Chapter Eight
HOWEVER MUCH ERIC wanted to stay by Ix’s bedside, making sure he was all right, other business pulled him away.
It wasn’t as if Ix was short on friends to come and entertain him, and King Ruben had countermanded Ix’s standing wishes to have no servants in his wing.
A nervous-looking page boy now stood on attention at the end of each corridor with strict commands to run toward any threatening noises.
Eric felt ridiculous at the amount of concern he felt. Ix was only two rooms over. The estate managers – whom Eric still had difficult thinking of as his estate managers and not his father’s – had what seemed like a host of new questions every time he thought he made a decision and could move on.
Petra came by after he sent her a page full of scribbles on things he wanted her opinion on.
He’d missed this. They’d shared a reception room at home, a parlor when they had friends visiting or pushing the sofa and armchair back against the wall when they didn’t to make room for Petra’s easel and paints or for Eric to practice his swordwork.
Whenever Father had started making noises about arranging his marriage, Eric had always hoped that his relationship with Lydia could be like that, mutually existing together in a shared place with their separate interests.
In hindsight, perhaps he should have examined the idea that his perfect marriage would be like his platonic relationship with his twin sister more closely.
In any case, the man was dead and Eric didn’t need to pretend to anyone that he was going to bother with going through the motions anymore.
Eric was good at seeing the overarching picture; Petra had a better eye for how small details might have a ripple effect.
Together, they thrashed their way through ten pages about land rentals and farming agreements and expenses for a manor in the countryside neither of them had been out to in years.
“There, that wasn’t too bad. And, it’s much easier to talk through in person when I’m not trying to decipher your unintelligible handwriting,” said Petra brightly. It was the most lively Eric had seen her in months; clearly she needed some purpose and debate in her life.
“Thank you. Are you sure you don’t want to come the next time I go talk to them?” asked Eric again.
“Absolutely not, that’s your headache to have,” said Petra, pushing the stack of paper back at him pointedly.
“But I was thinking, do you think we should do something with the gardens? I know they’ve belonged to the country house for centuries and it’s all very traditional and the done thing, but, well, it could help shore up the debts. ”
Even though they colloquially called them the country house and the city house, the country house was more of a manor.
House Marrawton was around four times the size of the city house, but lay mostly empty with a skeleton staff from the local town doing the upkeep most of the year.
Occasionally, their father had gone back to see the affairs, but only for a week or so each time, but Eric hadn’t been since Mother had passed.
He should probably plan a trip up reasonably soon, at least to see the state of it with his own eyes.
“What do you mean, sell off the land to farmers or the temple or something?” asked Eric.
“I don’t know, it was merely an idea. The woodland’s spoken for but the gardens themselves are huge and since we don’t live there, I’m sure they’re just tended to and empty. I just saw in one of these notes here that we’re paying three gardeners for its upkeep right now.”
It did seem like a waste when Petra put it like that. And despite her words, Eric assumed she had some inklings of things they could do with it instead or she wouldn’t have brought it up. “All right then. Why don’t you think of something?”
“Me?” Petra looked at him with surprise.
“Why not? Not to sound mercantile about it, but turning it into some source of income would ease things a lot. And like you said, it’s not as if we’re using it.
” Eric was warming up to the idea. It would give her something to do, something to organize as well.
She scrunched her face up for a moment, as if trying to think of some protest, and then clearly decided that she quite liked the idea as well. Good.
“Fine. I’ll let you know when I have a plan. And since this is all sorted, I’m going in to visit poor Ix,” said Petra.
“Don’t baby him too much, he’s milking the attention,” said Eric, as if he weren’t the one bestowing said attention. He waved her out as he turned to their notes to put them together in a coherent manner for Roger Williams before he forgot.
Some indeterminate time later, Eric startled when Petra appeared out of nowhere and gave him a jab in the side. “You need to go talk to him.”
“Gods! Where did you come from?” Eric looked up at her. When had it gotten so dark outside? And how long had she been talking to Ix? She saw him squinting and lit the candles. “Talk to Ix? What about?”
“He’s just received some letters and one of them made him awfully upset.
He held back while I was there but I could tell he was up for a good round of hitting things so I left him to it.
Gosh, he does look different without his eyes and his teeth and all that, doesn’t he?
A little less majestic, but don’t tell him I said that. ”
Eric made a face. There was a thud in the near distance, which meant Ix had definitely escalated to throwing things. “Gods, I wonder if it’s from Lymond.”
“Damian? Oh no, have they fallen out?” asked Petra. Ah, Eric had forgotten that Lymond’s spell had only been broken for him. That meant she probably still remembered their good friend Damian, who had been at court for three years. He should probably tell her, but he’d shelve it for later.
“Um, somewhat. It’s complicated, I’ll tell you later. I’ll go talk to him. Thank you. And I’ll ask if I need any other help with the estate. And don’t forget to think about what you want to do with the country gardens.”
“Of course. The other note was from Gareth by the way, some of the others are on their way over soon.”
Eric pulled back properly from his desk. Petra looked like she was on her way out. “You aren’t staying to say hello?”
“Not tonight, I don’t think. Make my excuses for me?” said Petra ruefully. “I know they mean well, they sent flowers to the house and all, but I’m not in a lively mind and I don’t want to bring the mood down.”
Eric understood. At least Petra had somewhere to run off to – it would feel too deliberate if he didn’t at least pop his head in to greet them if he was only down the corridor. “Yes, of course. They’ll understand.”
“Thank you. You’re doing a good job. Here, and over there,” she said, gesturing in the direction of Ix’s rooms. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and left him to it. Eric hurried down the corridor as he heard another noise.
“I lost him. Fuck!” Ixthan swore. He was pacing up and down the room, hands clenched.
His hair was unbound, rolling down around his shoulders unstyled since he wasn’t exactly leaving his rooms these days.
Eric wanted to press his face into it, feel the fullness of it against his skin.
But then, that wasn’t a new thought for him; he shook it off.
Eric let Ix cuss it out before asking: “Who?”
“Damaris. Damian. Whatever the fuck he wants to call himself. Lymond. Jasper got to him while I was languishing away, made him some sort of deal that let him get out from under mine. Damnit!” Ix picked up a stone paperweight from his desk and hurled it across the room.
Eric no longer even batted an eyelash at this outburst – Ix used to have five a day when they’d been younger, adolescence not being a phenomenon that demons usually had to deal with.
Apparently they just formed, completely cognizant and largely formed of singular emotions.
It said something of both Ix’s temperament and habit that this paperweight had been magicked to reappear on his desk whenever that happened.
They both didn’t mention how Ix’s strength was so compromised that the stone made a dull little thump instead of its usual harsh crack.
“Damaris? Is that his real name? What did he say?”
Ix pointed at the offending letter, crumpled on his desk, and then threw himself into a chair so violently it rocked precariously onto its back legs. The reply was unhelpfully in some demonic script which presumably Ix could read and had forgotten that Eric couldn’t.
“I wanted to learn more pure magic from him. His understanding of raw energy is unlike anything I’ve even heard of from the Magisterium,” said Ix with a groan.
Somewhere beneath the anger was a sense of despair, of longing, of having something he had deeply coveted so close and yet so far.
“There’s so much the Magisterium doesn’t know, because their only experience of magic is through demonic summonings that I didn’t even know how much they didn’t know. ”
It took Eric several moments to parse that particular sentence.
He still wasn’t sure he got it completely, but it seemed a convoluted way to call his father’s mages ignorant.
He would have to put that aside for now, since he didn’t know enough about the Magisterium to verbally spar with Ix the way he’d want.
And if there was a tiny part of him that was jealous at how passionately Ixthan spoke about Damian…
well, Eric was very good at repressing it.
“And what’s this deal with your brother?” asked Eric. Trying to keep Ix on track to get the full context of a story was like pulling teeth sometimes.
“I haven’t a farthing, he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. I have no idea how he got out from my binding oath.” Ixthan scowled, his anger turning the tide into petulance. Eric always thought he was cute when he did this, like a pouting child, not that he would say that to Ix’s face.