brown things at the end of her body nearest to him. One of them moved and he felt a pain. “No more wasting time, you, boy.”
You, boy. Was that him? It felt familiar. The nameless one made a sort of grunt that he knew meant she wasn’t happy with him. He curled around himself in case she hurt him again. She took a soft, floppy thing from the flat thing next to her and tossed it toward him. It hit the part of him that saw and breathed. He flinched.
The nameless one cackled. “Sick on yourself. Oh, a mess, you are. Well, we’ll put you back together again.” He did not want that. He did not want her touching him. He tried to push her hands away. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way,” she said, and did something, and he found himself frozen. Her Work wrapped around him, tied him down, held him. He could barely breathe.
It was not pleasant this time, either, but when she was done, he had snapped back into himself like a dislocated shoulder going back into joint. The hand holding him vanished. All the elusive words came back in a rush. Derie, table, chair, towel, cane. Boot. He picked up his glasses where they’d fallen to the floor—not broken this time—and slipped them on. The world around him came into crystalline focus and his brain was crystalline, too. He saw more clearly than he had in days: what was coming, what he would have to do, how best to do it.
Derie watched him. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you,” he said.
“I suppose I could have been a bit more careful. But I put things back neater than I found them.”
“I guess you did.” There was vomit on the floor. On his shirt, too. He stood up—only a bit unsteadily—and went to the lab, where his things were; leaving the door open, he stripped off the filthy shirt and put a clean one in its place. At the washstand, he splashed his face and cleaned his glasses. He could hear Derie stomping around the kitchen. Making tea, probably.
Sure enough, two steaming cups waited on the table when he returned. He wiped up the vomit on the floor, then took his cup and settled himself into the chair across from her. That nudge in the ribs she’d given him with her boot had been within a hairbreadth of a kick. He could still feel it.
“What was that you did to me?” he said eventually.
“Needed you still, so I made you still,” she said. “I’ll show you how later. You can try it out on that wastrel Charles, he might as well serve some purpose. You’re infatuated, you know.”
He stifled the urge to flinch again. The new clarity she’d left in his brain didn’t let him lie, not even to himself. “With Judah? A little, I suppose. Can you neaten that up, too?”
“I could. I left it be for now. Might work in our favor.” She put a soft, cold hand over his. “You’re a good boy, Nathaniel. You know what you need to do, and you’ll do it.” Kind touches from Derie had always been rare, even when he was a child. She patted his hand and stood up. “We can always fix you up afterward. Whatever needs to be done.”
“Of course you can,” he said, and there was no doubt in him whatsoever. She could, and would. Whatever needed to be done.
* * *
The crystalline clarity lasted through that day and into the next. Late that afternoon, Nate heard the rattle of the phaeton outside his door. His whole body came alive, like a wild creature sensing prey. He met the guard at the door, already holding his satchel. “Am I needed inside?” he said.
“No, it’s the prison,” the guard said. “Seneschal said you could be trusted, if a magus was needed,” and, still sharp-edged and hard with the force of his new clarity, Nate answered, “Yes. I can.”
The phaeton had been denuded of all Elban’s insignia. Only ghosts remained: bare silhouettes, cleaner than the rest of the phaeton’s surface but marred by careless prybar work and empty bolt holes. The bell was still there, and the driver rang it aggressively as he drove through the city, yanking hard on the chain so the bell clanged harsh and tuneless, a vicious pleasure visible in his face as people scattered before the phaeton like dried leaves. The guard hanging on the foot rail said nothing. Empty storefronts with broken