Slate’s breath hissed through her teeth. “You’d let someone drown me?”
“What would you have me do?” he shot back. Actually raising his voice, which astonished her on some level, since Caliban never raised his voice. “Let the demon walk off with you trapped inside? Let you ride around behind your eyes while a demon uses your body to slaughter everything in range, or worse? They don’t much care how they use you, you know. You’re there the whole time, whatever horrible disgusting thing they decide to try while they’re wearing your skin.”
Slate stared at him, speechless.
“But no,” he said. He gave a bark of humorless laughter. “No, after everything, I wouldn’t let someone drown you. I’d hold you under water myself. Because exorcism is hard and things go wrong. And if they go far enough wrong, you’re left with a demon rotting inside your soul, and how the hell could I let that happen to someone I loved?”
He spurred his horse forward. Slate tried to kick her animal after him and it managed another brief, useless trot.
“Wait—wait!”
Caliban vanished around a bend in the road and Slate thought, That was it. That was the end. That was the point where I strained it all too far and it broke.
Which was stupid, because it had broken days before, it had broken the moment Caliban had tossed her aside without a thought to get to Brenner. There was no reason she should be sitting on this stupid horse in the middle of the road, crying. No reason at all.
Fifty-Five
“Please send this package to the temple of the Forge God,” said Caliban to the innkeeper.
He’s returning the tabard. Gods. I stole that damn thing myself, and he’s returning it. I…yes, of course he is. Why would I think any differently?
The wall of silence was between them again. Slate had plodded along the road for what felt like an hour and then Caliban had simply ridden up beside her. She couldn’t think of what to say that would bridge the growing rift between them, so she didn’t say anything.
Someone I loved.
She worried at the words like a scab inside her head.
Someone I loved.
Someone I loved.
Eventually they had argued about staying at an inn, or at least, Slate had tried to start an argument about it. Caliban had said, “It will be safer to avoid people.”
Slate said, “I need a mattress or somebody dies.”
And damn him, he had opened his mouth and she could see him about to say, “But it isn’t safe,” and then he closed his mouth again and nodded and said, “As you wish.”
Bastard.
The inn had one room free. Caliban went down to the stable. Slate sat in the room, staring fixedly at a glass of wine.
He’d killed Brenner.
He’d drowned—what was it? Eleven people? And saved some of them in the process.
We have a better survival rate than a surgeon taking off a diseased limb.
Slate had stood by and watched Brenner kill a lot more than that, for much less pure motives.
How many people had Caliban handed over to the temple to exorcise? Even he didn’t know.
If I could have gone into the water myself, instead of the victims, I would have.
Four times, they’d drowned him. Until he was dead enough to kill a demon, too, until it rotted in the back of his head.
Did the scales balance out? Did anything ever balance out? Brenner had saved an enormous portion of the city. Did that make up for lives he’d been paid to take?
Did a kiss on the shoulder in the dark make up for not giving her an argument when she damn well wanted one?
Slate pushed her glass aside.
She went down to the stable, stopping briefly at the bar to place a request, and found Caliban in the stableyard, praying.
“Get up,” she said. She didn’t care if she interrupted him. The Dreaming God was the one person in this whole mess that she was utterly unwilling to forgive.
Caliban rose to his feet. “Is there a problem?”
“They’re filling a tub in my room with hot water,” she said.
He looked at her levelly.
“It’s for you.”
It seemed like everything that could happen was balanced on what Caliban said next. Slate was very aware of the sound of the horses moving in their stalls and the smell of straw and dung.
This is ridiculous. We saved Anuket City and the Dowager’s City, we put a stop to the Clockwork Boys, we even figured out the damned werkblight. I had a tattoo eating me and I stood over a wonder-engine and people died and all I care about is what a man standing in a stableyard says next.
What he said next was, “I would like that very much.”
“Come on, then.”
They climbed the stairs together. Slate opened the door to her room and gestured him inside.
The servants had indeed filled the tub with hot water, as she’d requested at the bar. It was still steaming.
Caliban looked at it, then at her, with his hands on his belt.
He waited for her to leave. She sat down instead.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’ve seen it all already.”
“So you have.”
“I’ll turn my back, if you’re feeling modest.”
“You’re too kind, madam.”
Slate turned her chair around and dedicated her attention firmly to her wine.
She heard the clatter of metal hitting the floor behind her and the rustle of clothing being folded. Then footsteps and the gurgle of water and a sigh verging on a moan.
She stared into the bottom of her wineglass, listening to quiet splashing sounds. It was completely a trick of her mind that she could feel his presence against the back of her neck, like sun on raw skin.
“You could stay here tonight,” she said abruptly.
The splashing sounds halted.
“If you wanted. It’s not—” Slate grimaced “—an order or anything like that.”
I am a master of seduction. Truly.
The silence went on for long enough that she felt embarrassment start to heat up her cheeks. She wanted to tell him to forget she’d said anything.
“Is this pity?”
It was so completely unexpected a question that Slate wheeled around to look at him.
He was half-lying in the tub with his arms hanging over the sides and the back of his head against the rim. With his knees pulled up, he had as much of himself submerged as he could manage in a tub that size.
He turned his head enough to look at her. “Well?”
“Pity?” she said, baffled.
“My exorcism,” he said. “If you’re pitying me because I was drowned a few times last year, don’t. I was unconscious for most of it. Being possessed was much worse. I remember all of that.”
Slate let out a squawk of laughter. “Pity! You look like a damn god, you kill demons for a living, you and Brenner saved the damn city a week ago while I stood around wringing my hands, and you worry I’m pitying you?”
He closed his eyes and let out a groan that had nothing to do with the hot water. “We are doing this very badly.”
“Tell me about it,” said Slate, with feeling.
“Grimehug told me I was stupid before we left. Said I was twisting my whiskers instead of biting the back of your neck.”
Slate snorted.
“Then he told me that stupid was a good mate for crazy, maybe.”
She couldn’t think of anything much to say to that.
“Slate…at this moment, I am willing to take you to the capitol. I will make my report to the Dowager’s people. I will do everything in my power to see that you are settled safely there. And then, if it is what you want, I will leave again.”
She still felt as if her stomach were dropping out from under her when he said it. She nodded.
“But to do all that, I have to sleep in the stables. I cannot spend another night in your bed and then walk away.” He had opened his eyes again, but seemed to be st
aring at the ceiling.
“You said—earlier—someone you loved—” Slate found that she was steeling herself for something. He loves me, he loves me not, and which would be worse, I wonder?
“I am hopelessly in love with you and the only thing that is keeping me from following you around like a stray dog for the rest of my life is the fact that it would make you hate me even more.” He considered this for a moment. “Also, pride. My sins haven’t been quite beaten out of me yet, I suppose.”
“You could have said something earlier,” said Slate.
“Did I not mention it?”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
“I was afraid if I told you outright, you’d run screaming. But I thought that it was blindingly obvious.”
“Obvious? Gah!” Slate clutched the back of the chair.
“Ah.” He nodded slowly. “Grimehug may have been on to something.”
“Possibly.”
He returned his gaze to the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter, though. If you’re sick of the sight of me, how I feel is somewhat immaterial, isn’t it?”
She got up, not sure if she was going to pounce on him or try to drown him in the bathtub. “Do they train you to be martyrs, or does it just come naturally?”
“Most paladins do have some natural aptitude in that direction…”
Slate took a deep breath. She was going to tell him exactly what she thought of him, whatever that was. She was going to yell. She was going to say things so cutting that he’d wake up in the middle of the night bleeding. She was…she was…
Apparently she was going to sneeze.
“Auuhh….auuhh…gnnnrghghkk!…bugger…”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back, trying not to drown in the sudden wave of rosemary. Was she in danger? Had a clocktaur gotten into the room somehow?
A distant part of her mind registered splashing and squelching and then Caliban pressed a handkerchief into her hand.
She took it grimly, blew her nose, wiped the back of her wrist across her eyes, and looked up at him.
He was standing very close. He was still damp. She watched a droplet of water meander down his chest and thought angrily that no one should be allowed to be that pretty in the middle of a fight. Certainly not while her eyes were red and she was trying violently not to sneeze.
She didn’t look down. She had standards. Somewhere.
Still.
“The bath was pity,” she admitted. Her eyes seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere around his throat. Stupid paladins. Idiots, the lot of them.
“I figured as much.”
This one was probably stupider than most.
On the other hand, a smart man would never get involved with a forger from the capitol. Certainly not one with a price on her head in Anuket City.
Of course, he had a price on this head there, too. So at least they had that much in common.
“Love, huh?” she said.
“Utterly. Profoundly. Would you like to send me off to kill a dragon or something to prove it, like in a ballad?”
“What the hell would that prove?”
“I suppose it would prove that I could kill a dragon. I’m not sure why that would be a good thing. They never cover that bit in ballads.”
“What would I even do with a dead dragon?’
“I’m open to other suggestions.”
“What would I do with a live paladin, for that matter?”
He considered this at some length. She decided to lean her head against his chest while she waited.
“Well,” he said, “You’ve had a paladin for awhile, and I don’t think you’ve been terribly impressed. But if you keep me around, I will make sure I always have a handkerchief.”
He put his arms around her. One of his hands wrapped around her bicep, where the tattoo lay ugly and inert. You were never supposed to get matching tattoos, they said in the brothel. It pretty much guaranteed he’d run off with the first bit of fluff that came his way.
Somehow she didn’t think that would be much of a problem with Caliban. Still…
“I warn you, I’m the jealous type.”
“I can’t imagine you’ll ever have cause to be jealous.”
“Are you kidding? You wander around in that armor looking noble and half the city would probably fall into your arms! Men and women!”
“Sounds exhausting,” he said. “I will clearly be much safer with you to fend them off.”
“You know what I do for a living,” she warned. “I’m not going to give up my profession to become respectable.”
“Dreaming God forbid. I shall simply have to guard you against any angry clients.” He rested his chin on top of her head. “I fear that I may be prone to going off and killing demons.”
She shuddered. “That’s going to make me crazy.”
“And I will be a wreck every time you break into a building to raid the filing cabinet. Do you think we can make do?”
“Can you stick to the ones that are possessing cows and things?”
“I make no promises, but I will try. After the last month, a levitating cow would be positively restful.”
Slate let out a huff of laughter.
“As the temple is not going to take me back, it may be a moot point anyway. Though the Dreaming God seems to have no such qualms. But really, most of my job always did involve possessed livestock.”
“Mmm.”
“Beyond that, I had been thinking that perhaps the gnoles could make use of a human knight. And that they might very well need someone who could forge letters of safe conduct and so forth. Useful when dealing with other humans.”
Slate recognized a peace offering when it was standing in front of her, dripping.
“It’s possible we know someone like that,” she admitted.
“Well, then.”
“I’m still pissed at your god,” she warned.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
She felt the muscle under her cheek move as he shrugged. “I doubt it bothers Him. And I am…touched…that you care enough to be angry on my behalf.”
Slate’s cheek was getting damp. She was either going to have to get him a towel or strip off her own clothes. She knew which one she’d prefer.
“Well,” she said, heaving a sigh that seemed to come from the soles of her feet. “If only for the handkerchiefs.”
“Naturally.”
“And clearly I must be in love with you, to even be considering this. Despite my better judgment!”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m extremely relieved to hear it…my liege.”
She swore at him but he stopped the torrent of obscenities with a kiss. Slate grumbled against his lips and put her arms around his neck, and didn’t even mind the faint, lingering scent of rosemary.
Acknowledgments
AKA
I Can’t Believe That’s Finally Over
* * *
It is 2018 and I am finally finished writing the Clocktaur War.
I have been working on what is not, when you get down to it, a terribly long pair of books—165K and some change, all told—for almost twelve years. Caliban and Slate and Brenner and crew have been living in my head for over a decade now. If I do the math (never do the math) that is literally half of my adult life.
It is very strange to close the book on a project that’s lasted that long. I’ve done it before—my webcomic Digger took up an even greater percentage of my existence—but it still doesn’t get any less strange to shuffle the whole crew out of the section of my mind labelled “Characters” and into the section labelled “Characters Emeritus.”
I can’t swear it’s the end for everybody, of course. Learned Edmund is very young and needs some adventures of his own, and I can’t swear that future books in this universe won’t have a good-natured paladin and a disgruntled forger show up somewhere in the background. Still.
(Yes, of course there will be future book
s in this universe. There’s a trilogy in the works right now that I keep telling myself will be novellas.)
Well! Acknowledgements! To my faithful proofreaders and copyeditors, without whom this would be even more flawed than usual. To my patient editor, K.B. Spangler, who had a LOT to say and eventually just started sending me pictures of Deadpool whenever Brenner did something more than usually diabolical.
To my husband Kevin, who would probably make a very good paladin.
And to all my fans who read stuff and stuck with me until Book Two. I could not have done it without you, and I hope it was worth the wait.
T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
North Carolina
2018
Also by T. Kingfisher
As T. Kingfisher
* * *
Nine Goblins
Toad Words & Other Stories
The Seventh Bride
The Raven & The Reindeer
Bryony & Roses
Jackalope Wives & Other Stories
Summer in Orcus
Clockwork Boys
* * *
Coming in 2019:
The Twisted Ones
* * *
As Ursula Vernon
* * *
From Sofawolf Press:
* * *
Black Dogs Duology
House of Diamond
Mountain of Iron
* * *
Digger Series
Digger Omnibus Edition
* * *
It Made Sense At The Time
* * *
For kids:
* * *
Dragonbreath Series
Hamster Princess Series
Castle Hangnail
Nurk: The Strange Surprising Adventures of a Somewhat Brave Shrew
Comics Squad: Recess!
Funny Girl
The Wonder Engine_Book Two of the Clocktaur War Page 30