[Closed] Book by the covers

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening, 77th Roalis. 2719

Genevieve had received a calling card the day before from one Thomas Wynngate, the strange yet charming galdor she had met the week before. Or rather Jean had met the week before, she had forgotten that she had invited him to the apparent. She had almost destroyed the card in a panic, but decided to remain calm.
She had sent Cadoc with a letter saying she would be delighted to receive Mr Wynngate.

After all it was not the first time she had entertained guests at the apartment after all, and he was just coming by to view a book and discuss monic phenomenon.

And yet, there she could feel the heat of a blush in her face as she stood in her dressing room. She looked at the rack of clothes and scowled, she prided herself on her flair for style. However standing there in chest wrappings and long underwear, blushing and getting flustered about what to wear she got progressively more annoyed.

"Clocking damn it all!"

She spat and dropped into the armchair that sat before a dressing table, she avoided the reflection she took up the crystal tumbler of Gioran whiskey and took a sip. When she did look in the mirror she let out a sigh that came from her very soul. She addressed the pale face that stared back at her.

"Who are you?"

She sipped whisky and answered.

"A person of two worlds who belongs truly in neither."

It was not that she had been born a woman, it was the fact that she had been born in Gior. Had grown there and seen how women could speak out and be in charge. What the problem was was Anaxas, a kingdom so advanced in some ways but so backwards in others.

"Why didn't you just got back to Gior?"

Genevieve asked the mirror and Jean replied.

"Because I am not Gioran, not truly."

She had never felt particularly feminine, even in her youth in Gior, she hated dresses and the trappings of the gender she had been born with.

Face set she pointed at her reflection, Jean's reflection and said.

"Well, then pick one. No more double life, no more half life. All or nothing."

He nodded back, the choice was made. Question was, what to do about Genevieve De Silver?

Resolve renewed he got up and dressed in grey trousers with a subtle purple pinstripe, a red shirt of Hassen silk with a high collar, a black cravat and pulled black velvet smoking jacket and slipped on a pair of red slippers.

Before he left the dressing room Jean took a black bottle of cologne from a draw in the dresser, he dabbed a little behind his ears and on his wrists and took a deep breath. It smelled of cedar wood, grass and pine, it reminded him of the alpine slopes of his childhood home and he smiled.

As he left the dressing room Jean glanced at the clock on the mantle, if Tom was the kind of man who kept his appointments he should be arriving soon. He looked to Cadoc who stood by the drinks arranging the decanters.

"So Cadoc, will I do?"

Jean grinned and spread his arms, tumbler of whiskey in one hand, Cadoc smiled and nodded.

"Indeed Mr De Silver most handsome. I've decanted the fifteen year old single malt, as you requested."

Jean smiled at his long time friend and valet.

"Thank you Cadoc."

The wick returned the smile and bowed slightly.

"Anything else sir?"

Jean sat down in his wingback armchair and crossed on leg over the other and surveyed his sitting room come library and smiled with satisfaction.

"No Cadoc, and one Mr Wynngate arrives you may take the rest of the evening off."

Cadoc said nothing as it was not his place, but he did raise an eyebrow slightly. He had known Jean long enough to know that something was different about his employer this evening. Jean smiled and waved slightly, the silver signet catching the light.

"It will be fine Cadoc, after all we are just to discuss the nature of mona and the like."

Cadoc inclined his head and went into the small kitchen to wash up the last of the supper things.
Jean looked at the mantle clock again and tapped the side of his tumbler with his ring, 'just to talk' he thought to himself and yet.

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartments • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

It didn’t look too bad. His fingers tightened round the neck of the bottle, and he took another (one last) swig of brandy, forcing down the cloying, too-expensive shit. It took a drink, too; he saw it, following his motions exactly: the graceful arc and tilt of the bottle, the glint of the phosphor light on the dark glass, the knuckles of his hand white with tension. That wasn’t a benny look, he thought. He set the bottle down on the table, straightening up.

He saw it in – glimpses. It was a well-cut suit, at least, dark and neutral; it followed the narrow lines of his silhouette, flattered the slight frame. If he squinted, if he blurred his eyes, he could bear to take it in. He thought it looked like a very respectable gentleman, dressed up like this. Good enough to pay a call.

He liked the layers, he thought. It felt good, even on a summer night, to have all that between him and everybody else. It was mung, but the silk cravat made him feel safe, like nobody’d cut his throat. Or do anything else with it.

Tom’s eyes’d wandered up to the face, and that was no good. So he didn’t look at the face; he’d done that earlier, when he’d shaved. He didn’t have to do that now. Instead, he turned away, slipped out of the mirror’s reach.

He felt like somebody’s clammy breath’d been on the back of his neck, and now it wasn’t. To celebrate, he took another – the last, this time! – drink of brandy. The bottle of twemlaugh’d been a gift from some Renaud or other’d come calling not long after he arrived, some friend of Anatole’s from his Brunnhold years that’d taken up teaching; he’d kept it tucked away, determined not to drink, but now he needed it.

It was just a conversation, he kept telling himself. Jean De Silver’s pale face swam in his mind, only half-remembered from the other night – his eyes, the flash of his signet ring. A conversation and then a book, that was all. Some quantitative help, maybe. An ally never hurt.

And yet he kept thinking, what does it look like – what’s it really look like, now, when I laugh, I never seen it, and I can’t tell – does it look as bad as I think – One last swig of brandy. Never hurt anything, he thought; Jean wouldn’t know. Tom was barely drunk, and he’d swish his mouth out before he left.

Standing there in the dressing room, there was some kind of heat behind his eyes, some lump in his throat. He took a deep breath in through his nose. He fumbled round, quietly determined, ’til he found a little bottle he’d been keeping tucked away for months. He didn’t know why he’d brought it with him, or why he’d kept it. He tipped out a little, dabbed one wrist, then cursed himself and put it back. He caught a faint whiff of lavender oil and black oud, and had to push down the tears again.

Was it such a thing to ask of the Ten, he thought, to know who you were? It must’ve been so easy for a man like Jean; it must’ve been easy for all men, all living men who walked the solid earth in their own skins.

•

Outside, the rain pattered down; inside, the tap-tap-tapping, the occasional hiss of carriage-wheels on the wet streets, was muffled. He stood in the empty hall, marshalling himself. As he’d come in, he’d wondered, not for the first time, what sort of man Jean De Silver was. Half-Gioran, he’d said. Had he been a boch in Gior, or Anaxas? What about that sister of his, that Brunnhold history professor?

He could half-imagine it. Things were all upside-down in Gior, Tom’d always heard; the menfolk didn’t have so much sway. Maybe Jean’d preferred a life as a rake and a gambler in Anaxas, a gentleman of leisure, to whatever he’d’ve got there. Or he was a man – a galdor – of the world, the sort of kov that wasn’t quite cut out for toffin society, that’d find any line he could walk and walk it.

But his hand had hovered over the knocker for what must’ve been a minute. His wrist was getting tired. So he let it do what it’d climbed up there to do: he knocked on the door a few times, then stepped back, waiting with his hands clasped behind his back.

He wondered if it’d be that Cadoc kov he’d met earlier; he hoped so. He found himself thinking about everything except Jean De Silver.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening, 77th of Roalis. 2719

At the knock Cadoc set the book he had been reading down on the kitchen table and went to the door and opened it. His tone was friendly and respectful

“Good evening Mr Wynngate, Mr De Silver is expecting you. He’s through in the sitting room, if you’d follow me sir."

Jean heard Cadoc’s voice as he opened the door and he took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. Why was he so nervous, how had this Tom gotten so under his skin? What was it about the strange galdor? It had been a long time since he had thought about being intimate with someone. The Gioran fighter he had seen at Wrath’s Palace the first time he and Niccolette had visited. However, for all her fierce beauty strength and confidence she was a human, not only that but how could he trust her to keep his secret?

He hadn’t been with anyone, in that way since he was young. He had been with a woman when he was at university, she had been Gioran and beautiful. After university he had been with a man, but he had treated him like an inferior, weaker just because the body he had been born with.

Jean downed the rest of his whiskey and pushed thoughts from his mind, not again. He would not submit to anyone.

When Cadoc showed Tom into the sitting room Jean was stood by drinks cabinet pouring himself another tumbler of whiskey. He turned and fixed Tom with his most welcoming and charming smile.

"Good evening Tom, it is a pleasure to see you again my dear fellow. I was just pouring myself a glass of fifteen year old Giorian whiskey. Would you care for one?”

Cadoc said.

“Will that be all Mr De Silver?”

Jean smiled and nodded.

"Yes, thank you Cadoc, have a pleasant evening.”

Cadoc bowed to Jean and then to Tom.

“Thank you sir, good night Mr Wynngate.”

With that Cadoc left the room, Jean stayed stood by the drinks cabinet. He tucked one hand into a pocket of his smoking jacket and toasted Tom with his glass before taking a sip.

“"It is good to see you Tom, take a seat and I’ll see if I can dig out that book I mentioned.”

Jean indicated the other seats in the sitting room, the small leather sofa and the other wingback. He studied the other galdors face, a slight smile on his own.

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartments • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

The Mr. Wynngate struck him out of the blue, like a faceful of ice-cold water. Wouldn’t’ve been a very good raen if he let on, though – so he just blinked once at Jean’s manservant, face oddly blank for a splitsecond, then returned the kov’s friendly smile with one of his own. “Evening, Mr., uh – Cadoc,” he replied, brightly as he could manage. Taking one last deep breath as the wick turned his back, Tom followed him in.

He’d thought the sight of the Cadoc’d be some kind of buffer for whatever was to come, but the short walk to the sitting room didn’t make him any more comfortable. His head was a whirl of thoughts, still, and he was starting to realize that he was a pinna manna drunker than he’d thought. It was quieter in here, save the distant patter of the rain; it was warmer, in the air and in the colors. It was the kind of quiet, pleasant place you got to in the middle of a storm, Tom imagined, before the winds picked up again and dashed you on the rocks.

How to play it? That was what he was thinking, in the end.

’Cause he didn’t know nothing. He didn’t know what Jean knew, or why Jean’d agreed to this. The only thing he could think was that Jean’d figured it out. What would Jean De Silver want with some old gollymancer burnout he’d met in a natt bar in the Stacks, rambling on about ghosts and monic theory? Ne, ne. Jean was a smart kov; he’d recognized Incumbent Vauquelin, and he knew there was something to be gained here.

Following Cadoc’s bobbing, salt-and-pepper head, Tom was cursing himself that he hadn’t thought of it before now. That he’d been mung, that he’d had the presumption to think, maybe, somehow – dze. That had to be it, ’cause any of the other options he could think of...

He was still thinking how to play it when he found himself in that benny sitting room. And there, pouring himself a glass of whisky over by the decanter, Jean De Silver. As the two of them came in, Jean turned, and Tom saw that elegant, pale face, with its charming smile, and it emptied him of all his thoughts.

Jean dismissed Cadoc, and Tom watched him go, his hands still clasped behind his back; he bobbed his head when the wick bid him good night. Alone in the sitting room with the half-Gioran and his fifteen year old Gioran whisky, now. “Evening, Jean,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “Thank you. It’s – very good to see you.” His voice came out rougher than he’d meant it to, but it was sincere. He gave Jean a good, deep golly bow.

Raising up, he followed Jean’s gesture. He glanced briefly between the wing-backed chair and the leather sofa, then moved over to the latter, dropping into it with a grunt and a sigh. It was a relief, he had to admit, to take some of the weight off his hip.

Enough of a relief he found himself loosening up, just a pina. When he looked up, he met Jean’s sharp green eyes; he met that subtle sliver of a smile with a tired smile of his own, finally. “I appreciate it,” he added, crossing his legs. “And, uh – yes, I’d like that very much. I’ll never say no to a good Gioran whisky.”

With that, Tom laughed softly, propping his elbow up on the arm. There was still something guarded in his eyes, something wry and bitter and a little sad about his smile.

How to play it? Much as he wanted to, much as he knew it’d be safe, he couldn’t bring himself to be Anatole. Not here, not now. Maybe it was the drink; maybe it was Jean. He couldn’t seem to be anything other than himself.

“You’re a hell of a gambler. I didn’t scare you off, then, with all my talk of ghosts?” He laughed again.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening, 77th of Roalis, 2719

Jean returned the bow and smiled.

"It is very good to see you again as well Tom, please make yourself comfortable.”

He gave a warm chuckle at Tom’s words.

"Excellent, it do so dislike drinking alone. Not that it stops me of course.”


Jean grinned and gave a shrug and laughed as he poured another tumbler of whiskey and walked over and handed it to Tom.

"Well I am certainly a gambler, and sometimes my luck actually matches my bravado.”

He laughed as he sat down in his wingback, took a sip of his whiskey and crossed one leg over the other.

"“Though it makes me look the fool about half the time. As for talk of ghosts, no that just got my interest, and got me thinking.”


Jean pointed towards the low table between them, on which sat a ebony humidor, silver cigar cutter, crystal cut ashtray, a match case and a red leather bound book.

"That is a copy of Karla Rasmus Jarvi’s ‘Matters of the Spirit’. It details her research into the soul, it is mostly theoretical and it does move towards philosophy in the latter half. However, there is a chapter on ghosts. I took the liberty of bookmarking it.”


A black leather bookmark protruded from about a quarter through the book.Jean lent forward and opened the humidor and took out a cigar and clipped it with the cutter.

"Please help yourself to a cigar Tom.”


He took a match and struck it on the case and lit his cigar, he hoped the book would be of use to Tom.

"I also have a book on various monic disturbances as well, which I can dig out if you like.”


Jean watched Tom, he wanted to help this man, and he rather enjoyed his company although there was a fluttering in his stomach he was fairly sure had nothing to do with the whiskey he had drank.

Talk."

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartments • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

Tom snorted. Sometimes, he thought, I like drinking alone a little too much – but he didn’t say that. The whisky burbled out of the decanter and into the glass, catching the lamplight. He watched Jean carry it over to the couch, all grace, and leaned to take it from him. As he did, he caught a waft of a pleasant smell; it was subtle, there and then gone, but it reminded him of fresh grass and the wind through pine-needles, insofar as he knew of such things. It reminded him of something he couldn’t name.

He was still thinking of it, feeling oddly empty-headed, when he settled back into the sofa. He didn’t know it’d’ve been comfortable for him, once – all of this, he thought, peering around him: all the books, the low light flickering over the gold lettering on their spines; the benny wing-backed chairs – he didn’t know any of it would’ve made him comfortable, once. But he couldn’t help it; his back hurt, and it was good to sit.

He swirled the whisky round in his glass and breathed that in, too, all malty and walnutty. Smooth as clocking silk, but with that bitter apah twist. Maybe it was that first drink made him bold, but he couldn’t help the grin he flashed Jean, something playful dancing in his pale eyes. “You don’t look a fool to me, Jean de Silver,” he said softly.

He cleared his throat and took another drink. In a hurry to shuffle past that, he squinted at the table between them, the one Jean’d gestured at.

“Jarvi. Huh. Where’ve I…?” With a creak of leather upholstery, Tom leaned to take the book. Halfway forgetting his self-consciousness, he reached into his waistcoat, taking out his reading glasses and settling them on his nose. He flipped through the first few pages, running shaky fingertips over the index. Then, he turned it over to the bookmark Jean’d left.

It was a moment before he realized Jean’d spoke again. He peered up over his glasses, then blinked at Jean, a little embarrassed. Hell, he reckoned he must’ve looked like some kind of – he didn’t know what. Some kind of flooding librarian.

“Ah – er – thank you,” he replied, leaning again to take a cigar from the open humidor, along with the cutter. The latter took him aback for just a moment; it glinted, reminding him of Jean’s signet ring. After he’d cut it, he took a match and lit it, and the first drag brought up a sigh of something like relief. Not so bad, he thought. If Jean was trying to court the incumbent’s favor, he wasn’t doing a bad job of it.

Despite his embarrassment, the Jarvi book drew him right back in. Soon enough, he was gazing intently at the pages again, a deep frown of concentration written into his face. Slowly, a strange expression – something like wonderment – flickered across his features.

He couldn’t quite help his smile, either, as he glanced back up at Jean, at the plume of smoke that drifted up from Jean’s cigar. “I know where I’ve seen Jarvi.” He tapped the page delicately with a fingertip. “Ley couverture, the idea that all of Vita has – monic pathways, through the whole world, just like through the bodies of galdori and wicks. Connecting everything, including our souls. I read that Jarvi argues ghosts are some kind of proof of this.”

He glanced back down at the book, running his hand over the page; he turned it.

“What do you think, Jean? Most scholars think it’s chroveshit, that everything living’s interconnected.” He took another drag on his cigar, laughing bitterly. “Hard to avoid the, uh – societal implications.”

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

WFragrant cigar smoke wreathed Jean's head as he exhaled. A smile spread across his face as he regarded Tom.

"Well well, another well read gambler of taste in Burnnhold. You know Jarvi's work?"

Jean took the cigar from between his teeth and ashed it as he took a sip of whiskey, relishing the pleasant burn for a moment.

"It was my understanding as a Gioran and a woman her work was largely ignored in Anaxas."

He studied Tom's face again, those eyes, intelligent, bright and somehow younger than the face? Jean ignored the thought, it was a handsome face though. He took another sip of whiskey and returned the cigar to his lips and took a drag before speaking again, comfortable in the quiet.

"My mother and her were friends, there's a dedication in the front of that book in fact. Though it is written in Gioran."

He chuckled, now if this man could read Gioran Jean would start to suspect some manner of trap, he grinned green eyes bright with mirth.

"Yes, you are indeed correct. Though there are some cases that even the most hidebound scholars can not deny support her theory. In fact, wait a moment."

He stood and walked over to a shelf, searched for a moment and then with a soft 'ah ha, there you are' he pulled a book bound in green leather.

Returning to the table Jean moved to stand before Tom and extended the book in a pale elegant hand to him.

"This is a copy of Monroe's essays on monic phenomena. There's an account of the 'haunting' of Dove House in Brayde County. Now Monroe and his assistants actually went to the house themselves and conducted experiments."


He paused face alight with academic further.

"There is an abridged account of his findings in that book. And do you know what? They back up Jarvi's theory!"

Jean gave an embarrassed smile and a slight blush came to his cheeks as he turned away. No matter who he was, there was still that joy and thrill in sharing knowledge.

"Sorry Tom, I got a little carried away. However, no I do not think it is 'chroveshit' as you so eloquently put it."

He grinned and sat down on the sofa with Tom.

"You certainly have a most interesting turn of phrase Tom and no mistake."

This close to Tom Jean could smell a hint of lavender and something he thought was black oud perhaps? It was a pleasant smell, subtle. There was that heat in his face and that flutter down in his stomach, Jean tried to drown it with whisky. To no avail, he turned to face Tom and said, voice a little horse.

"So, yes. Hopefully there is something that can assist you in your research Tom."

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

Setting aside his glass momentarily, taking another drag, Tom let out a snort of derision – a curl of cigar smoke with it. Didn’t surprise him fair much, that. Anaxi gollies had a habit of writing off just about everyone, and most of all the ones they ought to listen to. A little smile twitched at the edge of his lips, though, and he turned the book over carefully, opening it up to the cover page again. Maybe it was Anatole’s poor eyes, but he hadn’t noticed them the first time. He saw them now, though, fresher ink glistening underneath the author’s name: funny swirls and lines, dots here or there, in a neat line.

He couldn’t read them, of course, but he traced them with one fingertip, hissing softly against the paper. He paused, leaning to ash his cigar. With the book still open in his lap to the autograph, he leaned to take another drink of whisky. Getting pleasantly fuzzier by the minute.

He felt like he was putting together more of the pieces. Jean de Silver, son of – somebody who’d be friends with someone like Professor Jarvi. Maybe Jean’s mother’d been an academic, too. Made sense, if her daughter’d followed in her footsteps. Jean, he thought, the black sheep.

He’d lost himself in thought, so when Jean’s pale, graceful hand reappeared in his sight, he just about jumped. Blinking, he took the second book; but when Jean’s words settled in, he grinned. He opened it up, flipping through. “Oes,” he said, his tongue getting away from him in his excitement. “I’d heard tell of the Dove House, even when I was – when I was a lad. Used to be, it was all just ghost stories, but now, what it all means to me –”

Another creak of leather, another whiff of cedar and pine. Jean’d sat down next to him, fair close on the couch. Like a chill mountain breeze’d blown through, Tom couldn’t help the shiver that coursed down his spine.

Slowly, he turned his head, raised his chin. Jean’s face was blurry, Tom thought, and he couldn’t figure out why, ’til he realized he still had his reading glasses on. He took them off, then looked back up at him. The tip of his nose wasn’t far from Jean’s, he thought – a foot, if that. For the first time, he realized he couldn’t tell how old he was. Those fine features, those sparkling green eyes, it seemed like, were beyond age.

The low light made spider’s silk of Jean’s hair, and Tom realized, in that moment, just how much he wanted to touch it. While Tom studied his face, Jean took another drink of whisky, like he was trying to stifle a cough; when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. Tom felt a pang. Maybe it was the drink, but he forgot himself: he raised a hand, slow and gentle-like, to touch Jean’s face, but then hesitated and flinched away when he saw Anatole’s hand instead of his own.

All of a sudden, it seemed so horribly flooding cruel to him.

“What is it you want from me, Jean?”

His voice came out thick and rough and full of pain. He felt the heat behind his eyes again, and something like a prickling at the edges of them. “Whatever it is, g-godsdamn it. My – my vote in parliament, my – I don't know. Just tell me what you want.” His fingers curled round the edges of the books in his lap, white-knuckled. His hands were trembling.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

When Tom took off his glasses and their eyes met and Jean’s mouth went dry and he forgot what they had been speaking of. When the other man raised a hand a battle was thought with in Jean De Silver, but before a victor could be determined Tom’s whole demeanor changed. Jean was shocked, his first thought was it something about him, had he done something wrong. This had been a damn foolish thing to do, invite a man to his apartment, for what?

Then Tom’s next words confused him he murmured.

"Your vote in parliament?"

Jean was utterly confused, what did he want from him. He looked down at Tom’s hands white knuckled on the book. Jean reached out and covered those hands with his and moved from the sofa and knelt before him and looked into those strange eyes and said.

“Tom. I want… I do not know what I want, I do not want to be alone. I am sorry if I have somehow hurt you. There are things about me...”

In Jean’s mind he screamed tell him, tell him. However, he could not, what if he rejected him, pushed him away and made he a laughing stock, ruined his life? He had to know, he had to trust him.

"I want time Tom, just your time and your patience.”

Then before he could talk himself out of it he lent forward and kissed Tom. If he had been sober would never had done it. He stayed face to face with the older galdor, it hadn’t been a long kiss, and Jean was out of practise. It took all of his willpower not to panic and flee the room. Maybe he had just made a terrible error in judgement.

"I’m sorry Tom, if I over stepped or..”

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

How convincing it was! The way Jean looked at him, a faint blush in those pale cheeks – the confusion in his voice, when he asked him what he meant. Like he didn’t know, like he hadn’t known all along. Tom wondered when he’d figured it out; he wondered if it’d been at the Plover, or if he’d taken a chance then, gambler that he was. He wondered if Jean was playing it by ear, or if he’d planned this all along. He was good at this, to keep up the bluff even now, when he’d been called.

Tom sat stiffly as Jean came to kneel in front of him, taking his hands and covering them up. Cruel, he kept thinking. Cruel, cruel. His eyes flicked between Jean’s, one to the other and back, his mouth a thin white line. His throat was dry, and he swallowed a lump. He needed a drink, but Jean was holding his hands. He shot his whisky a desperate glance.

Then, Jean leaned forward and kissed him. He stifled a gasp. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it might’ve lasted forever, as far as Tom was concerned. A brush of Jean’s lips against his, still pressed tightly shut, now trembling. Then Jean broke away.

Tom drew in a little shuddering breath. He kept his eyes closed for a few seconds. He could feel the stir of breath against his face. The smells of whisky and cigar smoke and cedar were heady, now, in the space between them.

He opened his eyes. The half-Gioran’s face was still fair close, and now blurry; in the back of his head, he thought he ought to get his reading glasses.

He slipped one of his hands out from under Jean’s and raised it to the gambler's hair. “No,” he murmured, with a bitter twist of the lip, “no, no, no. I wish I could believe you. You’re good, but I know.” To his horror, his voice had lost all of its Old Rose brogue. It’d poured itself right into the shape of his Vienda accent, the one Ava’d taught him. He felt like he was floating outside himself; he felt like he was listening to Anatole talk.

He tucked a few strands of pale hair behind one ear. “If you’re after blackmail material, you’ve already got enough of it; you needn’t finish the job. You can scamper off and tell them whatever the hell you like about Incumbent Vauquelin. Whatever it is you want in return…”

Finally, he laid his hand gently on Jean’s cheek. The sight of it there revolted him: he stared at it for a moment, with its thin, bony fingers, with its network of veins. He blinked, then looked back into Jean’s eyes.

“You don’t want – this,” he said. “You couldn’t want me. What kind of a fool do you take me for?”