[Closed] I Should Care

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

M
rs. Ibutatu’s handwriting was somehow precisely what she had expected – and, at the same time, wholly and completely unexpected.

Or perhaps it was the reply itself that was unexpected. She had stood in the foyer holding the small envelope and staring down at it, half-disbelieving. Then, having opened it, she had stared down at the neat hand-writing – clinical and precise, small but not cramped, curling and unmistakably Bastian – unmistakably feminine – with something like a rushing in her ears.

She might have had the Lord Chancellor’s lovely wife for tea whenever she pleased, provided both their schedules permitted; Fleurette Vaillancourt and Renée Guevremont, two of the most fashionable names in Vienda, were occasional guests in her parlor, and she had even had occasion to attend the High Judge’s dinners. Strange, then, that she had expected no response from Mrs. Ibutatu, and even stranger that she had been so hopeful for one.

She told herself she had very nearly forgotten the woman. Very nearly, but not quite. She supposed that Loshis had caught her idle enough to chase unwise curiosities.

There were what seemed to her a hundred pieces of the puzzle adrift on the water, and – for perhaps the first time in a long time – she found herself almost incapable of reaching for them. Of wading deeper into the water and gathering them up in her skirts, of sitting and turning them this way and that to see which edges fit into which grooves.

She thought that she had long learned not to ask questions of this nature. Perhaps it had been Anatole and his box and everything it had dredged up, another puzzle she had thought better left unsolved. It was perhaps the one that had taught her, even before they had come to the capital, even before the rest of it, the High Judge and the Pendulum wives and all the strange looks and whispers, to leave Anatole Vauquelin’s pieces be.

But Mrs. Ibutatu! Dueling, aeroships, hospital work; it was a puzzle of strange and tantalizing dimensions, and one she knew very well not to touch.

Enofe pez Okorie in one sphere, the one that should have meant more to her, and the Ibutatu name in another. The Ibutatu name meant something only in a distant, sunny place, or in kofi har’aqem to which she had never been. She did not particularly understand Anatole’s new fascination with kofi; he drank it constantly now – in quantity and frequency she thought somewhat unhealthy, in spite of dear Aurelien’s determination to acclimate himself to the stuff – but it was rather too strong and strange for her.

Dzhkar, on the other hand, she had taken to drinking quite often, and black.

It was the tea, of course, now. She had gotten the details from Rosmilda, but she had gotten word only that Mrs. Ibutatu was gone from the capital. At first, she had thought only to send the details, but the thought of sending an invitation instead had grown more and more appealing to her, and she was grateful now, perhaps, for the second chance.

It was a good tea to share during the chill of Loshis, with its deep, smoky notes, with its surprising strength and delicacy. That was all; that, and the strange emptiness of the capital and of the house, which was taking Diana rather more by surprise than she had thought.

She had been strangely unharried today, and it had given her rather too much time to think; in the last house, she had resolved rather firmly not to think at all. She was waiting now, in any case, for Mrs. Ibutatu’s arrival, and no one else’s.

She wore a rainy season tea gown in pale green, long and loose except where it was gathered at the waist; the sleeves were loose and layered, with scalloped edges and a great deal of lace inset. The asymmetry was in the pattern rather than the cut: it was heavily embroidered with eyelets, trailing down in vines and knots and flowers, with flashes of deep gold silk.

The rain had not asked politely on the doorstep this year if it might come in for tea, nor waited for an invitation. The rain had started, then swept up to a sort of thunderless, steady torrent. Diana had never much liked rain, but she liked this sort of rain the least, relentless and oppressive, and still with a month and a half to go before summer.

She stood at the atrium doors now watching the droplets tap and trail down the glass. She thought she heard noise, muffled, from the foyer, but she did not turn. She shut her eyes instead, thinking – not for the first time – of that sharp, strong field, and wondering how well she remembered the strange bright brush of living mona.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

The gray light of dawn had been creeping through the hallway window by the time they finally rolled the cot into the surgery room. Niccolette had risen from her seat, smoothing the dark gray fabric of her dress, and followed Dr. Migneault into the room. The surgeon looked tired, dark circles rimming his eyes, his chin stubbled with a prickle of gray beard. He rubbed his hand over it, then through the thinning hair at his temples.

Dr. Davenport waited in the hallway for Niccolette. He looked at her and frowned, once; he was only a few years older than she was, though she did not believe they had ever met at Brunnhold. Just now, his pale, sandy blond hair was as mussed as Migneault’s. He glanced at the door, then back at her, and pressed his lips together, and said nothing.

Niccolette stepped into the surgery room, and let Davenport close the door behind them. The swirling ward circles on the floor were glowing; the one around Niccolette flared vivid at the brush of her field. She breathed in, deeply, hands folding in front of herself, and waited.

Migneault’s voice was hoarse, when he began to cast the first of the quantitative spells, checking, as they had discussed, the strength of the heart prior to the surgery, and locating the blockage causing the patient’s symptoms. He curled the spell, and waited, and nodded his head at the results.

Davenport began to cast next, his voice stronger and steadier. He curled his own spell, and waited, and nodded as well.

Niccolette began to cast, next, evenly and smoothly. Marchard’s fourth anesthesia was unusual in that it relaxed the entirety of the body, and entreated the mona, specifically, to keep the rhythm of the heart regular. They had gone over the contraindications several times, though of course such spells could not truly be practiced in tandem, in the choosing of the anesthesia spell. Niccolette had never cast it fully before, though she had some of Marchard’s other spells. The question had not been whether she could cast it, but whether she could hold it long enough – up to ten minutes, or perhaps fifteen, Migneault had said, with something like doubt in his voice.

Niccolette’s voice filled the air; the patient shifted before them; the wards glowed. The man’s eyes flickered behind his lids; his hoarse breathing smoothed out, and he went still against the cot. Niccolette fixed her gaze on the flicker of veins in his neck, and held the cast, murmuring a few words of upkeep here and there.

Where Migneault should have joined in, there was silence.

There was silence another moment, and then the surgeon’s hoarse voice began; he made it through the invocation of the spell. They all heard it when he went wrong. He faltered; perhaps, Niccolette thought, he would push through.

There was a flare of backlash light from the warding circle; Migneault choked, and dropped to his knees, hands pressed to his chest, his face blanched and damp with sweat. Niccolette held the upkeep through it, the mona still thick and heavy in the air around her.

Davenport jerked, in the corner of her eye, then raised his voice and began to cast. Niccolette kept her gaze on the slow, steady heartbeat in the patient’s neck, and held.

By the afternoon, Niccolette had left it behind. There was a steady, relentless drizzle of rain outside of the carriage; the inside was lit by a small lamp, casting the whole of it in pale yellow. She breathed in, deeply, and watched the candle flame flicker behind the glass shield; she exhaled, and turned her gaze to the window, where the faint last traces of her breath misted against the glass.

Her gown was a pale lavender, in two parts; the dress underneath was a smooth, silky fall, with a narrowly tailored waist. The tea jacket had full sleeves, elaborately embroidered in white thread, with an equally full, lacy collar set against the throat. It was more daring than formal, eschewing the Mugrobi influence in this year’s fashion for a more Bastian look; for all it had a jacket, it looked, Niccolette knew, far from masculine.

The carriage drew to a stop. Niccolette waited; the door opened, and the driver bowed, extending an umbrella overhead. Niccolette settled her hand in the folds of her skirt, drawing it up a small fraction; she stepped down from the carriage, and walked along the path to the entrance of the Vauquelin house.

Her heavy rain cloak Niccolette left behind, along with waterproof gloves; she glanced sideways at herself in the mirror only once, at her dark lip color and the kohl around her eyes, then went forward.

Niccolette entered the room to find Diana facing away from her; the other woman’s back was a line of pale green, interrupted here and there with embroidery, her thick blonde hair all Niccolette could see of her head. Niccolette came forward, her boots quiet but not nearly silent against the floor and carpet; she greeted Diana not with words, but with a gentle caprising press of her field, at the very edge of her range – nothing scandalous, but just a hint deeper than that which might be done between casual friends. For all her field was indectal, it was vibrant and flush with the remnants of that morning’s cast.

“Good afternoon,” Niccolette said, smiling, just a moment – just long enough – after.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

D
iana found that she remembered it a great deal better than she had thought.

It was different now in a way that nearly made her breath catch. This was not a quality one often felt in the fields of socialites and politicians. Niccolette Ibutatu – for she knew at the first brush, though she did not hear the woman enter – had been casting recently, perhaps even within the day, and rather heavily, by her reckoning. The living mona in her field had always breathed, but they were full of motion now, and even brighter and sharper than she had remembered.

When had Diana herself last cast? Like any Circle-honoring lady, she joined the chorus in church, of course; and like any galdor, she set aside time to revisit her studies. But there was less and less time of late, and less and less need. A maintenance spell, every so often, quite carefully-used, to help with the headaches.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s caprise was slightly deeper than she might have expected. She wondered if she should have felt self-conscious, but it did not seem to her a challenge. Even competently suppressed, Mrs. Ibutatu’s field seemed to her to fill the room; it might have easily pressed her, reminded her of the difference between them. But there was nothing dominating in this. Rather, Diana thought it was – inviting, if she had been pressed to think of a word.

Mrs. Ibutatu lingered in the caprise at first rather than speak. It gave her enough time to meet it. Her perceptive field explored a little deeper into the living, as if given permission. Her field remained indectal, but she tried to suppress the surge of curiosity she felt, the desire to press even deeper.

Diana shook herself.

“Good afternoon,” Diana said, turning at last and bowing deeply. She was smiling coolly and evenly, as if the strange rushing hadn’t returned to her ears. Mrs. Ibutatu was Bastian as ever, her accent near as sharp as her field, and her dress – “What a lovely color for Loshis,” she said, polite smile widening, “and the cut – gracious, so very becoming.”

There was nothing Mugrobi about it, but, as was often the case, Diana rather thought the Anaxi fascination with Mugrobi styles had become so fashionable as to be unfashionable. She had seen a dozen dresses in the past few weeks, and all of them, while lovely, had looked utterly the same to her – the product of struggling to shape Mugrobi fashion to Anaxi sensibilities. Last political season, when it had been fresh, there had been considerably more creativity, and a little more scandal to go with it.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s dress, with its lovely tea jacket, was precisely as bold as it needed to be. It was delicate, too, with white lace bringing attention to the slim column of her throat. It was the contrasts: the pastel lavender set against the vivid backdrop of Mrs. Ibutatu’s field, like a hint of color with an ocean behind it. Like the kohl around her eyes, and the dark lip color, and the darkness that hung around her face – if she looked weary, it was with the same strange intensity that she carried in her field.

“How pleased I am to see you once again, Mrs. Ibutatu. What a lovely time we had in Bethas,” Diana said, moving smoothly to ring for Mrs. Wheelwright. “Please, do sit. How are things at the Grand Mercy?”

The tea had been strained for some time, and so should have been warm in the urn; Mrs. Wheelwright would bring it in shortly. It was the sort of Loshis afternoon that was dark enough to be evening, but a cheery fire burned in the grate, throwing warm shadows over the parlor. Diana glanced up, once, at the plate that had joined Naulas on the mantle, on its right side: spiderweb cracks of gold-dusted lacquer gleamed across the porcelain.

Before it was set the tea table, with a bowl of fresh-cut flowers – hibiscus and jasmine, and a few early-blooming rhododendron blooms, almost the color of Mrs. Ibutatu’s dress. Diana went to sit, still smiling.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Diana’s field was as competent as Niccolette remembered. It had a core of unexpected depth, a subtle strength not rare in perceptivists as a whole, but rare enough among the Uptown political set, or so Niccolette had judged after so many years of rainy season soirees. It was a passive sort of strength, all the same; it told her nothing about when Diana had last cast, though she should have been surprised if she had done anything of note recently.

They both of them lingered a moment in the caprise. Diana met her without hesitation, and welcomed her in just a little deeper – a byproduct, Niccolette thought, of the other woman reaching back, albeit delicately. Niccolette’s smile warmed just a fraction.

Diana turned and bowed; Niccolette bowed as well, and rose. The pale green was lovely, and lovelier still paired with Diana’s coloring. This was, Niccolette supposed, the third time she had spoken to the other woman, and she never been less than flawless, and was not now. Her smile widened a shade more at the compliment – she was fond of this gown, recently commissioned, and had been pleased to have an opportunity to wear it before leaving for Thul Ka.

“I am quite taken with your dress,” Niccolette said, easily, smiling, holding Diana’s gaze for just a moment. She had known – always, since her girlhood – of the importance of dressing well; it was easier than it had been in some time to stay fashionable, now that she was largely living in Vienda. She had often enjoyed the challenge of balancing between Vienda, the Rose, and the Isles at once, as she had enjoyed bringing hints of Florne to Brunnhold in the years before. “The flashes of gold are striking.”

Diana moved to sit, and Niccolette followed her, just a step behind. She smoothed out her skirts and sat, back straight and hands folded together in her lap. Diana’s gaze flicked sideways, and Niccolette followed it, tracing it up to the mantle – to the dark Naulas statue, and the plate mended with gold lacquer. She did not remark on either of them, or at least not yet.

Her smile was a hair warmer still when she looked back at the other woman. She did not think it a coincidence Diana had asked. It was not always the case that those with such strength were sensitive to the fields of others, but Niccolette had found it a useful enough rule, where such things were concerned. She held Diana’s gaze, a moment, and released some of the dampening of her field. She did not flex or pulse; there was no particular strength to the relaxation of her tight, competent hold. All the same, she knew the feeling of it would heighten, just a little, in the air around them, and deepen the caprise with just the faintest touch. She watched the other woman; she was, Niccolette thought, more than a little curious.

“Engaging,” Niccolette said, with a little curl at the edge of her smile. “It is always interesting to cast alongside another; there is a give and take which is, perhaps, not so different from dueling.”

The middle and ring finger of Niccolette’s right hand rested, lightly and naturally, over the wedding band she still wore on her left hand. It was the not quite the only jewelry she wore today; her dark hair was down, loose over her back, and the small curls of gold she wore in her ears only just visible between the strands, when the firelight caught them.

Niccolette did not stroke the ring, today, or reach for her side; there was nothing in this outfit that had once belonged to a coat or suit or shirt, no carefully placed buttons just a hint too large for the dress or coat. It would have been easy; there were delicate fabric-covered buttons on the jacket, and she might have made a request of them. She had not, this time; she would not have pledged never to do so again.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
he had inclined her head and shoulders again with thanks.

Gold, she might have said, is something of a family tradition. It wasn’t the Poulains’, of course; Jacques Poulain had come from a long line of farmers, and had gone into factory management in Brayde by the time Mother had met him. But Mother had told Diana as a girl – not knowing, then, what would become of all of it – of her sister and brother-in-law, and of the holdings in Reedlyn. Your father, she had said once, brushing out her long blonde hair, says the only gold he needs is us.

And to say such a thing with the bruises hidden underneath her sleeves. Gold, Diana thought, was a contentious thing. She knew that in Hesse it was so common as to be worthless, and had secured the Heshath a permanent and powerful place in the Vyrdag.

She had hated to think of it as a girl; now, she thought she rather liked it. Never too much, of course: the gold silk of her gown only peeked through the thickly-embroidered eyelets of soft green. But gold in gaps, in flashes, in cracks. Mrs. Ibutatu had followed her eyes up to the mantle, and she smiled at her now, catching the glint of gold at her earlobes between silky loose strands of brown hair.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s field relaxed as they sat. Impressive, she kept thinking, as if that were the only word to describe it, as if she had not many more to hand. Her caprise deepened, casually and quite naturally, like the brush of a sprawling limb. Diana’s own field was relaxed already, but the perceptive mona welcomed the living deeper.

“Quite engaging, I would imagine,” Diana agreed. Yes, she thought, Mrs. Ibutatu had indeed been casting; with the field at its fullest bloom, the lingering etheric taste of it was quite prominent.

At that moment, Mrs. Wheelwright came in.

Diana caught what might have been an intake of breath as she came within the range of Mrs. Ibutatu’s field. It was not often Diana took only one guest, and least of all one this strange, however fashionable.

Mrs. Wheelwright distributed the tea things about the flowers and the brocade candleshades. In addition, there was a small platter of thin watercress sandwiches, and another with a few wedges of shortbread speckled with lavender and lemon. She glanced up only once at Mrs. Ibutatu, curious, when she had risen from curtsying. “Mistress,” she nodded to Diana, then to Mrs. Ibutatu, “madam,” and went.

There was, again, nothing but the tapping of the rain – and Mrs. Ibutatu, the shadows of her face rich and dark in the firelight. Diana hadn’t before noticed her eyes; they were a sort of hazel color, but they looked quite green now, glinting and sharp with the same interest as her caprise.

She was glad she had arranged the rhododendra in with the hibiscus. It was a reminder, always in the corner of her eye; she was beginning to feel as if she needed one.

“Dzhkar,” Diana said with another polite smile, barely warm despite the depth of their caprise. She reached to pour the tea. “Forgive me if I erred in thinking that you would take your tea plain again; I have gotten into the habit myself, these past weeks.”

Delicately, she poured Mrs. Ibutatu’s cup and then her own. The steam that whirled up smelled now achingly familiar to Diana; she had not realized just how much she had grown accustomed to it.

She did not look at Mrs. Ibutatu’s ring. It was the glint of a gemstone in the corner of her eye. It was, more than anything, the way Mrs. Ibutatu’s fingers rested on it; it was so comfortable that Diana might not have noticed, if she hadn’t been in such a queer state of mind.

Her own rose-gold ring gleamed on her finger with its tiny embossed pattern of leaves, but all she could think of was Anatole’s silver ring, and how he had touched it in the days when they had first met.

“But how curious.” She eased back with the saucer and teacup in her lap. “It is not often I have had the opportunity to cast in chorus – not since Anastou, I think,” she said, her brow furrowing slightly. She smiled. “I have never heard anyone liken it to dueling, all the same.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Niccolette’s gaze lowered to the tea; she watched the steam whirl from the top of it, swirling out into the air above and dissipating gently into the room. The fireplace crackled in the corner, and the shadows shifted, faintly; Diana’s face was in the light, but when she turned her head the shadows seemed to settle beneath the sweep of her hair, lingering on her cheekbone and forehead for a moment, and then dissipating once more when she looked back.

“You are right,” Niccolette said in polite agreement. She took the teacup and saucer herself, settling them against her legs; her finger index finger traced the line of the cup’s handle, very gently, and settled carefully against the cup. It was warm in the room, warm enough that her hands did not ache; they were coming out of winter, and Niccolette was glad of it. She would rather the rain than the cold; she had always felt so, and it echoed, now, in her bones and the heart of her. She was, she thought, many years from those bright, crisp Flornese winters.

She lifted the cup and took a delicate sip of the tea. It was every bit as smoky as she remembered, with a vibrant depth of flavor; she lowered the cup back to her lap. No; to add milk and sugar, she thought, would be to spoil the heart of the tea – or rather to make it into something else entirely.

“Dueling is a give and take, at the heart,” Niccolette said, looking at Diana; there was a little shifting of her shoulders, like the suggestion of a shrug. “One cannot know what one’s opponent will do; one can anticipate only, and then, of course, react. So I have found it is with working with another caster, particularly of the same conversation, and even more so, perhaps, when one works through the same medium.”

Niccolette took another small sip of tea; she set the cup and saucer down on the small table at her elbow, hands coming together in her lap once more. A log shifted in the fireplace; a small flurry of sparks crackled behind the elegant fireguard, clean of soot. The wind shifted outside, and the rain lightened against the atrium doors, a gentle distant hum rather than a sharp rattle.

She had had plenty of experience with other casters before joining Grand Mercy, naturally. Niccolette had learned to cast in the midst of physical and static conversation, and even to cast on other casters as they cast; these, too, were careful and delicate balances. Too powerful, she knew, and a weaker caster might struggle to slip their spell out beneath hers; too weak, and one ran the risk of being drowned out.

This was only more true with another living conversationalist; to upkeep a complex spell over another was a delicate balance of itself – even more so, Niccolette thought, when the anesthesia ran the risk of interfering with the healing spell being cast. There was a delicacy to the choosing of spells, and to the enacting of them, which was almost – perhaps more – important than the raw power of the caster.

“I do not think I have cast in a true chorus since my school days,” Niccolette added, a moment later; she smiled, glancing down at the flowers on the table. “I wonder if it should feel different now. What was it like for you?” She paused, delicately, and lifted her gaze to Diana once more, reaching for the cup and the saucer, aware through all of her of the other woman’s caprise.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

T
here was a slip – a crack, perhaps – the first time Mrs. Ibutatu spoke again. Diana had glanced down to follow the younger woman’s fingertip along the curl of the handle; it was porcelain, scalloped like the curve of a wave, and strangely she could not remember where she had gotten it. It mattered a great deal less than the slim, pale taper of Mrs. Ibutatu’s finger, and the faint gleam of her nail in the firelight.

The smile flickered at Diana’s lip, just barely. She raised her cup to take a sip almost the same moment that Mrs. Ibutatu did.

It was precisely the temperature that it should have been. She tasted every bit of the dzhkar’s rich, smoky flavor. She was still smiling as the teacup met the saucer in the folds of embroidered silk in her lap.

Mrs. Ibutatu went on, clinical but elegant with her sharp Bastian accent. Diana knew something of Bastian accents, perhaps more than most Anaxi. Mrs. Ibutatu’s carried hints of a great deal of other places, but it was indubitably aristocratic, and indubitably – by Diana’s estimation – Flornese in origin. There was a curl to the consonants that made her think of the smell of water and old stone.

Diana paused on the question, thinking. She had not exactly expected it. She wondered if she should have stepped back from it: you, she might have said, know a great deal more about the subject than I. Or: it has been a very long time since Anastou, after all.

Mrs. Ibutatu’s field had been mingling with hers comfortably for the last few minutes. She had to know as much, Diana thought. She had asked regardless.

“It is, perhaps, somewhat different for a perceptivist.” Another amused tug at her smile, remembering Cerise a few weeks ago. “Pompous perceptivists,” and her smile warmed a little more, “are rather known for being solitary casters, aren’t they? The galdor mind is mystifying, with its layers of consciousness; we know a great deal less about it than we would like to acknowledge. In theory, there is a great deal to be learned from casting on it in chorus.”

It is also, she might have said, perhaps the most dangerous conversation in which to backlash, second to clairvoyance. The living conversation, the physical, the static, they may break or sicken your body, certainly. But your mind? She thought of him then, and she swallowed.

Another sip of tea; her throat was less dry. “In practice, most of my colleagues were political-minded and – solitarily ambitious. I only cast in chorus once or twice, truly, in the upper levels. Once, we were instructed to try and ease a patient’s nightmares.”

Another deep breath. Her eyes moved to the fire, watching it a moment, then back to Mrs. Ibutatu’s face. She ran a fingertip around the rim of her teacup; she had lacquered her nails a soft green.

“We performed rather poorly, as I recall. You are correct, I think; it is perhaps even more difficult than dueling. As I recall, one of the stronger casters – ah, I remember Lorenzo” – living, she did not say; her lip twitched, then smoothed out – “drowned us out with his part of the spell, and it worked incorrectly on the target. If the professors hadn’t solved the issue, he would have been inflicted with insomnia rather than nightmares.”

She glanced up. “Have you ever cast with a perceptivist, Mrs. Ibutatu? I gather your work at the Grand Mercy is not in psychology.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Niccolette’s gaze held, soft but steady, on Diana’s face as she spoke; she noted the warming of the other woman’s smile as she spoke of pompous perceptivists, and inclined her head, more in acknowledgement than agreement, as Diana spoke of learning of the mind through casting in chorus.

Nightmares, Diana went on, and Niccolette inclined her head in understanding. Dreams blurred the line between perceptive and living conversation, or so she was given to understand; she had never been interested in the neurological aspects of living conversation, not in particular, those which inched steadily towards perceptive until the line between them seemed to blur. It was the body that interested her, from a casting perspective; the brain to her was as the center of nerves, the regulator of pain and eyes and all the rest, as a castor.

She knew little enough of nightmares, though more, Niccolette supposed, than she had a year ago. She never took anything for troubled sleep; she never had, except a few very times when she had been too ill, or too weak, to make a meaningful protest. If she had them – and she did, sometimes – they did not trouble her; she did not let them.

“Not in such a way,” Niccolette smiled. “I have dueled perceptivists, of course,” she took another small sip of tea, settling the cup back onto her lap; she thought of gazes met and held across the lawn, in the Gyre, on balconies or rooftops in Florne, in the backyard of an elegant Uptown home. In, she thought too, distant strange warehouses, across the decks of airships, and in more places than this.

“But not in deliberate chorus,” Niccolette added, and then smiled once more, “or not so deliberate. I expect it would be challenging – perhaps not so different from another living conversationalist, but rewarding, if successful.” She was holding Diana’s gaze again, a little curiously.

Naturally, she had cast around perceptivists in school, though casually, and then it was rare for there to be difference enough in skill to be of import. Since, she supposed, never close enough nor intensely enough for it to be of note. They had never had a perceptivist on the Eqe Aqawe; they were rare enough in the skies, as were living conversationalists, where static, physical and quantitative dominated. Clairvoyant, too, should have been a different question; and it might, Niccolette thought, have been otherwise, had they ever worked in Bastia.

They had neither of them consciously deepened the caprise, not in these last few minutes. Their fields were not, quite, belike, but they were perhaps close enough. Niccolette was aware, through all of her, of the sense of Diana sinking, slowly, in a way that belied the cool expression on her face, deeper and deeper.

“There are psychologists at Grand Mercy, of course,” Niccolette added. “The specialists of the brain and mind I have met tend to be duel living and perceptive conversationalists. But my skills,” she paused, deliberately, and smiled, “and interests are more surgical in nature, and surgical interventions are generally deemed too dangerous in such cases, for patient and caster both.”

Niccolette thought, then, of a red-headed caster in a warehouse in the Rose, tears and snot trickling down her rictus grin, giggling and singing to herself as she rocked back and forth on the warehouse floor. Nothing changed in her face or field; she took another small, noiseless sip of tea, and set the cup back down on the saucer. She had not looked at the sandwiches or cookies; she did not look at the fire when the logs popped once more, or at the windows when the wind picked up, and a wash of rain lashed against them.

It was Diana that she focused on, still, and the heartbeat of the other woman’s field inside her own.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

O
f course,” murmured Diana, very quietly, remembering their tea a few weeks ago. There was perhaps another little curl to her smile, hidden then behind a sip of tea.

What a silly, girlish fancy, these past weeks. She could scarcely think of it now without embarrassment; she had found herself daydreaming of duels. Of Mrs. Ibutatu dueling, if she had to speak of it directly. Of monite dropping from her lips – with a sort of Bastian sharpness one did not hear in Anaxi monite – of how her field might feel truly etheric.

Once she’d daydreamt of dueling Mrs. Ibutatu; it had come utterly unbidden, the thought, and it had sent a strange thrill through her, equally dreadful and exciting. It hadn’t been a path she had followed for very long in her mind, but it had haunted her. More the precision, she had thought, than the power: more the thought of Mrs. Ibutatu’s scrutiny, of her finding that spiderweb of hair-thin cracks in her shell, so that it might take only a brush of magic to crumble her – a touch in the right place, a place already beginning to break, where another caster might barge through.

Mrs. Ibutatu went on, even-voiced against the tapping of the rain and the crackle of the fire in the grate. She was conscious of the mona mingling in the air around them, finding their belike and unlike qualities. Strangely, it did not make her feel weaker or smaller, despite Mrs. Ibutatu’s strength. There was, again, no push, no challenge: only a curious, pleasant touch, an exploration.

Mrs. Ibutatu smiled; Diana raised one eyebrow and took another sip of tea. She had heard as much, but it was something like an unexpected gift to hear it from Mrs. Ibutatu’s lips. Or like the opening of a door. “Surgery,” she repeated. “I see.”

She had thought to ask – her eyes were bright with curiosity, and she had sat up a little in her seat – but Mrs. Ibutatu went on. Surgical interventions are generally deemed too dangerous, she said, and Diana swallowed. She found her throat dry.

Like surgery on one’s own nerves…

It was idleness, Diana felt sure. She hadn’t been this idle since – she couldn’t quite remember when. Idle enough to wander back through the pages of her perceptive books from Anastou, as if possessed by the ghost of a girl she had been once.

She had glanced down, eyes lingering for just a splitsecond on the rose-gold band on her finger, the thin wire of the engagement ring sitting just above it with its glinting green gem. A twig snapped in the fireplace, scattering sparks; she glanced up abruptly, meeting the younger woman’s eye.

She had not looked away.

“What drew you to – surgery of this sort, Mrs. Ibutatu?” Diana wasn’t altogether sure why she asked. “At Brunnhold?” It wasn’t the question which should’ve been first on her tongue.

No – nothing about this was quite right. She should have nodded, smiled, and left it aside; she should have brought up dzhkar again, or picked up any number of other threads nestled between Mrs. Ibutatu’s words, safe and oblique. The question itself was innocuous enough – it might have been merely polite – but she added, “You did remark, I believe, that you had a knack for anesthesia,” and her smile seemed to widen without her permission.

All the while, the fire cast the shadows of Naulas’ antlers stretching and wavering over the ceiling like the branches of trees, like Naulas’ reaching fingers. She felt as if there was always a lump just waiting to rise up in her throat; she felt more and more frayed at the edges.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Diana had been looking at her; she looked down, then, at the ring glinting on her finger in the firelight, and the thin band above it. Niccolette did not look down, not this time, although she was never quite not aware of her own ring; if ever she wanted to, she could feel the brush of the metal against her skin with each movement. Sometimes the greater challenge was to set it aside; sometimes it was easy, though she had not taken the ring off in a great many years.

Diana looked back up, and met her gaze once more. They neither of them turned or looked away; Diana pressed forward, just a little, carefully, the other woman’s head just a little turned, the shadows of the fireplace just a little darker on her skin, highlighting the spaces between.

“And before,” Niccolette said, shifting and stretching; she reached out with one hand, and set the tea and saucer aside, gently, back onto the table between them.

She rose; she came around the table, and sat beside Diana, not opposite the table with its delicate tea things and flowers, but in a chair next to the other woman. “I was drawn to the living conversation from girlhood, I think,” Niccolette said with a smile; through the slow, careful movements, she had not quite lost eye contact with Diana. At such a range, there was no meaningful difference in the contact of their fields, whether here or further apart; nonetheless, Niccolette was aware of the slight further deepening of their caprise.

“Anesthesia I have found very interesting,” Niccolette said. She extended her hands, gently, towards the other woman; her gaze strayed to Diana’s hand, and she waited.

After a moment, the other woman reached back, and she felt the gentle brush of Diana’s skin against hers, just barely cool to the touch. Niccolette did not quite hold on, but she looked down at Diana’s elegant hands, at the dark painted nails. “Every touch is felt through the nerves,” Niccolette said. Her other fingertips settled on to the back of Diana’s hand, and traced a slow line down it, from her knuckles to her wrist.

“This feeling,” Niccolette said, lifting her gaze back up to Diana, to the uncertainty on the other woman’s face, lingering in the brush of shadows over her skin, “travels up the arm and to the brain,” she smiled. “What we think of as a feeling in the skin is, in fact, conveyed by the nerves to the center of the mind, and only then do we feel it. It happens faster than we can imagine.” She eased her fingers away from Diana’s hand, but did not quite let go with the other, though nor was she holding on anywhere near enough to keep Diana’s hand in hers.

“So it is with all the body,” Niccolette said with a smile. “Complex and delicate and fascinating. I have always wanted to understand it, I think. Surgery is one way of bringing such knowledge to the world.”

There are others, she might have added, such as dueling. She glanced down again, at their pale hands, at the delicate bones of the hand beneath the skin, all of which she could name, could visualize: the map of veins and bones and nerves and tendons and muscles, all together beneath the smooth skin, all working in concert with every faint twitch of the other woman’s fingers.

Niccolette paused, for a moment; she did not reach again for her tea, not yet, still looking at Diana. “How did you choose to study the perceptive conversation?” She asked, instead, just a little more direct than Diana had been.