Chapter 16 Date Night #3
“Between the Agannor and that great bloody Dreor, this place reeks of the Dusken Path,” said Cath. “All we need is a Fyren to complete the party.”
Xanthe made a noncommittal sound; Aurienne fled to the next bed.
Distraction came in the form of Corinne rushing into the dormitory. “There’s a second dormitory down the hall. Another dozen kids.”
“No,” said Lorelei.
“Frīa’s truth,” said Corinne. “Who can come?”
Lorelei looked round the dormitory, assessing whether any in her Paeds team were close to triggering their Costs. “My team is depleted—they haven’t had a chance to sleep tonight.”
“Corinne and Nym, let’s go,” said Aurienne. “Seith transfers.”
“B-but we’ve never done a seith transfer in the field,” said Nym.
“This will be an excellent introductory experience,” said Aurienne. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
They left. Aurienne helped a nurse move a little girl onto a stretcher and ran after them.
She was snatched bodily out of the corridor and into a tiny, grimy toilet. A gloved hand over her mouth muffled her scream.
In the dimness of the toilet, Aurienne saw that it was Mordaunt. She lowered her tācn, which had been ready to press destructively to the nearest bit of flesh.
They were obscenely compressed together.
“Bit of a tighter squeeze than I thought,” said Mordaunt.
Aurienne agreed; she’d had less intimate mammograms. “What are you doing?”
“Here.” Mordaunt slipped her a sheaf of paper. “This’ll be of use to you.”
It was a list of addresses. “What are these?”
“More facilities like this one, I expect,” said Mordaunt. “Found them in the Agannor’s office. Have your Order investigate. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait—I haven’t thanked you for telling me about this place—”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I felt bad for those kids.”
“You? Felt bad?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“But—”
Mordaunt bent down and kissed her on the lips.
He swept out of the door before she could react.
All very gallant, except that the door was already open, and Cath and élodie were standing there.
“Ooh,” said élodie.
“This was a private conversation,” said Mordaunt.
“One oughtn’t hold private conversations in a public toilet,” said Cath.
“Are you Tit Wank Man?” asked élodie.
Aurienne wished for death.
“Who is Tit Wank Man?” Mordaunt turned to Aurienne in offence, as though he had just caught her in some morbid infidelity.
“It’s you,” said Aurienne.
“I think I’d know if I’d merited that nickname. Who are you?”
“élodie,” said élodie. “Virology.”
“Cath,” said Cath. “Trauma.”
“Are you her date? Was this your idea of a romantic rendezvous?” asked élodie.
“Your hair is interesting,” said Cath. “It looks like baleen.”
Mordaunt looked both frightened and put upon.
“Don’t bully him,” said Aurienne. “It’s thanks to him that we found this place.”
élodie gasped. “Tit Wank Man is the informant?”
“How lovely to meet you,” said Cath.
“Frīa’s peace be on you,” said élodie sweetly.
Mordaunt pulled his cowl up wordlessly, then squeezed between the two of them and disappeared.
élodie and Cath rounded on Aurienne. She threw up a warding hand before they could open their mouths. “No time for your inquisitions. Seith transfers.”
She fled.
A long night stretched into a long morning.
By the time the last batch of infected children had been brought into Swanstone, it was almost noon.
The exhausted Haelan who had been at the asylum handed the reins to their colleagues and crawled to their quarters, Aurienne included.
She drew her curtains shut with Cost-raw hands and fell into a deep sleep.
It was night when she awoke. The events at the asylum played out over and over in her mind—the horror of bed after bed of barely breathing children, the shuffling wightlings, the sick thrill of harming them. Her tācn as a weapon.
At the far end of Aurienne’s quarters, the plaster cast of the Monafyll Stone loomed like a white waystone in the moonlight.
Aurienne had reconstructed it after she and Mordaunt had taken it from Widdershins’ shed.
A shadow was perched on top of the plaster cast, a dark little prologue to the lunar calendar that curled in unknown languages below her paws.
Acts of Warranted Brutality was making one of her nighttime visits.
“I did some bad things,” said Aurienne.
The cat blinked at her.
“Have you come to listen to my confession?”
The cat tilted her head.
“I did not Harm to none. I used my seith in ways we’re not meant to. I made pulp out of half a dozen wightlings. Verity had to put them out of their misery.”
A perfect black triangle of an ear flicked Aurienne’s way.
“I should feel sick. Disturbed. I don’t. I was angry. I would do it again.”
Aurienne voiced a hard-learned, horrible truth—one that abashed her, cracked her bastion of righteousness, tainted the purity of the moral high ground.
“The pursuit of rights sometimes involves wrongs,” she whispered.
The cat jumped off the Monafyll Stone and made her way, with graceful little cat steps, to the bed. She was nearly invisible, save for her whiskers gleaming white. She leapt onto Aurienne where she lay.
The little piece of darkness settled onto her heart, purring in approval.