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shadow-quenched

“I had hoped for rather more precise instructions,” said Osric. “This isn’t much to go on.”

“No,” said Fairhrim. “It’sloadsto go on.”

“Is it?”

“Well—pretending that it’s correct, of course,” said Fairhrim. “I can use some of these to validate the worst of my speculations. I’ve no idea how Widdershins went about translating this, though. As far as I understand, this is a language isolate. There are no cognates—no linguisticrelationships with any known tongue. I suppose he wasn’t able to explain it to his colleagues’ satisfaction, either.”

“Perhaps the tadpoles told him.”

Fairhrim was engrossed in her notebook. “But this is progress. We can make something approaching a plan. These translations will help us prune potential locations considerably. Look at the Blædnes moon—now we know we’re looking for a cliff, or a beach—an edge of some sort, anyway. I can run through my tables and have a tidy-out.”

“D’you think a ‘cure for all evil’ includes seith rot?” asked Osric.

Fairhrim looked up from where she knelt. “If this treatment was a cure for evil, it would be fatal to you.”

“Oi.”

“So, either way, we may never find out.” Fairhrim placed the plaster pieces back into their bucket.

“You’re taking the bucket?” asked Osric.

“Yes. To catch my tears, or whatever Widdershins said, when this affair inevitably goes awry.” She hoisted the bucket against her hip. “I’m going. I’ll contact you before the next lunation, so that we can proceed with this…lunacy.”

“Horrid pun,” said Osric. “And this affair won’t go awry.”

Fairhrim gave her notebook an exasperated wiggle in Osric’s direction. “This isn’t science. This isn’t medicine. This is absolute pie-in-the-sky, whimsical, pipe-dream, cloud-cuckoo-landfantasy. And it will go awry, because everything about it is awry.”

“It’s going to work, or we’ll both perish miserably.”

Osric saw that he had offended his Means to an End, and that she was looking particularly Mean. “You’llperish miserably. I’ll go on with my life as I did before, happy and Fyren-free.”

And, just like that, they were back in the skirmish. They exited the shed. A fractious wind picked up; it flipped Osric’s hair around and plucked a curling strand out of Fairhrim’s bun.

“You’ll fix me or die with me,” said Osric.

“Oh? It’s threats now, is it?”

“It’s a thing called incentivisation.”

“My only incentive here is a direct order from Haelan Xanthe, and it’s the only reason I haven’t tossed you to the Wardens.”

“Perhaps you should; I’d rather be dismembered than deal with such an uptight little fusspot.”

“Perhaps I will—it’d be a relief to no longer suffer such a useless ganglion of a man.”

“Ganglion?” repeated Osric.