FROM HER BALCONY SHE’D SPENT OVER AN HOUR WATCHING the first Granok-Shooters being returned to their rightful owners, fully loaded with all the existing Granoks. Everyone was deliriously happy and not one person forgot to look up at the top of the Glass Column, where their benevolent New Gracious resided. Then tiredness had hit her as suddenly as a bird of prey swooping on a mouse, and she’d gone inside, her heart full of emotion.
Back in the peace and quiet of her apartment she relaxed, absent-mindedly stroking her Lunatrix and thinking over everything that had happened. It had been a long, intense day. A strange day. And, above all, a very complicated one.
Earlier, she’d caught sight of her reflection in the tarnished mirror that covered almost an entire wall. She’d warily gone over—it had been so long since she’d looked at herself. She was very pale, perhaps paler than she’d ever been. She’d tossed back her hair and combed her fingers through her fringe. Her face bore traces of the tension of the past few days, but this hadn’t hardened her features. Although her forehead was creased and there were deeper bags under her grey eyes, which looked a little darker, there were no drastic differences between “Oksa before” and “Oksa after”.
“What were you thinking, idiot?” she’d muttered. “You don’t turn into a different person just because you’ve made a few important decisions. Get a grip, Oksa-san!”
She gnawed her lip. That last phrase was something Gus would have said if he’d been there.
“Stop it, Oksa,” she’d concluded. “You’ll only upset yourself.”
Then she’d turned sideways to examine her figure. No one could accuse her of being obsessed with her appearance, but her new curves still took some getting used to, although she was gradually feeling more comfortable with them. And the way Tugdual looked at her certainly helped.
She’d been curled up in the comfy, worn leather chair, which had fast become her favourite, for over an hour. Nearby, on a beautiful Majestic-wood bureau, her Elzevir was glittering in the soft glow cast by the illuminating tentacles of the Polypharuses. She ought to get down to writing up the first steps she’d taken as a Gracious. But was she supposed to record everything?
“My Gracious makes display of great confusion in the recesses of her heart,” remarked the Lunatrix, gazing at her with his wide blue eyes.
“It’s about the Secret,” explained Oksa.
The Lunatrix sighed.
“This Secret does not meet the same composition as the precedent one. It does not dispose of the consequences and constraints similar to the ones possessed by the Secret-Never-To-Be-Told. Do you have knowledge of its name? It is overflowing with meaning.”
“No, the Ageless Ones didn’t tell me. But if you know the name of the new Secret, then please tell me!”
“The Ephemeral Secret. Such is its appellation.”
Oksa thought for a few minutes. She looked from the Cloak, carefully draped over a wicker dummy, to the vast bay window which afforded a view of sleeping Thousandeye City, dotted with a myriad of shivering pinpricks of light.
“The Ephemeral Secret,” she repeated. “Ephemeral, perhaps. But primarily a secret.”
A noise jerked her from her reverie: someone was knocking at the door. The Lunatrix stood up, but the dishevelled Getorix was already hurrying over energetically.
“Who goes there?” it yelled at the door. “Who dares to disturb our Gracious? Speak now or for ever hold your peace!”
Oksa smiled. The Getorix never did anything by halves.
“It’s Abakum,” said a voice, muffled by the thickness of the door.
“Open the door immediately!” Oksa told the creature.
Abakum came in and gave Oksa a big hug. She snuggled up against him.
“Would the Fairyman and my Gracious feel the attraction of lapping up a drink full of comfort?”
Oksa laughed softly, as Abakum patted the Lunatrix’s bald head.
“Thank you, that would be very nice.”
The Lunatrix vanished and a clatter of crockery could soon be heard in an adjoining room.
“How are you, sweetheart?” asked Abakum, sitting down beside Oksa on a sofa covered by a dark fur throw.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had such an… odd day,” she replied. “I felt like I was in a computer simulation game, you know, when you have to build towns, set up a government and draw up laws… even though I know it’s all very real.”
“It certainly isn’t the sort of thing you do every day,” conceded Abakum. “But you did very well indeed. You acquitted yourself admirably! Well done. And, since you went off fairly quickly after the Council Meeting, let me give you a little feedback.”
Oksa put her hands over her face in embarrassment.
“You’ve won over the hearts of our Insider allies, and the Runaways are proud to stand beside you. Everyone was very impressed by your air of confidence. I promised Tugdual that I’d tell you he was blown away and that you did a great job—I’m quoting here.”
Oksa pulled a face, so Abakum asked:
“What’s bothering you?”
Oksa pretended to be distracted by the Lunatrix, who was returning with a tray. The little steward began serving them, glancing in concern at his young mistress.
“It’s my father,” Oksa said finally.
Abakum took a deep breath.
“Everyone realized you must have had very good reasons for not putting him in charge of a Mission.”
“Maybe, but it was still awful! He must be so upset with me.”
Abakum took a sip of tea and looked at her wisely.
“Knowing Pavel, that would surprise me.”
“Everyone must think I’m such an ungrateful daughter.”
“No one thinks that,” said Abakum. “We know you love your father and that he’ll never be far from you. Your decisions have our unanimous support, sweetheart. You made some sensible, well-thought-out choices which everyone respected.”
“Thank you,” murmured Oksa. “You’ve helped me so much. I’d never have managed without you.”
“Don’t forget that I was your gran’s Watcher and now I’m yours.”
“I know, Abakum.”
“I’d like to ask you a question though. Just one question, which you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
The Lunatrix couldn’t help groaning. His complexion turned translucent and his eyes began spinning like tops in their sockets.
“My Gracious…”
He looked about to faint. Oksa put a hand on his downy arm and avoided Abakum’s eyes. He frowned.
“Does the fact that you didn’t want to make your father a Servant of the High Enclave have anything to do with the new Secret entrusted to you by the Ageless Ones?” asked the Fairyman.
This was too much for the Lunatrix. The poor creature swayed, then crumpled in a heap on a floor cushion. The Getorix hurried to his side and fanned his face by waving its hands in the air.
“Hey, podge! Stay with us!” it squealed.
Farther off, sitting quietly on a chair, Oksa’s Incompetent opened one eye and gazed at the scene with its usual bemusement. Then, with a yawn, it blissfully went back to sleep.
Abakum and Oksa knelt down beside the poor little creature, who was already regaining consciousness. Oksa held his head up and trickled a few mouthfuls of piping-hot tea into his wide mouth.
“Baba always said that a nice cup of tea was the best remedy in the world.”
“The Dear-Departed-and-Much-Beloved Old Gracious disposed of colossal truths in her mouth,” stammered the Lunatrix.
Abakum carried him to a small made-to-measure bed and laid him down on it, massaging various pressure points on his wrists. Then he came back to Oksa and sat back down in preoccupied silence.
“You don’t need to answer my question, sweetheart,” he said after long pause. “What just happened told me all I needed to know.”
A few hours later Oksa was wide awake, even though it was the middle of the night. It wasn’t the steady snoring of the Lunatrix keeping her from sleep, though—she was actually lost in thought as she stared out of the huge bay window. The Aegis protecting the city resembled a milky jellyfish as the lights of Thousandeye City at night reflected off it—an entrancing sight that, in other circumstances, would have been reassuring. Tonight, though, she could find no comfort.
She turned over and heard the clothes she’d carelessly rolled into a ball tumble to the floor. Irritated, she stretched out her arm to pick them up. Her jeans, her tee-shirt, her tie—the feel of the strip of two-coloured fabric was electrifying and her spirit instantly left her body.