somewhere that you can’t even tell if you want to be somewhere else because there ain’t nowhere else. Ain’t a chance I ever had.”
“But you got out,” I said. “You are out.”
“Huh,” he said. “I s’pose that’s true.”
“So you don’t mind?”
He gave me a slow, assessing look. “I don’t mind.” And one eyebrow went up. “If you don’t.”
I wanted, suddenly, to snap at him not to make allowances for me, that I wasn’t the damaged, frail creature he obviously thought I was. But he was still sick, and I was morbidly uncertain that if I told him that, I would be telling the truth. So I said, “I don’t mind, either,” and if it was a lie, at least it was one he didn’t call me on.
I could not simply keep running from the fantôme; like the remorseless ticking of the Clock of Eclipses, it could follow me no matter how deep I went into my dreams. I had to fight, even though I had no idea how.
My construct-Mélusine was bare of briars, but also barren, like the stones of a house left standing after a fire, and all the gates were now standing wide, a series of panoramas I did not want to see. I made the circle, grimly dragging them shut, though the effort jolted all the way up to my shoulders and made my hands ache dismally. When I paused in front of Horn Gate, afraid to look through at the Khloïdanikos but equally unwilling to cut myself off from it, the fantôme said from behind me, Is this thy fortress, Felix? It cannot keep me out. And all around the circuit, the gates slammed open, one after the other, in the order in which I’d closed them.
If I went into the Khloïdanikos, it would only follow me, and I had already done enough harm there. I turned around, hating each individual motion, and found the fantôme standing on the black glass circle that was all that was left to represent the Mirador. It was wearing Isaac Garamond’s face.
Who are you, truly? I said.
I am rachenant, it said, as if that were an answer.
Rachenant?
The spirit of vengeance, it said. Its eyes were not Isaac’s eyes; they were red as blood and black as slaughter and not even remotely human. And then I jerked back, realizing how close to it I’d come without even noticing.
Felix, it said in mock sorrow and spread wide hands that a moment before had been reaching for my wrists. Dost not trust me? I wish only to serve thee.
I do not want your service.
Thou canst not lie to me, it said, and Isaac shifted into Malkar. I can see the truth of thee. Beloved.
I want you, I said carefully, to leave me alone. If you can see the truth of me, you can see that I mean it.
Dost think thou meanst it, the
fantôme agreed with Malkar’s worst smile. But in thy heart, thou dost desire me.
The idea came to me as sharp and sudden and brilliant as a lightning bolt, and I acted on it in the same instant. Instead of retreating, I charged the fantôme. It could take Malkar’s appearance, but it didn’t have his mass, and I drove it backwards, south, into the stagnant black tarn that was both the Sim and my madness. I pinned it, my hands locked in claws around its throat, and I held it under with both my weight and my magic, forcing it to follow the rules of the construct it had chosen to follow me into, forcing it to drown. When at last it lay still and limp, not Malkar any longer, not anyone, I shoved the body out until the undertow caught it and dragged it down.
I slept peacefully and well the rest of the night.
Corbie was prompt the next afternoon, and her anxiety made my throat hurt. “Let’s go up to the roof,” I said and ignored the look that Mildmay gave me. It was no business of his.
Corbie followed me without complaint, but when we reached the privacy of the roof, she said, “You’re gonna say no, aren’t you?”
“Corbie, it’s not that I don’t want—”
“Oh fuck you, of course it is. I don’t blame you, but don’t lie about it, all right?”
“I’m not the right teacher for you,” I said desperately. “I don’t know anything about Grevillian thaumaturgy. Anything I taught you, you’d just have to unlearn anyway.”
“Who fucking cares about thaumaturgy?” she yelled at me. And to my abiding horror, she began to cry.
“Oh fuck it,” she said; she was already digging out a handkerchief. “I wasn’t going to do this, I swear I wasn’t, but I thought I had it right, I thought I . . . I thought you liked me.”
“I do like you. Corbie, it’s not about liking. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” she snarled.
And, horrified, I heard myself say it: “I had a teacher. He abused me. And I don’t want . . . I don’t trust myself, Corbie. I know I can’t trust myself. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Too fucking late.”
“I know. I did this all wrong. I . . .” Don’t I rate an apology? “I’m sorry.”
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