Mildmay was next, trying to weasel out of accompanying me. I had no intention of going without him—it would serve Isaac right—and was on the verge of warning him that I would invoke the obligation d’âme if I had to when I saw Gideon catch his eye, and Mildmay subsided.
That was how it was, then.
Very well.
I dressed with particular care, collected Mildmay without a glance in Gideon’s direction. Mildmay trailed me like my own black thundercloud of disapproval to Isaac’s rooms, where he sat wearing the dullest look in his arsenal like a shield. It infuriated me, that he would not even try, that he sat there and glowered and gave Isaac no reason to think him any brighter than a dray horse.
Not that I cared what Isaac Garamond thought, but he was one of those men who considered themselves far smarter than anyone around them—far smarter than they actually were—and I wanted, savagely, to see him taken down in his own estimation. His attempts to manipulate me were childish, his attempts to seduce me laughable. I had let him do it, partly out of curiosity, partly because it was such a relief to be able to have sex with— to fuck, to use the ugliest word I knew—someone for whom I did not care in the slightest. The martyrs in the Arcane deserved my attention and mindfulness. Isaac Garamond did not. I could be myself with him in a way I never could with Gideon—Gideon, who claimed he did not want to change me, but who would not accept me as I was.
And now, with Mehitabel’s information that Isaac was spying—or trying to spy—for the Bastion, I no longer even needed to wonder what it was he wanted, for surely I had never in my life seen a man more inept at seduction, or one who desired less my company in his bed. I had taken a great, perverse pleasure in submitting to him—exactly in the sense Gideon meant— when he’d clearly expected to have to debase himself for me, an even greater pleasure in making him want me, making him beg, making him climax. I smiled at him over my wineglass, watched him lose the thread of his conversation.
And still Mildmay sat there like a block of stone, as if he couldn’t even be bothered to admit I was in the same room with him.
I could change that, I thought, and let my smile sharpen.
Mildmay
Felix said, out of fucking nowhere, “Mildmay, Isaac wants to know more about the witch-hunts.”
“What?” I said. They’d got to the brandy stage, and I’d relaxed a little, thinking that things were nearly over, so he caught me completely flat-footed. I’m sure he meant to.
“I’m really very interested,” Mr. Garamond said.
I looked at Felix.
“I thought,” Felix said, “since you’ve said so many times that I don’t understand them, that you would prefer me not to explain them to Isaac.”
Sure you did, you prick.
“What d’you want to know?” I said to Mr. Garamond.
He laughed a little, but I wasn’t sure whether it was at himself or at me. “They really happen then? The Mirador hunts wizards in the streets of the Lower City?”
“And the Bastion don’t hunt down hocuses and kill ’em?”
“But those are traitors.” After a second, his face turned an ugly dull red. “Like me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what the Mirador says about the nature witches in the Lower City.”
“That they’re traitors?”
“Close enough.”
He looked at Felix. Felix smiled and shrugged.
I said, “The Mirador don’t like hocuses who don’t do as they’re told.”
“But what are these nature witches doing?” Mr. Garamond said.
“I ain’t a hocus. Don’t know.”
“They’re practicing blood magic,” Felix said, like a dagger sliding between my ribs, and made me admit I did know after all.
“No, they ain’t. They just ain’t practicing your kind of magic, is all.”
“Some of them follow Eusebian precepts,” Felix said. I couldn’t tell whether that was aimed at Mr. Garamond or me, but I think it hit both of us.
“Why does the Mirador fear them?” Mr. Garamond asked.
“We don’t fear them,” Felix said, lazy as a cat with its claws sunk in a half-dead mouse.
“But then why . . . ?”
I said, at Felix, “It’s heresy, ain’t it? That’s what you do with heretics. You hunt ’em down and burn ’em.”
“Blood magic is a terrifying force for evil,” Felix said in this nasty, prim voice like he was a witchfinder himself.
“There ain’t no blood magic in the Lower City. There was only Vey Coruscant, and nobody ever came after her anyway.”
“What about Celeste Clovis? Benedick Humphrie? Zephyr Wolsey?”
“Zephyr Wolsey wasn’t no blood-witch.”
“Surely you are forgetting the evidence at his trial.”
“I wasn’t at the trial. But he was a friend of mine, okay? Quit baiting me.”
Felix laughed. “You see what a dreadful person I am, Isaac? I can’t have so much as a simple disagreement with someone without baiting them.”
“Dreadful,” Mr. Garamond said, and they smiled at each other.
“You can’t disagree with anybody without turning it into a war,” I said. I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut—I’d gotten off pretty light, considering—but I just couldn’t lay down under it no more, not in front of Mr. Garamond.
“A violent metaphor,” Felix said. “I begin to be frightened of myself.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“Should I? And why would that be?”
I looked at Mr. Garamond, but he wasn’t going to help. He was just watching, his eyes bright and greedy.
“’Cause you do things like this,” I said. My eyes were starting to get hot, and I knew Felix would be able to hear how upset I was. “’Cause you’re a prick for the fun of it. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“But you said you wanted us to talk more. When I try to talk to you, you just tell me to leave you alone. What am I supposed to do?”
“If this is your idea of talking, it ain’t worth the bother. Just treat me like a fucking dog and be done with it.”
Felix opened his mouth and closed it again. You could feel what he had almost said in the air, like the smell of smoke. He said, “Suppose you go on back to the suite.”
My heart skipped a beat because I’d heard the Lower City in his voice, plain as plain could fucking well be.
“Okay.” I stood up, grabbed my cane. “My lord,” I said and bowed to Mr. Garamond, even though he wasn’t a lord and didn’t rate it. Then I limped to the door.
As I was leaving, Felix said, “Don’t wait up.”
I walked back alone.
When I came in, Gideon looked up from a diagram he was making with three different colors of ink. His eyebrows went up.
“Yeah,” I said. “He sent me back.”
Gideon pointed at the chair opposite him. I didn’t want to be alone. I sat down.
Gideon made a kind of come on gesture.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s pissed off about or why . . .” I thought a second, said carefully, “You know he don’t care about Mr. Garamond, right?”
Gideon gave me a flat I don’t want to talk about it head-shake. And powers and saints, I didn’t want to push. I said, “Look. You want to play cards or something?”
He shrugged and nodded, giving me a lopsided smile that said as how I was no good at changing the subject but he wouldn’t get on my case about it.
We played cards until the ninth hour of the night. Felix still hadn’t come back by the time we went to bed. Gideon lost the last five hands like he’d never seen a deck of cards before in his life.
Chapter 11
Mehitabel
By nine that evening, I was mostly finished moving in, and perhaps messages had been passed along the grapevine of the back hallways, for it was only at that point that Stephen appeared, Hemminge behind him with a tray holding a decanter and two glasses. Hemminge set the tray down ceremonially on
the occasional table, bowed to both Stephen and myself, and left.
Stephen poured the wine, handed me a glass, and said, “So, who should I marry?”
I was tired and had a splitting headache, but I manufactured a laugh. “Surely I’m the last person in the world you should be asking that.”
“I value your opinion,” he said; he wasn’t teasing.
“Isn’t it a little soon?”
“What? I’ve seen them.”
“You don’t want to get to know them?”
He looked at me for a moment with an expression of weariness that unsettled me, then said, “All I could learn is whether they dance well. No romance. Sorry. Political convenience. They know it, too. No sense pussyfooting around it. I hate dragging things out to no point. So who do you think?”
I could appreciate a pragmatic view of the situation. “Lady Enid or Lady Dinah.”
“All right. Why?”
“Zelda Polydoria is too young,” I said, editing out the fact that Felix Harrowgate said with absolute certainty Stephen wouldn’t marry her.
“True,” he said, “and I don’t want to marry into the Polydorii.”
“The Severnii are as poor as a ragman’s dog, and I’ve heard at length from five sources about the hereditary madness of the Otanii.”
“Indeed. And Lady Clementine Novadia?”
“Lady Clementine’s reputation as a virago is well-established and well-earned—fast work for a girl of eighteen. If you aren’t going to marry for love, don’t marry her.”
His laugh was like a crack of thunder. “I won’t, then.”
“Which leaves Enid Lemeria and Dinah Valeria. But between them, I frankly do not see a whisker of difference. They are young, pretty, well-bred, and as far as I can tell Philip Lemerius is no better an addition to one’s family than Winston Valerius.”
“I rather like Philip,” he said mildly.
“Yes, I know, and it baffles me.”
He grinned briefly, then sobered. “And I don’t want a tie to the Valerii, either—although the child seems a nice enough lamb.”
“Suitable for sacrifice?”
“Exactly.”
“Then marry Enid.”
“Just as everyone expects.”
“Yes.” I’d heard that opinion more than once. Most people had seemed to assume that the soirée was no more than a polite form—and a chance for the other girls to get themselves noticed by eligible young men. Certainly no one was upset by it.
I said, a little warily, for I still had no sense for how he reacted to being teased, “You don’t exactly have a reputation for being unpredictable.”
It made him laugh. “I don’t, do I? Very well, then. The Lemeria it is. And now let’s talk about something else.”
Talking wasn’t what he had in mind; I didn’t let myself sigh before I agreed.
Mildmay
I dreamed about Strych and Felix again. I was trying to find Felix and hide from Strych. Only I couldn’t tell which one was Strych and which one was Felix, and because it was that kind of dream, every time I thought I’d found Felix, it turned out to be Strych. And the more times I found Strych, the more I knew I had to find Felix so I could warn him, because I knew it was really Felix that Strych wanted to find. Me, he was just going to kill. And Strych kept smiling at me with Felix’s face and telling me not to be silly, I’d got it all wrong. But I knew he was lying, and I knew if he touched me, it would kill me. And then there wouldn’t be nobody to keep him from turning into Felix for real.
I came awake like falling off a wall. The sheets were sweat-soaked and tangled around me, and I was shaking, like I was a septad old again and Keeper was having to smack me out of my bad dreams.
And I knew what that dream was all about, too. Sometimes Felix was way too much like Strych. I mean, I knew why and everything, but it didn’t help, the way sometimes I could see him turning into Strych right in front of me. I’d never had the guts to tell him that. Either he didn’t know, and it would tear him apart, or he did know . . . and I didn’t want to think about that one.
I concentrated on my breathing and on the basics of getting dressed—doing up the buttons, straightening my cuffs. By the time I was ready to go out, my hands were steady. But I’d also come out of myself enough to hear Felix shouting. I couldn’t make out the words, but it wasn’t like I needed to.
Blessed saints, I thought. Of all the septads of things I didn’t want to do right then, walking out into another fight was right up at the top of the list. But it was either that or stay cowering in here like a mouse who’s spotted a cat, so I opened the door and went on out.
I knew in about a half a second I’d’ve done better to admit I was a mouse. Felix and Gideon were standing in the middle of the room, staring at each other. Felix was still wearing last night’s clothes. They both turned toward me, like they thought I was going to attack them. I stopped right where I was because it seemed like they were maybe an inch, inch and a half, from starting to throw magic around, and I didn’t want to get in the way of none of that.
Gideon said something to Felix. I could tell by the way Felix stiffened. I thought, praying, that Felix was going to be able to keep himself from answering—that was the only way they could get out of the bad fights—but then he said, “No, I’m not bound-by-forms to you, and I’m fucking well grateful for it.”
Oh fuck me sideways ’til I cry, I thought. That was the worst sign, the worst ever. Felix never swore, never anything worse than “damn.” But Gideon was every bit as mad, maybe even madder, and I stood there and watched and saw Gideon doing something I hadn’t thought you could. He was playing the fight by Felix’s rules, and he was winning. Felix actually backed up a step, and I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen there in a long time.
I was praying at Gideon to see it too and stop, but he was past anything like that. I knew what had got him going—it was that same old fight about Felix cheating on him, the fight they’d been worrying at like an old bone the past couple days—but even in the fight that winter where they hadn’t spoken to each other for three days, it hadn’t been like this. Because this time Gideon wasn’t stopping. I could see it. He had had enough, and it got clearer and clearer for me, standing there with one hand still on the door, that this was everything Gideon hadn’t said to Felix for like an indiction and a half, everything he’d turned a blind eye to or laughed off or told himself was just Felix—all of it coming back in Felix’s face at once. Felix wasn’t mad no more. He was white as paper and his eyes seemed to be eating up his face.
“Gideon—”
Gideon stopped him with a gesture, like he was pushing him away. Gideon looked from him to me, and I saw that right then he didn’t care about me any more than he did Felix. He turned and walked out the door. We both stood there, staring after him. Felix said, “Go after him.”
“What d’you want me to do?”
“I don’t know! Just go after him.”
“What about court?”
“Fuck court.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t know what was the right thing to do.
Then Felix’s left hand went up to his eyes, and he said, “No, you’re right. We have to go. But afterward I want you to go find him. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
“About what?”
The look he gave me was full of poison, and neither of us said one word more.
I felt Felix like a fire all morning. If we hadn’t had to go to court, if he’d been able to go after Gideon and talk to him, I think things might have come out okay. Not great, maybe, ’cause I had a kind of idea that some of the things Gideon had said were things that you couldn’t leave lay once they were out, but good enough to get by on. But we had to go to court, and we had to stand there, and Felix had time to think. And that was bad. I could feel his mood shifting. I think he’d almost been to where he might have said he was sorry to Gideon—something he said even less than he swore—like Gideon had managed to tear off that spiked arm
or. But the longer we stood there—dunno what was going on ’cause I sure as fuck wasn’t listening—the more I could feel the armor going back on, and the spikes getting longer and sharper. By the time court was over, not only was Felix not sorry, he was pissed off at Gideon again.
“He said he was going to Rinaldo and Simon. Come on.”
“Felix, I don’t think—”
“Nor should you. Come on.”
He knew how to shut me up. I followed him, my head down and my face burning.
Simon opened the door. “Felix,” he said. He wasn’t surprised.
“Good afternoon, Simon,” said Felix, in that parody of good manners that most especially made my spine crawl. “May I speak to Gideon please?”
“He says that he has said everything to you he intends to,” Simon said.
“Indeed,” said Felix. “Well, there are some things I intend to say to him. If I can get past his guard dog.”
Powers, Felix, could you be any fucking nastier about it if you tried? But I knew the answer to that: he wasn’t even warmed up yet.
Simon said, “He’s not here.”
“Simon, my darling, don’t try lying to me. You’re very bad at it.”
Simon went red. I saw something I’d never gotten in good light before and felt hollow and sick. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was leaning away from Felix, like that could keep me from knowing whether he knew how Simon felt about him.