quotations, the virtu

[thraxios]

“So you don’t remember what happened in Hermione or with Mavortian or Gideon or anything?”

“Gideon?” His eyes went sharp suddenly. “That’s a Kekropian name.”

“Um, yeah. He’s a Kekropian. Little guy, looks sort of like a choirboy, sort of like a clerk. Really smart. A hocus.”

“Ah,” he said. “I think I do remember Gideon. Slightly.”

-

He said, in a jittery little voice that was mostly breath, “Mildmay, you said… the Kekropian we knew before… before… never mind. You said his name was Gideon Thraxios?”

Oh fuck. Everything in my head went cold and sick. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

“Yeah.”

Felix jerked his thumb back at the handbill.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

-

Mildmay, sitting on the bed with his lame leg stretched out, looked up at me. “You know what they’ll do to you if they catch you? It’ll make whatever they got planned for Gideon look like a hangnail.”

“Are you saying we should just leave him to be burned?”

-

I said to Mehitabel, carefully, picking my way around the things I did not want to discuss, “When we started east, we had traveling companions. We were separated from them. One of them is the man whom the Duke of Aiaia apparently plans to burn in a week’s time.”

Mehitabel nodded, her pretty, deceptively childish face unreadable. “The perverted cultist Eusebian defector described in that handbill, you mean?”

-

The jail was either undermanned or sloppy, because we didn’t meet nobody else until we got to the door that led, Bernard told us, to the cell where Gideon was being kept. I figured the guy there was the guy who hadn’t stayed bribed, because Bernard went after him like a gator after a pig and laid him out cold with a broken jaw before he even knew we were there. Bernard busted his knuckles, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Used the second guard’s keys to get through the door. Dragged him in with us and tucked him away in an empty cell, nice and tidy where he wouldn’t bother nobody. Miss Parr stayed to keep watch, because even if they were both sloppy and undermanned, there had to be more than just two guys ambling around. Me and Bernard went after Gideon.

“Too easy,” I said. “Too fucking easy.”

“Wait until you’ve seen Gideon before you say that,” Bernard said. “He’s down there.”

There was a trapdoor in the floor of the hallway, with another of those big clumsy padlocks the Aiaians seemed to like so much. “Down there?” I said.

“I wouldn’t treat a dog that had bitten me the way they’ve treated him. Why do you think I was caught here?”

-

As cells went, it would have made a cramped coffin. The smell was enough to knock you flat, and it was cold and damp, and it was half a second or less before the only thing I wanted in the world was to get the fuck back up that ladder.

It took me a moment to see Gideon. No, that ain’t it. What I mean is, it took me a moment to realize I was looking at him and not just a lump of filthy straw. He was hunched up in the corner with his hands up to protect his face. I didn’t see bruises or nothing, but fuck, what more did the Aiaians need to do to him once they’d cut out his tongue? There was a cuff around one ankle—same fucking blacksmith as made the padlocks. I said, “Gideon? It’s… it’s Mildmay.”

His head came up at that. There was an old story I’d heard from a whore in Pharaohlight about an angel King Philemon had kept chained beneath the Mirador for a Great Septad. That was what Gideon looked like to me, his choirboy face gone to a skull and his hair hanging in dreadlocks around his shoulders. And there was no mistaking the look on his face. He was purely fucking horrified. And it wasn’t because he didn’t recognize me. It was because he did.

“Powers,” I said. “I’m sorry. But, I mean, d’you want to let the duke burn you at the stake?”

His head dropped back into his hands and his shoulders started shaking. For a second I thought he was crying, and then I realized he was laughing, just not making no noise about it. And then he stuck his leg out, with that lump of iron on it, and I figured that was his answer.

I wrenched the cuff open, and just barely kept myself from throwing it at the wall. See which one of them broke. But I put it down, and said, “D’you… can I give you a hand up?”

He actually smiled at me. He’d lost teeth. And he pushed himself uptight and took a step out of the corner. His knees buckled, which I’d been expecting even if he hadn’t, and I caught him.

I swear I could feel the shame baking off him. I didn’t know what to say about it, so I just said, “Come on. We’ve still got to spring Mavortian and get the fuck out of town before dawn.”

It was a good thing he wasn’t a big guy to start with and that he’d lost weight, or we’d never have done it. As it was, it took both me and Bernard to get him up the ladder, and we all three almost fell back down it on our heads, because the torchlight was just more than Gideon could stand. He kind of rolled over on the floor with his hands over his eyes, like a mole me and Cardenio had seen once in Richard’s Park. Cardenio’d put his hat over it until it got itself back underground.

Neither me nor Bernard had anything that would make a good blindfold, so I went back to the guard Bernard had coldcocked. He was still out. Small favors. I stripped him quick as a Losthope thief. Didn’t figure Gideon would want his underclothes—and I didn’t want to touch ‘em anyway—but shirt, jacket, trousers, and boots were all clean enough, and that way we could turn the ratty sort of nightshirt thing Gideon was wearing into a blindfold.

Gideon was trying hard not to go to pieces, but he wasn’t doing so good at it. Me and Bernard basically manhandled him into the guard’s clothes on account of not having time to be nice about it, and I know I knotted some of his hair into the blindfold. But, powers, we were doing the best we could. And he didn’t complain or nothing. I just knew we were hurting him.

“What about the trapdoor?” Bernard said when we’d got Gideon fixed up about as well as we were going to.

“I’ll get it,” I said. Anything to buy us time. I hung the ladder back on the wall and heaved the door closed. Locked it, too, and I hope it confused the fuck out of them.

We collected Miss Parr and got back out of the jail about as quick and easy as that makes it sound. Not even any close calls. Got the blindfold off Gideon again. Scrambled over the wall, with Bernard boosting Gideon and me dragging. And then we just kind of stood there, Bernard leaning against the wall, me holding Gideon up, and Miss Parr looking cool as well water, waiting for us to get our shit together. She was the one who said, “What now?”

There always comes a point on a job where no matter how fucked up things are, no matter how much you wish you weren’t doing this, you just don’t dare stop, because you know where the pieces are right now, and they ain’t going to stay put while you sit down and think things over. You just have to keep going and hope like fuck you can dodge faster than Lady Fate can throw things at you. That was where we were. We had to keep going, or the whole fucking thing was going to come crashing down around our ears.

But Gideon was in terrible shape and Bernard not much better. And this next bit seemed all too likely to turn around and bite us. In which case, we wanted Gideon out of the way, where they maybe couldn’t get their hands on him again. I said to Bernard, “Can you get Gideon out of town?”

“What about—”

“I’ll go after Mavortian. But I want Gideon gone.”

He wanted to argue, but didn’t. “All right. Mavortian’s in the duke’s house. In a bedroom and everything, like a guest instead of a prisoner. You’ll want to use the smugglers’ tunnels to get out—nobody watches them because it’s half the damn economy. The safest one is in the city wall, two blocks south of the west gate. It looks like a bricked-up gate itself. You press the fifth brick up from a bright blue brick.”

“Right. You take Gideon and get the fuck out of here. Find someplace safe along the western road and wait. If we ain’t there by sunrise, go to Julip. Felix’ll be in a hotel near the eastern gate.” I hope, I added, but not out loud.

Miss Parr said, “Do you want me to go with them?”

I just about swallowed my teeth when I realized she was asking me what to do. “No,” I said. “Unless…”

“I can manage,” Bernard said. “And you may want backup.”

“Yeah.” I hoped I wouldn’t, but, well, I wasn’t feeling like trusting my luck.

Gideon was shivering like an overworked horse, and I said to him, “I’m sorry. I know this ain’t no great rescue.” His hand found mine, and he squeezed, which I figured for it’s okay. And it was the best we could do.

Bernard pushed himself off the wall and said, “Come on, Gideon.” There was a pause, and he said, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

And they went off one way, and we went another, and I just hoped we’d all see each other again, and not on a bonfire, neither.

-

I can do this, I thought, and that was when a short, skinny Kekropian emerged from the calder, wrapped in one of the togas Mildmay had disdained. My knees all but buckled, and I was lucky to end up sitting on one of the benches rather than on the floor. For a moment, all I could see was green, and there was the sound of a river in darkness and the smell of cloves. I locked my hands against the edge of the bench and held on grimly, held on to the cool marble and the slight pain of my stiff finger joints, to the sunlight on the water and the lazy, circling shapes of the koi. A voice said, in my memory, He began to draw mazes that could not be solved, and I knew now that it was the voice of Gideon of Thrax.

And then, as if in answer, a voice in my head that was not a memory, :Felix?:

I blinked, then squeezed my eyes shut hard and opened them again. The Kekropian, standing in front of me, dark eyes intent in a too-thin face, long wet hair like ink against the whiteness of the toga. He did not look familiar, except that somewhere in the darkness inside my head, I knew him. I knew him.

I could not find my voice, my composure. Could seem to do nothing but sit and stare at him. And then there was that voice again, :Felix? Are you… :

Neither memory nor imagination. In a sudden clutch of panic, I scrambled up, getting the bench interposed between us. “Is that you in my head?” I did at least keep my voice down, but I saw the vicious flatness of my tone hit him like a blow. He took a step back, raising his hands in a gesture that was half defense, half apology. :I’m sorry. I can’t… I can’t speak. Out loud.: The dark eyes were wide, pleading.

For a moment, I was on the verge of lashing out; I did not have to remember this man to wound him, and I knew it. But I caught myself, controlled myself. That I associated this particular wizard’s trick with Malkar was no fault of Gideon’s. I managed half a smile, said, “You startled me. Mildmay didn’t mention…” Anything, really.

:It does not work with annemer. And I cannot… : Another gesture, this one of frustration. :The Fressandran disciplines are too different, and too controlled. Even if I wished to speak to Mavortian in this way, I could not.:

“Are you… ?”

:All right?: His mouth quirked. :I am both alive and sane, which is more, I think, than I had any right to expect. So, yes, I am ‘all right.’:

“Gideon, I—”

:And you are also alive and sane.: He raised his eyebrows, inviting an explanation that I did not particularly want to give. I remembered Mildmay saying, It’s a long fucking story, and found myself suddenly more sympathetic to his point of view.

“The celebrants of the Garden of Nephele are both learned and skilled,” I said as neutrally as I could.

But his reaction was not what I had hoped for. :Then you did find them!: he said, his eyes lighting up.

I didn’t want to talk about this. And he saw that, for his face was suddenly shuttered again, and he said, :I beg your pardon. I did not mean to... : I could not lie and say it was no matter, and we were still staring at each other in bitter awkwardness when Mavortian von Heber and his half brother Bernard came into the atrium.

-

We were a motley convocation that gathered in the private parlor of the Duelling Hares: Mehitabel, Mildmay, and myself on one side of the room; Mavortian and Bernard on the other. Gideon, looking uneasy and unwell, perched on the window seat, his gaze shifting restlessly between Mavortian and me.

-

The room was perfectly still. Gideon had gone an even more unattractive color, and Mildmay gave me a black look.

-

Gideon was listening hard, though, and I wondered what was going on upstairs with him.

I’d been wondering that a lot, the past decad.

He wasn’t crazy. That much I was sure of, although powers and saints I wouldn’t‘ve blamed him if he had been. But, no, his eyes were the same as I remembered them, sharp and bright and watchful. More watchful even, but I sure as fuck understood where that was coming from.

If I’d been him, I wouldn’t‘ve taken my eyes off Mavortian von Heber either.

He didn’t want to talk to us. When Mavortian had offered him paper and a pen, he’d just looked at him, like he wasn’t just an asshole, but stupid as well, and somehow Gideon’d thought better of him. Fuck of a look, and that was the last time anybody tried to get him to tell us what was going on in his head.

Now he was watching Felix, with this little line between his eyebrows, and I remembered how most of an indiction ago I’d thought maybe Gideon was in love with Felix a little bit. Hadn’t understood it at all, mind you, but I figured if it had been true then, it had to be like a septad times worse now.

But he wasn’t mooning over Felix just then, don’t get me wrong. He was listening. He understood what Felix and Mavortian were talking about, no question. Understood—and didn’t much like it. Which I figured wasn’t good news, because no matter how you looked at it, of the three hocuses in the room, Gideon was the only one with enough common sense to be trusted to cross the street on his own. That was something else I remembered about him.

-

We cleared out. Us annemer. Gideon wouldn’t come, but the air in that fucking room was getting too thick to breathe, and it wasn’t like Felix and Mavortian needed us around.

-

Felix looked at me a moment, but I didn’t have nothing to say, and he looked back at Miss Parr.

“As I told you, I am returning to the Mirador. You are welcome to continue traveling with us if you wish.”

Like I was so much stew meat. But that wasn’t telling me nothing I didn’t already know.

“What about Messire von Heber?” she said. “And Messire Thraxios?”

“Gideon has been granted asylum by the Curia. And I do not believe he has anywhere else to go.”

Poor little fuck, I thought.

-

We’d staggered into Julip with Bernard carrying Mavortian, and Miss Parr more or less carrying me, and Gideon carrying himself but only barely.

-

A noise behind me, a foot scuffing against the shingles. I turned: Gideon Thraxios, his eyes like night-filled holes in his sallow face.

“Oh,” I said, letting my breath out in a sigh that was half relief and half exasperation. “It’s you. What are you doing up here?”

He hesitated, his dark eyes searching my face.

“Go ahead,” I said tiredly. “You might as well.”

:I did not mean to disturb you. Or to intrude.:

Well, you did. I kept from saying it, although it was an effort, and said instead, “It isn’t my roof. You have as much right as anyone to be up here.”

He almost seemed to flinch although it was hard to tell with only the moon and stars for light. He said, his mental voice as carefully neutral as my spoken voice had been, :I was looking at the stars.:

I tilted my head back, contemplating those distant brightnesses, and said, “And what do the stars tell you?”

:Nothing. The stars have no voice that I can hear.:

Pain, bitterness, loneliness. It was my turn to flinch, and he said, :I am sorry. I should not—:

“Who else do you have to talk to?”

:You do not want to talk to me.:

“I do not want to talk about certain subjects. I have no objections to talking to you.”

His body language was doubtful, wary, but he came a few steps closer. :If you are sure you do not mind… :

“As long as you don’t want to talk about me,” I said and gave him a wry smile, “I’d be glad for someone to distract me from my thoughts.”

He was close enough that I saw him return my smile. “Then what should we talk about, Messire Harrowgate?:

I hesitated, but there were only two topics that could hold my attention at the moment, and I did not want to discuss Mildmay. With anyone. “What do you know about divination?”

:You are worried about Messire von Heber’s rather remarkable story?:

“Yes—well, not so much the divination itself, but do you think he can help me mend the Virtu as he says?”

:This is truly your goal?:

“Yes. It is.”

:Frankly, I don’t know if such a thing is possible at all. If it is, I would imagine you will need all the help you can get.:

“Granted. But what he said—”

:I am neither Cabaline nor Fressandran,: he said with some asperity.

“You’re a wizard, and unless I am very much mistaken, there is no love lost between you and Mavortian von Heber.”

:Are you asking me to choose sides?:

“There are no sides to choose thus far. But I do not wish to believe things merely because Mavortian tells me they are true.”

:Yes,: Gideon said. :You are wise in that.: Old bitterness in his voice, but I could not ask without revealing that I did not know, and I was not entirely prepared to trust Gideon Thraxios, either.

He shed that dark mood like a snakeskin and said, :Explain to me what the Virtu is and how it was broken.:

My horror felt like the building lurching beneath my feet. But he was right. He couldn’t offer me any kind of opinion until he knew the parameters of the question. And I supposed, distractedly, that I should be grateful for the chance to practice my lies before I had to tell them to Mavortian.

Now if only I had had a chance to work out what my lies were going to be.
Reflexively, I stalled for time. “The Virtu was created by the Cabal in 2101, not quite two hundred years ago. They were trying—among other things—to find a way to convince the wizards of Mélusine to work together rather than preying on each other as had been their wont.”

:And did it work?: Gideon asked, dryly enough that I knew he knew the answer.

I thought of what I had done to Mildmay that evening, exactly the sort of thing the Cabal had been trying to eradicate; I remembered the look in his eyes when he’d said, You could’ve warned me. “As well as anything ever can, with wizards. The Virtu was—is—a thaumaturgical device with a dual purpose. It collects power from each wizard of the Mirador and uses that power to maintain a number of defensive spells, some attuned to the individual wizards, some guarding the fabric of the Mirador, some guarding other things. It would be heresy if they tried to do it now, of course. Though not as unforgivable a heresy as performing the obligation d‘âme.”

:It sounds like a monumental work of magic:

“There’s a reason the Cabal all died young. The problem, though, is that the Virtu has never failed in all this time.”

:The problem?:

“Let me finish. You see, as long as everyone swears their oaths and contributes their power, the spells don’t erode and the structure maintains its stability. The Curia is nominally responsible for the Virtu’s maintenance, but we’ve never needed to do anything.”

:We?: Gideon said, and I saw his eyebrow rise.

“I was a member of the Curia,” I said stiffly.

:Yes, and now you are not. Which I believe is also part of this explanation.:

I very nearly cursed him to his face for being so damnably right. As it was, I knew I had been silent too long before I said, “Yes, I suppose it is.”

:You did ask for my opinion.:

“Yes, I know that. Very well.” I looked out at the horizon, because it was the only way I could keep my head up. “The Virtu was broken via a working done on me by Malkar Gennadion.” That much was common knowledge; he must have known it before he made me say it.

:Specify,: Gideon said in the cool, dispassionate tones of a scholar.

“He found a way—he put together a working that allowed him to use my magic as if it were his own.” My nails were digging into my palms with the effort it took to keep my voice level. If I closed my eyes, I knew I would see the louring walls of Malkar’s workroom, the evil shine of the pentagram laid into the floor.

:I thought the Virtu protected the wizards of the Mirador against such spells.:

I felt like a man who had backed away from a bear trap only to fall onto a bed of swords.

:Well?: he said after a moment, when I still had not managed to speak. :How did Messire Gennadion do it?:

“I… I was…” His molly-toy, a cruel voice in my head finished, the voice of the teenage whore I had been. “He was never Cabaline,” I said, lamely and too quickly.

:Surely that shouldn’t make any difference.:

“No, no, it—I just meant, it wasn’t heresy to him.” And he wouldn’t have cared if it was. I was babbling and I knew it, but seemed entirely helpless to stop myself.

Gideon’s head tilted; I was puzzling him. :What has heresy to do with it?:

“Nothing.” I turned away from him, pushed my fingers savagely through my hair, bit my lower lip until I was focused on that small pain instead of the panic baying in my mind.

:Messire Harrowgate?: I felt Gideon coming closer. :Felix?:

I turned, sharply enough that he stepped back a pace. “Unpleasant memories,” I said and managed a thin smile. “And I am more tired than I realized. Malkar Gennadion was my teacher in magic before I swore my oaths to the Mirador. Doubtless he found some occasion to cast a spell that would circumvent the Virtu’s warding.” Doubtless while he held me with the obligation de sang, but I did not want to talk about that, either, nor think about its kinship to the obligation d‘âme. Thus, I did my best to make circumventing the Virtu’s warding sound like a simple matter rather than something I had no idea how Malkar had accomplished.

Gideon’s disbelief was palpable, but he said nothing, simply stood and waited. His air, that of a schoolteacher faced with a recalcitrant pupil, was enough to push me from fear to anger, and somewhere underneath the wave of fury, I was glad of it.

“That part doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “What matters is that the Virtu was broken by the raw application of thaumaturgie force. I was only the hammer.”

:You’re saying he just… hit it?:

And now I was angry at Gideon for so readily dropping the subject of what Malkar had done to me. “There was no subtlety in that spell. Trust me. I was there.”

:I suppose that is the easiest way to deal with something one does not fully understand,: Gideon said thoughtfully, as calm and conversational as if he had not noticed my hostility. :Not the safest, but the easiest.:

I could feel myself floundering, so wrong-footed that there seemed no response I could make. It was a mercy that Gideon did not wait for a reply from me. :And that being the case—it explains why the physical structure was shattered. And if the thaumaturgie structure was shattered in the same way… then a wizard trained to read patterns, as Fressandran diviners are trained, might indeed be very useful to you.:

Mavortian. Yes. We had been discussing Mavortian. “Do you think… do you think he understands how it happened? What Malkar did?”

:I doubt it,: Gideon said. If there were sides to be chosen, Gideon of Thrax had already made up his mind. :But his techniques may help you to understand it.:

“Oh,” I said, with woeful inadequacy, realizing clearly for the first time that here was another, like Thamuris, who could keep up with me intellectually, and possibly even outdistance me.

:I do not know what Messire von Heber imagines he can offer you, Messire Harrowgate. But I do think he may be useful.:

To which I said the only thing I could: “Please. There’s no reason for you not to call me Felix.”

-

Money was tight, but between Mavortian telling fortunes with his Sibylline cards—which apparently he’d managed to hang on to by telling fortunes for all the Aiaian guards, and, no, don’t ask me to explain it either, cause I can’t—and the Long Tiffany players who thought they were something special, we were doing good enough so as Miss Parr could have her own hotel room. Then Mavortian and Bernard shared one, and me and Felix and Gideon shared one, along of Gideon not wanting to be alone with Mavortian and Bernard, and me not wanting to be alone with Felix—not that either of us ever came right out and said so. And, I mean, not a great arrangement, but at least I knew I could talk to Miss Parr in private.

-

Gideon and I were discussing divination again when Mehitabel found us, her expression not merely stormy, but wrathful enough that I half expected to be hit by a bolt of lightning.

-

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Good night, gentlemen,” and she was gone before I could muster a counterattack, leaving me alone with Gideon.

He regarded me thoughtfully for some moments before saying, :Isn’t the obligation d‘âme gross heresy?:

“Yes.”

:Then how—:

“At the moment,” I said and gave him a mirthless smile, “I am not a wizard of the Mirador. They stripped me of my rank and privileges directly after the Virtu was broken. Thus I am not bound to follow their laws, and, moreover, we are not in their jurisdiction. The act of casting the obligation d‘âme is heresy, but they can’t prosecute me for it. And if they want the Virtu mended—and I can guarantee that they do—they’ll have to accept the fact of it.”

:You seem awfully certain.:

“I was a member of the Curia for five years. I am certain.”

:Is that why you did it?:

“What?” I said, although we both knew I’d understood him perfectly.

:You have every right to be… angry at what they did to you. And this seems to me a very cunning piece of blackmail. He did murder the Witchfinder Extraordinary, after all.:

I was assailed by a sudden burst of memory, like the punishing cacophony of a fireworks explosion. Mildmay, his eyes wide and his face white with pain, surrounded by a roiling, writhing cloud of black briars. The Mirador’s curse. The curse that had lamed him. “Yes, I know,” I said, and Gideon looked up sharply, hearing the waver in my voice.

:Felix?:

“I’m all right,” I said although my voice was no steadier.

:What’s wrong?: He leaned across the table to touch my hand. I looked at the delicate bones of his fingers, the sallowness of his skin, the contrast against my own pallor and the brightness of my tattoos.

He jerked back as if I’d burned him just with my gaze. :I’m sorry. I didn’t think…:

I looked at him and discovered in his face something that, in retrospect, I knew I should have expected to find.

“Gideon?” I said.

He flushed a miserable red. :Truly, I am sorry. I didn’t mean…:

It was so easy to reach across the table, to tilt his chin up with one finger. So easy to read the desire and fear and embarrassment in his eyes. So easy to smile, to see his face light up in return, to lean across the table and kiss him.

For a moment he seemed petrified, and then his lips parted eagerly against mine, and I felt the soft, shy touch of his fingers stroking my hair.

I broke the kiss, leaning back, and was pleased when he neither protested nor attempted to claim the initiative. He merely looked at me, his wide eyes dark as night, and I could see that he was breathing a little faster than he had been. I knew, without having to ask, or even wonder, that he would be a compliant, submissive lover, as eager to please in bed as he was intransigent normally. He would not try to take before I was prepared to give, would not crowd me as Ingvard had done.

I smiled at him again, putting every ounce of charm I had into it, and said, “Shall we find somewhere more private?”

He looked away, clearly ashamed of his own reaction, but nodded.

“Good. Wait here a moment.” I had no fear that I would be disobeyed.

Mildmay was in our room, lying staring at the ceiling with his hands interlaced behind his head.

“Out,” I said.

He sat up. “Sorry?”

“Out. Go tell Mehitabel some more of your life story if you want.”

“Oh, powers. She didn’t—”

“Yes, she did, and right now I don’t want to discuss it with either her or you. Out. I’ll tell you when you can come back.” And it took only a featherlight touch on the obligation d‘âme to convince him I meant it. He fled—for all his dour stone face, he was ridiculously easy to hurt—and I went to fetch Gideon, knowing I was being cruel and in that moment not caring.

Gideon was waiting, anxiety clear in the stiffness of his posture and the frown line between his eyes. “Come on,” I said. “Our room is free.”

He stood up, still anxious. :Mildmay?:

“Taking a walk,” I said and smiled at him reassuringly. “We won’t be interrupted.”

He colored and looked away. :I’m sorry. It has been a long time since I’ve had any part in this sort of…:

“Exploit,” I suggested and got a small smile. “Look—don’t worry. And don’t apologize, either. Just come to bed.”

It was a calculated risk, and it paid off splendidly. He seemed stunned momentarily, but then his answering smile transformed him nearly into the beautiful boy he must once have been, and he came willingly around the table and into my arms.

I kissed him quickly, as a promise, then guided him to the bedroom, where I shut and locked the door behind us. For once, I did not need elaborate explanations or persuasions to convince my lover to blow out the candles; Gideon, an easy fifteen years my senior, was no more eager to be seen in good light than I was.

We undressed in the dark, and when I touched him, he was shivering.

“What? What’s the matter?”

:Nothing.: A shaky, soundless not-quite laugh, :It’s just—it has been a very long time.:

I answered him mind-to-mind, as he had to speak to me. :We don’t have to—:

:No!: With unexpected force, and his hands were gripping mine tightly. :I’ve wanted you quite desperately since the first time I saw you, but I never believed, never imagined… I’m not going to back away now.:

I had more power over him even than I had thought—and I had an unwelcome memory of Mehitabel saying, He just handed himself to you on a platter, didn’t he? I pushed it away. Gideon had been there, too. Gideon had heard Mehitabel’s scathing indictment of my character, and the fact that he was here with me now…

I bent my head and kissed him carefully, lingeringly. He was as responsive as he had been before, and when my tongue slipped into his mouth, into that emptiness the Aiaians had created, he made a noise deep in his throat that was half gasp, half sob, and his hands came up to clutch at my shoulders so tightly I was afraid he would leave bruises.

I guided him backwards to find the bed, pushed him down gently. He went willingly; the only protest he made was when I moved my mouth away from his, and that was more of a sob. :Please.:

:Please, what?: I asked, teasing, testing.

:Please.: His hands found my face, and he dragged me down into another kiss, his mouth open, begging.

I gave him my tongue again; we kissed fiercely, languorously, while my hands explored his body, all ribs and hipbones under dense curly hair. His erection was already hard with need when my fingers found it. A few strokes had his hips rocking, and then I plunged my tongue into his mouth and tightened my grip, and his climax arched him off the bed like a bow. He had not been lying when he said it had been a long time.

I kissed him through the aftermath, and he clung to me with mouth and hands. He might have been crying; in the darkness I could not tell, and I did not care to know. I could leave him some privacy, some remnant of pride.

After a while, he said, his voice dry and calm, as if by force of will he could deny his body’s abject capitulation to my control, :I believe the correct expression is, ‘Turnabout is fair play.’ What do you want me to do?:

:You know what I want,: I said, letting my fingers slip between his thighs.

:Yes.: A shiver, quickly repressed.

:You don’t have to,: I said, as my fingers traced a slow path along scrotum and perineum.

:I want to,: he said stubbornly and then made a tiny, needy moan as my fingers found and caressed what they sought.

:Perhaps you do, at that,: I said and let him hear my amusement. :Roll over.:

He did, still obedient, and I left the bed briefly to find the herbal oil that Mildmay used to keep the scarred skin of his leg pliant. I’d observed weeks ago that it was well suited to other functions, but had not expected to have the chance to prove it.

I lay down beside Gideon again and said aloud, possibly more for my benefit than his, “If you tell me to stop, I will.”

Gideon made no reply. I uncorked the oil and began to make my preparations, trying not to pretend that this was Mildmay’s body beneath my hands, Mildmay’s back arching with pleasure, Mildmay’s breath catching in that little sigh. Gideon’s body, half-starved and middle-aged, was nothing like Mildmay’s; there was no difficulty except in my own useless desire for what I could not have.

And Gideon was beautifully responsive, delighted, coming to this pleasure almost like a surprised virgin.

:Has no one ever bothered to make this good for you before?: I asked.

:Not like this,: he said and moaned—a soft noise, but the loudest I had heard him make since we had met again in Julip.

I thought of Malkar, who always preferred sex to be accompanied by pain—mine, not his. And I thought of Shannon, and even of some of the patrons of the Shining Tiger, who had cared enough to go about this activity properly. And I was finally able to forget Mildmay in my desire to give Gideon pleasure. He climaxed again before I was done, and from the stunned undertones to his postcoital comments, I could tell that not only had he not expected to, he hadn’t believed it was possible.

Maybe that was something I could do, I thought, kissing Gideon one last time before I got up to find Mildmay and tell him he could come to bed. I could give him pleasure in return for everything I took.

-

Before you ask, yeah, I knew what they’d been doing. I would’ve had to be deaf and blind to miss it. And I know what sex smells like.

Poor Gideon couldn’t even look me in the eye. I wanted to tell him it Was okay—I knew how he felt about Felix, and it had only ever been a matter of time before Felix figured it out. And it wasn’t like I had any problem with the two of them fucking if that was what they wanted to do. But I couldn’t think of a way to say it that wouldn’t embarrass the fuck out of both of us and make everything about a septad times worse. So I just pretended not to notice as best I could and hoped that was what Felix wanted. I couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t giving me nothing.

-

There’s this old law on the books in Mélusine about the ways hocuses can and can’t enter the city. They have to declare themselves at whatever gate they come in through—no sneaking around not telling the Mirador they’re back—and they have to come up the city openly. “No more gloves,” Felix said, and I really think he would’ve burned his if me and Gideon hadn’t convinced him to put them in a church donation box instead. He put his rings on like he was daring somebody to try and stop him.

-

I said, with bland disregard for the guards’ widening eyes, “Mehitabel Parr, late of Klepsydra; Mavortian von Heber, a wizard of the Fressandran school, and his man-at-arms, Bernard Heber; Gideon Thraxios, a wizard of the Bastion granted asylum by the Curia; my brother, Mildmay Foxe.”

-

So she got rooms for her and Gideon and Mavortian and Bernard, and if she thought like I did that Gideon probably wouldn’t be using his room much, she didn’t let it show.

-

I emerged into the sitting room, where Mildmay and Gideon had been playing Long Tiffany for the past hour. They both turned; Mildmay blinked, and Gideon said, “Isn’t that coat a little bright?:

-

“What I thought.” He looked tired, his skin almost gray in the light of fire and lamp.

“Stay with Gideon,” I said, invoking the obligation d‘âme just strongly enough that he would know I meant it.

“But I thought—” Mildmay started at the same time Gideon said, :I do not need a minder.:

“After the ceremony,” I said and glared at Gideon. They would reinstate me anyway; they needed me more than I needed them, and we all knew it. But I could not abide the delay that this revelation would cause if produced untimely. I had heard the Virtu singing all night long, even in my dreams.

“Okay, okay!” Mildmay raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and defense. “You’re the boss.” Gideon made no further protests, either, although his expression when I glanced at him was coldly thoughtful.

-

Gideon could talk to other hocuses.

I mean, I’d known he could talk to Felix, but I hadn’t realized that he could do it with anybody who didn’t happen to be annemer. Between them, him and Mehitabel got quite the little social circle going after Felix had finished with his hocus-thing and the party started.

-

“What are you doing here?” he said, and I craned around him and saw Gideon standing up out of one of the armchairs looking kind of grim and bloodless but like he wasn’t going to let Felix throw him out until he’d had his say. Which of course I wasn’t going to be able to hear. But he wasn’t here to talk to me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what him and Felix had to say to each other anyhow.

Felix was silent a minute—listening to Gideon, I guessed—then said, not even looking at me or nothing, “Go to bed.” With the obligation d‘âme behind it, just in case I thought I was going to argue.

I wanted to tell him I didn’t want no part of his and Gideon’s business, but I held my tongue. I did say, “Good night, Gideon,” as I went past him, and he gave me a little nod and a nicer smile than I thought I deserved. And then I went into my closet of a room and shut the door with them on the outside and was fucking well glad of it.

-

I guessed from the way Gideon and Felix were looking at each other, and then just about killing themselves not to make eye contact, that they’d fucked but they’d done it instead of talking. Which, you know, means you don’t have the argument right then, but it don’t really help nothing, neither.

-

We went back to his rooms, and he said something to Gideon that got him out of that armchair like he was on springs, and they both started dragging books off the shelves and spreading ‘em out on the table, and Felix got paper and ink out of his bedroom, and they settled in to do hocus-stuff.

-

:And what, pray tell,: Gideon said presently, :is a cade-skiff?:

I put my pen down and straightened my back, wincing at the stiffness in my neck. “The Cade-skiffs’ Guild is an institution unique to the Lower City of Mélusine.” But I didn’t have the heart for the grave and rotund oratory of a guidebook. I stretched my neck, first to one side, then to the other, listening to my vertebrae shift and complain, and said, “They drag bodies out of the Sim.”

:Ah. ‘Cade’ then being from Cade-Cholera.:

“Yes. They’re very touchy about their mysteries. I’ve never talked to anyone who knows whether they understand their principal function as the honoring of the drowned dead or simply keeping the Sim clear.”

:It is a dark river,: Gideon said, and I knew he wasn’t talking merely about its color.

“Yes.” And the less I had to think about the Sim, the better. “Are you getting anywhere?”

:Define ‘anywhere.’:

I gave him a mock-glower, and although he didn’t smile back, I could see the laughter lurking in his eyes. :I do not yet know substantially more about necromancy than I did before raiding your bookshelves.:

“And I didn’t imagine you would. How about the other end of the problem?”
He shook his head. :I wish your most illustrious Cabal had kept better notes.:

“And I wish you wouldn’t call them my Cabal. They aren’t.”

He nodded acknowledgment and said, :But I am beginning to acquire a better grasp of the principles of thaumaturgie architecture, and that, I think, may help us.:

“It’s most phenomenally boring,” I said doubtfully.

:Then you were taught it badly. It’s what the Virtu is, a coalescence of the thaumaturgie architecture the Cabal raised in the Mirador.:

“I surrender,” I said, raising my hands in token. “Will you explain it again for a backward child of five?”

He tilted his head, giving me a thoughtful, unnerving look. :Malkar Gennadion must have had very narrow views of the usefulness of magic:

“I beg your pardon.”

:Don’t bridle at me. He didn’t teach you thaumaturgie architecture, did he?:

“He said it was a waste of time, fit only for old ladies and bean counters.”

:And of course you follow wherever Malkar leads.:

“I do not!”

He just looked at me, one eyebrow raised. I felt my face heat and dropped my gaze, pushing my hair back with both hands. “I did ask you to explain it to me,” I said, hearing and hating the sullenness in my voice.

:You did,: Gideon agreed, and had the decency to keep whatever amusement he was feeling to himself. He considered me for a moment, then said, :Probably the example you will find easiest to grasp is that of the labyrinth. I recall that we have talked about them before, in Hermione.:

I did my best to hide my flinch, although probably I was not entirely successful. “I’m afraid I wasn’t at my intellectual best in Hermione,” I said, with a carefully wry smile, and did not mention the fact that I did not remember that conversation, nor indeed, much of anything that had happened in Hermione.

:No, but you listened well,: Gideon said tartly. He lifted his chin, folded his hands before him on the table, and said, :The doctrine of labyrinths proposed by Ephreal Sand states that the windings of a labyrinth may be used to weaken the boundaries between the material world and the world of the spirit.:

“The world of the spirit?”

:The phrase doesn’t translate well. Sand calls it manar, which is a word he picked up from reading the Cymellunar mystics. He had no more idea what it properly means than I do.:

“Well, you must mean something by it.”

He made an impatient double-handed gesture. :Magic exists in two worlds. It is a force of the spirit, which wizards are able to use upon the material world. Cabaline wizards have historically denied that magic is anything except a force of the spirit, and that is where their teaching goes grievously astray.:

“I don’t…”

:You are shockingly ill educated,: he said, but smiled to take the sting out of it. :What Cabaline doctrine fails to acknowledge is the manar, the world of the spirit. The world of dreams, of ghosts. The world that diviners, sibyls, and oracles walk into when they go looking for the future. The world you were born with one foot in, as all wizards are. The world that rests upon the material world like the iridescent sheen upon a soap bubble.:

“How very poetic,” I said, and he glared at me.

:Thaumaturgic architecture is the art of making the world of the spirit conform to the material world, and architectural thaumaturgy is the reverse, although the distinction is so fine I doubt many wizards notice it.: He acknowledged the confusion I could feel on my face with a nod, and said, :Think of it this way—thaumaturgie architecture makes structures of magic, and architectural thaumaturgy channels magic into material structures. Does that help?:

“A little,” I said. “But if the Virtu is a working of thaumaturgie architecture—”

:It’s both. That is, the physical object you call the Virtu is the representation in architectural thaumaturgy of a massive working of thaumaturgie architecture. Architectural thaumaturgy is what allows workings to hold—it’s what anchors them. It is what enabled the Cabal to create a reservoir of magic within the physical object of the Virtu. It is what enabled the Grevillian wizards of Caloxa to create a labyrinth that would collect magic and channel it into an engine.:

“An engine? Gideon, you’re making that up.”

He shook his head, but the slight smile he gave me did not inspire confidence, insofar as I understand the more esoteric reaches of Cabaline philosophy, you are taught that magic working through physical objects is the only way for the world of the spirit to touch the material world.:

“Isn’t it?”

:Most decidedly not. It is one way, but it is far from the only way.
Necromancy chooses a different path, as does divination, and likewise oneiromancy. And there are others.:

“What about the Eusebians?”

His turn to flinch, although he smoothed it out. :Eusebian wizardry tends toward the eclectic. A stance that is epistemologically neither sounder nor safer than the blinkered vision of the Cabalines. Blood-wizardry should be banned, not merely discouraged.:

The grimness in his face showed that he spoke from personal experience; I did not ask for details. I did not need to. Malkar had taught me a great deal about blood-wizardry—even if I had not known that was what it was until years later.

:In any event,: Gideon said with determined briskness, :my point is that what the Cabal seems to have done in creating the Virtu is to combine thaumaturgie architecture with necromancy. Clever and difficult and truly a very bad idea.:

“Not that I would argue with you, but why? Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

Gideon made a brief, expressive grimace. :They feed on each other.:

“That was… vivid. If a little cryptic.”

:Look,: he said exasperatedly, then stopped. Started again. :The problem is containment.:

“Oh.” That, I did understand. Even Malkar, blasé about so many things, had not cut corners when he was teaching me the principles of containment.

:Yes,: Gideon said, with a certain amount of satisfaction. :With something like Messire von Heber’s cards, the thaumaturgie architecture—the symbols of the Sibylline—contains the magic at the same time that it uses it. But it’s a tricky thing to balance. Divination and oneiromancy are simpler, from what I’ve read, because as disciplines they don’t interact with the material world. Necromancy does.:

“Are you saying that the Virtu wasn’t containing—”

:I’m saying it wasn’t balanced. At least, that would be my theory as to what happened when certain of the Virtu’s spells were broken.: My incomprehension must have shown on my face, for he continued. :The proper image for the interaction of thaumaturgie architecture and any other praxis is a canal. But the Cabal didn’t build a canal. They built a dam.:

That image was also vivid, uncomfortably so. “Then it’s a good thing I wasn’t planning on rebuilding it,” I said after a moment.

:Yes,: Gideon said. :What worries me is what you’re going to build to put in its place.:

And to that I did not have an answer.

-

Although I am of course deeply gratified to see you restored to your right mind, and returned to us, I am most distressed that you are continuing to associate with Gideon Thraxios. I must tell you that he is not what he may seem to you to be. I have the gravest doubts of his sincerity in this ostensible “divorce” from the Bastion. He was the longtime confederate and catamite of Major Louis Goliath, the spymaster of the Bastion. Moreover, he is an initiate of a particularly pernicious mystery cult that the government of Kekropia has been trying to eradicate for centuries. He is not to be trusted.

[letter from thaddeus]

-

:Felix?:

I looked up; both Gideon and Mildmay were staring at me anxiously, although I could read my brother’s anxiety only by the fact that he was staring at all.

“Thaddeus has some extremely intriguing things to impart about your past,” I said to Gideon and passed him the letter.

“Yeah, well, he told me you weren’t kind to your friends,” Mildmay said to me. Peripherally, I noticed Gideon’s eyebrows drawing down into a scowl as he read; I said to Mildmay, “And what did he mean by that?”

“I think he was warning me you were gonna treat me like shit.” Something that wasn’t laughter flickered and was gone from his eyes. “Didn’t tell him I knew that already.”

“Thank you,” I said, midway between irony and sincerity.

:Thaddeus has always been a proponent of telling one things ‘for one’s own good,’: Gideon said, and added something vicious in Kekropian, of which I recognized just enough words to realize that Gideon’s gift for invective would turn a sailor’s hair white.

“Is it true?”

:Of course it’s true. Thaddeus is a self-righteous idiot with a great gift for willful blindness, but he would never demean himself by lying.:

And I would have been convinced by his acerbic, contemptuous tone, except that his hands were restless among his pages of notes, and he looked at my face without meeting my eyes.

“Gideon,” I said, “nothing you’ve done can be any worse than the things I’ve done, and you already know about those.” Some of them, anyway.

:But he is wrong,: Gideon said defiantly. :I am not a spy for the Bastion.:

“I know that, idiot,” I said, and when he met my eyes, I smiled at him. He blushed and looked down, but some of the cold misery had lifted from his face.

-

“Thaddeus alleges that Gideon is a spy and a cultist.”

“You mean what the Aiaians said was true?” Mildmay said, with something that might almost be alarm, and looked at Gideon.

Gideon flushed bright red and nodded.

“What kind of cult?” Mildmay said. “I mean, can you talk about it at all?”

“You seem worried about something,” I said, and he looked even more embarrassed.

But he said doggedly, “You ain’t an Obscurantist, are you?”

:Obscurantist?: Gideon asked me.

“A follower of the God of the Obscured Sun,” I said, “whose cult has been extinct in Mélusine for centuries.”

Mildmay gave the equivalent in Kekropian, haltingly and with terrible pronunciation. And Gideon’s eyes went wide.

:No,: he said, :although I know the god of whom you speak. My goddess is the White-Eyed Lady, goddess of the dead, the lost, the trapped.:

-

I licked my lips and croaked, “Gideon worships the White-Eyed Lady-The goddess of Nera, and of the labyrinth in Klepsydra.”

“Oh,” Mildmay said. Then, very quietly, “Fuck.”

I had to keep moving, keep responding, keep from breaking down in panic. I asked Gideon, “What does the worship of the White-Eyed Lady entail, exactly?”

:In principle or in practice? I’m not about to murder you both in your beds, if that’s what you’re worried about.:

“No, I… I didn’t think… I was just…” I was babbling. I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, took a deep breath, looked at Gideon, and said in a falsely steady voice, “We have had dealings with the White-Eyed Lady. And they have not been pleasant.”

:Dealings?: Gideon’s eyebrows rose dramatically. .-Considering that her worship has been all but extinct for the past several hundred years, I am curious to know what sort of ‘dealings’ you might have had.:

“When we were in Klepsydra, we—”

“Hang on,” Mildmay said, and both Gideon and I jumped. “You asked a question, and I want it answered.”

“Gideon says he won’t murder us in our beds,” I said.

“I’m sure he won’t. But that ain’t what you asked.” After a moment, he added, “I ain’t keen on him murdering nobody else, neither.”

:I don’t want to murder anyone!: Gideon protested.

I relayed, and Mildmay shrugged, looking not entirely convinced. “Then how d’you go about worshipping a goddess of death?”

:It has become a very private religion,: Gideon said after a moment, hesitantly, .-although it seems always to have been a mystery cult. The dangers are such—especially in the Bastion—that her devotees almost never meet. We never see each other’s faces, and if we ever guess another’s identity, we do our best to forget it.:

I repeated what he had said for Mildmay, then asked, “Then why meet at all? Why practice such a dangerous faith?”

Gideon and Mildmay gave me equally impatient looks. Gideon said, :Because we must. Because that is what faith is.:

“But surely you can believe in her without worshipping her? Forgive me, but she does not seem like a goddess worthy of worship.”

:You do not understand,: Gideon said resignedly, as if he had expected no better. I felt myself redden.

He took a deep breath, although he did not need it for speech, and said, :When I was fifteen, I wanted to die.:

I repeated his explanation as he gave it, feeling strangely, relievedly transparent, as if it were Mildmay that Gideon spoke to. Mildmay understood him, I thought, in a way I never would.

:I had been tithed to the Bastion two years before as an oblate, but my powers had come upon me very rapidly—too rapidly, and I was made a lieutenant when I was barely fourteen. I was thrust among the Eusebian officers before I had a chance to understand what they were.:

“What were they?” Mildmay asked, his voice unexpectedly gentle.

:You do not trust wizards,: Gideon said, and Mildmay nodded. :The Eusebians of that generation are the reason I do not blame you. I think—I pray—that things are better now.:

And yet he had fled, I thought, but I did not say it.

:The details do not matter, and I do not wish to burden you with them. Suffice it to say, I was desperately unhappy, and the only thing that held me back from suicide was fear of what would be done to me if someone guessed my intention before I could carry it through, or if I botched it.

:Now, the White-Eyed Lady is the goddess of suicides. She takes them as her lovers, uses them, betrays them. It is their nature as much as hers that makes it so. In the days when she had a proper priesthood—or so the initiates of her mysteries tell each other—one of her priests’ duties was to mediate between the goddess and those who wished to come to her intemperately. It is said there was once a ritual, so that suicides could make of their deaths a proper gift, could find the peace the Lady promised. But that, like so much else, has been lost. Now we have only her mystery, and the ritual of initiation that imitates death. In truth, I think that is why the Bastion turns a blind eye to her worship: for so many of us, that sham death is enough.:

“Like the valve on a steam boiler,” Mildmay said. “You let a little out, and the whole thing don’t blow up in your face.”

:Rather, yes.: Gideon smiled, a sudden dazzling sweetness. :Although your simile is theologically appalling, I find it personally quite apt.:

Mildmay looked down at his hands—flustered, as he always was by praise. Gideon continued, :Again, the details do not matter. I was initiated into the White-Eyed Lady’s mysteries, and I did not die. My death is hers, when she chooses to take it.:

Finished, he folded his hands and sat—waiting, I supposed, to discover whether we would reject or accept what he had said.

After a moment, Mildmay said, clearly struggling with it, “So you ain’t—I mean, it ain’t about helping other people meet her, whether they want to or not?”

:She is not the God of the Obscured Sun,: Gideon said. We must both have looked dubious, perhaps a little frightened still, for he said, .-The God of the Obscured Sun is the god of necromancers. The White-Eyed Lady is the goddess of the dead and dying.:

“I don’t think I entirely understand the difference,” I said.

Gideon frowned, his hands moving in a frustrated gesture, as if the words he wanted hovered just out of his reach. .-The White-Eyed Lady takes the dead into her domain. She neither wishes nor allows their return to this world. Ghosts are those who have lost their way to her—or have been dragged back by the followers of the Obscured Sun, who is both her rival and her ever-rejected suitor.:

I saw Mildmay’s flinch as I repeated Gideon’s words. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. It just… Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

“Just something you said once.”

“When?”

He mumbled down at his hands, but I caught the word Nera clearly enough.

So did Gideon. :Yes. You mentioned a labyrinth beneath Klepsydra, where I did not know any labyrinth existed, and also the city of Nera, which so far as I know has been lost for a thousand years.:

“Oh. Um, yes. There is a labyrinth beneath Klepsydra, which seems to have been sacred to the White-Eyed Lady, and Nera… well, I was not myself at the time.”

We both looked at Mildmay, who said, “You want me to… Powers.” But when he had collected himself, he told the story well, vividly, and if he was more honest than I would have liked about the spectacle I had made of myself, I supposed it was no more than I deserved for making him tell the story in the first place.

I had the sense, as I had had when he told me about Nera in the Gardens, that there was something he was leaving out, something he did not want to say, but I had no idea of what it might be until Gideon asked, and I relayed, “Do you think the maze worked?”

“Dunno. I can’t see ghosts.” But his eyes cut away from mine.

“So you’re saying you think it was just my hallucination?”

“Not what I said.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Well, yeah,” he said, as if the answer were so obvious no one should need to ask.

I looked at him, waited until he reluctantly met my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

His face colored, and he muttered, “Don’t want to upset you.”

I wondered if he meant he didn’t want to distress me or he didn’t want to make me angry. “Just tell me,” I said, and tried not to sound impatient. “It could be important.”

“Important for what?‘”

“For the problem of the Mirador’s dead.” Gideon gave me a sharp, skeptical look, but did not interrupt me. “There are parallels between the two situations that could be useful. So out with it. What happened when we made the maze?”

“Fuck,” he said. “Okay.” Then he stopped, looking at me with a different kind of wariness. “You sure you don’t remember it?” and his eyes slid, just slightly, sideways at Gideon.

I understood what he was asking, and I felt for a moment almost physical pain at the loyalty he was showing me, and the completely unexpected sensitivity to something I had never openly told him, but clearly he knew. He knew I was concealing the loss of my memory, and he was willing to help.

I smiled at him. “Let us merely say that I do not imagine my memory of events is at all, ah, reliable.” Which was perfectly true, if grossly misleading, and there was appreciation of that in the nod Mildmay gave me.

“Okay,” he said. “So, we made the maze and got outside it, and I didn’t see nothing, but I could tell you did. And then you…” Another pause, and he said slowly, watching my face, “You started for the maze.”

I had known this would be unpleasant; I nodded at him to continue.

“I stopped you,” he said, “along of how I didn’t know what might happen. And you started cussing me out. Said they—the ghosts—they said you could come with ‘em if you wanted. And I—”

There was a flash, as quick and bright and painful as lightning searing the sky: pouring rain and a monster pinning me to the ground and voices calling, pleading, promising…

“Joline,” I said, my voice barely more than breath.

Mildmay’s words cut off jaggedly. I realized after a moment that he and Gideon were both staring at me. Mildmay wouldn’t ask, of course, but Gideon would; I had to say something first, had to keep this matter under my control. “They said they could help me find—” But I couldn’t think of how to explain Joline. I finally said, inadequately, “Someone I knew as a child,” and Mildmay said hastily, as if he were trying to head off further questions, “And after a while you quit fighting me, so I knew the maze had worked and the ghosts were gone. That, um, that was it.”

I let my hands grip together beneath the table, welcoming the dull pain of bone struggling against bone, the sharper bite of my rings in the flesh of my fingers. Joline had died more than fifteen years ago; there was no need to allow myself to become overset. I said, “Then we have the testimony of a madman.”

:You sound as if you were hoping for something more.:

“It was just an idea,” I said and fled gratefully into theory. “I know very little about necromancy, and none of what I know has to do with… I believe the term is laying a ghost. So I thought, if there was a method that we knew worked—”

:For followers of a particular goddess.:

“Neither Mildmay nor I knew anything about your White-Eyed Lady.”

:I mentioned her to you once,: Gideon said. :When I kept you from committing suicide off the Linlowing Bridge, if you recall.:

I had a moment of flat white panic. But he was testing; I saw that particular brightness in his eyes. I said, “Gideon, I know you have high standards, but surely even you cannot expect that someone… someone in that situation would be able to understand and remember every word you say. If you tell me you mentioned your goddess, I will believe you, but my own memory…” I shrugged, carefully indifferent, and did not let myself appear to watch his reaction. But I could see that he was thwarted, and said, as if this were the point, “Well, let’s ask the expert. Mildmay, are there any rituals native to the pantheon of Mélusine that bring rest to the dead?”

“Dunno,” he said. “You wanna try that with words for stupid people?”

You aren’t stupid. But even if I said it, he would never believe I meant it. “What do people in the Lower City do to lay a ghost?”

“Go to the cade-skiffs. Or the Resurrectionists. Depending on how they died and who you want knowing about it.”

“You know perfectly well that’s not what I’m asking.”

“How can I, when I ain’t heard half the conversation y’all been having?” He flinched at his own words and said, “Sorry,” to Gideon. “I didn’t mean—”

“We have been discussing ways in which to lay the dead. Particularly the dead of the Mirador. Gideon seems to think his goddess’s rites won’t help.” Gideon glared at me, and I glared back; he did not speak.

Mildmay said, “Mostly that stuff’s cade-skiff mysteries. Or necromancy, which I ain’t into and never have been. But, if you mean that maze we did, ain’t that sort of like Heth-Eskaladen?”

I looked at him blankly.

“The curtain-mazes at the Trials. That’s what they’re for.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s what they’re for’?”

“You walk the maze,” Mildmay said patiently. “That’s how you get to Hell.”

-

I had to do a lot of explaining before Felix was satisfied, including telling most of the story of Heth-Eskaladen’s Trials, with both of them sitting there watching me and Gideon taking notes. Which I got to say I didn’t care for.

But I told the story, and Felix sat there and drank it all in like he’d never heard it before.

“Didn’t you go to the Trials as a kid?”

He shrugged. “Once or twice,” and then him and Gideon got going again, and I followed as best I could from Felix’s half—which is to say not hardly at all—but I got enough to figure that Gideon thought Felix’s idea was a really bad one, and Felix got his jaw set and that look in his eye like a bad-tempered mule, and I knew Gideon would’ve had better luck getting him to go to court naked than to let go of this thing he wanted. But it would only piss them both off if I said it, so I didn’t.

Finally—sometime after dinner this was, and they’d been going round and round for hours—Gideon stood up, sudden enough to make me jump, bowed to Felix, real stiff-like, bowed to me, and stalked out of the room like an offended cat. When the door had closed behind him, I raised my eyebrows at Felix.

Who had the grace to look embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have called him that, should I?”

“I don’t even know what all them words mean, and it didn’t sound good.”

-

Gideon, too, threw himself willingly into research among the Mirador’s scattered libraries, although we had had no personal exchanges since I had called him a reactionary close-minded intellectual coward. He would probably have forgiven me if my attempt to lay the Mirador’s dead had failed, but it is hard to be generous when events have conspired to prove an unflattering estimation of one’s character to be, even partially, correct.

-

I could not imagine Shannon, whose sheltered life had left him deeply uncomfortable with deformity, with incapacity, talking to Gideon, and even if he did, Gideon was far too canny to listen.

-

Me and Gideon were playing Long Tiffany—because what the fuck else did we have to do?—but we both put our cards down when we saw him. “You’re here,” he said to Gideon. “Good. I need your help.”

Gideon’s eyebrows went up, and he must have said something pretty snarky, because Felix said, “Don’t start,” and he sounded so tired, so beat, that Gideon’s face softened and he stood up.

“Thank you,” Felix said. “Hydromancy. Anything you can find about it.” This time Gideon’s eyebrows practically hit his hairline.

“I know,” Felix said. “Believe me, I know. But…” He shook his head, like a bear that’s been in the baiting-pits a long time, trying to shake the flies away from where it’s bleeding. “I figured it out. I know how to mend the Virtu, but it all depends on whether I can cast a foundation on the Sim and make it stick.”

I didn’t need to hear Gideon to know what he said. It was all over his face. And I guessed that meant that knowing about magic didn’t make Felix’s idea sound any less crazy.

“It will work,” Felix said. “If I can figure out how to do it.”

Gideon said something. Felix laughed. When he pushed his hair off his face, I could see his hands shaking. “Then I suppose I’ll die trying.”

-

Neither Mavortian nor Gideon believed it would work.

-

The Mirador is a labyrinth, I thought again and shuddered, a hard spasm that made Gideon look at me anxiously, although he said nothing. I knew that he was wary of intruding and that I would have to reach out to him first, but I felt flayed and brittle with what I was about to attempt; I could not let my defenses down now.

-

At the bottom, I instinctively cast for more light, feeling the size of the darkness that met us. We all stared for a moment, unable to take in what we saw.

Mildmay said, “Sacred bleeding fuck,” mostly under his breath, a genuine expression of awe.

Gideon said, :I thought she was not worshipped this far west, but—:

:I know,: I said, answering in kind because I did not care to have Mavortian hear. :I can see it.:

-

But still… even in the darkness and decay, even through my own fear and desire for flight, I could see what had been here. It was the obverse face of the labyrinth in Klepsydra, a reminder that the White-Eyed Lady could also be kind.

-

“Thaumaturgical architecture is a very odd discipline, but I think I am beginning to grasp its principles. Shall we go find out if I am wrong?”

:Architectural thaumaturgy,: Gideon said, crossly pedantic.

-

The maze beneath the Mirador—if “beneath” was the correct term when it had once been part of the Mirador as the Hall of the Chimeras was now—was not difficult; it was not meant to be. :It’s quite like that hedge maze in Hermione,: Gideon said, :only here we can each serve as our own observation tower.:

I made some noncommittal agreement, and would have even if I had remembered what he was talking about. The farther into the maze we penetrated, the sharper my memories of Keeper became. I was flinching from the expectation of hearing his voice over the gentle music of the water maze.

I’d learned to fellate a man when I was eight years old. Two of the five times I’d come close enough to drowning to feel death—to feel, I realized, the White-Eyed Lady’s cold kiss—had been for refusing. Or trying to.

-

Mildmay answered it. “Yeah, he’s awake,” he said. “Maybe you can talk him out of it.” He stood aside and let Gideon in.

“Splendid,” Mavortian said and smiled. “Messire Thraxios’s wisdom having proved so helpful in the past.”

Gideon looked from Mildmay to Mavortian to me, his eyebrows going up. I explained the situation briefly; it was not getting more pleasant with practice. Gideon agreed with Mildmay, as Mavortian and I had both known he would, but he could not offer any reasons better than those Mildmay had already tried. And he could not argue that Malkar and Vey did not need to be stopped.

:Felix,: he said finally, :may I speak to you alone?:

“It seems entirely unnecessary,” I said. “We are agreed that we must act, and I have chosen a course of action.”

-

I had forgotten I had forbidden it to him. “Yes,” I snarled. “You have permission. Just go. All of you! Out!”

They left, even Gideon having the sense not to try to linger.

-

[Thaddeus] saw me then, out of the corner of his eye, and swung round. “Good God, Felix, what are you doing? Trying to give me a coronary?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” I said.

“Did you? Have you finally seen the truth about Gideon? I understand how charming he can be, how plausible, but you—”

“What are you babbling about?” I said, cutting him off sharply. “More of your nonsense about spies and cultists?”

“It is not nonsense,” he said, putting down the double compass and a handful of amber beads. “It is the truth.”

“Was the truth.”

He snorted. “Do you think leopards can change their spots, then? Wash them away?”

“I think Gideon is not a leopard.”

“You and your willful blindness. I thank God you’re off the Curia, you know.”

-

For if Thaddeus’s tongue had been busy while I had been hiding, craven, from my own culpability, then the person I needed to worry about now was not myself, but Gideon.

He was not in the room he had been given, and I only very briefly contemplated the idea of asking Mehitabel if she knew where he was. Whether she knew or not, I would be pressing my luck to try to convince her to tell me.

But where could he go? The Mirador was not kind to strangers, and as far as I knew, he had no friends here. Where would he go, if his room was not a haven?

Thaddeus probably came preaching at him. It was the worst of Thaddeus; he so passionately believed in his own rectitude that he could not leave other people alone in their wrongdoing. I couldn’t imagine what he thought he wanted to persuade Gideon to do—return to the Bastion? confess himself a spy in front of court and Curia? commit a quick and gentlemanly suicide?—but I knew he wouldn’t let it rest. It was how he’d gotten me out of St. Crellifer’s, after all.

I knew where I would have gone—where I had gone, in years past, to get away from Robert or Roseanna Aemoria, even sometimes from Thaddeus himself—and in a whimsy born of defeat, I found the nearest staircase to the battlements and climbed it.

Gideon was there, small, shabby, tired—looking not out over the city as I always did, but back at the roofs of the Mirador, at the fire-savaged remains of their gaudy, brassy beauty. He did not look surprised to see me. Neither did he look pleased.

“Gideon,” I said. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him, and then wished I hadn’t. I’d thrown him out of my room, along with the others, when I was making my insane, malevolent, stupid decision about Vey Coruscant. He hadn’t spoken to me since.

:Felix,: he said. A small, meticulously polite nod of the head.

I did not approach him, knowing he would only move away. “I, ah, I just talked to Thaddeus.” Gideon waited, one eyebrow rising, and I said lamely, “Is he causing you very much trouble?”

Gideon’s laugh was bitter mockery. :Your concern is touching, if hypocritical.:

“I have never thought—or said—that you were a spy for the Bastion.”

:You wouldn’t care if I were. Unless I threatened you, and then I imagine you would be quick enough to dispose of me. Or until you get bored. Will it amuse you, Felix, to throw me to the wolves?:

“I wouldn’t—”

:Of course you would,: he said wearily. :You haven’t hesitated to lie to me. I’m not about to expect you to keep faith.:

“Have I been lying to you?” I said, trying for lightness.

There was open contempt in the look he gave me.

I turned away quickly, making my own survey of the damaged roofs.

:You have been allowing me to believe something that is manifestly untrue. Do you remember anything of the time we spent in each other’s company last year?:

He knew. I knew he knew, and yet I could not keep from defending myself. “We’ve talked before about what is and is not reasonable to expect me to—”

:By the Seven Saints of Hellebore, I am tired of this.: He came around in front of me, met my eyes fiercely. :Suppose you try telling me the truth. If you have even the faintest idea of what that word means, which I doubt.:
I flinched back, but his hand shot out and caught my wrist. :What do you remember?:

“Being afraid!” The words burst out now, like water pent up too long behind a dam. “Being in pain and alone and there were monsters everywhere.” I wrenched free of him. “Mildmay helped me, and I guess I’ve shown him what a stupid idea that was. Now I’m one of the monsters, so why don’t you just fuck off?”

We were both frozen, both of us hearing, not merely the obscenity, but more than that: the shift in my vowels, the nasal stridency suddenly in my voice. I took a deep breath, then another. Realized they weren’t helping and leaned against the battlements, burying my face in my hands. “Maybe Robert was right.”

:Robert of Hermione? I doubt it.: Gideon’s voice was dry again, dispassionate. He touched my shoulder, and although I did not want to, I looked up. :Felix. I do not want to ‘fuck off.’ Unless you truly do not wish my… : He hesitated, visibly searching for a word. :Companionship.:

“I don’t deserve your companionship, and you know that as well as I do.”

:None of us get what we deserve,: he said, and I flinched.

A silence, fishhooks and shards of glass. I said, “You want to stay?”

:I do.:

“Even though…”

:Even though. I don’t expect you to be other than you are.:

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. “You’re a fool, you know that?”

:Yes. I know.: Gideon’s fingers brushed gently against the dampness on my cheekbone. :Felix, come to bed with me. We can talk later.:

I nodded, mutely grateful, and followed him down the stairs; then, for he did not know the corridors, I led him to my suite. I closed and locked the door behind us; he stood in the center of the room and watched me, his eyes dark and bright and deep enough to drown in.

:Felix. Come here.:

I went to him, bent my head obediently to be kissed. His hands came up, one cupping my jaw, the other clenching in my hair, holding me still.

My heart kicked against my ribs, but I knew now where this fear came from. It had nothing to do with Gideon, as it had had nothing to do with Ingvard. It didn’t even have very much to do with Malkar, although all my sexual responses were influenced by Malkar, and I knew it. No, this fear belonged to the basements of St. Crellifer’s, to a table with leather straps, where I had been held down and…

:Felix?:

I did not answer him with words, merely moved closer against him. I could do this; if Gideon wanted to be in control, I could let him.

We made our way to the bedroom, and there he pushed me flat on my back on the bed and kissed me hard, biting, his hands catching my wrists and pinning them down.

And I couldn’t do it.

I knew what was wrong, knew why I was panicking, and I still couldn’t control it. I was ashamed of myself, even as I was shoving against Gideon, humiliated and infuriated even as I flung myself off the bed, mortified beyond bearing as I came up flat against the wall.

:If you didn’t like what I was doing,: Gideon said, mild and deliberate with his own fury, :you could have just said so.:

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was gasping for breath, fighting to keep from bursting into tears like a child. “I’m so sorry.”

:Felix?:

The last thing in the world I’d wanted: Gideon’s undivided attention. I would have preferred to have him angry, if only I had been sufficiently in control of myself to provoke him.

:What’s wrong?: Gideon said, getting up and approaching me cautiously, as if I were a wild animal… or a frightened child, and I hated the comparison but could not deny its truth. :Did I hurt you?:

The noise I made was half laugh, half sob. I’d been earning favor from tarquins before I turned twelve, and while pain was not exactly, usually, arousing, nothing Gideon could or would do to me would even be enough to make me wince. I shook my head, not wanting to trust my voice, and he said, :What, then?:

“I…” But my voice wouldn’t work, all breath and tears. :I can’t.:

:Can’t what?:

:Just… I can’t.:

:You haven’t had this problem before,: he said dryly. :Does power truly mean that much to you?:

I felt as if he’d hit me. I stared at him, my jaw going slack and my eyes widening. He colored a little and said, :That is what all of this is about, isn’t it?:

I couldn’t answer him, and his lips twitched in a grin. :Did you think I hadn’t noticed? You’re a manipulative bastard, and you can’t stand not having things your way. I know that. I just thought… : He sighed, and he looked so tired, so defeated, that I finally found my voice.

“It isn’t that, I promise. That is, you’re right. I do like controlling things. But it isn’t… it’s not that I can’t… that I won’t… Oh damn.”

Cautiously, slowly, he reached out, took my hands. His hands were square, sturdy, shorter-fingered than mine but broader across the palm; his grip was firm and warm and somehow comforting. :Come sit down,: he said, :and tell me what’s wrong.:

I let him tug me back to the bed, sat down next to him, stared at our clasped hands, mine all pale skin and gaudy ink, his darker, unmarked. :Felix,: he said gently, sternly, and I knew he was not going to allow me to escape.

“When I was…” My throat seemed to close; I had to swallow hard, twice, before I could continue. “When I was not myself, in the madhouse, something… something happened to me.”

His fingers tightened slightly. :Were you raped?:

He startled me into looking up. “No, not that. That wouldn’t… never mind. Someone thought they would turn what Malkar had done to me to their own advantage. They tied me down”—and I removed my hands from Gideon’s, indicating where the straps had gone—“so I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even turn my head, and then they…” I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, refusing to cry.

:You were raped,: he said. Just not physically.:

“I suppose,” I said, heaved in one painful, shaky breath, and then another.

:Was Robert successful?:

“I didn’t—”

:You didn’t need to.:

“Oh. I… I don’t remember that part very clearly, but I don’t think so. He brought me back here, I think?” I couldn’t help it being a question, even though I knew it was nonsense to look at Gideon for the answers. “He did. And he tried…”

:He tried to use you to mend the Virtu,: Gideon said. :Thaddeus quite forgot he hated me in raving about that.:

“Thaddeus was there?”

:No. But he heard about it. Surely, I don’t need to tell you how gossip travels in this place.:

“No,” I said, “no, you don’t.” And then something else occurred to me. “Why wasn’t Robert burned for heresy on the spot?”

:How should I know?: But his dismissive shrug was not entirely convincing, and I only had to wait a few moments before he said, :They were desperate and frightened, circumstances that can cause the strongest theology to wobble, and I understand that Robert was quite convinced it would work.:

“And?”

:And you were a traitor, heretic, madman, and according to the reports from St. Crellifer’s, no better than a beast.:

“Not worth burning anyone over.”

:They believed you had broken the Virtu yourself,: he said, almost gently.

“I’m not saying I didn’t deserve what I got. I just—”

:Then you should be.:

I had been staring at my hands, running my fingers over and around my rings. I looked up at Gideon, shocked. “You say that? You know what I am.”

:Whatever you are, or aren’t, you did not deserve what happened to you.: He leaned forward, kissed me gently. :I understand why you don’t want to be dominated in bed, but can we… ?: He was blushing again.

“Try for equality?”

He nodded, almost shyly.

“I would like that,” I said, and his smile was beautiful enough to make me believe it might work.

-

I woke tangled in the sheets, my breath coming in hard, painful gasps.

:Felix?: Gideon, sitting up next to me, his eyes dark with worry in the shine of his witchlights.

I couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop the horrible noises I was making. Gideon put his arms around me, and I let him, even leaned against him, grateful for the warmth, for the quiet, natural sound of his heartbeat. And after a while, I had some shreds of control again, some vestiges of my rational self, and I told him what I had dreamed, start to finish.

And he sat and held me and listened, and when I was done, said, :I remember that you are prone to true-dreaming.:

“This wasn’t a dream,” I said. “It was a sending. Malkar’s good at them. But I’m sure he didn’t believe Mildmay would have the wits to turn it against him.”

:You think that wasn’t—:

“If Malkar had wanted me to know he was Brinvillier Strych, he had all the time and opportunity in the world to tell me. I wish Mildmay hadn’t done it, though.”

:But at least now you know what you’re up against.:

“I already knew that. Just because he’s also Strych doesn’t mean he’s not Malkar.”

:Ah. I see your point.:

“Yes.” But even in the midst of the horror and guilt and grief that had my heart pounding like a lead pendulum against my ribs, simply knowing that Mildmay was not dead, that it was not too late, was a thin, cold mercy, something at last that I could hold to. And as I thought about the dream, thought about the details around the image Malkar had orchestrated, I realized I had something else.

“I know where he is,” I said.

:You what?:

“I know where he is. I know where that room is. I know what that sound is.”

:Felix?:

“He’s in the Bastion.” Saying it out loud made it horrifyingly real. Gideon’s grip on me tightened, as if in protest.

:How can you be sure?:

I couldn’t smile at him, couldn’t be reassuring. “Because the Titan Clock of the Bastion is still running.”

-

:But how can he be in the Bastion?: Gideon said.

I shrugged. “It is where he said he was going, all those months ago. I think the more important question is how I’m going to get into the Bastion to find him.”

:To find him? Are you mad?:

“I have to get Mildmay away from him. I know what Malkar’s terms will be, when he gets around to sending them, and I can’t accept them. I can’t… If it were just me, if I were annemer, I’d trade myself for Mildmay in a heartbeat—if I thought Malkar could be trusted to honor his bargain. But it isn’t just me. I can’t let him have the use of my power again.”

:It’s a pity you didn’t think of some of this sooner.:

“Yes, it is. But I can’t do anything about that. I can only deal with the situation as it is, no matter how much I wish my own selfish stupidity hadn’t caused it.”

:I am sorry. That was unfair. And you do not bear sole responsibility, you know.:

“If you think that makes things any better, you are sadly mistaken. But it does remind me—I need you to tell me what Mavortian did to you.”

:Why?: Gideon said warily.

I couldn’t help sighing. “Because I can’t do this alone.”

:I—:

“You can’t go.”

:I most certainly can.:

“They will recognize you. And once that happens, you’re doomed, I’m doomed, Mildmay’s doomed. And most likely the Mirador is doomed as well.”

He glared at me, but he couldn’t deny that what I said was true.

“I can’t go to the Curia,” I said, painfully spelling it out for both of us, “because they won’t believe me. And if they do, they won’t trust me. Especially since I didn’t tell them about Malkar and Vey in the first place.” I bared my teeth at him, not in a smile. “A course of action I regret.”

:But you have friends. Surely—:

“Who would you suggest?,” I said, vicious with my fear for Mildmay. “Thaddeus?”

:No,: Gideon said. :Not Thaddeus.:

“And my other friends… I was mad, and then I was gone, and now that I’m back, they don’t quite know what to do with me. I can’t ask it of them. Not now. And that leaves Mavortian.”

:Yes,: Gideon said, his mouth thinning. :Mavortian.:

“And thus I need you to tell me what he did.”

:You admit you don’t remember?:

“Yes, damn it. Is that what you need to hear?. I don’t remember what Mavortian von Heber did to you.”

:Very well,: Gideon said. :The short version is that he blackmailed me. The longer version is that, if it were not for him, I would still have my tongue.:

“Oh,” I said, almost voicelessly.

:You had had a dream,: he said, dispassionate now, as if recounting the events of a romance he had read. :You couldn’t explain it, but you said you had to go east. Across Kekropia. And Mildmay said he would go with you. You weren’t coherent enough to be argued with, and nothing I could say, or Mavortian could say, would budge Mildmay in the slightest. He said he’d promised you, and as far as he was concerned, that was that.:

“Is there a way to tell this story that doesn’t increase my feelings of guilt?”

:Probably not. Once Mavortian realized he couldn’t change Mildmay’s mind, he decided we would all go.:

“Why in the world… ?”

:Beaumont Livy. You were his key to Beaumont Livy, and he wasn’t about to let you out of his sight. He insisted I come, too, although I am not in retrospect certain whether it was for his stated reason—to protect you from being detected by the Bastion’s warding spells—or merely because he did not trust me not to betray you. And when I said I would not go, for I thought then and think now that it was an insane and suicidal thing to do, he blackmailed me by threatening to have Bernard take me to the nearest town and tell them I was a Eusebian. And as he very kindly pointed out, once we were in Kekropia, it would be even easier to denounce me to the Eusebians as an apostate.:

:I didn’t know,: I said, mind to mind, desperately. :I swear to you, I didn’t remember. I still don’t.:

:I know that. I knew it during that horrible argument. If you’d remembered—:

“If I’d remembered, I wouldn’t have been talking to Mavortian von Heber at all.”

Gideon made no answer, one eyebrow rising in eloquent skepticism. I blushed and was unable to meet his eyes.

After a moment, he took pity on me and said, :Be that as it may, the question, as you said, is what you are going to do now. Do you still think Messire von Heber a suitable ally?:

He expected me to say no. I wanted to say no. But the sending was still raw and vivid in my head: the welts on Mildmay’s back and thighs, the swollen mess of the left side of his face, the dried blood around his nose and mouth. The way he shivered. “I’m afraid it’s hard to think of anyone more suitable.” I felt Gideon stiffen and said, almost apologetically, “We want the same thing.”

:You want Malkar Gennadion to die horribly? To the exclusion of all other desires?:

“I didn’t say we wanted it in the same way. But—”

:You needn’t go on. I understand. But do you really think this is the way to help your brother?:

“If nothing else, Mavortian will distract Malkar. Even if he isn’t successful. Malkar loves to gloat.” I couldn’t hide the shudder that wrenched through me, and Gideon’s arms tightened comfortingly.

He said, :Your ruthlessness, in this instance, actually pleases me. But you have to have someone who knows the Bastion. It’s every bit as labyrinthine as the Mirador.:

The word struck an echo in my mind. I remembered sitting with Mehitabel in the labyrinth beneath Klepsydra, remembered her saying, I worked in the Bastion for a time.

“I have someone who knows the Bastion,” I said. “And I think she’ll be happy to help.”

-

I was rationalizing, I admitted to myself that night as I opened the door to the Archive of Cinders, having left Gideon asleep in my bed, frowning slightly as if he sought for a lost earring in his dreams and could not find it.

-

I led the way to my rooms, where the door opened on firelight and warmth, and Gideon looking up from his book, first blankly, and then with a look of such transparent joy that I nearly stumbled. Then he looked past me, saw Mildmay, and came to his feet.

“ ‘M all right,” Mildmay said, forestalling the need for Gideon to relay the question through me. “Going to bed.” Slurred into one mumbled word: gontabed.
Gideon raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged helplessly and said, “Good night. Sleep well.”

“ ‘Night,” Mildmay said, without turning, and the door of his small room shut decisively behind him, leaving Gideon and me in a silence that stretched from awkward to uncomfortable to excruciating, until finally, desperately, I said, “Did Thaddeus leave you alone?”

:Thank you, yes. Your suite is very peaceful, and the servants most polite. I believe they lied to Thaddeus on my behalf more than once.:

The gossip in the Mirador could be trusted to be up-to-date and accurate; I was not surprised that the soft-footed young men who tended the rooms on this hall had known who Gideon was and why he was in my suite. I had told them only that a guest would be staying, and they had not asked me questions.

“You’re, ah, welcome to stay. If you’d like.”

One eyebrow rose sardonically; I turned away, my face heating, and went to poke up the fire.

:How is Mildmay?:

“I don’t know. He didn’t talk to anyone for five days. He still isn’t talking to me, particularly. Mehitabel told me he told her he doesn’t remember what Malkar did to him.”

:It would not be surprising,: Gideon said and added pointedly, :It is a common defensive reaction to severe trauma.:

“Thank you so very much.”

:Give him time.:

“There’s nothing else I can give him.” I sighed, setting the poker down; Gideon came up beside me and gently laid a hand on my shoulder.

:If I were to stay…:

“Yes?”

:You will treat him—:

“Like he was my brother, yes.” I felt Gideon’s flinch at my bitterness.

:And how will you treat me?:

I turned to look down at him, to meet those grave, dark eyes. He did not ask the question idly or rhetorically.

And I had been thinking about this, too, in the long silent hours between Medeia and Mélusine. “You said you didn’t expect me to be other than what I am. But I don’t want to make you be other than yourself, either. And I don’t know how…”

:Negotiation is supposed to be good for treaty-making.:

I stared at him for a moment, until he lost the battle to keep his face impassive; he was smiling again, beaming, an expression of such simple happiness that it made my heart turn over.

I smiled back at him, and then took his face gently between my hands and kissed him. And I promised myself, as the kiss deepened, as our bodies began to press together, that I would make this treaty work.