Page 78

Fairhrim got both boots on. She wrung out her mass of hair and twisted it into its usual Repression Bun, pierced through with a silver curette. She snapped her wrist towards Osric, who duly passed on her cloak and satchel.

After a final straightening of skirts, Fairhrim resumed her usual appearance and composure. She held her chin high, as though she hadn’t just landed on Osric like a half-dressed cataclysm.

“Well,” she said brightly, “shall we go waste our time again?”

“Oh, do let’s,” said Osric.

They gave each other false, joyless smiles, and proceeded towards the lighthouse.

“Any changes to your seith since the embolus?” asked Fairhrim.

“None that I’ve noticed,” said Osric.

“Good. And have you discovered anything about those intruders at Swanstone?”

“I’m working on a lead. Have they investigated on your end?”

“Yes, but with limited success. We know they didn’t arrive by any of the nearby waystones. The incendiary devices were handmade; our Ingenaut couldn’t identify their provenance. And their cadavers revealed nothing.” Fairhrim huffed out an impatient breath. “I told Xanthe you’re helping us, in exchange for the embolus fix.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. She’s pleased, and hopes that you will manage to justify your existence by being of some use to the world.”

“Optimistic.”

“That’s what I said.”

Fairhrim led him seawards. Underfoot danced a mix of seagrass and wildflowers Osric couldn’t name—white, purple, pale yellow.

“Your precious Widdershins told us we must be at land’s end, and this is one of the endiest points in the Tiendoms,” said Fairhrim. “My dataset for the Blædnes moon favours sunsets at sixty-seven percent ofthe time—when the stories were good enough to specify a time at all—so that’s today’s in-between temporal dimension. This place also offers several of those cusps that the data, such as it is, favours—between earth and sky, between tidal shifts, a shoreline. And the lighthouse stands at an ancient crossroads.”

“Roman?”

“Norse. A seaway.”

“And what of my precious Widdershins’ blackened sun?” asked Osric, given that the sun arced bright above them, and was notably not blackened.

“I don’t know,” said Fairhrim. “You’ll have to ask him what he meant. I did check the barometer, and it’s supposed to be cloudy today. Perhaps even rainy.”

“Oh yes,” said Osric, eyeing the violently blue sky. “It’s absolutely going to piss down, I can tell.”

“This is the North Sea. The weather can’t go five minutes without changing.”

As they approached the shoreline, the breeze picked up. Osric had expected something bracing and salty, but was instead hit by what could be described only as a reek.

“What is that stench?” he asked as his nostrils filled with acridity.

Fairhrim sniffed and said, “Guano. There’s a large gannet colony somewhere round here.”

“That’s foul,” gagged Osric.

Fairhrim was undisturbed by the odour of sun-fermented piss-shit. “After today’s purulent drainage, this is downright pleasant.”

Serene amid the fetidity, she glided on. “I once had a patient with multiple gastrointestinal fistulas. The ooze that came out of those—thatwas putrid. Necrotising fasciitis is worse, though. You can taste it for days afterwards.”

Osric extracted a handkerchief and pressed it to his face.

“Better?” asked Fairhrim.