"But... what are gaps?"

He could not see Evans' smile, but he could hear it, sparking alight.

"That's what's hard to explain. Gaps can be anything. They can be anywhere. They can be something tangible, that you can see and touch. The gaps between... between hair strands, grains of sand. Between the pages of a book, or perhaps between paper and a pen. Between a window and curtains, or between the folds of the curtain's fabric. Between a mirror and its reflection. Between the strands of woven fabric."

Percy stared vaguely at the bed. He could not understand Evans' words. They were like a tide that reached his feet, but left them dry.

"And others are more... abstract. Not as obvious, perhaps. Of course, there is different power to all these. The gap between memories, or between sleep and wakefulness. Or even the gap between two tasks, when time goes by with no purpose. The gap between the doing of things in which nothing is done. Between speech and its understanding..."

Evans' voice wove and wove, and with each new thread, Percy began to see a pattern. Now, he began to make sense of those words. He felt their understanding seep into his bones, sink its roots within him, till the earth of his skin. It was like an ancient thing that had long been waiting for him, a forest ground that longed to claim him and cover him in old moss. It frightened him, but for once, for the first time, it was not a fear that made him want to run; it was a fear that grounded him. It was a fear he welcomed.

And Evans went on, unfurling his tapestry.

"... between your expectations of a moment, your fears or hopes of that moment, and its reality when it comes to pass. Between a promise and your intention to keep it, or break it. Between desire and..."

Percy thought of that single drop of water and its touch as it drew silk down his back. He understood now, why that moment had so gripped him whole. It was not the drop. It was what he had wished it to be. But that, he would not think of.

"When you said... you needed a gap to summon the sorceress..." he began.

Percy tried again to remember what had happened in the music room, to reel those memories back to him now. They started to become clearer. He remembered how, when, the sorceress had been summoned. In that in-betweenness, between the end of music and the beginning of applause.

"You waited for that moment to summon her. That's what you meant" he murmured.

"Yes."

"But... if they draw magic from gaps... How can they wield magic from... nothing?"

Evans sat up at last. There was an intensity in his features that struck Percy.

"But that's just it, they're not nothing. Gaps are not an absence. They are the presence of everything that fits nowhere else."

Evans rose from the bed and took a towel from the folded pile by the tub. He faced Percy, and, kneeling on one knee, started to dry his hair, as though there was nothing more natural. Percy sat there and allowed it, eyes closed, all of him open.

He spoke again only once the towel was put away and his hair spread its mess of dark, wet-slick waves.

"Then, if I got it right... when sorcerers and fae cast curses, they are drawing their magic from these gaps."

"Yes."

"And when you're breaking the curses... what do you do? Surely there must also be some magic involved in closing gaps?"

"I just break the curses."

Percy stared at him, taking in that fire-lit landscape, reading between those handsome lines. He heard in Evans' voice the restless twitching of a concealed truth, the ripples of a creature under placid waters. Evans was not lying; but he did not, perhaps, truly feel that things were as simple as he claimed.

"And how come only some people can make use of that magic?" Percy asked suddenly. "Can't everyone see gaps?"

"Not everyone perceives them as you might think, no. And to be honest, I'm not sure why" Evans said softly. "I suppose... I suppose we're all different in our sameness."

Percy lingered for a moment in those words.

"I'm still not sure I understand what exactly are gaps" he said eventually.

Evans sat down on the hearth rug facing him, resting his elbows on his drawn-up knees. His eyes wandered about the room, and got lost.

"It's easier to understand if you try not to think of gaps alone" he said. "They only exist in relation to other things. You cannot pin one down and say, 'here it is, this is what they are'. They mean nothing by themselves, yet so much would lose all meaning if they were not there. Have you ever seen a shadow lamp?"

Percy was surprised at the question, but he nodded right away. He had seen one, once, when a travelling troupe of entertainers had visited his hometown. They had come to his house at his parents' bidding for an evening of entertainment. The amusement of the chosen one was a private matter: any delight that was too obvious, or not sufficiently dignified, was to be kept from the public eye, lest it delight others. They had juggled, danced, and played odd instruments, and then they had asked for the grand drawing room to be darkened. His father had frowned; he had invited select friends for the occasion, and few things pleased him more than to display his wealth with a scintillation of candles. Percy remembered his own impatience, fidgeting about with the tassels of a cushion, being told off by his mother.

It had been a while before the servants had put out every candle, and a single light was brought to glow within a lantern. A man had told a story as the shadows slowly spun in place, spilling their beauty and tales over the room. Percy remembered hoping he might one day have his own story told in such a room, with such a theatre of shadows. And then, out of the blue, he had ordered the show to stop.

"I liked it very much" he said in a murmur.

Evans smiled at him. A gift.

"Think of that shadow lantern, then, when you think of gaps. How do their pictures come to be? It is not merely the light, nor the metal of the lantern, nor the shadows: it is the gaps cut into the lantern, and the light that filters through those gaps."

Percy stared, feeling at last that an understanding settled within him. Evans looked back at him, and his smile warmed the flames of the fireplace.

Percy felt an urgent need to rattle that moment, to shake it out of its hinges, for fear of finding out what it would become, if he let it be. He thought of something stupid to say.

"What about gaps between teeth? Or does it all need to be poetic stuff?"

Evans chuckled, tossing his head back, freeing Percy from his eyes.

Percy remembered the two nights in which he had spied Evans checking his body with a cadence of obsession, first in that glade dipped in shadows, then in those moonlight-sharpened ruins. And he remembered – how could he not – being told to report any odd behaviours he spotted. He had every intention to no follow such orders, but to deny his own curiosity was harder. He relaxed his shoulders, his arms, his legs, and nearly drooped down as he put on his best attempt at nonchalance.

"If you would like some help washing, I could... you know. Since you've done it for me" he said, eager to display fairness, but never submission. "Or perhaps if you need help – checking yourself, as you were doing those nights..."

From where he sat on the hearthrug, Evans looked at him as he would at a strange path in the woods. Wary, curious, torn between getting lost and finding his way.

"I will gladly accept any help you offer me, Percy. I've been craving your help, even. I'll admit as much. But when you do offer it, let it be because you wish to help me, not because you wish to unearth my secrets."

"I – that is not at all what I..."

Even though Percy had raced back into his tunic as soon as he had stepped out of the bath, cladding himself in linen as he would in armour, there was still a nakedness clinging to him, a button missing, a lace he could not properly tie, not under Evans' stare. It was not stark undress, but it was enough to bare what he would usually have covered with ease. He knew that what he had said was not true. He thought of pushing the lie a little further, of strengthening it with this word and that look, but soon a fear flashed in him: what of gaps? If he lied and Evans believed it, would it create a gap, between a lie and its belief? Would that be good or bad? He felt he knew less of it all than he did before; there had been nothing to understand, before. He dropped the lie, discarded it like soaked firewood on his path.

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Evans had closed his eyes and veiled himself away from the room. He kept them closed as he spoke.

"If you want to help me, there is one more thing I would ask of you."

Percy knew better now than to try to guess what it could be.

"Yes, of course. Whatever I can do."

He could hear the meekness in his own voice, and a part of him revolted at it, wished it could be squeezed out of him. But he feared there would be nothing left of him in that moment if he did.

"Do you remember when we met up with the palace dignitaries, after the sleeping castle? You were taken to speak to a man in a tent, and I told you his name was Astred."

"Yes, I remember" Percy nodded.

He remembered more, too. He remembered being asked to be a thorn in Evans' side, a stone in his shoe.

"Tomorrow we will be doing the same. We'll be meeting their encampment nearby, he will summon you to his tent, and he will ask you to report on everything I did."

Those eyes of his still closed, and that flickering of the fire, light-fingered flames over his eyelids, as though trying to prise them open. It made Percy want to stay very still.

"Tell him all you like, but whatever you do, no matter what he asks, don't tell him about the deal Myrtle made with the sorceress. When you argued with her earlier, what you said... he will see it the same way you did. He will think that she has brought about more curses. Whatever happens, he can't think that of Myrtle."

Evans' voice was not particularly ominous, but Percy still felt a threat take shape and crawl about the room. The mere mention of Astred was enough.

"But how will I explain to him how the sorceress accepted her curse being broken? In the end, it was thanks to the offer Myrtle made her" he conceded, though he displayed his reluctance wholeheartedly.

"Say she took pity on me. Say I got on my knees and begged."

Percy wrinkled his nose. The idea of it gave him a sour taste. Heroes were not pitied; they took pity.

"He will see at once it's a lie" he objected.

Evans opened his eyes.

"Perhaps. Knowing him, however, it is quite simple. Tell him something he won't like, something that will cast me in an unflattering light: that's what he'll believe quickest."

With that, Evans stood. Percy felt a strange spell of vertigo as he watched him rise, as though the room was falling upwards.

"I'm just going to have a word with Valeria, but I'll be back soon."

He left. Only then did Percy feel the wonderful heaviness of his body, yearning to rest its weight on the bed and let its warmth soak and soften into the sheets. He chose the bed closest to the window and burrowed under the covers, submerging himself again, letting his head peek out just enough to have sight of the bathtub and the fireplace. Evans had seen him bathe; he was determined to do the same. It was, he agreed with himself, a simple matter of fairness and balance.

But by the time Evans came back, Percy was already tossed about by sleep, his head and arms and chest escaping the covers, unfairness reigning still.

When Percy woke the next morning, Evans was already dressed and standing by the embers of the fireplace. Of course. The chosen one did not have his sleep and his undershirt spied upon: he rose before everyone else and stood about looking ready. Percy squinted at him through sleep-veiled eyes. That readiness of his did not seem to carry the slightest hint of effort. How Percy despised it.

"I was about to give up on you and go down to breakfast alone" Evans grinned.

"Why didn't you?" Percy yawned as he stretched himself away from the honeyed warmth of the bed. He realized, to his astonishment, that he felt good.

"It still looks a bit empty downstairs. The innkeeper or the servers might... chat with me. They're nice, but... I don't really have any conversation to make."

He admitted it without shame, but without ease, too. Percy peered at Evans as he dressed, catching glances of him in-between his linen shirt, his tunic, his vest. He remembered what Evans had told him back at the tavern in the city. I don't think I'm good at speaking to people in these situations. The recollection came to Percy gently, tugging at his sleeve, bidding him to notice something about Evans. But it was scared off by a tremendous knock at the door.

"Don't make me go in there and wake you" Valeria's voice barged in.

"You really don't want her to do that. I speak from experience" Evans mouthed with a grin.

When they stepped into the hallway, a wondrous sight greeted them. Valeria was dressed in her usual outfit of unapologetic simplicity, brown leather trousers, white tunic and unadorned blue tabard. But her pale blond hair was braided in a mad, intricate profusion of curls, twists and twirls, all tamed into a perfect crown. It suited her, in the sense that it made her more terrifying still. She met their stunned stares with blank bluntness.

"Myrtle expressed a wish to braid my hair" was all the explanation she provided.

The accused appeared from behind her. Her muddy brown hair was barely held together in an uneven, sloppy braid that seemed to have an existential crisis about halfway through, and to give up entirely near the end.

"And Valeria made an effort" Myrtle grinned.

"Which, as I always told my charges, is what matters. Though I admit that saying feels less effective when I apply it to myself. And what did you two do to pass the time?"

"It passed on its own with no help from us" Evans smiled.

Myrtle turned to Percy, mumbled a good morning, which he felt goodwill enough to return, and trudged downstairs. He thought he saw in her greeting traces of Valeria's coaxing and lecturing. She had likely resorted to her extensive experience of patching up the quarrels of small children.

Breakfast was far too delicious: it put no one in a mind to be getting on their way again. They sat down to platters of cold meats and pastries, freshly baked bread and creamy salted butter, sweet jams and honeys, pitchers of cool milk and mugs of streaming, thickly-scented coffee and tea. Food mattered to Percy. People who treated it merely as fuel, he deemed, treated themselves merely as machines, though he supposed it was their business whatever little joy they managed to scrape from such a dour choice.

"I've asked Myrtle to stick with us for a while longer" Valeria announced after her third cup of tea, "and she's agreed."

"Why?" Percy asked, taking every care to make it sound as a sincere question, and not as an objection.

"Since she has made a deal with a sorceress, a sorceress who will be appearing to her again in the near future, I would rather that encounter happens under some supervision, so that neither Myrtle nor anyone else gets fucked over. As I've told you last night, Myrtle, as clever as I believe you to be, you have no previous experience with fae, and they can be tricky fuckers."

"No, that's fair. It won't do me any good to pretend I'm more experienced with it than I actually am" she said placidly.

Evans sipped his fresh milk in contented silence, holding onto his cup like it was the most precious thing in the world. Myrtle picked apart the crust from her bread and arranged it neatly on the edge of her plate. Percy watched on, fascinated. He had assumed at first that she was a picky eater, but the disconcerting sight of Valeria's queenlike hair reminded him that Myrtle needed to busy her hands relentlessly, lest she forget them somewhere if she left them unused for too long.

"When you say, so that no one gets... fucked over by the sorceress, what do you mean exactly?" Percy asked when his attention drifted away at last from the architectural marvel of bread crusts on Myrtle's plate.

"Well, son, you've already had a few examples of what they can do to people. If you ask me for more details, I'll have to take it as a sign of morbid curiosity, and I don't like to encourage that."

When they left the inn, Percy did his very best to show how sorry he was to leave it behind. He tipped the servants, shook the innkeeper's hand with fervent admiration, looked back longingly at the wild rose bushes to bid them farewell. He did it all, and more, to distract himself from the creeping awareness that what had pleased him the most in that inn, what he would most remember, he was not in fact leaving behind.

He glanced to his left, at Evans' hands as they held his horse's reins. Percy raised his eyes to the heavy clouds lingering above, begging them for any rain that might at last wash away the maddening feeling of a single drop trailing still along his back.

They rode north. The landscape carved itself into valleys and scarped mountainsides, sharp-edged cliffs and looming crags. The placid, even-tempered plains they had travelled through until then were far behind them now.

When they caught sight of the encampment, Percy stiffened in his saddle. The colourful tents looked to him like a pox on an otherwise healthy land. He tried to shake off that unsteadying feeling, like a pup shaking off dirt, but only managed to wade deeper into it. They were just tents, he repeated to himself, and in the tents, there were just men. Had he truly been raised to be unsettled by so little? He allowed his wounded pride to wound him in return, and he settled back into his saddle as the pain of it numbed his restlessness.

The camp was nestled against the towering cliffside of a mountain that time had cut clean where it stood. Melting snow bled silver down the mountainside. It trickled into a stream that coursed past the tents, and copses of pine trees spread a warm, sticky scent of sap. As they walked into the camp, leading their hoses by the bridle, the heads of armoured soldiers, liveried servants and robed dignitaries turned to watch them. But there was no real curiosity or interest animating their movements; they were torpid as riverbed mud. They turned their heads because a current came, flowed through them, disturbed the silt; but soon they would settle back on their indifference.

Percy tucked his head into his hunched shoulders and arranged himself neatly behind Evans. He cast a tall shadow, and Percy slipped into it quicker than he would ever admit.

Here and there, he dared a glance at the palace envoys watching them. The first time he had seen them, he had been struck by their solemn demeanour and their bone-deep sternness, rooting them in the world like great ageing oaks. But what he had then seen as grandeur now looked to him more like boredom.

He recognized the striped red tent at once. Just as last time, Evans was summoned in first. Valeria ushered Myrtle aside, and Percy noticed the urgency stirring her steps, usually so self-assured in their calm stride. A guard told him to wait nearby, and he did, his eyes lowered so that none would catch them in passing. He decided to do everything he was told: it would make things simpler, and he would be out of that camp all the sooner for it. When he was called at last, he tumbled into the tent in such a state of tangled anxiety that he did not even notice Evans leave.

As soon as he stepped inside, he had an odd feeling of being watched, by no one. Thick darkness engulfed him whole, granting him just an inch to breathe. And as he breathed, a familiar scent came to him, old, old as anything could ever be old to him. It was the scent that had always dwelled in the halls of his house, an incense made from prickly juniper. It was burned in small clay lamps, but he could see none now. His house had been miserly as far as sparing him any of the usual smells of domestic bliss: none of his childhood memories were steeped in the scent of freshly baked cakes or sun-warmed laundry. His parents had always used that incense to perfume the house as a temple to his future achievements. This, for better and for worse, smelled like home.

"Please take a seat" Astred's voice reached him.

Percy did not even think to object that it was far too dark for him to see where he might sit. He merely stumbled forward, groped blindly for a chair, found one, and sat. He was bound tightly by nothing. That darkness, that scent, that urge to do as he was told.