The fountain of surging blood slapped into the ceiling, painted the walls, sent a great thick stain sluicing across the carpet. The bare blade’s blunted tip thunked into the sodden floor between Annalise’s heavy black boots.
“Pardon the mess.” Annalise wiped the spray from her pale cheek. “The Sorcerer-General in his infinite wisdom didn’t include any kind’ve button to not do that.”
Marvin i’Larrot, the Jerky King of Sondam, gazed with muted despair at his sodden couch. Something told Seth he was more upset about the state executioner perched on it than his upholstery, charmingly patterned as it was with grazing cattle.
“We’ll get a cleaner for that, yes?” Annalise directed this to the pair of hermandati standing at the door to Marvin’s cozy drawing room, which had smelled pleasingly of woodsmoke before it started smelling overwhelmingly of blood.
“Yes, Madame Verdugo,” the lefthand hermandat rumbled, and Annalise smiled at Marvin like well, there you go.
He returned it much diminished, like a reflection in a dirty mirror. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
“Sure look.” Annalise folded her arms over the sword’s crossguard and leaned her chin on them. “I’d normally have a well of patience for your plight, dealing as you’ve dealt with a loss. Considering how harmless most unsouled unlit are. And especially considering what a longtime fan my boy is of your jerky. If Larrot Provisions went under he’d waste away.”
Tiago steadily chewed a piece. “It’s spicy, but not too spicy.”
“But we’ve all gotten a real object lesson today on why these statutes are in place,” Annalise said. “The risk of a scarecrow getting possessed is low. But if everyone takes this sort of risk, the Territories collapse.”
Marvin let out a shaky breath and caged his hands together at his knee. “I knew what I was meant to do. I looked him in the eye, and empty and black as it was, I couldn’t.” A desperate hope animated his face. “Your children are unlit, Madame Verdugo. Surely you have mercy in your heart for—”
“I do, i’Larrot.” Annalise curtly cut him off. “I told you. But my daughter got a pitchfork shoved in her gut. And for no good reason, I fear, beyond sentimentality. That’s what galls me. My mercy ends where the mourning for your family touches the safety of mine. And look here.” Annalise’s black nail tapped the darkened dynamos on the unpowered end of her sword. “Took me two heads’ worth of hexis to take that pain from her and make sure she could walk again. So now we have a problem. A serious one.”
She held her index up to Ilirik’s trembling face.
“You only have one head.” Her middle finger joined the other. “You owe me two.”
Tiago rubbed his chin. “What to do, what to do.”
Annalise bobbed her head back and forth to the rhythm of her son’s panto act. “I have an idea, Tiago.”
“Oh yes, milady?”
“Oh, yes. Mr. i’Larrot here will tell me everything he knows of how his husband and that burnt-up business partner of his met their tragic ends. If that’s nothing more than you’ve already told me, Marv, I’ll cut my losses.” She rapped a knuckle on the sword on cut. The metal chimed like a funeral bell. “And come out one head behind, more’s the pity. But if you have what I need, enough to point me toward whatever shucked your husband’s soul from him, I’ll find it, kill it, and with my quota back where it oughta be, I’ll come up with some less permanent punishment for you.”
Seth shared a quick glance with Ofelia, who was halfway crumpled in an unoccupied chaise. The sorcerous healing she’d undergone was still enervating her.
“What do you reckon, goodman?” Annalise rocked her blade side to side on its wide blunt head. “The sword or the truth?”
“The truth.” Marvin stared at the coagulating pool on his floor. “The truth is that I only knew my husband half his life. The other half he spent in the company of associates like that woman. That harridan who went unlit with him and burned with him. He was two people, one I loved and one I didn’t, and one took the other from me. I wonder how that could possibly be fair.”
“And your shed, too.”
Marvin turned his doleful attention to the crowlike girl crumpled on his chaise.
Ofelia pointed out the window. “Took your shed, too.”
They stared at one another.
“You’ll forgive my daughter being a bit loopy at the moment.” Annalise cut in. “She was bleeding to death an hour ago thanks to your mistake. Now, then:” She stood to her considerable height and leaned into Marvin’s airspace. “Tell me about these associates.”
“All I wanted was to give a little empathy,” Ofelia said. “It was a well-stocked shed. There was even a hexis mower.”
“It was.” Seth ran his razor along its strop. “Guy didn’t seem like he needed to do much yard work. We could track that Harri guy down, offer to pour a drink out for it with him.”
“He kept his edges quite sharp in there. Credit to the fellow.”
Seth tested his own edge, and, finding it satisfactory for his scanty beard, returned his attention to the amber-colored mirror, where it hung from a protruding skeletal hand off the carriage’s side. “What was that thing you did to send the shit on the shelves flying?”
“That was the Archer. One of my second-ringers. Rather fancy, eh?” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. There’s a bit of iron on it, but…” She clambered onto the carriage. With his offhand, Seth held the mirror in place while the carriage’s shocks squeaked to accommodate Ofelia’s rummaging.
He lined up his stubble and crossed to the basin, only to find that Draka the dray was drinking from it. “Aw, Draka. C’mon. Shoo.” He brushed Annalise’s big black horse away. He splashed the water away and filled the basin again at the spigot of the al Ydris’ freshly topped-up water tank.
Ofelia looked down over the edge of the carriage. “You didn’t need to throw that away, you know. We spend so much time touching the horses. What’s the harm of shaving with their slurp-water?”
“The harm is I’ll end up with some sorta equine-transmitted fever, and you’ll have to carry me everywhere.” Seth splashed his face. “What’d you go looking for up there?”
She held up Marla’s book of hexentatuae. “Would you care to peruse it with me?”
Seth cast about for sign of Annalise or Tiago, who had gone chasing Marvin’s lead through Sondam’s taphouses. “You should be resting, maybe.”
“Physically I am on the mend, thank you. Emotionally…” Ofelia climbed carefully down the carriage, from lintel to front boot to ground. “I would like a distraction. I felt the pitchfork catch on my floating rib. I felt it break. I felt the pop when it went back into place. I would like to stop thinking about all that. Browsing these would help me.”
Seth sighed and leaned against the carriage. “All right.”
Ofelia sat on the footrest and opened the book. “Now, we could skip right to a second-ringer, but without a pair of bolsters in your first ring it’ll give you invocation sickness when you cast it. How do you feel about vomiting?”
Seth turned up the lantern that hung off the carriage to fight the gathering dusk away from the pages. It killed another popmite with a clack that shook its glass encasement. “I try to avoid it when possible.”
“A prudent policy. First ring it is. How about this one?” She paused on a page with a cracked and weathered gong upon it. “The Severed Bell. Passively silent footsteps, an active sound-dampening field. That’s quite Seth-y if you ask me.”
“It’s gorgeous, sure. But I don’t really need a hexentat that silences my footsteps. I already have my feet.”
Ofelia licked her thumb and kept turning. “There’s a few combat ones in here… Char Brand, Hornet… but I am of the opinion that the combat hexentatuae on the first ring are bunk. Ooh, she knows how to do the Tortoise.”
“That’s the one you have, right? Toughens your skin?”
“Indeed. Though as I suppose you saw, its passive is more for nicks and glancing blows. But its invocation is what stabproofs you, and the area isn’t large. It takes a lot of practice. Mother has this one, too, and she’s rather excellent with it.”
“How do you practice something like that?” Seth asked.
“An incoming pitchfork’s a way, if one sees it coming.”
“That’s not exactly my, uh… what did you call the Severed Bell?”
“Seth-y. But now I wonder if Guttieristic might be better.”
“I’ll leave the Tortoise to you and Annalise, I think.” Seth gestured for the book; Ofelia handed the heavy, vellum-bound thing over, and he took over pagination for a while. “How about this one? The Hummingbird.”
Hummingbird
Upon the skin: knowledge when, in scope of eye, you are being spoken of—but not of what is being said.
Upon invocation: A whispered message, delivered to a sole recipient as clear as if you had shouted.
Ofelia’s brows raised as she read. “You want to know when we’re talking about you, don’t you. That’s a bit of an invasion.”
“It doesn’t tell me what it’s saying, right?”
“I wouldn’t bother. We have a signal language, my family and I. We can just teach that to you. And unlit outside the Necropolis are a constant subject of whispered discussion, so the passive won’t be much use to you once you get in my mother’s pants.” By the time Seth had recovered from this observation enough to respond, Ofelia had taken the book back and moved on to the next page. “Forked Tongue. The active is intriguing, but the passive seems rather useless.”
“Let me see,” Seth said. Ofelia turned the book toward him.
Forked Tongue
Upon the skin: a voice most pleasant & harmonious.
Upon invocation: vocal mimicry without flaw of sound or speech.
“Oh, yeah.” Seth nodded. “It’s this one. I can think of all kinds of uses for it.”
“Like serenading a certain Verdugo, perhaps.”
“Ofelia.” Seth took the book from her, dog-eared the page, and shut it. “It’s not always about Annalise.”
“Whenever I mention her your ears get pink,” she said. “It’s fun.”
A whistle of greeting reached them at the coach house entrance. The Verdugo and her son, two monochrome wraiths against the evening. “Howzit, kids.” Annalise jogged the last few paces to the carriage. Her huge black sword clattered at her back. “We got the details on this here beastie.”
“Shook down a few associates, threatened to burn down a bar or three,” Tiago added.
“From what I’m understanding it’s a gray feather,” Annalise said. “And dusk is its uptime. With the smaller feckers, it’s better to catch ‘em in the field. So we’re goin’ hunting.”
Ofelia sat her chin on her palm. “Anna time?”
“Yes’m. So shift yourself off the step, your Majesty, if your delicate disposition will allow.” Annalise turned the carriage’s polished ivory handle, then paused, and looked at her thief. “Hey,” she said. “Come here.”
Seth approached with care, trying to read whatever was on Annalise’s focused face.
“Before I change over,” she said, quietly, “I wanna say something.”
Tiago and Ofelia were gamely pretending not to pay attention over her shoulder.
“I’ll be fine this time,” Seth said. “Promise.”
“Just… indulge me. Let me.” Annalise shook the head she was preparing to take off. “What I have to say is, uh. You’re trying so hard, and I see it, and I’m proud of you. When I’m unkind to you, remember that. Right? And know it’s how I really feel.”
“I know,” he said. “Thank you, Annalise.” It wasn’t anything she hadn’t said before, and though he was grateful to hear it again, he wondered why she said it with such leaden nervousness.
She hesitated, then. Seth would remember later that he could see the whole decision progress on her face, her eyes flickering then locking in, her mouth forming the word right in private consultation with herself, her posture stiffening with purpose.
Annalise leaned forward and kissed Seth on the forehead.
“I will be right back,” she said, and fled into the carriage.
The wet, warm spot where she’d kissed him was already cooling. Seth wondered if his hyperawareness of it would ever fade, or if he’d bear it forever, an invisible badge of nerve endings eternally nostalgic for the plump black lips that once graced them.
The bemused clicking of Ofelia’s tongue brought him back from the fugue Annalise’s kiss had placed him in. “Oooh, Seth. She hit you with the Santiago special.”
“I veto that,” Tiago said. “The name, that is. I will keep my thoughts re: the kiss to myself.”
“I think it’s all rather charming, don’t you? Mother’s got a crush.”
Tiago maintained his death mask blankness. “Sure.”
The carriage door slammed open. Anna al Ydris, shoulders bunched and eyes narrowed, slunk down its step to the Sondam clay, her black horse tack jangling in her hand. She raised the harness up and out; Demetrius trotted to her on cue, and her razorcut scowl softened for a moment. Then she looked past her pink-skinned steed to Seth, and it slashed itself back on.
The leather harness snapped its slack out in her hand. “Let’s get this done,” she said, and clipped the first tether around Demetrius’ neck. “You’re coming along, il Gutierre.”
“Ma’am.” Tiago stepped forward. “You instructed us to stop you if—”
“It’s all right.” Seth held a mollifying hand up. “What do you need me for, Anna?”
“Hunting,” she said. “You climb trees?”
“I climb all kinds of things.”
Her whiskers twitched. “Fine.”
“If I’m the hunter and not the bait this time, I’m willing to give it another try.”
“Good.” She scowled down her little button nose at him. “Cause last time I left you with my daughter you got her stabbed. What part of get her back to the carriage didn’t translate?” She returned to her business with Demetrius.
“Hey, Anna.”
“What,” she grunted, not turning from her harness.
“Eat shit,” Seth said.
That detached her from her preparations. She whirled from Demetrius and bared her morani fangs. “Watch yourself, il Gutierre.”
“I’m doing what you told me to, boss.”
“This isn’t Annalise at the fuckin’ reins, you hear?” Anna’s hand tightened on her smallsword’s plain spherical pommel. “Try and bring that grab-ass smart-mouth shit around me and see what happens.”
He folded his arms. “What happens?”
She took a menacing step toward him, right into his face. He raised an eyebrow and didn’t move.
“You think you’re gonna get in my good books just because you’re fuckable, il Gutierre?”
“I think you called me fuckable,” Seth said. “That’s got to be in the table of contents, at least.”
“Fucking Annalise.” Anna hacked an unkind laugh. “Acting like you’re some kinda pureheart. Pretending like we’re sparing your innocence for some yokel hick to give you a hick family. As if a two-bit con like you’d have kids.”
Seth shrugged. “No argument here.”
“Little fuckin’ freak. You think I don’t notice? Tripping over your dick? Sniffing my fucking saddle? Pathetic.”
“I don’t sniff your saddle.” Though one time he had laid a palm on it for a few seconds while grooming Demetrius. It had still been warm. “You know what I think? I think you’ve put on Anna because you think it’ll make me fold and decide you’re not worth the squeeze.” He folded his arms. “Won’t work, al Ydris.”
“I put her on because I’m hunting a seraph, fool.”
“Okay,” he said. “So hunt.”
“Shut your trap and I will.”
Seth obeyed, and watched Anna’s preparations with trap firmly shut. Anna loaded her spear onto its sconce, reached for her saddlebag, and paused to cast a dark look at him.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
She scoffed and turned from him. “Get your things loaded up.”
Seth picked through the halfway-organized carriage interior. Tiago joined him by its frosted window, and in a low voice, said, “You want to stay, I’ll back you up.”
Seth shook his head and gave the man in a youth’s body a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll pitch in.”
“Are you trying to impress her or something?
“I doubt that’s possible when she’s Anna.” Seth tapped the toe of his right boot against his left. Stiletto accounted for. Hello again, strange new friend. “Maybe I’m trying to impress you.”
Tiago smirked. “I don’t know impressed. But you’re not what I expected you’d be, give you that.”
Seth found his cutlass and tested the pull on the scabbard again. As long as he held it fast, it came out okay, though there were still flakes of blackened blood on its fuller. “What’d you expect?”
Tiago observed his test draws impassively. “No comment.”
Seth approached Anna with his kit. She flapped a hand dismissively toward Tiago, who was unhooking Draco from his yoke. “Not on my horse. You ride with him.”
“I could just take Draka.”
“Too much horse for a reedy little thing like you. Break your neck.” Anna whistled to Tiago. “Boy. The thief rides with you.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“And, uh.” A quirk of Anna’s scarred lip, almost a smile. “This is a gray feather, like I said. Thought it was a good chance when I was the other one. Now I’m sure.”
Tiago’s perpetual stoicism cracked. “Does that mean—”
“Means you keep your distance, if you’re insisting on using the fuckin’ thing,” Anna said. “Too close and it’ll dud your mites. And the sword has to finish them.”
“But I can bring it?”
It was brief, but Anna graduated to an actual smile at her son’s boyish excitement. “You carry it, fine.”
Tiago pumped his fist and hurried into the carriage. He emerged with a molded leather case, lumpy and oblong like a brass instrument carrier.
Seth approached inquisitively as Tiago flipped the case’s clasps. Lisa played the sax. Did Tiago have a trombone? “What’s in there?”
“What’s in here, Mr. il Gutierre, is a wonderful reminder that, in this life of carriage and candle…” Tiago lifted the lid. “There remain moments of glorious modernity.”
He reached reverently into the case’s sable interior and removed a machine gun.