Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Ky is a presence. It’s not even the way he looms, or the space he takes up. It’s the way the knowledge of him is in the back of Ethram’s mind, even when he escapes to his room and shuts the door fast. There is no forgetting his houseguest, not even through two solid walls.
He stays in his room the day through, emerging once at midday. The kitchen is empty, and he feels an odd lurching sensation, as if perhaps it was all a strange happenstance and now he’s alone again.
But his arm is aching, and there’s a pressure at the edges of his thoughts, and when he sticks his head in the parlour, Ky is there. He’s taken the armchair. He is reading.
“Don’t mark the pages,” says Ethram, because he might not know what manner of creature Ky is, but there’s little he’ll not defend his books against. “There are place-markers on the desk. Use them.”
Ky glances up. “As you say.”
Ethram glares a little more, then retreats to his room. He has enough books there to sustain as many days of hiding as he wishes. But alas, no food.
Supper forces him out once more. He makes a simple stew of rabbit and herbs, with a flatbread that is easy to cook on the fire, and he’s portioned out two bowls before he’s really thinking of it.
He refuses to bring the food to the parlour like some sort of attendant. He hesitates, then decides he will not call out like a nursemaid, either. So he places the bowl on the table and sits down to eat his own and makes no sign of noticing when Ky joins him.
“The window in your book room is leaking,” says Ky, after they have eaten in pleasant silence for most of the meal.
Ethram frowns. “It’s a parlour.”
“Whatever it may be, it is leaking.”
Ky has eaten little of his stew. He’s as pale as he was when he tumbled through the door, and Ethram doesn’t know if that is usual or if he is ailing.
“I’ll look at it tomorrow,” Ethram says. And he will probably only look at it. Fixing such things remains a mystery to him. He does his best, but his fixes never last. At least the rain has stopped. The storm has blown out, maybe. “How does your shoulder fare?”
Ky unbuttons the shirt Ethram had given him.
It’s an old rag-shirt that is far too large for Ethram, but it still fits ill against Ky’s frame.
His shoulders are not so much broader, but he is enough taller that the sleeves ride up and the collar is pulled.
He has no other shirt, though. Ethram is struck by the unpleasant realisation that he cannot send Ky away wearing nothing but a too-small rag-shirt. Not in winter.
“It is healing.” Ky seems to be struck, too. He blinks at the cut and then at Ethram.
Ethram, who does not think it should be so alarming that the cut is healing, comes around the table to inspect it. The heal-all seems to be doing its work, and there is no sign of infection. He brushes the edge of the wound, and the burn is sharp and instant.
He snatches his hand to his chest, wide-eyed. It had felt like touching a storm. He turns his hand over, scowls at the silvery bloom on his fingertips. An aetherscald. It is rare to come into contact with enough latent aether to burn unless one is an airguard or an aetherworker.
“Ah,” says Ky. He reaches for Ethram’s hand and stops when Ethram bodily flinches back. “I am not entirely well.” A slight furrow creases his brow. “I should have been in greater control than that.”
This he says with a slight intonation of a question. His eyes are glazed, fever-touched.
All the silvering storms. He cannot turn this strange man out into the night. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. Curse him.
“Just tell me one thing,” he says, resigning himself to company. “You aren’t a stormbeast, are you?”
That, it seems, perplexes Ky a great deal. “A stormbeast?”
“Born of the storms. Razes villages to the ground. Butchered and harvested for aethermaterial. That sort of creature.”
An unsettling quiet settles over Ky’s face. “No. I am not one of them.” He pauses, as if surprised by his own conviction. “I do not think so, in any case.”
“Great,” sighs Ethram. He scrubs his uninjured hand down his face. “Well, I’ve no idea what you might be, then.”
“Hm.” Ky pokes at his stew once more, though it surely has grown cold. “I have faith you will figure it out, Professor Hart.”
He’s been rustling about Ethram’s study all day, of course. That’s how he knows what Ethram does for a profession.
“What do you need? I have a fever tonic and yarrow tea, but little else.”
“Only sleep,” says Ky. “Warmth and sleep will strengthen me.”
Ethram does not like the implication that in the weeks preceding, Ky has not had either. He thinks of the hearthstones, warm but not at all comfortable, and the armchair, which is comfortable but not for rest and recovery.
“You can take the room,” he says.
“I would not put you from your own bed.”
“And I would not let an injured man sleep on the floor while I enjoy a good mattress,” returns Ethram.
Ky’s almost-smile comes back. It seems a little more like a true smile each time. “Man?”
“For ease of mind, that is what you will be,” says Ethram. He holds up his silvered fingers. “No more of this.”
And then Ky grins, and the expression is so startling that Ethram thinks he forgets the pattern of his own breaths, just for a moment.
“No more of that,” agrees Ky. His gaze falls to Ethram’s slipped sleeve and the marks on his skin. “A pity. Silver suits you well.”