Rien gave her a look, and from it Perceval gathered that Rien had not, perhaps, told this person everything.
Or even much of anything. Perceval bit her lip; of course, they were fugitives, and anyone could be in the pay of Rule.
She thrust out her hand, and waited for the mahogany-haired flautist to take it. But before that could happen, a voice spoke from the stump on the other side of the clearing.
"A pleasure to meet you in better circumstances," the white bird said, and when Perceval glanced up she saw that it was not a bird at all, but a basilisk.
It was worrisome, to find herself missing details. "Oh," she said. And then she sat down hard on the moss as her knees failed her.
Rien did jump to her feet then, almost tripping over the guitar. And sat back down hard herself. Mallory crouched, sliding the flute into a boot, and laid hands on her face. "You're both sick, children. And exhausted. Stay where you are."
Even the voice was androgynous, not for neutrality, but for flexibility. One moment, Perceval imagined it echoed a man's deep sonorous tones of authority, then a woman's chiding.
She did as she was told and sat.
A little later, as their host fussed with a self-heating kettle and water and pills and packets of herbs, she gathered her energy enough to take an interest. Deft hands sorted and sifted and poured. Perceval was fascinated.
"Are you a healer, Mallory?"
"No," Mallory said, and lifted a pair of cups. "I am a necromancer. Here, drink up."
9 what it means to be a princess
This dust was once the Man.
So that's what it is to be a princess, Rien thought, watching the perfect unconscious arrogance with which Perceval gave away her name and their goal, as if it were nothing. Or—arrogance was the wrong word, wasn't it? Because arrogance was by its nature unjustified.
And nothing about Perceval was unjustified. Her self-assurance was the product of capability and experience, a warrior's knowledge of her body and her surroundings. She sat cross-legged, her elbows on her knees once she had accepted the mug, and watched Mallory seemingly without curiosity. "What's in the tea?"
"Salicylic acid," Mallory said, "capsaicin, licorice, chamomile, some other things. You had a nasty systemic bacterial infection, and a debilitating virus on top of it."
Still, Perceval sniffed warily. Rien, conscious of her own aches and the thickness in her throat, could not imagine how much worse her friend might feel.
It was so much easier to think of Perceval as her friend than as her sister. Perceval was Exalt—well, Rien was now, too, but she didn't feel Exalt, she didn't have the privilege and entitlement that dripped off Lady Ariane or Perceval or even Oliver. Even her politeness, her air of the obligations of nobility .. . were just that.
The Exalt Rien knew were monsters as much as Lords and Ladies. If Rien was Exalt, would she become a monster, too?
"Drink it," Mallory said. "If I'd wanted you drugged or poisoned, Engineer, I would have done it when you were on the IV."
Perceval's suspicious glance at the crook of her arm was another paradigm shift for Rien. For a moment, Perceval's deportment changed. The abrupt turn of her head was almost a cringe.
A crack in the facade.
Which meant it was a facade, this air of the stern but smiling knight-errant. A character. A role. Or, Rien reassessed—the warm mug in her own hands almost forgotten, as she watched Perceval first swallow dry and then raise her mug to her lips with quiet bravado—not a facade, not exactly. But not the whole story either.
Rien drank her tea and let the silence stretch. Even Mallory sat still, wrists draped over knees, and watched the girls sip bittersweet, spicy fluid.
When Perceval and Rien had drained the dregs and set their cups aside, the necromancer said, "I imagine everybody in Rule will be sick quite soon."
"I beg your pardon?" Perceval's courtesy was perfect once more.
"Your illness." Mallory knelt up to collect the cups, not rising, small breasts moving softly as the necromancer came to hands and knees. Rien shifted on the earth, fingers worrying the neck of the borrowed instrument that now lay on the blanket beside her. She was not accustomed to finding someone with such obvious male attributes attractive. But the eyes and the throat and the breasts were all woman, if the long hands and torso and crotch were all wrong.
Deft hands wiped cups dry and stowed them in a ragged-edged coarse-woven pack, but Mallory's voice never paused. "You are recovering; Rien is sickening. It's an engineered influenza, and you both are fortunate that I happened to have a stock of the appropriate antiviral on hand."
"Convenient," Perceval agreed, and Rien shot her a sideways glance. If she were better acquainted with Perceval, she'd know if those were tones of irony.
Mallory seemed to think so. And by the smile that flickered across plush lips, seemed also unoffended.
Rien wondered if she would ever get used to the Exalt, and the way they cheerfully assumed that everyone around them was neck-deep in conspiracy. Then she wondered if she would ever get used to the way they usually seemed correct in that assumption.
"You think I was meant to be captured?" Perceval could apparently be as blunt as anyone. "That I was a vector?"
"I can't speak for Engine," Mallory said. "Those aren't my politics." On his branch at the edge of the clearing, Gavin made a noise uncannily like one of Head's unimpressed snorts.
Mallory gave him the finger. "Why are you going to your father, Perceval Conn?"
"To stop the war," Rien said, when Perceval did not seem to have a ready answer. She shivered, pushing the guitar farther away so she could draw up her knees and huddle under the blanket. The moments when you knew you were sickening were the worst; you could feel the virus establishing beachheads, enemy camps defined by sniffles and muscle aches and growing nausea. "Engine and Rule fighting, that could kill so many."
"And endanger the walls of the world," Perceval said, and was right. Collateral damage, structural damage, was a bigger fear than direct murder. It had been impressed on Rien all through her childhood how fragile the habitable sphere was, and how much functionality had been lost through accident, negligence, malice, and the simple gnawing of entropy.
Mallory fiddled fingers on folded arms. "You think your father can do something about that?"
"He's Benedick Conn," Perceval said, as if that settled everything. And Rien had to admit, it was a phrase to conjure with.
Mallory made a noise that was open to interpretation. "It's a long way to his anchore, and not through friendly territory. There is no direct communication. We could try radio, but I'm hesitant to speak of such things in uncoded broadcast. And if anyone is seeking you—"
"Yes," Perceval said. "It could lead them here."
Rien edged a little closer to her, twisting her fingers, and as if unconsciously Pinion flicked out to drape across her shoulder. Rien jumped, and would have withdrawn from the touch of the parasite wing—but she remembered in time, and the thought of what it must be like to be Perceval, and have the alien limb sealed to one's own body, kept her still.
"Mallory, you're not actually considering sending Rien and Perceval on errantry when one of them is weak and recovering and the other will be blind with fever inside the day?" The basilisk swung his head side to side. His thick tongue was blue-black; with beak opened, it tasted the air like a snake.
As if to illustrate his point, a wave of sweating dizziness overcame Rien. She laid her forehead against her knees and pulled the borrowed shawl tight over her shoulders. The warmth of the wing was welcome, after all.