Chapter 19: Unnumbered

The Regent's guards took Tristram out of the hall in an iron-banded net.

Ottoline gave the order herself, in a voice that did not shake.

Then she looked at Lorcan, standing in the ruin of his coat with the snake's weight just gone from his arms.

"The Maw is in five days, Lorcan," she said. "I expect you to be in it."

It was not warmth.

But she had used his name.

We walked home along the shore in the dark with Bess between us, singing something filthy about the baker's mother, and no guard stopped us.

She fell asleep in her chair before the kettle boiled, with the baker's son carefully taking off her shoes.

Lorcan closed the door of our room.

He stood with his back to it, and for a moment neither of us spoke.

"He asked a question," I said.

"He did."

"I don't want to answer it."

"I know." His skin was a quiet, deep colour I couldn't name. "That's why I'm going to ask it myself."

"Lorcan."

"Say zero between us."

I shook my head.

"If I say it and the number goes out and you walk away from me, I will have done that to you," I said. "I'll have done it with my own mouth."

"And if I don't walk away?"

"You will. You'll feel it go. It'll go slowly, over days, like it did for the net-mender."

"Then I walk away, and you'll know." He stepped closer. "And if I don't, you will know that too."

"I can't stand not knowing, Morwenna. Neither can you."

I looked up at him.

His arms were out already, loose around us both.

He wasn't afraid, I saw.

He was asking.

"You want me to risk it."

"I want you to let me stand in front of you with nothing between us," Lorcan said. "No number. No paper. No rule. Only me."

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