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“He’s drowning and he’s clutching at straws,” said Aurienne.

“Onion Boy, the Eternal Optimist.”

“I’ll go through the motions and let the thing follow its inevitable course. His seith will stop flowing in a matter of months. The neurodegeneration has already set in.”

Xanthe observed Aurienne with something thoughtful in her black eyes. “That is one means of proceeding.”

“What’s the alternative?” asked Aurienne.

“Giving this a real go. Don’t just go through the motions. This is ideal from an experimental perspective, isn’t it? You can test your idea completely off the books, without passing it through any of the usual bureaus or research ethics boards, on a willing subject who is entirely disposable.”

“But—but the research ethics boards exist for a reason—”

“He’s a desperate Fyren, and you’ve just said you’re going to let him die. Are research ethics really a part of the equation?”

A fair point, really, and so Aurienne tried a different tack: “Right—but there’s also a reason I’d abandoned the idea. It’s not sound science. It’s not viable. It was a fantasy.”

“It wasn’t viable then,” said Xanthe. “You’ve got ten years of experience as a researcher under your belt now.”

“Ten years doesn’t change the fact that this will literally involve sitting next to rivers at the full moon and saturating him with my seith.”

“That’s the methodology?”

“That’s it.”

“Not ideal,” said Xanthe. “But if you discover that we can effect miraculous cures by sitting in the muck next to a river at the full moon, you’ll be well on your way to an early retirement.”

“I don’t want an early retirement,” said Aurienne.

“Aurienne?”

“Yes?”

“The man has paid us twenty million thrymsas for the privilege ofhaving you apply your unviable fantasy to his case. Give it to him. It’s his dying wish.”

There was an undercurrent of command in Xanthe’s otherwise casual tone. The time for argument was over.

Aurienne bowed her head. “Yes, Haelan Xanthe.”

“Now, go put thereinresearch, and try, try again.”

3

Onion Boy, His Travails and Misfortunes

Osric

It took the Haelan a week to give Osric a sign of life. His tacn tingled with the arrival of her deofol while he was ensconced in an armchair that wasn’t his, wiping blood that wasn’t his off a knife that also wasn’t his.

He had just murdered a little Wessexian lordling at the behest of one of the Kentish queen’s men. Most people wished for peace among the perpetually skirmishing Tiendoms; the Fyren Order prayed for war. It was far more lucrative.

Osric recognised Fairhrim’s glassy, cold seith immediately. He flashed his tacn at the ground, and her deofol came through. It took the form of a white, red-eyed creature unlike anything Osric had ever seen before. It looked like someone had a vague idea of what cats, foxes, and weasels looked like, and lumped them all together into one animal.

Most deofols were nebulous creatures of seith. Not so with Fairhrim’s. She had (rather impressively, it had to be said) rendered every whisker and hair on the thing.

The deofol floated past the corpse at Osric’s feet with a critical sort of sniff and said, “You’re the Fyren, then.”

Not only was Fairhrim’s seith control such that she could render whiskers; it was so powerful that her deofol had physical weight. Osric learned this when the creature leapt into his lap and found his bladder with all four paws in a single concussive blow.