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My mark today did make a stabbing attempt—but he only had a spoon.” “A spoon?” “He was eating yoghurt,” said Mordaunt, by way of explanation. “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.
her light created a blind spot for him, and his shadows were inscrutable darkness to her; opposite topographies guided them up the same path.
Osric called her a Self-Righteous Plague. She called him a Foppish Crouton.
“I’m an Interested Observer,” said Osric, instead of Assassin-for-Hire. “An Observer?” repeated Widdershins. “With half the usual amount of eyes? Like Woden, did you give your right eye so your left could See?”
“He hasn’t got any nipples,” noticed Osric. To Widdershins, he called, “Why haven’t you got any nipples?” “You can’t just ask people why they haven’t got nipples,” said Fairhrim.
“I’m a cock hair away from murdering this man.” “I’m not familiar with that unit of measurement,” said Widdershins. He, too, turned to Fairhrim. “How imminent is my demise? What’s the length of a standard cock hair?”
LMAO
“Sometimes I’m not certain what the difference is between diplomat and doormat. Three or four letters, but much the same thing.
Mordaunt propped Aurienne on the ledge that rimmed the inside of the lantern room. He stood in front of her, irresolute, his brows drawn, his mouth an anxious press. The concern on his features was unsettling. His mouth was for snarking, not for looking worried on her account.
The intensity in his gaze shocked her even as she found her answer. He looked at her as one who wished to worship, and one who wished to defile.
“Besides, they threatened to kidnap you.” “And? You threatened to kidnap me.” “Exactly: only I can do that.
“There’s not much else I can do at this point.” “Hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right.”
Choking Hazard dragged Fairhrim’s chair closer to him, so close that her thigh rode up against his. 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.
Mordaunt’s oeillade shifted to Aurienne’s face. He observed her with something very like masculine interest, which Aurienne met with a raised eyebrow.
Mordaunt cut himself off. He had just caught sight of Aurienne’s forearm, where Scrope’s literal manhandling had left a mark. His eyes, usually heavy lidded with insouciance, real or affected, flew open. His face lost all cynicism. His slouch disappeared. His scar became a vivid white line across his lips. A second later, it was over. He fell back into his slouch, veiled his eyes, regained his cynicism, and said, “Pity Scrope’s already dead. Could’ve had a bit more fun with him.
“If Scrope were still alive, we might’ve interrogated him further on the provenance of his information,” said Aurienne. “If he was still alive, he’d bleed Cerys until she told him who you were and where to find you. And then he’d know too much. And I’d have to kill him anyway.”
“You’ve got to endure him for the foreseeable future,” said Aurienne. “I know,” said Mordaunt and Cíele at the same time. “She was talking to me,” said Cíele. “She was obviously talking to me,” said Mordaunt. “I was talking to him,” said Aurienne, pointing at her deofol. Mordaunt looked pouty and ate a biscuit.
“Besides, isn’t forgetting you preferable to continuing to hate you?” “I’d rather you hate me than not think of me at all.”
He hated the relief he felt, the gratitude, and hated most of all the swell of admiration for her bursting in his chest.
She was the only one who could save him from the chirurgeon’s butchery. He had to admire her. She was the only one with the expertise, with the control. He had no choice but to admire her. She was the only one who could even make an attempt to cure his disease. How could he not admire her? He liked rare things. He cherished the exceptional.
Her eyes were wide and gentle. Osric fell into them as one falls into deep waters.
They slipped a bit over the boundary between enmity and partnership then, into a new place of uncertainty.
He hated that he had come to the waystone whole but left it having lost a piece of himself in two star-brilliant eyes.
Osric raised an eyebrow at Fairhrim. The eyebrow enquired whether he should proceed to kill this person. Fairhrim did not immediately shake her head no, which was something of a surprise.
Fairhrim’s expression was impassive, but Osric knew her enough to read the pinch of her nostrils: how dare yet another idiot Fyren make her waste her seith?
Fairhrim pressed fingers to her temples. “Mordaunt.” (She said his name like it was a swear word and he rather liked it.)
“You and your brains,” he breathed. “You and all your pretty edges. You’re doing it.”
Osric pressed a gallant kiss into the back of her hand. He should have stopped there, but, like a besotted fool, he kissed smaller, revering ones across her knuckles.
Blushes plagued Aurienne whenever she thought of the moment. The way he had swept towards her and seized her hand. The press of his signet ring. The kisses too passionate to be platonic. She told herself it was the excitement of the results. The alternative was appalling.
“It’ll be fine once we get inside,” said Aurienne. “Fine? Fine? We’re putting you in danger—we’re walking you right into the Keep of the man we think attacked your Order. If anyone raises a hand against you, they’re dead, I want you to know.
Mordaunt stood a few feet behind her—the rasp of metal on metal informed her of his shifts in stance—and Aurienne felt comforted. Yes: it was comforting that the Fyren was there.
Wellesley, still next to Aurienne, made the mistake—the very grave mistake, the last mistake he would ever make—of laying a hand on Aurienne. He pulled her against him with a knife at her neck and spat at Mordaunt: “Stay back.” “That,” said Mordaunt, “was a bad idea.”
This was Fairhrim off duty, nigh unrecognisable in a flowing mauve gown, elbow-length white gloves, and hair off the side of her neck in a soft wave. She was stunning—a disturbing development, and one that Osric set aside to cope with at a later moment.
“—but I’d really rather be suffocated by your thighs.”
Osric watched Fairhrim release the chinless wonder she was dancing with and move on to another. This one was tall. Admittedly good-looking. Love-light in his eyes. Presently dancing with Fairhrim for a third time. Osric was taken over by a savage jealousy.
Osric did not want Fairhrim to be beautiful. He was susceptible to beauty. He was an Appreciator of beautiful things. He wanted to acquire them. He wanted them to be his. Now, as Fairhrim neared, he fought a momentary panic that his beauty-loving heart would want Fairhrim in any way, that her loveliness tonight would trigger some latent kleptomaniac urge.
“You’re winding me up,” said Fairhrim. “You really are delicious.”
She was a thing between desire and impossibility.
“You paint a lovely picture.” “You are a lovely picture.”
“Have you no pleasure in life but to acquire things that aren’t yours?” asked Aurienne. Mordaunt gave her a look veiled by heavy eyelids and drink. “I have other pleasures,” he said, and did not elaborate further.
He didn’t hesitate, didn’t give her time to change her mind. He pulled her in close, put a hand around the back of her neck, tilted her head upwards. Then came the tender apocalypse of his lips on hers.
There was warmth at the side of her neck. Mordaunt mapped the course of raindrops against her throat with his mouth. He released a long, shuddering breath against her skin. He held her against him rather possessively for a kiss that meant nothing.
Aurienne stilled. The music carried on; the violins made a rapturous chorus with the dripping melody of the rain. She released her hold on Mordaunt’s shoulder, but his lingered at her waist. He kept her hand clasped in his. His nearness, the kiss, her rushing blood, all heightened her perception, and, as at the lighthouse, she saw warring in his eyes: vulnerability, yearning, desperate unhappiness.
When he had asked her to put the poor bastard out of his misery, he hadn’t been referring to Perfect Aedan. He had been talking about himself.
As she approached Osric, wide-eyed in the dark, she looked unusually vulnerable. Something about it made him want to be gentle.
“Why are you helping me?” asked Fairhrim. “Someone is going to die at Swanstone, and I can’t have it be you,” said Osric.
They talked until the stars went out. Fairhrim, silver framed in the window, became a focal point: a notan study of light and dark. Unimportant things became important. Her lashes painting their own shadows against her cheeks. Moonlight subliming her hair. Her hand beside Osric’s on the windowsill, so close their fingers brushed.
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.
It hadn’t been love at first sight, but at last sight—gods, at last sight—
