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She agreed.

Fairhrim turned away and began a sort of frustration-driven tidying of the worktop. “Why did you have to throw such a massive bloody wrench in the works? This should’ve been a simple moonlit stroll. The data on this particular location at this specific moon is the most compelling yet.”

“I’mbeing solutions oriented,” said Osric. “You should try it.”

“Solutions oriented?” repeated Fairhrim. She turned to him, straight and tall. In her hand was a box of scalpel blades. Her gaze flicked from Osric to the blades and back again, and she looked very solutions oriented indeed, assuming that the solution was stuffing scalpel blades down Osric’s throat.

He wondered if she mightn’t have Valkyrie blood, somewhere up the lines.

She muttered, “Harm to none,” through clenched teeth.

“There’s another complication, while we’re on the subject,” said Osric. “Wellesley.”

“What about him?”

“Fuckery is what,” said Osric.

“Elaborate.”

“Things are fraught between the queens of Kent and Wessex. Both sides have been shoring up their fortresses. Wellesley’s got five hundred men assembled at Wellesley Keep—it’s essentially a garrison.”

“I thought you were very good at what you do,” said Fairhrim. “Can’t you shadow-walk past them?”

“Normally, yes. But I had a little recce and discovered that Wellesley has put up anti-Fyren measures.”

“What on earth is an anti-Fyren measure?”

“He’s flooded his entire Keep with light,” said Osric. “Can’t shadow-walk if there aren’t any shadows.”

“Why? What’s he hiding?”

“Don’t know. Could be information. Could be paranoia. Could be he’s afraid that Kent will hire a Fyren to go after him. The cost of lighting up an entire Keep and its surrounds for weeks on end is exorbitant. He’s an idiot for doing it; the message he’s sending out is that there is something very worthwhile in there.”

“Could it be on purpose?” asked Fairhrim. “Strategic? To draw attention away from something else?”

“If it’s a ruse de guerre, it’s risky, expensive, and stupid.”

“Right. So what are you going to do?”

“Not infiltrate Wellesley Keep, given that I don’t wish to be dry fucked in the arse by five hundred spears.”

“Be solutions oriented,” said Fairhrim.

That was the thing with Fairhrim: you had to choose your words wisely, because she would catch them and fling them back at you, sharper than before. (It occurred to him, by the by, that if a man liked things sharp and pretty, Fairhrim was the sort of woman the man might begin to fancy if he wasn’t careful. However: the man mustn’t be stupid. That way lay folly.)

“This is no longer a simple infiltration,” said Osric. “I can’t shadow-walk in.”

Fairhrim studied him, then said, with immense significance: “Hmm.”

“What?”

“Your hubris has given way to reason; it’s refreshing.”

“Delighted that my inadequacy pleases you.”

“Knowing your limits isn’t inadequacy,” said Fairhrim. “Xanthe will forbid me from helping you with another embolus, though. Wellesley was your only bargaining chip.”

“I’ve had nothing but the usual fluctuations since the last blockage,” said Osric. “I’m convinced that your statistics were nothing but scare tactics—scare-tistics, if you will—”