I descended through the levels of the Mirador as quickly as I could, avoiding the legions of servants who were preparing the fortress and the court to face another day. I had a vague, uneasy feeling, too gossamer-thin even to be called a hunch, that I had only a limited amount of time, as if I were caught in one of the fairy tales that Belinda had liked to tell. This muddled, superstitious instinct told me that if I was not out of the Mirador by dawn, I would find all its gates locked against me, and I would be trapped. I was all but running by the time I reached the Rose Arbor, already mentally tracing my course through the Warren to the Mortisgate, where the guards would be coming off duty, and even if they noticed me, would not be curious.
Once again I was unaware of Malkar until he spoke.
"Felix!" he said, one hand, as powerful as a lion's paw, catching my arm before I could get by him. I could tell from his expression that he had decided to ignore the events of the night, ignore them in his own peculiar way that meant I would never be allowed to forget them.
"Malkar," I said; I could hear the strain and fear in my voice and hated myself for giving him the satisfaction. "Guh-good morning."
"Indeed it is," he said with an expansive smile. I recognized the smile; it was the one he wore almost constantly around Stephen and Vicky. I wondered distractedly if either of them ever saw in it the fanged snarl that I saw. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
I froze, and no plausible lie came to mind.
"Nowhere?" he said. "That's what I thought." His paw tightened, and he turned me around with him. "Someone who didn't know better might imagine that you were planning to skip court."
I made a faint, inarticulate noise, but he took no notice. "I'm surprised at you, Felix. You left your sash in my room, and you need to bathe and change." He gave me a sidelong, glittering smile that made me feel like a rabbit who sees the shadow of an owl. "We certainly don't want to be late."
"We?"
He couldn't have heard me; it wasn't even a whisper. But he knew, and he was gloating. "Absolutely. You don't think I'd
desert
my protégé just when he needs me, do you, Felix?"
"No," I said, and as he pulled me past the Harriers' Gate, I saw the sun rising over the walls of the city.
Mildmay
I made it back to Midwinter about the second hour of the morning. Scabious was on the front stoop, pretending like he wasn't waiting for me.
"Morning, Scabious," I said.
"Hi, Gilroi." He shuffled his feet and said, "You're home early. Late, I mean."
"Yeah."
"Um. Is everything okay?"
"Sure."
"Were you out all night?" His eyes were wide.
"Yeah." He would've been thrilled to death if I'd told him even a quarter of what I'd been up to. I said, "I got to get some sleep. Later, okay?"
"Sure! I mean, you know… sleep well, Gilroi." He went red as a brick.
"Thanks, Scabious."
I went inside. Scabious's mother was waiting for me, arms folded, at the foot of the stairs.
"Rent ain't due for a half decad," I said.
She looked me up and down, making me realize that the knee was out of my right trouser leg and the front of my shirt was covered with muck. And I was out without a coat. But Mrs. Pickering never had thought I was a gentleman. "What nonsense are you filling my boy's head with now?"
I was too tired even to be pissed off. "Mrs. Pickering, I—"
"I know. Pure as rainwater, you are. Never broken the law in your life."
"Whatever I done, I ain't gonna hurt Scabious."
"Not if you know what's good for you," she said and finally quit blocking the damn stairs.
"Yeah," I said and dragged myself up to my room to get some sleep.
Felix
We waited in Malkar's preferred antechamber, the Crimson, for court to convene. It had been six years since I had been in the Crimson Antechamber, and I had forgotten how much I hated it, hated that particular crowd of hungry, ambitious wizards who cultivated Malkar like fanatical gardeners with a hothouse flower. And Malkar smiled and let them. They had all hated me, and there was some tiny, mean part of me, the part that was still a whore, that enjoyed the looks on their faces when I followed Malkar into the room: those huge, horrified eyes, those hasty, fake smiles—for of course I had hated them, too, insane with jealousy that Malkar might decide he wanted one of them instead of me.
A pinch-faced spidery little man, whose name I could not remember, said, "Lord Malkar, is it true? Is he really…"
The water torture would have been nothing compared to the silence that followed his question; I could feel Malkar wondering if it would be amusing to force me to answer. But this time the knowledge that he could have done so was enough. He said, "From Pharaohlight? Yes, of course."
"But you never… Why?"
"Because he asked me not to," Malkar said, shrugging, and I cringed at the warm generosity in his voice. The Mirador knew how vain I was; they would not judge Malkar's explanation implausible or incomplete in the slightest.
No one had an answer to that. I could feel Malkar's malicious enjoyment. I locked my throat against the keening noise building in my chest, looked carefully, neutrally, at an empty chair, and waited.
The doors to the Hall of the Chimeras cried their opening like brazen lions. "Come, Felix," Malkar said, and the entire Crimson Antechamber was a silent seethe of hatred as I followed him out. As far as they were concerned, the last six years might not have happened at all.
The atmosphere in the Hall of the Chimeras was scarcely any better. The scandal had spread like plague; I could feel the word
whore
following me down the hall. My eyes went automatically to Lord Michael's Chair. Stephen slumped there, bearlike as always, with Vicky standing beside him. I could see Robert's blandly good-looking face just behind her. I looked to Stephen's other side before I could stop myself. Shannon had covered the bruise on his cheek with court maquillage, but I knew it was there. Only the rituals of the Mirador, ingrained by years of repetition, kept me upright and moving, and my face was surely as stark white as the shirt Malkar had given me.
Shannon did not look at me, and the cursory glance Stephen gave me said that Shannon had not told his brother about the evening farce's second act. Vicky was harder to read, but I thought the pin-scratch frown between her eyebrows was for Malkar—and the very fact that I couldn't be sure suggested that she didn't know what I had done, either.
Like a clockwork dog on a short leash, I followed Malkar to his favorite place, beside the bust of a haggard, vulpine king. I wanted to break away, to go back to my habitual place on the opposite side of the hall, where Sherbourne and Vida were standing, their hurt and concern plain on their faces; I wanted to scream out the truth about Malkar, about myself. But Malkar had defeated me, and I could only stand beside him, my eyes fixed on the mosaic chimera's tail beneath my feet, and try to outwait my pain.
I heard very little of what happened in court that morning, my mind in some dark, faraway desolation of stone and water. Voices eddied and swirled around me without penetrating. I didn't need to know; Malkar wouldn't let me care.
Eventually, I realized that the boots and skirt hems around me were moving. I looked up and saw that Stephen had risen, dismissing the court; he was leading Vicky and Shannon, with Robert in solicitous, inevitable attendance, through the family's personal door behind the Virtu's plinth. I followed Malkar toward the bronze doors at the other end of the hall.
Halfway there, a hand caught at my sleeve. I turned, aware of Malkar nearby, and saw Sherbourne, scared but determined; Vida was making her way toward us through the crowd.
"Felix," he said, "what's going on? Are the things they're saying about you true? What are you doing with
him
?"
"I hardly think that's any concern of yours," I said in a hard, flippant tone—the tone I used on Shannon's multitudinous admirers—as my heart tore itself into shreds. I knew what I had to say to make Sherbourne leave me alone. "But if you want the truth"—and I smiled at him, a deliberately brilliant, horrible, mocking smile—"you bore me, darling."
Sherbourne's crush on me had been an open secret for a year and a half. I had never breathed a word about it, never indicated by so much as a glance that I was aware of his feelings. I couldn't have chosen anything cruder to do if I'd had a week to plan in advance.
But it worked, and by working it would protect him from Malkar's poison. Sherbourne jerked back as if I had slapped him; as Vida came up to us, I could see the storm clouds already gathering in her face. But Malkar, adroit as always at heading off potential aggravations, interrupted.
"Come, Felix," he said. "We have much to accomplish." And he pulled me away.
I followed him like a child going obediently to be punished.
Mildmay
That afternoon, out of pure, cussed curiosity, I used my lock picks to take a look inside Miss Thomson's jewelry box.
It was a nice collection of stuff, and somebody'd picked it pretty careful with her in mind. Either Lord Ellis Otanius had taste, or he knew somebody who did. Lots of blue stones, sapphire and lapis lazuli, set in rings and earrings. Strings of pearls, varying quality. Some nice amber. And a choker necklace of cabochon rubies that could have fed all Lyonesse for a decad and a half.
I picked them up. They were real. They were old. I could take a guess at how much they were worth, and it made my mouth go dry. I was willing to bet that these were what Miss Thomson particularly wanted. The rest of it was just window dressing. And I wondered—I couldn't help wondering—what they were doing in a box of her jewelry when you'd have to be blind not to see they flat didn't suit her. And then I thought, He gives 'em to each gal in turn. Every time he takes a new lover, out come the rubies. I was glad Miss Thomson had taken them away from him, no matter what she wanted them for.
Felix
Malkar gave me some more of his phoenix-laced wine as soon as he had locked the door of his suite behind us. He thoughtfully left the decanter within reach, and I spent the afternoon lost in phoenix's soft, obscuring fog. It was better than thinking about the stricken look on Sherbourne's face, the contempt and anger in Vida's eyes, the bruise I knew was underneath Shannon's maquillage.
I longed for the oblivion that excessive consumption of phoenix would bring, the fugue state in which the consciousness could release itself, leaving the body to do as it was told, leaving no memories, no shame, no fear. But, ironically, I was too frightened of Malkar for that surrender; I could not bear to leave him where I could not watch him. It would be too much like turning one's back on a starving, sadistic lion.
He left me alone for hours; I was grateful. Even through the cloud of phoenix, every muscle in my body knotted when he finally came back and dragged me out of the chair.
"You're awake," he said; he sounded disappointed.
I couldn't answer him, numbed and fogged with phoenix as I was.
He snorted. "Well, at least it means I don't have to carry you. Come on, then."
"Wh…" I licked my lips, tried again. "Where?"
"We have work to do, dearest." He put his hand under my elbow and started toward the door.
It was half formula, half code, and I had not forgotten what it meant, no matter how much I wished I could have. "What are you going to do?"
"An experiment," Malkar said, with his wide, feral smile.
I made a noise—a moan, a whimper, the sob of a small animal caught by the predator it most fears—but had neither the courage nor the strength to pull away.
"Really, darling, pull yourself together." Contempt in his voice, contempt in his face. "Don't make an exhibition of yourself in the halls."
"Yes, Malkar," I said, by reflex alone.
He opened the door and led me out into the Mirador.
Mildmay
The Spinning Goblin is about halfway between a hotel and a whorehouse. The guy at the desk don't ask what you want the room for, but if you come in too often, he starts wanting a cut of your action. I didn't go there much—not enough for his fingers to get itchy. But the rooms were clean, and I like people who don't ask questions.
I waited for Miss Thomson outside. Stood in a tenement doorway and watched the traffic on Rue Celadon. The Engmond's Tor Cheaps mostly shut down at sunset, 'least for the perishables, so the road was full of wagons, the drivers keeping to their same slow amble no matter what the hansom and fiacre drivers shouted at them. You want a real feud, just look at the state of affairs between the Wagoners' Guild and the Handsome Men.
I saw Miss Thomson coming just as the bells started ringing the second hour of the night. The dress she was wearing was nothing like the green number she'd worn yesterday. It was a dull, smoky blue, with the high neck and the little fichu, like bourgeoises wear. When she got closer, I saw she'd pinned her hair in a big coil on the back of her head, so her neck looked long, like a swan's. She was wearing pearls in her ears, boring little things as genteel as that fichu, and she looked like she belonged in an old story, the sort of gal that heroes rescue from dragons and shit like that.
I stepped out of the doorway as she passed, and said, "What's with the dress?"
"Oh!" She jumped a little, and her cheeks colored. "Dennis. I… I work in a shop on the Road of Carnelian. I didn't have time to change."
"What kind of shop?"
"Oh, you know. Perfume and maquillage and lingerie—ladies' goods."
She had long-fingered, delicate, lily-white hands. I could imagine them among the silks and the cut-glass bottles.
"It's boring," she said, "but it pays the rent."
"Yeah." We were at the door of the Spinning Goblin, and I said, "Let the clerk think whatever he wants. Okay?"