Chapter 30 #2
He forced himself past it. “But also, I’m clear enough how Claudio thinks about Orion, I’d never.
” It was a place that he knew had to be deeply tender.
The place that if he’d been planning how to hurt either of them, that he’d be wanting to aim for.
And so, of course, it was the place that he wanted to help armour, as much as either of them might permit or need.
Before she could say anything more, they were up to the house, and the long terrace that rang along one edge.
There was a faint sound behind them as they went up the stairs to the terrace level, but Matty couldn’t see what small animal it was.
Squirrel, maybe or vole or something like that.
Hypatia indicated the way to a set of wicker furniture.
Two sofas and a separate chair made a little triangle, with tables and cushions in bright teal and gold and purple.
“We could change the angle, if you like?”
He took a look. Either of the sofas would likely give him enough of a reassuringly looming building that he could ignore the expanse of green behind and beside him. And the sofas implied Claudio would be with him. “Give it a try this way? If I need something else, I’ll say so?”
It got him another of those measured smiles, and she let him sit.
It was only a moment or two before Claudio joined him, settling with a tiny bit of space between them.
Then there was a cough from Orion, and Claudio closed that gap, thigh to thigh.
Still entirely appropriate, but deliberate.
Hypatia and Orion were sitting much the same way, with Orion stretching his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
Before anyone said anything— or did anything about drinks, if there were drinks to be had— there was another sound, of claws on the slate tile.
Orion said, his voice both entirely amiable and also suddenly specific, “You’re good keeping confidences from people not in this conversation, yes?
All about other people’s personal matters.
Nothing that goes against any oath you might have made professionally or anything like that. We wouldn’t ask that.”
“Something Claudio knows?” Matty asked immediately, which got a chuckle from Claudio.
“Yes. And Orion’s quite right, it’s someone else’s personal things. The way you wouldn’t say someone else is Uranian, or whatever term we’re currently using.” He seemed entirely amused, but he also shifted to let his hand rest palm down on Matty’s knee.
“Sure. Glad to keep it confidential. I can make oath on it? If Claudio helps with the language?” Matty offered, but that was waved off immediately. Almost at the same moment, there was a sinuous movement of something gloriously brown, like the best bark on a healthy tree.
It took him a moment to make sense of it.
Then he realised there was a flash of white on the chest and belly, and that it was some sort of weasel or stoat.
No, stoat, he knew the difference. It was relevant for materia work, though he’d rarely seen one in the wild.
Or whatever you called a slate terrace facing a large expanse of precisely tended garden.
This one seemed entirely unafraid, prowling up to the space near the empty chair.
The stoat bounded up onto the chair, peered at Matty directly with deep brown-black eyes, before there was a shimmer of something that was pure magic.
Matty blinked at the worst time, but when he could see again, there was a woman sitting there.
Cammie. Of course he knew her on sight. He’d been in classes with her for five years, and he’d spotted her at May Day.
It did not remotely help. Her brown skin was lighter than the stoat’s fur, but her hair was darker, so perhaps it came out somewhere between?
And perhaps he was not entirely connected with reality quite this moment, if he was thinking along those lines.
He took a breath, feeling Claudio’s hand on his leg, swallowed, and remembered how words went together, making a try for sentences. “Cammie.” A pause, more than the name was a trick right now. “Pardon, have you always been able to do that?”
She laughed, her curls dancing, and then she tucked one leg under the other, entirely defying ladylike posture.
“For that, you get the first choice of the drinks. You’ve definitely earned one.
Actually, you’d be able to figure it out, depending on how much attention you were paying when we were in school.
My eyes changed colour when I figured out the shifting. Blue eyes on a stoat would look odd.”
There were about three score questions he now had, but he would be polite.
About Orion’s hand, about Cammie’s four legs, about whatever else was going to be flung his way this evening.
He had expected some challenges, but he had to admit he had not remotely anticipated these.
“It explains the question Claudio had about rabbits. You were following along from the portal?”
“Oh, you are clever. Well, still clever. You were clever then, too.” Cammie bounced up on her feet. “What will you have? I can make quite a good run of cocktails. Or there’s always decent brandy, we keep some local Sussex cider on hand here....”
Matty glanced at Claudio, who shrugged. “My friends will do what they will. Nicely handled, though. Cider, if Matty doesn’t know what he wants, Cammie. For me too. We’re sure where we stand with cider.”
That, now, was what tipped Matty over the edge and into giggles. Claudio’s hand on his knee twitched once and shifted to pat him on the shoulder while he tried to regain his composure. Then there was a voice in his ear. “Arm good?”
Matty managed a nod, and before he’d finished, there was an arm slipping around his shoulder, perfectly placed, settling there like Claudio had done it a thousand times before.