She offered him one of my sweetmeats.
LATE NIGHT HAD become early morning, and in a couple of hours the servants and I would be dragging ourselves out of bed to prepare the hunting breakfast.
Shadow suggested I give up on Lucient and get some rest in my own bed, but I’d promised to stay all night and I didn’t like to let my cousin down. Klea didn’t offer to take me back. She was intent on preparing for her plan, and I didn’t like to bother her. Anyway, the mages decided to hold a wrestling match on the lawn, making it impossible for anyone to go out of my window unseen—or, for that matter, to get any sleep, on this side of the house. Scintillant and a couple of the retainers were staggering round half-dressed and reeling drunk, each with a half-naked servant mounted on his or her shoulders. Apparently the idea was for the servants to try and knock each other off their mounts’ shoulders. I hoped for the servants’ sake the grass was soft. Everyone was shouting, shrieking and laughing at the tops of their voices.
As I was watching them, annoyed but a little bit envious—they did seem to be having fun—a window opened in the Eyrie and a pair of boots flew out and hit Scintillant on the head. Scinty spun round and roared furious insults at the person in the window, who turned out to be Illuminus. Illuminus shouted at him to shut up because people were trying to sleep, and compared him to an inelegant part of the body. Scintillant shouted back and flew up at the window with a poor unfortunate maidservant still mounted on his shoulders. She screamed hysterically and clutched his head like a terrified hat, while he took a swing at Illuminus through the window, all the while yelling abuse. Things might had gone badly—for the maid especially—but luckily a window opened at the top of the Eyrie and Impi shot out. I’d heard he was extremely strong for a male mage; certainly, he broke up the fight between Illuminus and Scintillant quickly enough, with just a few choice words and magical blows. More importantly, he plucked the servant girl off Scintillant’s head and lowered her gently to the ground, tonguelashing the mages as he did so.
With all this excitement outside, I decided it would be best to sneak back through the house.
“I’ll try and get her to sleep,” Shadow told me, nodding at Klea, bent over her task.
“Good idea. Perhaps a glass or two of that brandy,” I suggested, pointing to a bottle our household had received as a Blessing gift from a local feed merchant. I’d hoped to trade it on for something more practical, but I was getting worried about Klea’s state of mind.
The inside of the house was quiet. Most people had clearly settled into a post-loving slumber, while the party around the bonfire outside the Eyrie seemed to have reached the point of drunken sleeping or the maudlin singing of broken-hearted ballads.
One of the maids was sitting on the stairs up to the second level and weeping, but when I stopped to check on her, she was simply drunk and overwrought. A couple was having an enjoyably noisy time in one of the bedrooms on level three, and Michael the blacksmith was stretched out naked and asleep in the fourth-level corridor. I suppressed a niggle of envy. I was off to the back-breaking couch in Lucient’s room while Klea slept in my comfortable bed with my ghost. Typical. At least Lucient’s room would be warm.
With everyone so distracted by pleasuring, there seemed no reason to sneak about; I’d stopped being careful about who saw me and was pattering along, longing for sleep. So I bear some responsibility for what happened next.
Just as I was reaching for Lucient’s door knob, I heard a shriek from above. “You! Mundane! Get away from it.”
Blazeann was leaning over the opposite balcony of the floor above, resplendent in a red silk dressing gown. Screeching like a mad parrot, she launched herself over the railings and swooped at me.
Hot panic filled me. I pushed open the door and fled into the room, screaming Lucient’s name. I had enough presence of mind to slam the door shut behind me. By the time Blazeann had flung it open again, Lucient was sitting bolt upright on the bed, a mage light burning in his hand and Sharlee had slid off and underneath the bed with a speed that bespoke of long practice.
Blazeann stood in the doorway, swaying, fury writ large on her face. She was very drunk.
“You!” she shrieked, pointing at me where I crouched on the bedside carpet. Hitting the floor is the logical reaction when faced with a drunk and angry mage; you don’t fall as far, that way. “Get out of here before I throw you out. My brother has more important women to pleasure.”
“B... Blazeann. What are you doing?” stammered Lucy, looking like a frightened rabbit.
“You crapulous little smoke rat,” screamed Blazeann, advancing into the bedroom. “What did I tell you about Toy?”
“But I hate her.”
“You useless little... You and she could breed true together. Had you thought of that? Make some mages for this family. We’re drowning in hell-cursed mundanes. What the hell are you still doing here, mundane?” She snarled at me. “Get out. I said now!”
Her force hit me and I slid across the floor, hurtling towards the doorway. All I could think of was the balcony beyond the door, with nothing but the wooden balustrade between me and four long storeys of stairwell down through the Eyrie.
“Stop!” shouted Lucient and I slowed, as if I had run into a bank of mud. I managed to seize the door frame and stop myself even though the original force of magic was still pulling at me and sucking my body away towards that stairwell.
Then, suddenly, the force was gone.
Lucient was standing up on the bed. “You can’t treat Shine like that. She’s Fam—”
“I don’t care what she is. She’s no substitute for Toy in your bed.”
“I hate Toy,” shouted Lucient. “I don’t want her to mount me again. I can’t.”
“A bit less weed would fix your prick,” snarled Blazeann. She lunged out and slapped Lucient’s smoke pipe and mixing bowl off his bedside table. “You’re a man, aren’t you? Take some Rampant and shut your eyes. Light knows you take everything else.”
“Who do you think you are?” shouted Lucient. “I can mate with whoever I like.”
“I’m your older sister and soon enough I’ll be the Matriarch of this family. Then I’ll make sure you do as you’re told.”
As I clung to the door frame, I saw Lucient’s mouth open and held my breath in case he told about the polluted smokeweed.
But instead he said with soft venom, “Not everyone has your taste for incest, sister dear.”
Blazeann screamed and flung up her arm, and Lucient was thrown back against the wall behind his bed, stopping himself just before he hit. I threw myself out of the doorway and wriggled round with my back against the wall as Blazeann came shooting out of the room. Fortunately, she streamed back up to her room without seeing me.
“You scrofulous muckeater!” yelled Lucient from the bedroom, when Blazeann was too far away to hear him. I couldn’t blame him for putting discretion before valour. She was so much more powerful than he was.
“Oh, my lord, my lord, are you all right?” cried Sharlee, creeping out from under the bed.
He wasn’t the one who’d almost gone over the balcony rail. I patted the nice strong door frame with shaking hands.