Roy, however, couldn’t rid himself of the temptation to pass the swords a desultory glance. As he did so now, he noted again that there was something cruel and sinister about them. It was more than their appearance, more thanwherethey had found them. No, it was what Roy had sensed when he’d first seen them: that if he relieved either blade of its scabbard, pure malevolence would come pouring out. He kept an eye on the swords, though whenever he looked back down at his research, he could feel them watching him. He imagined scores upon scores of eyes etched on the scabbards, flicking back and forth, monitoring him with baleful scrutiny.
Roy knew that he and Percival would need to examine them eventually, despite not having felt the wind around the weapons as guidance and confirmation of their importance to the mystery, but trepidation kept him at bay. Percival, too, Roy assumed; hehaddeclared that they would look further into the swords tomorrow, not this night.
Realizing his concentration was drifting, Roy stood up with a sigh, stretched out the strained muscles in his back and neck, then made his way down the staircases overlooking the first floor of the Orphic Basilica until he heard the clinking of glasses.
He found Percival in a sitting room on the fourth floor. He was sprawled on a settee before a hearth, his short blond hair gilded with firelight. His legs were splayed wide: the left foot perched atop the back of the seat, the right dangling over the edge. A splash of liquid, which smelled distinctly like whiskey, stained the front of his tunic, the laces undone to expose his lightly muscled chest. He was staring into the flames with a look of glassy seduction, as if engaged in a wordless exchange with an unseen lover. The reflection of fire shivered in his spectacles.
“Percival,” Roy said, striding over and standing in front of him, his hands set firmly on his hips. “This is what you call a nightcap?”
Percival blinked twice and squinted at Roy in befuddlement for a moment before his features brightened. “Ah, it’s you! Have you come to join the festivities?” he asked. The last word came out slurred and a fraction louder than his usual volume.
“You’re pathetic,” Roy said, although as he observed Percival’s state of inebriation, he was unpleasantly reminded of the string of delirious nights when he had dug himself into the same pit. He thought of the bottles of cheap wine he’d filched from the Matron’s liquor cabinet, of waking up to the drumming in his head and looking through bleary, tear-filled eyes, of the events he’d been trying to drown out... and how it had never worked. He cast the memories out of his mind and glared at Percival. “You should be resting up for the work ahead of us.”
A theory floated into Roy’s head then.Is this because of what we found in the catacombs? Did seeing and holding the Scribes’ weapons wound him so deeply that he immediately resolved to lose himself in drink?Despite reprimanding Percival, Roy couldn’t say that he was fully averse to the idea. He wasn’t fond of the taste of whiskey, having mostly indulged in wine, but the smell wafting out of that glass was still compelling, still unbearably intoxicating.
Percival waved one hand through the air, the other gripping his glass. “Oh, don’t play the saint, Dawnseve. This spoilsport mentality is trite as they come.” He furrowed his brows with intense concentration, then exclaimed, “‘Weep not at the joy-bringer, Aphantus! He who holds the throbbing heart of elation is he who holds life!’” He took a swig of his whiskey. “Say, who wrote that nonsense?”
Unable to help himself, Roy muttered, “Aphantus.Glory Mine. The play was a satire on self-criticism.”
Percival grinned at Roy and made to reach up and ruffle his hair, but Roy stepped back. “Darling, you smart angel, you! If I’d known you had even a basic interest inThe Nemefiran Quartet, I would have incorporated more passages into our lively discussions. Here, this is an interesting one.” He cleared his throat, then boomed, “‘Hark, hark! The gates have opened; of whose accord, Aphantus does know; to what doom, fate does not tell!’” He laughed. “Sit down and have a drink, darling; I have plenty of these memorized. Come to think of it, how do you fancy pouring me another glass?”
Roy put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “I don’t fancy that at all, to be quite honest.”
“Fetch me my drink, darling.”
“You’ve consumed quite enough,Percival.”
Percival swung himself into an upright position, a meticulous yet sudden maneuver. He sat on the edge of the settee, his boots thumping onto the redwood. He shot his left hand, the spare one, forward and clutched Roy’s coat. “Pour me my drink.”
Roy shoved him away.
Percival shook his head. “Oh, fine,I’llpour myself a drink.” He stood from his seat, stumbled and staggered, then righted himself. Once he located the decanter on the table beside him, he filled two knuckles’ length of whiskey, swallowed half of it, and then returned to his seat. “Rich taste,” he said, as though he hadn’t guzzled most of the decanter’s contents. He lowered his lips to the rim of the glass, frowned, and tilted it toward Roy. “Be a scoundrel, Dawnseve. How hard can it be? We’re already halfway there, being scholars and all. Here, I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition?”
Percival smirked. “A drinking game.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’ll have to decline,” Roy said, though that sharp, smoky scent was still winding toward him, pulling him in. “I don’t drink.” His last bottle of stolen wine had been three years ago.And I don’t play games with you, he thought.How many times must I say that?
Apparently he would have to keep saying it, because Percival asked, “Are you forfeiting?” He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “Come, darling. I know the look of a man aching for a drink.”
Roy knew he was being manipulated, but he couldn’t shake the compulsion, couldn’t look at that whiskey another moment without wanting to gulp it down, to experience once more that dizzying sense of euphoria. Just as difficult to ignore, too, was the fact that his desire to never play was far outstripped by his desire to do anything to cross Percival’s lines, to connect just a little more. Besides, after the devastating intensity of what had occurred in, and what they’d found in, the catacombs, Roy felt the much-needed urge to blow off some steam. His light reading hadn’t been nearly enough to disperse his tension, and if spending some time with Percival wouldn’t smooth out his edges, then Roy was certain that a bit of whiskey might.
“I’ll play,” he said. He took the glass from Percival’s hands and consumed the remainder of the drink. A malty, briny flavor coated his palate, and when he swallowed, the notes of oak and caramel lingered in the back of his mouth. He licked his lips, savoring the aftertaste.
“And I hadn’t even specified the drinking game,” Percival said.
Roy handed the glass back to Percival. “Proceed.”
“We will each drink... hm, let’s say a knuckle’s length,” Percival explained. “Then one of us asks the other a question. Simple.”
Roy rolled his eyes. “Yes, simple. Infants have conceived more convoluted tournaments than this. Assuming we follow your deceptively easy rules, it seems only fair that I ask you the first question.”
“It might suit you better once you’ve found a place to sit.”
Roy shook his head in exasperation, not quite believing he’d consented to this madness, but then dragged over the ottoman in front of Percival’s settee and sat down.
“Hecanlisten to orders,” Percival slurred, his jaw dropping in mock surprise.
