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The lady sits at the head of the table, regal, beautiful in purple, beautiful in hunter green. Her ringed hand curls around the stem of a wine glass. Her long nails, painted a midnight shade, tap against crystal braid drapes over one shoulder like a black rope. At her side is her husband. He has a face like granite like ice, cracks beneath the smooth surface, and a smile like a hungry lion. He looks at her like he’s calculating how much of her head will fit in his mouth. He looks at her like she’s the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen.
Laudna watches the lady for a long time; she cannot look away.
She looks like her almost but not quite. If the Lady were to look down into a dark river—half-frozen as thaw bleeds and breaks its surface—she would see Laudna there. A warped thing, half-made; made half-awful. Part of her knew, of course, that they looked alike but it is one thing to know it and another to see the similarity for herself. A few minor alterations will make it more striking. Be a dear and hold still, won’t you? Cruel fingers dig into the skin of her cheeks, chin; the nails pierce, keeping her in place. This won’t hurt for long.
A warm hand—Imogen—collects both of hers. Eases them down.
In a few clumsy hops, Pâté clambers down from skull to shoulder to hand. He doesn’t speak, only nudges his head against her fingers. Laudna imagines-remembers-thinks of tiny soft ears and the way feathers itch the skin and begins to stroke his little head, the scruff of his neck, to ease the phantom memories. She hopes they are not phantom pains.
The first course is taken away.
Laudna watches the lady. It’s rather funny, actually, but it makes Imogen worry when she starts to laugh—wheezy and strained—so she stops. But it is funny that she looks like the Lady but she feels more like the Lord. That, more than anything, is the way it was before.
Lord de Rolo wants her out of his home.
She wants to be out of his home. Very much.
The second course comes.
The table is lavish, laden with food, more than she’s ever seen, ever smelled, ever imagined. There’s a feast in front of her and she is hungry. Laudna reaches out before anyone else. Closes grasping fingers around the leg of a trussed-up chicken and she pulls back pulls it free; gold skin splits, hot grease smearing over her hand, her chin. Laudna wants to lick it off her fingers, so she does. It’s fatty, herb-sweet. Her parents are horrified whispers at her shoulders. She glances up to the head of the table to see if they’re right, if the Lord and Lady care. The Lady smiles at her, triumphant tremulous. The Lord watches her with hungry, dark eyes. He looks like he understands. Approves, even. Like he sees straight into her mind to where her hunger is kept bundled-up, doll-like; she has played at feasting before—as a lady, a grand enchantress, a merchant, a queen—and bundled it away again and again and again, climbing down at sunset when wizard tower reverts to hayloft. Her stomach aches. He looks at her like he understands the kind of hunger that devours down to the marrow, hollows her out. So tonight, with everything laid out for her, she takes. Piles her plate high. When she thanks them, he smiles back. Fanged.
A hand on her knee—Imogen. Blossom soft, sun warm.
Laudna presses into the touch, lets it anchor her. This had not happened then. Imogen had not been there then, thank all the gods. The knowledge is at once comforting and terrifying, fear a tight knot under her throat. She would like it if her mind would pick one or the other, because terror has begun to feel awfully comfortable and comfort terrifying and it’s not the way she would like to be.
Warm hand squeezes. The touch is gentle, fleeting. Imogen means nothing by it but I am here. I haven’t gone far. That knowledge is the loveliest thing Laudna has ever known. Comforting and terrifying.
Everything is going to feel that way for a while, she thinks.
Imogen is focused on her meal, pushing everything into a mush, when Laudna peeks sidelong at her. She’s there. Right there, right there beside her.
When she lifts her fingers from Pâté’s head, he presses his grimy little mind-paws into her mind. It feels a little like a yawn, like a dog turning in its bed before sleep. Fondness blooms—spiky soft, like a flowering branch—in her chest. She wishes she could kiss his little mind-head, which earns a contended sigh-thought so maybe she succeeded.
She takes her fingers off Pâté and touches Imogen. Spider-walks her fingers up Imogen’s arm and holds her elbow, fingers splayed. Two above the joint, two below,. Slides her thumb into the crook of it. Imogen’s skin dimples, warm, under her fingers. The crook of her elbow is a little sweaty. The fine hairs on her forearm, the skin there, have a brushing of dirt-and-bark from where she pressed herself to the Sun Tree. For Laudna.
She looks away.
Dinner. Laudna hasn’t touched her plate—is nearly certain that she hasn’t moved since she sat—but her plate is full near-overflowing with things she would eat and nothing she wouldn’t. Imogen’s doing?
She looks to Imogen for a second time, drinks in the vision of her. No. Real, warm. Drinks her in. Her clothes are rumpled. Imogen looks tired, skin is waxen in the way it gets when she is struggling, not sleeping, not resting. Lovely in her tiredness. Real, alive. What could be lovelier? Ah—Imogen looking back, of course. Their eyes meet. Purple eyes crinkle in a smile that makes Laudna’s heart turn over and over and over. It still doesn’t beat, not really, but it moves around in its cage like a happy little rat, performing odd tricks and preening under her attention. Lovely, lovely lovely. Laudna wishes the world would quieten, slow. Would let her stay precisely here for a long time.
Imogen sets her hand over Laudna’s. Strokes the thumb pressed against her thudding lifeline.
‘Hey. You not hungry or what?’
Sitting on her other side is her father, dressed in his very best suit-and-tie Ashton, dressed in his cleanest clothes. He’s wearing a coat, even though the room has a bite to it. The fireplace is long dead and buried under grey ash is warm, lit by a well-tended fire. Candlelight plays off the crystal that is his hair. Purple. It’s very pretty, and very relaxing to watch. There was no one like Ashton at that dinner party. He is miraculous in this reassurance. Solid. A fixed point in time.
Laudna uncurls. It feels like she’s been playing dead—anything to go unnoticed. Her free arm rigor stiff where she holds it to her belly, her neck bent, chin to chest. She tilts her hand—Pâté climbing back up to his perch, her shoulder—and reaches out. She needs to touch, needs to hold onto something. She reaches for the table, the back of her chair, as she is pulled free. Her foot hooks the leg of the chair but they don’t care. They pull and pull and she gives way before they do. She reaches for Ashton’s hand.
It is solid too, and rough. Bigger than hers. Their cool warm palm presses against hers. It’s familiar, scarred from hard work on the farm from where it shattered once before or maybe many times on hard heads. It’s a hand she has held many times; it is unfamiliar in its trembling. She has never seen her father so afraid. Ashton goes very still and, with a look of terrified focus, closes their fingers around hers. They are very gentle.
Ah, she was wrong. Ashton is solid but they do not stop her from slipping. Still, she’s glad they’re at her side when she does.
She shakes her head no.
‘You alright? No, don’t answer. Stupid question,’ Ashton grumbles, sounding annoyed with themself.
She wants to say, No.
Wants to say, What is alright?
Wants to say, The renovations aren’t enough. The de Rolo’s had years to love this castle and years after to grow accustomed once more. They lied to me; they’re lying to themselves; it has changed but not enough. It’s the same castle, it will always be the same castle, the same stone.
Wants to ask, Did the red come out? By red, I mean blood. Did you wash it out? Did the water pour out red? Did it smell of it, reek of it, the way it had back then? Sour iron. Did it not come out at all? Did you flip the flagstones? Did you flip them and find the effort was worthless, that it—the blood, I mean—had soaked right through to the other side? Did you tear up the floors, rip the stones away did you carve new bricks out of earthbone granite did you set them where the old stones had been perfectly sized did you tell yourself that it was a different castle now that the stone was gone do you think that ghosts care about things like that have you asked the faithful and devout if ghosts care about things like that would they care about me if my ribs are the same ribs if my heart is the same heart even if I reek like a thing decaying too? Did it help to remake the house the home the castle did it make it feel real again did it make it feel reclaimed do you know that I have remade a hundred homes all over the world and had to leave each one? Perhaps I should have tried with stone. How many tonnes of granite does it take to repave the past?
Wants to ask, The pieces that broke, did you use them for headstones?
Where are my parents buried?
When you found them, was there enough to tell who they were? Who they had been? Did you lay them side-by-side? Did you give them back their names? I don’t remember—
Her breath catches.
‘Imogen.’
‘I’m here.’ Imogen lays her hand over Laudna’s, where it grips her elbow. ‘I’m right here.’
‘O- Okay.’
Imogen’s pulse thuds beneath her thumb. Real, alive, warm.
A little louder, Laudna says, ‘I’m fine,’ because Ashton is watching her. She’s lying, of course. He knows it and so does Imogen. Imogen, who is—there. Relief. Still right there, still right next to her. Her eyes find Imogen finding her, sweet smile at the sight of Ashton holding her hand. Lovely.
Ashton makes a tiny broken sound. Then,
‘Yeah. You’re great.’
He scoots his chair closer so she doesn’t have to strain, reaching for him. Their joined hands rest against Ashton’s knee. Her shoulder rests against their arm. She could never sleep here but, holding his hand and more tired than she has ever been, the thought crosses her mind.
It’s a sweet thought, until it’s scary.
She’s pretty sure that if she closes her eyes in this place, she’ll wake up dead. Again.
Launda pinches her teeth around her tongue until it stings. It lifts the heavy weight of exhaustion but doesn’t help with the sprung-trap feeling of being back here—it just makes her think of a rat in a trap, funnily enough. She wonders, idly, how long it would take to gnaw through her wrist and free her reaching hand. She tastes blood.
The second course is taken away. They leave her plate.
The third course comes.
The couple at the head of the table don’t have the taste of blood in their mouths. At least, Laudna doesn’t think so; they look too content to be bleeding from old wounds, and too happy to bleeding afresh. Laudna never stopped bleeding or she’s bleeding anew or she’s biting—at fingers, nails, tongue, insides—just to see if what she has is blood again.
The Lord and Lady are sitting hand-in hand-in-hand. He refills her wine. He kisses her hand. Turns it over, presses his lips to the centre of her palm. Drags his mouth over the swell of her base to her wrist, to the cuff of her sleeve; he licks it open, takes the pearl fastener between his teeth and rips it free. It clatters to the floor and rolls a dizzy path along stone to the edge of the dais, tapping down the steps. When she looks displeased, he only chuckles and puts his mouth on her there, kissing the point of her pulse. He kisses her like it is his version of prayer—devoted. Head bowed. He sits ramrod straight—shoulders pressed tight against the wood back of his chair—looking very much like he would rather be somewhere else, anywhere else. He calls someone up to join them—a young man with pointed ears and fair hair. The Lord stands. Puts his hands on the boy’s shoulder, settles him in his own seat and leans down to speak in his ear. Laudna cannot hear him; she can only watch the boy—what was his name? had she known it, then?—go pink and then pale. They can all only watch as the Lord goes down to his knees. She is laughing. Joy sits well on her. She does not look so unreachable, so elevated, when she is laughing. The look on the Lady’s face is crueller than the bite itself. When he sinks his teeth into the column of the boy’s throat, the Lady catches her breath—lips part, cheeks flushed. The Lord drinks, throat bobbing with each draining gulp. She reaches out. Touches the place where his mouth tears the boy open. Her bloodied hand settles on the back of his neck. Strokes slippery fingers at the hinge of his jaw, urging him wider, to drink deeper. She doesn’t partake; she likes to see him fed. When he pulls back, he’s soaked; red paints his lips, his chin, his impeccable suit. Disgust, horror, fear crowd in at the corner’s of Laudna’s mind but don’t take it from her right away. Mostly, Laudna thinks that it doesn’t seem fair. Her father is good and always hungry; this man—this monster—drinks his fill to bursting, to decadent devastating overflowing. He kisses his Lady, blood like wine on his lips, a vital communion. The Lady drinks the good wine; red paints her lips, a drop overflowing at the corner of her mouth. Her husband leans forward with a white cloth and dabs it away.
Part of Laudna is waiting for them to kiss. There is a tenderness and more in their closeness, the way they move—ever aware of the other, ever reaching out to help the other—that makes her think it is only a matter of time before they do. The Lady turns away to talk with Orym; when she does, she leaves a part of herself with her husband, a hand curled around his wrist—a tender tether. The Lord adds a scoop of food to his wife’s plate, one-handed. As Laudna watches, the Lord looks twice at his wife—first for reassurance, second for pleasure—and just that, just his eyes on her, is intimate enough that Laudna feels—fears—she is intruding.
Her eyes fall to the table. Her plate is full.
Laudna frowns. Something about the way the Lord looks at his wife is so familiar but she cannot place it. It doesn’t belong to that night, to them. If it did, it would hurt more to see it. Next time, she thinks, it will be obvious. Next time she sits at this table, she will watch herself-now watching him-now and it will all become clear what it is that she-now doesn’t understand. Next time, the memories of that first dinner will be little more than a puppet show, shadows dancing on the back wall instead of filling the room like smoke. Next time, Laudna won’t need to pretend she isn’t choking on it, pretend she can see what is on the table in front of her.
She pulls her hand out of Ashton’s and points to a random plate.
Ashton leans close. ‘You want it?’
They’re already reaching. Laudna hunches, grips Imogen tight. Ashton stops. Jerks their chin up to look over Laudna’s head. A moment later, they say,
‘It’s bread.’
‘Bread,’ she echoes, hardly loud enough to hear herself.
Bread. A heaped pile of pork cut into slivers, crescents like burned moons and dripping with silver fat. Bread. A pile of rolls, steaming. A pat of butter in a bowl.
‘And this one—a bunch of those little orange fuckers. Fuck – what are they called? Carrots.’ He picks up the bowl, tilts it so she can see inside. Orange sticks lined with grill marks, sweet smell wafting out from it. ‘They’re good. Sweet. You want one? No. No, okay.’ He puts them back in place. ‘Lots of potato soup. Pretty weird for the main fucking dish but it’s pretty fucking good, if you like that sort of thing. Is this like a Whitestone -’ She flinches. ‘- delicacy or some fuckin’ noble power trip, d’you reckon?’
Laudna shakes her head. She doesn’t know. She’s just relieved that it isn’t slabs of red meat or steaming lobsters. Perhaps they’re vegetarian. Pulling Whitestone as far from its bloodied past.
The third course is taken away. They try to take her plate this time. Imogen blocks it with her arm, smiles a terrifying smile at the server.
‘Leave it, thanks.’
The server bobs a curtsey. ‘Of course, miss. Is everything – to your liking?’
Oh. They’re asking her. Laudna peeks up. Nods quickly. Whispers, ‘Thank you.’
Dessert comes out. Berries and white-powdered sweets. Tiny squares of dark chocolate.
‘You’ll like this,’ Imogen murmurs. Leans in close, shoulder against Laudna’s. ‘Have you ever—have you tried chocolate before?’
‘I… No.’
‘Do you want to?’
Imogen offers her a piece, holds it between thumb and forefinger up toward her. It melts readily between warm fingers.
‘Later,’ Laudna whispers. ‘I – can’t. Not here.’
‘Alright.’
‘I’m sorry-‘
Imogen shakes her head. Sets the chocolate down, wipes off her fingers, and presses Laudna’s hand tighter against her elbow. She’s so close now, Laudna can smell the milk-rich sweetness of the chocolate, see the dot of it at the corner of her mouth. ‘Don’t be sorry. There’s nothin’ to apologise for. I’ll save some for you, alright? You can try it later. Whenever you want.’
‘Alright.’ Laudna leans into her.
She drifts.
The table is just a table. Ashton helps himself to Laudna’s dinner—‘It’s going to waste, Imogen, besides she doesn’t mind. Do you?’—and Orym meets her eyes with a tiny smile and a nod. Good to see you, mixed with something heavier. Laudna hasn’t the strength to hold the weight of his eyes. She looks away.
Down the table, Fearne and Chetney are—well, the only word for it is interrogating the Lord about his past time and talents. They are making their way not-so-subtly toward extortion, Fearne angling for a gun. Laudna isn’t trying to listen, but hears,
‘—bit of experience with – ah – crafting, if you will. Quite a few of the renovations were my design.’
Good with his hands. A visionary with the skill and drive to pursue it and make it real. Lady Briarwood had taken Whitestone in her bloody hands and broke its neck, reanimated it like that—a stooped servant that couldn’t look her in the eyes. Is the Lord de Rolo a little like that? A little of both of them, the way Laudna is? He took Whitestone in his hands and remade it; that requires diligence, power, vision.
It is a good vision. She likes the colour. Likes the laughter, the warmth.
He’s very different from the Briarwoods. And he is a little bit the same. A bit cruel, a bit harsh, a bit hungry, a bit wonderful. Because they were all that. Easy to hate, easy to admire, easy to hate for being easy to admire. How intoxicating it was to be chosen by them; how thrilling it was to be seen by them.
What would he say if she told him he reminds her of Delilah?
What would do if she told him she doesn’t know where the boundary lies between herself and Delilah? That she doesn’t know if there is one.
Pin-prick claws pinch on her collarbone and then Pâté flings himself off her shoulder; she catches him in her palm, ignores the way he squishes—he has the soft body of an overripe plum, ready to split—and the way his dead-wet paws move against her skin. His mind presses grubbily to hers, scratching for her attention.
‘You’re here, not her,’ he says, utterly sure in the way that only Pâté can be. He has spent a dozen rat lifetimes knowing Laudna’s mind, and Delilah’s, and if there is anyone who knows who is who, it is him. She allows herself to be reassured. Shifts a little, sliding her arm so she’s no longer gripping her so tight. More of an embrace, her arm nestled in the crook of Imogen’s. It’s perfect, actually; like this, she can lean against Imogen and also pet Pâté. ‘D wouldn’t’ve caught me. Bitch would like t’ watch me fall.’
Talking in the same way, between their minds, Laudna asks him, ‘Do you think you would have splattered? Like a skull from a great height.’ Purple crystal scatters candlelight over the roof. ‘Or a very soft apple.’
Pâté grooms while he considers this, paws rubbing down the length of his beak, washing over where twitching ears used to be. ‘Yeah. Oh yeah. One o’ those ones ab-so-lute-ely riddled with worm holes.’
His tone is. Suggestive. To say the least.
‘Somehow, you made that sound disgusting.’
‘What can I say? It’s a talent.’ He shrugs.
She crinkles her nose reprovingly at him. Then, ‘We could try it sometime. If you’re amenable to that.’
‘What? Huh. That’s a bit twisted.’
Laudna stills, wide-eyed, breathless. Of course it is—twisted, wrong. Hadn’t he said that was the difference between them? That Delilah would have liked to see him fall? And here she is, hoping to see the same?
‘Sounds fun.’
She gasps in a breath, close to tears. ‘It doesn’t – not like her, then?’
‘Nah. She’d let me fall ‘cause she doesn’t care.’
‘And – and me?’
‘Well. We wanna see how far I’d splatter, don’t we. I get it. Splatter pattern’s the two sexiest words in Common.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘I’ll go further, if you like.’
‘Please don’t,’ she laughs.
Pâté croaks a laugh along with her. When they settle, he says, ‘I’m game for whatever you think up. Whenever you like. Cause you’ll bring me back quick-sharp, won’t you?’
Laudna considers. She doesn’t need to, truly—her answer trips at the tip of her tongue, eager to be spoken, but some questions deserve to be considered, respected. This question, though not said in so many words, is Do you love me?
‘Yes,’ she tells him. Uncurls a finger to tickle his fat belly.
Down the table, someone clears their throat.
‘Are you quite alright?’
No one answers.
Laudna looks up and finds that the Lord de Rolo is looking at her. Right at her. With a frightened gasp, Laudna presses back into her seat to escape his attention; the powerful reaction makes his face crease—with distress, shame, and a flash of something tender, paternal—before smoothing out.
Stiffly, but not unkind, he says, ‘My apologies, Laudna. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘No. No, you didn’t. I was – I was talking with Pâté. I - I’m sorry.’ For being distracted. For naming him after you and yours. Laudna looks down at her plate. Then at Imogen, who pats her hand. Oh yes, she’s still clutching onto her. Imogen is still letting her clutch onto her. The reassurance lets her look up at him.
Lord Briarwood smiles back at her. Lord de Rolo frowns back at her.
‘I’m still. Processing,’ she tells Lord de Rolo haltingly. ‘It’s strange to be back here.’
‘Yes. Yes, I can imagine.’
Can he?
Laudna entertains the idea of explaining what it’s like.
There’s a tree in the dining room, you see? It’s laying on its side and the dinner plates—lovely, porcelain, painted with bronze and blue—have been placed on its trunk. The seats are pushed in close and it means that their legs – her legs, beneath the table – are squashed against the hungry mouths of it—the guests are hungry, the tree is hungry, everyone must eat—and the bark is wet, rotted under her hand, and the food looks like what she ate then and the chocolate looks like bark-chips and the ooze-rot is smeared black across everything and everyone. Whenever anyone talks and she can’t see their mouths, can’t hear them, the burble of conversation becomes creaking ropes and screams. Lord de Rolo’s words get tangled up in ropes and worms, squirming amongst the bodies. Grubs in their grub haha everyone has to eat.
She frowns down at Pâté. Strokes down his back, between the split of his wings.
‘May I—’
She stops. Lifts her finger to stroke the crest of Pâté’s bird skull once, twice, many times. It might look as though she is upset, if anyone were watching her do it, so she tries not to make the soothing motion too obvious.
‘May I ask you…’
He leans forward in his chair. It creaks under the movement. His face is pale and set, determined. ‘Yes. I will try to answer any question you have.’
‘Hm,’ she says to that. The glass of his eyepiece glints in the firelight; the glass of his carbine-like sight glints in the daylight. He’s very accommodating now that she’s sufficiently terrified of him. Another thing she will not say, only think. ‘The bodies.’
Everyone gets a little tense.
She strokes Pâté’s head. The bone is smooth and dry under her fingers. It’s nice. He could complain about the touching now that he’s alive but he doesn’t; he nuzzles into her hand again, wraps his paws around the thumb of the hand that holds him, pulls it around his fat belly like a blanket. Snuggles close. She is struck by the urge to make him a nest out of twigs and fabric—perhaps Chetney would know how—and hide away in there, in the quiet and the dark, curling around Pâté. Keep him safe. Keep them both safe.
‘Did you bury them?’
Her voice is very quiet but so is the room. They all hear her.
Lord de Rolo clutches at his wine glass. ‘No,’ he rasps. ‘We burned them. We thought… We thought it safer for everyone.’
‘Oh.’ She nods. Looks out the window. The Sun Tree is on the other side of the castle from them but her mind helpfully pushes its shadow against the glass. Ropes swing. Leaves fall. Tears fall. ‘Yes. You’re probably right.’
No one speaks for a long time.
The shadows lengthen. The branches of the tree spread, like dark cracks in the glass splintering out and up. She pulls her eyes from the window, wanders them back to the Lord by way of the banner on the wall, the pretty detailing in the stone-arch roof, the wine glass.
‘You died, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you want to come back?’
Beside her, Imogen goes very still.
Lord de Rolo swallows. His jaw is tight. Laudna is a little afraid that all the ice might shatter if she presses too hard, and she doesn’t want that. She has been brought to his home, dredged up all the worst memories for him as well; she can remember that when she is not mired in them herself. It isn’t what she wants to do so she tries to press lighter. Lifts Pâté to her shoulder to hide him out of sight. Folds her hands in close to her, hands to her neck, her clavicle. Imogen’s elbow is sharp against her side. It’s nice.
Lord de Rolo drinks. The liquid in his glass is amber, swirls with a water-light consistency.
‘Having lived these last years in every fortune. Having lived the best moments of my life after returning, my mind… Memories, emotions, can trick one into believing something other than the truth.’ She stares. He stares back. Cracks, the tiniest bit. ‘No,’ he admits. ‘At the time, I did not.’
Laudna nods. She works the next question between her teeth like a bit of gristle. Tries to soften it but her efforts only make it a little gross, tasteless, when she spits it out.
‘Did you deserve it?’
‘No.’ His answer is immediate. Sure.
Something in Laudna brightens, eases.
‘Percy—’
‘Not at the time,’ he adds. Laudna can’t tell if he has softened his tone, his answer, for her or for his wife. ‘But I work every day to ensure that I become a man deserving of being recalled.’
‘Oh.’ She nods slowly. Turns his answer over in her mind like a puzzle box, examining it, figuring out how it works. ‘That’s nice.’
Lord de Rolo watches her for a long, long moment. Then, he offers her a tiny smile. ‘Returning is difficult. Exhausting. I recall that well enough. You really should eat something.’
When dinner is over, and dessert, and the Lord and Lady have left the Bell’s Hells in the sanctuary of their study, Laudna leans into Imogen’s side and closes her eyes. The idea of sleeping here, in the castle, terrifies her but she can keep terror at bay when she is held so safely, so securely.
‘I don’t think I want to sleep here.’
Imogen nods. She wraps one arm around Laudna’s waist. Presses her other hand to Laudna’s hands, strokes her thumb over the bumps of knuckles like knots and gnarls in tree bark.
‘I don’t want you here.’
‘What? Oh. Do you – want someone else?’ Her arm loosens around Laudna’s waist.
‘No.’ Laudna’s fingers close tight around Imogen’s hand. ‘No – don’t leave m—Don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t, I’m sorry, I won’t,’ Imogen reassures. Her voice is absolutely calm, no trace of her hurt and surprise. ‘I won’t, honey. What did you mean? That you don’t want me here?’
‘Here.’ Laudna’s eyes dart around the space. It’s a comfortable room, really. It reminds her of Lord Eshteross’s study—all leather and bookcases and comfortable seating and traps. But it’s new skin stretched over old, horrid rotted bones. ‘I keep seeing – I keep seeing it the way it was. I don’t want you there, I don’t want you to ever have been there – and you saw it all,’ Laudna remembers.
Rocking forward, Imogen gathers Laudna up, tighter, an embrace that threatens to strangle all the fears inside of her. Her hand presses warm to her spine. Slides up her back to her neck, into the thick curtain of her hair. She leans Laudna’s head down onto her shoulder and lets her hide there.
‘You don’t have to look anymore. Alright? I can – we can guide you.’
‘Just you.’
‘Alright,’ Imogen hums. She sounds pleased. Then, a press against the side of Laudna’s head.
Laudna would like to imagine it is a kiss. It feels a little like one.
‘Didn’t think you were that kind’ve girl,’ Pâté chortles. ‘Buy me dinner first, love.’
‘Pâté,’ Laudna hisses. ‘That wasn’t for you.’
‘I’m here, ain’t I?’
Imogen laughs. What a sound. What joy.
‘Hi, Pâté. Sorry to burst your bubble – I forgot you were hiding in there.’
‘On account of me being so sneaky, right?’
‘Yes, exactly. Why don’t you go back to sleep?’
‘Wivvout dinner?’
‘We’ll get you something to eat,’ Imogen promises, though she sounds a little unsure. Understandable. Even Laudna isn’t certain that Pâté eats. ‘I’ll guide you out, Laud. You don’t have to look at anything. You just keep your eyes closed if that’s what you want, alright? I’ve got you.’
‘I know. I know.’
They head to the Sun Tree.
Chetney has his hands full of stolen sheets. Fearne has nothing in her hands but is smiling big, like the cat who caught the mouse, and Laudna thinks she sees her tucking a black satin cloth into the fabric of her blouse.
They set up bedrolls and pillows amongst the most distant roots of the Tree, where Laudna can lay on her back and look up at the sky and see reaching branches that prong out into the sky like branching dark lighting.
She sleeps fitfully. Wakes and sleep and wakes again. She is restless, she is afraid. What if—she has poured all her trust into the people around her, into the roots of the Sun Tree, there isn’t enough left for her own self. What if her body gives up? What if nothing kills her but she breathes in for the last time? What if she doesn’t wake up? She wakes and stays awake. Sits up at the end of her bedroll, staring up at the branches.
Which one had been hers? Had they left it up?
It is just past the darkest hours when Imogen stirs beside her, hands reaching for the empty space where Laudna had just been laying. Imogen sits bolt upright, Laudna’s name catching in her throat, tears in her eyes.
‘Laudna?’
‘Imogen.’
A sob heaves up from her stomach, gets stopped in her throat. Imogen makes a noise like she’s dying, choking on fear, and throws herself at Laudna. Scrambles to the end of her bedroll and, on her knees, buries her face into Laudna’s neck, wraps her arms around her as tight as they will go. Only then does Imogen start to breathe properly again.
‘Don’t,’ she gasps. ‘Don’t do that, don’t leave m- I thought you-’ She doesn’t finish her sentence. Just knocks her forehead against the sharp jut of Laudna’s shoulder instead.
Laudna winces in sympathy.
Eventually, Imogen asks, ‘Why are you awake? You should be sleepin’.’
‘I don’t think I can.’ It sounds dreadfully sad so she buoys her tone, laughs a little. ‘I’ve slept quite enough lately, don’t you think?’
Imogen doesn’t join in her laughter. She pulls away. ‘You need to rest,’ she says, and the tone she uses is new. Concerned, controlled. A new power buried somewhere deep behind it. Her fingers tremble against Laudna’s shoulders.
Laudna stares. Suddenly, she knows. It has been a few days. She hasn’t seen Imogen in days. The thought is a gut-wrenching one and she searches Imogen’s face desperately—are there scars? Wrinkles? Freckles she hadn’t had the joy of seeing form? Have her scars progressed? In her lap, Laudna’s fingers twitch, twist all knotted up. She’s hungry. She’s starving. She wants Imogen to write down everything she thought and did and said in every moment while she was gone – lost – dead – so she can read it and know it and then—since that won’t be enough to fill the sudden hollow inside her—so she can fold up the pages and unhinge her jaw and swallow it down, taste the ink and tears and sweat on her tongue, drink it, pulp the paper and let it sit heavy in her gut perhaps forever.
‘You’re staring at me,’ Imogen tells her, without weight, without pressure.
Laudna wants the weight of Imogen against her. She doesn’t say that.
‘You haven’t been sleeping well.’
Imogen smiles. It shakes at the corners, weak. ‘No.’
It rasps out of her, rough-edged. Lauda has rarely heard her so raw before, so open. She wants to press her mouth to Imogen’s throat, feel the words as they are spoken. As Imogen speaks them. Wants to tuck her face into the vital column of her, breath her in, drink in the sensation of being alive. Chase it down with the taste of salt. Want pools on Laudna’s tongue.
‘I – I was scared –‘ Imogen says, and stops. A crinkle forms between her brows. She stares at Laudna for a moment before dismissing whatever distraction occurred to her. ‘Um. I was scared that I’d see you walk into the storm.’
‘Hm. Did you?’
‘No.’
‘But I died.’ Gods, her head aches. Her stomach aches. Her neck aches. ‘If you see when people die, but you didn’t see me… There must be something we’re missing about how your powers work.’
‘I don’t care about that.’
‘It’s important.’
‘I don’t want to think about it. Not tonight. I just want…’ Imogen forces a smile. Shuffles closer. ‘You need to sleep.’
‘As do you.’
‘I sleep better when you’re next to me.’ Her lips twist, wry, abashed. ‘As you saw.’ Imogen cannot see in the dark; Laudna watches her squint through night’s veil, try to piece together what she can see of Laudna. She doesn’t try to reach out with her mind. After a moment, Imogen blinks. Her eyes go round and soft and sad. She looks past Laudna to the tree and says, ‘You’re not a – a source of anguish. You’re not a nuisance. You – you know that, don’t you? You’re –‘ She swallows hard. ‘The most wonderful person. You’re everything. And if you’re strugglin’, I want to know. I want to help.’
Imogen squeezes her hands. Laudna squeezes back. The only sign that the pressure is felt – scant as it is, her limbs frailer than ever – is Imogen’s eyes flicking down to their joined hands, the way her thumb skims over the back of Laudna’s hand.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘I keep – trying. I keep looking and. You must know that I fought – for you. Fought her. Because you asked me to. But I don’t know,’ she whispers, and Imogen won’t leave her but she lets Laudna lift their hands to her face, press her fingers to her skin, agonizing. ‘I’m so sorry—I should know. Feel different, somehow. But –‘ Laudna shakes her head. ‘I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t.’
Tears spill over from Imogen’s eyes. Laudna would panic except that Imogen is smiling, too. She wipes Imogen’s tears. When Imogen reaches for her this time, lays gentle hands on her and coaxes her to lay down on her bedroll, lay beside her. She makes a pillow of her own arm for Laudna’s head.
Laudna goes with her. Accepts every comfort Imogen offers freely, holds out to her with both hands. She’s hungry. She’ll take it all.
‘We’ll figure it out,’ Imogen assures her. Nods. ‘Together. As long as it takes, I’ll be right here.’
‘What if –‘
Laudna stops. After a time, Imogen nudges her to continue, or slips her ankle beneath Laudna’s, or both.
‘What if it never ends?’ She thought it would feel worse, voicing that awful thought. But it’s nice. ‘If I am hers, forever and ever.’
Imogen shakes her head. ‘You’re not hers.’ Laudna can feel the jump of muscles beneath her head as Imogen curls her arm protectively, brushes the tips of her fingers over Laudna’s shoulder. ‘She’s just a bitch in your head who thinks she owns you. She doesn’t.’
‘Hm.’ Laudna relaxes. Sinks deeper into Imogen’s hold. Nudges her nose to just beneath Imogen’s ear, the point of her jaw. Her hair is soft. She smells like a storm-struck tree—smoky wood and singed sky. ‘I think you’re right.’
‘That was quick,’ Imogen laughs, the sound sleep-roughened, teasing.
‘Well, I’d much rather be yours.’
Imogen tenses. ‘Mine? No. Oh no, Laudna, that’s not what I–’ She wriggles, trying hard not to displace Laudna but needing to be on her side. Lifts her hand to Laudna’s face and pulls her until they are nose-to-nose. ‘Laud,’ she whispers. ‘You don’t belong to anyone. You get to make your own choices now, you don’t get to be controlled by anyone.’
‘I know that.’
Imogen doesn’t disagree with her. She doesn’t disagree very loudly, gnawing on her bottom lip and staring past Laudna’s shoulder at the Sun Tree like she’s trying to explode it with nothing but the force of her stare.
If anyone could, Laudna thinks, it would be Imogen.
Imogen tries again. ‘You aren’t a tool to be traded—’
‘That’s not what I meant, darling.’
‘I know it’s probably confusing and – and it’s comfortable, to have someone and – all of that stuff I said about taking her place, I didn’t mean control – ‘
‘Imogen.’
Imogen stops.
‘You are mine as well.’ Laudna has no desire to lift her head from Imogen’s arm—she is warm and soft and she would like to be cuddled here, kept close, for some more hours yet. But her other arm—Laudna trails her fingers down it, loops their hands together. ‘You looked for me. You found me and brought me back. You protected me. I am very grateful.’
‘Yeah?’ Imogen’s voice wobbles. ‘You – You’re happy? You wanted to come back?’
‘What?’
‘You asked Lord de Rolo –‘
‘Oh Imogen. Yes. I wanted to come back. Yes.’ Laudna wipes more tears. She thinks Imogen needs sleep even more than her. ‘I am confused and tired and very afraid but I am happy to be here. With you. That’s the difference, I think. When I—When Delilah had me, I didn’t have anything, least of all myself. But now – I am yours and that means I have myself and I have you as well. Don’t I?’
‘Of course. Everything you want, I’ll get it for you.’
‘Everything, then.’ Laudna lifts a hand to the curve of her warm, warming cheek. Imogen leans into the touch. Eyelids fluttering. ‘You ought to sleep.’
‘Hold my hand?’
‘Of course. Always.’