Page 112 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘No,’ Vaulker said. ‘No, thank you.’ He went away along the windows to watch the soldiers.

Mori had found some tea things, and some leftover rice. He set them down on the edge of the table closest to the fire. There were other people, and they were in the process of moving to the seats furthest away by the time Thaniel went across. He moved a chair out. The small scrape it made on the wooden floor made Mori jump. He had been looking at the fire as if he had never seen one before. Six had disappeared again.

‘Are you all right?’ Thaniel said. He sat down slowly, ready to get up again quickly if Mori told him to go away.

Mori’s hands were shaking around the cup, a just- noticeable tremor that might have been cold or shock, or neither.

‘Yes. How did you know what to do?’

‘I didn’t. It was Mrs Pepperharrow.’ Thaniel felt like the cane was hovering right above his hand. ‘She said we needed to give you a flare.’

Mori nodded slowly. Thaniel saw him breathe in and make an effort to gather the words together. He thought he was going to say something about Takiko, and ask to know how Thaniel had let any of it happen, but it wasn’t that at all.

‘I can’t remember anything. Ahead, I mean I can’t remember ahead.’

Thaniel was quiet while he thought about it. ‘When did that happen?’

‘When I woke up. It was an overdose, they were drugging me.’

‘Is it – are you all right, do you need anything?’ Thaniel asked, completely insufficiently.

‘I’m fine. Just …’ He tipped his head like he could hear something rolling inside his skull. ‘Empty.’

There was a long quiet that was full of the fire clicking and the yells from outside. The junior translators and diplomats were watching the Mori knights clear out the last protesters from the one unboarded window, excited now. Sometimes they cheered. They all looked very young.

Eventually Thaniel couldn’t keep quiet anymore. ‘I’m sorry.’ He swallowed, because his voice had splintered. Hardly anyone had noticed what had happened to Takiko; it was what was sticking to him more than her dying. Hardly anyone had even looked. ‘I should have stopped her going. But I couldn’t catch—’ He had to stop himself, because it sounded so spineless. ‘I didn’t let her go out there for spite. I know it must seem like I did – but – you have to know … I didn’t.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Mori said. The firelight was making his hair red on that side. His bones were sharper than before and he looked less human than he ever had. He sounded like he was speaking from a long way off.

‘It is. Everything’s wrong. You were here for her. You were going to have a child with her, for Christ’s sake. And now she’s …’

Mori had been shaking his head while Thaniel was talking. ‘No – no. I wasn’t here for that, that’s just the future that would have come to pass, if you—’ He looked away sharply and then back again. ‘If you were to die. You know what grief looks like, in clairvoyants?’

‘No?’

‘Recovery. You get over a man dying before he’s even half gone. It’s inhuman.’ He was quiet. Whatever was coming next, he had to dredge it up. ‘But talking to you, and remembering my children with her – I was going mad with it. I didn’t let them give me an overdose by accident. I did it because if I hadn’t, I’d have torn my own eyes out remembering that while you were still here.’

Mori watched him as if he might have said something else, but then looked down into his tea. He had his hand around his own throat, and he was pressing too hard now.

Thaniel touched his knuckles, wanting him to stop.

‘Do you know what I was doing in Japan?’ Mori asked, very quietly. ‘Because as far as I can tell, all I’ve accomplished is a lot of – destruction.’ He had to reach for the English.

‘I don’t think what you were doing is finished yet,’ Thaniel said. He switched into Japanese. A lot of Mori’s English must have been from the future. It must have gone, the second he lost his future-memory. ‘It’s all going somewhere. The electricity and – well, you said something obscure about microscopes a while ago. I don’t know what you really wanted.’

Mori shuddered and at first Thaniel thought he was crying, but he was laughing. ‘I see.’ It died away too quickly. He looked down and pushed his good hand over his eyes. For the first time, Thaniel noticed that when they weren’t watching the soldiers outside, the people at the windows watched Mori. It was a mix of curiosity and unease, and exactly what would have happened at the theatre if everyone had been smoking back stage, watching the operetta from a side door, only to find that when the fairy king came back to sit with them, he wasn’t an actor at all but the actual fairy king.

‘I know it must have felt like I was elbowing you aside every second of the way,’ he said softly. ‘But the reason I didn’t tell you anything was that you would have stopped me. For absolutely certain. And … I don’t remember what I was doing, but I do remember knowing I had to do it.’

‘I can’t stop you doing a damn thing,’ Thaniel said. His throat hurt.

‘Of course you can. I buckle whenever there’s even a chance you’ll be angry with me, never mind when you actually do it.’

Thaniel couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

The fire cracked every so often. Outside was quieter now. There were still tents burning, but all the protesters had run away. The Duke’s men were silhouettes among the flames.

‘You’ve finished talking now,’ Six told them, having appeared next to them. ‘It’s your turn to read again. This is about static induction, it’s by Tesla. It’s why the lightbulbs work.’ She gave Mori a journal. Then, ‘Why are you both so upset? There’s nothing to be upset about.’