5. The Blanket
The Blanket
Miles
T he walk in the dark from the austere grandeur of the Spires, across one of the many bridges spanning the Aver, to the lively environs of the Bent took an hour. Long enough for the laughter to fade, for the adrenaline to drain, for the full weight of what they’d witnessed to settle upon them.
Gabriel’s fingers twitched in Miles’s grip. Not the usual restless energy, the kind that made his hands dance when he talked, but something tighter. Controlled. As if one wrong move would make him fly apart.
The Mourning Lark’s stained-glass windows cast jagged blue and crimson shards across the cobblestones as Miles pushed open the heavy oak door.
The scent of roasted meat, pipe smoke, and something faintly floral—rose perfume, maybe—wrapped around them.
The common room hummed with low conversation, the clink of glasses, and the occasional burst of laughter from a booth near the back.
A musician plucked a lute in the corner, the notes weaving through the murmur.
Gabriel’s fingers tightened.
Miles squeezed back and leaned close. “I’m going to grab us some food. Go on up?”
A nod.
Miles detoured to the kitchens while Gabriel headed for the stairs. He ordered sandwiches to be sent up to the room, then took the stairs two at a time to their room on the third floor. Miles slipped inside and closed it behind him, turning the lock .
The space was as they’d left it that morning. Four-poster bed with its dark blue velvet curtains tied back. Two armchairs facing the small hearth with the fire already lit. Their four trunks against the wall, still mostly—overly optimistically—packed.
Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed, bent over his boots. His fingers fumbled with the laces.
Miles crossed to the oil lamps mounted on the walls and lit them one by one. He left the one by the bed for last, setting the wick just bright enough to read by.
When he turned back, Gabriel had gotten one boot off. The other lace had tangled. His hands shook. Tension radiated from every line of his body.
Miles moved to the two trunks containing their respective wardrobes and opened them. “I’ll unpack a bit. We’re clearly going to be here longer than we’d hoped.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Miles busied himself with their trunks, needing to put at least one thing in its proper place.
He optimistically set their vial of oil and cleansing cloth in the nightstand drawer.
His cold light charm in its necklace and reading glasses went next to the lamp.
Behind him, he heard the soft thump of Gabriel’s second boot hitting the floor.
He stripped off his own boots and waistcoat. His fingers worked the buttons of his shirt. Fabric rustled behind him. Gabriel undressing.
Miles kept his back turned. Gave him space.
He folded his clothes, set them aside, and pulled on his sleep pants—soft linen, drawstring waist—nothing else. The night air was cool against his skin.
A knock at the door.
Miles answered it, accepted the tray from the server with murmured thanks, and set it on the small table between the armchairs. He poured a glass of water, drank half of it, then turned. “Eat?”
Gabriel had changed. Sleep pants and bare skin, pale and perfect in the lamplight. He stood by the window, arms crossed, staring out at nothing.
“Later.”
Miles put on his glasses and picked up his book from the bedside table—a treatise on ward construction he’d been working through—and climbed into the bed on his side. He propped the pillow against the headboard and opened the book .
On good nights, Gabriel would curl against him. Tuck himself under Miles’s arm and read with him, occasionally making snarky comments about whatever dry academic tome Miles had chosen or salacious ones if they had chosen a novel. On their best nights, the book would fall forgotten to the floor.
Tonight, Gabriel crossed to the bed and sat on the far edge.
Miles studied him over the top of his book. Saw the way Gabriel’s hands curled into the bedding as he tucked himself beneath it. The way he leaned as if to move closer, then stopped. Drew back.
Forward. Back.
Miles set the book down, took off his glasses, and got out of bed.
Gabriel’s head came up. “What—”
“One moment.”
He went to the third trunk, the one with the miscellaneous items as well as their battle gear. Dug past the lot until his fingers found the familiar weight.
The blanket was thick, woven from some special wool Miles couldn’t pronounce. Weighted with tiny glass beads sewn into channels throughout. And charmed with a minor enchantment Miles had layered into it himself.
He activated the warming charm and carried it back to the bed.
Gabriel’s mouth did something complicated. Not quite a smile. Not quite a grimace.
“Really?”
“If you like.”
Gabriel took it. Shoved the other bedding aside. Unfolded the blanket. Wrapped himself until only his face showed and then adjusted until even that disappeared except for his nose poking through a gap at the top.
A cocoon of weighted warmth.
Miles climbed back into bed, settling against his pillow. He put on his glasses, picked up his book, found his place, and tried to focus on the text.
A hand emerged from the blanket.
Miles set the book down and took it. Gabriel’s fingers were cold.
“Better?”
Silence. Then a muffled sound that might have been words.
“Gabby?”
“Can’t—” Gabriel’s voice came out rough. “The house. It just. I can’t.”
Miles squeezed his hand. “We’ll figure it out. ”
Another silence.
“This was not a quick signature, cinnamon rolls, and a trip home.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I promise if I can’t fix it, I’ll give a life of piracy more consideration.”
Another silence.
Miles reached over, took off his glasses, and turned down the last lamp, giving up on the book in favor of sorting his thoughts. Darkness folded around them, broken only by the faint glow of streetlights filtering through the window.
He lay on his back, Gabriel’s hand in his.
Listened to Gabriel breathe.
Waited.
Miles stared at the ceiling and tried to think.
The house.
He went back through the evening. Professional distance. Cataloguing evidence. The exact sort of intellectual exercise that usually settled him.
The door that wouldn’t open. Resistant, not locked. As if something on the other side had been holding it shut.
Consistent with a haunt, perhaps. Spectral entities could manipulate physical objects, though it required effort. More effort than most ghosts could sustain for long.
The cold. Unnatural, penetrating. The kind that sank into bone.
Also consistent. Temperature drops were a common manifestation.
The wailing. The chains.
Classic auditory phenomena. Textbook haunting.
But then the stairs. That had shifted his assessment entirely.
A physical transformation. Stone steps becoming a slide. Active, deliberate sabotage. And when they’d used the adhesive paste, the stairs had fought back . Bucking. Shifting. Trying to dislodge them.
That level of sustained, complex physical manipulation was beyond any ghost he’d ever heard of. Spectral entities were limited by their nature: echoes, fragments, emotional residue given form. They could slam doors. Flicker lights. Maybe fling stuff about if they were particularly strong.
They didn’t reshape architecture.
Unless .
Miles turned the thought over. A ghost triggering pre-existing charms? Madaze had been paranoid. Could have layered defensive magic throughout the house that the ghost might have activated.
But that didn’t feel right either. Wards followed rules. Parameters. They didn’t adapt . And the stairs had adapted. They’d recognized the adhesive paste as a countermeasure and changed tactics.
That suggested something with intelligence and the power to create a new, more appropriate magical effect.
And then the fire. The bones had ignited on their own, the flames roaring to life without Miles lifting a finger to cast. Both were beyond the powers of a haunt and vastly unlikely as some kind of pre-established spell that could be triggered by one.
He shifted, careful not to disturb Gabriel’s hand in his. This was a puzzle. There were pieces he wasn’t seeing. Variables for which he couldn’t account.
The house itself.
The thought surfaced unbidden, and he almost dismissed it. But it lingered. A being infusing the structure. Not haunting it but being it. Something more than a ghost or poltergeist. Something... else .
Miles knew his limitations and his strengths.
Combat magic? He was among the very best. Theoretical frameworks of the defined crafting and component-based casting methodologies of Tenibrian practitioners?
A passion as well as a competency. But this kind of spontaneous, reactive magic?
This wasn’t his forte. Neither were the undead, though that was hardly his fault.
There was little to learn about the undead from the libraries of the United Guild of Magical Practitioners.
Averly (and Lyonnor, as far as Miles knew) didn’t have a necromancy practice.
The undead existed in plenitude on the Veil Isles and occasionally appeared in Averly, but what was known about their making or nature amounted to folklore, and any that appeared within the boundary of Averly were destroyed on sight.
Madaze would have been, if he had not had his connections to protect him, and was, when the Order was successful in exposing his transformation to the Regency.
Gabriel had lived with a vampire for years and yet had been able to tell them little about Madaze’s transformation, only that one day he had appeared as a vampire instead of a man, and they were all compelled to hide it for him as they had been compelled to hide his illegal magic use before then .