Chapter 36
In Which Hydna Has Taken Me on Another Wandering, Shouting Tour and Has Thoroughly Depleted Me of All Bodily Energy.
In Which My Limbs Are Something Akin to Undercooked Bread, In Which My Brain Has the Exhausted Inflexibility of Overcooked Bread, and In Which, Finally, I Am Hoping to Rest and Regain a Resemblance to Normal Bread.
I could tell night had fallen, as the rippling sunlight had tapered to black, leaving a dome of ink above me. I could also tell because I was yawning.
In my stumbling journey back to the inn, I rubbed at my eyes, repeatedly, and thus nearly tripped over the pile stacked before our bedroom door.
It contained, neatly parceled: my sword, my awful corpse clothing, the various baubles I’d picked off the ground, and some cleaning supplies I’d begged off Hydna.
“Uh . . . Merulo?” I gathered my belongings in one arm, and with some trepidation, opened the door.
At first, I thought a mummified animal had been left on our bed as a macabre gift. Then I recognized the sorcerer. He lay facing the wall, so that all I saw was black cloak and bony shoulders.
I took slow, tentative steps into the room, floorboards creaking. “Merulo?”
“Do not think,” he drawled without turning, “that, absent an eye, I am blind. Hydna is a charming individual—”
“Hm,” I said.
“And a healthy one.” His shoulders curled. “I’m sure her strength and stamina are not without appeal—”
“Hey! Your stamina is fine.”
“And you do lie,” he concluded. “You lie to me, and you lie to others. Constantly. Do not try to deny it, for that itself will be a lie. You are not isolated with me anymore. You no longer have to act in . . . in certain ways, in the hopes that I will save you. She has not hurt you, she has not been cruel to you, and so if you like her—”
“Merulo,” I said flatly. “She would crush my pelvis to dust. Can I put my stuff back now?”
“It is my preference that you leave.”
“I already left once, and we saw how that turned out.” I regretted this immediately as the form on the bed flinched.
Hesitantly, not sure what else to say, I tucked my clothes into a drawer, leaned my sword against a wall, and returned the baubles to the places I’d deemed decoratively fitting.
I set a blown-glass fish beside a lamp to better catch the light.
A rearing unicorn (which, bizarrely, lacked a horn), found its home on our dresser.
My plastic shell-mirror, I set on the bedside table, so that I might examine myself in the mornings.
This last placement brought me uncomfortably close to Merulo. For a moment I stood there, wondering at how he managed to breathe so angrily.
“I’m not lying to you. Really.” I sat on the bed beside him. “I mean, if you’re asking whether I have lied, then yes, there is a possibility—”
“Cameron—”
“—I don’t actually find your lectures on astronomy intuitive, and I’m sorry about that—”
“Cameron.”
“But I’m not lying about . . . whatever it is you think I am. Honestly, this is just confusing.” I flopped down with a sigh, bouncing the bed with enough force to throw Merulo into the air. He let out a strangled yell.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. The sorcerer’s brief journey toward the ceiling had thrown his hair into his face, and now he sat up, glowering at me. “It’s just—can we enjoy this brief window where nothing terrible is happening? Please?”
“I am impairing your enjoyment.”
“Yes!” I said, grateful to have broken through to him. “Yes, you are.”
“You don’t want Hydna.”
“No.” I paused. “Or rather, as a friend. But she’s not who I want.”
Merulo muttered something dark under his breath. I couldn’t quite make out the words, so decided to hazard a guess. “Your stamina is fine,” I repeated, and patted his back reassuringly.
And that seemed to settle it, for shortly thereafter I fell asleep.