He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, visibly controlling himself. “I think you’re going to have to explain exactly what happened.”
She did, her face hot with shame. Sethennai relaxed a little when he learned that only Parza had been there to witness it.
“He’s not a chatterer,” said Sethennai. “Perhaps I’ll raise his salary.” He still looked grim enough to worry her. A dull sickness had settled in her belly, rivalling the lotus headache that thundered behind her eyes.
“There was lotus in it,” she said. “You know, from the—you know.”
“I do,” said Sethennai.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, averting her eyes.
He sighed again. “It was an error of judgment,” he said. “I expect better from you. But there is no harm done. I am very glad of that.”
“Do we have to leave the city?” she said. “Was it Olthaaros?”
He went to the desk to retrieve the other half of the paper, unfolded it, and held it up to match the two halves of the control sigil.
“No, I don’t think it was,” said Sethennai. To Csorwe’s immense relief, he sounded intrigued. He never stayed angry when something piqued his interest. “If Olthaaros knew where we were, he would have come for us himself.”
He looked back at the paper. The broken sigil had the quality of an old bloodstain, inert but vivid.
“And I very much doubt that Olthaaros would have primed his curse with ashes of lotus. No. This was a different friend. One who possibly likes me even less.” He smiled to himself. “Still so bitter.”
“I don’t understand,” said Csorwe. She wouldn’t have admitted it if she hadn’t been so exhausted. Her head felt like it was full of slime and pins. With the arrival of relief, all the fight had gone out of her, and she wanted to go to bed. “Are we in danger?”
He was still smiling. It seemed that Csorwe had faded from his list of immediate concerns. “Not imminently. This wasn’t a serious attempt on my life. You were never supposed to open the packet.”
“I know, I shouldn’t have—” she said.
He shook his head. “It was meant for me. You could understand it as part of a game. A little bubble of poison, now lanced. Oranna may want many things, but she doesn’t want me dead.”
“Oranna—you mean that Oranna? The librarian?” said Csorwe.
“She hasn’t ever forgiven me for leaving her in the House of Silence,” he said.
Csorwe still remembered Oranna’s first meeting with Sethennai in the Library, and the look that had passed between them. With a sharp jolt she realised what such a look might have meant.
“You mean—” she started, and couldn’t think how she could possibly phrase it.
It was surprisingly hard to come to terms with the idea of Sethennai having a—having any kind of—well, he wasn’t that old—but maybe she was making a crude assumption and that wasn’t what he’d meant at all?
“Were you … in love?” she said, not meeting his eye. She’d picked the wrong word. Too small and ordinary.
“In love?” said Sethennai. He sounded charmed, as if Csorwe was a parrot that had unexpectedly learned a new word. She shrivelled further into the couch. “Not really, I don’t think,” he said, sounding like he’d never considered it.
She had learned from the Blue Boars about what people might get up to on their own time, and all kinds of words to describe their activities, but even trying to think of Sethennai in the same sentence made a heavy door slam shut in her brain.
She had begun to feel so clever and knowledgeable lately, getting good at swordplay and conjugations, but she had managed to miss this completely. She buried her face in one of the couch cushions to hide her blush. Sethennai, however, had been distracted again by the letter. The matter was evidently closed.
The surface of the desk, around Parza’s lexicon, was grubby with lotus-dust, settled into spirals around the book.
“Hmm,” said Sethennai, poking the book with the end of a pen. “Safety first.”
He retrieved his gauntlets from inside his coat and pulled them on. Csorwe almost never saw him wear them: only when he meant to use magic, it seemed. The gauntlets were made of soft dark leather, and like everything Sethennai owned, they had once been etched with some kind of decoration, now faded with long use and wear.
He removed the lexicon and inspected it, raising his eyebrow. The back cover was scorched and cratered in a deep whorl, and a good chunk of pages were burnt through.
“I’ll have to pay Parza for this,” he said.
“Sorry,” said Csorwe. “It was the nearest thing.”
Sethennai grinned at her. His good mood seemed to be restored, as though Oranna’s letter really had been a fond message from an old friend. “Quick thinking, though. And if you’re going to destroy a book, I’d much rather it be Parza’s than one of mine.”
He returned to the desk. Where the lexicon had been, there was a similar hole burnt into the surface of the desk. Csorwe cringed a little to see it, because the desk had been expensive, but Sethennai was so cheerful that he hardly seemed to notice.
“Now look at this,” he said, scooping up a handful of slender objects from the ruined desk. Csorwe craned her neck to see. Cupped in the palm of his hand was a collection of little bones, most no bigger than a matchstick. They had been imperfectly cleaned, and some were still linked by shreds of dry skin and cartilage. “Oh, we’re lucky that you didn’t completely destroy them. I can use this.”
Csorwe slid farther down on the couch, half listening. She needed a drink of water to wash out the taste of rust, but she couldn’t coax herself into getting up just yet. This news about Oranna had jarred her, and she couldn’t work out why. It wasn’t as though she really thought the House of Silence and all its denizens had ceased to exist the moment she left. But it was not pleasant to learn they were really still so close.
“How did Oranna know our address?” she said, still half buried in the couch.
“I’m afraid that’s because I took the risk of writing to her,” said Sethennai. “She and I spoke long ago about collaborating on our research. I wanted to know whether she was still interested. I suppose this is her answer.”
He was back at his desk, arranging the collection of bones in some kind of order, thimble-sized skull and tiny serrated jawbone and all.
“Guess she said no,” said Csorwe, hoping she was right.
“Hmm,” said Sethennai. “I’m not sure. You see, this is the skeleton of a small bat.”
He sounded bewilderingly pleased. Csorwe muffled a groan in a cushion.
“No such animal is native to northern Oshaar. They like warm places. Oranna has left the House of Silence on her own initiative. This isn’t a denial—it’s an invitation. She must have a lead on the Reliquary.”
* * *
Sethennai left the apartment that night after Csorwe finally went to bed, and took the bat skeleton with him. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear overnight. He was usually back by morning, but Csorwe found herself wishing he had stayed behind. She didn’t think Oranna was about to turn up at the wineshop and demand that Csorwe go back to the Shrine, or anything like that—but the apartment felt less secure, like a still-usable cup with a single crack.