He had full lips. It was obvious that he painted them. Now they curved faintly. “I hear that the young lord is not strong, and rather clumsy. Liable to suffer illness or accident at any moment. And I hear that the weak-minded Lord Gavin is so taken with Lady Amie of Porterfield that he’s considering renouncing Lady Eleanor, and taking Amie as Lady, instead.”
“Not true.”
“Drink your coffee.” This time there was no doubt; he pushed her unbound hair back behind her shoulder and let his fingers linger there. “I’m not concerned with what’s true. Merely what I hear.” He leaned forward and she felt those painted lips brush her ear. His consonants were sharp, almost painful. “If Lady Eleanor were renounced, of course, it would be a terrible shame for her. And I very much doubt that poor sheepish Tiernan can afford the repayment of her bride-price. Come closer, foundling. You must seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Firo’s body radiated heat next to hers and his perfume was velvet-heavy and dark brown. Judah felt like she was choking. “Elban wants to marry her.”
“That’s another rumor, yes.” His lips were touching the skin under her ear now, making her skin crawl, making her want to writhe. “But if such a marriage were to come to pass, my ebony-eyed darling, you would want to be very careful with yourself. You would, in fact, want to make yourself as scarce as possible. Lady Amie will not share her prize with anyone. She will want Lord Gavin utterly to herself. I risk my own future even being seen with you, which is why we’ve suddenly become so intimate. I shall tell everyone that you, poor naive thing that you are, got foolishly drunk and threw yourself at me. I’ll be disgustingly detailed and, of course, reject you brutally. The other courtiers will love it.”
The tip of his nose, cold and smooth, touched the tender skin under her ear. For a moment he was a great snake wrapped around her, the hand on her arm a coil and the arm pressing her body to his another. For a moment she was afraid.
“I have to find Gavin.” Her voice sounded too loud.
She wasn’t talking to Firo. Not really. Voices in the corridor grew louder and she sensed somebody stepping into the door. Firo’s eyes moved toward them. He grabbed the side of her head, pulled it toward his. “Vanish, little foundling. Right now.” Suddenly he stood up, unbalancing her. She slid boneless to the floor and landed on her knees. From far away, she saw her coffee cup topple onto the rug, and heard distorted laughter. “Go,” Firo said. “Get out. Thing.”
She stumbled to her feet and ran.
* * *
The hallucinations were getting worse. She couldn’t go back to Elly. Not empty-handed. Not in the state she was in. And she felt a powerful urge to actually set eyes on Theron, to prove that at least some of the words that came out of Firo’s mouth were true. So she made her way to the workshop. The floor oozed like lamp oil underfoot and made her queasy. The workshop door was closed. She pulled it open, not caring if she startled him, only caring that he was actually there.
And he was. Sitting at his workbench in his hunting clothes—although the quilted jacket lay puddled on the floor where it had been dropped—and staring blankly at the spidery device he was building, which seemed somehow more whole than the last time Judah had seen it. The relief that flooded her smelled like lemons. She could only lean against the wall and stare. He was safe. He was whole. He was safe.
But there was blood spattered on his cheek, and more on his shirt. A single drop marred one lens of his glasses; behind it, his eyes were swollen and lifeless. Doll’s eyes, made of glass. For a moment, he seemed wooden and covered in cloth, like a minstrel’s puppet. She closed her eyes and when she opened them he was real again.
“Tell me,” she said.
He didn’t answer. The silence tasted coppery, like the blood on his glasses, and it swirled, and Judah almost lost herself in it. Then he said, “They killed a deer,” and his words were made of stone, like the walls and the floor. They had solidity and weight. The room filled with them.
* * *
In stories someone killed an animal and the animal died. Then he drew