Chapter 41 #2
‘It makes things quicker.’
She sighs. ‘I’d hate to have to undress you.’
He splutters and she grins. Cuts from the spindles with a sharp pair of dressmaking shears, the threads falling like air, gathered and twisted one-handed into neat little hanks. ‘Well, you can put them on yourself. More than I’m worth.’
She adds them to the stack.
‘So much for supplies.’ She puts a finger to her lips. ‘Ah, wait, needles.’ She slips a drawer open and selects a range, like a magpie in a silversmith’s. ‘Various gauges. I assume you’ll be working with your own body, but just in case.’
She shifts the stack into the middle of a sheet of wax paper, then ties and fastens it with ruthless efficiency, popping it all in a soft leather satchel, red as crushed cherries. It fits perfectly.
She holds it out to him. ‘With my compliments.’
Shroudweaver takes it, slips it over one shoulder. ‘Thank you, Smoke. Really. It’s so good to see you.’
She frowns at him. ‘Of course it is, but you should have said that a few decades ago. Still, at least the unbinding will finally take the strain off you.’ She steps forwards, rests a hand on his shoulder. ‘You were supposed to come back, so I could check on you.’
‘There wasn’t time, Smoke.’
She lets the hand fall. ‘There was near enough twenty years, Shroud. Of all your weak excuses, this is the worst. Just tell the truth.’
He hesitates.
‘Go on,’ she says. ‘It’s not like we don’t both know it. Why wasn’t there time?’
Shroudweaver holds her gaze. ‘Because I met her.’
The pain that brushes Smokesister’s face is momentary, but it hangs in her eyes for some time after. She lets her breath out slowly. ‘Ah, there we are. Nice to hear you finally say it.’
‘I’m sorry, Smoke.’
She shoots him a look then, filled with fire. ‘The time for sorry was years ago too, Shroud. But then, I’ve noticed that when it comes to coming clean you like to be … fashionably late. I’d work on that, if I were you.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
She nods sadly. ‘That sounds about right.’ Her shoulders drop, her voice softens. ‘Well,’ she waves a hand. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I learnt to hate you a little less directly, over time. Maybe you can learn to like me a little more honestly.’
She brushes a hand across her eyes. ‘For now, we need to be grown-ups about this. Besides,’ she smiles. ‘If I wanted to get my revenge, this would really be perfect.’
His eyes widen.
She laughs, a little sadly. ‘I wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it.’
Shroudweaver remains silent.
Smokesister reads the lines of his face. ‘Don’t get maudlin now, Shroud. This is going to be tricky work. Let me see the state of you.’
He starts, and she gestures impatiently. ‘Top off. I need to see what damage has been done.’
He shrugs his robes off and shivers.
She gently runs her hands over his body, the collarbone, the stark ribs, the scars and burns that touch his stomach.
‘Could be worse,’ she says. ‘Some muscle mass still.’ She moves closer, presses her ear to his chest. Hears his heart flutter and race.
Sighs, the heat of her breath running over his skin.
‘Not so good, Shroud. We knew this might happen. Especially if you left it so long without seeing me.’
Shroudweaver lifts her head away gently. ‘All bindings need a focus, Smoke.’
She looks back at him, a little flushed. ‘Didn’t they warn you about this in the Aestering?’
He begins to dress, his reply muffled. ‘They warned me about a lot of things. I didn’t always listen.’
‘That bad boy act’s not as cute as you think it is.’
He grins, shakes his head. ‘I just mean I had to improvise. I had no idea what the Emperor was doing until I finally met him.’
She raises an eyebrow.
‘I mean, I knew he was raising the dead. Modifying them. Infecting the living, maybe. But until I met him, I had no idea how he could do it on that scale.’ He pulls his sleeves down, shivers at the touch of the wool. ‘And I had no idea how to stop it. The binding needed a focus.’
She walks to the counter, lifts the glass, drinks deep. ‘Do you know how many nights I spent thinking about how stupid we were?’ She stops, raises a finger. ‘No, sorry, how stupid you were.’
She walks towards him. ‘Binding the dead of the Empire, of Thell.’ She puts a hand back on his chest. ‘Binding them all to your own stupid heartbeat.’
He covers her hand with his own. ‘There’s nothing stronger than blood, Smoke. A heartbeat’s the steadiest rhythm in the world. I needed something I could trust.’
She snatches her fingers back. ‘Steady until it breaks. Have you any idea how close you were then? How close you’re getting again now?’
She leans against the counter, tips her head back. ‘God, I can see you clear as day, staggering to my door. Other peoples’ voices spilling off your tongue, other peoples’ memories in your head. Half-mad from the hubris of it all.’
Her voice rises. ‘You fucking idiot. You think just because it worked, it makes it OK? Begging me to help you fix that jury-rigged ritual. Which you did by yourself. Yourself! I know for sure your old teachers would skin you alive for that.’
She pushes fingers against her brow. ‘How many days was it, Shroud? You and me in here, your head in my lap and your mind in that fucking mountain, running wet with a thousand other souls?’
She glares at him. ‘Have you any idea what that was like? Not for you. For me.’
She thumps her chest as she says that, her voice splitting. She drains the glass. ‘And now you come back. With another desperate plan stacked onto the back of the first. Fifteen years I swore I’d never touch your bloody magic or your bloodier ego, and here we are.’
Shroudweaver’s hands tighten. ‘I need your help, Smoke. I know I’ve handled it all terribly, but this is bigger than either of us.’
She turns the glass thoughtfully. ‘You’re right, as usual. And as usual that still doesn’t make it OK. Do you get that, Shroud?’ She gestures towards him with the empty glass. ‘It’s important to me that you get that.’
Shroudweaver nods. ‘I do.’
She grits her teeth, bites down on the urge to go and comfort him. ‘That’ll have to do. Bare minimum, but it’ll have to do.’ Smokesister breathes deeply, smooths her dress, adjusts her hair ‘OK. One last question.’
‘Of course.’
‘The unbinding. Why now?’
He looks at her, and the regret that rises in him feels like a black wave. ‘Because I can’t think what else to do. Because I know this’ll work. It’ll stop Crowkisser. And because I’m tired.’ He stops, looks down. His voice soft, fracturing. ‘I can’t carry it anymore.’
She holds him at arm’s length. ‘That’s the most honest you’ve been in decades. Fine. I guess I’m stupid enough to do this.’
‘Thank you,’ he says, meaning it.
She smiles. ‘One last thing Shroud, if you come back, treat me like a person. Not an asset. Not a fucking … a fucking resource, OK?’
‘Yes,’ he says, his voice tight, ‘I promise, Smoke.’
She rolls her shoulders, loosens the tension.
‘Right, nip outside and tell Fallon you’re going to be a while. He wouldn’t know good magic if it bit him on the nose.’
A moment later, he re-enters, eyes squinting from the light.
‘Ready?’ she asks.
He nods tersely. ‘How long will it take?’
‘Hours, at most, breaking’s always easier than making.’ The sadness hangs in her voice, before it sifts aways into the half-light.
Those hours pass in a ritual of fingers and lines, counting the fade into twilight. Magic measured, calculated and twined with precision in red and silver thread. Eventually, Smokesister makes the final knot on his hand, letting her fingers linger only briefly.
A shadow on her eyes. She sounds tired when she speaks. ‘There you go. It’s all tied to this red thread. Keep it wound around your right wrist. Let it fall when you can see the mountain. The whole damn thing will come down. And you better be ready for it.’
‘I will be,’ he says.
‘I’d like to believe you,’ she says, ‘but that’s cost me before.’
She kisses him on the forehead, her lips light on his skull, and holds him there for a second.
‘Die properly, or come back as someone better.’
She pushes slightly, steps away.
Shroudweaver backs to the door, his eyes lingering on the slump of her shoulders, the slight shake in her leg. She doesn’t turn around.
When he steps into the street, the moths have fallen to swarm the lamps. In the flickering light, the birch tree looks like it’s aflame.