[Closed] All in a Night’s Work (Umberto)

[Fionn]

Yaris 80, 2719 | Night, Late
(Might be Dentis 1)
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

Everything in the house was too noisy. It wasn’t Fionn’s fault. He wasn’t the noisy one, he was being very sneaky — yes, he was — but everywhere he stepped insisted on creaking underfoot and the door! The door had never made that much noise before, it was just doing it to spite him. The lock had scraped and screeched and the hinges! Gods, he’d shushed them and they’d still creaked as if they’d never been oiled! Not that he’d ever oiled them but still…

If his employer happened to be awake then the passive intended to maintain a low profile so that Umberto didn’t discover him and that meant keeping the sound down as he picked his way across the lower floor and began the endeavour of climbing the stairs. They turned out to be a new, formidable obstacle to his mission. There were different places that wouldn’t creak if you stood on them and distributed your weight just so but damn if he could remember all of them in the dark while trying to keep his balance.

The youth had been drinking but it hadn’t been that much. The teenager wasn’t drunk but he could admit to a little tipsiness and that wasn’t enough to make everything tilt as if viewed from a boat on choppy seas. No, if he wobbled and saw his dimly lit surroundings fly up and down in his vision then it was simply an effect of standing on one foot while the other hung in the air before him attempting to find the best spot to land, hardly made easy by the pull of gravity that threatened to send him tumbling backwards.

A step groaned as he put weight on it, the servant pausing to glare down at it. He shushed it audibly, remaining still as if waiting for the step to understand before he put the rest of his weight on it.

The groaning continued, the wood settling under his mass.

“What did I just say?” he whispered irritably, painfully unaware that his whisper was far from quiet, more akin to what might pass for soft on the stage; he needn’t have tried to be stealthy because he was failing miserably.

One hand gripped the handrail while the other trailed along the wall on the other side, the youth’s forehead crumpling in intense concentration. The staircase seemed to be in a constant state of sway, almost as if it was trying to rock him gently to sleep before he reached his bed. It was all too easy to allow his eyes to droop, Fionn smiling contentedly to himself.

His foot rose to mount the next stair and came down on the edge, not providing the solid purchase that he’d anticipated. It slipped, his eyes opening wide as panic surged through him, the sense that he was going to go tumbling down seizing him. He tried to correct himself, lurching forward and slamming his knee into a higher step, a muffled curse escaping him as pain spread out from his kneecap. He ended up kneeling awkwardly, fingers clinging to the balusters instead of the rail this time from his new lower position.

“Fucking- Fuck!”

The teenager turned himself as carefully as he could, seating himself on the step and rubbing sullenly at his knee, his good humour soured. While a few moments prior, he’d been concerned with being furtive but Umberto had largely been forgotten as he muttered to himself.

“How can you trip up stairs? Who clocking does that, Fionn?”

Okay, maybe he was a bit drunk. He wasn’t used to this alcohol business and he hadn’t gone out with the intention of drinking, never mind ending up this wobbly but one thing had led to another. Wasn’t the point of a day off to enjoy himself? That was what he’d determined from observing others making the most of their leave from their employers. They were happy to let loose but then they didn’t have to stay quite so close to their employers, especially ones that kept odd habits.

The blond got to his feet once more, grasping the balusters tightly for support. He considered the rest of his route. He’d ascended most of the way and that meant that he had further to fall if he had another slip up. Continuing to tiptoe probably wouldn’t do him any favours, not given the racket he’d probably just made.

“Sod it!”

Gripping the rail, he peered at the steps as he mounted them normally, gritting his teeth at the noise he was making. His tread was probably only a bit heavier than normal but it seemed obscenely loud, even though he’d abandoned his attempts at covertness. It was a good thing that he’d packed it in though because the landing creaked so ferociously beneath him that he wouldn’t have had a hope of sneaking. What was more, Fionn was convinced that the landing had never been this creaky before; it really felt like spite.

He paused, listening and looking towards Umberto’s workroom. The door was ajar and there was light but that didn’t mean anything. The galdor was scatterbrained and had been known to wander out and leave the light in but more often than not, he dozed off in there. The passive had lost count of the number of times he’d thrown a blanket over the man or tried to ease something comfortable under his head when he fell asleep in odd positions and he’d only worked for him for a few weeks! The man might be asleep or he might simply be quietly contemplating something. The fact that he hadn’t immediately emerged didn’t mean anything either, not when one considered how self-absorbed he was.

Fionn shifted his weight uneasily, unsure if he should check on him for fear that he was awake. The boy didn’t know what time it was and if it was after midnight, he wouldn’t put it past the academic to put him to work on account of his day off having officially ended. The blond wasn’t sure that he could deal with his idea of work right now, especially when he was sleepy and his brain was a bit muggy. At the very least, he should get some sleep.

That being said, the man might be ill-pleased if he had drifted off and Fionn had failed to tend to him. Cautiously, he crept to the door with the intention of peeping his head around it. If Umberto was awake then perhaps he could retreat again before the man took notice.

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

T

he word was still eluding him. Once or twice it seemed to come nearer, to form in sounds and scrawls, flashing yellow-bright in the corner of his eye. Every time he turned his head, it vanished in a whisper. A whisper just outside the range of his hearing. Words were not butterflies. He could nor more catch them in a net than he could transfix them with a pin and freeze them for all time on a piece of cardstock. Words were more alive than insects. Words do not die.

Although the current one was certainly doing an admirable job of pretending to have done so. It would not succeed so easily as that. He had learned those tricks before. Nineteen times he had captured one, or near enough for the nonce. Old words, lost words, neglected words. Most were only of marginal use, though he was fond of them, especially the one that brought forth the memories of flowers. That one he had found, or rather reconstructed, from nine inscriptions on what were claimed to be dedication stele for lost gardens, a few tattered fragments of a grimoire of dubious authenticity, and his much-used copy of The Unfolding of the Seven Lilies. A more useful book that one might imagine.

He had bought it as part of a consignment of books on magic that his uncle had acquired as part of the liquidation of the estate of a disgraced professor. It had been a sordid affair. Shocking really. The man should have been quietly hanged from the nearest lamp post. Instead, he had taken poison and died comfortably in his bath. There was no justice in the world. The family, pariahs now, needed the money, and the goods had to be sold off quietly, anonymously. Uncle Gian was good at that. A few rumors in the right places, hints of less sordid scandal, and a few allusions to possibly illegal artifacts, it was more than enough to bring in the right kind of buyers. Too much money, not enough sense, fewer scruples.

The box of books had been just a small thing. A trunk full of mostly useless works. He had copies of most of them already. But there were one or two that caught his eye. That had been five years ago, back home, back in Florne. Mel, with her encyclopedic brain, had identified the more obscure works. Including the titleless, poorly bound and slightly water-damaged pages of The Unfolding that had been stuck in the middle of Rumaya’s Commentaries on some Peculiarities of Hessian Wedding Poetry. He bought the lot at a family discount, gifted most of them to Mel, and kept the unexpected grimoire.

Now it sat open to one of the anonymous author’s tables of the seven Monic declensions they had made their life’s work. The sixth declension in the hortative irrealis. Most scholars had maintained that the sixth was an irregular declension, but Anonymous and he had other ideas. There were older resonances, hints at phonological processes that produced the apparent irregularities. The fact that many words of the sixth declension had been lost, well, that was only more tantalizing.

The clock in the hall struck something or other, he did not bother counting. The small hours probably. It was dark enough outside and there did not seem to be any noises for hours. No gaggles of drunken students loudly proclaiming their loves and hates for each other, no music drifting from upstairs parlors or dining rooms. No rattle of carriage wheels. Silent. Still.

Well, other than the hideous racket that appeared to be destroying every part of the house. Bangs and crashes, creaks and groans. Someone was having a most difficult time making their way. If it was a burglar, it was a thoroughly inept one, and could probably be safely ignored. Or frightened off by having their head filled to the brim with the memories of strangling nenuphars.

And now there was cursing. Familiar cursing. Slurred and ill-formed. The diction was atrocious. Atrocious and recognizable. Fionn. His valet. Or whatever the boy was. Valet was the nearest to the mark, but it implies a professionalism, even a kind of moral superiority, that was foregin to the boy. Dogsbody perhaps? No, too demanding. He might have had a way with words, with semantics and precision, but not with Estuan. At least not tonight.

More creaking, more banging, more cursing. Maybe he would inflict magic upon the boy, burglar or no burglar. Then again, perhaps not. No sense setting off whatever diablerie the boy had clogging up all his monic pathways.

The door creaked open, and the boy looked in. Bleary eyed, swaying. Drunk as a boiled owl.

“If you must be drunk at this hour, you could at least have the decency to raid the brandy downstairs, or the grappa.” No, the boy seemed not to care for that. “Or perhaps the sherry would be more to your liking? Never-mind. What I mean to say, is that if you’d bothered to stay in and drink yourself to oblivion on the reading couch downstairs, I could have been saved all this racket.” He glared at the boy, as it too-rosy face and his unfocused eyes. “However, since you are at least four sheets to the wind and persisting in being upright, perhaps a coffee would do you a world of good.” The glare continued. It grew harder, sharper. This banging around at all hours was a nuisance. And drinking abroad, in town, was no small risk. He might have been nicked by the greencoats, tossed in a holding cell, and generally given a thrashing. And then would come the recriminations. A passive on loan, up on a drunk and disorderly would be a nightmare. “There’s a flask in the icebox. Cold, strong, and as black as you please. Two glasses if you would. And then, once your head stops spinning, you can let me know just how much in damages I owe to the landlord of whatever low drinking den you were inhabiting this evening.”

[Fionn]

Yaris 80, 2719 | Night, Late
(Might be Dentis 1)
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

Umberto was indeed awake and he was quite alert at that. In fact, he was so alert as he pierced the boy with a glare that he made the teenager’s own concentration whittling away. For a moment, he felt as if he’d begun to fall asleep standing up, that sharp look enough to make him grow wearier than he already was. Words managed to rouse him enough, the galdor providing the voice of command to which the passive found that he had to listen — no matter how rebellious or contemptuous of authority the boy was.

His gaze dropped to the ground, shuffling uncomfortably in place at the beratement. He wanted to say that he hadn’t intended to get drunk but it had simply happened. The idea that he could nip into the golly’s alcohol stores hadn’t occurred to him but if he’d known, he wouldn’t have raided it. Besides, there wasn’t any company in the drinks cabinet. Not only would it be rather a squash for a person but he thought he’d have seen someone hiding out amongst the bottles. The youth didn’t have the words to describe how lonely he was, probably would have had a hard time finding the vocabulary if he was stone cold sober. The academic managed to dredge up all the negative feelings that he’d thought had drowned in the liquor in his system and added some new ones besides so that his hangdog expression was also accompanied by watery eyes.

Was he upset? Fionn didn’t know but he did feel as if he wanted to cry and that was supposed to happen when you were sad. The passive didn’t need a special occasion to cry because he was good at it when his emotions overwhelmed him, especially frustration. However, this was a special occasion because he was drunk — apparently.

“Am I drunk?” he questioned, peering up at Umberto through watery eyes. His confusion added to the slur of his speech. Shame and frowning puzzlement tried to reside on his face at the same time with mixed success. “Di’n’t think I was drunk,” he muttered to himself — and was no doubt the only one who understood the quiet, loose diction.

Absently, he searched for the sheets that the man mentioned but he was fairly sure that he didn’t have any about his person. Had he had sheets and lost them? Was that what Umberto was going on about. He had a sheet on his bed and there were sheets of paper he’d been scribbling words on earlier to Aura but he couldn’t remember bringing any with him. He tried repeating Umberto’s words in his head, thinking that he’d misheard but his mental repetitions only ended up sounding sort of obscene. Besides, he couldn’t focus on what he’d said and what he was saying now, not at the same time — too much effort that.

“‘m sorry for n’ knowing I was bein’ drunk.”

That apology didn’t sound quite right but he couldn’t put his finger on why. Perhaps he could try again and if he said it really slowly then he should be able to say all the bits properly. Saying things slowly could never go wrong.

“I din’t know I was drunk. ‘m ssso ssorry. I tried be quiet but everyt’in’s real creaky,” the blond explained, making an attempt to rub the back of his neck but missing. He rubbed at his shoulder blade instead.

“Hate coffee. Tastes like… like… burned… stuff.”

The teenager conveyed his distaste for the substance by drawing his lips back from his teeth and sticking his tongue out briefly. A sound came out at the same time; it sounded like ‘buh’. Worse than the prospect of having to drink coffee — it had basically been an order — was the notion that he would have to go down the stairs. After all, he had had enough difficulty getting up them but at least when he’d fallen before, he’d had the step immediately in front of him to break his fall. If he fell going down the stairs, there was a high chance that something would break and it was liable to be something considerably more fragile — not to mention attached to his person!

“Oh no! N’ downstairs… I only jus’ made it here an’... m’kay, I’ll try not t’break my face. ‘S too pretty to get broken,” he moaned, more to himself than his patron, petting his cheek distractedly as he turned to leave the room and—

Successfully bounced his face off the doorframe as the turn disorientated him. His nose was throbbing, tears had sprung hot to his eyes and he somehow felt dizzier than he had before. One hand clutched the doorframe to make sure that there was something solid with which to anchor himself, while the other flew to his nose to cradle it. He sucked in air between his teeth but initially failed to swear as he tried to make sense of the pain and the shock and the dizziness that had just been violently thrust upon him. A foot stamped a few times on the floor instead, not unlike the way a rabbit might thump the ground with a hindleg.

“Fffff- Ah! Fuckin’ bollocks!”

What had he just said about his face being too pretty to break? Apparently he didn’t even need to worry about breaking it trying to descend the staircase; he could manage fine by trying to leave the room!

Delicately, he pinched his nose, one eyelid scrunched tight against the pain, as the other cluttered and he gingerly manipulated cartilage. The passive would live but it has still really clocking hurt. What was more, something sour had surged up his throat only to stop and linger in his oesophagus — or so it seemed. Sobriety certainly had not developed all at once but it did feel as if he’d left some of his inebriation behind by bashing his face and it tasted as if he’d come close to regurgitating the contents of his stomach.

Fionn felt more sensible in any case and thus, he truly saw the danger of trying to reach the icebox in the kitchen on the floor below, nevermind attempting to carry glass back up.

“Gimme a minute. Upright is eh but walking is nyuh.” The very clear and informative statement was delivered with the added ‘benefit’ of some seesawing motions from the hand not clutching the doorframe.

“What d’you say ‘bout damages? Only damaged m’self but I’ll be rain as right an’ get the burned stuff now. N’ minute. Promise. Sorry.”

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

T

he first words out of Fionn’s mouth, the stumbling, slurred denial, that was more than enough to confirm his thoroughly sozzled state. The fragrance of cheap, rather nameless spirits was only playing second fiddle here. Denials were irritating. Slurring was irritating. The damned great noise was irritating. Fionn was irritating. All true. Necessary, yes, but not sufficient. Prior irritation was only being garnished now. The bitter, slightly off, parsley of aggravation.

Dry, overused eyes darted to and fro across the chalkboard, trying to make sense of the diagrams, the role labeling, the speculative etymologies. It all began from a solid origin, and each particular step was, in itself, reasonable. The end result was chaos. Drivel. Nothing for it. It was best to set it all aside. Set it aside and attend to the new problem cluttering up his brain, gnawing upon his thoughts. He put the chalk down, collapsed bonelessly into the familiar embrace of his battered old reading couch, and looked up at the servant.

And what sight he was. Swaying, blurry eyed, miserable. Not a night of drinking songs and cheerful conviviality then. With whom could the blue lad have shared a cup and croaked out a bawdy and tuneless song? Passives were never the most sociable of people. Then again, neither was he. You have a choice in the matter, you can stay away from nearly anyone you like. Well, that’s perspective for you. The blue lad was a drudge, an empty pepper mill of a person, the peppercorns of the soul ground down to just a few wisps and persistently clinging flakes.

Was that always the case? The passives where the charges of the University, under its protection. Made empty and sullen, bitter and froward. Seemed a bit of a high price for their room and board and the patronizing hand of the scholars.

“Sit down for a bit. Coffee can wait, at least until the world stops spinning on your own personal axis. And coffee is just the thing for us both. The very fact that you hate it will make it more so.” His own speech was wrong. Wrong for this place and for this country. The little glides of his Brunnhold vowels have teken the night off, replaced instead with the clearer tones of Florne. Prosody, tone, articulation were all trending westward. His voice had crossed the border. His voice was headed home.

He waved his hand in a vague manner, swatting the moth of his Flornese speech. When he spoke again little enough had changed. If Fionn could slur, then he could take the luxury of speaking how he chose as well. So long as he did not drop full into dialect. He was not that far in wishing to be home. “I don’t mean it as punishment. Only that the more unpleasant the medicine, the greater the effect.” A widely believed fact. Abe always doubted the truth of it. Well, she would know the real matter. And yet the most horrible of medicines did seem to have virtue all their own.

Any spells to cure a hangover in the making? Any to purge the body of cheerful poison? That was not his line. Magic of the body and of matter had never been much of a pressing concern. Would such a thing, presuming it existed, even work on a passive, or would their unmagic devour it all? The point was moot now. Worth exploring later. Given Fionn’s state it might be best to learn it with all convenient speed.

Fionn, mechanically biddable, did not sit but followed earlier instructions. One utterance at a time. His head was too full of whatever rot-gut he’s been swilling to hold more than a thought. The whacking great thud as he walked straight into the door-frame with all his drunken speed was an indication that there was even less space in that cloudy head than was suspected.

“Sit.” And this time it was no request. A command. For the lad’s own good. In this state he’d continue his blundering all the way down the stairs, landing upon the floor and cracking his head. A dead, or worse, passive on the floor would not do. Too many hearings, ethics committees being convened to tutt and shake their heads. Too much guilt on his own part. The lad was an idiot. Idiocy was not anything like a capital crime.

“Sit and don’t bother to move.” There was a carafe of water on the table by the nearest chalkboard. Only one glass. Well, no sense standing on useless ceremony. He poured the water in the glass and wrapped Fionn’s hands around it. “Drink.” That might not have been the wisest of commands. “It’s only water and you’ll need a small private lake of it from the looks of you. Certainly more than a little rain”

He looked the lad straight in his bleary, watery eyes. “Other than destroying yourself most remarkably, is there anything else you’ve destroyed? Table, chairs, whiskey glasses? No gambling debts I hope? Your credit ruined.” Idiot. What credit did passives have? “I just want to know that all you’re going to have to regret will be the roiling of your stomach and the pounding in your head tomorrow.” He returned to his reading couch, sprawled out in the traditional manner. “You’re in no shape to do anything at all either tonight or tomorrow. And the hangover you are going to have is more than sufficient punishment for your debauchery.”

[Fionn]

Yaris 80, 2719 | Night, Late
(Might be Dentis 1)
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

Why did his face have to ache on top of everything? For fuck’s sake, the youth was truly miserable now, any false euphoria brought on by the alcohol having fled and the mood that had sent him out in the first place was beginning to re-establish itself. Not to mention that his nose was throbbing something dreadful as if he’d been in a punch up but he couldn’t even have the satisfaction of hitting back; thumping his fist into the door wouldn’t make anything any better.

“Won’t move but the room ain’t lis’ning. Won’t stop moving. I hate it,” he mumbled sulkily, collapsing into the nearest chair and setting his head in his hands, managing the latter on the second attempt. The youth groaned, wishing that he could simply go to bed or maybe reverse the sands of time so that he could go back to-

When exactly? Earlier today before he’d started making mistakes? Earlier in the month before everything had changed? Before that lovely night with Aura about which he managed to feel somewhat bitter as well as pleased? Gods, if he could turn the sands back as far as that, he’d almost want to start Brunnhold over again, never run into the kind of traps he’d so innocently tumbled into and ended up becoming what he had. He couldn’t make himself anything other than passive so his childhood would always have had the same ending — his gating — but maybe he could never have been born.

Yes, he rather liked the idea of never having been born at this moment in time.

This being drunk thing was going really well, he had to say. It was making everything feel so much better.

The galdor pushed a glass into his grasp, going so far as to actually place his fingers around it for him as if he didn’t trust Fionn to manage even that alone; he was probably right. The teenager mumbled something like a thank you, lips barely moving. He didn’t need a field to broadcast how dark his mood was growing, storm clouds almost tangible as they developed above his head and his brow creased into deep furrows.

At the mention of regrets, the passive’s head rose slowly as his brown eyes fixed on Umberto. It was difficult, especially as the man had acquired a conjoined twin, no doubt due to the bleary quality his vision had taken on. Nevertheless, he managed it, fixing his gaze solemnly on the academic. His eyes might have had an unfocused look, his attitude clearly not a sober one but he was undeniably grave and internally, his mind was a bit too clear at present, even if he hadn’t reached anything like sobriety. Truthfully, if he was like this now, it would be a horror to see how the inside of his head looked when he had clarity of thought again and could sink into the blackest pit of self-loathing.

There would be no regrets of the sort which the other named, the notion of gambling a particularly foreign concept to the youth who had no true understanding of money and who had only ever taken chances for the sake of losing. Really he hadn’t been as bad when he left and it hadn’t been too far too come so he hadn’t broken anything in the drinking establishment, he didn’t have to worry about that either. In truth, the air had had some effect on him, probably for the worst and the alcohol he’d been drinking had taken time to take hold properly. Umberto was merely dealing with the end result.

Could he say that the remains of his pride were in some alley not far from here? No, he didn’t think there’d been anything left before that point in truth although he certainly regretted what had taken place. Those were private regrets though, not the sort about which the galdor need concern himself. No, those regrets would have no bearing on the other’s life, wouldn’t affect him although they’d linger far longer than the fleeting discomforts of a hangover.

His eyes slid away from the other, downcast as he shook his head slowly.

No. No regrets about which Umberto would want to learn.

He took a long draught of water, inwardly drowning in his own shame and self-loathing. He found the depth of his thirst surprising, finishing off the glass and gasping for air as he finally allowed himself a chance to breathe.

Talk of punishment and being in poor shape made his brows draw together albeit the youth didn’t return his attention to the galdor, not more than a glance anyway. He already felt as if someone had tried to grind him underfoot like a cigarette butt being extinguished and that wasn’t entirely related to the alcohol. The blond would feel worse tomorrow — so what? Hadn’t he been battered and still expected to work? Hadn’t he felt as if each breath set his lungs aflame and still had to carry on? Hadn’t he seen others veritably green as they worked in the Kitchens, only dismissed when they’d had the misfortune to throw up as sickness reared its head? And hadn’t they been punished for it as if they’d truly had the choice to tuck themselves away in bed until they felt less poorly?

It started as a snort, the inclination to giggle rearing its head again, and setting him properly laughing. There was no real mirth to it, even if the force of it brought tears to his gaze, the youth knuckling his watery eyes as it finally died down. His lips twisted, drawing back from his teeth so they were almost bared in a snarl.

“Won’t be in any shape? Wha’ diff-ff-fference does that make?” Fionn sneered, bitterness beginning to take root in his voice, a parasite feeding on his misery.

“Wou’dn’t matter if I was dying lest my head ‘xploded or summat, I’m passive. We work even if we’re suff’rin’. Who gives a fuck when i’s what we’re for!”

Glaring moodily into his lap, the youth shook his head, groaning softly as it made the world sway too violently back and forth. He laid his hand against his forehead to try to stop it.

“Passive’s pun’shment nuff. Din’t do nothin’ t’ deserve it. Din’t ask t’ be a bas’ard,” he informed his knees darkly. His hand covered his eyes as he groaned.

“Could feel less shit though. Don’t like this. Meant make you feel better. Lies!” he bawled and tottered to his feet. Determination tried to mould his features but the expression ran, his visage too soft and malleable to let it set. His mouth twisted before slumping down.

“If coffee’ll help… Can’t make it worse.”

Finishing off the water, he set the glass down. His hand went to the back of the chair to steady himself, eyes narrowing so that the doorframe wouldn’t move on him this time. He rose, feeling the water he’d downed — or maybe the alcohol — sloshing around in his stomach. He took one step and then another, each slow and deliberate and heavy like a wind-up marching toy that had begun to wind down. He would get through the door and he would get coffee.

“Sober’s worse,” the blond added, more to himself. Though at least sober he didn’t see near double or smack his face into door frames. His coordination left things to be desired but it wasn’t that bad.

Hated coffee but he needed this to go away. Needed coffee.

The teenager cleared the doorway this time and found himself at the top of the landing, a hand finding and gripping the staircase railing before the other hand joined its fellow, both holding onto the wood for dear life.

Coffee.

If the academic didn’t attempt to stop him then he’d allow his foot to find the top step, using it to feel for edge before sliding his foot carefully over the precipice and down. Slow and deliberate, but also grimly determined

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

T

his would not do. Not in the slightest. Nothing in Fionn’s work, his conversation, or his person indicated he was soft headed. Quite the opposite. Head as hard as stone. As unbending. Not a fool, neither an idiot, by obtuse. He still did not -- could not? -- understand what he was being told, could not read between the lines. The annotations were clear enough, so much so he was tolerably sure they were the naive interpretation of the utterances. No. If there was a fool here tonight it was himself.

The servant was unused to agency, unused to not having his every hour controlled and regimented. It was bad enough to be a student here. A regimented life in hideous uniform green. Meals planned out, the course of time proscribed. A life of conformity and control meant to turn out good little galdori gentry. But the green-wardrobed imprisonment was only a decade of time. It was not a lifelong incarceration. A sullen and self-loathing drudge was the last thing he needed.

A new approach then. Much to direct for his taste, all hammer and chisel. Perhaps it would get though the lad’s armor, crack the stone and get him to listen, mona-damned listen, to what was being said. Command then, it was all the lad had known.

“Fionn!” He rose, composing himself into what passed for command. A sorry state of affairs. He was not suited to such things. He had all the commanding presence of a diffident waterbird. It would have to do. “Listen to me, to every word I say. You have been seconded to me, the gods alone know why, but while you are in my service, you will do as I command. Is that understood?” No reason to wait for any response. It would either be a useless and froward nod, or a drunken groan. He’d take either. Or none.

“So, listen to my commands. I hereby order you to take your rest, here, and in what comfort you can. I request and require that you get over your inevitable hangover with all due speed, but more importantly, with the thoroughness and attention to detail that I expect in any servant of mine. If that means you must lay in bed for three days, enduring the griping of the guts, then it is my intention that you do so. When your stomach is properly settled, you are ordered to request a proper breakfast with whatever horrible greasy meats you think proper, and however many fried eggs you can stand.” He can at least fry and egg and make a bit of toast. Most of the time. Cooking was such a distraction. One could not work on anything but watching the eggs fry or the toast burn in the controlled manner prescribed. A bother. “You are ordered to take medicines to drive away your headache and calm your stomach.”

He drew in a long breath, rose to what passed as his maximum height, tried and failed to look imperious. “Have I made myself abundantly clear?”

The lad was still moaning on, still lamenting what he saw as his lot. And it was his lot, and worth lamenting. What a damn nuisance. How could anyone stand to have such intentional lumps as servants? And academics no less. The deepest of the netherworlds, but half of the faculty could only recall if they had their lunch by the direction they were walking. The needed servants who could set them straight, who could remind them to wear this or that for whatever ghastly occasion they were required to attend. Too many of those. Too much pageantry for no good end. Who was it all for?

The Gated were wards of the University. The key word there being ‘ward’. It implied protection, guidance, care. Turning them into biddable, if angry, semi-slaves was not in keeping with the semantics. Neither denotation nor the connotation. The teeming masses of humans, now there was a useful pool from which to draw laborers and scullions. The Gated had upbringing, connections. What did it matter if they were magically disabled? A proper education should still be their lot. And if they must be made servants, then gentlemen’s gentlemen, ladies’ maids, tutors, governesses, and companions seemed better suited. Some acknowledgement of their origins, some of the respect that was due a ward.

Well, if the University was failing in its duties, that did not mean he would bow to that custom. Custom be damned. Still, it would take time, tame and effort. It was more than a night’s work to transmute Fionn into something other than a wretch. He needed something other than a wretch. He needed a minder. And for now, he would have to mind the minder.

Just one more absurdity.

“Your next order is to remain here, return to your seat and let your equanimity, if not your equilibrium return.” He plonked the land back into the chair, poured him another glass of water. “Drink Water will be good for you. You are required to drink it as necessary.”

He crossed the room and made for the stairs. Fionn was in no shape to get the coffee. “Stay where you are, the coffee is my business.”

The stairs creaked as he made his way down and down. Too steep and too narrow for a drunken man. Nearly so for a man who had not bothered to eat since . . .When had he last eaten? It must have happened. He was still alive. A day ago? Two? There was some smoked salmon in the ice box, a jar of olives, and probably the cold remains of an artichoke frittata he had tried to make. Indifferent success there, but edible enough that it might do Fionn some good.

The ice box lay in the tiny kitchen, a space barely large enough for one person. An artifact of some bygone era when it was assumed the master of the house employed a presumably svelte cook. It was no longer so. He mostly lived off provisions for the Bastian deli a few streets over, or else from the Café Frobisher. The coffee at least was his own concoction. Strong and sharp and bitter. Perfect for jolting one, if not into sobriety, than into something resembling it.

The caraf seized and the plate of artichoke frittata acquired, he returned to the work-room, to his chalkboards and his dissipated servant.

“Coffee and something to eat. Nothing much, but better than an empty stomach. Provided you can keep it down.” He tried to give a reassuring smile. No idea if it worked. “Tell me,” he said, after a while in silence, “what precipitated this current debauchery? A man does not drink to such excess without a celebration or a sorrow. I would hope for the former, but I fear the latter.” He poured a bit of the coffee, dark and red-black-strong and took a long, considering drink. “You do not have to tell me all the details, but I would know at least the abstract. That is another command. But in your own time.”

[Fionn]

Dentis 1, 2719 | So Late It’s Early
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

He’d thought that the man would be pleased — or at least, content — with Fionn getting to his feet to carry out his original orders. Well, no, in truth, saying that he’d thought such a thing would be overly generous. That line of thinking was far too complex for the passive to indulge in right now, especially given that so much of his mind was devoted to himself — as it often was. Really, he hadn’t attempted to guess at how the academic would perceive his actions, hadn’t thought of him much at all when he came to his decision in fact, beyond a kind of mental shrug in relation to the man. What the man might think of his actions wasn’t within the scope of his current mental preoccupations and while he had been somewhat chagrined and ashamed at first, they were feelings that had been shed as his typical sullenness and self-pity reasserted itself.

Of course, the man’s sharp tone pulled him up short. Part of him couldn’t help but react to an apparent voice of authority, his own name snapped in that tone managing to hit him viscerally. Thumping him in the abdomen would have been better — kinder — if only because it would actually have been physical rather than some psychological trick. That part of him felt tethered by the voice, an invisible leash stopping him short and it was that side of him that immediately felt resentment. The other part reacted purely out of shock; he wasn’t accustomed to this sort of treatment from Umberto.

Even drunk, the blond could see how truly ludicrous it was, like a hingle trying to intimidate a spinewolf. He hovered, hand clasping the rail for balance as he listened to what the other had to say, more out of fuzzy curiosity than out of respect or deference. It was easier to remain still — somewhat — and listen rather than tottering unsteadily down the stairs. Besides, if he was meant to respond then he could hardly do it while on the move and moving further and further away at that.

Not that his initial response was noteworthy, far from enthusiastic as he shrugged listlessly, brown eyes shifting to focus briefly on the galdor’s face. He rested his hip against the newel post at the top of the stairs, wrapping his arm around it in an almost intimate embrace as he gained some stability for himself while he waited to hear all that Umberto had to say.

Ordinarily, Fionn would have been glad of the glossary that the Bastian provided, an opportunity for him to pick up new vocabulary but his head was stuffed full of something, stuffed into every nook and cranny and odd little spaces. It wasn’t fluffy, at least then there would have been some space in there to take in more than a trickle of information and some of it might have ended up cushioned and retained for later. No, if it was cotton wool then it was the sodden kind that had more mass than it ought to have and you could fit so much of it into a space. It’d explain why most of the man’s words glanced off him and slid away.

One hand rose to the side of his head, pressing firmly against his skull as if trying to keep the words in before they could spill out of his ears, his expression vaguely pained.

Stay here. He got that much although his employer didn’t seem able to make up his mind.

Go downstairs and get coffee.

Don’t go downstairs.

You need coffee but you shouldn’t get it.

Up, down, turn around, try to tell your arse from your elbow.

All the words were making him dizzy, the youth almost prepared to collapse onto the top step except that he’d probably miss somehow, even though his legs only needed to collapse just right and he’d be sitting safely on his arse. He wanted him to come back into the study though, to sit himself down once more but maybe when Fionn got there, he’d change his mind.

Again.

So the teenager remained where he was, expectant and suffering from exasperated bewilderment as the academic rattled on about… something. The other man would no doubt be grossly disappointed if he were to learn just how little attention Fionn paid to all the orders he was supposed to heed.

Only when he received an explicit order rather than having to decipher meaning from his verbosity did Fionn actually move, parting from the newel post with some reluctance as if it had been a lifelong friend, and mounted the landing anew.

“Sure,” he drawled, his tone almost genial. Yes, let the coffee be the academic’s business if that’s what he wanted. The blond hadn’t even wanted coffee — nothing to do with him.

Whatever determination had carried him to that place in the first place had since drained away and it was a wonder that he managed to resume his former seat although a helping hand certainly increased his chances. He probably wouldn’t have succeeded in his quest for coffee after all.

The blond could sleep in this chair, he thought. The youth was certainly weary enough, especially in light of all this jigging up and down as if he was on a spring. Not that the chair would have been comfortable enough in normal circumstances but it seemed to mould to fit him now and it was the damnedest thing but it had never been this agreeable before, so exceedingly pleasant. And while more water was thrust at him along with words that might have been an order or more of an emphatic suggestion, the man’s blathering was set to recede as he left the boy to his thoughts and the languidness of his limbs.

He considered the proffered glass with disinterest, folding his arms over his chest instead. Almost cosy that way, warm in his own embrace and more at ease as well. Given the absence of the galdor and his intrusive field, the adolescent felt as if he could finally catch his breath and relax a little. His eyelids drooped, the light in here enough to sting his eyes after the cooler darkness that he’d had to contend with once he got off the dim street.

Closing them for a moment would bring some blessed relief, even a slow blink enough to diminish the sting a little…

Slow blink and ah, how good it was to blot out the lamp’s shine! Opening them seemed to accentuate the sting and so he closed them again. Just for a moment.

A moment closed. A moment open. A little bit longer closed and each time, it was almost with regret that he opened them anew because it felt so good to have them closed and-

The return of the Bastian jolted him out of the beginnings of his doze, a bolt of adrenaline flashing through him and providing him with some semblance of alertness. Heart hammering, panicked and a tad guilty at being caught in such a manner, the youth sat straighter in his chair, or managed to slump less at any rate, and pushed fingers through golden strands. Guilty or not, he couldn’t suppress the curl and stretch of his lips at the sight of the coffee.

“Oh goodie. Coffee.”

He blinked at it owlishly, hoping that it might vanish while his eyelids blocked his vision but alas, it stubbornly remained. Umberto hadn’t said that he had to drink it, not since returning with it anyway so perhaps he could avoid it. His fingers crept towards the water glass instead, making a show of gulping some of it down. It did wash away some of the sweetness that had settled unpleasantly over his tongue, his mouth coated in it. Sweet but with something of an edge beneath it, sour.

The frittata didn’t appeal any more than the coffee did, the passive wondering briefly if the contents of his stomach would look like this if he threw up right now. Would he be able to discern new from old if he upchucked whatever sourness was churning in his belly on top of the food?

Not a good idea to think about getting sick and the sight of it wasn’t helping so he settled for conversation instead. At least, he made something of an attempt.

“Sorrow, I guess,” he tried, parroting the other’s word while his brows tugged tight together. “Tha’s not the word though. Not the right…”

He cocked his head to the side slightly, seeming to listen.

“Lonely? I miss… not Brunnhold, i’s fuckin’ awful. Not people, ‘specially not gollies — n’offence — but not scraps either. ‘Cept yeah. I miss… the feel of them. Empty without them. My own isn’t the same.”

The blond was struggling to express himself, which he had problems doing at the best of times and this certainly wasn’t one of those. Not that Umberto would get it anyway. He probably wouldn’t believe that nexi existed and he wouldn’t understand. Fionn didn’t think that he understood either, especially not about why he felt the way he did. He didn’t know what had driven him out tonight, what had driven him to drink. Not for any reason he’d care to admit to himself.

“You’ll think I’m moony. You know Moore though so you prob’ly don’t think he’s off his orbit,” he mumbled with a shrug. He sucked at a tooth and a glimmer of a true answer came out, something that he wouldn’t have said if his bloodstream wasn’t so alcohol-saturated.

“Needed someone t’ touch me but I don’t. Hate it.”

His fingers pawed and groped at the air, lips twisting at his own illustration before he drew in on himself, shoulders hunching. The sullenness returned and with it, petulance.

“I dunno, whaddya‘spect me t’say?”

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

A

nd what did he expect the Blue Lad to say? Well, whatever it was, this was not it. A lack of touch? By inference a lack of care? More deprivations, more un-personing. Barbarisms and abuses. It really ought to be halted, stopped, reformed. If for no other reason than to prevent the damn passives from going off like Clock’s Eve fireworks. Messy. Very. Could he put it to the Chairs? Yes, and no. He could put it to one Chair, but only if he condescended to look up from his beetles and moths and address politics. Professor Laurence Stapleton Bassington-Smythe, his own personal father, was not much interested in politics or administration. He’d only accepted the Walsonian Chair of Entomology because it had been empty for seven years and it needed filling. The influence of one obscure scholar pestering another, and family no less, was likely to end in either misery or bafflement. Possibly both.

There were other, far more pressing matters.

Behind him the chalkboard loomed. Half-finished parses and word vectors unresolved. Calculations of semantic similarity that lacked any kind of conclusion. Trailing etymologies. Hours, but he wanted to go back to work, to finish what he had started. Fate, or fortune, had other ideas. There was other work tonight.

“I cannot help you,” he said, pouring more coffee, “with your desire for contact, for what I imagine to be comfortable companionship.” The Hours know he had none of that himself. Not since his own sorrowful parting from Mel. Should he write to her? Ask her to come to Brunnhold? Even for a week would be a joy. No. She would not come. Could not. Her business would not allow it, and away from the canals and the flowers of Florne she would waste and wither. For a few nights lying together on the long reading couches, arguing over the interpretation of novels,or saying nothing at all but enjoying the comfort and the company and drifting off to sleep at last, he would not chance her misery.

Fionn was a misery. A besotted, drunken, pathetic misery. Such things needed tending. That had been drilled into him since he was small. The care of members of the household, whatever their station, was paramount. He has seen his grandfather making broth in the canal-side kitchen when the cook has come down with pneumonia. No one had to argue with him about it, no one thought it odd. It was the done thing. The Galeazzi took care of their own. Rumor was they had the most loyal servants in Florne. An exaggeration, but a reputation worth keeping. Even here, so far from home, so far from his name.

“But this I can promise you,” he said, pouring more coffee for himself. “While you are here, in my service and under my roof, you belong to my household. And that, though you may not think it, matters.” A cared-for and happy servant was an efficient servant, a loyal servant. Transmuting the boy would be no small matter. It was worth the effort. “You say Brunnhold is ‘fuckin’ awful’. I cannot help but agree. So, do not go back, at least not often. I can derive any number of excuses to keep you here in service to me.” That at least was some small skill of his. Administrators tended to buckle under the flood of his correspondence, under the tide of his haragues. “We are still within the walls, still under University jurisdiction, it cannot be too onerous to work out a more permanent residence here.” Though it would separate him from his fellows. Not that his fellows seemed to do him any good. “If that would be of use to you.”

The Stacks was full of servants. Servants gossiped and carried on together. They likely formed little cabals among themselves. That seemed right and proper, reasonable. Still, in his current state, Fionn was anything but reasonable. The lad seemed to be looking for excuses to be miserable. Old habits died hard.

“Drink the water. Drink the coffee, and gather yourself.” He tried to give the lad a smile. It was probably a poor, a useless gesture. “Do you have any friends at all, in Brunnhold proper I mean? People who can share your sorrows because they have them too?” He thought, for a moment, of a little pale blue gathering below stairs in the cramped spaces that pretended to be servant’s quarters. Damnation but this house was too large for one man and his periodic servant. “It may be better to speak with them, to shake their hands or drape your arms about their shoulders. Better to sing drinking songs with them than enjoy misery all alone.”

[Fionn]

Dentis 1, 2719 | So Late It’s Early
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

Fionn chose an inopportune moment to drink some more water, having sought to do something with himself besides running his fingers through his hair and moping. Instead, he had to do his best to splutter liquid out through his mouth before it had a chance to exit via his nostrils. Umberto had failed to connect Fionn’s words with their intended meaning. The man had evidently realised that the boy wanted company but ‘comfortable companionship’ sounded downright chummy and the teenager hadn’t been— Fionn didn’t know that he’d ever sought that. Clearly the galdor didn’t have a notion about passive friendships—or how difficult they were to strike up in the first place. The blond didn’t know whether to laugh or simply cringe at the conclusion that his companion had drawn, not particularly keen on explaining the impersonal nature of his connections—usually brief—despite the usual intimacy that they necessitated.

“Circle preserve me!” he groaned, pressing a dewy palm over his eyes while his face reddened under it. He managed a snort but it really wasn’t very funny after all.

Inebriation wouldn’t save him from embarrassment and he was liable to make it so much worse for himself by being extremely indelicate. Niamh had once commented that men sometimes loved each other and her brother had rudely informed her that that was ‘fucking’, not love; he’d been sober at the time. Better to keep his mouth shut—if he could.

The top part of his face reappeared as he chanced resuming eye contact, the talk of promises filling him with dread. When gollies made promises to him, they were often well-intentioned and they usually thought that they were promising something very good—really doing you a favour—but regrettably, they didn’t tend to recognise what people like him actually needed. They never took the time to learn about their magically defective kin.

Belonged to his household. Well, he no doubt thought himself rather benevolent but he wasn’t really saying that Fionn was like part of the family, no—he talked about him like an object. At best, the boy might be akin to a pet of which one was rather fond—not that he would go so far—but still a possession, and one of which the galdor knew how best to dispose. After all, he got to decide where Fionn went, sending him here and there like a pawn on the chessboard of Brunnhold.

The youth sighed. The academic certainly meant well but he didn’t realise what Fionn had been talking about and thus, he couldn’t be expected to provide just what the boy wanted—needed. How could Umberto be expected to understand any of it when the drink-addled boy had done such a piss-poor job of explaining himself? How could he explain the absence of the nexi that had crowded him for close to a decade, and how godsbedamned naked he felt without them? How could he explain missing something that he’d only known about for… what? Roughly a year? It had always been there though, the youth warm and protected like a babe in the womb until one day, the protection was gone. Even if he had been articulate enough to explain, there was no way that this man would get it; for him, the blond would simply have lost what was safe and familiar.

The youth was too sozzled to explain how naked he felt without others of his kind around him, how utterly lacking humans were as they crowded the Stacks—they seemed to be everywhere. He wasn’t safe around them, especially if they found out what he was, and the same went for those wicks—passive or not, they’d view him as a galdor; he would be viewed as oppressor rather than oppressed. It was potentially dangerous for him to disclose what he was and how could he get close to anyone in anything but a superficial manner if he had to keep so much of himself hidden? Wasn’t it bad enough how much of himself he had to keep hidden as it was?

Not that he managed to think anything quite so articulate. Instead, he managed a fair amount of sullen resentment as well as frustration that had had awhile to build—even if he couldn’t recall the thoughts that had caused it to build in the first place. He didn’t need to be entirely sober—and maybe there was a bit more clarity there now—to be displeased with the man’s offered ‘promise’.

“Dunno that I want to keep away...” the teenager mumbled, tracing a finger around the rim of his glass; it hummed softly. “Hate th’place but… I— it’s still… home. Don’ hate ev’ryone.”

His finger pressed a bit harder, the wet surface squeaking instead of humming as the mouth tugged down in a frown.

Thinking about Brunnhold, he’d thought of Aura and really she was the ‘everyone’ he’d mentioned; these days there wasn’t really anyone else. Thinking about her, he’d almost felt her nexus brushing against his own. It made him more alert and the moment he grew sharper, Fionn realised that it was purely his imagination, and it left a hollowness within him that ached—alcohol had failed to numb things after all.

“Don’ spend much time there anyway. Can’t go there when I’m off—ain’t days off for passives, I’d just get put to work. Away from m’own, I’m just— Humans don’ like my kind ‘ny’more’n yours.”

He shrugged.

“I can’t win,” Fionn explained, the sullen cast leaving his face as his brown eyes fixed on Umberto’s face and a hint of a smile touched his lips, grimly amused.

The coffee though… he’d been explicitly ordered to drink it this time and so there could be no avoiding it any longer. Setting aside his water, the blond took up the coffee reluctantly and peered at the substance as if it was poisonous. Steeling himself, the youth took a deep breath and then did his best to gulp it down without actually tasting it. Alas, it had a far from subtle flavour and not only did it caress his tongue on the way down but it remained when he came up for air. It didn’t simply linger—no, that was far too gentle, far too passive—but rather overwhelmed.

“Uck!” he exclaimed, thrusting his tongue out in the vain hope that the unwanted aftertaste would be spat out—no such luck. “Why would anyone want to drink that? Horrible!”

The water was retrieved and entirely consumed in a few hasty, gasping gulps. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pulled a few more spectacularly disgusted faces, especially when his stomach seemed to roil unpleasantly; too much liquid sloshing around in there and it clearly didn’t agree. Even so, he managed to level his master with one such disgusted expression.

“Do you work at being this lug’-headed? Drinking songs? D’you think we’re allowed that kind of thing? Drinking, singing— We ain’t servants, sir, we’re passives—ain’t the same, even if you seem to think it is.”

Looking away in exasperation, Fionn picked absently at a spot on the back of his neck. He shook his head, eyes fluttering shut as he tried to will that nexus tingle back into existence and perhaps materialise the girl herself with the power of wishful thinking.

“Had a roommate who I din’t hate—wouldn’t tell him that, he might get ideas—and a friend who… who… Not someone they’d want me friendly with.”

A flapping hand seemed to indicate the powers that be in the general direction of the university proper.

“Throw a stone an’ you’ll hit… you’ll hit a, uh…,” the youth couldn’t quite remember what he was getting at with this. “a… passive? No… yes! A passive but...Ugh!”

This wouldn’t come back simply because he wished for it. He buried his face in his hands.

“Just hit one of us, I guess. Do I have to drink more o’ that burnt shit?”

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

O

f course the Blue Boy did not understand. How could he? Half his life had been spent in some elaborate make-work project. The scullery work could have been done by human hands just as well. Perhaps better. The scrubbing and cleaning, the cooking and the mending, none of these were truely necessary. Just mechanical drudgery to fill the hours, to make the Passives begrudge they’s ever been born. A bloody waste of potential talent. And bloody typical too. The Anaxi need to always show dominance, and to do it by grinding everyone down into a fine powder, was not one of that country’s more endearing traits. Powder under pressure is dangerous. Someday it might even explode. Won’t that be a hoot?

It was, he supposed, much the same in Bastia. It was not quite the same along the canals in Florne. Not the Florne he had always known.

Fionn had never been to the House of the Galeazzi in Florne; never lived side-by-side with servants who knew they carried the reputation and dignity of the house upon them whenever they went abroad on their errands, whenever they received guests or served wine. Loyal and productive servants, a status symbol that was hard to fake. Uncle Gian could find a sculptor outside Tiv to knock out a few fine copies of antique statues (with fine worn features and elegant limbs, long missing) which would pass for the real thing. So long as everyone thought they were authentic, well, then they were. Much harder to fabricate a loyal and efficient servant. Actors don’t come cheap and all servants gossip.

He poured more coffee into his glass, swallowed, and looked again at the miserable excuse for a servant that had been wished upon him. Morose, unhappy, dissipated. A real prize. Woolen-headed too. Perhaps he could have another go at fleecing.

“You’re rather missing the point,” he said, taking still another sip. “As your service belongs to me now, and I’ve checked on that.” Checked by standing about in tedious offices populated by unhelpful agents of the registrar and whatever nebulous body controlled the Gated. The Lord High Door-Knocker? The Keeper of the Deadbolt? Not that it mattered what the damned thing was called. The significant matter was that one of the Gated could easily be entrusted to a member of the faculty, to ‘direct and supervise’. Whatever in half a hundred netherworlds that meant. “You operate under my rules, my direction. When I make the order that you shall have a day off, then, as a loyal servant under my command, you must take that day or else be shirking your duties.” He tried to give the boy a smirk. It failed in a spectacular manner. “And before you go thinking I’ve no idea what I am talking about, or that I’m a soft touch, listen to the reasons. There are several.”

Surly there were several? First and foremost he wanted peace in his house and someone to handle the tedious errands. Freeing him up to carry on his important work. Little Boy Blue was clever enough, under all that misery, that he could handle such matters. That was not a particularly convincing reason. Not for Fionn.

“You have been entrusted to the University for your protection and the protection of others.” The University presumed passives might explode at any moment. He had his doubts on that front. Significant doubts. Certainly Mugroba, where passives walk freely about the streets, had failed to be reduced to an arcane wasteland. Either their passives lacked industry, or the danger was considerably exaggerated. “However, sticking you in a damn great dormitory with the supervision and routine of a skullion or kitchen boy is conducive to neither.” By all accounts, stress was the most likely trigger for a diablerie. Stress, panic, and actual danger. The Gated were living in a pressure vessel. That did not seem in the least wise. “It is necessary that you be provided with respite, and I will belabor this point, for your own and for others safety.” If the boy went off now, wouldn’t that be a treat? Perhaps he could lay low the whole of Lampwine Square with some arcane outburst or harrow up all the souls within shouting distance and infect them with dreams so terrible sleep would be barred to them. It would be interesting to study.

Could a diablerie be set off deliberately? What were the necessary steps? No. No. Not now. Time for that line of reasoning later. He would have to check with Moore. The man would know better than most.

“The University is correct that order and structure is proper to keep you on an even keel, grounded. It is likewise correct in thinking you should be productive.” But were the damn Chairs to get their heads out of their asses for half a day, they might see that something like furniture making, beer brewing, cheesemaking, or some other artisanal craft would be a better and more soothing occupation for their charges. Probably an economic bonus too. “But their methods are, to be blunt, mad. And I know mad. Madness and I are old friends.”

The coffee had vanished from his glass. The carafe was empty. How much had he consumed? Too much in all likelihood. His thoughts were already crowding together, beginning to shove and shout in competition to spring forth into the world. “Further, if you are such a monic danger, then having you and yours under close arcane supervision would be the logical conclusion.” And yet it failed to happen. “I am an arcanist. I have eyes. I can supervise. Better than whatever negligent overseers you have. And the first duty of any supervisor is to keep their charge from getting into too much trouble.” He looked at the still-intoxicated boy, his melancholy and broken expression, his overwhelming air of sorrow and contempt. “Not the most auspicious start, I’ll grant. But we learn as we go.”