Where it Hurts

[Tom Cooke]

Quiet Streets • The Rose

After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719

Too drunk for this. Too drunk? Maybe just drunk enough.

Ne, Tom thought a moment later. Not enough Low Tide in the fucking harbor for this. It surprised him how hard it was, this time, pulling her to her feet, bracing all his meager weight on his own shaking legs. It wasn’t three years ago that he’d scooped her up in his arms – her and then Uzoji, waters rest him, only a little heavier – and carried her back into the abandoned warehouse, out of the quickly-falling snow. He was still taller than her, but only, it seemed, by the breadth of a hair. Even nauseated and taxed and drunk, he felt an iron in her that he’d lost.

He’d thought she might refuse his arm; he didn’t know what he’d’ve done. Mung, he thought. Soft. But he didn’t think he could leave her here, sitting on her haunches in the lovely perfume of her own vomit.

It was natural: he sought the streets he knew. They’d been held up once, and the safety of Cantile’s bright, laughing thoroughfares, even now chattering with life, called to him. Again, he thought, he didn’t know what he’d do – looking askance at the narrow grin of every alleyway they passed, spilling out shadows like whispers; tracing every subtle movement, every little chittering of a rat rooting through a pile of scrap, darting to and fro in the filth. He and his escort were both out of commission, and he didn’t think he’d get lucky again with Anatole’s scholarly fists.

So all that was left to him was to put one clumsy foot in front of the other. To stay quiet as possible, to watch the weight he put on Niccolette’s arm, to pull her back on course whenever they wove to port. To trust her to do the same, whenever the boat started to keel starboard.

The quiet streets of Cantile gave way to the quiet streets of the Fords.

Tom had avoided them on his way to Voedale, but there was no avoiding them now. King’s Court was too loud, and the idea of cutting through Sharkswell wasn’t any more appealing. He kept his lips pressed together tightly, and he didn’t hesitate. They meandered down streets he knew like the lines on hama’s palms, familiar houses squatting together with their shutters closed tight like sleeping eyes. Laundry hung out to dry, buffeted by the warm updrafts of early Roalis.

If their path ever took them in the direction of the street, Tom redirected it, gently, casually – firmly, then. Soft, mung, he thought, when he could think at all. Thinking put him in danger of picturing the garden gate, the sage leaves rustling in the night wind, the smell of incense and fresh-baked bread drifting out of a cracked window. The rambling notes of a…

It wasn’t much further to Lossey. He thought about leaving Niccolette at the house in Quarter Fords; it wasn’t too far off his path, and he thought he’d still be able to find his way. Still, he didn’t know if the house was still hers. There were enough ghosts between them, he thought, to fill a phasmonia. More to the point, the incumbent would’ve never known where they had lived, and he didn’t think letting on was a good idea.

Lossey was quiet, even quieter than the Fords. The streets broadened, but not by much; the Fords’d got cleaner, scattered with trees and shrubbery, as they’d gone along, and Lossey, at first, was an extension of the wealthier side. More merchants’ houses, well-appointed inns, stables with quiet, whickering horses. The broad, starry sky overhead.

“I was going to have you leave me here,” Tom said softly, tiredly, indicating a pleasant-looking, two-story inn, “but it’s not where I’m staying, and I don’t know if I can –” He waved his free hand. “Just a little farther.”

He guided their steps southwest, toward Sharkswell, where the buildings shrank and began, again, to lean. His shuffling slowed, and finally stuttered to a halt. He sighed, indicating a rickety-looking set of stairs up the side of an old brick house. He shot a glance up at a third storey window, unlit, the blinds drawn – good. Old Miss Marlowe’d be asleep, if he was lucky.

He finally disentangled his arm from Niccolette’s, but carefully, keeping a covert eye on her balance. “You, ah – thank you.” A clipped two words, a little slurry. Thank Hawke, maybe, he thought dryly, and not very gratefully. But then he glanced at her ear, swallowing thickly. He put one hand on the railing, holding on tight.

He paused, wishing he’d left her at the Fords after all. Wishing he’d figured out some way to bring it up, some way he’d know. He didn’t see as he could leave it there, though. He might not’ve been thankful to be rescued from Kendrick’s like a distressed damsel, but he was thankful for something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt the weight of a debt he couldn’t pay.

“You don’t have far to walk?” It was as inelegant as his thank you, but he was too tired and drunk to think. He shouldn’t’ve said anything, being as it wasn’t his business, and he shouldn’t’ve cared. He kept telling himself that.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bordering Sharkswell

Slow, slow steps, through the quiet streets of Cantile and the quieter streets of Quarter Fords. Niccolette could feel herself pulled home, towards the house that was empty of everything now except memories. There, at least, she could cry in peace. It was getting harder to fight it, harder and harder. She had wept tears enough to fill the harbor; she had sobbed her heart out in the Muluku Islands, in Thul Ka, in the Rose, in Vienda, and on all the airships betwixt and between. She had already cried a little in front of Vauquelin tonight, and Niccolette was not such a fool as to swear to herself she would not do worse. Better not to make promises she could not keep.

There was no Mugrobi in the air, not this late, and no smells of fragrant, familiar cooking. Maybe there were strains of some distant music, drifting in on the breeze, strange and unsteady melodies. Maybe it was only her mind, Niccolette thought, trying to impose order on the chaos in her ear.

Once, Niccolette felt the prickling of her nerves, felt something she couldn’t name whisper danger down her spine. She pulsed her field, sharp and bright and vibrant, and felt it recede away in the night air - thought, maybe, she heard distant footsteps over the pounding of her heart. Her field settled back against her and she tilted, the world spinning. For a moment, she leaned hard against Vauquelin; she felt him start to crumble beneath her and then felt him hold. She thought she could feel him draw strength from somewhere inside, thought she could -

Niccolette found her feet again, then, settled back onto them, and kept walking. She didn’t say anything, not acknowledging his weakness or his strength - nor her own.

They had nearly stopped in Lossey, outside of a small, comfortable inn; Niccolette felt the faintest pang of relief. Yes, she thought - yes, just get Vauquelin home and then - her mind shied away from the thought of what was to come, the slow, staggering walk alone. If she even -

But Vauquelin spoke and they kept walking. Niccolette was shivering now; she thought he could feel it, but she didn’t know what she could do about it. The breeze off the bay was warm, this far from the harbor, but she felt goosebumps on her skin, and Uzoji’s coat seemed to do nothing for it. 

They stopped again, this time completely. Niccolette felt Vauquelin slide his arm from hers. She swayed and held, her arms wrapping around herself, trying to hold her jaw firm to keep her teeth from chattering. She glanced up at the house and couldn’t think anything of it; she felt as if her mind was swaddled in cotton, wrapped in a numb haze of cold and exhaustion.

Vauquelin was speaking, and it took Niccolette three tries to focus her attention on him, longer for the words to catch up. She shook her head - grimaced, tears stinging the corner of her eyes, her hand reaching reflexively for her ear. She caught the motion, swallowed painfully.

“Not far,” Niccolette heard her voice through a haze; it sounded like someone else’s. She straightened her back, drawing herself upright - when had she started to lean to the side?

Could she cast? An adrenaline spell - just a little transfer of energy, a little more borrowed against tomorrow. Niccolette weaved, back and forth in the night. No, she decided, finally. Perhaps she could, but she would be turning to the mona from weakness, not strength. She would not dare to ask that of them.

The Bastian turned, slowly - shakily - wobbled unsteadily. Stopping, she thought, idly; stopping had been her mistake. She ought not to have lost momentum. She took one step, then a second, drew herself up again, straight.

A third step, then, and her strength gave out. It wasn’t a fall so much as a collapse; her legs seemed to buckle beneath her. One moment she had been standing; the next she slumped, slowly, and slid as much as fell to the ground. She wasn’t even kneeling, really; she was a pile of tan slacks, Uzoji’s coat and messy dark hair, lying slumped on the ground. Not sobbing, Niccolette thought, shakily, resting her head against her arm as tears trickled slowly down her cheeks, running sideways to the paving stones beneath. At least she was not sobbing, the Bastian told herself, as her breathing hitched. Not yet.

Slowly – slowly, Niccolette curled up. She shuddered, her side pressed against the ground, and fumbled with her hands, digging them against the stone, trying shakily to push herself up at least to her knees, at least – a sob shuddered through her, and Niccolette sniffled. No, she thought – no, if she started sobbing now, she would never stop. She did not meant to fight it, but she wondered, shakily, if she might at least negotiate a temporary compromise – if she could at least hold off –

She could not seem to rise; it was all she could do to stay curled up on her side. Niccolette shuddered, breathing there for a moment, and then tried again, her whole body shaking with the effort. Hands and knees, then; she found them, shakily, and pressed herself up, and at least the effort was enough to keep her from sobbing. Niccolette shuddered. Her palm was throbbing; had she scraped it when she fell? She pressed a little harder against the street, trying and failing to find purchase – trying, so hard, and failing all the same.

[Tom Cooke]

Quiet Streets • The Rose

After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719

Ne drunk enough. He’d turned to the stairwell, rolling his shoulders, gritting his teeth against the lingering nausea. He’d braced his hand on the railing, felt it wobble underneath his tight-clenched fingers. The narrow wooden steps led up into the shadows of an awning over a second storey door; the darkness seemed to seethe, seemed to swarm with little motes of colored light, but if he forced his eyes to focus, he could make way still.

His mouth was dry, desert-dry, and the back of his skull’d started into a tsuter ache. He never learned, he thought. He never, ever learned.

When she’d spoken, he hadn’t quite believed her. He reminded himself, again, that it wasn’t his business. He felt her turn behind him, start to amble away; at the edges of his field, he felt hers recede. Wasn’t his business – he felt another little pulse of anger. If not for her, after all, he’d be back at Kendrick’s; if not for her, he’d’ve woken up tomorrow morning plastered to the floor of some laoso place on the east side, the nail of a hangover driven through his head, both his fists bloodied. The way things used to be. Maybe.

Or maybe not. He bowed his head, taking a deep breath. Running his hand through his hair, knotting his fingers in the bloodied curls. He sucked at a tooth, thinking how he already knew he wasn’t going to start climbing those stairs.

It didn’t surprise him when he heard the scuffle. He turned and started forward, wobbling, but he was too late: Niccolette had already sunk down, and now she was on her side, curling against the chill ground. Tom bit his lip hard, hesitating. He couldn’t see her too well in the dark, but he drank in the tangle of her dark hair, the stains and scuffs on Uzoji’s coat. The smear of something dark on the stones near her hand, and then the smear of something dark on her palm.

“Hey,” he mumbled, “hey, no,” and took another wavering step toward her. She was trying to push herself up, and he could see her thin arm trembling underneath the baggy fabric of Uzoji’s sleeve.

He leaned, and the whole world tilted. He froze a moment and shut his eyes, clasping one clammy hand over his mouth, breathing in deep through his nose. Drawing the cool air into his lungs until the tingling in his jaw eased off, until his stomach stopped roiling. The tang of bile burned his throat, but he didn’t throw up.

He tried again.

The mona in his porven were starting to settle, as much as they ever did. He didn’t feel as weak in the knees as he had outside Kendrick’s, though he still would’ve rather been sleeping it off. Because of this, he took a chance, kneeling carefully down beside her. He balanced himself against the cobbles with the fingertips of a shaky hand. All around him, he could feel that bright, sharp field.

Tom looked at her intently. There were tears rolling down her cheeks, he saw, but he didn’t follow their trails with his eyes. “Where are you staying?” His brows drew together. “If you can just loop an arm around my shoulder,” he said, hesitant, not at all sure he could carry them both upright, “we can try to make it there. Or try the stairs, either one.”

Or he could go up, wake Marlowe. He didn’t know. He swallowed. Godsdamn, but his throat was dry.

Familiarity shuddered through him again. He remembered how easy it’d been, lifting each of the two gollies up in his arms, even with his back twinging. Even breathing through a freshly-broken nose.

He remembered, too, watching her struggle with her useless limbs, the first time he realized how weak he was. Pushing himself up out of Vauquelin’s feather-bed, too soft, everything too soft, holding onto Cecily’s shoulder as he hobbled down the dark halls. Wondering if it’d be like that forever, fighting his body and the mona. Adjusting as he found his strength again, found it terribly different. Even now, it stung.

For the first time, he wondered what it’d been like for her to wake up that winter in ’fifteen, abandoned by the mona. Every time he’d seen her, every time they’d had to work together, she’d been casting, and casting, and casting. He tried to shake off the thought, but it stuck.

“No shame,” he murmured, matter-of-fact as he could. He still felt thick-tongued. “What can I do?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bordering Sharkswell

She felt the edge of his field snare hers before anything. Niccolette flinched, or she thought she did – it was hard to tell the difference between that and the shaking that was anyway wracking her, her muscles weak and quivering. Another little sob ripped free, and Niccolette sniffled, and wiped her face again.

Vauquelin was speaking again, and Niccolette turned a little to look at him. Her face was a mess of make-up, smeared with dirt and blood from her hands. Her teeth were chattering now, softly. She wanted, the Bastian thought miserably, to go home. It wasn’t far – it wasn’t far, but Niccolette doubted she could have made it even if she was close.

She was on her hands and knees, at least; standing didn’t seem to be working, and so Niccolette sank back, carefully, and tried at least resting her palms on her legs, leaving a bloody smear on her pant legs. Another soft sob escaped, her breath coming quick and fast.

Try to make it home, with Vauquelin beneath her – Niccolette remembered how he’d tensed beneath her slight weight, how he’d nearly fallen. She wanted to go home; she wanted, more than anything, to cry in peace and quiet, to be alone with her misery, her loneliness. They had become her constant companions, these last months, and she could not escape them long.

It was one thing, Niccolette thought miserable, to lose oneself to sobbing before a friend; another thing entirely to do it before a stranger. She thought back over the last few months, and realized it was already a bit late to stand on that sort of pride. No shame, Vauquelin promised, and Niccolette began to sob.

There was no compromising once the sobbing had started. At some points over the last few months, Niccolette had done her best to reign it in, to swallow it – to find ways to end it, to bring herself under control like she might her field. It burst out, sooner or later, all the same, and sometimes with only more force than it had. Some days were easy; some days were not.

This sort of sobbing Niccolette knew. She thought of them like rainstorms, the different sobs that came. Some were long and slow, weeping that might last for hours, that might slow even to soft tears but never quite stop. Some started without warning, as if the clouds had burst overhead. Some, like this bout, were hard and fast – they seized her and held tight and there was nothing she could do, nothing at all.

Niccolette did, at least, fumble in her pocket for the third handkerchief and hold it to her mouth – not to try and keep the sobs in, but at least to keep herself from waking the entire neighborhood. She sobbed, the noise ripping itself from her chest and throat, tears streaming down her face in a miserable rush, and then –

Then, almost as abruptly as she had started, the Bastian stopped. Her field, which had blue-shifted faintly in the air, drained slowly of color.

Niccolette sniffled, and wiped her eyes on the handkerchief. She took a deep, slow breath, and peeked to the side at Vauquelin – his thin, worn face in the moonlight, gray eyes doing their best not to stare. Niccolette took another deep breath, testing herself for a moment, and wiped away a few lingering tears on her hands.

“Our house is in Quarter Fords,” Niccolette whispered, softly, her voice aching and hoarse. “But I – I do not – I do not think I am able to walk there, even with your help.” It was easier to admit, after the sobbing; it was hard to feel there was more weakness in that admission than there had been in the utter loss of what little self-control she had clung to. Neither, if she were honest with herself, did she regret the tears. She could not; it would be like regretting a storm.

Niccolette closed her eyes for a moment. “I will find a place nearby,” she said, after a moment. They were in Lossey still; there would be a guest house, someone she could wake at this late hour. Some inn. She did not quite feel up to trying to rise, not yet, but Niccolette was sure if she knelt a few moments more, then her strength would begin to return. Her ear ached; her neck hurt; her palm throbbed. But she was still alive. She would gather herself, and she would not trouble Vauquelin anymore. He was not her friend, and she did not think he had meant the offer of the stairs, not truly; she would not force his hand by accepting.

“Somewhere – somewhere will…” Niccolette’s voice trailed off, and she shrugged. She balled the handkerchief in her lap, and squeezed it, shoulders bowing a little again. She took another deep breath, and sat up straight once more, not quite able to look at the Anaxi politician; choosing, instead, to stare off into the night.

[Tom Cooke]

Quiet Streets • The Rose

After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719

Ah, hell. He could meet her eye when she looked up at him, her face all painted with mud and blood, smeared from the tears and her shaky hands. Her palm, he saw now, was scuffed bloody. He felt like he was looking at something he shouldn’t, so when she looked away, he did, too. Looked at the shadows that stood watching in a nearby doorway, the stirring drapes of an open, dark window on the second floor. Looked down the lane, past all the close, quiet alleyways – where the road twisted about a leaning inn, and just a little weak light from a lamp leaked round the corner.

Beside him, he heard her breath start hitching. The cluttered shape of her in his periphery was shaking. He glanced over once, just long enough to see her fumble yet another handkerchief out of Uzoji’s pockets and press it to her mouth. The hoarse, pained noises got muffled.

Tom could feel his knees getting stiff, his ankles trembling. Grunting, he relented; he sank the rest of the way down, sitting his erse on the cold, dirty stones. He sat still, quiet, knitting his fingers over his knees. Underneath her sobs, crickets crowed, invisible.

The world still felt fuzzy-edged, so he didn’t mind waiting. He didn’t think he had the energy to do much else, and the time seemed to slip by like water from a jug. Down the drain faster than he could catch onto what was happening, almost.

It felt good, taking the weight off his aching hip. He wished he could summon up some more of that fire, and he thought his soul had plenty enough left, but his body had other ideas. He didn’t want to fight anymore, not tonight. He just wanted to sprawl out in a chair and sleep this off. Maybe spend tomorrow in his books, or what there was of tomorrow he spent awake.

He heard a sniff and snuck another glance. “Quarter Fords,” he murmured under his breath, trying to make it sound like it was the first he’d heard of it. He took a deep breath, sighing hard and shutting his eyes.

She was right. There was no way she’d make it back there, with or without him. He balled his bloody fist against his thigh, pressing the aching knuckles in. He felt a keen, sharp pain, like the beginning of a bruise. Again, a flare of that anger, and again, it died out.

But they were both the King’s, and if this’d been a job, like any of the jobs they’d done, he wouldn’t’ve just left her. That wasn’t how things worked. The Ibutatus’d been loyal. If it’d been – if he’d been. If he’d. If, if, if. But he was, still. He was.

“No. You can’t expect me to leave you here.” Despite the lingering drunken lisp, there was a hard edge to his voice. He looked over at her, shoulders rounding, kerchief balled in her lap. “Come,” he muttered, wincing, pushing himself back up onto his haunches. He froze there, squeezing his eyes shut again. But the nausea wasn’t as bad, this time. It passed.

He flipped through his options. There might’ve been a guest house nearby, but Marlowe’s was the closest in a few streets. He thought of every alleyway they’d passed, every sliver of movement he’d caught out of the corner of his eye. Every funny sense he’d had.

He staggered to his feet, groaning, then bit his lip. “If you can just get upstairs,” he said, “we can get you comfortable, get you some water. Take a look at that ear.” He was feeling steadier, though he felt like the life’d been drained out of him. Shaky, but maybe just enough. “Or I go and get somebody, or we try to make it someplace else. But I’m not letting you stagger off alone.”

Leaning a little, he extended an arm. This time, it wasn’t the polite crook of an elbow, but he couldn’t muster up that kind of decorum. He was pale and slack-faced, and his mouth was set in a white-thin line, but he was bracing himself.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bordering Sharkswell

Niccolette wasn’t sure what she had expected from Vauquelin, but that no wasn’t it. She turned towards it – towards him – and watched, kneeling on the ground, as he forced himself up to his feet, groaning softly. The Bastian’s gaze flicked to his hip. Aching, she thought, from the way he tilted. A weakness in the bone, or just the muscle? Muscle, most likely, at his age. In a fight –

Niccolette closed her eyes for a moment.

Vauquelin was talking again, and the Bastian opened her eyes, sniffling. She glanced down at the damp handkerchief in her hand. Her last, she thought. Niccolette looked again at Vauquelin’s hand, trembling in the night air – soft, no scarring across the knuckles, with a delicate dusting of hair beneath the blood. He couldn’t have had too many nights like this one, she thought.

Niccolette reached up and clasped his hand with hers. It was her turn for a grunt, painful and inelegant, and she wobbled as she rose – but Vauquelin didn’t fall, and she didn’t either, and at the end of it she was standing once more. Nausea churned in her stomach, and Niccolette swallowed bile down – kept her eyes open, her gaze focused on a distant point, because she thought if she closed them, she might go right back down, and she was not sure either of them had the strength for another go. Her ear hurt too; every breath seemed to whistle through it, to settle aching somewhere inside.

“Upstairs,” Niccolette agreed, quietly. He had offered twice; it was the most sensible option. Perhaps there might have been a point in her life at which Niccolette would have balked at entering a strange man’s room, but – if Vauquelin meant to ruin her, he had more than enough already. And Niccolette did not see quite how he could use this against her, not without revealing a good deal about himself as well. Not in ways that would bite.

She did not understand what drove him; Niccolette did not understand it in the slightest. But she could not summon up the strength to stand on her pride and refuse. She had thought her pride her strength, and now she understood that it was only because she had been strong that she could afford pride. She had little enough coin to spare, these days; grief had cost everything she had and more.

They stumbled together towards the staircase, slow, jerky steps, uneven and wobbling. Niccolette was shivering again within a few steps; her hands and feet felt oddly numb, and she understood that she had pushed her body well past what it could handle, after these last few months. She had not – the duel with Ekain had left her bed-ridden for days. When had she last eaten a proper meal? When had she last gone even a day without drinking? The mona in her field swirled and shifted, antsy and buzzing from contact with Vauquelin’s porven; Niccolette did not have the strength to reach out and soothe them.

Niccolette was too tired to think about any of it; she was too tired to do any more than struggle to move forward. She made her way up the stairs slowly. She could not lean against Vauquelin for this; it was too dangerous. A fall would send both of them crashing down the stairs, leave them as smashed and bloody as they felt in a twisted heap at the bottom. She was leaning a good deal of her weight against the railing, gripping it tightly. Her hand was bloody, but there wasn’t much she could do about it; she dragged the scrapes over the railing, and if it hurt, then – at least she did not fall.

Each step ached; there was a moment, a brief moment, when Niccolette thought how much harder it would have been in skirts. She nearly laughed then, but the laughter got caught somewhere in her chest and tears emerged instead, trickling steadily down her cheeks. Nausea churned in her stomach; her head throbbed; her neck ached; her arms and legs felt as weak as noodles, as heavy as chains. One more step, she told herself, each time – and then another.

Niccolette wobbled at the top of the stairs, staggered one step to the side and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Her face was pale and pinched, her skin clammy beneath the sweat and smeared black make-up and brown caked blood. “Thank you,” The Bastian whispered. She closed her eyes there for a moment, and held, shaking, a few more tears tracking slowly down her cheeks.

[Tom Cooke]

A Room in Lossey • The Rose

Too Godsdamn Late on the 17th of Roalis, 2719

It wasn’t a long flight, but it felt like climbing a mountain. The wind picked up, creaking the wood, ruffling his hair and stirring the hems of her jacket; it cut into his split knuckles, numbing the pain like ice. It’d taken both of them, juddering and rocking like a ship in a storm, to get to the stairs, but then she’d broken away from him, clinging to the railing instead. He started up behind her, ankle wobbling weakly on the first wooden step, attaching himself to the railing, too.

Tom felt it rattle as it took his weight – felt it rattle under her grip, too. He put his faith in it as best he could. It’d never broken on him yet. Life, it seemed to him, was full of these: shaky old railings that seemed on the verge of breaking loose from their moorings, tearing away in flakes of rust when you needed them the most. There were so many of them that you just took for granted, because if you didn’t, you’d live in fear. So many things you had to hold onto, even if you didn’t quite trust them, ’cause you were too tired to do otherwise.

Must’ve been in a mood for philosophizing. Mung, mung, mung. Soft. He always got like this when he was drunk. Soft, oes, or stupid-angry, or both of them at once. Couldn’t make sense of his own head, so he didn’t even try. He just looked up at her, watching the moonlight glance off stray dark wisps of hair.

He breathed soon as they got to the top, and not before. Took a deep breath in, thick and ragged. “Still breathing,” he muttered, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. Always that mantra, then and now. The rickety old metal was steady and cold underneath his hand. When he opened them, he saw Niccolette Ibutatu, face still smeared with dirt and blood and runny dark liner, slumped in the shadows of the door.

He heard her say it, thank you, and he didn’t know what to do with it, so he just nodded his head once. There was a funny heat behind his eyes, and he made himself swallow it, force it down inside him until it was just a little coal at the bottom of his heart. He was frowning so deep it made the lines dark on his face, between his furrowed eyebrows. He just nodded, and bowed his head, and moved past her.

There was a jangle as he fumbled a palmful of keys out of his pocket. It took him a scattering of seconds to locate the right one, to fit it to the lock. It scraped the metal, chipped the wood, when he kept missing the hole, losing his grip on the key.

Inside, it wasn’t all the way dark. Wasn’t pitch dark. There was one window: the drapes were pushed aside, and the moon-sisters poured their way in through the dirty glass. They limned the dark, cluttered silhouettes of furniture, pale lines. The smell of lavender was in the air.

Tom left the door open for Niccolette, stepping carefully through the room. Once, there was a thump and a rustle, and he cursed vividly under his breath. Over by the window, he found the oil lamp, but it took him awhile to find how to turn the wick up in the dark. Took him another to get out the striker and light the godsdamn thing, but before too long, a soft, warm glow filled up the space, casting wavering shadows on the walls.

It was just a room. Aside from the one they’d entered through, there was another door, on the opposite wall. It was shut, and a trunk was shoved up against it, stacked with books. There were books everywhere, in fact: stacked up on the table near the little wood stove, in piles on the floor, stuffed full of papers; there were books lying, some open, on the cot in the corner.

Most alarmingly, the wooden floors – once plain – were covered in chalk inscriptions. Circles, mostly, interlocking circles. Circles covered in symbols, woven in and out of the lines, running alongside them. Circles within circles. The lamplight glistened in the white chalk.

There were three chairs, including the two around the table, but only one was upholstered. This one stood by the window, beside another tiny end table, and the seat was (unsurprisingly) stacked up with more books. Tom went first to move these, shuffling them over to the end table with the oil lamp. They were mostly clairvoyant grimoires and books of theory, mostly with Mugrobi names on the spine.

Once he’d got the chair clear, he went back to the Bastian galdor, offering his shoulder again. They wound their way shakily round the cluttered floor, and he left her to sink into the chair.

He held onto the under-stuffed arm for another few seconds, muttering under his breath, then went off to the cabinets near the stove. He fussed, fumbling with a jug, spilling water on the old wood and cursing. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before he came back to her with a glass of water, feeling his way along the table and then the wall, holding onto the back of the chair as he held out the water to her.

“You all right?” he asked, leaning heavily. He winced against the press of his headache.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Well After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Alongside pages and plots

It smelled like lavender. Niccolette took a few steps inside, and held, trembling, watching the moonlight seep through the dirty glass. It took her several tries to pull the door shut behind her, but she eventually managed to shut it. She swallowed, hard, and leaned her forehead against the cool wood, eyes closing for a few moments, breathing through a soft surge of nausea.

Soft oil light pooled behind her, flicking at the edges of her gaze, and Niccolette shuddered her eyes open, turned, slowly, holding still at the edges of the door. She thought about trying to cross the room to Vauquelin, but it was nearly all she could do to stay standing. Should not have stopped, she thought to herself. It was always a mistake to stop.

Her eyes lost focus; the room before her was a hazy blur of shapes, of dark square books and white circles on the floor, with the slender dark blot that was Vauquelin moving through it. He grew larger, and Niccolette blinked, focusing on him as he came back into view. She draped her arm over his shoulder again, and let him guide her through the floor, trying to keep her feet clear of the chalk lines; if she stumbled, it was without knocking into the plot or the books. She sank into the soft chair with a soft groan, settling back against it.

The room was spinning, softly, the Bastian noticed. She doubled forward a little, too slight to rest her elbows properly on the arms of the chair; instead, she rested them shakily on her thighs, and cupped her face in her bloody, dirty hands. Her cheeks were wet and sticky with tears and smeared make-up; her mouth still tasted more than a little of vomit.

Niccolette sniffled. She heard distant cursing from Vauquelin, and sat back, slowly. Her eyes focused for the first time on the spell circles. There was much Niccolette didn’t recognize – but, squinting – because it was hard to focus her gaze anyway – she felt as if the patterns were familiar. The Bastian stared harder, and nodded slowly to herself.

It made, she thought, quite a bit of sense that Vauquelin would be studying how to repair his relationship with the mona.

Except –

Niccolette frowned, trying to place the pattern she’d recognized. She closed her eyes, picturing the treatises she’d read in designing her own rituals, thinking through it, at least until a dull, throbbing headache settled in, taut with nausea. She was nearly sure, though, that these were the circles of a clairvoyant conversationalist, not a perceptive one.

Niccolette looked up at Vauquelin as he returned. He extended the glass, and she reached for it with both hands, shakily. Her palm left something dark smeared against the wetness spilled on the outer edges of it, and she cupped the water carefully, lifting it to her mouth and drinking. It tasted like her own vomit, but Niccolette could not bring herself to care; she drank, swallowing a mouthful, then took another and could think of only one sweeter taste.

“Well enough,” Niccolette said, softly, and wished she could still lie. She eased herself backward against the soft, uneven back of the chair. Vauquelin’s hand was trembling close to her; if the light had not been so yellow, she thought his fingers would have been strained white. Her head tilted back a little, and there was a soft, uneven whine in her bad ear, high-pitched and very nearly all she could hear.

Vauquelin’s porven tangled with Niccolette’s ramscott once more. The living conversationalist turned her gaze back to his spell circles on the floor, tracing her gaze over them carefully. There were elements she did not recognize, but – then, there would be. Such rituals were deeply personal; what worked for one caster might not work at all for another. If Vauquelin saw her own plot, Niccolette thought, naturally there would be much he did not understand.

“I have backlashed before,” Niccolette offered, quietly, looking at the plots in the room. She flicked her gaze up at Vauquelin, then back out at the floor. She balanced the glass of water against her leg, keeping it steady with both hands and her thigh beneath, and closed her eyes. “Not like your…” The Bastian shrugged her shoulders rather than try to describe the thing that hovered in the air around Vauquelin. Porven was rather rude, no matter how accurate.

Niccolette inhaled, carefully, and exhaled, her ramscott pulsing in the air around her. She soothed the mona in it, reached to them with what strength she had, and did her best to feed them calm strength against Vauquelin's mess. “But… badly enough,” she said, softly. “For some time, even other casters could not call upon living mona in my presence.”

Carefully, slowly, Niccolette lifted the glass to her mouth again, and took another sip of water. She eased back into the chair a little more. “I am sorry,” she said, after another moment. “It is – it is none of my business.” The glass had left a little ring of water and something worse against her pants; Niccolette settled it back down, smearing the edges of it and holding tight. She let her eyes ease shut; she was not, she thought, on the verge of sleep, but the room had begun to spin again at the edges, and it was making her headache worse.

[Tom Cooke]

A Room in Lossey • The Rose

Too Godsdamn Late on the 17th of Roalis, 2719

I know, he thought and didn’t say.

Tom stood leaning on the chair for a long space. He’d watched her raise the glass, now smeared with mud and blood, to her lips, then lower it to rest in her lap. Now he turned away, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead as he listened to her. He imagined he could feel the throbbing underneath, vibrating through his bones. When he took it away, it left a little dried blood on his face, but he didn’t much care. They were both a godsdamn sorry sight.

The mona in her field stirred, smoothing like bright silk. He felt her reach out to them, through them; he felt her still them against the wild snarl of his. He felt it in a way he couldn’t’ve described, in a way he wouldn’t’ve felt when he was still – before. The subtle motion, with its willpower and tenderness and two-way communication, made him ache. He didn’t know why. He didn’t think he’d’ve cared, once. But sometimes, in the night, now, all the way from his soul, he begged them to quiet down, to listen. It felt like his nerves were scrambled differently now, and each particle that buzzed around him grated against them.

It hadn’t escaped him, either, that she’d kept her boots from smudging his plots, from upsetting any of the books and carefully-placed stones. When he took his hand away from the chair, shifted his weight, started back over toward the stove – drunk as he was – he did his damnedest not to make her efforts vain; there, again, even amidst the fumbling and slurring, was the careful, toe-to-heel stalk with which he’d always carried himself.

But he grabbed onto the table hard when he came up beside it, jarring it. He slumped, taking a deep breath. Pain twitched across his face, and he ran his hand through his hair again.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, and then laughed sharply. He looked up at her across the softly-lit, cluttered room. The sight struck lightning through him; he wasn’t prepared to see Niccolette Ibutatu slumped in his armchair, her head back against its unevenly-stuffed back cushion. Taxed and drunk off her erse, with all his attempts at monic reparation stacked and scattered and drawn around her.

He turned away, moving toward the cabinet again. Holding on as he swayed, he fished out his teapot, fished out a little can that smelled strongly of mint. The kettle, black with use and beaten out of shape, was already perched on the stove, but everything was cold.

Fishing out his striker again, he lit it. It took him a few tries. “Not many as bad as mine,” he added, more gently. “It might not be your business, but I think it’s a little late for that.” Anatole’s voice was raw with the night’s strain, but it picked up in strength as he spoke. He tucked away the striker and moved back toward the table, dropping into one of the chairs. It’d be awhile before the stove heated up. Just a breather, before he poured the tea and opened up the window.

“I read...” He hesitated. “I read a writer,” he went on, “one I liked very much. Who called the monic relationship – a kind of ohante. Like the kind between two fighting men, or – or women – in combat. The kind of honor you have with someone who’s saved your life.”

The chair-legs wobbled as he leaned forward, propping his head up on his elbow. He licked his dry lips, stared at the ground and tried to find more words. A loop of chalk, the arm of a thicker circle encompassing and overlapping several thinner ones, caught his attention. To his tired eye, it seemed to leap out of the floor, hovering above the dark floor. Wavering like candles.

Tucking a curl behind his ear, he turned his tired gaze back on Niccolette. “My existence has dishonored the mona. I’m trying to make it right.” It was vague enough, he thought; for once, he didn’t have to lie. He gestured subtly toward the circles. “What… was it like, for you? Making the connection. Reaching out, and being listened to again.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Well After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Alongside pages, plots and poetry

Vauquelin told her not to apologize. Again, Niccolette reminded herself. Unbidden, a few tears leaked from her closed eyes, trickled down her cheeks; Niccolette did not bother to wipe them away, waiting for a moment to see if they became something worse. They did not; she exhaled a shaky breath, and settled a little more into his chair.

It felt as if they were a thousand years from that party in Vienda. Even with her eyes closed, Niccolette could not imagine she was there; the distant glittering lights, the galdori twirling and laughing and tinkling beneath them, felt like a distant dream, the sort brought on by a fever, hot and over-anxious. At any moment, Niccolette had felt as if she might awaken, gasping and sweaty in tangled sheets, Uzoji’s cool hands clutching her close -

“Just a nightmare, beloved,” he would whisper. “I’m here.”

A few more tears, then, and Niccolette shuddered. She had meant to think of Vauquelin, she told herself. She wiped her eyes this time, and shuddered them open, to filthy moonlight and flickering, washed out lamplight, neither more than slightly illuminating his room.

Niccolette lifted the glass of water again, slowly taking another sip - a smaller one, this time. She settled it back down, then wiped her face again. Vauquelin wove his way shakily back to one of the chairs, sat hard. He started to talk again, and Niccolette turned to listen, eyes glittering in her dirty face. One hand wasn’t enough for the glass; it wobbled, and she brought the other against it, the ring on her finger clinking softly against it.

Niccolette glanced down at the books, then back at Vauquelin. He had read too many Mugrobi, she thought, but perhaps not spoken to enough of them. Uzoji would have known how to explain ohante properly, if he had been here. He would - he would have been making the tea, Niccolette thought, a few more tears slipping down her cheeks. She shuddered. No, Niccolette realized; he would have offered their home to Vauquelin as soon as he realized it was closer. Her hands tightened a little on the water glass, and Niccolette sniffled again.

She looked at Vauquelin as he continued, asking about - Niccolette was quiet, shifting back against the back of the chair again. It was hard to tear her mind away from her husband. She knew that only a few moments ago she had been speaking about her backlash, but - it was so easy to think about Uzoji instead. Niccolette sighed, softly; a faint blueshift skittered through her field, rippling and fading. She could not even think to be offended by the question. A little late for that? Was that what Vauquelin had said? She was having trouble holding onto it. Guttered, Niccolette thought.

Reaching out and being listened to again. Niccolette sniffled, tried to think. It was hard to think of - of anything except Uzoji. It was hard to think of anything but his slow, shaky steps; the way she would catch him taking deep breaths from the corner of her eyes, deliberate and careful, pushing himself. She took another deep breath, dropping her gaze to the whirl of chalk lines on the floor.

Candles; Niccolette started with the candles. Lighting them; with matches at first. She had knelt amidst the plot and lit the candles one by one. One by one by one, every time, and blown them out just the same. She softened, thinking of it; she wiped her eyes again. When she meditated now, she lit them with monite, and Niccolette wondered if she ought to do it by hand once more, to feel that slow aching warmth rise around her, bit by bit.

“Strong. Wonderful,” Niccolette’s voice cracked. “My backlash, it was -“ she was quiet, shifting the water glass. She settled it down slightly, between her thighs; left it held there, lifted one hand to push her hair back off her face. She rubbed it with both of them next, smearing water and dirt and blood in an odd back and forth.

“I demanded,” Niccolette said, finally. “There was - there was something I could not lose,” her lips trembled, and she rubbed her face again. “They asked me to let go, and I - held tighter instead. I knew -“ her lips trembled again, and she took a deep, breath. “I would do it again, if I could.” The words were barely more than a whisper; Niccolette could not more than half hear them. She wasn’t entirely sure she had spoken aloud.

“But...” Niccolette was quiet. She took a slow, deep breath; she felt the world around her, breathed in life and breathed it back out, transformed. She looked at Vauquelin again, focusing her gaze on him as best as she could. “Despite that I... some of those who write on restoration say repentance is necessary. They are wrong. I never regretted - I never repented my actions.”

What had he asked? He had not asked about the backlash; if he had, Niccolette was not sure she could have spoken about it. He had asked how it felt to be listened to again. “It felt like dawn after a long night,” Niccolette said, finally. She thought Vauquelin would understand, somehow. “Like seeing the sun and knowing - knowing you have survived.” Niccolette was quiet again, shuddering back against the chair.

“Pez Hirtka -“ Niccolette cleared her throat. Her voice wavered a little again, and she closed her eyes now, closed them again against the slow swirling of the room, like whiskey in a glass. “He has - he writes of love, but it is not so different. The one which begins - with love and desire, with unquenchable thirst. And then -“ Niccolette thought of Uzoji, of white fluttering curtains and pale winter light, and she felt as if she could hear him whisper in her mind. “We filled one another with belonging.” She said, slowly, her tongue thick in her mouth.

The Bastian shuddered, and turned her face away. She could not look far enough to hide from him, and tears slid steadily down her cheek, tracing through the dirt, glinting in the faint light.