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He might have carried on kissing her to her wrist, upon her forearm, past her shoulder, up her neck. He very well could have. He, feeling her cool skin under his warm mouth, quite wanted to. In moments like this, one wished to worship a little.

Her wide, shocked eyes reminded him that her hand wasn’t, and would never be, his to kiss.

“Sorry.” Osric dropped her hand. “I mustn’t sully you with my kisses.”

Fairhrim brought her hand up and curled it gently against her collarbone. “A crime of passion. You’re forgiven.”

“You’re doing it. I’m telling you, you’re doing it.”

On her face, a smile dawned, but did not break.

16

Murder at Wellesley Keep

Aurienne

What did having one’s hand kissed by a Fyren feel like? Reckless. Heady. Like life being lived. Like an impending disaster.

The moment was a convergence of several strange miracles—the numbers (a thrill), Mordaunt’s sudden and wild expression of devotion, and, the greatest miracle of all, sharing in his joy.

Blushes plagued Aurienne whenever she thought of the moment. The way he had swept towards her and seized her hand. The press of his signet ring. The kisses too passionate to be platonic. She told herself it was the excitement of the results. The alternative was appalling.

Aurienne compartmentalised the blushes away (neatly labelledInappropriate) and focused on her morning, which began with a shift in the Pox ward. The little girl from last time was far better—able to see and able to speak; indeed, she was feeling so much better that she had asked Aurienne for an ice lolly. Aurienne, delighted, was quick to dispatch an apprentice to fulfil this important request.

Then it was time for rounds. Aurienne’s patients in the Centre forSeith Research were competing hard for her attention. A fellow Haelan was suffering from a triggered Cost without even using her seith. A kindly old lady from Cardiff was suddenly summoning other people’s deofols. The Ingenaut with the seith haemorrhages who had been discharged a few weeks ago was back. She had responded beautifully to Aurienne’s micro-occlusion treatment, but had got overexcited about, if Aurienne understood correctly, magnets, and her seith had surged out of control and set a leycraft on fire.

After lunch, Aurienne attended a Haelan robing ceremony. Four new Haelan were earning their wings, including Corinne and Nym. A crowd gathered in Swanstone’s largest courtyard, at the foot of a statue of Fria flanked by two of the Aer in flight. Prendergast, one of the Haelan Order’s Heads, was presiding over the ceremony. The new graduates stood with their hands folded before them, listening to his address.

“I feel old,” whispered Cath to Aurienne and Élodie. “Look at their baby faces.”

“They’re no younger than we were when we received our tacn,” said Élodie.

“Please,” said Cath. “They’re legally infants.”

“The one on the left is one of yours, Cath, isn’t she?” asked Aurienne.

Cath nodded. “She’s good. Learned quickly that emergency medicine is the science of making it internal medicine’s problem. And the two on the far right are yours?”

“Corinne and Nym. They’ll outshine me in a few years.”

“Good,” said Cath. “You’ll need backup; you’ll be leading this place by then.”

“Never,” said Aurienne.

“I can see it,” said Cath.

“I can’t.”

“I know. You’ve got the imagination of an aubergine.”

After Prendergast’s address, there were the usual speeches aboutliving the values ofHarm to none, and always putting the interests of patients before one’s own, and professionalism, and compassion—each of which Aurienne received as a lecture addressed specifically to her. When research ethics were discussed, she began to look for exits.

Élodie nudged Aurienne. “Are you all right?”

“You’ve a hangdog look about you,” said Cath.

Aurienne wished very much to burst into an explanation of her flagrant disregard for everything her Order stood for, that she had done the opposite of everything these fine speakers advised, that it was almost worth it because she might have been nearing an incredible breakthrough, but it wasn’t worth it because she was working with a Fyren—and, worst of all, the Fyren had kissed her hand, and it gave her blushes instead of shudders of morbid disgust to think about it, and everything was Wrong.