The decision to leave Ilroya as soon as possible had been easy to make. With a stroke of luck, they’d found a ship bound for Othmark, packed their few belongings and prepared to go. The map, they’d agreed would be safest with Ingbord, hidden under her coat. While Eoin commented that she still walked like she had something stolen under her clothes, she was getting better at moving naturally with the map tightly rolled and wrapped against her. With little else to do but wait, they settled in together and continued Ingbord's education in wine.

  She ran a finger along the rim of her tin cup, tracing its edge as her thoughts drifted, slow and unmoored. The wine had weight, its sweetness clinging to her tongue, but her body felt curiously apart from itself, a pleasant floating sensation like standing in deep water. She considered the feeling carefully, aware of its pull and the temptation to float deeper into it.

  Eoin sat across from her on the bed, one leg tucked underneath him, one arm draped over the footboard, his cup held loosely in his hand. He looked at ease, but she had already observed that about him—his ease was deliberate, flawless and practiced. Even now, sprawled with his back against the footboard, he was watching her. Weighing her, as she suspected he did everything.

  She took another sip of wine, rolling it across her tongue. The sweetness lingered. As did the detachment. She shifted, aware that some things are better left unasked and unanswered, and yet questions snagged, like the edge of a torn fingernail on cloth. There was foolishness in turning over stones to see what wriggled beneath. But curiosity is like its own kind of hunger, and mystery to Ingbord was an irritation. Sometimes, she reflected, a little air and space stopped something from festering. She hesitated, the weight of curiosity settling in her chest. The wine softened her thoughts and dulled her better judgment. Still, she exhaled and let the words slip free.

  "There are stories and legends of your kind. Fables of men and women who stepped away from our world and came back changed. Stepped away for a day and came back an old woman. Gone for years and years until their families thought they were dead and gone, only to return fresh faced and young. At the Hall we were taught that there are worlds upon worlds, stacked together like pages in a book. And that there are places between them, where the paper is thin and person might, by accident or on purpose, step off one page and into another. That it might be possible to skip from world to another, perhaps finding themselves in a story that follows different rules from the one they left."

  She flicked her gaze to him. Eoin's expression remained unreadable.

  She took another sip of wine, pausing to weave her slow, lazy thoughts together.

  "Tales. Fables. Theories. Other worlds. Some perhaps, contain a seed of truth. But I think stories are only half-truths, that theory isn't truth. And truth, truth is never as pretty as the tales would have us believe.

  She set her cup down.

  “Stories tell of those who take a step too far and vanish - some return, some never do. Stories speak of strangers offering gold that turns into a handful of leaves. Stories speak of men who shift their shape – borrow a seal’s skin and in the moonlight and swim away.

  “You, you bend perception. You shift and you twist. You move through the world…differently.”

  She paused, then said quietly, "What is your truth?”

  Eoin didn’t move, but something in him sharpened. His fingers tapped once against his cup, thoughtful.

  For a moment, he said nothing. Just watched her, his thumb tracing slow circles over the side of his cup. Then, a quiet breath.

  "You assume," he murmured, tilting his head, "that I have any interest in giving it to you."

  She huffed a quiet breath of laughter, not unkind. "You assume I need your cooperation to find it."

  His grin faded, but the glint in his eyes remained. He took another sip of wine, then leaned his head back against the bedpost.

  "Truth," he mused, rolling the word on his tongue like she had rolled the wine. "Truth is an odd thing, Magician. It changes, depending on the teller."

  He set his cup down. A moment later his coin appeared between his fingers, and he rolled it, considering.

  "What of the truth?" he echoed, as if testing the weight of the words.

  "Some of what you think you know is true. Like I told you, I was born in another land, much like this one in size and shape - but different. The rules are shifted. Different rules govern up and down, fast and slow. Different magic, you might say, different physics we would say in my world. We have similar legends, you and I. On my world, we have stories of adventurers who slip through cracks between worlds and come to visit. Some go willingly and happily. Others, not. Some of what you’ve heard is true. I was a sailor in my own world, and I came on purpose. I came here and was wrecked. Fetched on Eysa's rocks and bound to serve the man who captured my name and the essence of my soul. That part, you already know.“

  The coin danced across his knuckles, leaping from hand to hand. His voice was lighter when he spoke again, but there was a weight beneath it.

  "And in Vardvik, you hear new stories, stories about me. That I'm a fetch, a shadow-walker. A thing that can slip between the cracks of men’s attention, carry something away without having been seen to do it. Step through a door without ever having been seen to cross the threshold.

  “Truth. I can twist perceptions if I choose, to shift my voice, shape my hands to fit the task."

  He smiled, but there was no humour in it. "Also truth; I am bound. A dog with a collar of words, and my master holds the chain that is my name."

  His eyes flicked to her, sharp, searching. "Does that satisfy your curiosity? Or shall I conjure a prettier tale?"

  A silence stretched between them while Ingbord weighed his words. Eventually, she nodded. Then looked pointedly at the coin flickering between his fingers.

  "Truth? That really is just sleight of hand?"

  Eoin stilled the coin, pinched between his left thumb and forefinger. Slowly, deliberately he reached for it with his right - then paused with a tip of his chin to direct Ingbord's attention to his left hand. He tilted his left hand toward her, and tucked the coin firmly into the crease between his palm fingers.

  His left hand remained still while he shifted her focus to his right hand, seemingly closing around a coin that had never even been there. He turned his wrist with a fluid motion, then with a sharp flick snapped the fingers of his empty right hand open.

  He paused, looked at his left hand, then opened it, showing Ingbord the coin that had never left, tucked up against his fingers. Keeping the coin in place with his thumb, he turned his hand palm down and released the coin, letting it fall onto his bent knee. He looked at the coin for a moment, his hands still and empty, then directed Ingbord to his right hand with another flourish, holding his right hand out at shoulder height. His eyes flicked to Ingbord's face, then back to the coin on his knee. With a sharp flick, he launched the coin into the air behind his back.

  The gold spun in a glinting arc high above his head before falling neatly into the palm of his open right hand. He let the weight of that settle for a moment before closing his fingers around it - then opening them again with a rolling motion revealing an empty hand. He held it there for the space of a few heartbeats, and then with a quick snap of his eyes to his left hand, the coin abruptly vanished. He brought both hands to his lap, and slowly opened his fists, spreading his fingers wide, showing the coin pressed between his thumb and his palm - exactly where it had always been.

  He glanced away to his left for a moment, and when Ingbord looked to his hands again, the coin was nowhere in sight.

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  Eoin closed his eyes briefly, his mouthing twitching in something too bitter to count as amusement.

  "Now, now. Fair’s fair, Magician" he said. "Tell me - how is it you do your tricks?" Is it true you practice dark magic, demanding a man's blood, his seed, and his breath in return for answers?”

  Ingbord tilted her head, regarding him in silence for a long moment. Then, without breaking his gaze, she reached for her cup and took a slow sip of wine.

  "If I did, Eoin," she said finally, "you'd be dead three times over. She set the cup down. "Yet here you sit, whole, unspent, and breathing. What does that tell you?"

  She met his eyes and her lips quirked. Very subtly, her shoulders shook. Eventually, Eoin realized, she was trying to hold back laughter. She broke, throwing back her head and laughing real, delighted laughter.

  “At the hall, we called it physics too. And that's most of what I learned while I was there - levers, pulleys, friction and weight. Lenses, magnetics and arithmetic. Most of a magician's job is fixing things or unstopping stuck wells. There's very little magic involved. You don’t even need magic at all – not really. It helps, of course. But it’s not required.

  “I watch, I see, but others listen. Some, like Sverri shape their Seeking into something tangible - a painting, a carving, something you can touch.

  “Magic needs heat. When I seek, I gather heat from the room, heat from the people near me, and heat from within my own body. That heat is the fuel for the ritual

  “Seeking is cold. The father I seek, the more heat is needed. And when it’s gone, the connection to magic is severed, and I snap back into own ice-cold body.

  “Blood - isn’t needed. At least not anyone else’s. A drop of my own blood launches the seeking, and serves as an anchor, a tether. Without that grounding droplet of blood, I might never find my way back to myself.

  “A price must be paid. It has to be something precious, something intimately tied to the Seeker. As you put it, truth depends on the teller. So too, does the price depend on the seeker. The seeker must offer something of value – not necessarily to me – but of real value to them. If the price paid is fair, if the connection to the seeker is solid, I use that it to cast outward, to slip free of my body, and travel beyond what my eyes can see.

  “A lock of hair, a childhood keepsake, a hundred coins, or just one-if it matters enough.” She shrugged. “It all depends on what the seeker holds precious.”

  He considered the thought, a price for a price. “And if the seeker has nothing to give?” Warily, he reached for his coin. He danced it from hand to hand, considering. “What if their offer isn’t enough”.

  Ingbord tilted her head, studying him. “Then they risk disappointing a magician. Not wise.”

  He turned the coin once more between his fingers, watching the glint of firelight on gold. A thing of value. Something given, something taken.

  “What of Torsten's price?” he asked. “You go to his bed, do you not?”

  She leaned her chin on her hand, eyes following the flicker of gold between Eoin’s fingers – watching, considering.

  "Torsten’s price is his to give, not yours to count." She said finally.

  She took another sip of wine, meeting Eoin’s gaze over the rim. "But if you must know—no, I do not go to his bed." A deliberate pause, letting the words settle. "I take him to it.”

  She swirled the wine in her cup, watching the deep red, dark as blood, catch the light.

  “He offers himself. He gives his body, his essence, his strength, his fervour. He comes to me hard, urgent, rampant, full of power." She tilted her head, gaze unwavering. "And when he is spent—when he is soft and trembling, when his strength has run out—where do you think it goes?"

  She let the words hang between them, a deliberate pause.

  "He gives it to me," she said simply. "And I receive it."

  “And what of you? She asked archly. “You sleep in his bed, do you not?”

  Eoin grinned, lazy and sharp.

  "Oh, I sleep many places, Ingbord." He took another sip of wine. "Couches, floors, the occasional warm hearthside."

  A pause. A flicker of something in his expression.

  "And, yes. His bed, too."

  Ingbord went still, fingers tightening momentarily around her cup. She tilted her head and stared at him unmoving for the space of several heartbeats.

  Eoin had meant to sting – just a little. But now he wondered if he’d cut deeper than intended.

  She was too still. Pupils just a shade too wide. Her fingers were tight around her cup, but it was the flush of red that bloomed on her neck and cheeks that gave him pause. There was heat building in her. Not anger…but something else.

  Oh.

  That was interesting.

  Eoin kept the coin moving through his fingers, a casual dance of gold and shadow. But his mind was already shifting, adjusting. He leaned in just a fraction, just enough to see if she’d move away, or if she’d let him close the space between them.

  "You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?" His voice was soft, almost thoughtful.

  He flicked the coin, caught it without looking.

  He cocked his head, and showed his teeth, tongue pressing briefly against one. "Tell me, Magician." A pause, deliberate and weighted. "What exactly is it you see?"

  Ingbord drew a sharp breath. There was flicker of her throat as she swallowed, but otherwise she held ground, neither retreating or leaning in. She looked up from the coin’s slow dance, her gaze sharp.

  “Mm. You meant to surprise me. Congratulations. I am surprised at how sharply I see it. I do wonder how it is. Do you take him apart with your clever dancing fingers? Does he pin you beneath the weight of his body and shake you with the strength of it? What’s it like? Do you have a choice?”

  The question hung thick between them. Humming with truths unspoken.

  Do you take him apart?

  Or does he take you?

  She had meant to rattle him. And for the first time in a long time, Eoin felt it.

  He exhaled, slow and measured, rolling the coin between his fingers—but the motion lacked its usual ease.

  "Both," he said finally.

  He set the coin down, pressing it flat against his thigh with his finger.

  "Sometimes I take him apart." A pause. A flicker of something unreadable in his expression. "Sometimes he takes me."

  His gaze lifted, met hers, dark and sharp and too honest.

  He let the coin go, watched it slide onto the rumpled blankets.

  "I could say no, if that’s what you’re asking."

  A pause.

  "But I don’t."

  Eoin watched the way Ingbord sat with that truth. Watched the slow sip of wine, the slight shift of her breath. If she had meant to rattle him, then fair was fair—he had rattled her right back.

  She set her cup down, fingers tapping idly against the rim, a measured rhythm—thinking, calculating.

  "Good to know," she said at last.

  Her voice was smooth, but something flickered behind it, something still burning.

  She tilted her head, slow and deliberate.

  "What it is like for you?" Her eyes gleamed, assessing. "What is it like to be kept?"

  Eoin stilled.

  "That depends." His voice had lost its edge, had turned quieter, flatter. “On which master you’re talking about.”

  He picked up the coin again, turned it slowly between his fingers, watching how it caught the light. A flick of his wrist, and the coin disappeared.

  "By Rolly?" He huffed a quiet breath, shaking his head. "Dull. Cold. Lonely."

  "Ten years, invisible." The words came easily, but something about them carried weight. He let them settle, feeling their shape before continuing.

  "That was the rule. Blend in – disappear. I was a ghost when he needed me, and nothing when he didn’t.

  "I was his spy." He held up a hand momentarily. “Not, that there is ever anything worth being overheard in Vardvik.”

  “I wasn’t beaten, or starved. Just kept, like a tool to be picked up and used.

  He leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him.

  "No room, of course. No place to belong to. No door to close. No bed of my own. I slept where I could. A storeroom one night, a bench in the kitchens the next. Some warm corner by a vent.

  "I think the worst of it wasn’t even that." A pause. He tilted his head slightly, as if considering. "It was the loneliness. The kind that crawls inside you, gets into your bones."

  He chuckled.

  "I used to seek him out, you know. Rolly. In the evenings."

  He said it lightly, as if it were a passing thought.

  "Not for orders. Just to speak and be heard to speak myself."

  The coin reappeared between his fingers, spinning effortlessly.

  "Imagine that. The old bastard wouldn’t even look at me half the time, but I went anyway. Just to have someone to talk to."

  "Ten years."

  A quick smirk then, and he returned to an easier, lighter tone.

  "Boring, really. "I don’t know if you’ve ever tried being someone else’s problem, but gods, it’s tedious."

  Her voice was quieter when she asked, "And Torsten?"

  Eoin’s fingers stilled against the coin.

  "I still belong to him. But it’s different."

  He exhaled, turned the coin over once more.

  "I have a room in the keep, for one. Not a bad one, either.

  "Torsten—" He hesitated. "Torsten finds use for things. He turns them in his hands, weighs them, figures out where they fit." He glanced at her, something unreadable flickering in his expression. "He found a place for me." His voice was different when he said it. Softer. "He turns to me."

  Another flicker of his coin, slower now.

  "He trusts me."

  He rolled his jaw, shaking his head.

  "Torsten talks, you know."

  A pause.

  "And when he talks about you— oh gods, Ingbord, he goes on and on – enough to make a bard weep."

  He rolled his eyes, but there was no real exasperation behind it.

  "I had to listen to him blather on about you like a lovesick poet—until I wasn’t entirely sure who was in love with whom."

  A flick of his wrist, and the coin vanished.

  "By the time I met you, I was already drowning."

  He let out a slow breath, then shifted—rolled onto his side, stretching out along the bed, facing the wall. One arm tucked beneath his head, the other draped loosely over his ribs.

  A long moment passed, then another.

  Ingbord didn’t move at first, only watched him.

  Then she lay gently down beside him and pressed herself to his back, the length of her fitting neatly against his, her arm sliding around his waist.

  She felt the way his muscles tightened beneath her touch.

  "I don’t need your pity, Feyrune." The words came quiet and flat. Resigned and almost bored

  Her fingers tightened over his ribs, her body pressing closer, the warmth of her breath brushing the outside of his ear as she murmured—

  "Liar."

  It cut. Clean, effortless, right down to the bone. So sharp, he didn’t even feel the pain right away.