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“More might be better. Our excursions to the pond and the hot springs—with only a single ley line nearby—were marked failures. I’vetold you I thought an accumulation of the in-between factors might make the place and time more powerful. However—it won’t be that simple. Look at this.”

She brushed past Osric to the other side of the map. He found himself distracted by the sensation, by the casualness of it. People didn’t simply brush up against Osric Mordaunt. Fairhrim took up a new position a decorous distance away, and Osric focused once again on the map.

She pointed to a spot at the southern tip of the island. Five ley lines intersected there. Osric saw a blurry label for the waystone at the Rummy Thing.

“The South Downs,” said Osric.

“At a crossing of five ley lines,” said Fairhrim. “Five. And we had no success whatsoever.”

“Blast it.”

“These findings are aggressively inconclusive. And, of course, we can’t even call the lighthouse a success. We had a—astrangemoment, but no result to speak of. This in spite of a full moon, three ley lines, Widdershins’ blackened sun, and every in-between dimension of time and place we shoehorned in.”

Fairhrim stood pin straight in front of the map. There was something metallic in the glance of her eye and in the hard, dissatisfied line of her mouth. She suppressed a sigh; the merest twitch of her nostrils gave it away.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Osric.

Fairhrim did not answer him. She bent over to make notes.

No one ignored Osric Mordaunt. Osric either charmed or terrorised the trousers off everyone in his vicinity. He was neverignored. Who did she think she was?

He glared at Fairhrim’s bun in annoyance. At the baby hairs that escaped it at her nape. At her neck, too, because it was in a perfect position for snapping. What a pity she was his Means to an End; she was so very Endable herself.

He stepped behind her to read over her shoulder. Her notes were nearly illegible, but he made out a few fragments:focus on the crossing of ley lines—in spite of little evidence to support new strategy—pare down locations for June lunation.

“Right,” said Fairhrim, punctuating the final sentence with a full stop.

She straightened. Her bun smacked Osric in the mouth.

“Watch what you’re doing,” snarled Osric.

Fairhrim passed her hand over her bun to check for damage (gods forbid he’d pulled a hair out of place with his chapped lips). “Watch whatyou’redoing. Why were you so close?”

“Watching whatyouwere doing,” said Osric.

“I don’t require supervision from you,” said Fairhrim.

She glided off into a back room—the very sweep of her skirts bespoke scorn—and, with much rattling, reappeared with the Franklin diffractor and its knots of wires. “Let’s have a look at your progress while we’ve got the equipment.”

Fairhrim pointed to a cabinet and bid Osric to disrobe, and to please, if he would, choose from the adult selection of gowns this time.

Osric was left to study an enigmatic pile of linens. He put a hand in the heap and pulled out baffling bits of fabric: floppy things, long things, things that dangled beyond the three-dimensional, things incomprehensible, bewildering, arcane.

He tied one on like a toga.

The briskness of Fairhrim’s knock made him snap to attention, but he recovered his flaneur’s slouch in time for her entrance. He leaned against the examination table. His scars cicatrised sexily, his jaw chiselled heroically, his pecs popped manfully—not for Fairhrim, but because that was their usual state. He’d like to see her try to ignore this catalogue of attractions, however.

Fairhrim walked in and did not look at them.

She did observe his attire.

“That,” said Fairhrim, “is a table runner.”

“I think,” said Osric, “it becomes me.”

Fairhrim did not opine on this. She said, “Sit.”

In a hygienic outburst, she whipped out her hlutoform and sprayed it on her hands—and in Osric’s direction, as though he were a handsome microbe that had come too close. Osric sat within the cloud of sanitation. Fairhrim busied herself with her machine.