[PM to Join] Every Stumble and Each Misfire

[Tom Cooke]

The Long Gallery • The Vauquelin House

Late Evening on the 40th of Ophus, 2719

A
clairvoyantist’s perspective. He inclines his head and shrugs, as if to say, Well, I reckon that’s what I am.

Is that what he is? He thinks, strangely enough, of sitting on a couch in soft lamplight, speaking of Mantel, of Ezeudo and fumimancy, of all manner of things he had not, then, understood. Drink brings such ghosts swimming about the mind; the melancholy is deep, and he can swim rather than drowning.

They drift down the gallery, at the far edge of the throng. Asked, she says, then stops. It’s a stop on the edge of something, he feels; he looks over at her, and now he raises his eyebrows, because he’s never known Niccolette Ibutatu to search for a better word than she’s already spoken, not in Estuan nor Monite.

Demanded, she says. He glances over, raises an eyebrow. He watches, then, as she raises a hand to her face; it’s a small motion – she might’ve been scratching her lip – but he remembers, shock-vivid, snow melting and evaporating and falling again, a terrible heat, the smell of burnt flesh.

“Giving and asking – demanding,” he corrects himself, with a little smile. “Giving and demanding, then giving more.”

She backlashed then, he knows; she has said she did not regret it. Did Tsabiyi? He won’t bring it up, but he thinks of it: he can’t remember a single reference to backlash in all of Tsabiyi’s work. He has to have, he thinks, but the path never split for him, and he suspects it’s never split for Niccolette Ibutatu, either.

He thinks of where the path split for ada’na Utula. He thinks of projection, of the merging of minds, of untethering, and blood in all of it. “I suppose,” he starts; he walks slow, deliberate, beside her, his heel clicking silently on the ballroom floor, “I suppose I don’t – a clairvoyantist wouldn’t see it as giving, or asking, or demanding. More… reaching deeper, or – or becoming—”

I challenge you!

He starts, even if she doesn’t. He turns with her, to where the crowd has scattered round what appears to be a hell of a scene.

He looks over at her, one brow raised. “Auspicious or inauspicious.” He turns back, looks over the heads. There is silence where there was music; he can’t think when it stopped. “Speak of the hatcher, and he’ll find you.”

“Are you all right, my dear?”

Heloise Delacroix is quite pale, more pale than Diana has ever seen her. Her hair has come loose, and a few tangled strands hang about her face. Diana brushes them out of the way, tucks them behind her ear, and cups her cheek.

“Quite all right, Mrs. Vauquelin,” she says, with a tremble in her voice.

“Oh, darling.”

Two fields flare hot at the edges of theirs, pressing against one another, flexing their perceptive and living mona broadly. “Name them, then,” barks a young man’s voice, breathless. “Name your terms.”

Alain Delacroix is a member of the assembly, Diana knows, and recently ascended. He is man of roughly forty-five, with the narrow, freckled features and the thick red hair of an Anaxi. He is as well-dressed as any of the other gentlemen at the party; the pattern of his cravat matches his wife’s dress, simple but elegant in black and white. He is standing very straight-backed, and his lips are pressed very thin.

The young man opposite him, with the living ramscott, she knows now as Marcel Winthrop. A year returned from Drekkur, she understands, and roughly Heloise’s age. They went to Brunnhold together, the girl was telling her just an hour ago, introducing her to the bright-eyed, blond-haired young man, whose engagement ring still gleams on one hand.

The floor is a scatter of broken glass and a spreading pool of champagne. Diana has not had much tonight, and now, the smell rather turns her stomach.

“A duel at the second level will be sufficient,” Mr. Delacroix says, clipped. “Mrs. Vauquelin—”

“No,” breathes Heloise.

“Mr. Delacroix,” says Diana, one hand still on Heloise’s shoulder. “Do reconsider. It is Clock’s Eve, the eve of the new year; it is a night meant for—”

“I said that I accepted, Mrs. Vauquelin,” he says smoothly. His eyes never leave the young man’s. There is color in his cheeks. “Do the Vauquelins agree to host?”

We cannot refuse, Diana thinks, and holds back a heavy hearted sigh. She does not yet look across the crowd for her husband’s face, though he must by now have seen it; she cannot bear to. “We do,” she says quietly. “The atrium is suitable for the purposes.”

Only now does Mr. Delacroix turn and bow deeply to the hostess. Mr. Winthrop, still breathless, turns and bows his blond head dizzyingly fast. “My thanks, madam,” he says.

A ripple of a snicker goes through the crowd. No music; nothing but held breath.

Diana rests her hand a moment more on Heloise’s silk shoulder, giving the girl a smile. There is color in her cheeks as well, underneath the freckles.

“I shall fetch the doctor,” she says softly. “Come with me, please – you can retire until a carriage is made ready…”

Heloise looks as if she is about to protest, but nods quietly instead.

Eugenia Favroulet moves in, as if on cue, a flash of white silk. She takes the poor girl by the shoulders, tutting softly, fixing her hair.

Diana is thinking so quickly she cannot think. Heloise has been looking so well; earlier, she was laughing on Alain’s arm, cradling the slight swell at her stomach which she no longer cares to hide.

When she turns, steeling herself, it is as if the upkeep of a spell is let go. The duelists begin moving toward the far end of the hall, toward the stairs; the crowd drifts after them, Clock’s Eve dresses and neat tuxedos, glasses of champagne and brandy and glittering new years’ cocktails.

Diana recognizes her husband, standing over by one of the tall dark windows. She moves; she has lost her own glass somewhere, she does not know where.

She can tell by the way he is standing, by the expression on his face, that he is deep in his cups already. Curious, how different it is now; but she has begun to know these new faces of Anatole’s, too. His eyebrows are raised; he is saying something in a low voice to a dark-haired woman beside him, a woman she does not recognize.

“...speak of the hatcher, and he’ll find you,” he is saying.

“Anatole,” she says, and then, when she has gotten close enough to caprise, a little breathless, bows deeply to the woman. She reaches out to the living mona with her own perceptive – pauses – raises up from her bow, and smoothes out a slightly surprised expression.

“Diana,” says Anatole, in his new, practiced way. There is nothing in his eyes when he looks at her; his smile does not change. “May I introduce Niccolette Ibutatu? Mrs. Ibutatu, this is my wife, Diana Vauquelin.”

“You must forgive us for this – disruption, Mrs. Ibutatu,” says Diana. “Anatole, I’m afraid we’ve been called to host a duel. I’m afraid – unless…” She pauses, then takes a deep breath; her field is indectal and smooth around her.

There’s a flicker of something – irritation? Worry? – on her face, when she looks again at the young Bastian. Then, she smiles, a strange glint in her eyes. “Do you wish to join us on the balcony, Mrs. Ibutatu?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 40 Ophus, 2719
The Long Gallery, The Vauquelin House

Reaching deeper, Anatole says, thoughtfully, or becoming.

Nicolette breathes, deeply. Something about the word shivers down her spine. She is aware of the cold; even here, indoors, in the midst of the party, she feels in on the exposed skin of her hands, her cheeks; even most of the way through the second glass of champagne, she knows it. She looks down at her hands; she turns one, slowly, as if to check if there is still a burn on the outermost edge of one long finger.

Tsabiyi writes that he always begrudged the time for meditation, Niccolette wants to say. I have thought – perhaps – it held him back. What would he have been, if he had been able to put himself aside a little more? Or, if he had, would he still have had the courage to stay his course? She curls her hand around the other, so they are both holding the champagne glass; she lifts her gaze back up and does not look down at them once more.

The balance of asking and giving, Niccolete could have said. The balancing of demanding and becoming.

Niccolette shrugs, lightly, when Anatole repeats her question. She glances down at the party below. “Mr. Delacroix, is it not?” She asks, lightly. She remembers him from rainy seasons; she never had Uzoji’s gift for faces, but she knows him all the same. Perceptive, she thinks; always an interesting choice for a duel. There are dueling contests at Anastou, of course, where the duelists are forbidden to look away from one another’s eyes; they are quite amusing. In general, it is considered base and cowardly to look away from one’s opponent in a duel, particularly against a perceptivist. There is little point in winning a duel if one stains one’s honor in the process.

“I cannot place the other,” Niccolette studies the hot-faced towhead standing opposite him, the one who issued the challenge; she wonders.

“Mrs. Vauquelin,” Niccolette turns to Diana Vauquelin as she approaches; she bows deeply at the waist, as befits a guest to her host, and returns the other woman’s gentle perceptive caprise politely and superficially. She knows the woman, from a distance; they have not, she believes, been introduced before. Whatever she thinks of Anatole murmuring Brellos pez Hirtka, stumbling drunk through the Rose, she keeps it to herself, and well away from the polite, social smile on her face.

Niccolette glances back to the floor; both men are making their way towards one of the doors, well-apart. Mr. Delacroix’s color is high; it is the younger man, the towhead, who looks angry, simmering somewhere beneath the surface.

Niccolette’s eyebrows lift, lightly, at the invitation. “I should be glad,” she says with an easier smile. “The second tier, I believe?” She glances at stiff-backed perceptivist heading towards the atrium. First to five, she assumes; it is rarely done otherwise. She has seen first to seven and first to three, but these are generally the tricks of someone who has planned for the duel, and believes such a change will confer them an advantage; it rarely seems to work as they envision. Much the same is true of thirty second rounds. Naturally there were duels in the dueling league with variations upon these rules; the most interesting to Niccolette were always half or third time rounds.

Niccolette sets her champagne glass aside, still half-full. There is no excitement in her field, nor on her face, but she is interested, and rather engaged. Duels are about strategy, not passion; she has never cared in the least, dueling herself, what anyone on the sidelines thinks, nor what they enjoy.

The three of them proceed to a small balcony overlooking the atrium. Niccolette shivers, once, in the cold, her eyes closing. Some of the color leeches from her cheeks, making them paler than usual beneath the faint traces of blush. Her lips are still vivid red. She tucks her hands together before her, one thumb rubbing lightly over the other, and looks down at the ground below.

She glances over at Anatole, and his wife; she smiles, lightly, relaxing her jaw against the tension of the cold. “Have you ever dueled, Incumbent? Mrs. Vauquelin?”

[Tom Cooke]

The Long Gallery • The Vauquelin House

Late Evening on the 40th of Ophus, 2719

D
iana cannot say she misses the press of the long gallery, for all its warmth. Her thoughts are a whirl; the crowd has all spilled downstairs, she imagines, to watch at the glass doors. A few of the other balconies – two on the long gallery wall, more in the upstairs retiring rooms – are populated with stragglers, save the empty bedroom balconies opposite. She skims the faces she knows and the faces she doesn’t, though she cannot look, not yet, at the two unfamiliar faces that stand with her on the balcony.

In the atrium, on the long walk fringed with shrubs and bare twisting tree branches, the duelists face one another. She stands back from the railing, but even here, she can see Mr. Delacroix’ straight back, Mr. Winthrop’s flushed face.

A breath; the duelists prepare themselves to flip.

Mrs. Ibutatu has a sharp Bastian accent – a sharp Bastian accent, and a Mugrobi name. She thinks briefly of the books stacked on Anatole’s desk, and does not think further. She remembers something – not so long ago – about a duel, news from Vienda filtered to her in Bastia, proud whispers. About a widow.

She glances over at the Bastian in silver, across Anatole’s shoulder, at the question.

“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Ibutatu,” he is saying. “I’ve heard there are certain – risks – associated with serious clairvoyant dueling.”

He’s moved closer to the railing; he lays one hand on it, but the other is still holding his snifter, with considerably less brandy in it than there was when she met them indoors. There’s a spark in his eyes, in his voice, utterly unfamiliar to her. He’s watching the duelists with a bloom of focus in his soft, weak clairvoyant field.

You did, she wants to say. Once, we both – but saying so, she has learned, offers only a petty, brief sort of satisfaction, and it is no real relief.

“I concede,” calls Mr. Winthrop, chin high, blond hair disheveled. “Mr. Delacroix goes first.” He keeps his eyes on the perceptive, unwavering. He’s dueled before, she thinks, the hotheaded whelp.

She smiles faintly, remembering another hotheaded whelp on the lawn.

Anatole is standing very still, as if he is confused. She thinks. She moves closer, then; her hand brushes his, and mechanically, he takes it. She squeezes. “They duel at the second tier,” she says. “Not quite Brunnhold rules, I’m afraid; first to five, but half rounds – fifteen seconds. I have agreed that the host be the arbiter.”

This Anatole is sharp enough. She watches him catch on; her hand slips from his. He rustles in his waistcoat for a watch. “Very well,” he says with thinly-veiled enthusiasm, and the most unfamiliar of his smiles crinkles in his familiar crow’s feet.

“On four, love,” she adds, very quietly.

She takes a deep breath, again. She steps closer, again, to the Bastian. The living field around her – delicately, politely suppressed; Diana cannot imagine what it feels like flexed – is as indectal as hers, but she remembers the half-full glass of champagne left behind on the table.

She does not look at the ring that glints on Mrs. Ibutatu’s finger. Instead, she smiles smoothly. “I was no stranger to the lawn,” she says, “at Brunnhold, though I left it behind me when I graduated.”

Anatole’s deep voice booms over the atrium. Diana glances aside only briefly; there’s a glint of silver in his hand, but it’s not that strange watch he often has now.

She tilts her head. “I’ve seldom had the chance to spectate since then,” she adds. “Perhaps all this is a blessing in disguise, though I cannot quite forgive the broken glass. And you, Mrs. Ibutatu? I have dueled a living conversationalist once, but one never quite forgets. Mr. Winthrop is a living mancer himself; he has just returned from Drekkur.”

She has had other dealings with living conversationalists, of course; nearly all of the council wives, and a handful of the incumbents, have. The conversation has interested her somewhat more recently, since –

Anatole’s watch flashes. She pauses, politely attentive, as Mr. Winthrop begins to cast, but she keeps the widow in the corner of her eye.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 40 Ophus, 2719
The Long Gallery, The Vauquelin House

Half rounds,” Niccolette says, lifting her eyebrows. She glances back down at the two men standing opposite one another. An interesting choice, she thinks curiously, by Delacroix. He is considerably older than the man standing opposite him; a decade and a half at least, and perhaps two, Niccolette thinks. Not necessarily, however, an unwise choice by a perceptivist; it depends very much on what the younger man’s conversation is.

Diana comes a little closer; Niccolette feels the faintest nudge of something like curiosity in her polite, smooth indectal field.

“A shame,” Niccolette says, lightly, when Diana says she left dueling behind at Brunnhold. She catches the other woman’s eye; she smiles, although not quite widely enough to let Diana take the comment as a joke.

Anatole calls the beginning of the duel, and Niccolette glances back over to him, eyes lingering for a moment on the stopwatch, and sweeping down over the balcony to the atrium below. “A living mancer,” Niccolette’s eyebrows lift. “A duel of control, then, I expect,” The Bastian says, casually. “If either of them have any sense.”

Fifteen second rounds against a living conversationalist. Niccolette thinks that Mr. Delacroix must be very sure of himself indeed; she half wishes she could feel their fields, to gauge for herself whether he is wise or confident.

She breathes in the sharp, cold-tinged air; the fashion in Vienda is once more to enclose the neck, following a brief flirtation in Yaris with necklines which left a bit of skin exposed. Niccolette is rather grateful; it is where the blood flows closest to the surface, after all. Better, she thinks idly, to keep it covered.

“I was quite fond of the Lawn and the dueling club both at Brunnhold,” Niccolette says with a fond smile. She thinks of dropping to her knees and vomiting from backlash into the dry grass at Sy’rien Palevi’s feet, his handsome face twisted in a vicious snarl. She thinks of herself and her skirts splattered in mud in the Gyre, her nose dripping blood; she thinks of holding her chin high, and watching, wide-eyed and curious, as Nauleth Siordanti backlashed himself half to death.

“I have had four duels, since,” Niccolette adds, almost casually.

Winthrop begins to cast on the atrium floor below. Yes, Niccolette thinks, he knows he is outmatched. He builds clause upon clause; he calls upon the mona, and exhorts them, and once, Niccolette catches the faintest of wavers in his voice.

She knows where he is going long before he gets there. “Paralysis,” Niccolette murmurs. She shrugs. It is not the worst opening move, if he can manage the spell. “Karimi, I believe.” She wrinkles her nose, faintly; it is an all-purpose paralysis spell, and rather wasteful when it comes to the caster’s energy. It is the sort of spell the young man would have cast at Drekkur, in a classroom, against a subject who fought only so far as it was required of the classwork, and only once at that. She is glad he had the sense not to try a pain spell, although she wonders what he plans to do if this fails; he will have to hold the upkeep for more than a minute to win the duel on this spell alone.

Niccolette turns back to Diana, and smiles. “Who do you favor?” She asks. “As hostess, you should be impartial, I understand – but… if you were to choose?” She has noticed the other woman’s wide eyes at her caprise; she knows she is still well and politely suppressed. And, too, for all that the other woman is a perceptive caster, there is a quiet core of strength in her ramscott. Niccolette finds, almost unexpectedly, she is rather interested in what the other woman has to say.

Winthrop curls his spell. He waits – they all wait; Delacroix is frozen on the path opposite him; his eyes darting side to side, and his lips held still. A point, Niccolette thinks, for Winthrop; Anatole’s gaze is on the watch in his hand.

[Tom Cooke]

Overlooking the Atrium • The Vauquelin House

Late Evening on the 40th of Ophus, 2719

F
our duels since Brunnhold. So the rumors are true, she thinks; she will have to mention it to Mrs. Pawley, when next they meet. She will need to ask, too, who this Bastian dilettante is; four is too few for a professional duelist, but too many for the average galdor. Perhaps the wife of one, whoever Mr. Ibutatu was. She does not think she knows the name.

Control, Mrs. Ibutatu says, and she feels a prickle of excitement, like goosebumps.

It is difficult, with him standing on the balcony before them – with him calling the duel as hesitantly and giddily as a first-timer – not to think of their earliest conversations. If either of them have any sense, Mrs. Ibutatu says, and she pictures him in a memory that is now like a dream; he spoke with his hands even then.

She remembers the lawn, too, long before him. Four seconds’ worth of unbearable excitement, the way anyone who cared for his honor would meet your eye and not look away.

She dares to imagine dueling Mrs. Ibutatu; it’s a flight of fancy, and nothing more. She doesn’t think those green eyes would look away.

“Mr. Winthrop’s turn again!” calls Anatole, glancing up from his stopwatch.

Diana watches, frowning slightly, as the barest fraction of a wince shivers across Mr. Delacroix’ face. Simply dreadful. She remembers why she gave up dueling; she remembers vividly the sensation of being trapped, as if all her flesh had been turned to stone, utterly vulnerable. She catches herself running a hand over her throat idly – the silk is soft under her fingertips – and drops her hand, shifting her stance.

She wishes she had thought to have a servant fetch her furs. Anatole’s cheeks are very red, and he sniffs occasionally, but he looks positively absorbed. Mrs. Ibutatu is terribly pale herself, though she does not seem to mind; her bright red lips are smiling.

Diana smiles back, lifting one delicate eyebrow. Her eyes are then on the duelists, and on Mr. Winthrop.

“Starting off with Karimi,” she begins, and sighs. “He is doing well with the upkeep, but I should hope he does not plan to waste his turn with it. Even if he won that way, it would be a – disappointing victory.”

One, two, three, four. Mr. Winthrop draws himself up; he is casting again.

Diana’s mouth opens slightly; her brow furrows. “Mrs. Ibutatu,” she says, “I do believe he is casting an adrenaline spell.”

On – himself? It is hard for her perceptive’s eyes to make out from here, but Mr. Delacroix’ eyes have widened fractionally. He is still trapped by Winthrop’s upkeep.

Show-off, she can imagine Anatole saying, and humming with laughter. “I think he is frightened,” she says carefully, one hand on her hip. “He has hemmed in the spine wolf, but he knows he cannot for long.” There: she knows enough of living conversation to recognize clauses pertaining to concentration and mental acuity; Eugenia cast such a spell on her in ninth form, she remembers, to keep her awake during a test, to fend off mental exhaustion.

It worked well enough. She cannot now remember how well she actually performed.

Mr. Winthrop curls the spell.

Anatole glances sideways; it appears she has gotten his attention, for once. “He could have used his chance to get ahead,” he says. His lips twist; he’s sucking a tooth.

He glances down at the pocket watch, then counts again.

“If I were to choose, hypothetically, I would choose Mr. Delacroix. But Mr. Winthrop is the challenger, and a passionate one,” she says. “Is it not so that a frightened, angry man may win by sheer will? If,” she adds, “he can cast with a clear head.”

On four, Mr. Delacroix’ lips are twisted; the spell, it seems, divided the pup’s concentration enough. By the fifth second, he is casting.

His time is limited, and the spell has been condensed to a few clauses, but Diana recognizes it immediately. A priority spell. The suggestion is simpler than it might be – to shift Anatole’s voice to the back of the target’s mind, in favor of Delacroix’ eyes – and somewhat more predictable than Diana had expected. Tapping her chin with a finger, she watches Winthrop.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 40 Ophus, 2719
Overlooking the Atrium, The Vauquelin House

Delacroix misses his turn, frozen; even from here, Niccolette can see the shifting of the whites of his eyes. Diana has turned back to the dueling, and is watching, intent and curious. Anatole, too, is watching, a bright smile on his face, and his hand a bit tight on the stopwatch, almost boyish in his enthusiasm.

Niccolette thinks, studying the situation. Upkeeping Karimi for a minute and a half; she purses her lips. She could manage it, she thinks, especially after holding anesthetic spells for so long, again and again, at the hospital these last months.

If it were her, Niccolette thinks, smiling, she would try a bristle; something short and sharp which would gain her a point against Delacroix. She has never experienced a bristle spell while being paralyzed, but she can imagine something of the effect it would have on the nerves. Perhaps it is a bit cruel for this crowd, the Bastian concedes.

Winthrop holds the upkeep, from the tense look on his face, and begins to cast again. Niccolette raises her eyebrows. “On himself,” the Bastian confirms Diana’s guess, smiling. She shrugs. “Adrenaline spells are rather a precise tool," Niccolette murmurs. "Like surgery on one’s own nerves."

He is casting a spell on himself for concentration. It is not a terribly powerful spell; that, at least, she thinks wryly, is wise. It’s decently balanced, as far as she can tell; he is borrowing from his own future, but a little distant – asking for concentration for the next hour, perhaps.

For a moment, Niccolette wonders; can he do it? Has he tempered the spell well enough to hold two at once?

Delacroix casts. A point, Niccolette thinks; so far as she can tell, this distant, the priority spell has taken hold. He is stick straight, still; he does not look in the least intimidated. It is a duelist’s trick; she does not find it distasteful, quite, but it’s the sort of spell a clever boy casts,

Winthrop’s face is pale, but for the spots of burning color high in his cheek. Niccolette suspects they would see him trembling, if they were close enough. She watches, curious. “A delicate balance to walk,” she says, lightly, “to find a spell he can manage.”

Winthrop’s hand comes up; he chants a few words of monite. Carbon ash scatters forward from his hand, clouding the air between them for a moment.

“Good lady!” Delacroix snaps; his eyes shut, and his face twists in a grimace.

“Interesting,” Niccolette says, lightly. Two to one Winthrop; it was not, she thinks, such a bad choice. Not, naturally, what she would have done, but he has scored a point while likely disrupting whatever spell Delacroix had in mind. Living and perceptive are close cousins; whatever one does, the other will likely understand, well-enough at least.

Delacroix is casting; his voice is hoarse with swallowed ash, but he chants steadily, straightening up; tears are streaming down his face, clearing a path through the dust which has clung to his skin.

“A memory spell,” Niccolette leans forward. “Quite an interesting choice.” She runs through the options; her eyebrows lift, slowly. “I wonder,” The Bastian says. She glances sideways to Diana; she smiles. “Have you ever seen a horror spell used, Mrs. Vauquelin?” Niccolette asks. she does not ask Anatole; it is not done, to interrupt the arbiter. She thinks of a red-headed woman casting in darkness; she thinks of her giggling and singing to herself, rocking back and forth of the floor of a warehouse, and of Uzoji’s blood covering her hands. For a moment, she looks down; she curls them against one another. They are clean, Niccolette thinks; the ring is bitter-cold against her skin. She looks back up to Diana, and glances back down.

“I thought Mr. Winthrop was the angrier,” Niccolette muses, watching much more closely now. “I think now perhaps I was wrong. Mr. Delacroix…” she smiles. “I do not think he wishes quite to win. I think he wishes to… conquer,” the Bastian says. She smiles; she knows something of such duels.

Delacroix curls his spell. They are tied, now, at two-two. Niccolette does not think it will be for long.

[Tom Cooke]

Overlooking the Atrium • The Vauquelin House

Late Evening on the 40th of Ophus, 2719

G
ood lady! cries Delacroix. Diana smiles faintly; she hears the breath catch in Anatole’s throat. She shifts, letting out something that isn’t quite a sigh, and lays one hand on the railing. She glances over at Mrs. Ibutatu, studying the other woman’s face with some interest. Not a bad move, she thinks, not with the duress he’s under, but – all the same – what would you have done?

Delacroix’ upkeep has broken, and no doubt of it. She half expects Mr. Winthrop to look away, to show he can, to show off his success; some targets, having broken such a priority spell, will do so reflexively, will snap at the bit to look anywhere but the perceptive’s eyes.

Mr. Winthrop remains looking at Mr. Delacroix.

A delicate balance indeed. Mr. Delacroix looks a mess. She has never seen him like this, smeared with ashes, reddened eyes streaming tears. Her hand tightens on the railing as he opens his mouth – careful, she wants to say; perceptive backlash is unenviable – and begins to cast, hoarse but clear, pronouncing each syllable slowly. She glances from him to the stopwatch in Anatole’s white–knuckled, slightly shaky hand.

It is she whom Niccolette addresses. She looks at the Bastian again. “Once,” she says with a little frown. “On the lawn. Not a particularly effective one.”

Have you? She is almost afraid to ask. She already knows the answer, by the tone of the question. She has a feeling it is not on the lawn.

All the same: Anatole has, she might’ve said once, when he could still speak for himself on the matter.

Horror spells, Anatole might’ve said, are most ineffective in the context of a duel – when used conventionally. It is hard to force emotions on a target, hard and clumsy, like shoving a puzzle piece where it does not go; harder still to force a recollection on a target whose memory and mind are a mystery to the caster.

Some horrifying experiences we all share, naturally. Still, you cannot find a foothold in, say, a childhood nightmare, and nor can you effectively guess at what secret fears lay buried in a man’s innermost mind.

But duels are often waged, she remembers him saying, giddy, on the basis of a common distress – shame. All duels, even on the lawn, are the stuff of shame and embarrassment. And both are a source of horror.

Mr. Delacroix curls the spell. He stands very straight, with his jaw squared. If he’s watching his spell take hold, there isn’t a hint of a smile on his face. Mr. Winthrop does not speak. Three, four…

Diana watches him; there seems to be a hush over the atrium. The tips of his ears are scarlet now. He breaks eye contact with Mr. Delacroix, finally; his eyes dart around the atrium, up to the balconies, up at the sky. She thinks she can see a glint in his eyes as he looks back to Mr. Delacroix. Five, six…

“I think you are right,” says Diana softy. “Poor Mrs. Delacroix. She must be on her way home now.”

Mr. Winthrop speaks, then. Diana cannot keep back her wince; she glances over at Mrs. Ibutatu.

He sounds as if he is on the verge of gagging. His cheeks are no less scarlet. He fumbles out a quick, nearly-incomplete bristle spell, slurring on the last syllable.

Mr. Delacroix lifts his chin. Nothing has happened. Diana finds herself holding her breath; she watches the duelists carefully.

The perceptive is casting again, after a moment. No backlash for Winthrop; Diana lets out her breath. This time, he is weaving – “Another concentration spell,” she murmurs. “To stack with the horror spell and the adrenaline…”

She recognizes a careful metacognitive spell woven in. “To make him – self-conscious.” She lets go of the railing, sighing and shaking her head. “Conquer indeed, Mrs. Ibutatu. It seems… cruel, even in an angry man. Does victory not suffice for noble conquest?”

Mr. Delacroix’ face is a strange mask, smeared with ash, streaked clean with tear-tracks. His voice still rasps, but it is strong.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 40 Ophus, 2719
Overlooking the Atrium, The Vauquelin House

Niccolette nods, lightly, at Diana’s response.

Horror spells on the lawn – in the open, in the light of day, cast by furious, desperate students – are rarely more than a vague feeling of terror. Runoff is common; she remembers, once, a half-backlash that led to about half a dozen students sobbing. In full duels, they are rare; most of the perceptivists skilled enough to cast them well know why they are most often ineffective in such circumstances. At the third tier, an effective horror spell is, perhaps, borderline too-damaging; nightmares and worse are common aftereffects.

They are, here, at the second tier. Delacroix is more at risk of grievous injury from the horror spell than Winthrop, if he backlashes. Niccolette does not think he will; the hoarseness in his voice has settled out to an even rasp, and he is casting with the grim, even determination of a man who knows what he is doing. For all the tears streaming down his face, he never looks away.

Neither does Winthrop.

That, at least, Niccolette thinks, she can respect.

Winthrop chokes his way through a bristle spell. Niccolette watches, her eyebrows lifting slowly. He slurs the last syllable; the spell fails, but there is no apparent backlash. The Bastian clicks her tongue, lightly.

Delacroix casts once more; Diana, this time, knows the spell better than Niccolette.

“Self-conscious,” Niccolette says, curiously. Her voice is even. “It suffices, perhaps,” Niccolette turns away from the duel in the atrium below, looking back to Diana. The spell-casting is over now; what remains is, perhaps, the clean-up.

“It depends, I suppose, on the purpose of the duel,” Niccolette says, thoughtful. She glances back down at the two men below. “Winthrop must have known he was outmatched.” She understands, now, why Delacroix chose fifteen second rounds. “If Delacroix only wished that we all know it as well,” the Bastian shrugs, “then he would have chosen control spells, or perhaps manipulation spells. A powerful suggestion spell or invade spell, perhaps; something to demonstrate his superiority, and do no real harm.”

“But he chose the second tier,” Niccolette raises her eyebrows at Diana. “I wonder if he had this planned then; if so, I suppose Mr. Winthrop’s adrenaline spell was rather an unexpected gift.”

Delacroix is casting below; Niccolette glances down, and her eyebrows raise.

It is a spell she knows; it is a spell they all know. It is a simple spell, with low-risk of backlash; it is a spell students cast on the Lawn, boys especially. Niccolette has had it cast on her, more than once; it is a spell, she thinks idly, which works only if one feels shame. She does not quite feel sorry for Winthrop – he engaged the duel – but she rather sees how one could.

“I think Mr. Delacroix,” Niccolette says delicately, “is not satisfied with being known the better caster.”

Winthrop’s face is a frozen mask of horror; he is so red that one can almost see in through the tousled blonde hair on his scalp. He has chosen black pants, which might have worked to his advantage, but for the cold.

Steam rises up through the atrium; it curls from the leg of Winthrop’s pants, where it is pressed, now, against his skin. He holds Delacroix’s gaze, but his lips are trembling, and there is wetness tracking down his cheeks as well.

Delacroix is not smiling, but it is close.

Someone giggles in the audience; the laugh ripples through, and it is like a breath exhaled. They are laughing, then, these elegant Viendan politicians in black and white for Clock’s Eve, drunk and giggling like students on the Lawn. Delacroix’s spell, Niccolette thinks, is complete.

Winthrop holds himself upright; his jaw trembles, and holds shut. Tears are sliding faster down his cheeks. Anatole counts down the seconds to his turn. Four, five – his jaw works, he swallows, and he holds silent, and his turn passes him by. Four to two, Delacroix; the duel is not yet over.

“What do you think, Mrs. Vauquelin?” Niccolette asks. “Is it losing with dignity to avoid backlash, or is it a coward who does not try?”

[Tom Cooke]

Overlooking the Atrium • The Vauquelin House

Late Evening on the 40th of Ophus, 2719

W
hat on Vita, she wonders, would he have made of this?

What does she make of it? “No, I think he is not,” she muses, laying her other hand on the railing, breathing the chill air in as she looks over into the atrium. There are tears glistening on Mr. Winthrop’s cheeks, enough to make his whole face look slick. He is as red as a tomato. Still, he has not looked away from Mr. Delacroix once since the horror spell.

Laughter bubbles up from below. On the ground floor below and opposite the balcony, she can see a few shapes standing in one of the glass doors. It’s difficult to make out from here – they’re little more than shadows, with the glass reflecting the lanterns in the garden – but she thinks she recognizes Mr. and Mrs. Cyprien Silvestre, the wife’s slender hand on her husband’s arm, both of them shaking with laughter.

She looks to the side, past Anatole and Mrs. Ibutatu. She recognizes Antoine Guéymard, His Majesty’s business secretary’s chief of staff, smirking faintly; it might be the cold, but she would swear there are two spots of color in his cheeks. He is saying something in a low voice to the man beside him, Judge Margelidon, who’s chortling, one plump hand over his mouth.

Anatole is holding the stopwatch stiffly now. His other hand is empty, his fingers curled white-knuckled around the edge of the railing. The snifter of brandy sits empty on his other side. She looks at him. In profile, his expression is hard to read; there is a ghost of a smile very like the ones he used to wear still clinging to his face, but it disperses as the seconds draw on. She cannot tell what he is looking at; his eyes are flicking around the atrium.

Diana’s lips move. Thirteen, fourteen, she pronounces delicately. Her lips press thin at what must be fifteen. She looks over again at Anatole.

“Mr. –” His voice sounds hoarse; he clears his throat. “Mr. Winthrop,” he pronounces, “has forfeit his turn!”

Her hand loosens on the railing, but does not quite leave it. It’s very close to Anatole’s; it creeps over a half-inch, or perhaps less. After a moment, it slips away.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s question rouses her; she turns, because it is somewhat difficult to look at Mr. Delacroix, his face ashy and tear-streaked, the strange smile on his lips visible now even from here.

“I cannot say,” she replies. “Regardless of what he does, he will be playing into Mr. Delacroix’ hands. Backlash is unenviable; when in doubt, one’s monic relationship is paramount.” She does not look at Anatole, but sighs. “Perhaps he should have forfeited, rather than prolonging this.”

How, she wonders again, watching Mr. Delacroix draw his breath in to cast, would Anatole have responded? She looks at him now, his lips pressed into an unreadable line.

He used to laugh about using that very spell on the lawn. She missed him at Brunnhold by a decade, but she can picture it vividly even now. She couldn’t, at first; it was what had tickled her so much during their courtship, when he had still seemed to her so much the dignified councilman, so much the widower. To see him again, just over the edge of tipsy, telling her of the boy he had humiliated during his sixth year…

He would have laughed, she supposes. That schoolboyish humor that would creep out sometimes. Mr. Delacroix is casting again, and Diana listens to him weave one clause into another, roughly describing the crowd. “Analogy,” she murmurs. Her lips purse in a small frown. She cannot say for certain, but the current clause seems to be describing Heloise.

Delacroix stands straight as he curls the spell. Winthrop looks expressionless, for a precious second. His shoulders shake; he seems to be suppressing a sob.

One, two, three. “We were never the audience. We are the performers; Mr. Winthrop is the audience,” says Diana, shifting and crossing her arms.

Anatole swears abruptly. “This is over,” he mutters, and draws in breath.

She looks at the younger woman, daring a grim smile. She does not know, quite, how to read the arc of her eyebrows, the look in her eyes. “And what do you think? Should Mr. Winthrop have risked casting?” There is curiosity in her caprise again; it is polite, but she studies the feeling of Mrs. Ibutatu’s suppressed field at the edges of hers, and she wonders.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 40 Ophus, 2719
Overlooking the Atrium, The Vauquelin House

We are the performers, Diana says. Niccolette raises her eyebrows, lightly, studying the crowd. There is still a titter of laughter going through them. Analogy, Diana called the spell; Niccolette recognizes it, but cannot quite tell what Delacroix is putting into Winthrop’s mind. She suspects – whatever it is – the younger man will not enjoy it. Yes, she thinks; Delacroix knew what he was doing, when he chose the second tier.

“Yes,” Niccolette agrees. “Is it not often the case? For all that we claim honor suffices in a duel, we conduct them in public,” she glances at Diana, raising her eyebrows. “Whether on the lawn or elsewhere,” she glances back down at the atrium, where Delacroix has curled his spell. It comes back to victory and conquest, Niccolette thinks; it comes back to whether it is enough to know yourself the superior caster.

That is the duel; Delacroix has scored his fifth point. He stands, tall and upright; there was never outright anger on his face, but he lets, now, a grim satisfaction show through the tear-streaked ash. It is in the hard press of his lips, and the way the curl up at the ends. Whatever his standards were for victory, Niccolette thinks, he has met them. She glances at Anatole, who must make it official.

Niccolette shrugs in response to Diana’s question. “I cannot say, I think.” She glances down at the atrium. Winthrop has still not looked away, but his shoulders are shaking more steadily down, and tears glitter on his face in the lights.

“I would have cast, I expect,” Niccolette says, thoughtful, almost clinical. She doubts she would have been in such a situation against Delacroix to begin with, but, then, the mona are capricious; she who expects her duels to go as planned will ever win. Her field is still politely, delicately suppressed; she does not drive the point home with a flex or a flare, but something shivers through it. “But of course, there are few emotions worse to bring to the mona than shame. If he could not set the feeling aside, then he did right not to ask more of them.”

Niccolette, watching, remains fairly certain she could beat Delacroix; she has felt his field before, and she does not think he suppresses overmuch, from what she has seen tonight. Then again, she doubts that he would be so quick to accept her challenge; she doubts very much he would duel her at the second tier, and with fifteen second intervals.

She wonders if he is thanking the Circle; she never has, and she does not understand those duelists who do. It is the mona who are the true arbiters of the duel; they do not know right and wrong. They know words and will, and words and will alone. Niccolette thinks perhaps Winthrop’s failing was more in words than will; this is forgivable.

She does not think he should have yielded. To yield is to back down; whatever this last spell of Delacroix has done, can it be worse than knowing oneself a coward? That, too, one cannot take to the mona; fear is an even more deadly poison than shame.

Niccolette turns to look at Diana once more; she smiles. She is trembling with the cold; she stills herself, with a deep breath, her exhale clouding the air more deeply than Anatole or his wife’s. She breathes in, asking, and out, giving. Something in the air around her warms, barely perceptibly, and she keeps the count of her breaths, careful and even, holding the warmth against her skin. The lanterns set against the doorway inside flicker, delicately, as if in the night breeze. Her trembling stills; a bit of color comes back to her face, and her fingers too.

“I have enjoyed our conversation very much,” Niccolette says with a smile. “It was a pleasure to watch this duel with you.”