The Gleesdale house needed a name. Idris had not thought of it until Lila brought it up on their daily walk around the village. They had been there for nine days while he recovered and debris from the fight at Raven’s Roost kept rolling past on carts and wagons. A group of soldiers had brought books from Layton’s library and some of the tapestries, and when they had inquired about where to take them, Riette had no house name to give them.

  “It cannot just be ‘Idris’s house’, then?” said Idris. Lila tutted and nudged him in the ribs. “I tease, Lila.”

  “At least you are well enough for teasing, sir.”

  “What did the previous owners call it?”

  “Nothing, so far as I know.”

  The village was only a short walk down the road from the unnamed house. Idris liked to see the market stalls, smell the bakery’s ovens, watch the sheep cross from pasture to pasture. The people there warmed to him quickly, introducing themselves and saying how grand it was to have him there at last. Everywhere there were flowers and animals, trees and shrubs. It was not Temple Hill and it certainly was not Raven’s Roost, but Gleesdale sat at the intersection of Idris’s understanding of himself in a comfortable, curious sort of way. Lila told him that he was using his walks to avoid his friends, which was true although he would not admit it. Of late, he only spent time with Lila – and Thistle, who rode on his shoulder as they went.

  “You name it,” said Idris.

  “I am not going to name a nobleman’s home, Sir Idris. That isn’t proper.”

  They paused for the local children to chase a chicken across the street; one, noticing Idris, tipped his hat in the process and collided with a water butt. Idris held in a laugh.

  “Good morning, young sir,” he called.

  “Morning, Mister Idris!”

  “Sir Idris!” Lila corrected as the boy hurried off.

  “It is nothing, Lila. He has more important things to worry about,” said Idris, watching the boy sprint off after the hen.

  “So do you,” said Lila.

  He had not yet destroyed the Spirit Staff. It still sat in the chest in his bedroom. Partly, this was due to the strength he needed to perform such a task, which he had not possessed until recently; partly, it was fear.

  “It will be safer to do in the palace vault,” said Idris quietly, as they headed back up the road to the nameless farmhouse.

  But there was much else, too. Official family trees had to be corrected. A letter to Idris’s mother had to be written and sent. There was the issue of Layton, where he was and what he was going to do next. There was the breastplate and the pauldrons. Joa’s involvement was of crucial importance to the stability of the kingdom and had to be addressed. Nobody yet knew what was going to happen to Raven’s Roost, or Temple Hill.

  “Kurellan’s scouts?” Idris said.

  “We will discuss it another time,” said Lila.

  Arm in arm, they returned to the front yard of the house. Willard was often in the gardens, but this morning he was absent – Idris did not know where Riette went daily but he contented himself with the thought that her disappearance was best for him. He did not want her, or any of his friends, to see him the way he was. The bruises were down but he felt old and withdrawn. He wondered if that was shame or grief, or something else entirely.

  He did not want to talk of Layton or of his ancestral home. He wanted to forget.

  Idris and Lila had just entered the hall when there was the sound of horse’s hooves on the road, and Riette’s voice shouted, “Sir Idris?”

  He stiffened. Lila raised her eyebrows at him and turned to the door.

  “Lady Riette?”

  “There you are, Lila. The Queen is coming!”

  “Cress?” said Idris, breathless suddenly.

  “Go and wash,” Lila said, pushing him amicably towards the stairs. “I will stall her.”

  Idris went to his room, washed his face, glared at the chest in the corner for a solid ten seconds and changed his shirt, and by the time he was presentable, Cressida had already come up the stairs and pulled him into a tender, tight hug.

  They stood for longer than was probably appropriate, arms around each other. Idris kept his eyes closed so he did not have to see any disappointment, perceived or real, in his best friend’s eyes. She did not smell as she usually did in the palace; instead of flowers and salt water, there was the scent of the outdoors on her, hot and musty and earthy.

  “I did not keep my promise,” he whispered eventually.

  “Promises do not matter,” she said. “Only that you are still here.”

  “Do you want me to let go?”

  “Not yet.”

  Eventually, Cressida pulled back, looked up at his face. In her armour, she was shorter than he remembered – no palace heels – and with her hair in its six woven braids, it was as if they were children again.

  “Tell me everything,” she said, pulling him across to the balcony seat. “Spare no details.”

  “I… well,” he said, pulling out the smashed box and Haylan’s two letters from under the patio chair. “Here. I think this explains most of it.”

  Silently, Cressida read, with a hand over her mouth and worry creasing her brow. Idris watched her pour over the contents, double-check it. He could almost see the questions forming in her head.

  “Idris,” she said, after some time, “I… bells, had we known any of this…”

  “It is better that I did not,” he said. When she frowned at him, he said, “Haylan knew I am a tender-hearted idiot. I was willing to forgive Layton. I thought I could bring him to Veridia, maybe that we could…” He sighed. Every time he thought or said it now, he felt upset and angry, hot in his core, and ashamed. “He is not a father,” Idris said. “He is hardly even a man. He is convinced that the world threw him away and he wants to see it suffer as he thinks he has. Me included.”

  He told the rest of the story, sparing nothing. He told her about the Fairy Queen’s deal and the Spirit Staff in the chest, and about how Joa had tried to turn the event on its head.

  “Without his people,” said Cressida, “we would have lost two battles, now. I should speak with him.” She looked once more at Idris’s mother’s letter. “Now we know why she did not write.”

  “She was not writing before then. She simply had an excuse, after.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “How do you want me to address this in court?” the Queen said quietly.

  Idris did not know.

  “People will talk,” she said. “Rumour spreads. Soon, the news that there is a second necromancer – your true father, no less – will reach the palace. People will start calling you Master Vonner. I should say something.”

  “I cannot think of it now,” said Idris. Thistle, on the balcony rail, yawned and stretched. “There is too much to think about.”

  “Raven’s Roost is secure,” said Cressida. “Lord Vonner did not return.”

  “Kurellan has scouts looking for him. When he wants to be found, I assume we will know about it.”

  “Why did you not tell me about the poppet?” she said finally, devastation etched in her brow.

  Idris shook his head. “It… I do not know, Cress. I am sorry.”

  “Lila has behaved rather admirably of late. I should promote her, although to what…”

  “Let her squire for Lady Riette,” said Idris.

  “That would mean she leaves your service.”

  “I know. I do not need her, and I say that in the kindest way I can. Lila is better than what I can give her. She will be a fine knight.”

  “And Willard?”

  “I think he means to study under his father.”

  “So…” Cressida took a deep breath, reached a hand out for the kitten. “You and this mangy beast against the world, hmm?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “I have a better idea,” she said. “But we will need everyone together, Kurellan included. Can we meet formally tomorrow?”

  “We can.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Always, Cress.”

  “Is Willard giving you herbs to make you… feel less?” she said.

  Idris did not answer right away. He remembered after Haylan died, when he was taking sleeping nettle daily because it stopped his mind from wandering, and after Braemar when he drank wine first thing in the morning so he did not hear the death aria anymore.

  “No,” he said. “He was, at first. I was… distressed. I think I am just numb to it. Everything is beyond my emotional comprehension. If I knew what I was meant to feel, I would feel it. But I have been so sad and so angry and so hopeful these last two weeks that… that I know that none of those things are even close to what I want to feel.”

  “Lady Riette said she has not spoken to you in days.”

  “That is intentional, Cress. I do not want to speak to anyone.” He tutted. “I cannot believe you called Thistle ‘mangy.’ He is a prime specimen of cat.”

  “He is a runt, Rissy. Look at him.”

  “He will grow up fine on a diet of palace food, I am sure.”

  “If you insist.”

  “Lila’s main concern is naming this house,” said Idris, reaching out to pick Thistle up.

  “It has a name,” said Cressida mildly.

  “Does it?”

  “It is called Ginger Cottage.”

  “You gifted me a house that is a joke about my hair?”

  “I was seventeen, Idris.”

  “Then I have to change it. I cannot own this place if it is an elaborate way to tease me about my hair –“

  Cressida laughed quietly, and suddenly Idris found that he wanted to laugh, too, and it was odd to him that he could ever want that again. But he laughed, and Cressida poked him in the shoulder and told him that he was such a misery and he needed to take himself less seriously, and Thistle leapt down and ran out of the bedroom, and he thought, perhaps, things might be able to go back to normal.

  *

  Near to the farmhouse was a cool, swirling pond, that took the currents of the nearby stream and fed the marshland just outside of Gleesdale. Idris had visited several times over the last three days, often after dinner, to sit alone and watch the creatures of the wetlands eat their supper and prepare for their evenings, too. There were frogs and herons, and marsh birds with long legs that he did not know the name of, and huge water lilies that attracted swathes of fireflies and honey birds.

  That evening, Idris sat and thought of the waterwings, flitting in and out of the Crescent Crest waterfall.

  He gazed over the flat land, wondering if he could make a home for himself there. It seemed so far away. There was too much to finish, first.

  Destroy the Spirit Glass. Find Layton. Then…

  “So this is where you’ve been.”

  Idris turned.

  Lady Riette was wearing her riding clothes. Most days, she was out on Kurellan’s patrols, checking the borders for any sign of Layton or his thralls, and arrived to the farmhouse covered in dust and sweat after everyone had already eaten. Her soldier’s braid, though, was still tight and shining, as if it was newly woven, and she seemed calm in a way he had not seen her since the birthday party.

  The birthday party. So long ago.

  Idris hugged his arms, looked back at the pond.

  “It reminds me of the Memorial Pond,” he said. “It is a good, quiet place to think of nothing much.”

  “Can I join you?”

  “Of course.”

  Riette settled on a rock beside the pool. In the low sunlight, she seemed taller than usual.

  “I have… acted dishonourably towards you,” she started, and Idris laughed amicably and shook his head.

  “Black bells, no. I have been pig-headed. You have been true to yourself through and through. I… there is no apology that will ever make right what I put you through. You and Lila and Willard. I should have been honest and I was not.”

  “My father is a strict man,” she said. “I see shades of him in what I have pieced together about your father. My father cares about honour and family and nobility to the detriment of his relationships with his children. But he has never hurt us, and I know if I needed him, he would be there.” Riette sighed. “I… it was not wrong to believe the same of Layton, Idris.”

  “I might have to kill him,” Idris said.

  “Do you think you could?”

  “I do not know.”

  “He… he was the one who choked you,” she said hesitantly. “Correct?”

  Idris nodded.

  Riette’s cheeks flushed, and the next time she spoke, it was hurried and trembling.

  “I thought my father cruel. He is dismissive of our feelings, of our wants. My poor brother, Maximillian – all he wanted was Father to approve of the person he loves, and Father turned them both away at the door. He said no son of his would live such a depraved life as the one Max had chosen, as if Max has any choice in who he loves. Bells, I wish I could… I do not know. I am angry for you, Idris. It isn’t right. How do you stand it?”

  “I remember that he wants me to suffer,” said Idris, “and I cannot give him the satisfaction of that anymore.”

  “That is a bold claim,” she said, with a sharp sigh.

  “That is what I try to live, now. He thinks me weak, so I must be strong. I do not know how to be strong but… but I have to try.” Idris sucked his bottom lip. “I am sorry that your father cannot be good to Maximillian. It is painful, when we see flaws in our parents. Next time, I promise I will come and meet your brother when you ask.”

  “Then, you are not angry with me?” Riette said.

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “You were not speaking to me.”

  “I have hardly spoken to anyone. It is not you. I… I am hiding from difficult conversations. That is all.”

  “I do not mean to be so selfish about it,” she said, with a self-mocking laugh. “I always seem to be asking you if you are angry at me, or if I offended you. I… this happens to me.”

  “People do not talk to you?”

  “Men stop talking to me.”

  “Oh.” Idris felt like the next question would sound stupid, but he genuinely did not know the answer. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Riette. “I think… a mixture of circumstances. I intimidate people. Partially that is my profession, and partially it is my size. I do not fit in well with other women and it makes men uncomfortable.”

  “I think we are in the same club, Riette,” he said with a friendly smile, and she laughed honestly this time.

  “Maybe.”

  “I am a small, scrawny necromancer. It puts people off.”

  “I do not think you small or scrawny.”

  “And I do not think you intimidating. You are an excellent soldier and beautiful, too.”

  Riette blinked, raised her eyebrows; Idris felt the blush in his cheeks and decided it was time to go home.

  “Whereas I am a simply a crippled bastard necromancer, and it is probably wise if you do not associate with the likes of me,” he said, only half-joking, and he stood to leave.

  “You reduce yourself to ashes when you speak that way, Idris,” she said, turning as if she wanted to grab his wrist and make him stay.

  “I have not said anything untrue.”

  Idris wished, more than anything, not to be alone with Riette. Even before everything with Layton, it was almost unbearable. He hardly knew her but he wanted to; he wanted to tell her jokes and be charming and make her want to stay. All of those things were against his nature. It was better if she thought he hated her. Otherwise, everything became too complicated.

  “You have said much that is untrue,” said Riette. “You tell me that you are cursed, and that people hate you, and that the only reason people stay is that they pity you. You say you are poor company and yet I keep finding myself looking for reasons to be in your company. Either that makes me stupid or cruel.”

  He did not want to insult her. That would be too far.

  “I think,” he said soberly, “that I am not going to last to the end of the year, my lady. I think my father means to hurt me, and even if that is not true, I have three pieces of Spirit Glass to destroy. You saw what it did to me in the spring. If you truly believe that my company is worth your time, even knowing this -”

  “I do,” she said firmly. “If you have little time to enjoy, then you should enjoy it. Does that not make sense?”

  “It... it does, actually.”

  “And if you survive,” she added, “then it is still not time wasted.”

  “I simply do not wish you to waste yours,” said Idris.

  “I spend my time however I please,” said Lady Riette. “This pleases me.”

  “I am glad. It pleases me, too.”

  Riette smiled. “You are a stubborn bastard, though.”

  Idris stifled a laugh. “It comes with the territory, my lady.” He hesitated. “Would you walk with me, back to the house?”

  “I would be delighted to.”

  “Tell me what you would name the farmhouse of a bastard necromancer, if it were yours.”

  “If it were mine?” Riette said, holding out an arm for Idris to take. He blushed again.

  “Hypothetically, of course.”

  “Of course, good sir.”

  She chose Summer’s End. Idris renamed the house the next morning.