by Gwen Perkins
“You haven’t got to walk me home,” Asahel told Felix after they had crossed the first turning, stepping up on the pale pathway that led to the water. “They’d give me no trouble here.” It was Felix that a drunken seaman was likely to charge. For all the simplicity of his coat, the russet fabric was too evenly dyed and finely woven to be anything but quality. Every button matched, every thread was neatly sewn. It was a strong contrast to the thick gray wool that Asahel wore, his heavy peacoat giving him a girth that not even he deserved.
“I like to walk,” was the answer. The sword shifted with Felix’s movements, graceful enough that it seemed a part of him.
“It’s after midnight.”
“I know. Lovely, isn’t it?” Felix gestured up at the moon. It was hanging heavy and full about the capital. The sky above was so black that the stars seemed to give more light than the lanterns hung next to the street.
“Aye. I guess… it is.” He tried not to think about whether or not it was a bad idea to lead Felix towards his home. Quentin would say so, Asahel thought, unable to stop himself. But this was all his idea to begin with.
“You guess?” Felix asked, clearly amused. “Soames, either you agree or you don’t. Did anyone ever think a full moon overhead wasn’t lovely?”
“Not if there was a storm, I reason.” Asahel hesitated, then added, “Or an eclipse, maybe.” The men were within eyeshot of the water. It glimmered from where the pair stood, the dim glow cast by the moon reflecting brilliantly against the gentle waves that lapped dark sand. The mast of a ship was silhouetted against the sky, its shadow falling against the old wooden pilings of the dock.
“That,” Asahel whispered, his head lifting for a moment to point at the mast as it rose and fell with the tides. “That’s beautiful.” Knowing it fanciful, he quickened his step before Felix could respond, taking a narrow path that would divert them through the shipyards and further away from the distant rocky beaches.
“Wait up—” Felix called, clambering over a dark teak log. Asahel paused, his body half inside the ribs of a ship. He could smell the oak and sawdust as his head poked back out, his hand bracing its outline. “Is this one of yours?”
“It’s not like to float for a good long while, but aye. It is.” His palm flattened against a beam. Felix ducked underneath his arm, staring at the half-formed hull.
“How long does it take to build one? Do you do it yourself?”
“About a year, sometimes longer.” Asahel relaxed, instinctively drawing peace from the scent of wood and sea. “I’ve worked on ships, but not for a good long while. My mother says a man ought not to build a craft he couldn’t sail himself and… well…”
“There’s none that we can sail,” Felix finished. He reached over to the beam that Asahel was touching, his fingers resting an inch away from the other man’s. “I was never allowed to come here when I was young. They just assumed I’d be called to university.”
“They?” Asahel asked.
“My grandparents. Father was a magician, and a finer one than I turned out to be.” His hand dropped. “I always wondered about the sea. It’s got that air of the forbidden.” The look in Felix’s eyes was that of a confession.
Suddenly, Asahel wondered if he and Quentin had been the only magicians to get away with Heresy.
If you got away with it, he reminded himself sharply. There was still the letter he kept folded in his coat pocket, safe nowhere but on his person. Should I take a chance?
“You never?” Asahel ventured.
“Always wanted, never did.” His hand wandered up as his head did, eyes fixing on the bow. “I always wondered at the logic of that particular Heresy. Or even why it’s considered a Heresy at all.” He stopped short, no surprise to Asahel. What did surprise him was how much Felix had said.
“What is it you mean?” The words were cautious, spoken as if the Geographer was at his maps, watching and listening with the magic woven into the pages.
“Heresy is…” The hesitation was rare for Felix and Asahel knew that he must be thinking the same. The man closed his mouth, shaking brown hair away from his eyes as he frowned. “It’s not something that we’re even supposed to think about. The university trains us in how to think, supposedly, but we’re never to question. Peculiar, isn’t it?”
“Aye.” The syllable was drawn out, not daring to sound more than a half-question.
“All that time spent there, learning to become leaders of men and yet, we’re never meant to lead. We’re simply there to carry on the same traditions, whatever those may be. There hasn’t been discussion of what is Heresy for a hundred years or more—Good Earth, I don’t even know how long it’s been, because I’m not sure we’d have been taught if there ever had been a failed revolution.” Asahel stilled as Felix continued, knowing that he was speaking truth. “They force us to stay on the island. Why?”
“Because we’d be a danger to ourselves. Because others would fear us and set upon us and, aye, well, I’d reason it’s also because it’s a Heresy.” The punishment was equal to the others.
“No, don’t tell me the reasons they’ve given us in university.” Felix leaned into the half-built hull, letting his body collapse against it. The circles under his eyes were so dark they hollowed his face into shadow, but he seemed more alive now than he had when Asahel had first come to his door. “Why, Soames? Why?”
The intensity made Asahel nervous and his teeth scraped his lip as he stepped away from where Felix was leaning. He shrugged, his shoulders tight as they lifted, then fell.
“Think about it. You know why.”
“I don’t know,” he answered, his voice hoarse. “I don’t.”
“If you don’t understand, then…” Felix’s head dropped. “Never mind, Soames. I thought that you would.” His posture had tightened up as well, his hands balled up as he stared down at the dirt. Asahel fought the urge to tell Felix that he did understand. He was too close now, however, to escaping the encounter without revealing the secret that he and Quentin shared.
Felix’s next words surprised him.
“Don’t tell anyone,” the other man murmured, head still bowed.
“I won’t,” he said. “I swear.”
Asahel felt a sudden bond with Felix as he spoke those words. He knew, as Felix lifted his chin and looked into his eyes, that he was standing in the presence of another who rejected the old world. And he wished, in that moment, that he could convince Quentin that Felix was not traitor but one of their own kind. He felt a traitor himself bearing two such heavy secrets devoid of one another.
He walked over to Felix and knelt, offering the other man his hand. He wasn’t surprised when Felix didn’t take it, instead lifting himself up with a smile and a faint wave off. What surprised Asahel was how badly he wanted him to. He followed Felix as the older man began to pick his way around the ship’s bones in the yard, dodging mast and rib alike.
“I…” The sound slipped from Asahel’s throat and into the night.
“Did you say something?” Felix turned, his hair whipped against his face by the sudden gust. His eyes were unreadable.
“Nothing,” Asahel said. “It was only the wind.”
Chapter 14
After three years of marriage, Quentin did not know his wife’s hand. She had scratched out no letters to him with the quill that rested on her small desk. Catharine’s written thoughts were her own, and he had always allowed his wife her privacy, even as she had allowed him his. It felt a betrayal of them both when he crept into the small room in which she spent her nights. Like her letters, this space, too, was hers alone.
Her bed took up most of the room, curtains draped around it to shield her from the unexpected. He walked around it, until he was on the side furthest from the door. Quentin’s fingers wound the gauzy fabric around his hand as he peered inside, finding nothing on it but pillows and bunched-up linens. He resisted the urge to lie down in the hollow Catharine had left behind, her slight imprint still pressed into t
he mattress.
There was a small necklace on the desk next to him. He picked it up, running the delicate golden chain across his palm. A locket swung off the end of the links, another hint of her private life to tempt him with. His hand clasped around it as he looked at the stack of books there for any letters, mindlessly letting the curve of the locket rest between his thumb and forefinger. Asahel had received a letter from one who knew what they were doing—he was here to prove that it did not come from his wife.
The door swung open. He knelt down quickly behind the curtains to see who it was, slipping the locket inside a fold of his tunic.
It was Catharine. She walked slowly towards the mirror against her wall. It was tall enough for him to see her reflection, brown hair wild and long from her slumber, her nightdress unbuttoned at the top. There was a small cabinet next to the wardrobe, one drawer cracked open. It was from that drawer that she plucked a hairbrush, then called out, “Olina!” Catharine waited a moment before sighing and seating herself on a stool, lifting the brush up and picking a cloud of chestnut hair from its bristles.
Quentin watched in fascination. This was one of the small rituals that she kept from him. Although he knew that he owed her the respect of announcing his presence, he held his breath instead.
Catharine pulled a pin out of her hair, then shook it down so that the rich brown waves tumbled out in a cascade down her back. He watched as she set the hairbrush on her lap, then raked her hair with her fingers, taking the brush up to unsnarl a few tangled strands. She did it by rote, her face on the mirror but her mind clearly somewhere else.
He watched her reflection silently. She was smiling to herself, the scar that welled up at the corner of her lower lip disappearing as her dimples swallowed it. Wild locks of hair hid the other red pox marks that marred her skin. She captured each lock one by one, drawing it back harshly to reveal the weals that the Plagues had left behind, under eye and covering cheek. And as she pulled back her last strand of hair, she halted, catching sight of herself in the mirror and noticing this time.
Her finger reached up, touching her cheekbone, tracing it down to an angry weal. There her nail rested as her eyes closed, watering so fiercely that he could see them redden even from where he hid. A small choked sound came from her as she stood, opening her eyes and rubbing them with her free hand so fiercely that her skin became even redder.
At that moment, Quentin thought to himself that he loved her. He rose himself, about to take a step forward when she walked away from the mirror and into the hall.
“Olina!” He heard his wife call out for her maid again, her footsteps becoming quieter as she moved further away. “Olina!” The exasperation sounded fainter, her voice still wavering. He turned quickly, feeling ashamed as he opened one of the drawers to the desk, slipping a half-written note into his tunic next to where he had slipped the locket.
You have to know, he told himself as he stepped out into the hall, careful not to be seen. He hurried his step so that Catharine, halfway down the stairs, would not notice which door he had stepped out of. Her head swung up when Quentin reached the top of the stairs, longing to say something to her.
The look in Catharine’s eyes was cold again, her face again stiffened in the mask that she wore to hide the woman underneath.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.
“You didn’t. I was already awake.”
Her hand twined her brown hair around her fingers as she relaxed a little. “Olina’s slept in three times this week. Do you think there’s something wrong with her?”
“I think we ought to dismiss her, that’s what I think.” It came out more harshly than he intended. Quentin rarely liked Catharine’s servants though he refused to admit the dislike came from jealousy.
“Don’t be cruel. She’s getting older, that’s all.” Catharine’s face shifted from chill to warmth as she glared at him. “She’s been with me since I was a child. Besides, if I left the running of the house to you, the servants would all be young and useless.” He blinked, realizing with a sharp thought that all of their servants were much older than the two of them.
“Would that be a bad thing? We could use a little life around here.” He laughed, meaning the comment as a joke. Something in her face shifted, however, and she turned away from him, her hand resting on the banister.
“I’ll handle the servants.” It was apparent that the discussion was over. “Don’t you have things to do this afternoon?”
“Not particularly,” Quentin said quickly. He had been spending the past few weeks with Asahel. After the receipt of the first body from Taggart, the experimentation had continued despite the fear of discovery. What it had also resulted in, however, was further midnight sojourns—something that he now knew didn’t escape his wife’s eye.
“Of course. It’s clearly too early for you,” she said. He tried not to look hurt. “Will you be home for dinner this evening?”
“Would you like me to be home?” Quentin took a couple of steps, leaping in front of her and grinning as playfully as he could manage. The smile looked grotesque, muddled as it was by the harsh lines of Catharine’s angry jaw.
“Not particularly,” she mimicked his earlier tone of voice. “And don’t jump on the stairs. You’ll break one of our necks.” The sound of her words implied that it was her own that she was more concerned of. “I wish you a… safe evening, Quentin.” With that, Catharine shouldered past him, her movements too tense to be anything other than suspect.
He began to walk after her, then stopped. What can you tell her? Certainly not the truth. Quentin cast her one last, hopeful look. When she didn’t turn, he made for the door, the weight of envelope and locket still heavy against his chest.
“Quentin.” The voice cut through the hum that filled his ears, magical energy singing as he pulled it from the body lying on the table in front of them. At first he barely heard it, then the sound grew louder. “Quentin. Quentin!”
He stumbled back, glaring up at the source of the noise. Asahel was looking up at him, his dark eyes wide and concerned. “You were… lost.” His friend gestured at the body.
A faint golden glow was ebbing from the man’s mouth, so pale that Quentin could barely see it. It was a thin strand that, as he looked at it, appeared to stretch from his own fingers. His entire being still felt charged with energy, suddenly alert. His eyes focused on Asahel, noticing how nervous the other man still looked, how his hands shook. As he narrowed his gaze further, he realized that he could see the tiny grains of dark sand underneath Asahel’s bitten fingernails.
Quentin could never see that well. In fact, from where Asahel was, at the other end of the table, his face had been just slightly blurred.
“Quent, say something.” Asahel leaned over the table, his hand clasping Quentin by the elbow.
“Everything looks clearer,” he heard himself say. “My eyesight isn’t this sharp.” And as he spoke, the last bit of magic spiraled away from him as the thread snapped. His sight shifted suddenly and again, he could barely see the individual lines that crinkled Asahel’s eyes. “Never mind, I see… better now.” But it wasn’t better—it was simply the same as it had been before.
Asahel was still looking at him curiously as he stepped around the table. He reached Quentin and pushed a chair next to the redhead’s legs.
“Sit down for a minute, aye?” There was no ignoring the fear in his eyes and so Quentin did as Asahel asked. The chair rocked unevenly as he sat down, his feet shifting from side to side as he fidgeted. His quiet but constant movement didn’t soothe Asahel’s nerves, nor did the slow thumping of the chair leg. “Has that ever happened before?”
“No, never,” Quentin said. “You?”
Asahel shook his head. “You’d know if it had.”
“I might have imagined it. My mind’s been wandering today.” He said this lamely, knowing that it wouldn’t calm the other man. His hand rose to Catharine’s locket, now looped around his neck for safekeeping
. He’d yet to open it. You’re afraid of what’s inside. The thought distracted him from the present and his thumb continued to stroke the metal, thinking of her. Asahel’s heavy sigh forced him to pay attention.
“I’ve—no. You haven’t imagined it, not a bit. The magic there—it was a thing you could see for a moment.” Asahel’s lip disappeared below his upper teeth as he began gnawing on it. “You to him. There was a connection there.” His lip reappeared, rubbed red and raw.
“It certainly felt that way,” Quentin agreed. “Do you think he had good eyesight, or was it just the magic?”
He looked again at the corpse, this time allowing himself to see it as no more than an empty bloodless shell. The man lying on the table was younger than either of them—just barely out of adulthood. Unlike many of their subjects, the clothes that he wore were neat and clean with no sign of patches or holes. His face was tightly constricted, the jaw pulled back in a grimace, but Taggart had been able to tell them nothing of his death. And all our magic won’t tell it, either. In the end, Quentin had decided that such niceties weren’t important—it was Asahel who fretted over such things.
Asahel was fretting now as he took a sheet down from a nearby shelf, unfolding it before he neatly draped the fabric over the man’s face.
“I don’t know why you do that,” Quentin said, a wave of irritation flooding over him. Why didn’t he answer me? “He’s dead. It doesn’t matter to him how he’s treated. Certainly both of us have seen enough dead men to know what they’re about.” He fingered the locket again, glancing at the corpse as Asahel continued speaking.
“You don’t know that,” was all Asahel said. He tucked the sheet over the dead man’s toes, pinning it between his skin and the table.
“We all know that,” he replied in disgust. “I don’t know what your parents taught you, but mine were forthcoming enough on the subject.”
“My father was dead.” The sheet tightened, drawing taut against the corpse as Asahel yanked it firm across his face.
