More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
October 20 - October 26, 2025
The door opened and a woman entered the office, if an irritated tornado could be said to enter an office.
It was hard, being perfect in an imperfect world, but Aurienne managed. If she had a flaw, it was that she was the Best, and she knew she was the Best. Some called it arrogance. She called it competence untainted by performative humility.
Osric Mordaunt. Art. Acquisitions. Assassinations. By appointment only.
“How dare you? Xanthe is over two hundred years old—” “How? Did she forget to die?”
“You—you killed someone while they were eating yoghurt?” asked Aurienne. “Yes. It was good yoghurt, too.” “You ate the yoghurt?” “After he was dead, yes. He’d hardly touched it. What? What’s the matter? Have you mistaken me for someone respectable?”
He was a Fine Specimen in the way an abscess might be a Fine Specimen; the best, most shapely, most beautiful abscess in the world still brimmed with foulness and ought to be incised and drained.
“I’m a cock hair away from murdering this man.”
“If this treatment was a cure for evil, it would be fatal to you.” “Oi.”
They stood close. That was the thing about war: every clash, every battle, brought each nearer and nearer to the other. Their breaths intermingled, passed thresholds their lips would never cross. The wrongness of it was almost erotic.
“They wouldn’t know empathy if it bit them on the cock.”
“Sometimes I’m not certain what the difference is between diplomat and doormat. Three or four letters, but much the same thing.
A thought, unhallowed and unwelcome, sprang into Aurienne’s mind: Mordaunt, dishevelled, princely, bathed by the broody light of the fire, was genuinely attractive.
“Why have you got so many dogs?” she asked. “I find them, or they find me.” “And why do you keep them?” “Why not?” “Everything else in here is rare or beautiful or expensive.” Mordaunt covered the ears of the terrier and told it, “Don’t listen to her.”
“You are a 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 hate that little hellrat,” said Mordaunt. “The feeling is mutual. He refers to you as ‘the Parasite.’ ”
Was she prettier than him? Impossible. He surveyed Fairhrim with a new, jealous assessment, but only her back was visible now, and all he could conclude was that she had a good figure.
“Is anyone else in there?” asked Osric, jutting his chin towards the lighthouse. “Twenty men,” said Bandit One, at the same time as Two said, “Fifty men.” “No one, then,” said Osric. “Good. Off you fuck. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Fyren. But also—also just a man.
Just a man. Being so near him in that moment freed the thought from Aurienne. Just a man who, as they stood in the light of another place, had nearly touched his lips to hers. Just a man who had whispered, desperately, “Please.”
There was a strange intimacy in feeling the heat radiating from him. Aurienne wondered if he thought the same. No answer came, save the mute press of his arm against hers. It meant nothing. It couldn’t mean anything, because of what she was and what he was. These were sweet nothings of an entirely new kind. Meaningless. Futile.
He looked at her as one who wished to worship, and one who wished to defile.
They sat for a long time, leaning against each other, existing in two states at once. Hate could feel strangely like something else.
“I’ll just kill them a little.” “Kill them a little? Death isn’t divisible.”
“Besides, they threatened to kidnap you.” “And? You threatened to kidnap me.” “Exactly: only I can do that.
“You are a Calamity—” “Thank you.” “—but we’ve got more important things to discuss.”
He stopped her from pulling away with a hand on her knee. There was a sudden stillness among the ladies in the room. Osric noticed it only because he had, himself, gone still, as he decided where to amputate Choking Hazard’s arm because he had touched his Haelan.
Fairhrim, squeezing past Scrope’s chair, her eyes on the exit, made no answer. Scrope groped at her thigh as she passed. It would be one of his last acts on this earth.
“Might we,” asked Aurienne, “go anywhere without subtracting from the population?” “Would you prefer,” asked Mordaunt, “that we add to it?”
“I hope you made him suffer, sir,” said Mrs. Parson. “I did.” “Is he dead, sir?” “Yes.” “Send his mother a toe, sir.” “Good idea.”
“Are you aware that your throat is exposed?” asked Mordaunt. “It’s only you.” “Only? How dare you?”
“Then we’ve agreed: no more cadavers,” said Aurienne. “Fewer cadavers,” said Mordaunt. “None.” “Less.”
“I’m just a Point of Leverage, am I?” “I’m just a Means to an End, aren’t I?”
And so we must remain to one another—Leverage and Means, on this side of eternity.”
“I’d rather you hate me than not think of me at all.”
That was what they were doomed to: standing upon a threshold. On the verge and only ever on the verge. An almost. He was what he was; she was what she was. She would never cross over.
Her eyes were wide and gentle. Osric fell into them as one falls into deep waters.
She could do a Kegel and snap your cock off.
(She said his name like it was a swear word and he rather liked it.)
“—but I am, nevertheless, choosing to put my trust in you.” “Don’t. I don’t know where it’s been.” “Cruel. I was being vulnerable.” Fairhrim held up a warding hand. “You may keep that to yourself, too.”
“You and your brains,” he breathed. “You and all your pretty edges. You’re doing it.”
Perhaps he’s going to seduce you.” “Good luck,” said Aurienne. “I know. Lost cause.” “You’re speaking as though from experience.” “I am,” said Mordaunt. “I made overtures to you during our first meeting and you were inexorable. Adamantine.”
“Don’t look so grim. It’s the monster you need tonight, not the man.”
They named the kitten Acts of Warranted Brutality.
“He’s more important to me than I would wish him to be,” said Aurienne. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re more important to him than he’d like you to be, too.”
Mordaunt was a Fyren. Just a Fyren. But was he just? When a man kills one of his own Order for you, nearly gets himself eviscerated for you, shows up half-dead at your door because of you, and collapses into your arms—is he just?
“You brought me a flower,” said Mordaunt, holding up Élodie’s allium. There were tears in his eyes.
His voice had gone soft; he was fading into sleep. “I’d do it if you wanted to—” “I don’t want to.” “—but I’d really rather be suffocated by your thighs.”
“What’s an episiotomy scissor?” “It’s used in childbirth.” “A scissor? In childbirth? What for?” “Cutting the perineum, between the vagina and anus.” Having delivered this newest eight-word horror story, Fairhrim quit the room, taking whatever was left of Osric’s innocence with her.
Thank you, and I would like to die suffocated by your thighs did not seem an appropriate response at this time.
“You are a lovely picture.” “I thought I was an uptight little fusspot?” Aurienne was rewarded by one of Mordaunt’s brilliant smiles. “Do you know,” he said, “sometimes I don’t mind being wrong?”
