When the sun set, Idris could feel the bruises on his knees, the knots in his shoulders. Layton placed a final fig in front of him. He was drenched in sweat, trembling and hot, but the challenge had not been met, yet, and Idris, while he was certain that this kind of necromancy was highly frowned upon, wanted just once to achieve it.

“Half-Moon Sinister,” Layton said, moving behind him. “Your body might not allow it. You are going to pull something, soon.”

“What do I need abdominals for?” said Idris, twisting. His side screamed with over-use.

“For Half-Moons. Do not strain yourself, Idris.”

“I have it.”

“You are going to pass out.”

“I said, I have it.”

Layton did not sigh or protest. He settled on his stool, crossed his legs daintily.

“Poor form,” he said. “Raise your right arm.” The whole arm shook, but Idris did as he was told. “Unclamp your jaw, I will not tell you again.” Idris stretched his jaw. “Better. Deep breath, now. Feel the aria around you, inside you.”

The aria sang, low and beautiful. Idris pulled it through his lungs, let it momentarily soothe all of the aches in his limbs.

“Feel the aria within the fruit,” said Layton, his voice muffled beneath the death aria. “Everything living is dying. Every living thing is music to us.”

Idris breathed, his eyes on the fig, watering with the physical exertion. Plants had boring music, difficult to follow, but he could hear something like a plant-based death aria, plodding and listless.

“Take it,” said Layton simply.

Idris filled his head with the fig’s sound.

“Give,” he ordered, and he gripped and pulled.

He felt, for a moment, something. The fig’s music swelled, once, and the aria constricted, and there was the taste of charcoal on his tongue – and yet the fig remained untouched, lying on the plate.

“Bells,” he gasped, letting the aria collapse out of him, and he fell onto his palms, breathing heavily, too tired to continue. His mouth and throat felt raw, his muscles liquid. If he stared at another fig for too long, he was sure he would go mad.

There was a light, consoling pat on his shoulder.

“Something happened, that time,” said Layton, with surprising warmth. “Let me take a look.”

“I grasped it,” said Idris, dropping onto his haunches and letting his head loll backwards. “I… I felt it. It slipped through my fingers.”

“Ah-ha.” Layton lifted the plate, rolled the fig. On the underside was a grey, wrinkled patch. “Success, no?”

Idris gazed at the dead flesh, checked his palm. Nothing.

“It likely wisped away on the wind,” said Layton. “No matter. This is progress.”

“It is nothing,” said Idris, brushing his wet fringe out of his face.

Layton watched him. “You are stubborn,” he said, “and rather demanding of yourself.”

“If it is not everything, then it is nothing,” said Idris firmly. “And that is nothing.”

“Idris…” Layton frowned, laughed. “You are funny to me.”

“Funny. Good. I am glad I make someone laugh.” Idris took the wine jug, took three big mouthfuls. “I see less ‘funny’ and more ‘tragic’, but each to their own.”

“You will make yourself sick, drinking like that.” Idris did not reply and drank more. He did not want to feel the aria anymore; he was too weak for it. “You are self-taught,” said Layton. “For a self-taught necromancer, with a physical limitation, you are rather remarkable. And yet to see you casting this afternoon… you get so angry at yourself at anything less than perfection.”

Idris put the jug down, unstuck his shirt from his back.

“Necromancy does not allow for mistakes,” he said, feeling the dull throb in his stump, the itching in his phantom foot. “That was the first lesson I learned.”

Layton sucked his cheeks and looked abashed. Carefully, Idris used his crutch to drag himself back up, and, once he had his balance, he stood a moment regaining his composure.

“Bathe and rest,” said Layton. “I will bring you a plate.”

“If I see a fig, I shall vomit,” Idris said as he left the room.

“Understood.”

As Idris washed, he contemplated the day’s contradictory events. There were plans he had to enact, items he had somehow to steal, and yet… and yet the comfort of kinship, the innate understanding that beside him was a man who had been taught necromancy, who had access to resources yet unknown, and could show Idris the things he could only dream of doing…

It stopped every thought he had of revenge or duty to his Queen in its tracks.

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He liked hearing the death aria come from someone else’s lips. He enjoyed the nuance in Layton’s finger-positioning, in the tilt of his hips. Seeing another pair of eyes light up in grey fire while he worked…

It was better than he had ever dreamed.

Idris was not alone, here, in Raven’s Roost. There was a man who was willing to pass down all of the knowledge and experience he had, and – what, for an artefact, he was going to throw that away? It was not the fact that they shared blood; it was that they shared magic.

What would he truly lose by staying here?

His palace position, for certain. Probably all of his friends. But those things were temporary in themselves. The lessons he could learn here were invaluable. The texts, alone, probably would bankrupt a kingdom that attempted to buy them. The time he would have to study, to practice…

To practice whatever debauched magic he had been sweating over all afternoon.

Idris sank lower in the tub, until his chin touched the water.

That kind of spell was the reason that people feared necromancy. The very idea that he could steal the death aria from another living thing, hold it as flames in his palm – it was crude and terrifying. When would he ever need such a spell? Why would he wield it? Was the joy of mastery worth more than the comfort of innocence?

And once he was done with that, what next?

Everything living is dying. Every living thing is music to us.

Idris shivered, though the water was warm, still. The path was open to him. How many irreversible steps had he already taken?

Aching and confused, he got out of the bath, dried himself and began cataloguing the herbs Layton had procured from Temple Hill. Everything there was fresh and could be used, and Layton had provided the tools to work them; Idris was mashing the sleeping nettle into a thick paste when Layton opened the door with a tray of food in his hand.

“Still hard at work, I see,” he said, setting the tray on the bed. “My, what happened to the stool?”

“It fell down the stairs,” said Idris, focusing on the end of the pestle.

“Ah. I suppose that was inevitable.”

“Layton…” He did not know how to ask his question properly. “Is the pursuit of knowledge… is that an inherently evil thing?”

Layton raised his eyebrows.

“That is a deep and troubling question, Idris,” he said.

“Let me rephrase. What do you use your necromancy for?”

Idris stopped pounding the pestle, watching Layton for his answer. Layton thought, then shrugged.

“For surviving,” he said. “I can hunt, rather effectively, without a bow and arrow and with little wastage. The tower, thanks to the thralls, takes care of itself. I rarely get sick. The forest provides.”

“Why do you need to know how to steal an aria from another living being?”

“I do not. Not really. But if someone marched on my land, attempted to hurt me, do you not think I am entitled to defend myself with what my blood gave me?” said Layton, frowning. “I am a thin, weak man, Idris. I cannot fight. But I can kill a man from thirty steps away if I must. Self-defence is not evil. Is knowledge of the correct way to shoot an arrow evil?”

“I…” Idris frowned, troubled, and returned to his work. “I suppose not.”

“You are tired,” said Layton. “Eat and sleep. Tomorrow, you will feel better.”

Idris nodded.

He found it amusing in a perverse way that in times of self-doubt, returning to the lessons his uncle had given him about herblore and medicine soothed him. He would never be a healer, not in the magical sense, but the days of his youth supplied him with a trade, even if everything else was lost. Idris sighed, made his poultices and pastes and dealt with his stump. Then, uneasy without the muscle memory of his pestle and mortar, he took himself off to bed.

*

Idris woke in a familiar place, in the sense that the dream was familiar, filled with trees flush with foliage. None of the scenery was recognisable but the quality of the light was noticeably yellow, like spring dawn. The leaves glittered.

The disconcerting feeling that accompanied the familiarity did not come from suddenly being outside. It was that Willard was sitting in front of him.

“Is this…?” said Idris.

“A bright dream?” said Willard. “Aye.”

“How are you doing this?” Idris whispered, looking around. It was clearly the fae realm. After Braemar, the Fairy Queen had taken his consciousness somewhere similar; Idris had assumed she had been able to do so because of the poppet. “Where -?”

“Ain’t important,” said Willard. He was not his jovial self. Instead, his face was still, his brows furrowed. “Idris, where in creation are you?”

Idris pursed his lips. Lila had kept his secret. In Willard’s hand, though, was a bag. He raised it, shook it.

“These yours?” he said, rattling the knuckle bones. “That’s how. Now you answer my question.”

“I cannot,” said Idris. Willard scoffed, rolled his eyes.

“Right. Well, you’re in those creepy ruins still, aye? ‘Cause Lila sped us out of there right quick. Don’t think I don’t know she’s a-keeping all your secrets. I ain’t going to pry. She has her own reasons to do what she does. ‘S’why I came to the source.” He leaned forwards, his usually warm eyes stony and cold. “This ain’t diplomacy,” he said firmly. “I ain’t your boss or your servant. Thought I was your friend. I ain’t stupid, Idris. I’m common and poor but I ain’t stupid. Whatever made you sad, from your old house, it’s still inside your eyes. If you don’t trust me, that’s fine. But don’t assume I’m stupid.”

“I have never thought lowly of you,” said Idris. “It just… the situation is delicate, Willard. Listen – I know where the breastplate is but I have to get it out without alerting the owner –“

“But we couldn’t come with you,” said Willard, raising an eyebrow.

“No.”

“And you couldn’t tell nobody but Lila.”

Idris said nothing. There was no way he could explain.

“I know how it looks,” he said, but Willard scowled.

“No, you don’t. Is this big secret enough to lose all your friends over? What if the Queen marches on the ruins to find you?”

“The Fairy Queen is going to own me if I do not get this breastplate,” Idris said, beginning to feel annoyed.

“Then why’re you doing it with no help?” Willard said. “Last thing I knew, you were spitting up black gunk and you wandered off without your foot on. We thought you were dead, Idris.”

“What do you think will happen when I destroy the Spirit Glass?” Idris said, breathing hard. “Everything will be fine? I am already dead. I have to steal from the Queen to get this done, and if I survive that, the process of dismantling the stupid material is going to kill me.”

“Steal from the Queen?” said Willard, frowning. “She has some?”

Idris sighed, shut his eyes. “It is in the royal vault. But Willard, that cannot become common knowledge.”

“What else are you hiding for ‘diplomacy?’” said Willard.

“This is not easy for me, Willard –“

“Nah, and you’re real determined to make it harder.” He sighed irritably. “Are you safe, at least?”

“I am.”

“There ain’t nothing else you can tell us?”

Idris thought. “I sent a message to the Queen. She knows… as much as you. Where are you?”

“Safe.”

“That is fair,” Idris muttered.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” said Willard.

“Protect Lila.” He nodded, silent. “And… if you see a man with blond hair and a birthmark under his ear… stay away from him. Please.”

Willard nodded again, did not question.

“I promise,” said Idris quietly, “that when this is over, I will tell you everything. But… not now.”

And then he woke, and his skin tingled like he had pins and needles all over. Shaking, he felt for the aria, flicked his fingers and, although he did not know if the knuckle bones rattled, he was sure that a moment afterwards, the tingling sharpened, then diminished.

He had to speed his work up.

He got out of bed and returned to his pile of books in the library, and he put the pieces together.