They left the club soon after, returning to Vuhas’ house. The ride home was uncomfortable.
“I should have warned you that Ciene can be contrarian,” said Vuhas. “She likes to provoke, but doesn’t mean anything by it. I really do apologise. This is very embarrassing.”
Crickets chirped from the low grey shrubs of the wilderness. Haeki stared out the window of the awrig, her face drawn.
“No need to apologise.” Winola sounded tired. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her legs crossed. “It was an interesting evening. You’ve been extremely courteous.”
Karys gazed down at her own hands, resting slack upon her knees, palms turned upwards. The memory of her father’s face hovered before her eyes. She pressed her lips together. The awrig felt crowded; too warm and airless.
Yviline was not present to greet them when they reached the house, although all the lights remained on, orange and gleaming in the dark. They disembarked, and the awrig slid off in the direction of the barn. The vineyards rustled in the breeze. It was a little before midnight, and the moon shone directly overhead, dimming the stars. As they climbed the stairs to the front door, Vuhas touched Karys’ shoulder.
“May I have a quick word?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, and slowed to let Winola and Haeki draw ahead. Winola noticed, and gave her a questioning look, but Karys motioned for her to keep walking. Haeki stalked down the passage toward the guest quarters.
“What is it?” asked Karys as she turned to Vuhas.
He ushered her through the door, then closed it behind him, murmuring a word to lock it. When he faced her, his expression was grave.
“There’s a private matter I’d like to discuss with you,” he said. “I know it’s late, but would you be willing to come up to my study to talk?”
What is this about? “Maybe in the morning? I don’t think—”
“It’s important. I promise the conversation won’t take long, but there’s something you need to know.”
The last thing Karys wanted to do was spend any more time in Vuhas’ company. She swallowed her annoyance. “Fine.”
“Meet me there in fifteen minutes? Second floor, last door on the right.”
She assented. Vuhas smiled reassuringly, and patted her shoulder for the third time that night. Ferain did not react.
Part of her was curious. Karys followed the corridor to the guest quarters. Mostly vexed, but she couldn’t help wondering what could be so urgent that Vuhas refused to wait until morning. Strange. Something to do with Rasko, presumably, given that he wanted the conversation private. The Bhatuma portraits loomed from the walls, and the house remained eerily silent. Alone in the pristine, shining hallways, she felt oppressed and unnerved. This place is like a mausoleum.
“I’m not sure about this,” said Ferain.
“Didn’t want to seem rude,” she replied under her breath.
“After what happened at his precious club, you’re entitled to be. Embrace, I wish he would stop touching you. There is something … off about him. About all those people.”
“Not your crowd, then?”
He made an indignant noise. “Why would you ask that?”
“You’re rich, they’re rich. You’re Vareslian, they’re Vareslian.”
“Please don’t tell me you think I’m anything like Vuhas.”
She refused to smile. “I don’t know. Are you?”
“Why not stab me in the heart? No. No, they are not ‘my crowd.’”
I know. Her impression of Ferain’s life might be limited, but Karys found it impossible to imagine him fitting in with the likes of Ciene. She remembered the way he had once spoken about his father wanting to get closer to history—the scathing contempt in his voice. Nothing like Vuhas, with all his relics and his artworks. She kept the thought to herself. Reaching the door to the guest quarters, she stepped inside.
“—a fraud anyway,” Winola was saying. “Jervadi’s extraction workings have been mined to death. The best she can probably claim is refinements in olive pit removals or something. She was a hack, Haeki.”
Haeki’s door was closed. Winola was standing outside it, raising her voice to be heard.
“None of what she said matters. Don’t you see? She needs nationalism to cover up her frankly obvious mediocrity. If her supremacy isn’t inherent, what does she have? It all turns to smoke, it all falls apart. You never need to try when you’re brilliant by birthright, and that’s all she can hold on to. But she wasn’t brilliant. She really wasn’t.”
No response.
“Haeki?” Winola folded her arms. “Will you please talk to me?”
“Leave her,” said Karys.
The scholar winced. “But—”
“Trust me, you aren’t helping.”
A tangle of emotions passed over Winola’s face: surprise, hurt, displeasure. She lifted her chin. “And you will?”
“Probably not, but you’re the one who said you didn’t want to invade her privacy. If you meant it, then leave her be.”
Winola held her gaze a second longer, defiant. Then she shook her head and walked toward the second bedroom. She paused in the doorway.
“We’re not all as practical as you, Karys,” she said. “Try to remember that.”
“Meaning?”
“Work it out for yourself.” The door closed with a loud snap.
Karys grimaced. What is that supposed to mean? The night seemed to only be getting worse; now Winola was mad too, and Karys wasn’t even sure why. She sighed and knocked on the door to her shared room with Haeki. When there was no reply, she walked in.
Haeki was seated on the bed, her back against the headboard, her knees pulled up to her chest. The only light came through the window; she had extinguished the lamps, and the room was silvery and dim. She glared at Karys. Her cheeks were dry.
“Go away,” she said.
Karys leaned against the wall. “Where do you propose I sleep?”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not helping yourself, you know.” She nodded toward Winola’s room. “Blowing it out of proportion. It was just a stupid comment.”
“Shut up.” Haeki drew her knees in even closer. “What do you know?”
“That you’re embarrassed and acting like a child about it?”
“I’m not embarrassed.” She almost spat the word.
“No? Then what?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. And you’re a liar. Leave me alone.”
“A liar?”
Haeki raised the pitch of her voice in mockery. “‘I have no pride, I’m as faithless as they come.’ Hah. You wouldn’t bend your neck for a low doorway.”
Karys shifted her weight to her other leg. “Do you want a list of the ways I’ve degraded myself?”
“Lies and more lies.”
“Gave up my herald, abandoned my family, begged from strangers, sold my soul to—”
“Is it really all the same to you, Mercia and Varesli?”
Karys rubbed the back of her neck. Her jaw ached.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe not entirely. But I don’t think home ever gave me much, and the hills never demanded my loyalty. One place is the same as the next to me.”
Haeki scoffed. “And you’re telling me that opinion’s got nothing to do with your reeker?”
“What, Ferain? No. No, it’s mostly that I’ve been spat on everywhere I’ve lived. Look, if you’re already homesick for Boäz—”
“Just get out.”
Karys raised both her hands in surrender. Haeki’s skin was still flushed and her muscles bunched, but she looked less sad than before. Not much of an improvement, but something. “Suit yourself.”
The line of light below Winola’s door had already disappeared, and the parlour’s silence felt heavy. Elsewhere in the house, a clock struck the hour. Its peals drifted faintly through the thick walls. Karys was already going to be late and suspected that if she didn’t turn up at his study soon, Vuhas might come looking for her. Oh, I was getting worried, my dear. What kept you? She could hear his drawl already.
“You all right?” asked Ferain.
Karys shook herself. “Fine. Just thinking.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What?”
“Winola and Haeki. They aren’t really angry with you.”
He had misread the source of her consternation. She smiled. “I was wondering about Vuhas.”
“Oh. Right.”
Karys stepped out into the corridor and quietly shut the door behind her. She might as well get this over with. Her shadow slipped alongside her, silhouette diverging from her movements.
“I have a theory, actually,” he said. “Hear me out. Cannibalism.”
“You … what?”
“No, listen. Remember how I said that club must be involved with something illegal and exclusive?”
“Ferain, he doesn’t eat people.”
“It adds up,” he insisted. “Why would people this rich live out in the middle of nowhere? Do you know how difficult it must be, running that club? The nearest town is almost a day’s ride away; arranging the food alone must be a feat of logistics. It makes far more sense to found your society near a city, near culture and other people, and the inconvenience isn’t justified unless you have some other motive for settling down in the wilderness. Like not wanting to be noticed.”
“Noticed by who?”
“I don’t know, the Ministry of Internal Security?”
“He’s not a cannibal.”
“You don’t know that. Come on, look at Ciene. Vuhas was ‘correct in judging her tastes’?”
“I’m sure Winola is delicious, but no.”
“You don’t think some of the things on your plate tonight—”
“Ferain!”
He laughed, and fell back into step with her movements. They had reached the stairs to the second floor. Karys took them two at a time. Absurd.
The study sat in the southernmost corner of the manor, at the end of the only corridor not fully illuminated by scores of chandeliers. They had not come down this way during the tour. The walls were lined with portraits, but, unlike the rest of the house, these were of ordinary human men. There seemed to be an underlying resemblance in all their faces, or perhaps in their expressions—clearly Vuhas had inherited the supercilious cast of his forefathers’ eyes. One of the older portraits had suffered significant damage; the canvas had been sliced like someone had gone at it with a knife. The study door stood a little ajar, spilling a triangle of yellow onto the thick pile of the carpet runner outside. From within, Karys could hear a fire crackling.
She stopped a few feet from the door, listened, then reached out with her senses and caught the edge of the Veneer. It felt curiously sticky, but opened readily enough. She shrank as the skein of hidden colours and sounds bloomed around her.
As expected, Vuhas’ mansion breathed workings—etherbulbs, water systems, locks on the doors, fortifications in the walls, dust absorbers in the floor. All dizzyingly complex, but orderly and banal in function. Security workings too, silver-edged threads draping the portraits and glistening over the carpets, running along the skirting boards like tangled metal wires.
With the door in her way, Karys couldn’t detect much in the study. It struck her as quiet—although, against the chatter of the rest of the house, any subtler workings would be drowned out. She could tell that something was moving around, and that was a little unusual. It could be a worked biological entity like Psikamit’s hounds or Rasko’s wasps, but she would have expected to then feel its presence more keenly. This seemed veiled, familiar. A binding of some kind? She ventured a little deeper into the Veneer, trying to see more clearly. A Bhatuma-derived working, probably.
“Don’t be shy, my dear,” called Vuhas. “Come in, come in.”
Oh, she thought with a rush of embarrassment. It’s a body modification. Vuhas was altering his appearance or physical attributes, most likely for very personal reasons that were none of her business. She pulled the Veneer closed and stepped into the room.
The study was huge and full of books. Shelves lined the walls and rose to the ceiling, and every single one was crammed with leather-bound manuscripts. Two large red armchairs occupied the floor in front of the fireplace, and the mounted head of a snarling leopard hung above the mantel. More books clustered on top of the coffee table; a massive thesaurus, an Ephirite logic guide, several volumes of poetry—not a complete Bhatuma-workings purist, then—beside a silver tray with a flask, two ceramic mugs, and a bowl of rolled date sweets. Vuhas was standing beside one of the chairs. He smiled at her.
“I was growing concerned,” he said. “Please, sit, be comfortable.”
“You said it was urgent?”
He beckoned, lowering himself down with a little sigh. “I won’t keep you long.”
Karys walked over to the other chair and sat. The fire crackled to her left, too warm for autumn. Vuhas leaned over and picked up the flask. He poured into both mugs and set them down on the table.
“Spiced chocolate,” he said. “I like to add a little nutmeg and pepper.”
“Is this about Rasko?”
He appeared momentarily perplexed. “Rasko? Oh! Oh, no, nothing to do with that. Sweet?”
He proffered the bowl to her, and Karys grudgingly took a date ball. It wasn’t like she wanted any more Vareslian food, and, for all his insistence on urgency, Vuhas didn’t seem eager to get to the point. He settled back onto his chair, self-satisfied as a cat in sunshine.
“Good, good.” He picked up his mug and took a quick sip of the chocolate. “No, this is just a private concern of mine. Tell me, have you ever read Diarcicardi on the subject of extradimensional manipulations? Specifically his treatise on spiritual displacement and reintegration?”
“You should have gone to bed,” groaned her shadow.
Karys kept her expression neutral. “I haven’t.”
Gratified by her ignorance, Vuhas started to say something else, but she continued over him.
“Unfortunately, I’m not a trained workings practitioner,” she said. “Which means my reading has been mostly recreational, and my knowledge of extradimensional manipulation is limited to Osarg and Lefiont on the Bhatuma side. To be honest, I’ve always found Ephirite workings theory more compelling; Nossark’s ideas about Veneer spatial exclusion for example. I liked her comparison of the Embrace’s domain with the Toraigian workings exclusion zone. Have you read it?”
There was a brief silence.
“So you really did use that library,” murmured Ferain.
Vuhas seemed surprised and more than a little annoyed, as if he had just discovered that the animal he had taken for a house pet was a wolverine. Karys popped the date ball neatly into her mouth.
“I can’t say I have.” He collected himself. “My interest mostly skewed in the opposite direction, toward Bhatuma derivations. Nossark, you say? I imagine she’s Mercian.”
The sweet proved bizarrely salty. Karys tried to swallow it without chewing too much. “She was. Her Ephirite master called her compact before she finished her treatise, but she left the incomplete manuscript to Psikamit College.”
“Very interesting,” said Vuhas, although Karys could tell he did not think so. He seemed on edge. “Unfortunate for her, yes. But you’ve never studied Diarcicardi?”
Where is he going with this? Karys picked up her drink and swallowed some of the chocolate, hoping to wash away the salty fruit taste. Instead, she was assailed by nutmeg. “I’ve never heard of him. Why do you ask?”
“The book Beyond Mortal Bounds is unfamiliar to you?”
“Yes.” She was running out of patience. “Forgive me, but I don’t see how this is urgent.”
“Bear with me, you’ll understand in a minute.” Vuhas glanced at his pocket watch. “Let’s see, how to summarise … Diarcicardi published only one book in his lifetime, a seminal and transgressive work for which he was later executed. That was, oh, six hundred years ago? Varesli was still part of the Osiran Empire. As you can imagine, the original editions are vanishingly rare; there might be two or three left in the world. Copies are also extremely hard to come by, most having been destroyed or lost over the years. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, fewer than thirty now exist. I wondered whether you might have stumbled across one.”
“Why would you think that?” An idea occurred to her. “Is Rasko trying to acquire this book for you?”
“No, no, I already told you this has nothing to do with the man. Besides, I have my own copy; I don’t require another.” He gestured at his bookshelves. “Would you like to see it?”
Why was he toying with her? “No, thank you. I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
Vuhas sipped his drink. He smacked his lips in satisfaction. “If you haven’t read Diarcicardi, then you’re an interesting anomaly. Or, more likely, someone else’s mistake.”
“I don’t follow,” she said coldly.
Vuhas’ eyes glinted in the shifting firelight.
“Beyond Mortal Bounds is the only reputable guide to human binding,” he said.
Karys’ grip tightened reflexively around her mug. She was still for a heartbeat too long, then leaned forward and set the drink down on the coffee table. “I can see why that would be transgressive. What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“My intention is not to make an accusation but an offer. Care to hear it?”
“Not really.” At her back, Ferain was tense but silent. “I suspect there has been a misunderstanding.”
“Do you?” Vuhas reclined in his armchair. His expression was no longer genial. “I couldn’t help but notice: you talk to yourself rather a lot. Strange, that.”
“I’m good conversation.” Karys rose. “And I think I’ll be leaving now.”
“No, stay, indulge me. I won’t bite.”
She folded her arms. Vuhas remained seated, at ease.
“What’s your offer?” she asked.
“Let’s see.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if considering the matter. “How about membership to the Grateful Society in perpetuity? It’s been a long time since we had a new initiate.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” Karys turned and walked to the door. “Goodnight, casin.”
“Oh, but the offer wasn’t for you.”
The door was shut, although she could not remember having closed it. When she tried the handle, she found it locked. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. She felt sick.
“Would you care to guess,” said Vuhas, “how old I am?”
The offer wasn’t for her. What did that mean? The door handle was slick beneath her sweating palm. What did Vuhas want from her? “I’ve never liked riddles.”
“Two hundred and four.”
“What?”
“As of three weeks ago, I am two hundred and four years old,” said Vuhas.
Karys looked back. Her white-haired host smiled from his armchair, blithely unconcerned. He tapped his index finger to his lips.
“Deathspeaker Karys Eska,” he said. “Born in a nameless little village, lived as a vagrant in Miresse, formed a compact with the Ephirit Sabaster at around the age of seventeen. Moved to Psikamit, irregularly employed by a local racketeer named Marishka Stallar, who, I imagine, assisted you in slipping out of town before New Favour could close their net around you. Something of a loner otherwise, no family, no friends, no lovers. No one to come looking if you were to vanish.”
Silence. Karys did not move.
Vuhas raised an eyebrow. “And no comment either?”
Her voice emerged low and harsh. “How did you know?”
“About your history? I did a little research.” He gestured toward his vast collection of books. “As a rule, I like to be well-informed. Having heard a rumour through my contact with New Favour, I thought it might be worth my time. Tell me, does the name Ferain Taliade ring any bells?”
Karys instinctively took a step backwards, and her heel hit the door. Vuhas laughed, this time with genuine amusement.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
“What did you hear from New Favour?” she demanded. “What do you want with him?”
“So it is Taliade who’s bound to you?”
“Answer the question.”
“I already did—I’m offering him membership to the Grateful Society. Salvation, in effect.”
“I’ll pass,” muttered Ferain. “Karys, I’m going to try to get the door open. Keep him talking.”
Be quick, she thought fervently. “Salvation?”
“From his imprisonment. However you have repressed or contained him, it must be unspeakably painful. I want to help him.”
She scoffed. “He’s not in pain. Whatever you think—”
“It’s akin to withdrawal. ‘To be outside one’s body, even for a short space of time, is to crave reunification with the flesh.’ That’s Diarcicardi, by the way. If my understanding of the situation is correct, Ferain Taliade has been in such a condition for almost two weeks. A terrible fate.”
She could feel Ferain drawing on her; her shadow trying to force open the lock behind her back. “And you want—you want to help him? How?”
“Well, by freeing him, of course. I imagine he was the one who established the binding? It’s a very delicate process, easy to fumble. I am giving him the ability to reassert control over his vessel.”
“He didn’t…” She leaned back against the door. Her skin was damp, too hot. “His vessel?”
“You, my dear.”
Karys’ heart hammered. She had known something was wrong; she should never have come here. “So that’s it. The Grateful Society—you’re skin thieves.”
Vuhas leaned forward and picked up his mug again. “Don’t be ridiculous. Superstitions have their sources, I suppose, but I’m hardly some kind of monster hiding beneath a child’s bed. No, the Grateful represent the greatest aspiration of mankind. Together, we have defeated death itself.”
She did not know what expression crossed her face. “You’re a murderer. Worse than a murderer.”
“Less histrionics, please.”
“How many ‘vessels’ have you stolen, then?”
“Eleven. Some fit better than others.” Vuhas consulted his watch. “If Taliade finds your body does not suit him, the Society can acquire a replacement. We would be able to provide anything he needs.”
Whatever her shadow was doing, it didn’t seem to be working. Karys clenched her jaw, keeping her head raised. “And what would happen to me?”
“Oh, you’ll be long gone by then. There’s no way to claim a vessel without displacing its existing inhabitant.”
Behind her, Ferain swore.
“I can’t get the door open,” he said. “We need a new plan.”
“I have shown Taliade only a fraction of what the Grateful Society has to offer,” said Vuhas. “He is welcome to our fraternity, guidance, and aid; our resources go far beyond what he witnessed this evening. The choice is his.”
Karys spoke through gritted teeth. “And if he refuses? If I refuse?”
Vuhas’ gaze was pitying. He shook his head. “A little late for that, I think.”
“Karys?” Ferain’s attention was back on her. His alarm increased. “Karys, what’s wrong?”
She refused to allow her knees to bend. “The chocolate, right?”
Vuhas inclined his head in acknowledgement. “In part. The compound reacts to a reagent in the fruit sweet. The salt was to make you thirsty.”
“Hah.” She pushed damp strands of her hair back from her forehead. “I assumed horseshit was just a flavour you reekers enjoyed. You never had anything to do with Rasko, did you?”
“Your Miresse man? No, I’m afraid not. I merely intercepted his contact on this side of the border.”
Of course he had. From the start, Vuhas’ connection to Rasko had made no sense. She had known that, she had known the story didn’t line up. Her limbs trembled, feverish, and her thoughts came slow. The tour of the house and the Bhatuma relics, the visit to the club and the dinner: none of it was intended to impress her, Winola, or Haeki—it had all been for Ferain. She had been pulled along like a puppet on strings.
“He drugged you.” Ferain’s voice held a strange flatness. He did not move; her shadow stayed the same size and shape, but to Karys’ eyes it seemed to grow darker. Her vision swam. She needed to act, and soon. Needed to do something.
“What have you poisoned me with?” The words were heavy, difficult to pronounce.
Vuhas checked the time again. “Just a little safety measure for Taliade, something to render you incapable of contesting his claim. The Grateful Society developed it a century ago; we use it for all our revivals now. The activated compound is also going to stop your heart in another three minutes or so.”
She tried to take a step toward Vuhas, but her body no longer cooperated as it should; she fell to one knee. Sharp pressure spiked at the base of her skull. With effort, she lifted her head.
“Fuck you,” she panted.
“If Taliade claims your body, I’ll neutralise the poison. No permanent damage.”
“Feels … damaging right now.”
“Think of it as a mercy, a gift,” said Vuhas. “You’ll be spared the fear and grief that await you. Your Ephirite master will never call your compact. In exchange, an innocent man is given a second life. Isn’t that worth something?”
Tendrils of cold inched across her torso. “I had a … fucking plan, you … fucking skin-stealing prick.”
“Don’t be so vulgar.”
Doubled over, she made a wordless noise of rage. She had come too far for things to end like this. Get up! There had to be something she could do, some way out of this. If she could just think, she would be able to find the answer.
“Do you trust me?”
Ferain asked the question softly, and with the same absence of emotion in his voice. Karys dug her fingers into the carpet, and the rich weave of the rug blurred before her eyes. It was getting harder and harder to speak.
“Why?” she managed.
“You know too much now,” said Vuhas, mistaking her. “I couldn’t allow you to live.”
At least on the surface, Ferain was composed. He spoke like they were alone, like Vuhas did not matter or exist. “If you don’t want me to take over, I won’t. I’ll die before stealing your body, Karys. But if you trust me, if you are willing to trust me now—I’ll fix this. I swear. Say my name, and I’ll make him pay.”
Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. She was so heavy, so tired, so slow. I don’t want to disappear. Even if it meant facing Sabaster and the consequences of her choices, even if there was no hope. I wanted to live. Ferain sensed her reluctance.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.”
Her arms trembled and she slumped. Concealed from Vuhas, her shadow touched her cheek, light as air. He spoke so quietly that she almost did not hear him.
“Thank you for carrying me out of the dark,” he whispered.
Karys squeezed her eyes closed. White stars blossomed across the lids. Her heart beat erratically; her thoughts tangled like nets in a wind-tossed sea. Trust him? When was the last time … when had she ever…? Her body was cold. But she did. Trust him.
Some final, desperate gasp of self-preservation seized her—her lips parted and she choked out her shadow’s name.
For an instant: nothing. Then Ferain sank into her skin.