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September 28 - October 26, 2025
“She’s a Haelan. She’d sooner walk into the Thames than help you. Perhaps we can equip you with a plan B. And a plan C.” “B for Blackmail, C for Coercion?”
“Am I persuading you?” “Persuasion would require an iota of something like charm.”
“Kidnap it is,” said Osric. He rose, poured the onions onto the floor, and flapped the empty sack at Fairhrim. “Get in.”
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.
A hirsute chimera wound its way across the pub’s faded sign, which had lost several letters, and advised Aurienne thus: SHAG HIM Aurienne received the instruction with hostility.
The Haelan maxim was Harm to none, but private fantasies couldn’t be policed, and Aurienne indulged in one involving the Fyren
slipping and drowning, and thus putting an end to both of their miseries.
This specimen had the fortitude of wet quiche.
What’s the matter? Have you mistaken me for someone respectable?”
off. There was such witchery in a pair of bright eyes. Pity they had to be hers.
“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.
He looked at her as one who wished to worship, and one who wished to defile.
The next time the light flashed, the mirror was back. They sat for a long time, leaning against each other, existing in two states at once. Hate could feel strangely like something else.
“Besides, they threatened to kidnap you.” “And? You threatened to kidnap me.” “Exactly: only I can do that. You can’t tell me this lot will be a huge loss to the world.”
“Clutch your pearls over here.”
He reclined in a Byronic attitude in a half-buttoned white shirt, his damp hair swept artfully to the side, the heels of his boots on the fireguard. The only light came from the hearth. Aurienne quelled the part of her brain that wished her to take note that he was, once again, Being Handsome.
And so we must remain to one another—Leverage and Means, on this side of eternity.”
“Besides, isn’t forgetting you preferable to continuing to hate you?” “I’d rather you hate me than not think of me at all.”
The threshold must not be crossed. 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 said his name like it was a swear word and he rather liked it.)
“I’m going to introduce you to the concept of being naughty,” said Osric.
and she looked very solutions oriented indeed, assuming that the solution was stuffing scalpel blades down Osric’s throat. He wondered if she mightn’t have Valkyrie blood, somewhere up the lines. She muttered, “Harm to none,” through clenched teeth.
“Your hubris has given way to reason; it’s refreshing.” “Delighted that my inadequacy pleases you.”
What did having one’s hand kissed by a Fyren feel like? Reckless. Heady. Like life being lived. Like an impending disaster.
(A knight in shining armour he wasn’t, but a knight in shining passive aggression—yes.)
“A conscience must be such a burden,” said Mordaunt. “Managing your lack thereof is the greater strain.” “Might you strain yourself a little further, and pass me that tray?”
“I like my brand. I like being a monster.”
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.”
Aurienne wished that she were satisfied by this conclusion, by this retreat into the safety of definitions, of classifications and structure. 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 paint a lovely picture.” “You are a lovely picture.”
“We exist in a perpetual state of falling out.”
Then came the tender apocalypse of his lips on hers.
While it lasted, the kiss was eternal. And it was too much and too little, and it was unhallowed, and it was sacrosanct.
Aurienne turned away. She dropped his hand and its profane tācn. He released hers slowly. Leather slid against silk, palm slid against palm, fingertip slid against wet fingertip, and whatever had been woven between them stretched and tore and severed with a snap.
Once again they had met upon a threshold, once again they had reached an Almost, and once again she had fled.
He and she sat in the moonlight as lover and beloved.
He hadn’t paid attention. He had been stupid—gods, so stupid. He no longer owned his heart. The thief was unconscious of her crime. She asked, “Is something the matter?”
It was ruthless folly; it was the sorrow of a thing ending before it could begin; it was a new circle of torment; it was a delicious wound. What joy seamed by misery. What pleasure fraught with pain.
It hadn’t been love at first sight, but at last sight—gods, at last sight— Far above, the moon hung like a promise.
