CHAPTER 17
C HAPTER 17
B EFORE SETH EVEN KNOCKED, Julian’s door opened, and he found himself standing there with his knuckles raised and Adavasti floating at head height.
“Password?” the ifrit prompted.
“Password?” Seth echoed.
The little blue creature blinked his large citrine eyes. His thin fingers drummed the edge of the door, and the lower half of his body, which was a tapering tail of blue smoke, waved lazily side to side like a cat’s. With the horned brat still banned from the library, Seth hadn’t seen him over the past week as he’d worked with Julian to gather all possible information on Ulam and the Alchemist’s Stone. Somehow, he’d managed to forget what a pain in the ass the ifrit was.
“No entry without the password,” Adavasti informed him archly.
“Julian!” Seth shouted.
Adavasti stuck out his small blue tongue between his sharp teeth, blew a raspberry at Seth, and slammed the door.
Seth raised his knuckles again, but, again, the door opened before he could knock. This time, it was Julian who opened it. Looking frazzled, he motioned Seth inside with his free hand. His other held a glass cup. It was hard to say what had Julian looking so frazzled. Adavasti hovering behind him? Or whatever was bubbling so aggressively in that cup?
“Adavasti, how many times do I have to tell you, there is no password,” Julian muttered distractedly.
Adavasti planted his tiny fists on his smoky hips. “Jewel-man, it’s for security purposes!”
Julian cast an anxious look at the cup as pink smoke began to billow up from inside it. “I don’t think a password is a very effective—”
When the smoke turned white, Julian’s eyes bugged. He spun and raced across the room, his purple robes flapping as he darted around an absolute chaos of bowls, cups, tools, scraps of leather and metal, and stacks of books. Reaching the open window, Julian flung the cup through. There was a boom and fizzle, then angry shouts could be heard from below.
“Sorry!” Julian called out then closed the window. He turned to face the room only to startle at finding Adavasti inches away.
“You don’t understand security purposes, Jewel-man! Anyone could come in here! They could murder you! Then what would Adavasti do?”
“Find someone else to annoy, I imagine!” Julian retorted.
Adavasti gasped and drew back. His smoky tail lashed angrily for a second, then he hissed at Julian and flew straight at the closed window.
“Adavasti, wait! I’m—”
The ifrit blasted through the shutters, leaving a smoky hole without even jostling them on their hinges.
“—sorry,” Julian finished on a sigh. He shook his head then turned to Seth. “I shouldn’t have said that. He’ll pout for days.”
“Maybe you two are spending too much time together.”
“He really is helpful, he’s just …”
“Obnoxious. What are you going to do if you want a girlfriend someday?”
Although, given the messy room, the stench of whatever had just blown up, and Julian’s ill-advised haircut, there might be a few additional hurdles. (Especially the haircut. Clearly, Julian wanted to hide the reddish birthmark at his temple, but Seth had seen it before and it was actually pretty cool looking. The thick fringe of bangs, however, was not.)
“Oh,” Julian chuckled uncomfortably, “I don’t think I’ll worry about that.”
“A boyfriend then.”
Seth didn’t know what made him say it. Curiosity perhaps. Raider had this crazy notion that Julian had a crush on him, but there had been no signs of it.
The one thing Raider was likely correct about was Julian being a virgin. Maybe that was why Seth was opening the subject. If Julian needed advice, he probably didn’t have anyone to ask, and Seth had developed a sort of big brotherly feeling toward the kid.
But Julian did not take Seth’s opening. With pink spots blooming on his smooth cheeks, Julian walked to a table and turned off an arcane burner that was glowing red.
“Do you need me in the library?” he asked, not looking at Seth. “I thought we were done researching.”
“I actually need help with this.” Seth pulled the arcane scope from his utility belt and walked over to Julian’s cluttered worktable. “It keeps jamming.”
Julian took the scope from Seth. “I still can’t believe this is what gave me away.”
“I still can’t believe you don’t want it back.”
Julian shrugged. “You have more use for it than I do.”
Julian sat on a wooden stool. Setting down the scope, he picked up his … whatever he called that headgear from amid the table’s clutter and put it on. He rotated the magnifying lens down in front of his eye, fished a few tiny tools from under an open book, and started fiddling.
Seth crossed his arms. “Can I ask you something?”
“Mm-hmm,” Julian agreed absently.
“In confidence.”
Julian paused his work and looked up at Seth, his magnified eye blinking through the lens. He rotated the lens away from his eye.
The kid said seriously, “If it’s a dangerous secret, you probably shouldn’t tell me. I don’t think I’d hold up well under torture.”
“Oh, fuck, it’s not like that. I’m just wondering … I mean, you read Kahzir’s book and you’re a brilliant arcanist—” Julian’s cheeks went pink again. “—so I was wondering whether you think it’s possible …”
Trailing off, Seth walked to the window and stared out through the burn hole that Adavasti had left. He didn’t like talking about this without Raider’s knowledge, but this might be his last chance to ask Julian. They were leaving on their hunt tomorrow, and Julian would not be going. He was better off here. Zarina had no reason to harm him. Besides, the empress had already sent a ship to Masir to have Kahzir seized. Once Kahzir was out of the Arcanum, Julian could return there. If Seth was going to ask, he had to ask now.
“Whether what’s possible?” Julian prompted.
Seth turned to face him. “For Raider’s quicksilver to be removed.”
“Ah.” Julian’s expression grew pensive. “That’s really outside my expertise.”
“I should fucking hope so.”
“So I’d only be guessing.”
“Stop beating around the bush. What’s your guess?”
“Well … my guess is no. It’s so deeply enmeshed in his body. And quicksilver is a strange material, arcane in the fullest sense of the word. It’s a mystery that’s never really been solved.”
“And yet it’s heavily used,” Seth pointed out. “It’s in almost all of my equipment.”
“Yes, in trace amounts. It’s there to help the components interface—one might even say … communicate—in an arcane device. Like your glove and chakram sort of … speak to each other.”
“I feel like you’re trying to imply something, but I don’t know what it is.”
Julian took off his headgear and scrubbed at his face in a way that made Seth nervous. Then he asked, “How much of Kahzir’s book did you read?”
Seth bristled at the question. “Almost nothing,” he answered tightly, hoping Julian would assume that he hadn’t had a chance. The truth, which was that Raider hadn’t wanted him to read it, hurt too much to admit.
Julian had read the book. By now others had read the book. Why were they allowed to know things that Seth wasn’t?
Julian said, “There are many theories about quicksilver and why it behaves like it does. One theory is that it’s … sentient, at least to some degree. That’s certainly what Kahzir believed.”
On a certain level, Seth knew he should end the conversation. Raider had asked Seth not to read the book. Learning about the book from Julian was a violation of Raider’s trust, even if that hadn’t been Seth’s intention when he came in here. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop Julian.
The young arcanist went on, “Kahzir hypothesized that quicksilver, if fully integrated into an organic body, would able to respond to the will of its bearer. I only saw Raider use the quicksilver once, but it did indeed look like a very organic manipulation. Like it was responding to his will.”
“But why Raider ?” Seth burst out. “Why the hell didn’t Kahzir implant the quicksilver in someone sympathetic to his cause? I mean, I get that it must have pleased him to use his brother’s lover, but surely an ally would’ve been more useful.”
Julian stared at him like he was an idiot. “But all his allies would’ve been human.”
That took a long, long time to penetrate.
Even then… “What the hell did you just say?”
Julian took on the startled rabbit look that Seth remembered from the past. “Um … I mean … that was Kahzir’s speculation. And it’s the only possible explanation for Raider surviving not only the surgeries but also the quicksilver’s toxicity. I thought you knew. I thought surely Raider would’ve told you.”
Seth’s ass hit the ground. Julian scuttled up from his stool and came to crouch by Seth. His slim hands hovered uncertainly. “Gods, Seth, are you okay?”
Seth’s mind raced through the facts, trying to sort them. “That’s why he heals so fast.”
“Presumably. His body is constantly repairing damage from the quicksilver. That’s why I think it would be dangerous to remove it. It’s been part of his system for ten years. Suddenly remove it, and who knows how his body might react.”
“But he’s in pain.”
“I know,” Julian said quietly.
Seth closed his eyes, thinking about the way Raider had gritted his teeth this morning as Seth had helped him stretch. Raider was sleeping better, with fewer nightmares, but that meant he was waking up stiffer. Hurting. It fucking killed Seth to see it.
That was what mattered. That was why Seth had come here to talk to Julian.
He hadn’t come here to dig into Raider’s secrets, which he obviously still had. Another layer of them.
Seth shouldn’t be angry. He shouldn’t be hurt.
He really shouldn’t be.