Which was true enough, she supposed. At least he was not asking why. “I have seen no need to go gadding about. Should you wish to visit the Zoo or perhaps take a turn in Hidepark, you are more than welcome to.” She clasped her hands, tilted her head and felt the reassuring weight of her lapis earrings as they swung gently.
“The Palace sends you dispatches.”
She decided the familiar tone he currently employed could be borne only so far. “Which I return unopened, Shield.” The Empire has not crumbled without my help to prop it up. I cannot tell whether to be pleased or vexed. “And,” she continued, “no doubt you are relieved I am no longer in any possible danger, feeling no urge to step outside. It must be wondrous calming for a Shield when his charge behaves so.”
“I am… concerned.” The thundercloud knitting upon his brow might have cheered her own darkening mood, had she let it.
“Ah. I believe there is a remedy for your concern.” Her tone dripped with sweet solicitude. “You may leave the worrying to me, Mikal. Your head is simply not fit for it.”
“Your temper, Prima, is as sharp as your tongue.”
She took a firmer hold on said temper. “And you are speaking out of turn.”
“Emma.” His hands spread slightly, and she wished he would not look so… downcast, or so pained. His presumption she could easily parry.
His affection was another matter entirely. It took a long while to undermine a citadel with kindness, but it could be done.
She was saved the trouble of responding by a sharp, almost painful internal twitch.
The sorceress stilled, her attention turning inward, and her Shield’s sudden tense silence was a familiar comfort. What on earth is that?
It had been a long while since she had felt that particular sensation; she flashed through and discarded several invisible threads before finding the one that sang like a viola’s string. Plucked by a long, bony finger… he had marvellously expressive hands for such a rigid logician, though Emma had never told him so.
Clare. In danger. But he has the… The string yanked sharply again, a fishhook in her vitals, and Emma almost gasped, training clamping down upon her fleshly body’s responses to free a Prime’s will to work unhindered.
She returned to herself with a rush, the walls of her house vibrating soundlessly. Her indentured servants, well accustomed to such a sensation, would be calmly pursuing their duties.
Mikal leaned forward, his weight braced, ready to move in any direction. “Prima?” Carefully, quietly–no matter how he might test her temper, it was best not to do so when there was sorcery to accomplish.
She supposed it was a small mercy that he was, at least, willing to cease his questioning when an emergency threatened.
“It is Clare,” she heard herself say, distantly. “To the stables, saddle two horses. Now.”
Chapter Three
Stillness Descending
Moans and cries, an acrid reek, blood crusting or fresh, the throat-coating nastiness of scorched stone. There was no ventilation, and the crush of the crowd had only worsened.
“Move back!” Clare coughed violently, a painful retch bringing up a dry thick gobbet of something he spat to the side with little ado. “He cannot breathe, give him space!” The Bocannon was a cicatrice of frost upon his chest; his shirt and jacket were in tatters. His bare knees grated against shards of smoking wood, and somewhere a woman screamed, high-pitched repeating cries piercing Clare’s aching skull. “And for God’s sake clear the doors!”
“Bastarde,” the wreck of a body in his arms muttered. “Cold.”
“All will be well,” Clare lied numbly. “Ludo—”
Whistles sounded, shrill and useless. Help had arrived outside, perhaps, but the shouts and curses amid the struggling mass at the door sought to bring a deduction to surface amid the porridge his brain had become.
Ludovico… The struggle to think clearly stung his eyes, or was it the thick smoke? Blood, hot and slippery over his hands, and the foul stench of a battlefield. He knew what it meant, knew he should gaze dispassionately at the shredded flesh and shattered bone he clasped, so heavy.
So, so heavy.
Deadweight.
Do not think such things. “All will be well,” he repeated. “Help is coming.”
Half the assassin’s face was a scorched ruin. Well, he had never been pretty, even on the best of days.
Why had he thrown himself upon the dynamitard?
He thought to do his duty. As always. Quite remarkable sense of honour, for an assassin.
The body in his arms stiffened. Ludo’s dark eyes dimmed, blood bubbling at the corners of his shredded mouth. There were spots of soot on his pitted cheeks, and dewdrops.
Do not be an idiot. There is no dew. His eyes were burning, blurring. It had to be the smoke.
The crowd screamed and surged for the doors again. Ludo’s lips moved, but Clare could not hear through the din. Trampling and thrashing, the courtroom had become a seething creature with its own panicked mind. The pressure against the inward-opening doors would preclude those outside from offering aid.
Nevertheless, a great stillness descended. Clare stared down, into the face he knew as well as his own, horribly battered now. A shudder heaved through the floor–no, the body he held? Or was it his own frame, stiffening against the onrush of irrational emotion?
The Bocannon gleamed, clearly visible now that Clare’s shirt and jacket were in tatters. Ludo’s gaze fastened on that spark, and his lips moved again. The pendant gave a last flare of fiery ice, and Clare’s nerves were alight all through his skin.
His whole, unbroken skin. He had survived, fantastically, unbelievably, suffering only rent clothing and the stinging of smoke. “Ludo—”
“Stregaaaaa…” the Neapolitan sighed, and Clare bent forward over him, unheeding the illogicality of his own broken sobs.
No. No, no no—
No protest would avail; no exercise of deduction would halt this. The mentath closed his eyes.
He did not wish to see.
There was a sound. Low and vicious as a blade cleaving wet air. The noise of the crowd was pulled away, a curtain swept aside by an invisible hand. The Bocannon gave out a high tinkling rill of notes, and a breath of sweeter scent cut through the reek.
Clare could not look. He crouched over the body, even heavier now that its occupant had fled. The quiet was immense, crushing, the blackness between stars, and when they found him he was no longer weeping.
Chapter Four
Some Order Here
It was, as a Colonial might say, a bloody horrific hell of a mess.
By the time Emma half fell out of the bay clockhorse’s saddle–her morning dress was never going to be the same–into Mikal’s hands, the narrow street leading to the Clerkewold was jammed with a milling crowd, straining carriages and a great deal of nasty smoke, as well as policemen blowing their damnable silverwhistles and clacking blocks together instead of doing anything useful.
In short, it was a situation only a sorceress could remedy, and Emma Bannon stalked forward. The tugging of the Bocannon had crested and subsided, and why it should lead her here she had no idea, except that Clare was somewhere in this disorder and needed her aid. She had not seen him for a week or two, but that was normal, when he had an affair engaging his attention.