Was it a challenge, or a mockery?

  Was it, perhaps, a peace offering?

  He wasn’t sure; but if it was a challenge, it was one he was prepared to take up, now that he knew something of his challenger. Athelas took the teacup, sliding it closer to himself, and applied himself to the task of filling it via the almost too-weighty teapot. When he had managed that task, he took himself and his teacup out into the kitchen, and thence into the garden to imbibe fresh air that was tinged with Between while he slowly sipped his tea in the gentle sunlight.

  He shut off the garden from the house with an uneven but competent threading of Between to web the door shut from his side, feeling the need for some time alone. After last night’s little episode, he would no doubt need to betake himself somewhere he could recharge and regain the energy to look after himself with greater dexterity than he had done on this occasion.

  Athelas found that he was smiling into his tea in remembrance, and wondered exactly how Camellia was spending her morning, apart from leaving him a pot of extremely suspicious tea. He could, he supposed, consider it a forward step that she was obviously thinking about him enough to have left the tea. The tenor of those thoughts was another thing, but Athelas found himself chuckling softly despite that. It occurred to him, in a breath of tea-scented morning air, that Camellia was possibly dangerous to him in more than one way. He had dealt with greater dangers in the pursuance of his ends, of course, but there was no sense in spending an entire morning meditating upon the matter—nor in allowing his enjoyment to outrun his ends. So Athelas banished thoughts of Camellia from his mind and concentrated on his tea while sunshine rippled gradually across the garden.

  It came to him over the course of the morning that he had said or done something last night that might possibly be described as regrettable. The conviction came over him at first in a simple sense of discomfort that built by insensible degrees until Athelas was conscious of an instinct to pat his hands over his clothing as if he would find a stray thread or a missing pocket amongst the articles he was wearing. When he realised as much, it took him another few moments of pondering to discover that the direction from which the discomfort sprang was the rather fuzzy memory of the last of the previous night’s events.

  That decided, he once more allowed his thoughts to roam over what he could remember of the previous night—that small collection of soft-edged moments that bled into unconsciousness and each other without regard to chronology or relationship—carefully avoiding the bergamot-scented moments that contained far too much of Camellia.

  Athelas breathed out a small, steamy breath as he sipped his tea, the scent of lavender earl grey coiling back at him within the teacup, and remembered something.

  “Ah,” he said, removing the teacup from his lips and setting it back into its saucer as his head shifted backwards slightly. “How unfortunate.”

  Last night, if it wasn’t a dream, he had given in to the teasing instinct that had still managed to linger deep within him despite his upbringing, and he had twitted the gumiho with something he suspected to be true. If he hadn’t outright said it, he had at least given YeoWoo enough of a push to go looking on her own account, should she choose to do so.

  That, he was quite sure, was a mistake. Athelas didn’t approve of giving out free information on principal: he certainly didn’t accept any information that hadn’t been won by trickery or his own efforts if he could avoid it. He had reason to know that the giver of free information was never entirely safe from the bad effects of information proliferation. Perhaps it created a burden of repayment on one side, but he was ruefully aware that in certain circumstances, it could also create a different kind of burden on the other side. A burden that didn’t feel like a burden until one tried to break away from it, aware that one had sunk too deep for sense into a relationship that had begun in blood and could finish in no other way. Then it became as heavy as life itself.

  That would certainly not happen again: Athelas was too well aware of the pitfalls contained therein. It was better to keep teasing, amused, curious thoughts and feelings back where they could do little harm. He would certainly not act on them again.

  YeoWoo was no Pet, and she had no claim on him. Neither was she Zero, and it was better for all concerned that she should remain at a distance. He would see that she did so now that he had no need for her silence; they had no need to be around each other more than simple housemates might.

  The soft snick of a door closing jerked Athelas out of his rumination with a cold shock. He looked around and saw Harrow with one thin hand still on the handle of the door that joined the house and the garden, his sneakers wobbling slightly where he stood uncertainly between flagstones and half on the pebbly bits between the flagstones.

  “Good heavens,” said Athelas to himself. He felt as though he should be surprised, but all he could manage was a kind of tired flatness. “How did you get out here? I shut the door.”

  “I opened the door,” Harrow said. Perhaps it was the events of the previous day that affected the way he spoke, but to Athelas his voice was the voice of death: dry, cold, and entirely hollow.

  He watched with narrow eyes as Harrow crossed the garden toward him along the flagstones. Shadows, too many and seething between the pebbles, followed after the boy, and Athelas gazed at those shadows as he said, “I really wonder if you know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  The boy sat down—almost sprawled, like a heavy shopping bag that had been put down carelessly and had slumped in on itself—on the edge of the wooden platform that was most in the sunlight. Athelas didn’t think he did so from any recognised desire to have some warmth from the sunlight; he did it as though he wasn’t aware of sitting down, as if he was simply too heavy to remain standing. Around him, shadows seethed for a moment longer before bubbling away in the sunshine.

  He didn’t answer Athelas’ question: he didn’t even seem as though he’d taken in the words on any level.

  “I really am becoming quite weary of inexplicably powerful children who can find their way unerringly around the house,” Athelas said pleasantly to him, feeling particularly bitter.

  Harrow gazed at him, uncomprehending and silent.

  “I’m aware that you don’t understand,” said Athelas, answering the unspoken words. “I have had some experience with children—none of it, you understand, good—and in that experience I have run into what I feel is more than my fair share of children improbably gifted in the use and practise of Between.”

  “I don’t know what Between is.”

  Athelas very nearly opened his mouth to say something that might have been construed as instructive but stopped himself. He had already had this conversation with himself, and it was high time he listened to his own advice.

  He said, “I absolutely refuse to aid in the further delinquency of a minor.”

  He had already proved the danger of instructing young people in matters they would be better off not having knowledge of, but apparently he had yet to learn his lesson. If he had learned the lesson properly as a child, no doubt he wouldn’t have run into issues with the Pet to begin with.

  There was silence for some minutes—perhaps as many as ten or fifteen—before Harrow broke the silence that had stretched like a custard skin over the warm, sunlit garden.

  “Camellia said you killed children.”

  “Many,” Athelas said, and now it was his voice that was the voice of death. He would have liked to have had a touch of amusement—or perhaps warning—to overlay that death when he replied, but none was forthcoming. Instead of the thin, empty face in front of him, for a bare moment he seemed to see the bright, determined face of Pet. He said without planning to do so, “I wouldn’t have allowed you to die last night.”

  “Oh,” Harrow said, and it seemed as though the very pebbles in the garden, as though soaked in pitch, began to shift once again.

  Athelas let his gaze rest on the boy for a few moments, unable to gauge if Harrow required comfort, or reassurance, then glanced curiously down at the pebbles. “I would not have allowed you to die because I had reason to need you to remain alive. At the very least, I needed to be seen rescuing you.”

  “I wanted to die.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “You knew I was listening to you from the kitchen.”

  “I intended you to be listening to us.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Harrow said. “I thought it was my idea. I don’t care. I thought I would trust you enough to—”

  “You can trust me in no way whatsoever,” Athelas said sharply. “Have you not been listening to our extremely competent housekeeper? I have killed children—and those I did not kill, I betrayed.”

  “There’s a difference between killing and letting someone die,” Harrow said, as if he was trying to work out something within his own head rather than making a statement. The shadowed pebbles seemed to calm and grow paler around the two of them.

  “I’ve done both,” Athelas said icily.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. It’s why I thought I could trust you to not stop things last night.”

  “I’m aware,” Athelas said again. “And it is exactly why you should not be speaking with me presently. Anything you give me will be turned and used against you in the end. I’m neither selfless nor capable of being so. You’d be wisest not to talk to me at all.”

  “I know,” said Harrow, and his voice had that curious bone-dry quality to it again. “I want you to kill me.”

  Athelas gazed at him for some time longer again before he asked, “Did Camellia send you out here?”

  “No,” the boy said. “I haven’t seen Camellia yet. She wasn’t in the sunroom or the kitchen.”

  “I believe she’s capable of moving between rooms,” Athelas said, and heard the thread of amusement to his own voice.

  Perhaps Harrow doubted as much. He said, “She’s always in the sunroom or the kitchen.”

  “Perhaps so, but—” Athelas stopped, foreseeing little use in continuing. “I don’t have any other life-threatening tasks for you, if that’s what you mean by—”

  “I want you to kill me.”

  Athelas gazed at the boy for some time, his thoughts bubbling around a single, pearly, important concept, at the same time fast and slow. The concept had been there since he woke that morning with his thoughts fuzzy and his mouth unpleasantly sour and dry, but now it was completely obvious to him.

  Camellia knew Pet. Had, he rather thought, known Pet since long before Athelas came to the house to stay. The world Behind was a small world, and the world Behind Seoul perhaps even smaller—was Camellia originally a friend of Pet or of the vampire? he wondered. It didn’t really matter, of course: Pet befriended all, and all befriended Pet. The important point was that Camellia knew Pet. It was also exceedingly likely that if she hadn’t been informing Pet of Athelas’ doings and comings and goings, that she would now be doing so.

  Nor would he put it past Zero to mine this source of information.

  In the light of this knowledge, it was obvious that he had made a serious misstep when it came to Harrow, who was evidently the apple of Camellia’s eye. It was vital that he make up that step with Camellia as soon as he could, and he was certainly not going to be able to do so by putting the child in a way to ending his own life.

  He wondered if Camellia would tell him the extent of her connection with the Pet. He doubted she would do so; it would be a shame if she did, in fact. Athelas would find it far more difficult to convince Camellia that any actions on his own part were anything other than an attempt to perform exactly the kind of deception he was trying to perform, should she tell him any such thing. If the way to Zero’s heart was Pet, the way to Pet’s heart was undoubtedly through Camellia.

  “You want me to kill you,” he said, slowly and thoughtfully.

  Harrow’s eyes fastened on his face, his eyes two black holes in dying expectation, and for the first time since he had exited the house, there was complete stillness in the garden. “Yes.”

  “I think not,” Athelas said. “It’s no good trying to argue, child; I won’t be persuaded. I’m going to do you some good for entirely selfish reasons instead.”

  “You can’t do me good,” Harrow said, turning away. The garden began to move again, as if it had simply held its breath for a moment. “No one can. Sometimes they try, but they always…they always get hurt, or die. Jake was…even Camellia will—she’ll start—”

  “If you think that the young lady will be taken unawares at anything that might happen to her, I believe you’ll discover your error before very long. I might also mention that I am no fool to be surprised by a knife through the ribs.”

  “You won’t be able to do anything about it,” Harrow said. Sunlight lit the side of his face furthest from Athelas, limning his profile with liquid light and casting shadow on the side closest. “If you try to be kind to me, sooner or later, something bad will happen.”

  “I fancy that you don’t quite understand,” said Athelas. “You might, if you cast your mind back, recall that I said I was going to do you good for entirely selfish reasons. I believe you mentioned that intent is a large part of your curse?”

  This time, Harrow gazed at him for perhaps five minutes without speaking, drawing all in through those dark eyes and giving nothing out. It occurred to Athelas that the boy really did seem to draw in all the light and warmth in the garden and emanate it back out in cold and darkness. That was interesting but not necessarily pertinent.

  “Try to do me good,” the boy said at last. It was barely an agreement, but it was one, and it constricted Athelas’ chest slightly in a way that was familiar and terrifying. “I don’t think you can.”

  “No doubt we’ll see,” Athelas said placidly. “At the very least, it is extremely unlikely that I’ll suffer ill effects for it.”

  He expected the boy to ask what there was for Athelas in helping him, but Harrow didn’t. Athelas wasn’t entirely sure that the boy cared. Harrow had sunk in on himself again instead, pulling in more of the warmth in the garden until the entire space radiated a chill, though none of the shadows moved again. Athelas poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it while Harrow remained in his closed-off portion of space that felt, moment by moment, as if it separated itself further and further from the rest of the reality in the garden.

  It was some time after lunch that Camellia appeared in the garden with the faint sound of a door closing behind her. Athelas felt a mild irritation at the fact and wondered how many more people were fated to walk through his Between workings as if they were not there. He had not, he was convinced, done them as badly as the results would seem to suggest.

  He didn’t have a chance to check the workings, either: he was too busy observing Camellia as she crossed the garden, a full tray in her hands. He made it quite clear that he was watching her—with one leg crossed over the other and sitting back in his chair, gazing at her with his teacup and saucer in one hand, she couldn’t have been unaware of his scrutiny.

  Athelas wanted her to see the teacup he still held, too. He wanted to know what Camellia would say about it—or if she would say something about it at all. Would she, perhaps, remark upon Harrow, given the fact that the boy was out in the garden with him?

  But Camellia only said, when she had crossed the garden in a shifting, ruffling sweep of sage green silk and set down the tray, “You missed lunch.”

  “Oh,” said Harrow, looking at the tray. If Athelas knew anything about the current state of the boy, he knew that Harrow was not at all likely to be hungry. Things like food and hunger and desire didn’t exist in the boy’s state of mind: nothing really did, except a certain, unwavering tiredness that infiltrated everything. One ate tiredness and slept it. One woke to it and faced the day with it. Even pain was only another kind of tiredness.

  Athelas threw a look at the tray that had been set on the wooden platform between himself and Harrow: on either side of the central pot were two smaller bowls, and two spoons also graced it. Several smaller pots behind served the function of a cruet set, though none of the contents of those pots were something that Athelas would have expected in a traditional set. From the scent currently rising from the pot, it was obvious that it held some kind of curry, and the bowls of yogurt, spiced chicken pieces, and rice behind it seemed to bear out that guess.

  Camellia caught his eyes briefly as she touched Harrow’s shoulder and directed the boy toward the tray. Harrow turned obediently and filled his bowl from the main pot, though he didn’t lift his spoon, and Camellia turned to fill Athelas’ teacup from the pot she had brought with her.

  “Both of you ought to eat,” she said, and Athelas was conscious of an odd twist of mingled amusement and curiosity within him.

  “Both cause and cure?” he said to her, sipping his tea and then looking at her over the brim of his teacup.

  “The only thing my curry will cure is an empty stomach,” she said tranquilly, and returned to the house.

  Athelas removed the webbing of Between on the door as a lost cause and turned to the curry instead. Now it only remained for YeoWoo to return to the house and make an appearance, and he didn’t particularly wish to deal with the humiliating possibility that she, too, might simply sweep through his workings as if they were not there.

  YeoWoo did, in fact, make an appearance in the garden before long. Athelas had done decent justice to the curry in his bowl and Harrow had remembered to bring his spoon to his mouth a few times before she strode into the garden with an air of irritation and impatience.

  “As I might have expected,” Athelas said, pleased that he had taken down the workings.

  YeoWoo stared at him. “If you’re angry at me for visiting your Lord Sero, you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  So he really had tweaked at her while under the influence of the housekeeper’s brew!