Page 75

“I’m grateful that it worked, even if you aren’t,” said Mordaunt. Heoffered a low, courteous bow that felt wrong to receive. “Thank you, Haelan Fairhrim.”

Aurienne didn’t sayYou’re welcome, because he wasn’t.

The lightest sheen of sweat dampened her brow. She had pushed the limit of her seith a bit tonight, though not enough to trigger her Cost.

Mordaunt buttoned up his shirt—an awkward affair, given the gloves—and flung his cloak on with a jovial swish. The harrowed, pathetic man from earlier became the Fyren again: prepossessing, self-assured, gleeful.

“Fordyce and Shuttleworth were right about you after all,” he said. “Youarea Phenomenon.”

“Don’t compliment me,” said Aurienne.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I like to see you suffer.”

This was accompanied by a wink.

Odious.

“I’ll sniff around about your well-funded friends,” continued Mordaunt. “Fair warning, though—it could take months to discover anything useful.”

He went to a looking glass, of which the room had an abundance, to make some final adjustments to his collar and hair. Aurienne considered the exercise futile; a pustule with good hair is still a pustule.

“I’ll walk you back to the waystone,” said Mordaunt.

“Not necessary,” said Aurienne.

“Yes, necessary,” said Mordaunt. “Leofric might still be staggering about out there. I’ll go first. You’ve got enough seith to get to Swanstone?”

A gallant enquiry; Mordaunt had fine manners when he decided to apply them.

“I’ll be fine,” said Aurienne, who would never drain herself that low on his account.

Mordaunt walked her through the dark kitchens. Like most of the house, they gave off a general impression of disuse, save a section of the worktop where bright copper pots dried under a hanging herb garden.

“Wait here,” said Mordaunt. “I’ll call you when it’s safe.”

He disappeared from view in the darkness. Aurienne stood under the crumbling lintel and took in the prospect from this side of the house. The moon remained enshrouded and offered only a veiled suggestion of herself through clouds. Green-black moorland drifted into the horizon under her uncertain light, in ripples of heather and cotton grass, pinned to earth here and there by a stunted tree.

“Come along,” came Mordaunt’s voice.

Aurienne joined Mordaunt round the corner, on the gravel drive.

The night air was damp with late-spring cold and, after the mouldering house, exquisite to breathe.

They walked in silence until Mordaunt, incapable of peace, broke into chatter.

“I’ve been thinking about Widdershins and his blackened sun,” he said.

“Have you?” asked Aurienne, in a tone suggesting that Mordaunt’s inputs thereon were of limited interest.

Mordaunt did not take the hint. He was both clingy and thick, like a tenacious mucus.

“Yes,” he said. “For May’s Blædnes moon. I’d thought it might be a reference to an eclipse, only there aren’t any eclipses, solar or lunar, predicted for months.” He gave her a look. “But I see that you already knew that.”

“Of course,” said Aurienne.