[PM to Join] Crystalizing Clear as Day

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Violetta is smiling back at Anatole. Her eyebrows lift, lightly at his answer, and she looks briefly thoughtful. A quiet, polite voice enters the conversation before she can respond, and a pleased smile lights her face, crinkling round the eyes, filling in lines well-worn with the effort of many years. “Norton,” she says, shifting; at the last moment, against the edge of her seat, she does not rise, but sinks back down instead, and extends a beringed hand. “My dear boy.”

Niccolette has exhaled out the last of her dampening; here, in the quiet privacy of the corner, she does not trouble to hold it. It is the full brightness of her field that caprises Norton as she rises – not in the least aggressive, but deep enough to be friendly.

Terrence has come back with a brocade shawl, rich dark blue glinting with silver thread. He hovers, just out of sight, looking between them all; his field of strange, thin quantitative mona is drawn back, ever so slightly, doetoed.

“Mr. Collingwood,” Niccolette says, warmly, with a smile; she bows as well. She rises, running her fingers through her hair to shift it back off her forehead, and shrugs. Her gaze lingers briefly, professionally, on the cane, and lifts to his chest, for just a moment. “He found me within minutes. I could almost think he had a watch set,” the Bastian says with a little grimace. Her gaze flickers around the room once more; it catches on the glint of Dhimitriou’s hair, halfway distant. She does not quite relax, but she does look away.

“Norton, this is Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin,” Niccolette glances to Anatole, gesturing; he has bowed and risen already. “Anatole, please let me introduce Norton Collingwood, rather an esteemed producer of aetherium." There is a brief smile – not quite private, but rather shared with Collingwood, and if it does not quite fill her eyes, it at least reaches them.

There is space for them all in the soft, well-lit corner, although only just. Terrence waits until the others have sat, and comes forward, draping the shawl around Violetta’s shoulders. “Thank you,” Violetta says. “Please, Terrence, join us.” Terrence brightens, smiling, and takes the last seat in the little cluster, looking somewhat eagerly between all the rest.

“Terrence Farthington,” he says, brightly, perched very straight on the edge of his seat; a flop of strawberry-blond hair has tumbled over his eyes, and he shakes his head to toss it back.

“Has Dhimitriou been back to Bastia, lately?” Niccolette asks, turning to Violetta, in the brief hum of introductions which follows. She has misjudged the moment; she can feel it in the faint, lingering pause through the conversation. She ignores it; she does not look away.

Violetta turns to her; white eyebrows arch, delicately, a question in them. “Not as far as I’m aware.” Her tone leaves little doubt that this means the answer is no; if he had gone, something in her smile says, she would know. Her eyebrows do not lower, not quite yet.

Niccolette nods faintly; she glances away once more. It is nothing particular that she looks at, this time; her gaze lingers on the warm wash of light through the window. It is beginning to dim, now; the clouds in the distance are painted not pale pink, but a deep, rich red, glowing all through. Distant canvases snap and billow in the sharp breeze; ships sway in the harbor, and it is easy to imagine the creak of heavy wood.

“But I must disagree with you, I think, Incumbent,” Violetta says, turning back to Anatole with a smile, letting Niccolette escape for now. “I do not think one gets lost in the Rose, not quite. It is, rather, that a different part of oneself is found.” She turns to Norton, and smiles once more. “The sword in the cane, so to speak.”

“My father had a sword cane,” Terrence puts in, eagerly. “Nearly took my finger off as a boy, trying to wave the thing around.”

Niccolette glances at him, and then away. She shifts in her chair; her hands fold in her lap. She sighs, and breathes her field back in, slowly, pulling it once more against her skin, dampened. Her head throbs, lightly, and she closes her eyes for a moment; she opens them again, reaching for the wine, and takes a small sip.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

T
he mingling of those two fields – living, the full bright wash of it; the bold, warm crackle of static – pulls him out of himself. If he closes his eyes –

He might be there, he imagines, with the smell of oil and burnt things instead of cocktails and seafood and perfume. He doesn’t close his eyes, because he can’t afford to slip now. Even this place is a sheathed blade; there’s nowhere you can let your guard down, when you’re wearing another man’s skin. Not when a ghost can spring from the mists of the past at any moment, always a little too tall.

If nothing else, it’s how much more he can feel – that, more than anything, marks the difference in thick, unbroken chalk. He’s used to Niccolette’s caprise by now; he’s had time to adjust since the party in Roalis, when he first felt the brush of it on these ley lines. Collie’s, he hasn’t felt since Breckinridge.

He barely remembers it. Static, he might’ve been able to tell you, if that. Now, he’s aware of its texture, its shift. He meets those dull grey eyes with surprise. There’s something almost youthful about it, firebrand; he expects it to redshift any moment, as if it’s always teetering on the edge of passion. It’s the sort of field you expect on an aspiring duelist, flexed on the lawn, not on a man like Norton Collingwood.

My dear boy, says Mrs. Ballington. He wonders, and wonders yet more.

It’s a deft, graceful motion; Collie tucks his cane under one arm, takes Violetta’s hand, and bows over it, kissing the large stone in one ring. As he reaches out, his right palm catches the light, the skin pale and reddish, faintly glossy.

When he rises, Niccolette is introducing him to Anatole.

“Aetherium,” he repeats, raising both fair eyebrows. He has his face under wraps; it’s a mix of pleasure and surprise, and he thinks he knows well enough by now how to conceal the recognition.

Still, he thinks he can let a little humor in as he catches Niccolette’s eye. It’s something about the way the two exchange glances; he can’t quite help it.

“A pleasure, Mr. Collingwood,” he repeats, as if he’s never heard the name before, then – “Mr. Farthington,” as the ruddy towhead mop joins them. Wet behind the ears, he thinks wryly. Looking at that eager, almost-handsome young face, he wonders if Corinth Wynngate was sculpted of such clay. He can almost picture Ballington young, though not quite wet behind the ears.

He supposes they’ve all got to come from somewhere. Funny, that. He looks briefly down at Anatole’s hands, fingers knitted over one knee, stark pale against his plain black trousers. Everybody’s got to come from somewhere.

The blue and silver suits Ballington, from her winter dress to her wintry hair; he wonders if young Terrence chose it for that reason, or if this is another of Violetta Ballington’s supernatural powers.

He doesn’t doubt Violetta’s a fine dancer, even still. Niccolette is asking a question. He studies her briefly as Mrs. Ballington turns, trying to think why she might’ve brought it up. It’s like an exhale before the swing, a reverse with the wrong foot. He feels the pause.

Mrs. Ballington guides her carefully through the step, though her interest seems to have drifted again. It leaves him with a strange feeling. He tries to watch Niccolette out of the corner of his eye, again, but Violetta’s gaze soon has him pinned.

Terrence interjects, and Anatole laughs – genuine, warm.

Collie, sitting across, is raising an eyebrow at Terrence. “I expect you did, lad.” At Breckenridge, among Osborne and the boys, he always seemed the picture of a toffin; now, he can hear the burr in his accent. “Violetta says it well. The blade is hard won, Mr. Farthington, with the cane.”

The grin fades to a thoughtful smile; Anatole takes up his wine again. “Is it not true, Mrs. Ballington, that one must be lost before one can find one’s steel?”

The glass is half-drained, but not from boredom; he takes another thoughtful drink, shifting to lean comfortably against the arm of the chair. Just so happens, this way, he’s a slightly better view of the room. The bar is a glittering cluster of stars in the corner of his eye, the floor a scattering of milling people.

He feels Niccolette’s field drawing away, slow and steady, dimming the brightness in the air. He’s not sure what to make of it; he feels a prickling of unease.

“If you look at it that way,” puts Collie, taking a sip of his hatcher. “You don’t lose yourself in a place like this, Incumbent. You came here in the first because you were already lost.” He smiles then again at Mrs. Ballington, raising a thin dark eyebrow. “The Rose can be something of a compass, eh?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Terrence’s gaze darts quickly to Anatole when he laughs, and he smiles, uncertain and a little hopeful. “That makes sense, sir,” he says to Collingwood. “My father told me at the time I’d do well to learn a thing or two about swords before trying again. Although I rather think he meant fencing lessons, not…” he trails off, faintly uncertain; he smiles, again, to fill the gap. His field has crept out a little, not quite so doetoed anymore, although even at the outermost, the engagement with the other galdors cannot quite be called a caprise.

“Is the blade lost, then, inside the cane?” Niccolette turns to Anatole, not quite answering the question he posed to Violetta. She raises her eyebrows, a sharp smile crossing her face. She has set her glass of wine back down, and does not look at it again.

There is a loud burst of laughter from somewhere across the room, sharp and sudden through the lull of the party. The room is a little emptier than it was, but those who have stayed have settled in into groups here and there, scattered through the room. Niccolette glances over her shoulder towards the disruption, and finds the edge of Dhimitriou’s gaze. She turns back away, one hand lightly tight against the arm of the chair. She breathes in, deep and steady; she breathes out again.

Uneasily, she wonders what it was Dhimitriou meant to say, before Anatole interrupted them. Your father – she would have filled it in. Your father would say the same, perhaps. Absurd; more a reflection of Dhimitriou than the man, but something he might say. Her hand loosens against the arm of the chair; her fingers tap lightly against the wicker. She breathes deeply again, and settles her hands in her lap; she does not count the rhythm of her breaths.

It is here she wishes to be, Niccolette tells herself. It is here she will stay.

Violetta is watching her; she and the conversation turn to Collingwood when he speaks.

“I can’t disagree that many who come to the Rose are lost,” Violetta says, smiling still. She adjusts the folds of the shawl over her shoulders with a glittering hand; her fingers settle on the large blue beads, and she strokes them, lightly. “Perhaps finding is the wrong metaphor, or at least rather overextended; Niccolette put it well, I think. An uncovering,” she smiles. “A drawing out.”

“Aethrium crystals,” Niccolette suggests. She grins; she finds herself fully present now, her sharp gaze flitting from Violetta to Anatole and settling on Collingwood, as if the speaking of her name has called her back to herself. She settles more comfortably in her chair, legs crossing at the ankle, the line of her back still quite straight. “Quite a long process of refining, naturally. And in the end,” Her face twists in a faint smirk, “still only a little piece of something larger.” She takes the top of the wine glass between her fingers; she swirls the glass, lightly, so the pale wine laps at the sides, although not high enough to spill. She sets it down once more.

“How terribly industrial,” Violetta says with a laugh.

“Rather a delicate process, I should think,” Terrence says, putting in hopefully again, glancing between the others. “Or – precise, I suppose?”

“Brutal,” Niccolette says with a little smile. “All that heat and pressure,” she is quiet; her lips press together. She shifts; she glances away. “Necessary, I suppose.” Niccolette says, quietly; she does not look at any of them in particular; her hands do not tighten on the arms of the wicker chair, but it is a hard-won battle.

“At least unavoidable,” Violetta says, gently. She settles her hand on Niccolette’s, lightly; she does not look towards it, or linger any more than that, but squeezes, gently, once, and pulls away.

Niccolette smiles, faintly; she shrugs. She does not look away towards the window, but rather at Violetta, at Anatole and Collingwood too, even at Terrence.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

N
ot…? One of Anatole’s eyebrows twitches up minutely; his lip twitches, too, not quite a smile. Collie’s not even looking at the Farthington lad anymore, having cleared his throat and taken a sip of his cocktail, tapping one fingernail on the grip of his cane. If he feels the doetoed dance of that field against his, he doesn’t acknowledge it with a caprise.

He can feel it. He looks at Farthington for a long moment, then bemusement crinkles round his eyes. Niccolette is speaking again, and she draws his eyes away, toward her sharp smile – but his field reaches for a little curl of a caprise with the lad’s.

The metaphor stretches, twists, unfolds. He thinks of steel lost in a case of wood; he thinks of things lost in other things. He finds, at first, he can meet his Brother’s bright-sharp smile with a smile of his own. He can feel out the edges of the thought without losing his own shape.

He doesn’t feel understood – not in the right way, not in the way that would dig its claws into him – and maybe that’s why; he finds it strangely, brilliantly funny, how close all of it is cutting to the bone.

Until it isn’t quite so funny anymore. He can feel it shivering up his spine even before Niccolette looks to Collie, even before Collie meets her gaze with another of his grim-tired smiles. He remembers the sharp sour tang of it in the air, mingling with the smell of oil. He knows what to call it, now – there’s something in that scent of a field etheric – but the remembering reminds him how, once, he didn't – refinement –

His glance snaps sharp to Terrence. A little piece of something larger. How much, he wonders, does the lad know? He’s not smiling anymore, for all he's in on the joke; he takes a long drink of the white, cloying now, though he doesn’t care.

“Delicate things are often brutal,” he murmurs, into the burbling quiet. There’s laughter behind; it aches through his skull. Even here he can’t escape the waft of cologne, the sound of gentlemen laughing. Cigar-smoke.

Mrs. Ballington’s rings catch the low phosphor light. She lays a soft, glittering hand on Niccolette’s for just a moment, a quick clasp.

All that heat and pressure. He imagines he knows what it is stirring underneath the words; he catches her eye, feeling a spark of something white-hot, thinking himself of a spinning engine shedding sparks, a man bleeding on a warehouse floor. His fingers are perched on the rim of the glass, nails whitening.

Collie isn’t smiling, either, for all he seldom does. The light catches silver on the frame of his glasses. “Or you could say it’s a brutal process,” he says, “and those do generally require precision.” He looks like nothing, now, if not the dour accountant Tom Cooke took him for in life. He’s thinking of broken prodigia. “Thinking of getting into aetherium, Mr. Farthington? A quantitative mind is always useful in the business.”

Anatole relaxes his grip and smiles at Mrs. Ballington. Necessary, or at least unavoidable. Oes, he thinks, one way or another, for all of us. He shifts in his seat, uncrossing his legs. His back never lost the straight line; his jaw is set.

But he’s still sitting easy in the corner of his seat, still half-facing the room. He’s seen Niccolette’s eyes skitter askance; he doesn’t know what they’ve seen, though he knows she hasn’t looked in a few moments, not since Mrs. Ballington draped the blue silk damask of her attention over her, gentle and discrete.

Has Dhimitriou been to Bastia? The Rose maven seemed not to catch her meaning. No one else spoke on it, and he sees nothing in Collie’s eyes. Whatever distracted Niccolette, he can’t see it in the corner of his eye. Dhimitriou himself, or someone else, some familiar someone at the bar? Little he can do but sit; the back of his neck prickles, new scars ache, tell-tale whispers. Even here? Everywhere.

Another drink. Doesn’t steady his nerves. The pleasant smile, nevertheless, remains.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Terrence’s field nudges curiously at the edges of Anatole’s; he finds his footing, perhaps, in the gesture. The caprise is neither bold nor deep, but it is there. The quantitative mona and the clairvoyant are not quite belike, but they recognize one another all the same, and there is an easy sort of merging between the two, inside-beneath the hot static, the bright-sharp living, and the slippery perceptive.

Niccolette looks at Anatole, when he speaks; Violetta does too. She does not take his hand, of course, but there is a faint answering smile on her face, and something like a knowing gleam in her sharp blue eyes as they glance over the grip of his fingers, and drift up to his indectal face.

Terrence turns to Collingwood when the man addresses him; his face brightens, slightly. He glances at Violetta; she is looking at him, but there is no discernible change of the expression on her face. Whatever he sees or doesn’t see, he turns back to Collingwood and squares himself a bit.

“I don’t know much about it, sir,” Terrence says, evenly. “Or, perhaps, much about of anything,” the young man smiles, a little, somewhere between self-conscious and self-aware. His hair has tumbled over the edge of his face again, but he doesn’t push it away this time. “But I rather like the idea of being useful; I think I’m learning the right questions to ask.”

Violetta smiles, not quite at Terrence, but rather into the midst of all of them. She takes a sip of her Galkan; condensation slides down the glass, and pools at the heavy bottom as she sets it down.

“Pardon me,” Niccolette says, politely. She rises; she leaves her wine glass behind, still more than half-full, next to the wicker chair. She does not look back. In the growing dark, the lamps burn brighter; they catch the gleaming velvet of the dress, and echo in all the crushed folds of it.

Violetta watches her go, but says nothing, turning back to Norton, Anatole and Terrence.

“I didn’t want to ask,” Terrence says, a bit hesitant, into the wake of her going. He watches Niccolette’s back; he waits, until she’s drifting through the crowds around them, until the gleam of the velvet is swallowed up by whites and tans and blues. It is Violetta that he looks at, but his gaze includes all three of them. He shifts, a little, on his seat, although he never loses the straight posture of his back. “Her husband – he returned to the cycle, earlier this year, didn’t he?”

It is not that she lacks courage. Niccolette has never lacked courage; this is no exception. She goes, first, to the ladies retiring room. She knows nothing has changed of her reflection in the last hour; she looks at herself anyway, in the mirror, quiet and set. She looks, not at the neat black on her eyelids on the dark red on her lips, but at herself. She meets her own gaze, and she holds it, and she breathes, steadily, and for a moment lets herself slide into the rhythm of it.

Only for a moment.

“Ma’am?” The human girl comes forward, a bit tentatively; she stops, eight feet away, and holds there. “Can I get something for you, miss?”

“No,” Niccolette says, quietly, glancing up. The girl meets her eyes in the mirror for a moment, ducks her head and eases back. Niccolette looks at herself once more; her eyes flutter shut, and open again. She holds a moment longer, breathing deeply. She runs her fingers back through her hair, pushing it back off her forehead.

Niccolette had not quite sat, really; she had only leaned forward, one hand balancing on the edge of the table. She rises, all the same, easing herself up straight, and breathes deep. She waits, a moment more; she counts the seconds to herself in her head, and does not fall into the easy trap of putting a rhythm between them. She smooths her dress with her palms, straightens it, running one finger over the little dollop of pale skin in the dimple where her collarbones meet. “The suprasternal notch,” Niccolette murmurs to herself, quietly, “also known as the fossa jugularis sternalis.” The jugular notch, she thinks, in the vernacular.

“Ma’am?” comes a quiet voice from behind her, questioning; there is a quiet rustle of fabric.

“Nothing,” Niccolette says. She turns, and leaves the retiring room, without glancing in the mirror again.

“Niccolette,” Dhimitriou does not quite meet her at the door, but neither does he let her drift through more than a conversation before he finds her.

Niccolette glances up at him, and smiles, slowly, with a faint gleam of white teeth.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

H
e watches the aetherium man look at Terrence for one moment, fingertip tap-tapping on his cane, and then watches the dull grey eyes move to Mrs. Ballington with a curious expression. He wonders, looking at Terrence then, attentive – expectant – under his strawberry-blond mop.

The lad seems to’ve found a foothold, at least, in his caprise. It’s light, polite. Not so doetoed, not anymore. As he smiles back at Mrs. Ballington, he lets his clairvoyant mona creep a little deeper; he gets a feel for the texture of it.

He thinks of other quantitative fields he’s caprised. Mr. Shrikeweed springs to mind. There’s a man who knows what questions to ask. I was not the best of students, he remembers, and – but he can’t picture Shrikeweed young, not even the vaguest impression.

It reminds him, rather, of some of the interns at Stainthorpe. Like one of those things you see scrawled on blackboards at Brunnhold – math problems, but with Xs and lines and dots instead of just pluses and minuses; with letters and other funny symbols standing in for numbers. It’s far from a dasher; it’s more that it hasn’t filled out yet.

A frame for a question, but the answer’s different, depending on what you put in the spaces. Don’t get into this, he wants to say. There are plenty of other places for a lad to find the tools of his trade than this godsforsaken harbor.

Collingwood’s smiling at him, before Niccolette excuses herself. Not altogether joking, after all. Gears turning. But do you know what questions not to ask? Tom thinks. D’you know the value of being the kov that doesn’t ask questions? A plowfoot could teach you better. A plowfoot knows that from birth.

Collie’s drawn in a breath to say something; he can feel it, hanging on the air. Then, with a thick rustle of velvet, his Brother’s on her feet and moving.

It snatches up their attention, for a space. He finds his eyes lingering on the half-full wine glass; he blinks, blinks askance, to where the folds of her skirt have just slipped his sight. She is a dark shape, then, disappearing in the movement on the floor. He thinks she’s going in the direction of the retiring rooms, but he doesn’t think that’s all. The absence of living mona is somehow both relieving and disturbing at once; something is missing here, among the wicker, like rearranged furniture.

His neck prickles. He knows better than to turn and watch her go, at least. The pleasant smile is still on his face, as if ironed-on; he’s not sure he could do anything about it if he tried.

It tightens, oddly suffocating, when Terrence speaks. The lad pauses, watching her disappear into the crowd. Don’t, he wants to say, abruptly.

The trigger is pulled. There’s a pause.

He expects Violetta Ballington to answer, first, to handle the question as gracefully as she’s draped the shawl round her shoulders. Instead: “Yes, Mr. Farthington,” says Collie, not shifting in his seat. “Indeed.”

There’s a tinkle of ice on glass as Collie takes a sip and sets his tumbler down on the table, not far from Mrs. Ballington’s. One vivid, one velvet-dark, almost the same color as Niccolette’s dress.

“Late last year,” adds Anatole quietly. “May Roa ensure his restoration.”

He feels Collie’s field creep out to caprise Terrence’s. Indectal, with that ever-present hint of crackling heat. Pressure. “Mr. Ibutatu is sorely missed in our set.” Collie says our set with not a hint of a smile, utterly serious. “Whoever has the company of his soul now, as they say in Mugroba, I wouldn’t dare deprive them of it. But I’m not the best man for condolences, I’m afraid.”

He pushes his glasses up on his nose. Again, a glimpse of the reddened scarflesh of his palm.

“Nor is Niccolette, if I judge her rightly, Mr. Farthington,” he says, inclining his head slightly. The dull grey eyes move to Mrs. Ballington again, then back to Terrence.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Terrence Farthington feels the heat of Norton Collingwood’s field settle on him. He breathes deep, and bears up – takes it, like a man – and doesn’t let his own field crumple under the pressure. He does not push back, but he lets the caprise in and returns it at the edges. He does his best to hold on, like he did in school.

Mostly, Terrence thinks, he’d like a drink. That’s how he got through school, half the time, anyway; it’s how he’s gotten through all the years since.

The Rose is not a good place to dry out. He understands that; he understood it before he came, with no need to ask the mona or anyone else for guidance. The sea breeze and salt air don’t half offset the wide variety of bars that gleam along the waterfront. He’d’ve been better off, maybe, in Brayde County, or taking the ferry out to Dutaim.

Mrs. Ballington is looking at him, and in the slant of her eyebrows Terrence caprises disappointment. He shifts; he turns to the Incumbent when the man speaks, and then back to Collingwood. He feels the splotchy red heat of a blush on his cheeks and the back of his neck, and he bears up beneath that as well. The faint way her lips press together is, somehow, worse than the dull flatness of Collingwood’s response or the quiet interruption from the Incumbent.

“I see,” Terrence says. He wants to protest he hadn’t thought of saying anything to her; that, at least, he’d judged correctly. Niccolette Ibutatu feels like the edge of a knife pressed against his throat – another new experience since coming to the Rose, and another one he rather wishes he’d been drunk for. “Thank you,” Terrence adds, politely, looking between the two men.

Just, he thinks, with an odd curl of something in the pit of his stomach, like he’d thanked the plowfoot with the knife, more than half breathless, when the human let him go; the red blotches spread further. Funnily enough, he rather feels as if Violetta is the one holding the knife; he couldn’t quite say why.

“Incumbent,” Mrs. Ballington says with a smile, “would you tell us something of the latest news from the capital? We get the papers here, of course, but one always has the sense of there being so very much between the lines.”

Terrence sits back a little; Mrs. Ballington glances at him, too, and smiles, and he is conscious of stark relief. His mouth is unaccountably dry; he doesn’t trust himself to go and ask for a fizzy water or a juice, and so, instead, he stays, surprised by how uncomfortable the wicker furniture is beneath him.

“Wasn’t the second Reform Bill defeated on similarly procedural grounds?” Terrence asks when the conversation winds around to something he has heard of. It’s a vague, half-memory; a snatch of something someone said, once, knowingly, at a party in Vienda, one of those moments that – for whatever reason – stuck with him. He smiles at the Incumbent, a little hopeful.

It’s much darker outside, when Niccolette Ibutatu returns. He thought she was a knife before; he realizes now she was sheathed. Her chin is raised; color burns high in her cheeks, and the whole of her is stiff and tense. On her left hand the ring she’s still wearing glints in the lamp; he can’t think if one’s meant to wear it, after, and he understands perfectly well she probably doesn’t give a damn.

The Bastian’s field has changed. He’d thought – it’d been hard to parse out, at first, the range of it; it seemed to have changed as he sat down. He realizes now he was right; it washes out easily eight feet from her. It’s as indectal as it ever was, but it’s sharp; it prickles over him, oddly vicious. Terrence draws his field back in, although there’s not any escaping it; he’s always been a bit sensitive to fields, but he thinks the others have noticed as well.

He can’t, in all honesty, imagine anyone not noticing.

Mrs. Ibutatu says nothing; her fingers drum a steady tattoo on the small table next to her, where her wine glass still sits. Her gaze flits over all of them; her lips are pressed together, firm, in a small, hard line.

Mrs. Ballington leans forward, the chair creaking softly, and raises her eyebrows.

Mrs. Ibtuatu turns to her; she shudders a breath in, and all but spits it out. Her voice, when it emerges, is low and rapid, but soft. “Dhimitriou Kalogeropolous,” the Bastian says, with a shower of sparks like a whetstone, “is an unmitigated kenser’s erse. No,” she sits back, shoulders stiff, hands clamping together in her lap, “that is unkind to the kenser. They, at least, are beasts which serve some purpose.” Her jaw clenches, then loosens; she takes a deep breath, and exhales it out, short and sharp. She grimaces; the feeling of sharpness in the air around them lightens.

Terrence gasps half a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Mrs. Ibtuatu is looking at him, then. He bears up, looking at her; he doesn’t look away.

She smiles; it’s the faintest twitch on her face, but it’s there, and the pressure all around them softens a little further. The widow sighs; she pushes her hair back off her face with one pale hand. When her hands come back together in her lap, they are soft.

“He seems rather an erse,” Terrence offers, because the silence has stretched a bit too thin, and no one else has said anything.

Mrs. Ballington laughs, then, sharp and amused; Mrs. Ibutatu glances at him, and then smiles a little wider, and sinks back a little in her chair. She glances over towards the side of the bar, and the lamplight gleams in her green eyes.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

T
he Farthington lad thanks them. Anatole’s eyes linger on him, briefly, and one eyebrow arcs. Being honest, he can’t say one way or another what he’d’ve done in the lad’s place; he supposes there’s nothing you can say, at that point. There are two spots of color in his cheeks.

He knows something of the feeling, he reminds himself. It’s different, oes; he’s no baby-faced teetotaler, fetching shawls. But: sitting at dinner with Dr. Levesque just the other night, pinned to the spot, having forgot his first wife’s name. And those things he used to say, back then, at parties, among the circling sharks – when he was still himself. When he still said what you’d say among natt, before he learned to quiet that part of himself, to smooth out his edges.

It can’t be called a shrug, exactly, as he turns his attention away – as Mrs. Ballington, with a smile in Farthington’s direction, levels an easy enough question at him.

Collingwood is smiling grimly, now, something wry in the curve of his mouth as he turns away. He shifts in his seat, using his cane to balance himself; he turns his body, along with his attention, toward Mrs. Ballington and the incumbent. But funny, he can feel Collie’s caprise lingering, lapping at the edges of Farthington’s field, the mona mingling and pressing a little deeper. Friendly-like, but scrutinizing.

“Naturally, Mrs. Ballington,” Anatole returns, raising both eyebrows, looking for all the world pleasantly surprised. “It has been a busy season for the council, but I’m not sure how much I can…”

Enough, apparently. Anatole’s deep voice burbles on, drawls on through its Viendan accent, and the topic settles on the little caoja like mona in a prodigium. In the corner of his eye, he can see the Farthington lad relax, though he still sits straight-upright. He feels a surge of his own relief; with that bright-sharp field gone, with all he knows and shouldn’t know, he has felt half on the verge of shouting, line! into their midst.

He is grateful he does not have to. Violetta Ballington has done him a mercy; he’s a feeling she’s done it often enough in the past, if that knowing smile tells anything.

News from the capital is a far cry from regurgitating the contents of the latest conference committee to the Shrike, and he’s grateful for any break, even in this strangest of places.

He’s finished another glass. The windows are dark, except for the distant ghost-glow of the clouds just above the lip of the sea. His legs are crossed again; one foot bobs occasionally. “Ah – as a matter of fact, Mr. Farthington,” Anatole is saying, “you are correct; where concerns the Wraithwine Remediation Act…”

He sees her in the corner of his eye before he feels her, like the leaves turning before the first smell of rain. He feels her soon enough, too, and there’s no use in finishing the empty thought. This time, he shifts in his seat; he turns to look at the Brother, with her chin raised and her green eyes sharp.

This is the bright sharp field of a job. He remembers, for a moment, vividly, walking the night streets of the Court in its glow, every natt and tekaa giving them a wide berth. It’s even wider, now, even sharper, even brighter. Splitting bright. Whatever it is she’s seen – he pushes down the prickling, again. He sits ready, his breath even.

She takes a seat; there’s silence. He watches her face, his jaw set, tempting as it is to look at the thrum of her fingers on the table. Tempting as it is to look behind him, at whatever threat might walk the floor he waltzed on just hours ago.

Mrs. Ballington shifts. The rustle of a pillow, the creak of wicker, is deafening.

Dhimitriou Kalogeropoulos is an unmitigated kenser’s erse.

Someone’s let the air out of Mr. Farthington. Anatole’s mouth is slightly open; the feeling of danger from behind quietly disperses, replaced by another one. But Farthington meets Niccolette’s gaze evenly – he hears no pop of a dislocated digit – and then Niccolette is smiling, and Farthington makes a good decision.

Mrs. Ballington laughs, a little bright sharpness of her own. Collie doesn’t quite laugh, but he does show them a rare grin; one of his molars is a metallic glint.

“Well said,” he says, and snorts like he did in life.

Nobody, he thinks, is going to ask, least of all Farthington. Good. “I did business with him once,” muses Collie, frowning. “He seems to be under the mistaken impression that inviting me to these things will get him a concession.”

Etienne’s fears were overstated, he remembers, lip twisting. The whores in Sharkswell have far better manners. Whatever the chrove said to Niccolette, he can’t be surprised. “I, at least,” he puts in carefully, watching the Brother, “have had my fill of Mr. Kalogeropoulos’ hospitality.” Her face is still flushed, for all she’s smiling, “I would not turn down the opportunity to escape Mr. Merenniano, either. He will have me reciting Cantarella, before the evening is over.”

Collie’s got both his hands on his cane; his drink is still half-full, collecting condensation on its coaster. “I’d hate to split up so soon, having just been introduced to the Incumbent – and Mr. Farthington,” he adds, with another rare smile in Farthington’s direction. There’s a glint in his eye. “Perhaps – if Mrs. Ballington does not object.”

Anatole, again, lifts an eyebrow.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Violetta laughs, a softer sort of sound this time, distinctly pleased. “How can I?” She says, smiling. “With an invitation like that! Terrence,” she turns to him, smiling. She does not even need to raise her eyebrows nor speak another word; he is already on his feet, bowing, and offering her his arm. Her hand shakes against him then holds on, firm enough to crease the sleeve of his coat.

Terrence is smiling; Niccolette can feel the mingling of his field with Collingwood’s, just at the edge. Anatole is watching her a little too closely; Niccolette catches his eye and raises one eyebrow. She exhales out some more of the tension; her fingers tap, lightly, against the table once more. There is a brief discussion – Violetta’s coach is still outside, they all must come – and by the time she is on her feet, it is decided.

Violetta has settled her arm through Terrence’s, and is leaning only a little of her weight against him, but Niccolette can see the hesitance of the first step on her bad side. She watches, for just a moment, until Violetta has taken it, and then the next, until the ripples in her blue dress have smoothed out.

“Let me take the shawl,” Niccolette says, suddenly. She comes forward; she plucks it, delicately, off of Violetta’s shoulders, and drapes it over her arm. She is smiling, suddenly, much more widely, all her white teeth gleaming; most of the tension in her field has dissipated, and she consciously relaxes the last of it.

Niccolette lets them go ahead of her, Norton with his cane, although he still is not leaning much of his weight on it, and Anatole with his stick-straight posture. She settles the shawl over her arm, so it drapes half over her hand, artfully careless. She kneels, brushing something off the bottom of the narrow velvet skirt of her dress; she reaches into the wine rack.

The crowd has thinned out with the sinking sun, separated and scattered. It is not hard to make it through the bar; Niccolette finds she can breathe her field back in around her once more, hold it in tight, and smile through the last few conversations.

“Time does, rather, Mrs. Dedouenne, yes,” Niccolette manages with a practiced smile, one arm settled beneath the shawl against her front, the other folded over it; she keeps the tension from her shoulders, and never looks down. It has been rather a long time since she has done this, but one never quite forgets the knack of it.

“Yes,” Niccolette says, quietly, at the doorway, looking at Horace DesVerdes, his face flushed and shiny with alcohol. “He is missed.”

Dhimitriou does not come over, if he sees them.

At the door, Niccolette does not bother with subterfuge. She hands the shawl, casually, to one of the humans standing there; she takes her cloak, and tucks the bottle of wine she has carried across the room into one of the inner pockets. It is heavy – it unbalances even the winter cloak, and she settles her hand casually in the outside pocket, holding it in place, as if her hand has simply always been meant to rest there.

She says nothing; she does not look down.

Terrence helps Violetta through the bare, trimmed-back garden, down the leafless path; a coachman standing at the corner practically jumps to his feet, and is gone before he can even be signaled. Violetta is breathing a little hard, but smiling, lifting her face to the cool night air. “A lovely evening,” she says, smiling. “All the better for good company.” Her other hand pats Terrence’s, lightly.

All five fit in the carriage, Niccolette and Violetta side-by-side, Anatole, Norton and Terrence opposite. Niccolette crosses her legs at the ankles, and smiles as the wheels began to turn, the matched set of well-groomed horses drawing them away back up the hill.

“Out with it,” Violetta says, patting Niccolette’s leg. You have not fooled me, her smile says.

Niccolette grins. She opens the line of the cloak, and takes out the bottle which is resting beneath it against the seat; she settles it against her thighs. The glass is a green, curved, with an oddly delicate look to the neck, and full of dark-looking wine. Niccolette turns it, delicately, and traces her fingers over the edge of the hand-written label, which reads ‘Villamarzana’ in an elaborate script.

Violetta’s eyebrows both lift. She chuckles. “Your maiden name, I believe?” She asks, lightly.

Niccolette shrugs, and smiles, and then answers the question. “My family’s vineyard.” She turns the bottle towards her, holding it in both hands; the ring on her left clinks softly against the glass.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

H
e keeps an eye on her; he keeps an eye on the party. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, not by the second bout of pleasantries, not by the fifth. He doesn’t expect to see Dhimitriou himself – he doesn’t seem the sort of man to bloody his hands – and he doesn’t know, anyway, if it’s Dhimitriou he’s meant to be looking for. Niccolette moves casually through the party, a drape of silky blue over one arm, her field politely dampened once again.

As they’re throwing on their coats and cloaks, he tries to catch her eye. He doesn’t manage it, but he notices she’s tucking something into her cloak, casual enough. A glint on dark glass. He can’t make sense of it.

The party clings, out in the chill. He can still smell the stonefruit sweetness of the white, the less sweet smells of wine breath and dancing-sweat under perfume. The ghosts of crab and cilantro are among them.

But the wind picks up. Though he shivers into his coat and sticks his gloved hands deep in its pockets, he raises his head and drinks the smells that roll off the not-so-distant bay. He can hear the shouting of men echo through the night; even in a toffin’s garden, the sea’s not so far, in the Rose. He can feel it in the darkness, all the things that’re happening in the alleyways of Voedale and Berret Park, the streets that used to fit him like a glove.

The strange party of them winds down the path among rustling bare branches, Collie’s cane tapping merrily on the stones, Farthington with Mrs. Ballington. There are fields all around him, brushing his, mingling quantitative, perceptive, living, clairvoyant, static.

Niccolette’s lopsided cloak scratches at the back of his mind, but he’s walking on the other side of Mrs. Ballington. The coachman’s broad, clean-shaven face catches the gold phosphor lantern; he darts into a long shadow. Anatole is looking at Mrs. Ballington, smiling. The moon has broken through the clouds, and her hair glows with it. It catches the light blue beads at her throat, just underneath her cloak.

The coachman’s head bobs above the driver’s seat, a shadow, a glint of eyes. Ballington’s man, her carriage. It’s an effort to climb up; he hears a rasp of heavy breath from Collingwood, a clatter of cane on wood.

He’s heard where they’re headed – the street name, at least – but he’s never been there, not in this life or the last. He was curious, once, how they lived. Ones like these, in the Rose. You knew not to set foot in those neighborhoods; if the Seventen had a job here, it was removing the spitch. Now, he has been invited.

It’s after the rattling of the wheels has started, finally, and it’s Mrs. Ballington breaks the tension. It’s a squeeze, the three lads on one side; Anatole is at one end, Collie at his shoulder. He sits straightly, frowning through the pain in his back.

His frown twitches, breaks, as the Villamarzana bottle comes out of the cloak. Niccolette’s ring sparks against the tinted glass as they pass underneath a streetlamp.

It catches Collie’s profile, his long wan frown. He looks at the bottle thoughtfully.

There’s a long quiet, carriage-wheels rattling over stones. He can’t read Ballington’s face, and if the name surprises Collie or Farthington, there’s no pause or gape, no question – certainly not from the other end, though he can’t see the lad’s face from here.

Niccolette is looking at the label. The shape is vague, but he thinks he might be grasping the edges of the Kalogeropoulos problem.

“I’ve had a Villamarzana red once,” Anatole says. He looks at Niccolette, raising one eyebrow. There’s a fox’s smile on his face, crinkling at his eyes. “I believe,” he adds, casually, with a slight shrug. “As I recall, it was very good. But much better, when allowed to breathe awhile.”