f course they are, he wanted to say, with a faint surge of irritation. He blinked; one eyebrow twitched. The question felt more like placation; he knew it by the set of her lips, the tickle of humor at the edges of her expression. It wasn’t his place to speak, not yet. But he could’ve spoken, oes, he could’ve given her answers, solid and real.
The man doesn’t care for the lit writ statutes anyway, he wanted to say, we’ve been over that countless times in –
He swallowed thickly.
He met her eye evenly and inclined his head. She, she said, and held still, two points of flickering light reflected in her eyes. He felt it, now – dropping like a rock through him – the twist and flip of his stomach. He couldn’t conjure her face in his eyes, but he could hear her voice; he could smell sickly-sweet cologne and cigar smoke underneath the sage he had burnt in this place every day.
His skin crawled. Ava glanced toward the grate, and he shut his eyes; he could feel it draining out into his field, and he tried to breathe it indectal again. When he opened them, she was looking at him. She was smiling, but he could feel her eyes on him, on his face; he wished, achingly, that he could take it off.
He nodded slowly instead. He thought again of the Shrike’s eyes glittering in the soft light, the jerky break of his voice. “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “It may be wiser. It would be easier, with no one looking over my shoulder in the office. But the civil service would only send someone else, and I’m more inclined to the hatcher I know.”
Did he know Shrikeweed?
Would it be easier? Shrikeweed still caught him sometimes, on this or that; months’ vigorous study was no replacement for years of political and legal education.
He thought of some other man in Shrikeweed’s place. He wondered if he’d go to the Elephant, still, knowing what he’d done. He shook the thought away; it came back, like an embroidered vine. He would do the same to you, Tom told himself, lip twisting. Did it matter?
“He’ll see things – he already has – that I won’t, in the halls of congress; he’s a civil servant, and he’s access to resources neither of us have.” He spoke evenly, bluntly, without breaking eye contact. “All the same –”
He broke off, sucking at a tooth. The elepha again. He could scarce see for it, now; it filled the whole room. He looked at Ava, and he felt the frustration fill him up. His chest ached.
He’d thought when he’d spoken the word, quantitative – he hadn’t wanted to assume she didn’t know. Had he known, once? He couldn’t remember when he’d learned.
There were milestones, for most of them. Sitting here, he could remember when he’d learned to tell the difference between quantitative and clairvoyant mona in a field, or when he’d discovered that he could sense it, now, that melancholy taste in the air, and know it was blue. He couldn’t remember when he had learned that quantitative meant measurement equations and leymancy.
Some questions he couldn’t leave unanswered, no matter how they were meant. “With a targeted spell, a quantitative conversationalist might ask – what are the dimensions of this room,” he said, gesturing round, “if there’s organic matter; what’s the weight, height, density of the organic matter…”
He trailed off, continuing to study her face.
“It’s not your papers I think he’d be concerned with.” Another deep breath. “I don’t know if it’s better to have him out of the way. But I want us to be – ready.” He shifted to the edge of his seat, leaning forward slightly.