C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Just like it. The windows were copied from these tapestries.” Janx crossed the room stiffly and took up a cane that leaned against the chess table. Stylistically, the cane suited the narrow black lines of the priest-collared shirt and flowing pants he wore, but he made use of it, moving awkwardly where she was accustomed to seeing grace.

Her gaze lingered on the cane’s fist-sized head, daring to study it more than Janx. To her eyes it was glass, but Alban had told her it was clear, unblemished corundum, the same stone as sapphires were made of. Jewel-cut, it would catch light and glitter almost as brilliantly as a diamond, but it was only a smooth ball, twisting light no more dramatically than any sphere. It had belonged to Malik, and its presence in Janx’s hand spoke volumes about his injury and the fate of the djinn who had been his second.

“Alban said transformation heals.” She rushed the words. Janx paused and turned to her, fluidity lacking in the motion.

“Stone heals,” he corrected after a moment. “The gargoyles have an advantage in their sleeping hours that we others don’t share. They’re encased in stillness, and that accelerates their healing. Transformation helps to put things as they were, but you may have noticed I require significant space and no little assurance of discretion to change. So I must go about the day as anyone would, rarely resting as much as I should, and even if I did, a knife to the kidney isn’t quickly recovered from.”

“You’re on your feet. That’s pretty remarkable in itself.”

“There have to be some advantages to being a fairy tale.” Janx’s customary lightness was gone from his voice. Margrit’s heart ached with the lack of it; when it had gone missing in the past, it had done so because he’d been angry with her, rather than the near despondence she heard now. Trying to push sentiment away, she crossed to the tapestries, the ivory knight still clutched in her hand.

“How old are they?” Margrit stopped short of brushing her fingers against the weavings. They looked soft and delicate, and she was afraid touch would prove them as rough as broken glass.

“Old enough that their makers are no longer among us.” Janx joined her, tapestries lending vibrancy to his unusually sallow skin. “Young enough that we could see which of us would linger past our time, but that has been evident for many centuries.” As if challenging Margrit’s reservations, he brushed his knuckles over the closest tapestry, then said, with surprising care, “I didn’t think to see you again, Margrit Knight.”

“Didn’t you?” Genuine sorrow deepened the ache in Margrit’s chest. “I still owe you a favor. I guess I figured there was no escaping it.”

“You ran from our battle at the House of Cards. It was, I think, the one wise thing you’ve done since meeting Alban Korund. I might have even let you go.”

“That’s the knife wound talking,” Margrit said with as much dry humor as she dared. “You’d get over it if some way to use me came along. What happened? You looked fine when you walked into the warehouse.”

Janx’s mouth thinned. “I overestimated my strength.”

“You must really feel like crap to admit that.” Margrit caught her breath to speak again and bit down on it, curiosity drawing her eyebrows together as she studied the dragonlord. He turned to her, expectation written in his gaze. Humor and warmth tangled inside her, pulling a crooked smile to her lips. “Nothing. Nothing important.”

Or, if it was, she had no way at the moment of making use of its importance. Janx’s admission spoke of more than simple weariness. For him to confess to overestimating himself—for him to allow her to see him at such a low ebb, rather than putting on the carefree performance she so often saw from him—he had to trust her, and that was nearly beyond Margrit’s scope of comprehension.

“You’re a very bad liar, my dear.” Janx deliberately lightened his voice, using the endearment to return their relationship to grounds she knew. He reached out to pluck the chess piece from her hand and held it aloft. “Now, don’t tell me I’ve rescued you from a difficult explanation only to have you steal my ivory knight.”

“You haven’t. At least, I don’t think so. You said we had things to discuss.” Margrit left the tapestries to drop into one of the lush chairs. Her examination of the chess table lasted barely a handful of seconds before the soft cushions reminded her she’d had no sleep recently. She let her head fall back with a groan and sank deeper into the chair.

“Margrit,” Janx said with some dismay. “You’re all sooty.”

“Oh, crap!” Margrit jolted halfway to her feet, then relaxed again, muttering, “It’s dirty now anyway. Sorry.”

“I expect it can be cleaned.” Janx folded himself down onto the chaise lounge on the other side of the chess table, looking for all the world as though he had been made to do such things. Unlike Margrit, his own clothes weren’t stained with black, though their color would help to hide it if they were. “Unexpected company you keep.”

“I’ve been keeping strange company for months. Believe me, if I’d known you were planning on raiding the place, I’d have…tried to talk you out of it.” Her honesty, if not her skill with words, got a chuckle out of Janx as she continued, “I was trying to talk them out of similar idiocy.”

“Did it work?”

Margrit passed a hand over her forehead and came away wondering if she’d just left herself streakier with soot. “I think it might have if you hadn’t made your dramatic entrance. Now?” She shrugged, palms up. “They’re angry over Malik, and they know we were there.”

“And you, Margrit?” A thump of silence passed before Janx clarified, “How are you over Malik al-Massrī’s death?”

“Not sleeping,” Margrit replied, more candid than she expected herself to be with the dragonlord. “You?”

“It was my life he was trying to end. Despite our long years of association, I find it difficult to regret that he, and not I, failed to survive the encounter.” Janx tilted his head in a semblance of a shrug. “On the other hand, it’s a new and particular sin for me, being involved in the death of one of our people. In all our centuries of rivalry, Eliseo and I have never had such dark encounters. I find I do not care for it.”

“If you were outside of it, a judge instead of a participant, would it matter to you that it was an accident? That it happened because he was trying to kill you?”

Janx leaned forward, replacing the knight on the board and idly pushing a pawn forward, letting the action make him look thoughtful. The corner of Margrit’s mouth curled, Janx’s theatrics never failing to amuse her. “No,” he finally said. “That it was an accident? No, it wouldn’t matter. That he was trying to kill me, and paid for that error with his life?” He looked up from the board. “If I were a judge, Margrit, I simply don’t think I’d believe it. Not even if three people said it was so. Not even if one of them was a gargoyle, who are not well known for telling lies. You remember Kaimana’s response at the quorum.”

“That Old Races would simply never turn on each other. Yeah. I can’t decide if it’d be nice or alarming to be that naive.” Since the game was met, Margrit moved a pawn forward, too, glad of something to do with her hands.

“There are stories that the djinn have different laws amongst themselves. That their rivalries are significant enough to cost lives, once in a while and their numbers high enough to tolerate the losses. Malik limped.” Janx nodded at the corundum cane and advanced another pawn.

“I know. I always wondered how you hurt somebody who could dematerialize. I mean.” Margrit set her teeth together in a wince. “Assuming they don’t carry around toy pistols full of salt water.”