“Hmmm. An’ who was it got ya on her, in the first place? What man’s name should ya wear, if him care enough t’lay claim?”

Here Parry looked back up, gaze sudden-lit like light off a blade, to show him less than happy with her bluntness—yet quick enough to take offence for most things as she’d seen him proved already, this was an old wound she prodded at now, one he obviously rated not worth the unstitching.

“‘A man of quality,’ was all she’d say,” he replied, at last. “Some squire sowing his oats, more like, content enough to dress up Satan-suited at Sabbat and lay down in the graveyard with a pretty marsh-girl, but not to meet her bastard-price after; same fat scum who signed her warrant, perhaps, little as I could do about it. Let him keep his secret to his grave, and be damned for it.”

“Still think that Good Book-writin’ God o’ yours makes sure o’ such, after all you seen, and done?”

Parry gave a thin variety of smile, cold as Cornwall Christmas. “‘Tis exactly what He’s best at, or so I’ve heard it rumored.”

And: Aye, true enough, she thought, yet did not say. An’ perhaps that’s what you thinkin’ on even now, havin’ made ya mind up t’stay insulted over somethin’ there no earthly help at all for, seein’ it already done and gone wi’ no recall . . .

Watching close, Tante Ankolee saw Jerusalem Parry cock his fine-made head like a whistled dog, those same words inside her skull obviously equal-resonant in his, and sighed—for he was a puissant one, worse luck, as most wizards never proved.

“So she never teach you nothin’, this maman of yours?” she asked, aloud. “Leave ya unprotected in this world, knowin’ herself how them wit’ cunning end at the hand of them wit’out, most often?”

“Little enough, in all, and that the Church soon had out of me, or so they thought. I can only suppose she hoped not to have to . . . ”

. . . and yet, she heard him add, interiorly. To which she chimed back, proving what he knew already: Aye, ‘tis true; I nah wish the same on my child either, boy or girl. That bein’ why I go wit’out, for the instant.

They shared a meaningful stare, capped with a tandem nod. And he paused, gathering himself visibly, before continuing—

“I chose none of this, madam, I will have you note. Not magic, like my mother; not the Navy, when I was always to be a parson—small and quiet, useful, in my own place. Certainly not to be called out by my own people for something I cannot help, to have hot iron put ‘round my neck and squeezed shut ‘til I was forced to expend all my power in healing its touch, or be made some pirate’s . . . plaything, as a consequence.”

“‘Course not, no. Still, we nah t’know where She bound t’take us in the end, the sea, wit’ all Her deep currents. Nah ever.”

An’ even ya stay in that marsh ya maman call home all y’life, whah guarantee but ya still end up right where y’are? You never made t’serve God, not you—made different, to follow where your magic pull ya, whether you will it or no. Who know but that this ain’t where you should be, right here, with—?

(him?)

Though she felt a rage that beggared description well up in him at the very notion, Parry kept fast hold of those courtesies her brother claimed he never forgot; simply shook his head, polite and calm, while at the same time thinking: Madam, no. I will not countenance it.

Never.

Solomon behind them, unwitting and arms crossed, with all ten fingers briskly a-drum on their tanned hide; never could stand to wait for long, that one, no more’n a stallion to be haltered. And smiling ownership-proud down at the back of Parry’s head at the self-same time, like he was thinking how sweet it’d feel to kiss the frown from that rigid mouth. Yet never even guessing on the touch of him sickening Parry just as much as it stirred him, and what a terrible harvest he might reap himself, eventually, for choosing not to understand the inside of someone else’s skull could be such a damn different place, no matter how good the rest of him might feel to lay down atop of.

“I would take it as great kindness, nonetheless, were you to teach me what your conscience allows you,” Parry added, soft enough, almost into the highest fold of his neat-tied cravat. “To gift me with whatever you might, that my power continue to grow and I to master it, enough to defend myself against . . . all manner of dangers.”

Should’ve told him no, she knew that now; had known, at the time—and yet. For blood did trump magic, or ought to, if most were asked—but when blood and magic both came equal-tied, on either side, what then? What remedy, in such a case?

None, surely.

“One way or the other, this I maintain: If he truly wished anything from me but contempt, then he has gone about it in the least effective manner possible,” Parry had told her later that day, before turning on his heel and stalking off, looking anywhere but in Rusk’s direction. To which she’d merely shook her head, and murmured—

“True that, yes. As him almost always do.”

***

Less than a half-year on, Tante Ankolee woke suddenly, knowing in her heart how Solomon Rusk had at last found the death he’d so assiduously courted. And a month after that, when word came that the Bitch of Hell’d been sighted off Porte Macoute’s shores, she went down to meet its longboat, thinking to question Parry directly on how this had finally come about, only to watch him taken short as he stepped but a single foot to sand—saw blood bloom up all over like red pox, flooding his pale skin ‘til his eyes rolled back, dulling in an instant from silver to mere muddy gray. That sad shark-creature he’d fashioned had him well in hand, however, begrudgingly saving his life by swimming back with him to the Bitch before he could quite exsanguinate.

So she sent her soul out instead, to save effort, coming to Parry in a dream while he still lay recovering, shrouded head-to-toe in a healing calyx of power—and found Solomon’s ghost sitting beside him, stroking the sorcerer’s sweaty hair with a hand whose coldly insubstantial touch made him flinch only slightly, never knowing why.

Her, though, Parry could see well enough; he raised his head at her approach, haughty as ever, to demand: “Did you . . . do this t’me, madam? As . . . payment, for your ‘cousin’s’ end?”

/>

“Nay, fool. For though all our acquaintanceship nah so long, I think y’already know me workings ain’t too hard to recognize—so if I’d any part in ya current condition, you’d nah need t’ask.”

“I . . . can only suppose this to be true, yes.” He took a struggling breath. “And yet—though I do feel myself cursed, I wonder . . . how? By who?”

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