Chapter Six
Two days later, as evening was consumed by the gentle quiet of dusk, there was a knock at the door.
Cyrus had expected no knock. He’d assumed that either Maximillian wouldn’t show up at all, shying away despite his earlier
bravado, or he would barge inside without warning, sword in hand. Cyrus was ready for that, sitting with his eyes fixed on
the door and a pair of daggers laid out on his lap.
But the knock came, soft, the barest brush of knuckles; and then Maximillian’s voice, pitched low. “Earthshaker?”
Cyrus rose with a frown, tucking one dagger into his belt and keeping the other at hand. He lurked behind the door for a few
moments, in case the champion did try to storm in, but all was quiet.
Strange.
He cracked open the door an inch to reveal Maximillian, alone, halfway through a furtive glance over his own shoulder. His
chestnut horse grazed a few paces away. He looked back sharply at the creak of the wood, his eyes meeting Cyrus’s.
For one long moment they stared at each other through the narrow gap. Then Cyrus scowled.
“Thought you were going to try and kill me,” he complained. He’d put effort into sharpening his blades and everything.
Maximillian looked affronted. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“You knocked. Why would you knock if you were going to try and kill me?”
“Maybe I’m exceedingly confident in my abilities,” the champion muttered.
Cyrus squinted at him suspiciously. That much seemed true. But Maximillian’s hand was nowhere near his sword, and he was looking
at Cyrus expectantly, like he was waiting for an invitation to come inside.
He would be waiting a little longer. Cyrus was not in the habit of welcoming people into his lair. A noisy sigh escaped, petulant,
and the gap between door and frame stayed obstinately narrow.
“Why bother coming if you’re not here to kill me,” he grumbled. “Waste of time.”
An eyebrow arched. “You had better things to do, I take it?”
He would have enjoyed a long hot bath with candles and scented oils if Maximillian hadn’t placed his odious self on Cyrus’s doorstep.
Cyrus really should have just tried his luck at persuading a tree to squish him in Arclee, and all the witnesses too. Maximillian’s
continued existence was very inconvenient.
But he could, at least, wipe that smirk off Maximillian’s face. Cyrus leaned against his doorframe, keeping his tone idle. “Lots of things to do. Bottling the blood of my enemies. Scaring babies. Selling organs on the black market for profit. Not my own. Obviously.”
Maximillian eyed him like he couldn’t tell whether Cyrus was being serious or not. Cyrus stared back impassively.
The champion exhaled. He seemed ill at ease. Cyrus supposed he couldn’t blame him. It must feel an awful lot like a fly visiting
a spider. He paused to enjoy that thought, then daydreamed about wrapping Maximillian up in a web and sticking him to the
ceiling.
Maximillian made an impatient noise. “Can I come in?”
Cyrus drummed his fingers against the door indecisively. He didn’t want Maximillian in his lair, dirtying Cyrus’s hard-stolen belongings with his stupid noble hands. But on his own head be it if
he wanted to come inside.
“Suppose,” he said. He didn’t step aside but shifted his weight slightly, forcing Maximillian to squeeze past him. He cast
Cyrus an annoyed look as he did, which Cyrus enjoyed. Less enjoyable was the brush of Maximillian’s body against his. He was
warm and very solid and Cyrus had no choice but to inhale the scent he wore, something woody and masculine. He was glad that
he already had an incense stick burning by the window, flavouring the air with a trace of musky sweetness. He didn’t want
his home to smell of Maximillian.
Cyrus closed the door behind them, glancing at Maximillian to see if he reacted to the scrape of the lock. He didn’t—not visibly,
at least. But there was tension in the slope of his shoulders.
It was tempting to hover as Maximillian looked around, but that wouldn’t go well with his cool and imperious display.
Cyrus walked over to his brooding chair and threw himself into it with one leg slung out over one arm, letting his dagger rest on the other.
From under his lashes he discreetly glanced around, trying to see his lair as Maximillian would.
A scattering of tall candles cast a flickering glow, weeping wax and throwing out undulating shadows as Maximillian’s eyes
moved from Cyrus’s kitchen, pans of all shapes and sizes secured to the wall and a rack of herb jars glinting in the low light,
to the velvet veil that separated his sleeping quarters. Then his attention was caught by one of the pieces of artwork on
the walls. Maximillian stepped forward, hand twitching by his side, as though suppressing the urge to reach out and touch
the parchment with its abstract splotches of purple and lilac and lavender.
“Earthshaker original,” said Cyrus, lounging as casually as he could. “Highly sought after. You wouldn’t be able to afford
it.”
Maximillian scoffed. “Want to bet?”
“Wouldn’t want you to lose your coin.” Cyrus clucked his tongue. “You might have to take up a new sponsorship deal. Sign on
a dotted line and make small talk with some guild masters. Sounds like hard work. Not sure you’re up to it.”
Maximillian’s glance was sharp. But he didn’t respond to the needling, only gave the rest of his lair a cursory once-over
and then said, blandly, “Nice place.”
Cyrus would have been insulted by the underlying sarcasm if not for the fact that Maximillian’s sweeping gaze had found his thumb jar, sitting innocuously in the window.
He visibly recoiled. Cyrus was pleased he’d thought to remove the linen cloth he usually left covering it.
It hadn’t exactly proven to be the hobby for him, mostly just an attempt to scare the locals, and the bag of thumbs had been blackmailed from a gravedigger anyway.
But the look of revulsion on Maximillian’s face made it worthwhile.
But Maximillian was not here to admire his thumb collection. Cyrus fixed him with a penetrating look.
“Why are you here?”
Maximillian rocked back on his heels. “You said you’d talk.”
“Yeah,” Cyrus drawled. “I have to say, I wasn’t really expecting you to want to talk. I thought you’d—”
“Try to kill you, yeah, you said,” Maximillian interrupted. It almost felt like a novelty; most wouldn’t dare interrupt a
wrongdoer. “No, I do want to talk. Because—” He stopped. Cyrus watched his shoulders tighten further and then forcibly relax.
“I meant what I said in that interview, about the monotony. About wanting things to be different. And I have a suggestion
for how that could work, but for that I need—”
Another abrupt stop. He was struggling to get the last word out, like it tasted rotten in his mouth. Cyrus waited.
“You,” said Maximillian stiffly. “For that, I need you.”
Cyrus’s eyebrows shot up before he could school his features. Of all the things for Maximillian to say, he had not been expecting
that. What could he possibly be planning that would lower him to coming here and admitting that he needed a wrongdoer’s help?
Although . . . discomfort was a good look on him. Cyrus eyed him contemplatively. It was quite fun, having a champion outside his comfort zone. He’d thought Maximillian was playing games, but perhaps the game belonged to Cyrus.
He let Maximillian stand there for a few more moments, tight-lipped and uncomfortable, whilst he considered. Then Cyrus said,
“Do you want a drink?”
Maximillian eyed him sceptically. Cyrus put on his very best smile, which only served to make the champion look more wary.
“I assume you’re going to try and poison me?”
Cyrus opened his eyes wide. “Do I look like I would do that to a guest?”
Maximillian looked pointedly at the thumb jar.
“They weren’t guests,” said Cyrus.
Maximillian stared at him. A handful of seconds ticked by. Then he shrugged one shoulder, an attempt at nonchalance. “Fine.
A drink would be good. As long as it doesn’t have anything weird in it.” Shame. “I’ll have whatever you’re having, I suppose.”
“I was going to make myself a cocktail.”
“What cocktail?”
“Champion’s Bane,” said Cyrus, straight-faced.
“That doesn’t exist.”
“It does in wrongdoer bars.”
“There are no bars just for wrongdoers.”
Yes, and for good reason. “How would you know?”
Maximillian just shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. Make me a Champion’s Bane.”
“Make me a Champion’s Bane, please,” Cyrus corrected. He took the irritated glance as a win and hid his own pleasure as he went to make their drinks.
Cyrus lingered over the cocktail. The sheer wrongness of having Maximillian here was giddying, and concentrating on the drinks
gave him the chance to get that under control. It wouldn’t do to let the champion think he affected Cyrus in any way. He poured
out well-matured mead, honey gold and all the sweeter for the fact he’d stolen it from a birthday party, with blackberries
he’d coaxed into ripening early because he was fond of baking with them. A billowing cloud of purple swamped the gold as he
gave the drink a shake. A sprig of lemongrass from the pot under his windowsill provided a tangy note, and as a final touch
Cyrus added a generous glug of whisky. Then another, because ideally he wanted this to burn.
When he turned, he found that Maximillian had made himself comfortable on the couch. Cyrus expected him to look out of place,
but he didn’t, with one arm extended up along the back of the couch and a leg curled under him. His boot was touching the
upholstery. Cyrus breathed deeply and told himself he was too cool to care, thrusting the goblet at the champion and trying
not to be obvious about it as he deliberated over where to sit. Maximillian was right in the middle, which meant he would
have to sit closer than he would have liked. But he didn’t want to go back to his brooding chair and look like he was retreating.