Page 50 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

Back at the house, Thaniel had to sit out on the verandah for a while, waiting to calm down. Sitting still, it was freezing, and he soon had to move to the hot slate edge of the closest pool. The steam eased the scratch in his lungs at least, and he wasn’t alone. Katsu was floating origami boats on the pool, gleaming in the light of the bright crescent moon. The moon was tipped on its side here, so that it smiled. Once the boats had drifted out a bit, Katsu dived into the water and then engulfed one like a miniature kraken, making what might have been the clockwork octopus version of kraken noises.

After a little while, Thaniel got the uncomfortable feeling that someone else was there too. He looked round twice, thinking someone had just walked past, but the place was deserted. The only real movement was the spiralling steam.

The lighthouse came on again, and again, bells sounded in the house. Mori’s door was open to the night. Thaniel looked back in time to see him jolt upright.

‘They’re random, aren’t they?’ Thaniel said, quietly, because Six was asleep in the corner. He paused, because his voice had turned smoky. His lungs still hurt, despite all the steam. ‘This is dangerous. If someone can ring a bell and take you by surprise, they could fire a gun and take you by surprise as … well.’ He had to squeeze his eyes shut when he saw what was going on. Ministerial security; what bullshit. He couldn’t believe he’d not questioned it before. Kuroda had come with a personal guard of – what? At least twenty men. Far more than even Queen Victoria had. All with guns. They weren’t a security detail. Kuroda wasn’t just visiting a friend. Kuroda had the Russian fleet floating just off his back porch, and now he had a clairvoyant.

‘Mori,’ he whispered, ‘can you even leave this house?’

Mori got up fast and dropped onto his knees beside Thaniel on the warm slate. ‘Don’t get in their way,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not doing this by accident. It’s all fine. But no spanners in the works, all right?’

‘Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on?’ Thaniel demanded. His voice split over it and he had to look away, frustrated, because he sounded like a child.

‘It’s boring,’ Mori said, smiling. He shook his head. He was starting to look worse for wear after what must have been a run of broken nights. It was the least convincing smile Thaniel had ever seen. When he tried to start saying so, Mori closed one hand over his knuckles, squeezed, hard, and flicked his eyes to the corner of the verandah, like there was someone standing there. There wasn’t. Thaniel stared at him helplessly, trying to see what in God’s name was going on. Mori was looking at him hard, every atom of him broadcasting a warning to shut up.

Thaniel felt suddenly like they weren’t talking softly alone on the dim verandah, but floodlit on a raised stage, surrounded by people who were invisible beyond the limelights, but very much still there.

‘I just want someone to invent an electron microscope a bit early, that’s all,’ Mori said. ‘And in a very obscure and silly way, this will help.’

‘A microscope.’

‘Yes. It’s a neat little thing, it’s worth a few interrupted nights.’

‘What’s it for?’ Thaniel said, losing steam.

Mori shrugged a little. The candlelight slung harsh shadows between the tendons in his throat. ‘Lots of things. Generally useful. You know what I’m like, I get bored with waiting for things to be invented.’ He bent his neck a little and his eyes bored into Thaniel’s. Just say yes, just say yes, let it go.

Thaniel couldn’t. ‘Kei, I really think Mrs Pepperharrow means to be a rich widow pretty soon, and I know you’ve probably got it all worked out, but if they’re pissing about with random data generation then you can’t know what—’

‘She doesn’t,’ Mori interrupted. ‘She’s doing what she’s meant to.’ It was terrible, basalt-hard certainty. If Thaniel had suggested to him that his own arms were plotting against him, he would have sounded the same way.

But Mori really didn’t sound right. He hadn’t since they’d arrived. The spotlight feeling had never gone away either. For all there was no light, and nobody nearby, Thaniel could almost hear the rattle of an audience.

He leaned close, lifting one hand to Mori’s hair to try and shield them a little from anyone close by. ‘Is someone watching?’ he whispered.

He never knew if Mori heard or not. The bells had made him flinch, and he had looked haunted when he’d caught sight of Thaniel across the room before, but his hands came up now in the fastest block Thaniel had ever had come at him in or out of the ring. He barely had time even to see it before Mori had pushed him away, hard, one hand flat into his sternum. It wasn’t designed to hurt, but he was springcoil-strong and it almost knocked Thaniel over backward.

There was a hanging moment of silence. All Thaniel could hear was his own heart and the awkward catch in his lungs. He’d never been shocked from taking a hit before, not once, or afraid, and certainly never from anything that hadn’t even hurt. But he’d never come up against anyone who could have killed him without trying. Mori almost had. It hadn’t been a considered lashing out; it had been panic. If he’d punched Thaniel in the throat, he would have broken his neck.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mori said softly. He was holding his hands up, absolutely still.

Thaniel shook his head once. He wanted to vanish. He hadn’t listened properly, before; he hadn’t bothered to imagine what it must be like for Mori to remember someone wasting and weakening, fading into nothing but sickness and then, at last, like a mercy, the shrouds and the finality of a graveyard; the house finally without anyone coughing or dying in it, waking without worrying about looking after the wreck of another human, airing away that rank chemical smell of antiseptic medicine, settling down with a brilliant, laughing wife – only to jolt back to the present and find it was all ahead and that person, that thing, was leaning up close.

‘No, I’ll go. I’ll go. I’m sorry.’

Mori was quiet at first. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Christ, it’s not your fault. I’ll get on in the morning. And then …’ He had to fight hard for something that sounded almost natural but non-binding. ‘I’ll see you when I see you.’

‘Thaniel … I’ve never been more ashamed of anything than this.’

‘All right, calm down. It’s not the end of the world, is it.’ It came out rougher than he meant, but that was worlds better than weeping.

Mori tilted his eyes down. ‘Right. Well; night.’

‘Mm.’ Thaniel waited for a few minutes after Mori had gone, crushing his fingernails into his palms, then cried until he could think again.

He was surprised when, as he was putting his things together the next morning, Six announced that she was coming to the legation too. When he asked if she was sure, she nodded and said that the generator here was very unreliable.