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“Only half as stupid as you look.” Xanthe tore up the rejection letter and scattered it on the floor, among the onions. “Right. I await news ofa substantial donation of unknown origins on Friday. In the meantime, I’ve got lives to save. I’ll leave you two to work out the details. Mind you be good.”

Osric wasn’t certain who that last instruction was directed towards—it couldn’t have been aimed at him, surely. He was never good.

Xanthe swept towards the door. Fairhrim sank into another of those hand-on-heart bows as she left.

Silence fell. Osric rearranged his cloak. Fairhrim regarded him with absolute disdain.

“Pleased to have this sorted,” said Osric.

“Get out,” said Fairhrim.

“Don’t be so angry. You’re doing it for the Poxies.”

“I’m doing it because Haelan Xanthe told me to,” said Fairhrim.

“I’ll send you my deofol with further instructions for our first session.”

“I’m the Haelan. I’m the one who will be sending instructions.”

“Have you got suggestions for a neutral meeting place?” asked Osric. “I don’t want to come back here. Wardens are a pain in the arse to avoid.”

“I haven’t at the minute,” said Fairhrim. “You’ve just sprung the request upon me.”

“Well,Ido. Watch for my deofol. Oh—speaking of—link with me.”

“Excuse me?” said Fairhrim.

Itwasa bit forward to ask to link tacn. It was something reserved for friends and family, so that their deofol—seith familiars—could travel from one tacn to another to deliver messages. Fairhrim, however, was looking at Osric as though he had suggested the most foul of depravities.

“We can sever the link as soon as you’ve healed me,” said Osric.

Fairhrim’s cold stare grew calculating. At length, she said, “Fine.”

Linking required tacn-to-tacn contact. Osric therefore removed his glove. Fairhrim’s jaw tightened as he confirmed her suspicions; it was his left glove that was coming off. Only those who walked the Dusken Paths had their tacn on their left palms.

Osric held up his hand, revealing the hellhound’s skull that adornedit—the tacn of the Fyren Order. Normally, the sight of this tacn struck terror. It was a harbinger of a very immediate, violent death.

Fairhrim offended Osric by being disgusted instead of afraid—as though, in lieu of his open palm, he had presented her with an open nappy, used, and asked her to touch it.

“You’re a shadow-walking coward-for-hire,” said Fairhrim.

“Yes.”

“Vile,” said Fairhrim.

She nevertheless reached her right hand towards Osric. They brushed their tacn together. The wing of the Haelan Order’s swan touched the fang of the Fyren Order’s hellhound. They pushed out their seith and learned each other’s signature. Fairhrim’s seith was cool, restrained, and felt like glass. Osric’s deofol would now be able to find her directly to bear his messages; her deofol would likewise be able to find him. (He wondered what form her deofol would take. Something prickly, he wagered. A scorpion, probably.)

They pulled their palms apart. Fairhrim held her hand away from herself, as one would after having touched something filthy.

There was a knock at the door. “Haelan Fairhrim?”

Osric slipped behind the door and gestured at Fairhrim to open it, with a whispered injunction to not do anything stupid.

Fairhrim opened the door. Through the crack at the hinges, Osric saw a black-clad cadaver of a man. There was a powerful whiff of formalin.

The man shook Fairhrim’s hand and said, “Hello. I’m the new undertaker. I’m here about the onions?”

Upon his return to thefamily seat at Rosefell Hall, Osric was accosted by Mrs.Parson.