“Oh, that grief.”
She nodded.
“Loiosh, you didn’t hear any of that.”
“Any of what?”
“Exactly.”
“How did you do that? Also, why?”
“How is easy, Szurke. You carry it in how you walk and in the set of your shoulders, but mostly in how you watched me dance.”
“Bloody Issola.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
“As for why, because I can, and because I felt I owed it to you for my rudeness.”
“Heh. Thanks so much.”
“You’d really have preferred I said nothing?”
“I’ll tell you something,” I said. “You people live thousands of years. We live fifty or sixty. And I’ll bet you couldn’t find any one of you, or any one of us, who didn’t have something like that going on. It’s just what happens when you live. Spending all your time worrying about it just means getting so wrapped up in your head that you never do anything. Yeah, sad sh—sad stuff happens, it hurts, and you move on.”
“And what are you doing?”
“Hmm?”
“Of what does your moving on consist?”
“At the moment, I’m trying to solve a puzzle. It distracts the mind.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“You have helped. Twice now.”
She gave me a look that invited me to expand on that.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Yes, that’s why it’s called a puzzle.”
“Let’s speak of other matters.”
“Certainly.”
“Do you write poetry? I mean, about Gormin?”
She looked away, then looked back. “I dance,” she said. “And Ouffach has too much air in her lungs.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter, but this might tie into my problem.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because as far as I can tell, everything ties into everything else, and half the time does so in perfectly straightforward ways, and half the time in ways that make no sense. But I’m going to just assume that everything connects. And, after all, you brought it up.”
“I?”
“Yeah.”
“What did I bring up?”
“Love, romance, the breaking of hearts, all that crap. You’re an Issola, and an Issola would never just start in on a stranger’s personal life without a good reason.”
“You think you understand Issolas?”
“Better than I understand Vallistas.”
She laughed then; she had a nice laugh. I smiled, waited, then said, “So, what is it? You had a reason for bringing that up.”
“Insistent, aren’t you?”
“Somewhere a little girl is trapped in time, and I’m trying to set her free.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the reference.”
“It wasn’t a reference, it’s what I’m trying to fix.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Trapped in time? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s so tricky.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. It’s necromancy, and I know nothing about necromancy, and it has to do with another structure built by—crap, by someone, sometime, that connects to the castle here, and if I could explain it any clearer I would. But there is something going on, and I’m set on figuring out anything I don’t understand, and right now the top of the list of things I don’t understand is why you gave me that lecture about love and heartbreak, all right? Of all the things that have happened to me over the last two days, that’s the strangest.”
She said, “It isn’t that complicated, Szurke. I brought it up because you asked me to.”
“Because I … all right, go on.”
“Do you think I’m not aware of the audience when I dance, that I don’t pay attention to them?”
“Hadn’t given any thought one way or the other.”
“Dancing has meaning, it has substance. It reaches into people. Something in me reaches something in those who watch, and sometimes the connection is so strong it can’t be mistaken.”
“Sounds like magic.”
“Not really.”
“So, the way I reacted when you danced is how I said I wanted to talk about all sorts of private and personal crap that I don’t even like to think about?”
“Exactly.”
Most of the responses that came to mind I couldn’t make to an Issola. After sitting for a bit, with her refusing to say anything, I settled for “I suppose you’re right. But it still doesn’t explain about you.”
“As you said, we all have those heartbreaks.”
“Most of them don’t have to do with an Issola being expelled from his House.”
“There are always reasons.”
“In your case, it’s a little more than that, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me review, and you tell me if I’m missing anything. Gormin was in charge of the household. He met you, and developed an attachment. As you were, at this time, associated with the household, this was deemed improper, and it was decided he’d failed in his duty and was expelled from his House.”
She nodded, her eyes locked on mine.
“But not from the household.”
“Lord Zhayin was pleased with his work.”
“Yeah. Nonsense.”
“My lord?”
“There was more to it than that, and, what’s more, you know there was. He comes on to you? Maybe winks, maybe lets you know he is if you are? And things go as things will with people who are attracted to each other. So, then the House finds out about it, and it’s improper. Fine. What do they do? Normally, he gets a letter or something that says cut it out. That’s it. They don’t kick him out of the House for that.”
“You are an expert on the workings of House Issola?”
“I’m an expert on the workings of Dragaerans. It’s a natural result of not being one.”
“That almost makes sense.”
“Thanks. The point is, either he did a lot more than that, or there’s something else entirely going on.”
“Both,” she said.
I nodded. “All right. Don’t stop there.”
“We were lovers.”
I nodded.
“It began when I was visiting, before I was attached to the household.”
“How long? I mean, how long were the two of you involved before Zhayin hired you?”
“Forty-one years.”
“And how long after that until he was—”
“A year and a half.”
“Um. I see. So, how did the House find out?”