Sean

Thumbs beneath the blade, eight fingers on top. Have patience, and have faith that what you’re doing is actually helping. Take a moment to clear the iron scrapings from the axe head, as the build-up clogs the whetstone. My mother taught me the ritual, back in Llancreg, when she showed me how to sharpen my first axe.

This is not my axe, sadly. The small hatchet that I keep beside my equally diminutive fireplace is barely the length of my forearm, and is weighted in a way that would’ve made my parents laugh. The blade in my hand is a woodman’s tool, borrowed from my friend Drustan, who was at first insulted when I asked if his tools were sharpened, during yesterday’s luncheon. I told him about the ritual, and he’d returned to our next meeting with a glint in his eyes and a bagful of battered tools.

Pure meditation is tricky. I’ve never been good at it. I used to be forced to practice, and wasted hours and hours of my childhood trying. Losing yourself in a menial task though- that’s much easier. Wish my father had taught me that, instead of telling me to just will myself into thoughtlessness.

You draw the blade over the stone, you lift it, and you trust time and repetition will take care of the rest.

Twenty minutes later, I pause to take care of the pot of coffee bubbling on the miniscule embers of a breakfast fire. It’s brass, a personal pot, filled with the good grinds from Hubal. The type that’s so thick you can stand a spoon in it. This coffee is a palate cleanser for this week’s dragging afternoons, which have been drenched in the weak, newly fashionable drinks from the Far Coast. I seize the cup by a delicate handle and gently pour myself a tiny measure.

When I take the axe head under my hands, I can feel the difference in the steel. I run my finger down its flat, shaving-flecked face, and take a moment to pause and change stones to a finer grit. The conversation Drustan and I had yesterday bubbles forth, occupying the hollow space in my thoughts that the meditation carves.

*

He’s skewered the yellow fruit, a firm and succulent thing the size of an eyeball, on a delicate fork. Sir Drustan Tilian speaks with the particular irony of a socialite, the class of men who scrabble at all times to be in a state of nonchalant dismissal. We’re past the point in our friendship where he perpetually employs sarcasm as a replacement for actually being clever. But that reflexive sardonic attitude does re-emerge, from time to time.

“As in, rhymes with potato? The creatures of the Far Coast are very creative with their names.”

He pops it into his mouth and chews with a dramatic, thoughtful expression.

After a moment he frowns and reaches for a wine glass. “A bit watery, truth be told. Perhaps not for me.”

I shrug. This theatre isn’t for me, anyway- there’s a party at the table behind me, three ladies, one of whom, Miss Ciara O’Sullivan, I met at a greyhound race last year. Two of them have dyed their hair with quicklime, and are wearing their braids and baubles in Crowmere chic. They’re the only other occupied table in Birch’s, and Drustan is taking advantage of the atmosphere of rakish bachelorness that he drags around with him. I am in a similar social standing, of course, though am generally less inclined to advertise. Besides which, Drustan looks like his father, and most of the sort of people in his circles and his circles’ circles are aware of the Tilian family, and their political prowess. I actually knew his cousin, from my childhood; almost all of the wool in ounceland Llancreg eventually ends up in one of the Tilian clans’ far-flung storehouses.

Drustan, of course, didn’t grow up in Llancreg. The idea of him being within five yards of a sheep is hilarious.

Conversely, most people in Ildathach aren’t particularly familiar with my family. The artful ones claim some familiarity, trusting that their bravado and my politeness will carry them through any potentially dire social awkwardness.

Birch’s is surprisingly empty, for a weekday afternoon. Drustan, half-splayed across from me, is a slight man, and lounges imperiously in his luxurious chair. His lapel is pinned with a citrine-studded orchid, and his close-cropped red hair matches the hall’s wallpaper quite charmingly. The two of us, sat in dark suits and bright cravats, make a matched pair in the centre of the room. We’ve been presented with a charming spread of slightly more unusual foods, spices and ingredients that are on the forefront of Ildathach vogue. While he’s concluding his little inspection of the fruit, I take a moment to attack my own dish- a collection of chicken livers, stewed in Far Coast spices. Once it’s clear that he is no longer performing for the women behind us, and we can have an actual conversation, I offer a correction.

“Well, the actual Tecuani name is unpronounceable. And they, of course, would never eat it. Also, these aren’t from Cabochon. They’re hothouse grown, just outside Ildathach. I don’t think these could survive the journey from the Far Coast.”

He leans back, savouring the wine and the sunshine falling through the immense skylights that are the hallmark of Birch’s dining hall. Two other fruits sit on the salad plate before him, like little golden baubles. I demolish my chicken in the time it takes for him to take several desultory pokes at the rest of his meal.

I personally don’t join in his condescension. As far as I’m concerned, the fruits are delicious. I don’t say this, of course, because that is a certain gaucheness you reserve for private conversations, when your friend is not trying to attract the attention of three women. When the waitress collects our plates at the end of the second course, the tomatoes are still lolling on the tiny island of salad that Drustan has left them on. Her face does not betray her opinions on his wastefulness. My own plate is desolate in comparison.

Drustan clears his throat, and looks at me meaningfully.

“So have you given the matter any thought?” I have, for weeks now.

“Not a tremendous deal,” I lie, “it all seems rather uncouth.”

Drustan barks out a brief, needlessly piercing laugh. He dabs at the corner of his mouth with a white kerchief before absentmindedly running a finger down the length of the cravat at his throat.

“Oh it most certainly is. But hardly more vulgar than spending all day training the Constabulary, isn’t it?”

I’m still not entirely sure what Drustan actually does with his days. Sir Drustan and I are technically peers, though were there to be any sort of social calculus performed to determine our precise social standings I would fall significantly short. He is the sort of gentleman who tends to make his money by having a lot of money.

“Certainly more vulgar. And without any of the benefits either.”

A light, obvious tittering from behind us. The ladies are returning the signal from Drustan’s slightly-too-loud guffaw.

“Well,” he drawls, “it would only be a fortnight or so. And I must correct you, dear Sean, because travelling with Lady Keir does have certain benefits.”

My eyebrows ratchet to their highest possible position. He continues, with a gleam in his eye. “Being in the Lady’s graces may bring with it certain social benefits. She is more than capable of performing the Ysian excursion herself, I assure you, though sometimes she desires company. Safety in numbers, and all that.”

“Trailblazing through a boreal forest, praying to not be ambushed and feasted upon by quick-elms, then cultivating chilblains on some forsaken mountaintop near Ys does sound more romantic when you phrase it like that.”

I finish the sentence with a flourish of overexaggerated hand-signs, imitating Ysian talk.

His grins, and his eyes linger on a point just to the right of my shoulder, to the audience he has now engaged with. When he raises his glass in a mock toast, he does so with a wolfish grin.

“Well then, shall I add you to the coterie? Lady Keir does prefer these matters to be organised. Though we’d have to do something about your tremendously boring personality. The Ysians won’t know what to do with you.”

I roll my eyes. “I appreciate the offer, Drustan, but for now I’ll pass. Perhaps next time the Lady would like to hunt a gwyll, she will think of me.”

He toasts the air, and adopts a pained expression. “Surely you’re far too young to be this dull.”

“I’m not dull. I just don’t enjoy your sort of sport.”

“Ah, well. More for me then, I suppose. When you die, you ought to donate your body for schoolchildren to gawk at. ‘Behold, industry’s latest and most fiendish creation: the most boring man in Yvreathe.’”

Dessert arrives, courtesy of our solemn waitress. A thick, gorgeous blancmange. Drustan generally pecks tepidly at his appetisers and main courses, but he is likely one of Ildathach’s champion dessert eaters.

We finish the meal and he hands me a heavy burlap sack, which clanks heavily against my knees after I accept it. After we’ve said our goodbyes, he circles and swoops back to the table behind us. I gather my hat from the front of the hall and walk out into the Ildathach streets.

*

A shadow, deeper than the rest, passes the window above my head. It is accompanied by several light footsteps. A doorknocker from Saint Mantis’, maybe. Or an inkseller. I detach, sadly, from the memory of Birch’s. I am about to don my politeness, but pause when I hear a familiar voice.

“Whelan? Whelan!”

A woman’s voice, recognisable. Presumably she’s also the one now hammering on my front door, rattling it in its ill-fitted frame.

“Sean. It’s Iseult. Open your door.”

Oh, right. I stand from my workbench, carefully placing the whetstone and the axe head onto the battered table. I remember, perhaps a second or two too late, how Iseult generally approaches problems.

“Wait, don’t pull too-“

That cracking noise is my door handle being pulled directly out of its housing. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second and debate whether to be upset at Iseult for breaking my door, or upset at myself for never fixing it.

“Sean. Open the door. It’s me.”

I can hear her much more clearly now, because she’s flicked open my letterbox and is trying to talk to me directly through it. I cross the rest of the room in a few steps.

“Hello Iseult. Would you please step back a moment.”

I hear her shuffle backwards, and I unlatch both deadbolts and let the door swing open.

Iseult Morrin. Well, technically, Isrā Mahrin- a name change that resulted from the clash between her pride in retaining her heritage and her impatience in having Ildathach tongues stumble over her real name. It took me weeks to get it right, and she rolled her eyes every day I practiced. Even afterwards, once we’d known each other for several months, she’d still asked me to use her adopted name, as if my attempts were still, somehow, offensive.

I haven’t seen her in years.

She’s brimming with an unexpected and uncharacteristic enthusiasm. She’s also missing the accoutrements she wore the when I first met her, those months in the Aergan. No more hood, no more veil- and most jarringly, no more firearm. Her attitude seems more genial that I remember, but I’m surprised by how little her appearance has changed. There are a handful of grey streaks at her temples. More lines in her face than I remember, and the cut of her city clothes is more refined than it used to be, but she looks otherwise the same. With some people, the change of years is wrought upon them all at once, and a few years can age them a decade or more. Not so with Iseult. Or perhaps she always looked like this, always occupied a special place in my mind: a woman of deep, sharp lines.

The blurred ink of the tattoo that covers her lower face and neck, from the edge of her mouth to her ear, has faded slightly. It plunges down her neck, hidden by an unfashionable dress, stopping somewhere around her clavicles.

She’s holding a piece of my door in one hand.

Despite this, I am delighted to see her. We embrace. I grin as she awkwardly waves the door handle at me as well, and motion for her to step inside.

“Come in! Come in. I was just finishing up.”

I have absolutely no idea how she knew where I lived, though I learned some time ago not to question Iseult when she manifests these small marvels. As I wave her inside, she shucks off her shoes and her coat, and looks around for an unoccupied rack to hang it upon. My home is, by the standards of an Ildathach gentleman, fairly empty. The deadbolts click back into their housing, and my door returns to its normal state of rattling at every mild breeze that passes through my open windows. She offers me the door handle, and I take it without protest and slip it into one of my pockets. Another problem to be dealt with later.

She peers around my empty flat, and fails to hide the look of disappointment. She was never good at subtlety. A second later, she straightens, like she has just remembered something. Her hand darts to one of those slick black pouches she’s always carrying, and just as I remember, it is filled with an assortment of specialised tools. Cooked garlic sausages, bread, a glass jar filled with amber whisky. I smile. She remembers.

Theoretically she moves in at least some of my circles, though I haven’t seen her since our time in the Aergan. Actually seeing Iseult Morrin attend a social event would be astonishing. But, of course, she likely either ignored or refused the invitations which flooded her letterbox for months, and over time the rumours and the stories of the gunner in the Aergan would have been churned by other social fodder. We start chatting, and by the strange charm of friendship it is as if no time has passed at all- no awkwardness swells to fill the gulf of years. She seems more comfortable, too. Her language has shifted: her bearing, softened.

I pour her a cup of coffee, gesture for her to sit on my single dining chair, and we reminisce, meandering through several familiar topics, skipping over more private ones. My health, my jobs, her recent contracts, reminiscing about the war. The longer we chat, the more I notice that the Ildathach habits that she has adopted over the last few years are just part of a superficial veneer. Bits of the old Iseult begin to assert themselves throughout the conversation, peppered flecks of stubbornness and impatience. I’m glad of that, at least.

An hour later, she finally arrives at the reason behind her visit. “I’ve got a commission. I want you to help me.”

“You know I can’t do much with sigilry or sortilege-“

She shakes her head, spilling dark auburn hair over her shoulders.

“Not like that. Not just my type of work. More like the old days. Minus the fighting, probably. One job, just to collect a shipment. Also, yes, some sigil work, but that’s for me, not for you. Apparently they can’t do it themselves, easily. And look,” she pulls out a slick sable envelope and waves it at me. “Twenty percent, up front. Tell me that’s not interesting.”

I frown. Iseult is not naturally a trusting person. She continues, ignoring me. “It’s for Colt & Tumble.”

Not an answer that really explains things. I already recognised the envelope, anyway, that distinctive flashy combination of grey wax and midnight stationary.

“So what’s the job?”

She grins because she knows I’m in. Of course I’m in. She also knows that I have to pretend to be convinced.

“We’re sailing to Brixa Thalaam.”

I raise my eyebrows, and hazard a question. “To visit your-”

“No,” she frowns, as if she hadn’t considered that option. “Not them. I doubt they’d be anywhere near the city, these days. We’re going to Brixa Thalaam to meet with one of Colt & Tumble’s ‘consultants’. A man by the name of Ābreen il Kutrib.” She says it without hesitation, and it takes me a moment to parse the Thalaami syllables. “He’s got a package for us- five tonnes of Wraithwild oleum. We’re going to bring it back here, to Ildathach. For some reason, it’s tricky for them to send their own people.”

I nod, pontificating. “Makes sense. Colt & Tumble has been rubbing the wrong shoulders in Crowmere. And near Ys. There’s a bit of a thing going on, between Wynne Colt and the shipping cartels. You know what it’s been like since Gallowglass and Grimm managed to secure the tax rights in the docks from their services during the war. I think that scene last week in the Malachite Rooms was something to do with her- Wynne Colt, I mean, and one of the Vardon & Company…” she stares at me, eyes very gently defocusing. “Anyway,” I hastily add “it might not be the best time for them to send too many ships abroad, either by air or by sea. They’d want to hire out.”

“Right.” She says, dragging her attention back to the conversation. “They’ve got a ship for us as well. Apparently we’re an add-on to an existing cargo trip. Fine. Once we’ve gotten the shipment, we’ll sail back to Ildathach, and get the rest of the payment.”

This is already more interesting than anything I’ve heard in the last few months. “Do you know the name of the ship?” Iseult shakes her head and winces. “Can’t remember. I know it’s written down in the contract.” Shame. I might’ve known the captain.

“Alright, fine. Why do they need five tonnes of oleum? What are they going to do, burn down a mountain?”

A grin from ear to ear.