Pentagrams and Pomegranates

by Gabi-hime

It's all well and good to promise to honor and protect someone, but the devil's in the details. Hieronymous Grabiner marries Amoretta Suzerain with the intention of protecting her from a family servitor. Little does he know that the manus is the least of her problems.

25. Sudden Darkness, But I Can See

Pentagrams and Pomegranates

Part II: Love is an Hourglass

Magical Diary

Heroine x Hieronymous Grabiner; Damien Ramsey

By Gabihime at gmail dot com

Six: Sudden Darkness, But I Can See

---

The next day Ellen and Amoretta had class as usual, although rather unusually Grabiner interrupted their regular schedule in order to have a special practical class in the afternoon. Both girls were full of curiosity at this breach in their clockwork routine, although they expressed it in their own unique ways. Amoretta was bouncing slightly in place, while Ellen checked her wand three times, and then rearranged the obligatory box of snacks.

Grabiner's conference with Ellen the day previous had put the idea into his head, he said. Privately, he thought it would be a good opportunity to bolster Ellen's confidence in herself, particularly given her recent practical accident. Beyond that, he was interested in observing what happened. It was an experiment. He wished to gather information, and the present circumstances gave him the perfect chance to do so.

He called Cord out to the training yard and then commenced to explain himself.

"We'll have a pair duel to the first down," Grabiner's eyes flicked to Amoretta and Ellen briefly as he hastened to explain. "That's the first person the judge, that would be Cord in this case, deems incapacitated. A duel to the first down isn't about injuring your opponent. It's about neutralizing them. We will take precautions to ensure that no one is seriously injured, although some basic first aid may be required after the duel finishes. Cord can provide that himself, if necessary, should we all end up incapacitated in some weird collusion of circumstances. As the instructor, I will exercise my prerogative of selecting the teams myself. Miss Suzerain, you'll be with me," he said, nodding once in her direction. "Mr. Danson will be with Miss Middleton, in any configuration they find acceptable."

"Sounds safe enough," Amoretta said, "I don't like fighting, but it is important to get experience, after all. I'm used to Ellen, but adding William to the mix does make it more interesting. I don't mind, so long as we're not really trying to hurt one another."

"We're not," Grabiner said shortly. "This is a classroom exercise, the same as any other," his eyes moved to consider William heavily. "Mr. Danson's presence affords us the rare opportunity for me to observe the both of you in action, to test you both - " he corrected himself, "All three of you - myself. Think of this as something like a field examination." He looked at Ellen steadily, "You don't have to win to pass, and indeed, I do not expect you to win. Just show me how much you have learned, and that will be quite satisfactory."

"I'll do my best," Ellen said, and her anxiety and determination were both plain to see.

"This will be our field of honor," Grabiner said with a sweep of his arm. He uttered a few words and the boundaries of the training yard were lit up by blue lines and spelltext. "If you stray outside the lines of the field, naturally your pair forfeits the duel. I do this in hopes of limiting potential property damage," he intoned dryly, putting one arm lightly around Amoretta's shoulders. "This is where we live, after all. Is that satisfactory to you?"

"Yes sir," William answered seriously.

Ellen nodded furiously.

Grabiner turned his attention to his diminutive wife briefly. "You, madam, are still forbidden to teleport yourself."

"Aww, really? Can't I teleport myself even a little?" Amoretta began, but Grabiner shook his head deliberately.

"I put that restriction on you for a reason, and I have no intentions of lifting it until you've completed your coursework," he said levelly. His eyes shifted to the other pair and he said, "As for myself, I intend to restrict my usage to Class C unregulated magic. Consider it a handicap. You of course may use any spell that you can adequately handle, but do try to use sense and good judgement. I have no interest in scraping the remains of either of you off of the ground. This is a duel to first down, not to the death," he said, eyeing them both critically, "So please make your spell selections accordingly. Once I have finished the arrangements, you'll have one minute to confer with your partner and take your position, and then Cord will signal the beginning of the duel and we'll have ten minutes of combat. If we have not reached a satisfactory conclusion by the time ten minutes have elapsed, then the duel will conclude in a draw. If any individual wishes to surrender at any time, they need only call 'forfeit.' If you cannot speak and wish to forfeit, then please place your hands on your head and stand still. Is that all suitably clear?"

"As crystal, sir," William answered smartly.

Ellen nodded again.

"Before we begin, I'm going to cast some heavy fire protection spells on the two of you," he said, drawing his wand. "I will not use any direct elemental attack magic apart from fire, because I have no desire to kill either of you, particularly accidentally. I am obviously showing my hand in doing this, but I assure you, I am not being duplicitous. I do of course intend to win, but I am the instructor, and it is my responsibility to ensure that no one gets seriously injured in this exercise, even at the cost of the element of surprise."

"Well, that seems fair," Amoretta said with a smile. "You are a heavyweight boxing with rookies," she glanced sideways at William. "No offense," she said, waving her hands at him.

He colored slightly pink, but he shook his head. "None taken," he assured her.

Grabiner completed the two protection spells and then said, "All right, one minute begins now. No magic until the sound of the bell."

William moved off immediately, glancing over his shoulder at Ellen to make sure she was following him. Once they had put a safe distance between themselves and the Grabiners, he turned to her and said, "Okay Ellen." He could see how nervous she was, and so tried his best to take the edge off. "Take a deep breath. You're looking a little blue. It's all right. We can do this," he insisted.

"We've got to get the field to water as quickly as possible," she said, and the information burst out of her like water over a levy. "He's told us he'll only use fire spells, and we've got to weaken those as much as possible. Amoretta won't use any offensive magic, so it's the professor who's going to take one or the both of us out. If we're not incredibly careful, he will wipe the floor with us."

William wasn't so sure about shifting the field immediately. "I don't know," he said. "I specialize with fire too, and he's given us an advantage by putting strong protection spells on us. It's not like I think I can go head to head with the professor in a firefight, but if you put the field in water then that's going to weaken my strongest attack magic too." He saw her bite her lip. She obviously disagreed with him, but was unwilling to further voice her dissent. He shook his head, "You know what? Use your own judgement. You're a great student, and you've been learning from him directly. If you think we need to shift the field, shift the field."

"I think it's the only way we'll last more than a couple of minutes, even if he only uses Class C magic," Ellen said lowly. "If we have any chance of winning, we can't let the two of them carry the momentum. We've got to down Amoretta as quickly as possible. She's no slouch, but she's definitely the weak link there. She doesn't move very quickly, so she'll limit the ground he can cover, and her stamina still isn't very good, so she should be the first of us to tire out."

William shook his head. "This is a ten minute duel," he said, "Not an endurance test. Even if her stamina is poor, we can't count on her tiring herself out. We're going to have to target her. You said she doesn't use offensive magic?"

Ellen nodded. "That's right," she said, "The most aggressive thing she ever uses is a sleep spell, and we probably won't see one from her in this match - but don't think that means she's helpless. We're lucky that the professor won't let her teleport herself around the field, otherwise she could put herself wherever she wanted to be, and that's a lot of pressure. You're not going to understand her presence projection until you have to deal with it yourself. The good part of this situation is that if she can't teleport, then I don't believe he will either, since he won't leave her unprotected. You're still going to have to keep on your toes to avoid her adversarial teleportation, though, or you'll find yourself in the upstairs bathroom, and that'll be the match," Ellen warned. "Also, her shield spells are very fast and nearly impossible to break. She's been practicing them with the professor for months now. They're so quick that you won't see them coming. The same goes for her interrupts. She can be an incredibly annoying opponent. She's going to be even worse with Professor Grabiner protecting her."

"That's why we need to focus on eliminating her," William said with a nod. "We've got to keep Professor Grabiner busy - distracted, hopefully - and then take her out as quickly as we can. Probably what would be best is an assassination style strike: one decisive hit that counts, since you make it sound like we probably won't get more than one chance. If we can shake them apart, take advantage of a hole in their stances, and we hit her once, hard, that should be the duel in our favor."

Ellen frowned. "I don't think it will be that easy, but we certainly can't win a battle of attrition."

"Okay then," William said with a nod. "I'll try to engage with the professor enough to provide you with an opening as the vanguard. I'll be depending on you for support."

Ellen looked a little uncomfortable, which William took to be nerves, and he gave her a bright smile.

"It's all right," he assured her again. "We can do this."

She swallowed hard and then nodded.

As the time for strategizing fell away and the sounding of the bell loomed near, on the other side of the field, Amoretta and Grabiner were mostly quiet. He did not need to reassure her with the words, I'll protect you, as they were implicit to his being. He would not let her fall. She studied his silent back contemplatively. It was warm. Even with silence reigning between them, even when they were facing down opponents, he was so warm, gentle, thoughtful. As they stood together, Grabiner said only one thing.

"You lead."

The sound of the bell in Cord's hands was like the sharp retort of a starting pistol, and before the sound had stilled to silence all four, witch and wizard alike, were on the move.

Grabiner had waited for Amoretta to move, and then after ascertaining her direction, had moved to cover her. William, attempting to read Grabiner, had begun to move clockwise from his position, but this put him on a direct collision course with Grabiner. He was rushing right into the pair of them.

Ellen's first spell, farspeak, connected up with William like a static shock, and suddenly he heard her nearly shouting, Watch Amoretta. He's following Amoretta. Don't close on him. He'll down you if you give him the chance. He will win a quick draw.

William immediately backpedaled, keeping his eyes on Grabiner, and tried to set up for his first spell as he moved to regroup with Ellen.

Grabiner's first spell came off easily, and although William braced himself, it turned out to be a hermetic augmentation spell: punnulis incessa. He didn't have long to wonder what the spell might have done, because its effect on Amoretta was immediately obvious. Instead of thumping along through the grass on her little rabbit feet, she seemed to float like thistledown, as if she had begun to skate about an inch above the ground on a cushion of air. Her spell finished a moment later, and this one William immediately recognized: alacrity. As if Hieronymous Grabiner needed an edge against them in casting speed.

Behind him, Ellen was beginning her second spell, and he realized that she was going to try and shift the elemental affinity of the field. That was it, then. They were all out of the gate at a gallop. He needed to engage.

There was still time before Ellen successfully shifted the field to try and get in a fire spell at full power. If his intention was to aggravate and distract Grabiner, then he had a spell that would do the job, if he could land it.

Blistering Itch was only two verses to cast, which made it quick enough for the situation at hand, but he would have to close with Grabiner for a chance to use it, since he needed to touch him for the spell to work. It would not be easy to catch him, but William was tall and fast on his feet. If he could lay even a single finger on Grabiner's clothing, then the spell would connect. He had to at least try. Physically landing a spell on Grabiner might be his best chance.

A spell that had to be fired could be grounded, but a spell that was landed by touch could not be. Ellen had warned him not to close with Grabiner, but that had been a warning about not stumbling into the two of them unawares, with no plan of action. If he kept moving, he could stay out of Amoretta's crosshairs, hopefully, and do his job to distract Grabiner. He did have Ellen as his backup, after all. She was very competent, particularly for a first year student.

He closed with Grabiner.

The professor had not yet begun a second spell. His attention was focused on William, although William noted that he was careful to stay in range of Amoretta as he moved, keeping her safely behind him. Amoretta was in the midst of casting something, but if he intended to hit Grabiner he could not be distracted by it.

He danced forward on his toes, the spell built in his hands. He dodged around Grabiner's flank, hoping to catch his sleeve, or better yet, his unprotected back, but suddenly Grabiner wasn't in front of him at all. He had turned on his heel and come around behind William, guiding William's momentum with a hand on his shoulder. When Grabiner was fully behind him, William felt Grabiner plant his hand solidly on William's back. A well-placed shove sent William tumbling forward, and he very narrowly escaped landing the spell on his own skin. His spell collapsed in his hands instead, as he was unable to maintain his concentration as he stumbled forward. If he had kept the spell, he would have fallen, and then Grabiner would have definitely been upon him.

As he wheeled around to get Grabiner in his field of view again, he heard a grunt as Amoretta's spell connected with Ellen and his partner's field shift spell was broken. An interrupt. Amoretta had been focused on casting an interrupt to keep Ellen from shifting the field.

You were right, he thought back to Ellen. They don't want the field shifted.

Ellen was too occupied to reply, and William realized that without even a breath, she had begun casting the field shifting spell a second time. His eyes swept to Amoretta briefly, and he saw that she was already casting a second interrupt. But Grabiner would not allow him to shift his attention for long. Already the professor had started another spell, and William could not afford to take his eyes from this present danger, even as they circled one another.

Try as he might, William could not gain enough ground to drive Grabiner from Amoretta, even long enough to disrupt her spell. Her spell came off, and again Ellen's attempt to shift the field was shuttered. Grabiner had finished his verses and was nearly ready to call his spell. William readied himself to dodge it. He did not imagine there would be time to ground it.

But as the spell broke into the world, William realized his error. It was not a spell that could be dodged, and he was not the intended target. Sluggard had acquired Ellen as its target, and it hit her even as she attempted to recover from repeated interrupts.

Behind him, Ellen staggered in momentary confusion.

Are you all right? he called, not daring to turn his eyes from Grabiner. Do you need my help?

I'm fine, came Ellen's slow answer. I can handle this. You. You be careful of Amoretta -

But already, around his ankle like a band of steel, was a manacle of light. A bind. While he had been distracted, Amoretta had caught him in a bind. It was magic beyond the ken of a first year student, he thought, no matter the identity of her private tutor.

Grabiner was already advancing on him, although he had not yet begun to build a spell.

Desperation loosened his lips and a dispel poured out of him, freeing his ankle before Grabiner could fully close.

The momentum, he thought wildly, We're losing the momentum.

He didn't give himself time to think about it. Already he was moving through another fire spell of his own making. If he could not land a touch, then he would have to try and hit Grabiner from a distance. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Ellen slowly struggling through her disenchantment.

She should have let me help her, William thought, gritting his teeth.

A bare moment of distraction was apparently what Grabiner had been waiting for, and before Willian could finish his spell, Grabiner had begun a counterspell: systemic magic to wrest control of the spell that William had begun. William redoubled his efforts to control the spell, digging his feet into the ground as he attempted to hold it.

The pressure from Grabiner was immense, and it wasn't just the sheer weight. It was finesse. This was the kind of on-the-fly spell manipulation that William had admired from afar for years. It was what he aspired toward: to master control to the degree that he could take an opponent's spell away from him entirely, and perhaps weave it into something new in the doing.

William felt the spell inexorably slipping away from him. It was like trying to hold onto a handful of dry sand.

And then he heard it: a light voice, higher pitched than Grabiner's, working through the same spell at his heel. Assistance. Amoretta was providing spell assistance.

William lost the spell. Grabiner won control of it and exhausted from the fight to retain it, William did not have the wherewithal to dodge.

The fire spell hurt as it broke over him, but the protection spell did its work, and although the heat on his skin smarted, William could still stand. If he allowed himself to be overpowered now, then the fight was over.

While William had been battling Grabiner and Amoretta over possession of his fire spell, Ellen had managed to recover from the sluggard and was nearing completion of a field shift. But Amoretta no longer needed to support Grabiner's bid for spell dominance, and William caught the interrupt as it rippled out of her as easy as breathing and broke the more complicated spell.

How does she do it every time? William wondered, his brows drawing together. Ellen ought to be able to resist at least some of her interrupts. That girl must have incredible accuracy.

Speed and accuracy, given how she had caught him in a bind during a half-second of distraction. Ellen had been correct: Amoretta had not once used attack magic, but she was far from helpless.

He had no time to spend marvelling on the small girl's versatility. Grabiner was already building another spell, and this one William could read as it formed: Arc Ribbon. It was Pentachromatic magic this time, a fire spell that would hurt if it landed, regardless of the protection spell that still hung on his skin with a dull sheen. If he kept taking hits from Grabiner's spells, he wouldn't last long. He focused himself to spin up a shield.

At that moment, his head turned of its own accord to follow the sound of strange, lilting music. It was lively, and a little funny, that music. It was janty, full of pep, bound to inspire giggles in the unwary. The source of the music was the small brunette who still held the field behind Grabiner. She was holding a very silly looking wand over her head, one that glimmered green and was topped by a star like a christmas tree decorated by a five year old. Above the tip of her wand twinkled a mesmerizing light display that flashed in time along with the music, almost hypnotically -

Fascination. It was fascination. He slapped his own cheeks hard, bringing tears to his eyes and spat out a shield spell before jamming his fingers in his ears. Arc Ribbon's tendrils of fire licked around the hastily erected shield, but the shield held.

Underneath his feet he felt the field finally shift to water, as Ellen at last completed the spell she had been so desperately attempting.

She immediately followed it up with a push spell that Grabiner had to be quick on his feet to intercept, putting himself between Amoretta and the line of sight spell. He grounded it, but Amoretta was forced to give up her fascination spell, leaving William with the space and the opportunity to act.

Hushing Rain sprang into the air around them as he called the spell into being. The temperature dropped slightly and a breeze whispered through his hair as fat raindrops began to fall from the imaginary sky. Outside of the localized area of the dueling field, the day was still bright and blue, but inside the lines, stormy weather had come.

That ought to put at least a little damper on all those fire spells, William thought at Ellen. He had given up fighting Grabiner with fire. If it could be done, it was beyond his ken to do it.

As the storm broke over them, the water field at their feet disappeared. Amoretta had neutralized it, but even with the field gone, the rainstorm remained.

And Grabiner was casting again, a spell that William did not recognize, beyond the fact that he was meddling with the elements already in the field. As he finished his spell, the thunder rolled over them ominously, and the rain slackened off until it dissipated entirely. The air smelled a little like sulphur and a little like ozone.

Casting the spell had occupied all of Grabiner's attention, and so William had had time to fall back toward Ellen. Grabiner's distraction at handling such a large spell was the chance they needed. With the rain gone and the water field cancelled, there was no reason for him not to try fire again. Grabiner was clearly too occupied to wrest control of the spell. Behind him, he could hear Ellen building her own elemental attack spell.

This was the moment.

Although they hadn't coordinated their spells perfectly enough for a synchronization effect, William felt Ellen's elemental wind spell tear by him, blowing his ponytail up over his head as he released his fire spell: Vandal Brand.

Grabiner and Amoretta were slightly out of line with one another. There was a chance that both spells would connect with one target. If both hit him while he was unprotected, surely that would stagger even Grabiner, and if they hit Amoretta, it would be a total knockout. Even if only one of the spells connected with the girl acting as Grabiner's final position then she would go down.

The spells slipped by inexorably toward their targets, and time seemed to dilate strangely around them all. There was no stopping the magic now, no grounding the spells, no interrupting them. Their range was wide enough that Amoretta, who was square in the middle of their blast radius, could not hope to escape. If Grabiner threw himself out of the way, then Amoretta would take the brunt of both spells.

He won't leave her, Ellen said, answering William's unvoiced thought.

Just as she said it, Grabiner proved her prediction true, as he moved directly into the line of fire and lines of blue split the air in front of him as he put up his shield.

It'll break under two focused assault spells, William thought, the sweat slipping down his face as the blood hammered in his ears. That shield has to break.

His heart leapt into his throat as Grabiner's shield shattered under the strength of the two heavy attack spells, like glass flying back from an impact. But then, even as the plasma of magic surged forward, pale blue lines lit up the air in a spinning circle gleaming silver, and the two spells spent the last of their force against this second shield, which glowed subtle and beautiful, like the bell of a flower that only blooms under the moon.

William's eyes shifted incredulously to the small figure several paces behind Grabiner, whose arm was thrown out as she tried to regain her breath through panting.

She shielded him, William thought, the wheels in his mind spinning madly. Under the threat of two focused assault spells, she spent her one chance at protecting herself on shielding him instead.

He hadn't realized he'd thought it aloud until Ellen's reply brought him back to reality.

She believes that if she shields him, she shields herself, Ellen thought back.

That's incredibly reckless, William sputtered.

That's Amoretta, came Ellen's reply, She's - oh, oh no, no no no -

William turned back to look over his shoulder in alarm to find that Ellen was doubled over, retching. Grabiner had not been idle during their astonishment, and had caught Ellen in a nausea spell. Determined not to let that go unanswered, William tried to snipe a shot at Amoretta, but found his spell shocked out of his hands by her interrupt.

His hands were still numb and tingling as he tried to shake off the shock that left him feeling a little dizzy.

Ellen has taken how many of these and she keeps casting without breaks? he wondered. Even as he wondered, he realized that he had begun to sweat. His clothes felt sticky against his body from where the rain had wet him to the skin. It smelled hotter. Grabiner had gotten a spell off again while he was distracted. He was preparing the battlefield for something, although what, William could not tell.

While Ellen struggled to recover from her nausea, William understood that this was his last stand. If he was to remain on the field, he would have to gamble. He drew back toward Ellen and began a five verse count spell: Draw Inferno. He felt the manacle of light snap around his ankle as Amoretta successfully bound him, but he did not let this distract him. Grabiner was busy with a spell of his own, and as it finished William drew in a breath of pure oxygen and felt lightheaded.

But whether he was chained or not, he had them in the middle of his spell radius. Draw Inferno was a huge spell that caused a localized conflagration, so it could not be shielded, even by the both of them together. As the spell built to a crescendo in his hands, William was unsurprised that Grabiner made no attempt to leave the blast radius. Even if he could remove himself, Amoretta could not move quickly enough, and William had already seen that Grabiner would not leave his wife. In fact, he had counted on it.

There was a spell on Grabiner's lips that William could not read as he released his own spell, but surely it would come too late. In the space of half a second, Grabiner had taken a step backward and extended his hand behind him. It was perhaps a touching gesture as fire was ready to leap into being around them, and William watched as Amoretta threw herself forward toward his hand. Their fingertips just brushed as the spell exploded around them and William had to shield his eyes from the heat and the blinding haze.

He looked over his shoulder at Ellen to reassure himself that she was all right, and at that moment, all the color drained from his face. She was struggling to free herself from binds on her own ankles, and behind her, on the opposite side of the dueling field, was Grabiner, a slightly sooty Amoretta hanging off his arm.

Teleportation. Grabiner had teleported them both out of the blast radius in the same second the spell had exploded.

As the white light of a sanctuary spell lit up the ground at Grabiner's feet and Ellen managed to extricate herself from her bind, she looked over her shoulder at Grabiner briefly, and then turned back to William with frantic eyes.

"We've got to get out of here!" she shouted out loud, forgetting that the sound also roared in his mind, heavy with her fear, "He's going to - "

But she cut herself off as she began her own teleportation spell even as she moved toward him, the words tumbling out one over another. The oppressive heat had already begun to make the hair dance around her face.

As his eyes shifted to Grabiner, who had put Amoretta behind himself again, he saw the heat shimmer, and he finally understood.

Ellen was running toward him, desperate to catch him in her own teleportation so they could get clear of the area, but he did not think there was any way that she could carry them both out of the danger radius on the mana she had left, not with his ankle bound to the ground. When she got close to him, he gave her the hardest shove he could in her direction of travel, and she blinked out of existence just as his fingertips left her back.

And then the world exploded in rolling, silent fire, and William knew no more.

---

Ellen emerged from her teleportation spell several yards away, sputtering as she fell. The blue lines of spell text marking the boundaries of the dueling field had already been dismissed, and Grabiner had extinguished the fire only a moment after it had begun.

"Stabilize him," came his command to Amoretta.

Ellen watched as Amoretta busily began laying green spells on William as Grabiner dispelled the magical effects that still lingered in the air around them. Soon William was coming around, rubbing at his head as Cord checked his vitals. William was a little singed, and his hair smelled slightly burnt, but he was otherwise fine, despite his brief loss of consciousness.

Ellen hurried to join them.

"You caused a flashover," Ellen said directly to Grabiner.

He glanced down at her from the midst of his disenchantment and nodded once, briefly.

"Yes," he said. "That is exactly what I did. Excellent reactions, by the way. You did very well."

"Don't you think causing a flashover was a little dangerous?" she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

Behind her, Amoretta was still seeing to William.

"With a proper understanding of the fire triangle, a flashover can be controlled by a wizard with the appropriate skills," Grabiner said, turning his attention back to disenchanting. "Naturally it was somewhat dangerous, Miss Middleton. We were engaged in a duel. I don't imagine you thought it would be altogether pleasant for Amoretta and I to be caught in Mr. Danson's Draw Inferno."

"You had no intention of being caught in that," huffed Ellen.

Grabiner turned back to her with a raised eyebrow, "And if Mr. Danson has any fondness for his life, he would have had no intention of being caught in my flashover," he pointed out. "Besides, Miss Middleton, he might have spared himself the unpleasant experience if he had just trusted to your teleport instead of sending you on your way. It was stupid of him to pass on the chance at evacuation."

"He was trying to make sure I got out of the danger zone," Ellen sputtered. "He was trying to be nice - "

"Whether or not he was trying to be nice is beside the point, Miss Middleton," Grabiner interjected. "It was stupid and patronizing for him to ignore your help. That is the reason he is on the ground at this moment. I admire your loyalty," Grabiner said as he rolled his eyes slightly, an indication that he found her loyalty misplaced, "But the boy made a poor partner for you. What you did today, you did despite the fact that he was uncooperative and condescending. Anyone who observed the duel might have seen that, as it was obvious."

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta cut in, the disapproval in her voice clear.

William rubbed his knuckles hard against his head as he sat up.

"No, no," he said. "Professor Grabiner is right. His form was really superb, and I made a lot of mistakes."

"Yes," Grabiner said critically. "You did. The most obvious one being that you attempted to act independently, rather than taking Miss Middleton's advice."

Ellen went pink. "Professor," she protested, "You can't - "

Grabiner rolled his eyes more obviously now. "He forced you into final position, instead of letting you engage as the vanguard, which you are perfectly capable of doing. You would have had more sense than to feed me a rainstorm that I would surely convert to dry thunder, and you probably would not have suggested that he charge right into me, first thing, unless I am very much mistaken," he said.

Ellen flushed and looked down at the ground.

"You're right," William admitted tiredly as he got to his feet. "I didn't listen to her, and I ought to have."

"You are arrogant, Mr. Danson," Grabiner said deliberately, his eyes heavy on the younger man, "And your world is narrow. If you seriously pursue dueling, then I can guarantee that you will end up in a coffin, and it will be no one's fault but your own. Beyond that, you are likely to endanger any partner you have, if you don't get her outright killed."

He glanced briefly at Amoretta, whose frown was most serious, and then at Ellen, who was still staring hard at the ground, her ears pink, and at last at William again. Grabiner shook his head once, briefly, and then turned his back on the four of them.

As he moved back toward the house, he raised one hand over his head to wave them off.

"Class is dismissed," he said.

---

After determining that William was not experiencing any lingering effects from the flashover, Amoretta excused herself from William, Cord, and Ellen with a hasty apology and stomped off after Grabiner.

This time he had pushed things too far. Now she regretted being lenient and not reproaching him earlier. He had been thoughtlessly mean and dismissive to William countless times over the past several days, but this time Grabiner had been brutally personal. It was not something she could simply ignore. She had to say something about it.

When he was like this -

She didn't like it.

Amoretta rightly guessed that he had retreated to his workshop. That was where he always fled when he wanted to shut everyone out. It was the only place in Revane where he could withdraw absolutely. As mistress of the house, she had unrestricted access to every other room.

As she approached the door, Kavus appeared before her with folded hands.

She had expected as much. When he wanted to be alone he always set the djinni to guard the door. Always before Amoretta had reluctantly respected his wishes when he had withdrawn, but this time -

"I am sorry, mistress," Kavus said apologetically, bowing his head slightly, "But the master has asked that he not be disturbed."

"That's unfortunate," Amoretta said without missing a beat, "Because he's going to be disturbed."

At the corner of the djinni's mouth appeared the barest curl of a smile. He was anticipating entertainment.

"Mistress, I am sorry," he repeated himself, "But as I said, the master does not wish to see anyone. If you attempt to pass by me I will have to restrain you."

Amoretta stopped and considered. She could not force her way past the manus, but she was aware that he was generally friendly toward her and beyond that, he enjoyed seeing Grabiner's will subverted.

"Kavus," she said slowly, "What were the master's exact words?"

The djinni's smile curled up a little more as he recounted in a fair imitation of Grabiner, "Kavus, guard the door. I want none of my students coming to harangue me."

"Well, that's easy," Amoretta said with a shrug. "I'm not his student," she asserted. "I'm his wife, and the lady of this house. You can let me pass."

Kavus chuckled and raised a finger in protest. "I am sorry, mistress, but that I cannot allow," he said. "While you are the master's wife and my mistress, you are certainly also his student. You study under him in this very workshop four days a week. Ergo, I cannot permit you to pass."

Amoretta let out an exasperated sigh because, of course, he was correct. Even if she was Grabiner's wife, she could not escape also being his student.

Then she thought about it some more.

"He said that he did not want to be harangued, as in that is not what he desired, correct?" she asked.

"Correct," the djinni noted with a nod.

"I am sorry to say that we don't always get what we want," Amoretta pointed out. "I must see him. There, that's the moral imperative. The moral imperative is powerful stuff," she wheedled, attempting to persuade the djinni to let her have her way.

"That is so," agreed Kavus. "But as he has expressed his wishes, I must do my best to uphold them. As he bound me himself, his will still trumps your own, mistress. I cannot allow you to pass if your intention is to badger him."

Amoretta bit her lip, then she caught the djinni's meaning. "What if I had some other reason to visit him, I mean, other than to harangue him? What if I was acting as his fetch-and-carry? Would you let me pass then?"

The djinni's smile widened again, and he was catlike as he nodded.

"If I believed that you had the master's interests at heart, then I would be remiss in not granting you passage, mistress," he said. "I could never doubt your desire to serve the master as I do. You are devoted to his comfort."

That was all Amoretta needed to hear. She was down the hall to the kitchen in a moment, where she came upon the astonished Tansy in the middle of dinner preparations.

"I need a sandwich," she said with an authoritative snap of her heel. "Chicken and avocado. The way the master likes it. Now."

Although the kobold gave her a mutinous look, she did as she had been asked, and prepared a very artful tray, complete with a glass of milk, folded napkin, and a little rose in a budvase.

"That will ruin the master's appetite for dinner - " she warned as she gave over the tray.

"I'm sure it will," Amoretta agreed, and then she departed with the sandwich, calling, "Thank you, Tansy," over her shoulder.

When she approached the djinni with the laden tray she had a new question for him.

"Has he warded the room?" she wondered.

"He has not," Kavus answered. As mistress, Amoretta was perfectly within her rights to ask such questions and be answered, provided Grabiner had not specifically instructed against it.

"Just the door, then," Amoretta said to herself and then nodded once. "I'm sure he's locked it, but I don't care," she said with a shrug. "Kavus, teleport me inside the workshop. I've brought the master a sandwich. I have no idea what he's doing in there, but I'm sure he's hungry by now. He hasn't had anything since breakfast."

At this Kavus laughed and asked, "You do not wish to teleport yourself, mistress?"

Amoretta shook her head. "No, I'm not allowed to do that," she reminded him.

"What is one crime when you are ready to commit another?" he asked philosophically and Amoretta gave him a brief grin, her own spirits lifting a little at the prospect of breaking rules, particularly for a good cause.

"One crime is a misdemeanor," she said. "Two would be a felony and I'd probably get hard labor. I don't want to end up in Sing Sing. Send me in, big guy," she said, setting her jaw.

The djinni bowed once, and then sent her into the room where her husband brooded.

---

Grabiner was sitting at his desk with his back to the door, nursing two fingers of bourbon when he felt the telltale tingling of recently spun mana on the back of his neck and turned to see Amoretta standing in the middle of the workshop, a tray in her hands. She had a sandwich for him. She was practically the picture of domestic gratification. If only she had brought him another bottle of bourbon.

He frowned, then grunted, "So now I see just how carefully my wishes are considered in this house. I suppose you teleported yourself, you terrible little malcontent?"

"No," Amoretta answered evenly, minding her temper. "Kavus sent me in because I asked him to. I've brought you something to eat," she eyed the glass of bourbon. "I don't think a strictly corn mash diet is very good for you."

She sighed as she crossed the space to his desk to deliver the sandwich. Then she left the tray against the wall and leaned pensively against the cluttered desk. "Hieronymous, I've got to talk to you," she said, offering her open palms to him. "You were really unnecessarily cruel to William. You hurt his feelings badly."

"I meant to hurt them," Grabiner answered her curtly. "Sometimes hurting someone is the best way to teach them a valuable lesson."

Amoretta frowned and lost her hold on her temper. "I'm not sure what lesson you intended to teach him, other than that you can be an absolute jackass sometimes," she said. "And I'm sure he already knew that."

Grabiner turned in his chair to give her a narrow-eyed stare. "Thank you for that, darling," he said, sharp and acidic. "You always know just what to say to brighten my mood. What would I do without you?"

Talking to him when he was like this was like drinking gasoline: it was unquestionably dangerous and it made her feel very sick and uncertain. He sounded dark and poisonous and perhaps a little drunk. He hadn't had enough time to get drunk on anything but his own misery she thought, but given the unstoppered bottle of bourbon on the table it seemed as if that had been his intention before she had put herself right in the path of his self-torment.

As she looked at him, so full of anger and spite and pain, she regretted having childishly called him a name. His disinterest in the casual cruelty he had shown William had made her less than patient with him, but she had no excuse for having returned meanness with meanness. That she had said a needlessly rough and ugly thing to him made her feel very small, as if she had failed completely at what she meant to do. She had come before him in an attempt to understand why he was in such a knot of rage over William, and to turn him away from his anger toward a less toxic feeling. Calling him a jackass had done nothing positive nor useful. It had neither shocked him into humility nor shamed him into apologizing. It had not made him reconsider his actions. It had not even made her feel better, not even briefly.

She had hurt him needlessly, and she hated that. He hurt himself enough - he punished himself enough - without her help.

She tried her best to regain her composure as she reasoned with him.

"Hieronymous, of course William and Ellen lost," Amoretta said with exasperation. "You're an exceptional duelist and we've been working together for months. I trust you and I know how you think, and of course, you were absolutely marvellous out there," she finished, thinking that a little due praise might sweeten his temper at least marginally. It was true, his form had been beautiful, and they had read one another's intentions so well they had not needed to speak. It had been an exhilarating feeling, being at his back in the duel and anticipating what he would do based on small physical cues and her knowledge of his character, knowing that he was reading her every time he glanced over his shoulder. She was proud of how well they'd done together. Certainly it had been something that they had both worked hard toward. And yet, she frowned. "But think about it rationally," she said. "William had never partnered with Ellen before, and she's still nervous around him. You stacked the deck against them. I may not be an old hand at combat magic, but I'm used to you. You even told Ellen that you didn't expect the two of them to win. Of course you didn't," she said, shaking her head. "That would have been a ridiculous upset. I just don't understand why you were so hard on him at the end."

"I expected him to fail, that is true," Grabiner answered, his mouth turning into a bitter sneer, "I just didn't expect him to fail so catastrophically. Apparently I thought too well of him."

"Hieronymous," Amoretta said with strong disapproval, but Grabiner only tipped his glass in her direction before taking another sip.

"I am being perfectly frank," he said. "Today was a test for him as much as it was for you and Miss Middleton. It was a test to see how he performed when partnered with someone I am already certain is competent. He failed that test, Amoretta. He ran roughshod over her. He patronized her. She has a great deal of skill and expertise, but he is arrogant and domineering and was clearly uninterested in taking her advice. I thought little enough of him before this afternoon, but now that is even less because of how he treated her."

Amoretta's brows drew together, "Hieronymous, what do you mean?" she asked. "I didn't see anything that made me feel that he was rude or unkind to her at any point. Sure, maybe he didn't listen to her as much as he ought to have, but he's older than she is, and has already graduated. Of course he's going to assume he's more advanced. And we all know he specialized with red and control at school, so of course he'd naturally assume he'd be the vanguard."

"It is exactly because Miss Middleton is less experienced that he should have put her in the role of vanguard and let himself handle final position," Grabiner cut in mercilessly. "Final position is a much more complex role, and suited to the more experienced spell caster. The only reason I put you in final position from the very beginning is because your weird catalogue of spells leaves you absolutely incapable of acting as vanguard."

Amoretta frowned. "All right," she said. "You're the instructor, so you know best. Even with all that, I doubt he was dismissive, because he just isn't like that. Ellen was probably hesitant to disagree with him because she sometimes has trouble with authority figures, and in that match he was basically an authority figure." Amoretta threw her hands up. "I don't know what you expect from him. It's like he can't do anything to please you. Even pushing Ellen out of the way at the end - " She sighed. "It meant definitely taking your flashover himself - I had bound him to the ground and you know that," she pointed out. "Without first breaking that bind, Ellen's teleport would have had to move her, him, the length of the bind, and a hunk of the solid ground. I'm not saying she might not have done it, because I know how good she is, but that was a big 'if,' and I understand why he wasn't willing to chance it. He might have been willing to gamble with himself, but he didn't want to risk her. Even if it meant losing the match and going down himself, William wanted to be sure that Ellen wouldn't be hurt." She frowned. "It seems to me that that's exactly the sort of behavior you'd approve of. It was a thoughtful, responsible decision, even if you don't think it was the right one."

"If a vanguard falls, then final position will be overwhelmed," he said darkly, and seemed very distant. "It was a meaningless gesture."

"If we were fighting to the death, maybe," Amoretta pointed out in exasperation. "But we weren't. Nothing awful was going to happen to Ellen as a result of William falling. They had already lost the match. He just wanted to make sure that she wasn't hurt. It was all he could do. In that sort of situation," she said, shaking her head, "I'm sure you would have done the same thing."

All at once Amoretta jumped out of her skin as she heard the unexpected sound of Grabiner's glass shattering against the floor at his feet.

"I'm very sorry," he said and he sounded as bitter as strychnine in clear water, "But I have no interest in discussing this with you further."

---

And then before she could protest she found herself swept up in Grabiner's teleport for a second time that evening.

He left her in the upstairs bathroom.

Perhaps even in his foul temper he found it grimly amusing.

Amoretta did not and she stamped her foot when she realized where she was, yelling all her anger and frustration out at the wall until she was left panting.

Then she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

Grabiner could be absolutely infuriating, but she didn't like fighting with him. She didn't really like fighting with anyone, but to fight with him was worst of all. It had made her feel sick and worried to see him so dark and withdrawn, and now he would surely not come to her for comfort because she had had the audacity to call him out for his belligerence.

It had been the right thing to do, but she did not think she had done it well enough. She had probably done more harm than good. She felt very confused and tired.

At the door, there was a polite knock.

"Yes?" she answered listlessly, as if it took all her strength.

"It's Cord, madam," came the butler's quiet voice. "I was wondering if you needed anything."

Oh, she thought. I'm sure he heard me swearing at the wall. Yet another way that I am not a very impressive Lady Halifax.

"Madam?" he asked again. "Do you need anything?"

She was startled out of her pensive thoughts.

"No," she said immediately, out of habit more than anything. But then she second guessed herself, shaking her head. "Yes, probably," she said. "Come in and talk to me."

After a moment, Cord had opened the door and entered the small room with her. She sat down on the lid of the closed toilet and let out a sigh.

"I've had sort of a rough day," she admitted.

"I gathered that," he said sympathetically.

She looked up at the ceiling absently and asked, "What is it that makes you like Hieronymous Grabiner anyway?"

Cord thought about for a moment, then said, "Well, I think the biggest reason is because he doesn't give up on the things that are important to him, regardless of what it makes other people think. I guess you could say that's sort of his defining characteristic for me. He can stand being hated, but he can't stand giving up."

Amoretta rubbed at her temples in confusion. "You're the second person who's said something like that to me recently, and I don't understand it. I mean, I guess I do understand it in a way. I understand that it's true because I know him, but what is it that makes you so certain - "

"The trial," Cord answered, slightly bewildered at her question. "The trial concerning the death of Violet Lore. That's when he earned his appellation, you know, 'the Blind Icarus.'"

"Oh," Amoretta said, shifting uncomfortably, "I see." She bit her lip, because she still didn't understand things, and was worried that she had blundered awfully because of that, hurting Grabiner even more than she had previously imagined. "But why?" she asked hesitantly. "I don't," she admitted with great difficulty, "I don't understand."

"You don't know," Cord said slowly, looking at her with a new understanding. "You really honestly don't know about Violet Lore and the Blind Icarus, even though you're married to the master. You don't know about the star that fell to earth, and the man who tried to catch it."

Amoretta looked hard at the floor and blinked back the beginning of tears, her face flushed. "No," she said. "I don't."

"I'm sorry," Cord apologized, with a deep bow. "I'm not trying to be insensitive to your feelings. It's just, this is really astonishing. You married him without knowing," he said, shaking his head briefly. "You really are Bluebeard's wife, ma'am," he said.

"Cord," Amoretta asked anxiously, leaning forward and wringing her hands in her lap. "What is it that I don't know? You're frightening me."

Cord immediately dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, madam," he said. "I meant no disrespect to either you or the master, and I'm sorry for frightening you, but I'm not certain it's my place - "

"Cord, please," she begged, balling her hands into fists. "People have tried to tell me before. I never listened because I thought it would be better if he told me himself, but now I'm so worried that I've made a mess of things by not knowing. I'm worried that I've said things and done things that have made him feel awful, that I'm the reason that he feels the way he does right now. Please tell me," she pleaded, tugging gently on his sleeve. "I need to know."

"They say he killed his first wife. The people believe that he killed Violet Lore," Cord said slowly, keeping his eyes on the floor. "The official verdict was negligence, but many people believe that he took her there for that express purpose, that he had her killed, or maybe even killed her himself, and then managed to escape justice because of how old and powerful his family is. Violet Lore, the Peerless, she was well-known and well-loved, and everyone was outraged by her death. Even as a young man, the master was a well-known duelist, and the Peerless - well, that name wasn't idle praise. She was killed by goblins, you know, in the Otherworld, and he was present at the scene, acting as her vanguard. The public couldn't believe that a party of goblins could have overwhelmed the two of them when they were together. They had a reputation, at that point, for being a very formidable pair, a witch and a wizard who could not be overcome when they were together."

"People," he paused briefly, then shrugged, "Well, they were sort of in love with the idea of Violet Lore, I think. She was like a modern myth, a goddess come to walk among mortals. She and the master had a story that was like a fairy tale, and she was their back alley princess. She was a poor girl who had nothing but beauty and genius, and he was from a family that had served on the Rex Curia from the time of its inception. It was romantic, I guess, because they were star-crossed, and very passionate about one another. They left school early and married without his father's consent. I think Lord Montague even cut him off for a while, until, well," he averted his eyes, "Until what happened happened. Violet Lore was already considered one of the greatest witches in Europe at seventeen, and the master was from an ancient lineage, the son of one of the Ten, and absolutely deadly in a duel. They were both brilliant, although the Peerless shone so brightly that it made him seem almost ordinary by comparison. She was beautiful and funny and charismatic and he was handsome and arrogant and brutal. They were quite a pair, like perfectly matched pieces that fit together only because they were both so radically different from one another. Everyone knew them. They were iconoclasts, always flouting tradition. They had style and grace and presence. They were, I don't know, like witch world royalty," he struggled to explain it, "They had genuine celebrity: they were the sort of people who command respect and draw attention wherever they go."

"But then it happened," Cord said, swallowing slowly. "They were traveling together in the Otherworld, just the two of them - as they often traveled - and they were ambushed and overrun. When the scene was examined after the fact, it was a massacre. There were corpses everywhere. Violet Lore didn't go down without a fight."

Amoretta's forehead scrunched up in distress and confusion, "Then why blame Hieronymous for what happened? Why accuse him of her murder?"

"Because he survived." Cord said helplessly. "Although they beat him bloody and senseless, they took him alive and kept him as a prisoner in one of the goblin cities until he could be ransomed. There was barely enough of Violet Lore left to bury." Cord paused thoughtfully before adding, "And it's not just that he survived. It's because of what he said at the trail, and what he's maintained since: that when he and Violet Lore were beset, they found themselves inside an immense, powerful anti-magic field."

Amoretta thought back to when Donald had been imprisoned in a small field in one of the classrooms, and the memory of the feeling made her skin crawl and she shivered. She felt cold.

Cord patted her shoulder sympathetically and Amoretta ran a hand through her hair. "They don't think he's telling the truth?"

"An anti-magic field of reasonable size and strength is difficult even for an accomplished witch to produce, and one big enough for a witch and a wizard to fight a battalion of goblins inside?" Cord asked, wincing on Grabiner's behalf, "It's far-fetched."

"So it's like the shooter on the grassy knoll," Amoretta interjected, and Cord nodded.

"Something like that," he said, "Although that's a conspiracy theory people are eager to believe. In this case, the fact that he has always denied the court's findings has made people suspicious of him, rather than of the court. The inquisitors who investigated the scene of the battle never found any evidence that a field of any size had been deployed at the site. No traces to support the master's testimony were ever recovered." Cord closed his eyes briefly before continuing. "People believe that the master was involved with Violet Lore's death, either directly or indirectly, and that he constructed the ruse of the anti-magic field as a way to absolve himself of guilt."

"But nobody believes that the field really existed," Amoretta pointed out. "How does that provide any kind of absolution, particularly if that's the thing that makes people hate him?" She demanded.

"People are very good at believing contradictory things," Cord says with a weak smile. "Particularly when they want to punish someone. Particularly when they believe that someone ought to be punished. It's the same way they can believe he murdered his wife and that she died because of his incompetence at the same time. It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to satisfy them."

"But the court found him not guilty, didn't they?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"The court ruled that Violet Lore's death was accidental," Cord said, spreading his hands in front of him. "Oh, she was clearly murdered by goblins, there was no doubt of that, but the court ruled that the incident was the result of poor fortune rather than design. The official word was that the master and the Peerless were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were attacked and overwhelmed." Here Cord bowed his head, "But I'm afraid it's not as simple as 'not guilty.' The master was charged with and found guilty of negligence and dereliction."

"Dereliction?" Amoretta asked, "Dereliction of what?"

"Dereliction of his duties as Violet Lore's husband," Cord said, shaking his head gravely. "They decided that the evidence indicated that he had not offered her his protection, as he had vowed when he married her, so their punishment was to strip him of her name."

"Her name?" Amoretta asked blankly.

"At the time he was tried, the master's name was Hieronymous Lore. He married Violet Lore cum manu and joined her family," Cord explained. "When they found him guilty of negligence, they stripped her name from him because they said he did not deserve to bear it. He became Hieronymous Grabiner again, as he had been born."

Amoretta did not know what to say to that. She felt dizzy, out of breath, as if she had been hit hard in the stomach. This was what he had been carrying alone for so long. This was the terrible weight on his back that he would not share with her. She felt as if she had loved him without understanding anything, her feelings as shallow as the water in the little cove at the foot of the cliffs. She loved him desperately then, painfully and passionately, with all the meager shreds of her being, but she felt very pathetic and small.

She had known nothing.

At this point Cord again became very thoughtful. "Despite the court's findings, the master does not accept that Violet Lore's death was an accident," he said. "He has never accepted it. He does not believe that they met a war party accidentally. He believes that they fell into a trap that someone had set to catch and kill the Peerless. He believes she was murdered, likely by whoever was responsible for the phantom anti-magic field. He has no proof of this, other than his own memories but he has never been silent about what he believes. People think a lot of things about the master: that he's a coward and a crackpot, a drunk, delusional, that he's trapped in the past in a cage of his own making. They still think he's arrogant, privileged, and surly, but some people believe that he got away with murder, that he murdered the one person he had sworn to protect."

Cord lifted one hand over his head and made a sweeping motion with it, as if it were a bird.

"They call him 'Icarus' because he was a young marvel before his fall, and as far as most people are concerned, that fall killed Hieronymous Lore. The man who remains is considered a pale shadow of the man who once was. They call him 'blind' because he refuses to accept the truth, that Violet Lore is dead because of his own negligence. They say that he is blind because he still seeks to invent excuses instead of taking responsibility for his actions. That is why they call him 'the Blind Icarus.'"

"That's a terrible name," Amoretta said, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It was not meant with kindness," Cord agreed. "People who are more sympathetic towards him call him 'Icarus' because they believe Violet Lore was like a star: too hot and brilliant to be held by anyone for long. She was as hot as sunlight and she melted his wings, and he is blind because he loved her despite this terrible danger. They call her the star that fell to earth, and they call him the man who tried to catch her in his bare hands. It's the kind of love they call 'limerence': the crippling love. It burns brightly and consumes everything."

Amoretta was trembling. Cord recognized her extreme distress even if she had not verbalized it and read it in his own way, placing a hand on her shoulder again.

"But you've got to understand that none of what I've told you is what I think about the master," He hastened to explain. "Before I came here I didn't know anything beyond what I had read of the trial at the time. I didn't really think I would like Hieronymous Grabiner, even though I didn't believe all that I had read. But then I met him and I understood. Although he doesn't have any proof, I believe that what he says about Violet Lore's death is true. It's just something I've gotten the feeling for, talking to him. I think once you really know him, it becomes impossible to imagine that he has done anything but tell the truth these long years. He wants justice for her, and if he can't have that, then he wants to punish the person responsible for her death. I don't think he'll ever let it go, not until the day that he dies." Cord gave Amoretta a sad smile. "The people might have forgiven him if he had confessed to some lesser crime, if he had admitted negligence or dereliction, if he had accepted the blame for her death, but he has never done that. I believe that he's chosen to be hated rather than dishonor her by becoming a liar."

"But he blames himself for her death," Amoretta said in a small voice. "I know that he does. I'm not saying that he ought to. I don't want him to, but I know he does. He wallows in it sometimes."

Cord shook his head and said, "That's what they call 'survivor's guilt.' He blames himself because he couldn't protect her even when he gave all of himself. He blames himself because he still lives even though she's dead. Even I can see that. That's why I admire Hieronymous Grabiner," he said. "That's why I agreed to work here: because he chooses to be hated rather than loved. It's not good," he said, shaking his head again. "It's not easy, but it is strong and it is beautiful."

Amoretta closed her eyes and was silent for some time.

At last she managed, "Thank you, Cord. That's all I wanted to know."

---

With some difficulty, Amoretta managed to convince Cord that she was all right, and although reluctant, the butler at last left her at her bedroom door. He had noticed that she seemed strangely chilly, and she admitted that she felt cold and tired and promised him that she would bundle up.

No, she didn't want tea. Yes, she was honestly all right. Yes, she was glad he had told her all that he had told her. Yes, thank you, she appreciated his kind thoughts.

Amoretta was feeling very low, and wanted to be alone with her thoughts, but she understood why he did not want to leave her and so she put on a brave, cheerful face. This face was not altogether convincing and Cord withdrew only when she insisted on wanting privacy, and only then after touching the stud in his ear briefly. He was clearly torn between his duties to her and his household responsibilities, but the dinner hour was nearly upon them and there were guests in the house. She promised she would come down for dinner after she had a little rest. At last he left her, after making her swear that she would call for him if she had need of anything.

Amoretta promised with a friendly nod and then let herself into her bedroom.

The room was dim and silent in the shadow of early evening. Grabiner was still in his workshop downstairs, and he clearly had no interest in her company. He was nursing his hurt alone, as he always did. She slumped against the bedroom door and absently put her hand over her shoulder. It had begun to ache some time ago. Alone in the privacy of the room, Amoretta pulled her t-shirt over her head and then began a soothing spell. Even when the spell's healing light disappeared into her flesh the wound still ached.

Her heart ached, and she felt slightly ill. What she had learned about Grabiner's past had been unexpected and painful, the wound much more terrible and raw than she had ever imagined. He had not only seen the woman that he loved die in a brutal, gruesome, horrifying way, but he had been accused of her murder. The weight of her death had been loaded onto his shoulders, and he had not even been allowed to mourn in peace. He had blamed himself from the beginning, Amoretta knew that even without being told, but then they had taken what was left of her from him, stripping her name from his skin as punishment for his imagined sins. In the time of his great loss and despair, when he had needed comforting the most, he had been shamed and disgraced and cursed. Even now he still wore a heavy mantle of suspicions and rumours, years after Violet's death. In all that time, he had shared his pain with no one, sometimes staggering under the weight of his incredible self-loathing. He had built himself a small, dull life at Iris Academy, one devoid of sorrows and of joys, because his great sorrow, his great pain, his great misery was ever-present, always bearing down on him with the weight of a thousand curses.

Now she at last understood the words of Marguerite Belle.

Everyone knows the Blind Icarus. That is the power of infamy. People are surprised, my dear. No one ever expected your husband to take another wife.

And perhaps that was the reason people were always expecting him to throw her down a well: it was what he had a reputation for.

Silly, stupid, innocent little wildseed girl, the childish, friendly, naive Pollyanna, a girl who doesn't ask too many questions, a girl who accepts and trusts without thinking about it and who is hurt badly because of it, the new Baroness Halifax, an awkward schoolgirl plucked from a New Hampshire farmyard, a poor fit certainly, but what else could be expected, considering. She was a gullible little beauty married off to a homicidal beast with no knowledge of who he was or what he had done to the girl who had come before her. It had been easy to sweep a child off her feet, certainly. Poor girl. Nothing good would come of it, but what could one do?

Amoretta realized at last that this was her part in the drama, that this was her role to everyone who watched with bated breath, to the people who read the society page, to the people who had sent the dozens and dozens of weddings gifts, perhaps even to the people she went to school with. She was a sweet, amiable sacrificial lamb who pranced and played about on green grass and then cheerfully suggested mutton for dinner, with no knowledge that she would be served up as first course.

She felt like a fool.

And he had tried to warn her. He had tried to warn her so many times that he was not something that she ought to want, that he was vile and poisonous, that he could never give her what she needed, what she wanted. He had tried to show her his scars and his ugliness, had tried time and time again to cleave through her fancies with the reality of his circumstances. He was tired and bitter and hard and unloveable.

He had told her from the beginning, you deserve better than me.

But she had known better than him and had loved heedlessly and without regret. She had given him her hands and her heart, even before he had been willing to take them, left them in his chair like unwanted Christmas gifts.

Even now, standing alone in their bedroom and shivering, her arms wrapped around herself, she still loved him without regret. What she had learned from Cord had made the bottom drop out of her very self, her confidence destroyed so totally that it might as well have never existed. She had felt her strength draining away to nothing because she had at last understood her vast, incalculable ignorance. She had loved him weakly, without understanding. He had been so hurt. He had been so hurt. What he needed was much greater than what she given him up until now. This knowledge left her trembling and terrified. What if she could not do it? What if she could not love him the way he needed to be loved, the way he deserved to be loved?

Even with all these doubts, now, more than ever, what she wanted to fill herself with was him: the way he turned his back on her when he was embarrassed about something, the way he held her when she was afraid, how he relaxed under her hands when she stroked his hair, the way he always came running whenever she was in trouble, how he snorted when wanted to laugh at one of her jokes but was unwilling to let her know that he thought she was clever, the sound of his honest laughter when he was caught off guard, how stubborn he could be when he refused to admit that he was wrong, his polished manners (when he remembered them) and his disdainful rudeness when he purposefully forgot them, his dismissive, offhand snobbery, how terrified and uncertain he was whenever he showed his heart to her, his awful temper, his intense sincerity, his casual arrogance, all the bitter, terrible parts of him that often hurt her when she tried to hold onto him, and his quiet strength when he held her in his arms.

He had told her, If the world stands against you, then I've got no other choice but to stand against the world.

If other people thought she was a fool, even if they thought she was a silly, ignorant child who didn't know any better than to develop a taste for poison, she didn't care. She had absolutely had no interest in their opinions.

She loved him. She loved him impossibly and desperately and with every shred of herself, with every iota, with every dalton. He had seen what she was, had accepted all that she was, and still asked for her to stand beside him, despite everything. He had let her into his sanctuary when she was terrified and alone, and had comforted her, holding her every night as she slept, so that she would not be tormented by things unseen. He had opened up his house and had built her a little garden filled with the music of the birds she loved. He had very reluctantly given his maimed and bloodied heart into her care, and more than she ever had before she understood how painful and difficult it had been for him to realize that he loved her, to accept that he loved her, to tell her that he loved her.

His everyday cloak was hanging in the wardrobe, largely forgotten now that warmer weather had come, and she pulled the familiar garment down tentatively, bundling it against her chest, trying to remember the first time she had felt it sweep around her. That had been in October, she thought, the evening she had fainted in the shopping mall. He had dropped his book to catch her, upsetting his chair and nearly knocking over the candle display in front of her. Or in September, during the first exam, when she had unexpectedly teleported herself out of the dungeon and into a tree and then landed on him while he tried to help her down. That had been a flurry of confusion and contusions and warmth. He had ended up bruised, but she had been perfectly fine, because even then he had been careful to cradle her when they fell. Or perhaps it had been even before that, the very first day, when she had run straight into him, knocking them both to the ground. His arms and his cloak had been around her then too, and she had heard him swear as he tried to find the hat that she had knocked clean off his head.

Ten demerits to begin with, and a thousand more afterwards. She was always in trouble. She had been in trouble since the very beginning, since the first moment she had barrelled straight into him. Perhaps he was terrible. Perhaps he was awful and difficult and ugly and cruel. Perhaps he was poison, but she didn't care. He was what she wanted. He was what she had always wanted. She loved him so hard that she felt that she might tear herself into pieces, as if by ripping herself into strange, glinting fragments she might rearrange herself so that she loved him better, or worse, more painfully, more beautifully.

She felt dizzy and staggered a little. She needed to sit down.

She moved to the edge of the bed and sat, pulling his cloak around her like a blanket.

It did not matter what anyone else thought of her, if they imagined she was Little Red Riding Hood wed to the Big Bad Wolf, if they covered their mouths and clucked their tongues, even if they planned out her obituary, writing flowery verses about her early death. Those people would always be on the outside: outside of her home, outside of her heart, outside of her life. She did not know if she had the strength within her to show the world how wrong they had been about him. He was not always easy to love, although she loved him easily, as easily as drowning. It was an immense and terrifying responsibility, to somehow change what the whole world thought of him, and she doubted she was clever enough or grand enough to do such a thing.

But she thought, perhaps, that this might be what Lady Halifax did.

And if the world could not love him, then she would shift it until it did.

She understood Violet Lore very intimately in that moment, in the dark bedroom. Dead and buried, the Peerless could not do what remained to be done. She had dumped the impossibly heavy load of her life at Amoretta's feet, like a pile of weird treasures. Looking at it, the strange hopeless confusion of all that she had been and done, Amoretta was not certain that she could bear the weight of the girl who had called herself the Peerless, the genius, the indigo witch, the brilliant star that had fallen to earth.

"How did you do it all?" Amoretta wondered aloud, feeling very faint and cold.

But then the answer seemed so obvious that Amoretta was not sure whether she ought to laugh or cry.

"Of course," she said quietly to the empty room. "You did it because it never occurred to you that you might not be able to."

As she fell sideways onto the bed, she hazily reflected that flying was only falling and missing the ground.

---

Alone in his workshop, Grabiner eyed the sandwich that sat untouched on the corner of his desk. After he had ejected Amoretta from the premises, he had lost interest in drinking, even had his glass not lain shattered against the stone floor. He still very much wanted to be drunk, to drown out the events of the day which still burned against his skin like shallow scratches, but she had soured the whiskey on his tongue.

He did not feel like doing much of anything.

He massaged his temples slowly, then stood to retrieve the broom from the corner of the workshop and got to work sweeping up the shattered glass. He might have called the butler or the manus, or even swept the shards away with a spell, but the manual labor of the task steadied him.

It was getting on in the evening. Cord would be readying the table for dinner. Grabiner was not certain he wished to attend this evening's dinner, which was sure to be strained and uncomfortable.

He was certain that Amoretta would not yet have forgiven him. It had been childish and petulant of him to send her away as he had, particularly to the upstairs bathroom. He had been asserting his authority to absolutely no purpose other than to strong arm her. He had been acting like a tyrant, like a boy-king determined to have his way, but he never knew what to do with her when her temper got white and hot. It was so uncommon for her to be anything but kind and understanding, patient and agreeable. Even when she disagreed with him she was generally very amiable. She had a way of gently turning him around until he came to her way of thinking or she accepted that he would not. But her anger was always terrible and brittle, with the sudden heat of a flash fire. Her fury set him on edge.

He had wanted to brood and sulk in misery, and of course she hadn't been willing to allow him the privilege of his private despair. He knew that he'd been ugly to the boy. He knew that he'd been repellent to her. He did not need to be reminded what an awful human being he was, but she had come despite his half-hearted efforts to keep her out, and she had told him what she thought of him.

But that wasn't really true and he knew it.

She had not come into the workshop to fight him. Amoretta never went anywhere looking to fight. She was gentle and thoughtful and curious and sweet. She built bridges. She didn't burn them.

She would fight like a cat when she felt she had no recourse, but she had not been trying to fight with him. She had been trying to talk to him, to reason with him, to make him see sense, and he had been rude and dismissive to her, had implied that she did not have the right to disturb him.

If anyone had that right, then that right had long been hers.

He sighed and sat back in his desk chair, feeling very tired.

"Kavus," he called. "Would you please locate my wife? I owe her an apology."

There was a moment of silence and then the djinni appeared, looking very serious.

"She is upstairs in your bedroom," he said. "She did not respond when I spoke to her. I believe she may be asleep."

The word was barely out of Kavus's mouth before Grabiner was out his chair, his hands fumbling at the lock on the door until he finally spat out a spell and threw it open so that it slammed against the wall behind, going up the old wooden stairs to the upper floor three at a time -

It was very quiet and dark in the bedroom, and Grabiner did not have the patience or presence of mind to stumble around looking for the lamp and so he lit up the room with a witchlight and found her on the bed, wrapped in his cloak. Her shirt was crumpled on the floor near the door, and one look at the bandage on her shoulder told him that the wound had been bleeding again. It seemed to have spread, not much, but noticeably, and he could see slender lines of ink radiating from the curse burn and disappearing under her camisole, marking the path that the witch mark was taking toward her heart.

He called out her name, but she did not respond, and so he put his hands on her for the first time and realized that she was cold to the touch.

His heart stopped.

For a moment it was as if the universe had reached absolute zero. All movement had stopped: her heart, his heart, the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the sun around the center of the galaxy, the movement of electrons, the spin of quarks. It had all ceased. There was nothing. Time had ended.

But then he was swearing loudly, pulling her into his arms and carrying her back toward the stairs, back to his workshop where he could think. She was cold, but his fingers on her wrist had found her pulse. She was not dead.

She was not dead.

As he carried her through the door to his workshop, Ellen Middleton's head came shyly around the corner from the great room, drawn by the noise and confusion. When he saw her, he called her after him.

"I may need you," he said.

Although uninvited, William Danson came behind her, but Grabiner had no time to consider him. He had to determine what had happened to his wife. He laid her down on the sofa.

The curse burn had obviously spread, which meant it had at last burnt through the seal that Grabiner had laid on it in March. The inky lines in the capillaries under her skin had begun to come together in arabesques, forming an elaborate design around the bloody handprint on her shoulder. The skin around the wound had taken a blue cast. It was almost luminously blue-white, otherworldly, strange and fey. But that by itself did not explain why Amoretta was so cold.

It took a diagnostic to reveal what was wrong with her.

"Her mana pool is nearly empty," he said tensely to the girl behind him, whose fists were clenched tightly. "She isn't osmosing mana. Her magic isn't breathing." His eyes flicked sideways to Ellen. "I need you to bring the three bottles you find on the third shelf over there." He did not turn to look at William. "You qualified in senior black, didn't you?"

"I did," William answered steadily.

"Have you ever brewed Unlit Vital Essence?" Grabiner asked, his eyes not leaving Amoretta as he began to shrug out of his robe.

"I have," William said. "But only twice. The ingredients are expensive."

"It doesn't matter," Grabiner said shortly. "Do it. Ellen will show you where the equipment is." He shifted his attention to her again, because she had brought the bottles he had asked for. He was already pushing off his suspenders and beginning to unbutton his shirt. "There's a recipe in the big brown book we use for alchemy lessons. Get him what he needs."

Ellen flushed and looked away, but nodded, saying, "Yes, sir."

Cord had appeared at the doorway to the workshop, looking ashen.

"Sir, it's all my fault - " he began, his voice rising in unfamiliar tones of panic.

"It is not," Grabiner cut him off sharply. "If anyone is at fault then it is me because I did not recognize that this was happening to her. Keep calm, boy. You must keep calm." They were hard, deliberate words for himself as much as a command to the butler. "Go to the school and fetch the headmistress. I may need her if I cannot start Amoretta's breathing on my own. Take the car - " he stopped dead. "You can drive?"

Cord shook his head. He was not tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

Ellen interjected, "Take my bicycle. You can cut through the woods on the path. It's much shorter than going by road."

Grabiner nodded. "Yes," he said. "That will do. Now be off."

The butler went without another word.

By this point Grabiner had shed his shirt and sat down on the sofa next to Amoretta, pulling her into his lap. She was still very cold. He wrapped the cloak around them both and then began a spell, closing his eyes in concentration.

Across the workshop, Ellen acted as William's assistant as he carefully measured ingredients into one of the small cauldrons.

"He must get her magic breathing again," William told her quietly. "She will die if he can't. If her mana pool is emptied, then she will die just the same as if she were drained of blood. It's incredibly abnormal for it to be as low as it is. Usually a witch can't drain it down past half way unless they're very disciplined and have had special training. I don't know how it could have gotten so low, unless the mark had something to do with it."

"Unlit Vital Essence is a liquid mana elixir, isn't it?" Ellen asked, her eyes still on Grabiner, who was focused on casting his spell, which seemed very complicated and had a long verse count. He was holding Amoretta very tenderly despite his intense concentration, her head tucked under his chin, but Ellen could read the strain in his face.

"That's exactly it," William said, focusing on the potion he was mixing. "It's one of the most potent mana elixirs that humans can stand to drink, although it tastes so awful that most people avoid it if they can, that and it's very expensive to produce. What he's trying right now is something like CPR. He's trying to get her magic breathing manually, with the rhythm of his own body, through his skin, but if she does begin to breathe, she'll begin consuming his mana pool directly."

"Like two scuba divers breathing from one oxygen tank," Ellen said slowly and William nodded.

"It's an emergency measure," William said. "He's got to keep replenishing his mana pool while she drains it, otherwise feeding her mana may well kill him, or at least knock him completely unconscious."

"Which is why he asked you to brew this potion," she said, looking down into the cauldron, where the liquid was beginning to glow, as viscous as mercury.

William nodded again. "He had you bring him his local supply, but he can't be sure how long he'll have to feed her his mana until he gets her breathing on her own again. And he must keep feeding her until she begins to breathe on her own. If he doesn't, then her body may simply shut down. Nobody here knows powerful enough healing magic to stabilize her with her mana pool so low. It'd probably take a White Cap to do something like that, or maybe the headmistress."

All at once Ellen's eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands.

"The headmistress isn't at the school," she whispered to William. "She left yesterday. Professor Finch is minding things right now. I - I - I can't tell him that."

"He'll find out soon enough anyway," William said soothingly. "It's not your fault."

"But Cord might have gone for somebody else - " Ellen stammered.

"There is nobody else," William said quietly. "All we can do is hope that he can get her breathing on his own." He saw her shoulders tense up and he said, "It's all right. Just focus on what I'm doing. That's all we can do right now."

Ellen bit her lip and then nodded, bowing her head. He could see the tears that were standing at the corners of her eyes.

William glanced over at Grabiner, who held the ghostly pale girl so close and careful, and then bowed his own head to his work.

---

Let my breath be as your breath. Let my blood beat as your blood. You are blind, but I will lead you. Let my flesh be your guide and your bower. You who wander alone in the wild darkness, I am the beacon, the path, and the gate. Drink of my blooming heart and be glad. This is the forgiving hour, but you will not pass away. Fill your loving cup at this deep pool and know that I will give to you all there is to give. Consanguineous Deliverer.

It was a long spell, complex, eight verses while he traced out a pattern against her skin.

As he held her close to him, there were dozens of thoughts chasing one another through his brain. He struggled to focus on the even pulse of his mana, trying to be a metronome for her small, cold body. He found that the only way he could do this was by carefully regulating his breathing, by tearing backwards through the pages of his past until he came to those first, early lessons when he had first begun to learn how to calm his temper, how to rein in his fear.

Mind your temper, Hiero, Violet had often said to him. I can't mind it for you.

It was strange to think of Violet here, now, with Amoretta as cold as winter in his arms, but he did, and oddly, it gave him courage.

This was very contrary and seemed backwards and mixed up, as if he were falling head first down a rabbit hole. Generally, whenever Violet crossed his mind, she dragged a bloody swath of his failures behind her like a train of corpses. The Violet in his mind never accused him. She did not have to. He was perfectly capable of accusing, convicting, and sentencing himself. She only stood as a sad, mute witness to the pathetic horrors that he had wrought with his own hands. The Violet of his heart never spoke to him. She could not speak. It was as if someone had cut out her tongue, and this had always been acutely unsatisfying, because the Violet of the flesh had never ever been at a loss for words.

If she had accused him, if she had berated him, he could have found more comfort in punishing himself, but she did none of those things. The Violet of memory said nothing.

Usually.

But then there were strange, wonderful moments, rare and unforeseen, when she seemed to stand at his shoulder, her fingers against the back of his neck, and whisper words directly into his ear, so that he felt her hot breath. These moments were like vivid hallucinations of the Violet of the flesh, so eerily real and vital that he briefly forgot that she was dead and buried and he expected her to slip her arm through his, as she had often done, hanging on his shoulder.

These were the times he could remember Violet as she had been, live and warm and violently in love with everything. These were the times he could remember back past the night that was gouged into his soul like a barricade, into the forbidden territory where his most sacred altar stood, back to the heavily beaten ground where Violet's love was so thick and inescapable that it lay in piles, piles that he had at one time kept very carefully sorted out.

Amoretta had said to him,I can see her fingerprints all over you. I can read all about her when you show me your heart.

The girl in his arms seemed so certain of what Violet thought and felt that he found it unnerving, particularly when he could never be certain that he wasn't loathed and despised, never except in those potent moments of nirvana when he remembered her so forcefully it was as if he had been struck in the head.

She would have laughed, Amoretta had told him, and then she had laughed at him herself, not unkindly, but gently, passionately, with all the unconditional tidings that Amoretta brought like urchins clinging to her skirts.

He loved her. He loved her impossibly. He loved the both of them: one dead and one near death, clinging to life only through a thread he had tied around her little finger. He wondered what the one would have thought of the other. Violet would have surely called Amoretta a kitten, then put a pillow case over her head and tickled her until she wet herself, screaming and giggling and kicking. Amoretta would have hung on Violet with stars in her eyes, like a child begging for bedtime stories. They would have pulled at one another, like binary stars, trading laughter and energy and poorly thought out plans that became more well thought out plans. Together, they would have made more than mischief. Together, they would have made paradise.

It was there in one strange, brilliant instant that seemed to explode slowly in a long streak of color that reached the far horizon of eternity, the past and present overlapping like two sheets of acetone laid over one another to form a composite picture: the feeling of Violet at his shoulder, and Amoretta cradled in his arms.

He could not say if he was delirious and hallucinating. He could not say at all, but he held fast to the memory of Amoretta's laughter and the feeling of Violet's fingers. He was falling. He had fallen. He would fall. He would continue to fall. He was ever-falling.

This was the position into which they had placed him.

---

Amoretta sat groggily up, rubbing at her eyes. She was in Grabiner's workshop, on the same battered sofa where he'd laid her down for the first time. She shivered a little as she felt the morning air on her bare skin because she wasn't wearing a shirt, only her camisole. Dimly she remembered having taken her shirt off in the bedroom. Looking down at the sofa she realized that Grabiner had been sleeping next to her, that they had both been somehow wedged together on the narrow length of the old sofa. His cloak had been around them both.

Grabiner looked exhausted. He was sleeping with his mouth slightly open, his hair completely in his face. One of his arms was still around her, and the other had been under her.

Then she turned her head and realized that there were at least three diagnostic spells layered in the air in front of her.

There, sitting quietly in a chair, his staff across his lap, sat Rail Finch. He gave her a brief nod when she noticed him and then silently laid a finger to her lips. She nodded, and then he came over to help her off the sofa. Grabiner didn't stir as she drew away from him, but she took the time to carefully tuck his cloak around him. He was sleeping in his breeches, without his shirt on.

Professor Finch took one last look at the diagnostic spells and then dismissed them, offering her his arm. She took it tentatively, and he led her out into the hallway and finally out onto the back terrace. Once they were out on the stones and Amoretta was blinking in the bright morning sun, Finch shrugged out of his dusty corduroy robe and put it around her shoulders.

Only then did he speak.

"The whole house is asleep," he explained. "And considering the night they had, I'd hate to wake them just yet." He looked her over appraisingly. "It's good to see you out and saying good morning to another sunrise. You seem awfully anxious to shake hands with the grim reaper, little lady."

"What happened?" Amoretta asked, looking down at herself. She couldn't remember anything after sitting down on the bed. "I fell asleep again?" she wondered. She had been very tired and confused.

Finch shook his head. "It ain't that simple," he said. "Would that it was. No, the seal Hieronymous put on that wound finally gave way under the strain of the curse, and it began to feed on you again. While it was growing, it began draining you of your mana quicker than shit through a goose. Eventually you got so weak that your body stopped breathing mana. You basically began to slowly suffocate."

Amoretta nervously pushed Finch's robe back to look at her shoulder and was distressed to find a strange pattern like an elaborate tattoo all around the bandaged wound.

"Don't worry, young missus," Finch said gravely. "This time I sealed that curse myself with Methodist Union holy magic and unicorn blood. It's again in check. Now that we know that the damned curse is always beating against the edge of its confines, we can keep reinforcing the seal as often as necessary and keep it from growing."

"But if it does break the seal," Amoretta asked tentatively, "Then it will grow again? It will grow bigger than it is now?"

Reluctantly Finch nodded. "The curse is trying to get at your heart and your brain," he said. "Once it gets that far, it'll be able to influence your thoughts, maybe even your actions. That's the sort of curse it is."

Amoretta shivered and Finch comfortingly patted her on the head.

"I know it's a mess to consider, girl," he said. "But it's got a ways to go before that happens, and we're all of us working to keep you safe and whole, Hieronymous most of all. That man obviously loves you more than he loves his own life." Then Rail Finch shook his head, saying, "Although if I hadn't gotten here when I did he might have killed the both of you by shooting bottles of cat piss. That damned idiot had had two of them in half an hour, and planned to down two more. He was oversaturating his system with mana, which is a damn fool idea if I ever heard one."

"Cat piss?" Amoretta asked in confusion and Finch laughed as if he enjoyed hearing her swear.

"Unlit Vital Essence is what they call it," he said. "But everyone knows it tastes like cat piss. It's a mana elixir. Technically speaking, humans can drink it, but it's still somewhat poisonous. He was certainly feeling it by the time I managed to detoxify his system. That's why he's sleeping like a dead man now. He fed you on his own mana for about five hours until we could get you breathing on your own again. That's exhausting work, and it wore him plumb out." He paused and then seemed to be considering whether he ought to offer this last bit of information. "He cried when we finally got you breathing on your own again. I swear," he said, shading his eyes and looking out to sea, "Loving you is bound to kill him, if the last few months is any indication."

Amoretta flushed and looked at the ground, unsure of what to say.

But then Professor Finch chuckled, "Really, I'm pretty damned jealous, girl. I've never met anyone in seventy three years of life that stirs my blood the way you stir his. That's something to hold onto with both hands."

Shyly, Amoretta asked, "Professor Finch, what do you think of Hieronymous?"

"He's a horse's ass," Finch answered immediately. "He's a hardheaded idiot who always does things his own way regardless of what anybody else tells him," he said, and seemed to have very clear opinions on the subject. "He can be hard to understand, but he's a good man. This world may be filled with vague, wishy-washy people but Hieronymous ain't one of them. Sometimes he's a dog chasing his own tail. He won't do anything that's good for him and he likes to stew. He can be a bit of a brat, but he's an excellent wizard and a gifted duellist. Depending on the circumstances, and if he had a second, he could probably take me if I wasn't handling myself right, and let me tell you girl, that's pretty high praise, coming from me."

"So you like him?" Amoretta asked speculatively. "I mean, you really like him."

"That idiot's one of the only friends I've got left alive," Finch guffawed. "I'd better like him."

"I like him too," Amoretta said honestly. "Very much."

Finch snorted again, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'd gathered that."

Amoretta smiled then, warm and lovely in the sunlight. "I know," she said. "I just really wanted to say it to someone. I just wanted someone else to know, that I don't just love him, that I really do like him. I wouldn't want anything different than what I have." She put her hand over the strange mark on her shoulder and tried to be brave. "Even if that means I won't have it for very long," she said at last.

"Don't go diggin' your own grave yet, little lady," Finch said, patting her on the back comfortingly. "You're alive, and that means your sole objective is to fight death with tooth and claw. That's all the living can do: fight to keep living."

Amoretta took a deep breath of the salty sea air and then let it out.

"I know," she said, nodding. "I'm not a quitter. I'm going to fight and fight and fight and fight. I don't want to die. I like being alive. It's just, if - "

"If nothing," Finch cut her off. "You fight. When the time comes, it'll come. They say 'no man shall know the day and the hour.'"

Amoretta's brow scrunched up briefly. "Professor Finch, that's about the second coming," she complained and he grinned.

"It sure is, ladybug, but it got my point across," he said as he winked at her. "We're all mortals, and we're all gonna die someday, so there really ain't no use worrying about it. The thing to do is to fill your life with color and song, so that when the time does come, you won't have any regrets."

Amoretta thought of Violet Lore and nodded very deliberately.

"That's what I've decided," she said with certainty. "To live with no regrets. I'll do the best that I can at everything." Then she paused and shook her head. "No," she said. "I'll do better than the best that I can. I'll do the best there is."

Rail Finch seemed pleased by her resolution and gave her another affectionate pat on the head.

As they stood together on the terrace, at last Amoretta's eyes drifted back toward the house.

"How is everybody?" she wondered. "You said I gave them an awfully hard time." She could not keep the guilt out of her voice.

"Little Miss Middleton is asleep on the couch in the front room," Finch said, "The butler and the housekeeper finally went to sleep when I made them. I sent the eldest Danson boy over to watch the kids at the school for me. I'll go and relieve him once I'm sure Hieronymous is on his feet again."

They were silent for a moment, and Amoretta listened to the sound of the chimerical birds nesting in the cliffs below them.

"Thank you for letting us use your car for the summer," she said. "I've just realized that I hadn't thanked you yet."

"It ain't nothing," Rail Finch said with a wry smile and a shrug. "I'm just glad you could get some use out of her. You be good to Gertrude, and Gertrude will be good to you."

"Gertrude?" Amoretta asked, her eyes lighting up.

"Didn't Hieronymous even tell you her name?" Finch demanded, seemingly quite offended.

"I guess it just slipped his mind," Amoretta attempted to make excuses for her absent husband. "She is a wonderful car, though. I just love her." She thought that admiring Gertrude might be the way to appeal to Professor Finch's vanity and she was right.

He snapped his fingers once and nodded, agreeing, "She is a dilly."

"I'm glad you came to visit," Amoretta said, idly looking over the house which had already become the seat of such warm memories. It really was her home now. "Only I wish it had been under nicer circumstances." She leaned forward slightly. "You know, I've been practicing the piano. Hieronymous thought that maybe we could all play together at some point. You play the violin, right?"

Finch snorted. "I don't know how many times I've told that boy, but no, I do not play the violin," he said, and then snapped his heel hard against the stone. "I play the fiddle. I've been fiddlin' since I was knee-high to a hickory stump. I'll stumble through Hieronymous's pokey chamber music, and I guess it is soothing if you want to take a nap, but what I really like is some good old rockabilly. If you learn to play honky-tonk piano, I may steal you away from the boy yet."

Amoretta laughed at that and nodded her head. "I'll do my best, but I'm still a beginner," she reminded him. "I might be so awful at first that you give up on me completely."

"I doubt that," Finch said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Hieronymous, Petunia, and I have been playing together for about six years now, I think, but when we first started together we sounded like somebody murderin' cats with an out-of-tune accordion. I was out of practice, and Hieronymous was so moody I swear he played out of tempo on purpose, and there was Petunia, driving us along like she had a stick and a carrot." He shook his head briefly. "It's a good thing that we don't sound quite so bad now, otherwise we might be arrested for disturbing the peace."

Amoretta giggled, bringing a hand to her mouth, but then she heard a sound over her shoulder that made her turn around where she stood.

Someone had opened the back door of the cottage and was standing framed by the lintel.

Grabiner, having shrugged on his robe, was blinking in the morning sun. It took a moment for his eyes adjust to the sunlight, but then they focused on her. There was a moment of pure, absolute silence as they stared at one another, and then he was running toward her as if she were the rarest creature ever graced by the eye of heaven. She spread her arms wide as he came upon her, grateful that he was awake, and this was all the invitation that he needed. He leaned down and seized her around the waist, pulling her against his chest and turning around with her in his arms as if she were a very little girl, as if he would throw her up and catch her. The sun was warm on the top of her head as she felt him bury his face in her hair and kiss her.

He held her very tightly for several moments, and she felt his heart in his chest, and the tenseness of his muscles, and the great flood of his relief.

At last he loosened his grip on her so that he could look at her, but he did not put her back down on the ground. It was as if he had not yet had enough of her, and was unwilling to turn her loose.

She saw his eyes soften as he looked at her, and she gave him her smile, a little trodden on, a little bedraggled, but lovely just the same.

"I'm glad to see you," he said gently. "For a while I thought - " he shook his head. "It's not important. The only thing that matters to me is now, here, this moment." He brought one of her pale hands to his face and pressed his lips against it hard. "I love you," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about everything." His eyes shifted sidelong and he said, "I owe you a much greater apology than that for more things than I can count, but I get the feeling that you're not interested in hearing it," he murmured into her fingers.

She shook her head and said, "You're right. I'm not interested in the slightest," she said with feigned severity, but then her smile blossomed again, sweet and genuine. "The only thing that matters to me is you. So long as you're living and breathing, you don't owe me any apologies."

He sat her delicately on her feet and then looked down at her so intently that Amoretta could not help the flush creeping into her cheeks. The front of his robe was hanging open because he'd just pulled it on over his bare shoulders and she could see the hollow of his throat and the sharp lines of his clavicles. His eyes were very heavy, and she could feel the weight of his intention. It was as if he were ready to devour her right there. He put one of his hands under her chin and turned her face up, resting his thumb against her bottom lip.

"You are impossible," he said.

And then he bent his head and kissed her. With all his deliberateness, with all his intensity, he was so overcome by his own emotions that he did not kiss her perfectly on the mouth but rather a little low, and off center. But then he had caught her lower lip in his teeth and tugged on it gently before slipping his hand across her throat and around the back of her head to cup the base of her skull, his fingers tangled up in her dark hair. He tasted all of her then, like the grace of heaven on his tongue, and her mouth was hot and small, packed with her teeth like little bits of pearl. In that brief moment, a cross-section of time had been cut from the both of them, a brilliant, painful, beautiful vivisection, and she understood his desperation and felt the feeble brush of his relief even as she tugged insistently on the front of his robe, one hand against the bare flesh of his throat, feeling his blood beating powerfully under her fingertips. It was as if she sought to knit them tighter together than they were. tighter than they ever had been. It was a kiss to mend what had not been broken.

As Grabiner pulled away from the kiss and looked down at her, she could see all of the man she loved in his face, as if he wore it like skin, or a veil. It was all hanging off of him, layers and layers of his transparent, gossamer self: all of the agony, all of the ecstasy, all of the grief and sorrow and brilliance. He looked at her as if she were reverend and she looked at him as if she were willing to be the cause of his death, if that was the cost of giving him her life and her love.

She said, but didn't say, If I kill you, then I will kill you very well.

He said, but didn't say, You are the beginning and the end. You are everything in between.

Amoretta was overcome by the simple, easy joy of being alive and she laughed, leaning forward to wrap her arms around his waist and press her face against his chest, Rail Finch's overlarge robe slipping off one of her shoulders. As she held him, he began to gently stroke her hair.

At last, Amoretta let go of him, although she moved to take his hand, holding the large, bony fingers entwined both of her hands. When she remembered that Professor Finch was on the terrace with them she turned to find that the older professor had politely turned to offer them privacy, and was leaning against the terrace's balustrade, staring out at sea.

"This is the best morning," Amoretta said, turning her face up to look at the sky. "This is the best morning of all mornings that have ever been or ever will be. I'm sorry," she said, ducking her head briefly, "That I can be so strange and awkward. I feel like I'm a little ember that you keep safe by cupping your hands. I know there's so much I still need to learn about everything, I know that I need to become much stronger, and I know that there are terrible things outside the warmth of your protection, but even if I have to split my skin or rupture the boundaries of this universe, I swear to you," she said, and her voice rang with sudden power and sincerity, "When I finally rise, I will shake the foundations of the world. I will do what remains to be done."

Her intensity had silenced him and she felt his hand go slack in hers, even as he searched her eyes, her name escaping his mouth as a voiceless whisper.

"It wasn't a threat," she said very sweetly, and the strange spell of her ominous prediction was broken. "It was a promise," she explained. "To you and to myself. I have understood the true nature of the ground," she said mysteriously, and Grabiner's hand tightened in hers again.

"What are you talking about?" he asked in confusion.

"The future," she said with a wistful smile. "And the past."

And then without explaining herself further she led him off toward Rail Finch.

---

The rest of the day passed easily. When Amoretta and the two professors returned to the cottage they found that Tansy was already up and putting on a big breakfast. Grabiner persuaded Finch to stay for the morning meal and Amoretta went upstairs with Ellen to wash her face and put on some clothes so that she could finally return the thaumatology professor's robe, which had the faint odor of the dungeon hanging on it.

In the washroom and before she could get properly dressed, Ellen unexpectedly hugged her, holding her very still for several seconds. Amoretta patted the blonde's head comfortingly as Ellen shed a couple of tears on Amoretta's recently bandaged shoulder.

"Don't you leave me," Ellen said, squeezing her hard. "I wouldn't know what to do if I lost you. I was so afraid last night - "

"You don't have to be afraid any more," Amoretta said gently, giving Ellen a squeeze. "I won't go gentle into that good night."

"You'll rage and rage against the dying of the light?" Ellen answered with a laugh that Amoretta had bled from her despite her distress. She shook her head as she released Amoretta, biting her lip. Amoretta could feel Ellen's eyes on the strange ring of marks that circled the handprint on her shoulder. "I just wish you didn't have to suffer any more. You've already suffered enough."

At that Amoretta smiled. "I'll never be done with suffering," she said with certainty. "That's the price of being alive. I don't mind it. It really feels pretty good. Even failing over and over again, even knowing that you're straining toward something impossible. It feels pretty good. I think everything is in the means, and not the ends."

"You know, you're like a little star," Ellen said as Amoretta leaned on the sink and began to wash her face.

"I am?" Amoretta asked into the washcloth. She did not seem very starlike at that particular moment. She had gotten soap into her mouth by talking into the washcloth and was trying unsuccessfully to spit it out.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star," Ellen sang softly. "How I wonder what you are." She wet her own washcloth. "I really do, you know," she said seriously. "I really wonder what you are. You're enigmatic."

Amoretta stuck her tongue out. "Enigmatic is just a nice way of saying 'weird.' It's like how we call the Toads 'eldritch.'"

"Well," Ellen admitted with a slow smile, "You are pretty weird."

At this pronouncement Amoretta leaped upon Ellen and began to tickle her mercilessly and could only be subdued when the larger girl wrestled her to the ground and held both of her arms behind her back. By this point both the girls were out of breath from tickling and laughter, and Ellen's fears had been eased by Amoretta's effortless vitality.

When they descended to breakfast several minutes later, Grabiner had an announcement for the both of them. Classes at Revane would be suspended for a week's time. It was a holiday for the both of them. At the end of the week, he would evaluate Amoretta's fitness to continue and reinstate their regular schedule based on his findings.

"Of course, Miss Middleton," Grabiner said to Ellen seriously, "You are always welcome in our home regardless, even if class is not in session."

Ellen had flushed at that and stammered a thank you while Amoretta elbowed her in the ribs. Then Grabiner offered his arm to his wife and escorted her into breakfast, with Ellen and Rail Finch following behind.

After breakfast Professor Finch at last departed for the school, promising to send William back to Revane. Ellen remained in the little cottage, reluctant to leave Amoretta so soon after such a crisis, especially after Grabiner had extended such an invitation.

William returned around lunch time, bringing Donald and Luke Pheifer with him.

"They insisted," he apologized to Amoretta. "They wouldn't take Professor Finch's word for it. They had to make sure you were all right themselves."

The two boys had been reluctant for the first few moments, as if unsure how to treat someone who has yet again returned from the brink of death, but then Donald was mussing her hair and giving her noogies and Luke had taken her hand strongly. Then even that collapsed and she was soon hanging on Donald's neck while Luke squeezed the both of them until Donald made a noise like a kazoo that had been stepped on.

Grabiner stood back during all of this, calmly watching her being adored.

Ellen, standing next to him, wondered if he was jealous. He didn't seem to be. Mostly, what she felt from him was an overwhelming flood of relief. His eyes never left Amoretta, no matter who she was with or what she was doing. It was enough to make her feel giddy, although why Grabiner watching Amoretta should make her feel so heady she could not say. Even wondering about it was enough to make the awkward girl blush and to hide her interest behind the thin pretense of reading.

Amoretta enjoyed the day, with her house filled with friends and laughter and music and everyday joy. But she did notice that William did not really talk to Donald, and that Grabiner did not really speak to William. Ellen spent much of the day pretending to read a book about traditional Scandinavian knitting, although she did laugh at Donald's jokes and smiled when Amoretta asked her to pick a record.

Even when the boys went home, acting as escort to Ellen, who left Revane only reluctantly, because she had not packed an overnight bag, Amoretta well understood that not all of her immediate problems had been solved.

William still lingered at Revane, and her husband was unwilling to consider having him as an apprentice.

She resolved to sleep on it.

---

The next day, after leaving her in the great room with a slow, thoughtful kiss, Grabiner retired to his workshop, leaving Amoretta to spend the day in the company of William and Ellen, who arrived in time for lunch.

Amoretta was surprised to find that Ellen was no longer quite so strange and awkward around William. Something about the crisis had given her strength and poise, so now she seemed quite natural around the former wolf. Amoretta ultimately decided that it would be good for the both of them. Without the rose-colored lens of heroworshipping, perhaps Ellen could begin to understand the William that Amoretta knew. It would be good for him, she thought, to have someone else to talk to. Beyond that, she wanted William to see Ellen as she really was, fierce and brave and sometimes silly and as deep as a well. It always gave her pleasure to introduce her friends to one another, even over and over again.

But despite a night of sleeping curled up at Grabiner's side, warm and safe in her little bed, no ready solutions to the apprenticeship problem had presented themselves.

This was how Amoretta came to decide that there were no ready solutions and that alternative measures had to be considered.

---

After dinner, Grabiner returned to his work for an hour or so, then retired to the upstairs library, and this was where Amoretta found him.

Grabiner was pensively sitting in a chair with his legs stretched out before him, but he wasn't reading. A book lay open in his lap, but he was ignoring it. Amoretta quietly closed the door behind her and slowly crept around until she was standing in front of him.

He looked up at her briefly but his expression remained clouded. That was understandable. The past day's events had been very difficult for both of them and she got the feeling that whatever he had spent the day doing behind the locked workshop door, it had not given him the answers he had sought. He was tense and strained.

This would be a fight. She knew it would be a fight, but it was a fight worth fighting. She knew him a little better now, after all the thinking she had done. This was a fight she had to fight.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself before speaking.

"Hieronymous, I know what you've told me about considering the apprenticeship, but William wants to learn from you," Amoretta said seriously. "He's not being frivolous. He's not trying to purposefully waste your time. He admitted to me that what he wants for the future is to become a man like you are. He admires you, and I believe that admiration is genuine. Of course he idolizes you, but it's not just that. He can sense that you have something in you that he needs to understand."

At this Grabiner laughed and the sound was harsh and devoid of mirth.

"What lofty heights he aspires to, 'to be a man like me,'" he mimicked her in a falsetto and then he snorted. "That's a tall order, considering how much misery I'd sown before I was twenty," Grabiner remarked, and his smile was dry and brittle. "Mr. Danson is considerably behind schedule, even if he does have all the right characteristics: he's foolish, arrogant, self-centered, negligent, and spoiled. He'd make an excellent understudy if I was interested in having one."

Amoretta bit her lip. "I hate it when you talk about yourself that way," she said.

"The only thing I'll ever teach that boy to be is a bitter, half-committed alcoholic," he spat back at her. "He doesn't belong here. His time with me is done."

"You're teaching me," Amoretta argued. "And I haven't become a half-committed alcoholic."

"This may have escaped your attention, but I did not marry William Danson," Grabiner stormed, standing abruptly. "I don't owe him anything, and I have no interest in assisting him into an early grave. Wishing to be my apprentice is like asking to play Russian roulette with all the chambers fully loaded. I ruin the things I touch. I teach half-witted school children the basics of control and form because I do not want them to become like me. In what warped place in your imagination have you begun to think I would have any interest in molding someone in my own image? The world is an ugly place, and I'm one of the ugliest things in it. If you will recall, I gave you the same warning when you started following me around like a brain-addled puppy, but you never listen to anything that doesn't suit you." He forced his hands into his pockets and turned his back on her. "Fine. I'd rather you be with me than be dead, and those were the options we were presented with. I'm not a good man. You deserved better than me, but I'm far too selfish to ever consider giving you up, regardless of what's best for you."

A day of fruitless inquiries had left him feeling hard and difficult. He loved her terribly, but he found he could not say what he meant, that it all came out wrong because he was angry at himself, because he was frustrated by his own impotence. He could not sweep away her troubles easily, as he wished. He wanted to give her a life free from care and troubles, a life where she could sing to the flowers in her garden and talk to imaginary songbirds, but he could not really do this thing, and he knew it. He could not give her peace, and the only safety he could guarantee was tentative, figured out in green chalk like a warding circle, and easily washed away by an unexpected summer storm. He hated himself for not being able to give her what he wanted her to have.

"I'd like to see you try giving me up," Amoretta shot back, her eyes shining fiercely in the lamplight. "I'm afraid I'm a chronic condition, whether you like it or not. I'd rather be with you than anywhere else, in this world or any Other. I'll decide what I do with my life, and you'll send me flowers to congratulate me on my decisions, whatever they are. Entertain whatever fantasies you like about how you could send me away if you only had a stronger moral character, but you should understand this by now if you understand anything: you will never fight me and win."

She was chasing him the way a terrier chases a fox into his hole: relentlessly, and he bared his teeth like a cornered animal.

"You ought to carefully consider before you threaten me," Grabiner growled back between gritted teeth.

"I'm not threatening you!" Amoretta said, throwing her arms up above her head. "I am informing you of the state of nature."

"You are being disrespectful and rude," Grabiner said, wheeling to face her again. Again he retreated into his familiar asylum: codes of conduct. Next he would call her by her maiden name. He was trying to force distance between them while hating to give up an inch of her, longing for the familiar comfort of her intimate, commonplace presence. He was fighting to push her away and hold her fast at the same time.

"I'm sorry you think so, but I'm afraid you can't ground me for speaking out of turn!" Amoretta shouted back. "I'm your wife."

"I will do just that if you refuse to behave like a civilized person," he retorted.

"Sometimes the only way to get through to you is to be wildly uncivilized," Amoretta said, stamping her foot against the floor for emphasis. She smiled strangely, and it was a mixture of her happiness and anger and worry. "I love you, and I respect you, and I believe in you. But that doesn't mean I'll just always do as you say, or think as you tell me to think. I trust you. I have faith in you. But it's my responsibility to tell you when I think you're wrong about something. And right now, I think you're wrong. I think you're wrong about yourself, and I think you're wrong about William. And I was just being honest when I said you couldn't be rid of me if you tried. Oath or no oath, I'll always be your shadow, or you'll be mine. I'm not a carapace that you can just shed whenever it all becomes too much for you. I'll always be here," she said, placing her hand over his heart. "Under your skin. That's something I decided for myself. I love you down deep in my meat and bones, Hieronymous." She shook her head. "That's not something you could shift even if you had the weight of the world behind you. That's why you'll never win a fight against me," she said with a beautiful, wistful smile. "You can't knock me down. My roots are too deep."

Grabiner seemed to struggle with himself as she spoke, and as she finished, he shook his head. "Amoretta," he said, "I understand that you mean well - "

"Hieronymous," Amoretta broke in passionately, "William isn't you. And even if he is arrogant, even if he is foolish and self-centered - and I don't believe he is - why punish him for those faults when he's trying so hard to better himself? Didn't you tell me that there was no reason to be ashamed of being ignorant?"

"That was that and this is - "

"This is the same thing," Amoretta insisted. "He wants to become a better person than he is now. I believe that. And he thinks you can teach him how. And I believe that too. You're the person you are now because of all that's happened, all you've done, all you've learned by doing. Even if you don't think you're qualified, I do. I think you're absolutely magnificent. You're the best man I've ever met."

"You only think that - "

"Because I haven't met very many," Amoretta joined in and finished his indictment with him, mimicking his scowl, but then her face fell into another wistful smile. "And it doesn't matter how many dozens or hundreds or thousands of people I meet, because I've already met the best one," Then her eyes hardened again as she spoke. "It doesn't matter if it's hard for other people to see. It doesn't matter if you don't believe it. I know it's true. And I also know the only reason you don't believe me is because you're afraid. You're afraid to even look at me because you know I'm right, and you can't stand to imagine that anyone, even me, might find you worthwhile."

"I am not afraid of you," Grabiner roared, wheeling to face her, his teeth gritted together again.

"You're not just afraid of me," Amoretta retorted. "You're afraid of him too. You're afraid of what you'll learn teaching him. You're afraid of what he might teach you about yourself, not because you might find something ugly, but because you might find something good, something worth keeping, something worth loving about yourself."

She drew one hand to her chest and put it over her heart as she spoke as sincerely as she could. "You're a good teacher, Hieronymous. I know that better than anyone. You've taught me so much, and I've got a lot more to learn. It's not just in class either. It's not just when you've got a book in your hands. It's always. You never stop being a teacher. It's how you think, even if you don't want to admit it. I know you dutifully taught William at school, but he's still got more to learn. No, he's not perfect. Of course he makes mistakes. No he doesn't already know all it is that you know. He doesn't have your patience. He doesn't have your focus. He doesn't have your discipline, but these are all things he can learn, that he wants to learn. If he already knew everything, then it really would be a waste of time trying to teach him. Besides," she said with a smile, tilting her head slightly to the side, "I think it would be wise to teach him, not just for his benefit, not just for your benefit, but for my benefit too. I think he's got a lot of potential, and I think you think that too, or you wouldn't be trying so hard to chase him away. You said that I had to learn to be canny, and so I'm being canny. He'd make a good ally, and you could teach him to be better than he is right now - which is already pretty good. By nature, he's a very loyal person. I don't think that's something he thinks about himself, but I know it's true from talking to him. He also even more distrustful of Damien than you are, so you've got that in common. He's come here looking for acceptance. If you give him your hand, he'll take it. You told me that you're a man with enemies, and I'm willing to believe that," she said with a weak smile. "But I want you to be a man with friends. I don't think we can get where we need to go alone." She thought about what he had told her in the room filled with wedding presents, when he had resolved to stop avoiding his responsibilities as Lord Halifax. "At the end of that road there are no open doors," she said.

Grabiner made a sound that was angry and resigned, and he seemed to collapse into the wing chair by the window, cupping his head in his hands.

"Hieronymous?" she asked worriedly after several seconds had passed in silence.

He ran his hand through his hair as he sat back in the scraggy armchair.

"Damn it all," he said crossly. "I wish I'd married a stupid girl. Then at least I'd be able to have my way some of the time." He closed his eyes. "But I can't deny anything you've said. You're right. Aggravatingly right. You're being sensible. Obnoxiously sensible. I am being a coward, and you have caught me at it." He sounded very tired.

Amoretta wrung her hands in distress.

"Hieronymous - "

He raised a hand to silence her, and then opened his eyes a sliver to look at her, standing there, her hands clasped in front of her chest. She looked deeply concerned.

He gave her a pale smile, an attempt to give her comfort.

"I am a coward," he said slowly, "But when I'm with you, I find that I can be a better man. You may be busy and meddlesome, but you're always pushing forward - not hard, not gently, but with warmth, with courage, with sentiment. I love that about you. You're right that I don't think much of myself, but when I'm with you, I feel compelled to be bigger than I am. I really want to be the man you imagine me to be." He sighed and closed his eyes again.

"You have won, you tiny Caesar," he said and then rolled his head along the back of the chair to look at her fully. "I will give William Danson a chance."

Her face lit up.

"Really Hieronymous?" she asked, her hands clasped in front of her. "Really really and truly?"

"Really and truly," he answered dryly. "Don't get too ahead of yourself, young lady. I said I'd give him a chance. That doesn't mean I'll accept him. I'll give him a trial as my apprentice, and I will give him hell," he said ominously. "If he still wants to stay after a week of that, if he hasn't run away to his comfortable position in the city, then I'll hear his oath."

Amoretta clapped her hands. "Oh thank you, Hieronymous," she gushed. "I know you won't regret it."

"Why are you so happy about this?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "You're acting like I've just promised to take you to Disney World. It's not your apprenticeship that you were fighting for," he pointed out.

"I know," Amoretta laughed with giddy relief, crossing the space between them to sit down in his lap without invitation. "But it was just - it felt like a very important thing. Not the first step, really, but a first step. A first step, after a first step, after a first step." She smiled and the roses bloomed in her cheeks. "I feel like we're moving forward, little by little." She put her arms around his neck fondly.

He leaned down so his forehead touched hers and said, "I don't think I'll ever really plumb the depths of you. You're such a strange little animal." He gathered her up in his arms, and she was small, like a bundle of twigs. "I'm glad to count you as my ally, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner," he said seriously, giving her a steady squeeze, so he felt the live heat of her body.

She was material. She lived. She breathed. She existed.

Amoretta laughed. "And I'm glad that you recognize me as such, Hieronymous Grabiner."

And then she kissed him.

---

Amoretta demanded that Grabiner inform William of his decision immediately, rather than waiting until the morning to break the news, so as to spare the boy another night of anxiety.

She induced him to go by promising a make-up kiss when he returned.

He had leaned down to kiss her then, ruffling her hair, "Don't think you'll not make good on that promise, Mrs. Grabiner. You have that earlier tantrum to pay penance for, after all. You'll have to be very, very nice to make up for it," he said seriously.

"Well, then I suppose you're about to find out exactly how nice I can be, only let's be sure to be reciprocal about things," she had returned with a trill, and then tweaking her earlobe lightly with a wry smile, Grabiner had departed to glower over William.

Amoretta hoped the glowering would be slightly more agreeable this time around, but given what Grabiner had threatened about running William through a wringer, she knew the former wolf had hard days ahead. Her husband could be a merciless taskmaster. She wasn't sure if it was the professor in him, the aristocrat, or the duelist that made him so exacting, but as an overseer he could be a veritable nightmare. One did it until one got it right or one collapsed from exhaustion, whichever came first.

And yet despite how hard he could be, no matter how difficult Grabiner might make things, she knew he would be fair and honest in his judgement because that was the sort of man he was. Once he had decided to take someone on he would be patient and responsible with them, even if he otherwise seemed ruthless. Amoretta had learned this through personal experience. She had faith in William. Grabiner would give him a chance, and if William truly wanted to be her husband's apprentice, then she felt in her guts that he would succeed. He was not the type to give up easily, she thought. His continued presence at Revane was testament enough to that.

Feeling contented, optimistic, and with a certain thrill of anticipation, Amoretta was soon fussing through her pajama drawer, trying to locate something appropriately penitent for her promised apology while loudly singing along to the Journey song that had erupted spontaneously in her brain. She thought they could probably hear her down the hall, but that was by design rather than by accident.

Naturally, she didn't really think she owed Grabiner an apology for her behavior - which had been altogether necessary, she thought - but it was a very good excuse for being particularly tractable, and she was never one to pass on a good excuse. She didn't really need much of an excuse these days, but excuses did make nice window dressing, she thought. She had discovered through experiment that Grabiner would warmly pursue any attempt on her part to go to bed with him, which was really very gratifying. Besides, she quite enjoyed being conciliatory. For her it was the mark of a victory rather than a defeat. Such smugness might have made her mildly insufferable, but it also made her exceptionally gracious and generous. While both were qualities she already had in abundance, the professor appreciated any glut of them, particularly in the bedroom.

Amoretta was interrupted from her careful contemplation of frilly underwear by the familiar chime of the little blue door in the clearing.

Someone had come to call.

As Grabiner was still likely busy reading William the riot act, and she was still quite dressed, Amoretta went to the hallway and called out, "Don't worry, I'll get it."

"Whoever it is, don't let them in. I don't care if it's the Queen Mother or Merlin the God Damned Magician," Grabiner bellowed back from the other bedroom. "I'm tired of houseguests."

Amoretta rolled her eyes but her smile was affectionate. He was back in his own temper now. This was a Grabiner she was accustomed to handling.

"Your wish is my command, Moon of My Delight," she called back down the hallway and then pulled the bedroom door closed to answer the chime in relative quiet.

The first thing she heard after twisting her fingers through the air was an ominous roll of thunder so loud it seemed to shake the rafters of the little cottage. That was strange, since the night outside was calm and peaceful. But over the spell came the distinct sound of a torrential downpour, every bit as wild as the one Amoretta had ordered some time ago.

"Who's calling?" Amoretta asked curiously. Whoever it was, she didn't envy them being out in the Vermont weather, no matter how much she enjoyed the rain.

It was a slightly hesitant voice that answered, sounding positively sodden. There was a sniffle and then, "It's Raven Darkstar," she said, and the absolute misery in her voice was plain. "I've come seeking hospitality." She sniffled again, and then sneezed before asking pitifully, "May I come in? It's completely awful out here."

Amoretta hesitated a minute, biting her lip. Hieronymous had been very clear about his feelings concerning other potential house guests. But then some weeks ago he had been equally clear on how important hospitality was in the witch world.

In the clearing, Raven let out a pitiful sob and Amoretta made up her mind.

"Yes," she said, already turning toward the bedroom door. "You can. Stay right there. I'll just be a minute."

"I'm not going anywhere," Raven replied, sounding froggy. "There isn't anywhere to go."

Amoretta dismissed the spell and was soon thundering down the stairs and into the great room. As she went out the front door, she called over her shoulder, "Better prepare another room, Cord. There'll be a fourth at breakfast tomorrow."