The metal fingers of Director Brynner’s left hand drummed on his desk, each of which seemed to be tuned to a different note on a pentatonic scale. The result was a pleasant little jingle that somewhat compromised the frustration usually conveyed by the gesture.
Knowing Brynner, it was almost certainly intentional.
His turquoise-light eyes drifted between the two Institute employees before him. He had, forced by habit, set out a third chair that sat unoccupied. Neither Merlin nor Nora had commented upon it, each sitting on either side.
‘Let me preface this,’ he began, fingers now still, ‘by saying that I’m extremely pleased that the two of you are working together with renewed vigour. Considering our earlier concerns regarding inter-party tension, it’s extremely heartening to see your efforts at a congenial working relationship. Especially considering the recent… tricimation of your team.
‘However, that missing third member and your actions in the wake of her departure do need to be addressed. That is the reason we are here, as I’m sure you’re both aware.’
Nora leaned back in her seat. The fact she’d sat down at all was evidence enough she was taking this seriously. Beside her – beyond the one-chair-buffer – Merlin had actually taken off his beanie.
‘Officially,’ said Brynner, with great emphasis, ‘The two of you are to be taken off field work until further notice. We cannot have our employees disobeying direct orders and storming off the Fulcrum to gatecrash a Summer Court trial. We’ve been able to avoid a major political incident thanks mostly to the surprising benevolence of Queen Titania; when I met with her to discuss restitution, she was in remarkably good spirits thanks to some new divertissement. But the Institute must be seen to be taking action.’
He held up his hands. ‘That is, officially. Unofficially, I’m extremely proud of your actions. It’s true that the Inside Accords can be an uncomfortable yoke at times for anyone, but for us? That my own signature represents this world; a world which, for the most part, did not consent to or even know about my leadership? It necessitates my neutrality even more so than any other member of the accords.’
Nora and Merlin watched the Director stare out at the city for a moment before he continued. ‘Perhaps I’ll speak to you both about Neutrality soon. Regardless, it would be hypocrisy to punish you for not obeying orders that I’d hoped you would ignore.
‘As such, yes, you are being taken off fieldwork. But I don’t want either of you to think you are in the proverbial doghouse. Williams, I actually have a specific assignment for you that coincides with our timeline quite perfectly.’
Merlin shifted in his chair. He’d been debating asking if this on-paper-punishment would affect his soon-to-be-increased pay for the Institute access to BlinkedIn, but if he was still being given work it was probably fine.
‘I’d like you to take a fingerbone from the Labyrinth Bones you’ve been working on to a containment facility we run in the Lake District, for further study on how they might work when separated. Emva has already been briefed on preparing a reliquary for transport. I’d like you to take it personally so you’re better able to give any answers the staff there might have regarding its isolation.’
The Gnome nodded. It might actually be an interesting field trip, particularly if he’d get to see the methods employed by the Institute for the containment of dangerous magic.
‘As for you, Helton…’ The Director sounded weary. ‘How much of your annual leave have you taken so far this year?’
Nora’s brow grew heavy the weight of calculation. ‘None,’ she said.
‘Quite. Helton, as the most senior member of the team, you will – again, officially – bear most of the brunt of culpability. I would suggest you use some of your holidays.’
With that, the two got up to leave. Brynner made a little ahem as they reached the door. ‘Just to reiterate. Not a word of this to anyone. And… before you go, would you both please head down to the treasury to use the tokens you were giving? It’s just that you haven’t been yet and Cimimi’s getting nervous. Well, more nervous.’
⁂
The Caliber Institute’s treasury was another of those impossible spaces below the building. Rather than access via the lift, as with Morta’s prophecy chamber, there was a spiralling stone staircase that drilled chthonian from behind a nondescript door on the building’s third floor.
There was an incongruous platform stair lift at its bottom.
The treasury itself was a massive dark room piled high with gold, gems, and assorted valuables. A path had been cleared – possibly with a snowplough – which wound inbetween the piles like a Scalextric track.
‘Hello?’ called Merlin.
‘Oh, oh, one sec!’ replied a timorous voice from behind a large pile of gleaming swords.
A woman appeared. Her body appeared to be made of a sort of animated liquid gold, which was emerging like a jack-in-a-box from a wooden treasure chest. She was using a wheelchair on account of her lack of legs; a sleek carbon black one that was less a chair and more a modern frame that the chest was strapped into.
She wore an extremely comfy-looking jumper, but didn’t seem particularly comfortable at all.
‘H-hello! I’m Cimimi! I maintain the treasury down here! You must be Merlin and Nora; I’ve been wondering when you’d come to use your tokens! What’re you in the market for?!’
She punctuated this by punching the air. Her eyes darted back and forth between them. Her jaw was very tense.
‘Uh… are you feeling quite alright?’ asked Merlin.
Cimimi’s thumb still protruded. ‘Oh, well, uh, Nora? I–‘
‘Merlin,’ said Merlin.
‘Oh! Yes of course, Merlin. Uh. Well, uh, Merlin, I am A-ok! It can sometimes be a little stressful working down here if any of the items are having a bit of a grumpy day. But, that’s why it’s my job! It all sees me as, uh, part of the same team! Team Treasure!’
This had Nora loosening her jacket for easier-firearm-retrieval. ‘Is the stuff down here dangerous then?’ she asked.
‘Well, Merlin–‘
‘Nora.’
‘Well, Nora, it can be fussy, but all the really dangerous stuff gets sent to the lakes. Most things here – swords and such – don’t have the facility to swing at you. Well, some of them do, but mostly they just use the ambient magic here to twist things around a bit. Like, uh…’
She went over to a cabinet half-snowbound in a pile of coins (goldbound). It contained an array of jewelry, mostly rings and necklaces. Cimimi held up an index card that had been slotted in before one such ring.
‘Like this!’ she said. ‘This here is a Ring of Glaciscalptura. It will turn the wearer’s body into ice over the course of eight hours. But look what it’s done to my label!’
The card read ring of cool people. not danjerous.
‘I just wish they’d have a bit more respect for my intelligence,’ added Cimimi, shoulders all aslump. ‘It isn’t even capitalised.’
In the end, Merlin left with a Ring of Free Action, while Nora took a Cape of the Mountebank that Cimimi was able to sweetly coax into becoming a black jacket. They handed over their tokens, which Cimimi simply dropped with a clink in the bottom of her chest.
⁂
‘So… how are things at the Institute? You didn’t get in trouble, did you?’
Ursa had invited Merlin and Nora out to a ramen place she knew. She’d selected it based on A, its good, authentic ramen, B, its casual bench-based layout, and C, its prices being quite reasonable for someone who recently quit their job so they could go to trial on another world.
There was a length of silence that tried to pass itself off as the slurping of noodles, but wasn’t fooling anyone. It wasn’t that Merlin or Nora were feeling awkward, it was just that holding a bowl to your face offers time to word a response in your head.
Merlin put his down first, moustache glistening with tonkotsu. ‘We’re in a great deal of trouble,’ he began, before seeing Ursa’s dismay and hastily adding, ‘On paper. Brynner actually seemed rather pleased with our conduct.’
‘Mm,’ said Nora, by way of agreement.
‘Really?’ said Ursa. ‘Even the bit where you blew up someone’s chimney and never apologised?’
Merlin frowned theatrically. ‘Funnily enough I didn’t mention it.’
‘Were you worried about being forced by the Institute to make up for it?’
‘No, it just didn’t seem important.’
They ate in silence for a moment. Nora ordered extra noodles.
‘So no punishment or anything?’ asked Ursa.
‘Not exactly,’ said Merlin. ‘We’re barred from fieldwork. Nora’s being forced to use some of her annual leave and I’m being shipped off to some kind of facility in the Lake District. Just to drop something off, I mean.’
This time Ursa had been busily slurping from her bowl, and upon hearing Merlin she sprayed a few bubbles in her shoyu broth. ‘The lakes?’ she said, dripping. ‘I’m supposed to be visiting family up there soon!’
‘Oh, did they want to see you after hearing about all the…?’ Merlin trailed off.
‘They don’t know yet!’
The others raised their eyebrows at Ursa’s mildly lunatic expression.
She continued. ‘You know, I didn’t want to worry them and by now it’s turned into a whole thing. Like, I moved in somewhere else! With someone else! And it didn’t feel appropriate to just, text them, you know?’
Merlin sniffed. ‘You don’t think they’ll be happy about your…’ he scrambled for civility; ‘Cohabitation… standards?’
‘They’re not like some people,’ said Ursa, rolling her eyes. ‘They’re just a bit, uh… traditional. It’s a better idea to get it all out with them in person. They’re going to be having a barbecue, actually.’
She glanced around the restaurant, fidgeting with her hands together. She realised she was turning the ring around over and over on her finger. ‘If… if you’re headed up there anyway, Merlin, would you maybe like to come?’
‘As a social buffer, you mean?’
‘S-something like that, yeah. Maybe I am a bit nervous. But as well, the more the merrier, right?!’
There was a thud as Nora put her empty bowl down. ‘I’ll come along too,’ she announced, perfectly casual. ‘If it’s a free meal.’
Ursa and Merlin traded a glance, shocked.
‘Uh of course!’ said Ursa, with a sudden big smile. ‘If you want!’
Nora was staring dead ahead, and nodded back. Her eyes were fixed on the silver wire coming from her chest, the one the others couldn’t see; the one that – according to the Morris Worm – stretched all the way up to the Lakes, where the Worm itself waited.
⁂
They travelled separately; Merlin by train, Nora by motorcycle, and Ursa (plus Alkahest) by automobile. Ursa had given the other two a time to arrive, planning to head in herself first, to introduce her new beau. If Merlin or Nora had decent timekeeping, they should knock at the door just in time to interrupt whatever blow-up Ursa’s Mum was in the middle of.
Nora was taking a somewhat scenic route, only the speed at which she was travelling turned the surrounding landscape into more of an impressionist blur. She’d woken up with another ability provided by the silver wire; namely, names. Floating above the head of anyone she looked at. She could see a neon ‘Peter Smith’ above the head of a driver she slalomed past, which rapidly dwindled behind her in the mirror.
It’s tomorrow you’re visiting me, right? I’m a little nervous!
She dismissed the message that had just appeared on her watch. She’d already explained to Morris that she’d be very busy at this barbecue, and then would be visiting whatever it was the wire led to while Merlin was busy dropping off his fingerbone. Maybe she should do a bit of a recce beforehand, though.
There wasn’t much to report on regarding Ursa and Alkahest’s journey. Alkahest drove with hands blatantly disregarding the ten-and-two position, and listened as Ursa sang along to the radio.
Merlin, though, had a train-ride of note. He’d sat himself at a nice table – well, as nice as he could get – and was working away at a bandwidth monitor to better predict peak usage on BlinkedIn, now that the Caliber Institute was actively pushing it.
Someone was across from him. He hadn’t noticed them sit down.
Peering over his laptop, he saw a woman smiling at him. She dressed in a similar fashion to Nora, though a different cut of casual; less “ease of movement in life-or-death situations” and more “this jacket could have anything in the pockets, couldn’t it”. To Merlin’s untrained eye, she looked vaguely Greek, or maybe Turkish?
‘Hey,’ said the woman.
Cautiously, he saved his work and closed it, just in case. ‘Hello,’ he said, in a perfectly friendly manner with the base notes of “this is an acknowledgement that you spoke, not an invitation to continue”.
Of course, the woman continued. ‘So, where are you headed?’ she asked.
Again Merlin spoke with passer-by brevity. ‘Oh, just heading to the countryside for a few days.’
A smile had unfurled itself on the woman’s face. ‘Oh I love the countryside,’ she said. ‘All those narrow roads through the middle of nowhere; it takes the emergency services ages to get to anything at all. You know you could burn a house down out there and have walked to the next village over by the time the fire engines have gotten past the horse-drawn carts and lines of ducks and such.’
That was both threatening and weird.
Merlin sort of nodded and ducked back down behind his laptop screen. He had neither the time nor the inclination to spend his journey chatting with some public-transport-nutter.
‘You travelling alone, then, Merlin?’
He looked back up. The woman was still smiling.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Merlin, ‘Do I know you?’
‘Not exactly,’ she replied, smile spreading like a thundercloud. ‘But I know you. Well, sort of. Somebody sent me your name, and a sample of your work. You’ve got potential, Merlin.’
‘Really. Say, if you know all this about me, I think it only fair that you’d tell me your name.’
The woman laughed; pigeon laughter from behind her smile, like she was corpsing in a school play. ‘I don’t give a shit about fair, Merlin! Gee whiz.’
She got up. ‘Have fun in the countryside,’ she said, breezing past. ‘Slash some tires for me, ‘kay?’
⁂
Ursa had been staring at the door of her childhood home for almost ten minutes. It was a bright, candy red colour. The last time she’d seen it, it had been sky blue.
That sky blue would still be there, down under six layers of other paint. It was an old Changeling tradition, or superstition, or something. Every year, first thing on New Year’s Day, they’d gather outside their house and pick a new colour for the door. And then they’d repaint it, outside and in, and everyone had to get at least a brush stroke in. Ursa wasn’t ever certain what exactly it represented, or warded off, but it was important to her Mother. She’d usually be the last one with brush still in hand, finishing it off. The whole family did it.
Well, the whole family that lived close enough, anyway, which meant everyone but Ursa. She wondered what the other colours since the blue had been.
‘You okay?’ said Alkahest, from the driver’s seat beside her.
She looked back toward him, and explained a bit about painting the door instead of how seeing it had made her feel, or god forbid, going inside.
‘Huh,’ said Alkahest. ‘If it’s first thing on New Year but the whole immediate family does it, what do the others do about their own houses?’
‘It’s kind of a chronological, eldest-household-first thing. I guess I’d be last if I still took part.’
Alkahest, hearing the self-recrimination under her words, reached over to give her hand a squeeze. ‘And what was stopping them from coming to your place to do it, if we’re following that logic?’
Ursa quirked a brow. ‘Well, for starters I’ve been renting, so I couldn’t paint any doors even if my Mama brought her biggest brush. But, for them to come over for a gathering at my home, that’s a bigger deal than you might think. I’ll explain that tradition another time.’
‘Okay, but our new place has a door, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah, that was a big selling point when I agreed to move in there.’ She sighed, finally reaching for her bag in preparation for leaving the car. ‘Okay. You stay here for five minutes. Or six, actually. I’ll head in, say hi, and I’ll uh, prime them for your… arrival. And when you get there, if you’re going to mention the… ritual we did. The Verslovian one. You should mention it to my Tata. And absolutely not my Mama.’
‘Ursa, how worried should I actually be? Your Mom’s not like, the Doom Slayer or something, is she?’
‘God, I wish. I’ll see you in seven minutes.’
⁂
The rest of the day’s events – the ones in the Carpenter family household, anyway – involve a number of people all milling about getting burgers, sausages, and sides of mizeria, as well as zrazy from a big pot that stayed in the kitchen.
A shift in perspective might be worthwhile. As such, we’re going to take a step upwards, and view said events with the all-seeing-eye of a curious god, or better yet, someone playing The Sims. Perhaps occasionally we’ll bring the green crystal of our focus down to observe one person in particular.
See, here it is now, spinning away above Ursa’s head as she knocks at the door before letting herself straight in, the compromise of the visiting relative.
She hopes to see her father first, but mere seconds after the door clicks behind her, Ursa’s Mother appears from the kitchen, making her way to the garden with a tray full of burger buns.
Sarolt Carpenter looks a lot like her daughter. She looks like all of her children, of course, but she and Ursa have a resemblance even beyond that. Should Ursa bulk up a little, strip the pink from her hair, and also age by a few decades, the two could be seen as doppelgangers. They weren’t doppelgangers, of course; Changelings are entirely different.
‘Orsolya,’ says Sarolt, slowing but not stopping. ‘Hello! Welcome home.’
Ursa bristles, but makes an effort to smooth down her quills. Welcome Home didn’t automatically imply she’d come crawling back. Ursa was just inferring that. Right?
‘We’re just about getting started in the garden,’ continues Sarolt. ‘Do have a lot to unpack?’
‘Yes,’ mutters Ursa, ‘But not in the way you mean it. Why does it sound like you think I’m moving back home?’ she finishes, louder.
Sarolt has disappeared with the buns. In her place, though in the other lane of traffic, comes someone else. She’s taller than Ursa, and a few years older, but the biggest difference is in the way she holds herself. She moves with the disdain of a swan inspecting a mouldy loaf of bread.
‘Orsolya,’ says Ursa’s oldest sister.
‘Adrienn,’ says Ursa.
‘Welcome home,’ says Adrienn, disappearing into the kitchen. That was definitely implication, Ursa infers.
Sarolt reappears, with Imrus, Ursa’s father, in tow. He’s wearing an apron that says simply ‘I AM GRILLING’. Imrus, though large, is not an overly-complicated man.
He isn’t actually grilling now, though, instead he’s scooping Ursa up in vigourous yet careful hug. ‘Solya!’ he cries. ‘Welcome home!’
It’s the first use of this phrase that doesn’t sound like an I-told-you-so, so Ursa accepts it at face value. But as her head passes her father’s shoulder, she spots a banner that’s been strung up over the French doors leading to the garden.
WELCOME HOME ORSOLYA
‘Alright, okay,’ says Ursa, when she’s back on solid earth. ‘I think you might have… mistaken the reason I’m visiting.’ She leads her parents into the living room, away from where Adrienn would almost certainly be eavesdropping in the kitchen.
‘And I’m honestly really touched by the warmth of the welcome! Though, uh the banner is a lot,’ she continues. ‘But I’m not moving back here!’
‘Solya,’ says Sarolt, putting an arm around Imrus in a your-parents-understand gesture. ‘There’s no shame in coming home if things didn’t work out for you in Middlemarch.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, Mama, things have worked out really well! I’ve got work, well, I did, and I’ve moved out of the studio into somewhere nice!’
‘Orsolya, your internet videos aren’t work. It could go up in smoke at any time, you need something more substantial! How are you affording to–‘
‘And I met someone!’ blurts Ursa, relying more on momentum than bravery to get the admission out there.
There’s a beat.
‘Wow, Solya, that’s–‘ begins Imrus, but Sarolt cuts him off.
‘It must have been hard to find another Changeling in a city where you don’t know anyone, especially without the help of your family,’ she says. Her eyes are very narrow.
‘Well, that wasn’t an issue because he’s not a Changeling.’
‘…What is he, then?’
‘He’s a Demon.’
‘What, Orsolya?’
‘He’s a Demon?’
‘You have to speak up, Orsolya, I can’t–‘
‘He’s a Demon!’ says Ursa, finally.
Ursa’s mother says nothing, which is interrupted moments later by a knock at the front door. Ursa goes to answer, with her parents floating along behind her like a pair of stunned zeppelins.
‘Mama, Tata,’ says Ursa as she opens the door. ‘This is Azoth Alkahest.’
Alkahest gives a little wave from the doorstep. He’s making a conscious effort not to slip into his persona of swaggering insouciance – even though that worked out quite well in Ikea, and almost every union meeting he’d arranged – but the only alternative that leaves him with is a sort of awkward self-awareness.
‘Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter,’ he says. ‘It’s uh, a pleasure to meet you both?’
Imrus seems unsure, but gives a smile regardless, ready to shake a hand (firmly). Sarolt, however:
‘Oh, I’m getting a work call,’ she says, flatly. ‘I just need to take this. Excuse me.’
She pushes past Alkahest and vanishes from the porch, arms pumping like she’s in a military parade.
There’s a distinct sound that Ursa last heard just before being whisked away to Fae court; the sound of two engines approaching. It’s actually funny how the dread she feels now is somehow worse than the dread she felt then, when agreeing to take the fall for a crime she didn’t commit. Well, it’s funny if you aren’t Ursa.
Merlin and Nora arrive near-simultaneously, with Nora parking her bike and taking off her helmet – quickly replacing it with her baseball cap – and Merlin skimming to a stop before folding up his scooter and stuffing it into a bag. It bulges weirdly. He really should invest in a Bag of Holding or something.
‘Uh, these are my work friends I told you about,’ says Ursa, still reeling from her vanished Mama. Imrus continues to smile.
‘Come on in,’ he says, even to Alkahest. ‘My Wife’s just had to step out for a work call, but I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. You all hungry?’
‘I thought your Mother owned her own business?’ asks Merlin, following him inside and eyeing the craftsmanship of all the furniture. He either ignores or doesn’t notice Ursa’s hissing at him.
Merlin has brought an apple pie. His own mother suggested it was the proper thing to do, and though the good manners she’d tried to drum into him hadn’t really stuck, undermined as they were by her insistence on him wearing little costumes in family photos, he certainly retained enough to respect the laws of soiree-equivalent-exchange.
‘It’s from Marks & Spencer,’ he said, enticingly.
Ursa’s family is introduced.
There’s the previously-encountered Adrienn, who takes over hostess-duties in Sarolt’s sudden absence, ferrying plates around, and reminding everyone to leave room for zrazy, and asking if people have drinks. Her somewhat haughty demeanour ensures that nobody wants too much help. She occasionally smirks at Ursa.
Imrus has manned the barbecue once more, pillar of masculine authority that he is. Which is to say, he’s happy to stand quietly to one side and make sure that all the grill lines on the sausages and burgers are perfectly defined. He’s a details man, despite being the largest person any of the visitors have seen that isn’t a literal Minotaur.
One of Ursa’s brothers, Zente, was already there before Ursa arrived. He’s on a chair in the shade in the garden, playing Fate/ Grand Order on his phone. Merlin remarks that he didn’t think that was available in the EU, but Zente only mumbles something inaudible and keeps his head down. His fiancé is nowhere to be seen.
Actually, Adrienn’s partner is conspicuously absent too. It’s almost as if Ursa was the only one allowed to bring guests. Maybe it was an attempt to make her more comfortable moving back home, a little triumph offered to her as she brought along a little piece of the city she’d failed to find a foothold in.
Since she wasn’t moving back home, it just makes her guests feel all the more awkward. As Ursa bickers with Adrienn about nothing, they sort of huddle in a corner, despite the half-hearted enmity certain members of the huddle have for one another.
‘How you doing, anyway, Merlin?’ asks Alkahest. ‘Bullet wound healing up okay?’
‘It’s quite alright. I’d actually near-forgotten about it until you mentioned it, thank you.’
Alkahest nods. He appears to be, in sociological terms, “freaking out”. ‘Damn. Sorry. Maybe, if you, you gotta keep your strength up, you know? Have you eaten enough? You need sausages. We gotta get you some more sausages.’
‘I’m fine on sausages, Dem– I mean, Alkahest.’
Arriving shortly after is Panna. They don’t have a significant other, so the absence of one is not conspicuous. They take in the energy of the assembly and the lack of one parent, and immediately go to Ursa to find out what the craic is. She explains in sheepish tones.
With a lull in requests for sausages, Imrus has turned his back to the others and paces from side to side with his phone to his ear. Nora watches, as Ursa introduces her sibling to Alkahest, tone of voice reaching a pitch exclusive to canine radio.
Imrus’ phone call is a little intense. Nora pricks her hearing to catch his half, and finds herself wishing she could hear the other end of it.
Actually…
Your wish is my command, says the Morris Worm from her wrist, as she draws on its power to cast Remote Access. A holographic projection of Imrus’ phone appears in her hand, and she quietly puts it to her own ear. She hears Sarolt’s voice within, and Imrus’ responses from her other side.
‘…But I don’t understand why you can’t come back now,’ Imrus was saying. ‘It was a weird excuse, but I understand if you needed to step away and get your bearings. And you could easily just say it was a problem with a supplier and it’s all fixed now?’
Sarolt’s voice is sour, not so much in a peevish way, but more like someone with actual heartburn. ‘It’s not like that,’ she says. ‘I’m on my way back now. Though if that was it, I’d still be in my rights! It’s bad enough that he isn’t a Changeling, but you know that Demon-Fae relationships either go Bonnie-and-Clyde or Dracula-and-Renfield. I don’t want that for our–‘
‘Żabcia, we’re not from close enough to Chaos to fall into archetypes like that,’ says Imrus, gently. Nora isn’t certain what żabcia means; Imrus seems to have plundered the Polish language for pet names as well as his family’s Caliber-Institute-fabricated immigration story when they first came to the Fulcrum world.
‘No, I know, I just… do you know who that is? It’s Azoth fucking Alkahest. He tried to kill Margaret fucking Thatcher! I was there, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know what the fuck his game is, but I couldn’t find anything at the office other than some shit about the Summer Court being out for his blood. Fuck.’
‘You went all the way to…’ Imrus looks around, lowering his voice. ‘Your other job?’
‘Yeah, and a fat lot of good it did. I’m sorry, mysiu-pysiu. I’ll be back in fifteen. Just… keep an eye on Solya, will you?’
‘I am.’ Imrus’ eyes drift to Ursa, as she tells Panna about her bouquet of chocolate roses. ‘She looks happy, pączusia.’
The phone beeps as the call ends, and Nora lets her spell trickle away through her fingers.
⁂
The last Carpenter to arrive is Edvin, who marches in wearing shorts and a backpack taller than his torso. There’s mud coming up to his ankles, and he announces he got a bit lost on the hike he’d taken to work up an appetite. He sits down with approximately all of the remaining food, except for Merlin’s pie.
When Sarolt reappears, there’s a clear tension in her shoulders. She announces that there was indeed a problem with a supplier, and it was indeed all fixed now. She offers to sort out the pie, and ducks away into the kitchen after showing her face again for all of thirty seconds.
Nora cannot help but follow.
She shuts the kitchen door behind her. ‘Need any help with that?’ she says.
Sarolt starts, but calms herself. There’s a large knife in her hand. It’s for the pie, though. ‘Ah it’s alright… Nora, was it?’
‘Yeah, Nora,’ says Nora. ‘Though I sometimes go by “mysiu-pysiu“.’
The knife goes still.
‘What is it you do for the Institute?’ continues Nora. ‘I tried to look you up in the employee records, but I’m assuming you used a pseudonym?’
Nora had not-too-subtly brought up Alkahest’s assassination attempt from the end of the 80’s, and he’d been too frazzled to question the non-sequitur.
‘Yeah, I got a rifle and everything,’ he’d laughed. ‘Didn’t end so good for me. The Caliber Institute got wind of it, actually, and sent some guys to kick my ass.’
‘What happened?’ asked Nora.
‘They kicked my ass.’
‘So you remember it pretty clearly?’
‘Oh boy, yeah. My ribs definitely do, at least. Why d’you ask?’
‘I asked him about trying to kill Thatcher, you know,’ Nora adds. ‘He didn’t seem to remember anyone that matched your description.’
Sarolt takes a steaming breath inwards, and slowly, carefully, gets back to cutting the pie. ‘I keep my work life and my home life meticulously distinct,’ she says.
She pushes past Nora and through the kitchen door.
As Nora follows her back to the garden, they emerge to see that Imrus has picked Alkahest up bodily, his massive frame dwarfing the black-and-white Fiend’s. Ursa’s face is pinker than her hair. It’s clearly embarrassment, not shock, and soon Alkahest has been crushed into a massive hug.
‘I can’t believe it!’ booms Imrus. He actually seems close to tears. ‘I never thought..! Even Adrienn didn’t get to do the ritual!!’
When he finally relinquishes his grip, he brings his hands down to place one on Ursa’s shoulder, and one on Alkahest’s. Behind them, he sees Sarolt with the pie.
‘Pączusia!’ he calls to her. ‘You’ll never guess what these two have been up to! Tell her, Solya!’
Both Ursa and Alkahest too have gone pink by the time Sarolt comes over. It looks a little out of place on him.
Ursa won’t meet her eye, but her voice isn’t quite as small as earlier. She’s fiddling with a ring Sarolt hadn’t noticed before.
‘We, uh, did the Verslovian Ritual,’ she says.
‘Just like we did!’ laughs Imrus. ‘Though, unlike some people, I didn’t resort to licking zebra crossings.’
Alkahest’s face goes an incandescent red as Imrus gives him a good natured clap on the back.
Sarolt doesn’t seem to share her husband’s enthusiasm. She looks from Ursa, to Alkahest, then over to Nora off on one side.
She hesitates, but steels herself. ‘How did the two of you meet?’ she asks.
‘Oh, uh,’ begins Ursa, now not only refusing to make eye contact but also refusing to look in whatever cardinal direction Sarolt occupied. ‘Well. We met on a job. Uh, I’ve actually been doing some work for the, uh, Caliber Institute?’
She gives an apologetic grin to a patch of nearby grass.
Sarolt is near-incandescent. ‘What?! You can’t be—what would possibly possess you to join up with the Institute?!’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to, but the Director sort of implied that you and Tata might get in trouble because of me if I didn’t.’
‘And you still chose to pledge yourself to a place like that?!’
Now Ursa’s voice was growing hot. ‘I was trying to make sure you’d be okay!’
‘And look how that’s worked out,’ said Sarolt, looking pointedly at Alkahest.
Ursa steps into the path of her glare. ‘Excuse me, Alkahest is more than okay! In fact, working for the Institute was working out pretty well for me! I’m doing well, Mama! You just refuse to admit it because you want to keep me here so you can all feel like you’re better than me!’
‘Solya, I will not have you speak to me like that. You’re acting like a child. And you wouldn’t be so ready to defend the Caliber Institute if you knew the dangers of it.’
‘And how would you know the dangers of it! You–‘
‘Because I’ve worked for it for thirty-six years!‘
Sarolt realises what she’s said in the heat of their argument a little bit too late. Ursa is looking at her with the expression of someone who just found a tooth in their soup.
‘…You—you hypocrite!!’
This time, when Sarolt leaves, she doesn’t bother with an excuse.
Roll History 