I lay in the darkness of that miserable bedroom, and the air was full of a thin, whispering noise, like the slither of silk on flesh. Gideon had warded me from the fantôme, but he could not ward me from the darkness in my head.
The door opened; I sat up quickly.
"Felix?"
Thaddeus's voice.
"Yes?"
"
There
you are. You shouldn't run off like that."
"I'm sorry… I had to—"
"Did that man say something to you?"
"Who?"
"Your alleged brother."
"Oh. No. No, it wasn't him. It—"
"Do you really think he's your brother?"
He came in, bringing a candle with him; I could see a blurry sphere of light, but everything else stayed dark, murky. The shadows had swallowed the world. I turned away from the light so that Thaddeus wouldn't see anything wrong in my eyes.
"I don't know," I said. "He… he looks like me." When he doesn't have a fox's head.
"Yes. Quite remarkably so. Is he Caloxan, too?"
I didn't have to see Thaddeus to sense the malice in that question. "I don't know what you mean."
"I'm just puzzled, is all." I heard him shut the door. "See, I remember you telling me you grew up in Arabel, and if that gutter rat's ever been out of sight of the Mirador before in his life, I'll eat my rings. All ten of them."
I said nothing. Thaddeus continued, "And really, Felix, you
can't
expect me to believe
he's
the son of a Caloxan noblewoman." His voice came closer. I steeled myself not to flinch. "So what I'm wondering is just how much you've been lying about."
He knew about Pharaohlight; I could hear it.
"Where are you from?" He barked the question at me, and I did jump. But Malkar had trained me by just such methods, and I responded by reflex.
"Caloxa."
"Don't give me that. The story doesn't wash, Felix. You must see that. How did you get from Arabel to Pharaohlight?"
You've got it backwards. But the mere thought of saying that made my throat lock up.
"I'm waiting," Thaddeus said, much as Malkar might have.
"I cuh… I can't tell you."
"You can't
tell
me?" Gloating incredulity in his voice, and I shut my eyes against the sting of tears. "You mean there is no answer, don't you? You can't tell me because it never happened. You're as much a gutter rat as your brother, aren't you?
Aren't
you?"
I tried to get up, to get away from him, but he grabbed my arms and slammed me down on my back on the bed. "We aren't done here. You've been lying to all of us for years, putting on your airs and graces, laughing at the
fools
who believed you."
"Please let me go," I said, but my voice was barely a whisper, and Thaddeus wasn't listening.
"My God, when I think of you, claiming equal standing with the Lemerii and the Bercromii, taking advantage of Lord Stephen's good nature, of Lord Shannon… !"
"Let me go!"
"How'd you do it, Felix?" he said, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint he always chewed on his breath. "Where'd you learn the manners? Who taught you to talk like a gentleman? Who gave you that perfect, perfect story?"
"Let me
go
!" I struggled halfway up, but he caught my shoulder and pinned me flat again. "Tell me!" he was shouting. "Tell me!"
I was sobbing, and I hated myself for it, but I couldn't get away, couldn't get away from his weight pinning me down, couldn't
breathe .
. .
A voice. Gideon's voice. Words I couldn't understand. The weight gone, the cruel hands gone. I rolled over, away from the light, from the harsh voices, and wept into the quilt, disgusted by the noises I was making, but powerless to stop.
The door slammed.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I spasmed away from it, making a dreadful, humiliating animal-like noise. And then the hand was gone, and I was sobbing again, so hard that the only noise I could make was a rasping struggle for breath.
Stop it! I said to myself. Stop it! But I couldn't. It only died down when my body was simply too exhausted to support it any longer. I lay there then and wished Gideon had left me on the Linlowing Bridge.
A voice said quietly, "Felix, I am sorry."
And there was Gideon. Again. I said, not moving, my voice thick and rasped halfway to nothing, "Why didn't you leave?"
"I couldn't. You are hurting."
I started laughing.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. It just… I couldn't…"
"Thaddeus will leave you alone," he said after a moment.
"He's afraid of you."
"A little. But that doesn't matter. Are you all right?"
"Yes, thank you. I'm fine."
His voice was suddenly hard. "Sit up. Look at me."
I sat up, looked as near as I could judge in his direction. I still couldn't see anything clearly, only the globe of candlelight near the door.
"Now say it again. Tell me you are well.and happy."
"Really, Gideon, I promise, I'm…" And I realized I had been about to say "okay," that ubiquitous piece of Lower City idiom that Malkar had beaten out of me before I was fifteen. I did a quick, panicky review of everything I'd said since Gideon first spoke to me, but I was fairly sure my Marathine had been standard and my vowels clean. "I'm really fine," I said lamely.
I wouldn't have been convinced either. Out of the murky jumble of darkness, Gideon's voice said, "Indeed? And that's why your eyes appear to be focused two inches to the left of my left ear? Can you even
see
me?"
"It's… it's very dark in here," I faltered, the blood mounting painfully to my face.
"I heard you describe your hallucinations to Thaddeus and Lady Victoria. Is that what's happening now?"
"Oh. Oh damn."
"I wish you would trust me."
"I… I'm sorry."
"Failing that," Gideon said, as if I had not spoken, "I wish you would tell me the truth." Everything in my chest congealed into a block of ice. Gideon continued: "For instance, when did your vision begin to… become peculiar? You seemed all right earlier."
He was after a different hare than Thaddeus had been. My relief made it possible to say, quite reasonably, "Why do you care?"
"Call it intellectual curiosity. When?"
"The spell," I said, remembering. "It was right after that Fressandran wizard cast his spell that…"
"Yes?"
I lay down again, staring up at the dark cloud that was the ceiling-"That the monsters came out," I said in a bare whisper.
"Interesting," said Gideon. I felt him sit down on the bed, but he did not touch me, and I was able to hold myself still. "Do you think there's a causal connection?"
"Between the Fressandran's spell and me being crazy?" I had my voice back under control now; I sounded almost sane.
"Let's clarify this," he said, almost snapped. "I'm tired of people calling you crazy, and I'm even more tired of you accepting the label."
"But I
am
crazy. Gideon, I appreciate your support, but you can't—"
"You have been profoundly damaged by a spell, in ways that no wizard in Marathat or Kekropia is competent to assess, much less mend. I grant that the end results look like madness, but it is not the same thing."
"The distinction fails to comfort me."
"That's because you're not thinking. This is the effect of a
spell
, Felix, not anything intrinsic to your mind. It may be possible to
do
something about it. Now, do you think the abrupt deterioration in your condition is or could be related to the fact that an act of magic was being worked near you?"
"Maybe. Magic… I could feel it, in the Mirador, whenever they were trying something else to mend the Virtu. It hurt."
"Aha."
"You have a theory," I said to the ceiling and wished Gideon would go away.
"I am investigating a theory. I think you may have developed a… a morbid sensitivity to magic."
"That sounds very impressive. What does it mean?"
He was silent for a moment. "You've said that Malkar separated you from your ability to do magic. Thaddeus thinks you're using that excuse to pretend that the Curia's interdict doesn't bother you—"
"Then Thaddeus is even stupider than I thought him."
"Point taken. I'm afraid I can't think of any way to explain this without resorting to a florid metaphor."
"I think," I said wearily, "that at this juncture your rhetorical style is the least of my problems."
"It's a wound that isn't healing. It's like raw flesh."
"And magic would be like salt, is that your thinking?"
"Crude but accurate."
"I'm not a poet. And I don't see what good it does us to know that."
"You don't find any shred of hope in the thought that it isn't some random and senseless plague that strikes you without warning or reason?"
"No."
"Then you are as stupid as Thaddeus." I felt him get up, heard him cross the room and go out. He shut the door firmly, but without slamming it.
"I trusted Thaddeus once," I said to the ceiling when I was sure he was gone.
Mildmay
When we were back out on the sidewalk, Mavortian said, "Well,
that
was interesting," like it was only good manners keeping him from actually biting me. "Why didn't you tell me he was your brother?"
"Because I didn't know, okay?"
"You didn't
know
? How could you not
know
?"
"Oh fuck me sideways 'til I cry. Let's make this fast. My mother was a whore. That good enough for you? And anyway, why didn't
you
tell
me
?"
"What?"
"
You're
the hocus.
You
got the cards that see patterns in everything. How come they didn't see this one?"
"If you'll excuse the interruption," Bernard said, at his nastiest, "are the two of you planning to sleep out here tonight?"
"Powers, Bernard," Mavortian said, "must you be so plebeian?"
"Somebody's got to be. We need a place to stay, since your new friends weren't exactly welcoming us with open arms."
"Cabaline wizards are not my 'friends,'" Mavortian said.
"I meant him," Bernard said, jerking his head at me.
"I ain't friends with hocuses."
"Even when one of them is your brother?" Mavortian asked.
"Yeah, and us so close and all. Bernard's right. Let's find a hotel."
"Suggestions?"
"Yeah, let's go back to the Crimson Ape," I said, and maybe it was more of a snarl than anything else, and maybe I had reasons.
Mavortian gave me a look, but didn't bother with actually saying nothing. Bernard said, "That first place we tried for news looked all right. And it's not far, since we spent the afternoon walking in a great big circle."
"Your reasoning is impeccable," Mavortian said, and you could have sliced bread with the edge in his voice. "Let's go."
I was also getting really tired of walking at Mavortian's pace, but I'd seen what happened the one time Bernard had tried to suggest hiring a mule or a sedan chair or something, and since it was Mavortian paying me instead of the other way around—at least, if he did pay me, which could still happen—I didn't figure I had the leeway to tell him to stop being an asshole about it.
The hotel was called the River Horse. It was clean and cheap, and since most of the building was a bar, not real quiet. I practically cheered when they finally bounced the last drunk at the ninth hour of the night and I could get to sleep.
Where I dreamed about Keeper. Which figures. In the dream we're laying in her bed, with the huge teak bedframe carved with dragons and knights and all kinds of weird shit. We've just fucked, and she's still laying half on top of me, propped up on her left elbow so she can see my face. She's tracing the scar on my face with her index finger. She knows that bugs me. I move my head, but she just laughs, and her right hand is still there. I'd move again—I don't like Keeper's mind games—except that her left hand has got itself clenched in my hair, just behind my right ear.
"You weren't going to leave, were you, Milly-Fox?" she says. "Because you know I don't like you leaving before I'm done."
"You ain't done?"
She laughs, like a tiger growling. Her right hand leaves my face—and Kethe I'm grateful—and slides down my neck, my chest and stomach, curls around my cock. "I don't think you're done either. Or are you going to tell me you're just being polite?"
"Keeper, I can't. I got a girl."
"Do you, Milly-Fox?" she says, and her right hand comes back up my body until her fingers are against my cheek again.
"Yeah. Her name's Ginevra."
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this," and she ain't sorry at all, I can hear it in her voice, "but she's dead."
I woke up with a start. It was nearly dawn, and the voice I was hearing wasn't Keeper's. It was Mavortian, chewing Bernard out like the end of the World. Powers, what
now
? I thought. A lifetime in the Lower City suggested pounding on the wall and yelling at him to shut the fuck up, but I Was grateful enough to be out of that dream to let it slide. And besides, right about then Bernard started yelling back, and they wouldn't have heard me anyway.
"Another great morning," I said to the ceiling, and rolled out of bed.
Mavortian had convinced the hocuses that there really was something nasty in the tower, and him and the clerky-looking Kekropian even seemed to know what to do about it. So we were all supposed to go there today and do whatever it was you did to nasty shit like that to make it go away. I didn't see what good us annemer types were going to be, but when I caught Mavortian and said so, he said, "No, you have to come."
"Why?"