I didn’t bother making the kids have a wash before bed – they could clean off the muck from their legs and the Onsolorian sauces from between their fingers in the morning. They went out like candles the moment they crawled under the covers, and Xastur had dropped off way earlier; Xantaire carried him into their room and didn’t come back out again. I helped Orstrum get his bedding sorted, gave him a hand lowering himself onto his mattress, and bade him goodnight.
The nap I’d had on Atar and Linn’s couch before Wyre’s escape had left me feeling rather revitalised, considering how long the day had been, and even once I got under my own covers I couldn’t relax. My head was adrift on an open ocean current, waves bearing my thoughts far from the soft shores of sleep.
What kind of place should I buy with Em? How much should we spend? Should we look for somewhere close to Irimar, and Phanar and Kani, or go farther afield? Does it have to be some kind of ostentatious mini-castle? I don’t want to spend all my money… Do I have to have servants?
That would be the deal breaker, one hundred percent, and those houses were way too big to clean without access to super-speed. Neither of us were diviners, but I supposed we could always put some eldritches and elementals to the various tasks…
What happened with the twin arch-sorceresses? Where was Timesnatcher tonight? Why couldn’t anyone foresee Wyre’s actions before he took them?
After five minutes of pointless dithering I tested the vampire-senses once more, and picked up the sporadic cry of displeasure from a few streets over – the residents were still trying to deal with the consequences of Wyre’s oversized tantrum, the wrecking of their holidays and their homes.
I’d almost convinced myself to go out, see what aid I could provide to those in need, when a little, tinny voice spoke right there in my ear, a familiar voice seeming to emanate through my pillow:
“F-Feychilde? Feychilde, can we speak?”
I sat up and spun around. There, right next to where my head had been and almost invisible to the eye, was a tiny centipede.
“Nighteye?” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, I tracked you down… I, hm, I hope I’m not imposing?”
“I think imposing’s the last word I’d choose for you in that shape, no offence.” I smiled. “Why didn’t you speak up earlier?”
“I was waiting for the elderly chap – Orstrum, is it? – to nod off. Didn’t want to disturb anyone, seeing as I’m, hm, you know… what I am. Then you did something with something dead, and –“
I was eyeing the miniscule bug critically. “What you are? You mean, a heretic? Yune’s fingers, what happened, Nighteye? The last time I saw you, you were ripping vampires in half in Oldtown, and Leafcloak, she –“
She said you were coming to Zadhal, was what I wanted to say.
“She’s dead,” the centipede said, “I know. I was at the memorial. It was a, hm, good idea, that.”
“Timesnatcher was trying to bait Duskdown into showing his metallic face,” I murmured, then looked around. “Say, can we go somewhere more private? If my brother or sister wakes up and overhears us, their memories will be grounds to arrest them.”
Maybe even execute them, I thought grimly.
The centipede moved forwards and started to climb my hand.
“O- of course, if you want to carry me?”
I’d been planning on meeting him outside and using the wraith-form to pass through the walls, but I was easy either way. I moved him to my shoulder then got up, pulled on my boots, and tiptoed through the main room.
I locked the door behind me, double-checked my force-lines, then set off down the stairs to the street.
“We’ll just go across the lane,” I said. “I’ve got an apartment sitting empty, and I’ve only been over a couple of times, just to make sure there’s no one squatting in it.”
“You’ve been giving back to the people, I hear,” the druid said.
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“And not just by buying beer,” I replied.
He produced a little tinkle of laughter.
“Aren’t people going to think you’re, hm, a little strange, talking to yourself?”
I cast my gaze around. There were still people out, looking over the rails with drinks in hand, being loud and revelling. I waved to a few people, but no one said anything.
“I think they found out today who I really am, most of them.”
“Yes, I’d surmised that much… How, hm, how did that happen?”
As I ascended the stairs towards my new apartment I filled in my druidic friend on the current state of affairs in Mud Lane, the fallout of Tanra’s revelation. Wyre’s true identity. All the chaos, and the death.
“Em-Emrelet?” he asked in disbelief, when I explained what had happened in the end. “She d-did that to them?”
“Stormsword,” I corrected him quietly. “I’m sorry, my good man, but there was absolutely zero chance I was letting them go… Hey, I didn’t bring a key – can you go under the door, or can I try making you a wraith?”
“Try… hm, what?”
“Never mind. Go under the door, will you?”
I met him inside, and let a green, light-shedding illusion leap off my hand, the amorphous shape flaring up the walls and across the ceiling.
“You can become yourself again, if you want,” I said, crossing to the window and casting about. Everything seemed to be in order – the place was bare, but the boards were neat-enough looking. The door opened into the centre of the main room, which had its own hearth and a proper chimney, though the trip to get fresh water was going to be a pain in the backside…
“The whole point of this place is moot, now,” I said, laughing a little – when I turned back he’d transformed into his customary shape, clothed once more in the burlap robe and purple hood I’d seen him wearing at the Maginox. “I was going to use it as my hideout, if I was followed, or if I had to meet someone. Now I’m probably going to buy a house in Treetown…”
“Really?”
“I’m moving in with her. Em, I mean.”
“Wow – don’t you think that’s, hm, a little fast? Or –”
“Nighteye,” I cut him off. “Theoras. I don’t think you tracked down a champion and infiltrated their bedroom to discuss their love life. Tell me what happened, man. You act surprised at Em killing, but you’re…”
I indicated his heretic’s guise with a hand.
In the very moment I used his real name he had seemed to stiffen, then as I finished he pulled back his hood, revealing the matted blond tresses, the narrow, elfin face. His feverish gaze trapped my own.
“Okay, Kastyr. I’ll tell you why… why I’m here. It’s Vardae, you see. She saw it, and she told Ithilya, and I – I couldn’t, hm, couldn’t not come – if you can pass the message on, Kastyr –”
“Slow down,” I said. “And I prefer Kas.”
“I prefer Theor,” he replied, “but I never really –”
“Why don’t you start again, Theor… from the beginning?”
I sat down cross-legged with my back to the wall – it’d been a long day. Theor hesitated for a moment then flung himself down, sprawling over the floorboards, a burlap heap. He put his elbows on the floor, his chin in his hands, and watched me carefully as he spoke.
In a halting voice he explained. Everything. It took him three times as long as he needed, in all likelihood, but he got there.
Lord Justice Yular Vernays went on my ‘okay to torture’ list.
“She found me in the woods outside the house. She – she was just waiting there for me, wh-where Avenar usually waited… Is he okay, by the way? I haven’t –“
“Your grouse?”
His eyes lit up, and he nodded.
“Fang’s looking after him for you,” I said tersely.
“Oh – oh that’s good. He gets so –“
“Man.”
“Okay.” He drew a deep breath. “She was watching me, that night on Welderway, with the vampires… She knew what had happened – how I wanted to… hm… how I wanted to kill my brothers. But she said it wasn’t time – she said I had to know what it was to, hm, to kill. That there had to be something deserving of death. And I, hm, I knew there was someone. Something.”
I stared at him, perplexed.
But there were no disappearances reported – his mum and dad, his two brothers; they’re all okay… more’s the pity –
But he’d caught my confused glance. “Brancados,” he whispered. “My horse. The foulest-tempered horse in all of Mund, I sw-swear it.”
“You killed him…”
That made sense of one of the weirder aspects of Fang’s reports.
“I… She said it would make me… make me change. Change… I went to sleep on the streets amongst the scum. And – and a few nights later, I couldn’t help it. I went to her. And she showed me…”
He got up, and stared through the green-lit window-frame at the snow wafting down from the sky.
“Theor? Theor, I’m sure it did make you change, but not necessarily for the better. Do you remember what Leafcloak taught you? You aren’t suppo-“
“We aren’t supposed to kill,” he said, his voice suddenly like iron. “But we do. We have to.”
I started getting up too. “No, we don’t –“
“You can’t see it! There’s no difference! You won’t kill a man, or a horse, but you’ll kill a pig, won’t you?” He was angrier now than I’d ever seen him, angrier than I could’ve imagined him, rounding on me with the verdant radiance flaring in his eyes, jabbing a finger at me – but my shields didn’t react. “Or if not a pig, an ant – or you’ll carelessly pluck a flower, won’t you, for your lover, or kick the grass when you’re frustrated! What can we even eat?”
It was only as he said this that I noted the awful thinness of him beneath the sack-like garment he wore.
“Theor, you –“
“I didn’t come here for your pity, Feychilde. I didn’t come for you to fix me. I came –”
“I don’t care why you came! You’re here; it’s Yearsend. If you say you don’t need my help, you don’t need fixing, fine. I’ll shut up about Leafcloak, I’ll shut up about killing. But you need to come back, Nighteye. You can’t stay with them! They’re not just killers; it’s not like a kid stamping on ants, a farmer pulling spuds out of the ground. They’re mass-murderers. They’re –“
“They’re doing the right thing,” he said, his eyes closed. “We’re doing the right thing.”
* * *