rel down the unnamed stair, a stone step tipped and pitched. Her forward. Lurching.
Auri gave a cry, and in her sudden startle Fulcrum leapt away. He spun and tumbled from her arms and sailed out from the cloud of her gold hair. Heavy as he was, he almost seemed to float rather than fall. He turned, toppled, and struck the seventh stair so hard he cracked the stone and bounded back into the air, then spun again, fell flat upon his brazen face, and shattered on the landing.
The sound he made was like the keening of a broken bell. The sound was like a dying harp. Bright pieces scattered when he struck the stone.
Auri somehow kept her feet. She didn’t fall, but oh, her heart went icy in her chest. She sat down hard upon the steps. Too numb to walk. Her heart was cold and white as chalk.
She could still feel him in her hands. She saw the lines of his sharp edges kissed into her skin. Coming to her feet she shuffled stiffly down the stairs. Her steps were numb and stumbling as more thoughtless step-stones tried to trip her, like a daft old man who won’t stop telling an unfunny joke yet and again.
She knew. She should have moved more gently with the world. She knew the way of things. She knew if you weren’t always stepping lightly as a bird the whole world came apart to crush you. Like a house of cards. Like a bottle against stones. Like a wrist pinned hard beneath a hand with the hot breath smell of want and wine. . . .
All brittle stiff, Auri came to stand upon the bottom stair. Her eyes were down and all around her hung her sunny hair. This was the worst of wrong. She could not bring herself to look beyond her tiny dust-smudged feet.
But there was nothing else to do. She lifted up her eyes and peered. Then peeked. Then she saw the pieces, and her heart went sideways in her chest. No. Not shattered. Broken. He had broken.
Slowly Auri’s face broke too. It broke into a grin so wide you’d think she ate the moon. Oh yes. Fulcrum had broken, but that wasn’t wrong. Eggs break. Horses break. Waves break. Of course he broke. How else could someone so all certain-centered let his perfect answers out into the world? Some things were just too true to stay.
Fulcrum lay in three bright pieces. Three jagged shapes with three teeth each. No longer a pin stuck hard into the heart of things. He had become three threes.
If anything her grin grew wider then. Oh. Oh. Oh. Of course. It wasn’t something she was looking for. No wonder all her searching was for naught. No wonder everything was canted wrong. It was three things. He was bringing three, and so must she. Three perfect threes would be her gift for him.
Auri’s brow furrowed and she turned to look back up the stairs. The gear had struck the seventh step. Fulcrum had shattered it quite flagrantly. Not seven then. Another thing she had been wrong about. He wasn’t coming on the seventh day. He would visit her today.
Some other time that knowing might have sent her spinning badly out of true. It would have set her all asweat and tangled beyond all hope. But not today. Not with the truth so sweetly set before her. Not with everything so sudden plain for her to see. Three things was easy if you knew the way of it.
Auri was so whelmed it took her several minutes before she realized where she was standing. Or rather, she realized that the stairway finally knew where it was. Knew what it was. Where it belonged. It had a name. She was in Ninewise.
THE HIDDEN HEART OF THINGS
AURI GATHERED UP the threes and headed back to Mantle. They seemed much lighter now, though that was no surprise. They had spilled their secrets, and Auri knew full well how heavy hard-held secrets could become.
Back in Mantle, Auri carefully arrayed the threes. But before she even finished settling them along the wall, she saw the shape of her first gift to him. It couldn’t be more clear. No wonder there was so much extra floor in here. No wonder she had never used the second shelf along the wall.
The teeth were marvelous. So true. They shone like wishes from a faerie tale.
Seeing how it ought to be, Auri took the first bright three straight back to Tumbrel. Through Wains with its altogether men, and circle-perfect Annulet, then Ninewise, all nonchalant with its new-namedness.
Grinning, Auri carried the bright brass three right up to the wardrobe drawer and tucked it in most carefully. It nestled in effortlessly. It fit there like a lover or a key. She reached down with both hands and felt the cool white smoothness of the sheet against her fingertips. She brought it up and pressed it to her lips.
It was free to leave. And breathless, she came running back to Mantle with it clutched against her chest.
The second three she carried straightaway to Tocks. And for a breathless moment Auri left the Underthing behind. A broken wall, a hidden stair, then through a basement up into the store room of the finest inn she knew. There she left the three and took away a thick white eider stuffed with innocence and down. It was fine and soft, full of kind whispers and remembered roads.
Even laden with the weight of it, Auri sprinted through the tunnels lightly as a wisp.
Back in Mantle, she spread the mattress carefully against the wall across from her own bed. Close enough that if he needed her just whispering would be enough. Close enough so if he wanted to, he could sing to her at night.
She flushed a bit on thinking that, then brought the perfect creamy sheet and wrapped it all around his bed. She smoothed it gently with her hands. Its loveliness was like a kiss against her skin.
Grinning, Auri crossed to Port and brought the blanket back. No wonder it had left her. It had known the truth of things much sooner than herself. It simply wasn’t for her anymore. She spread his blanket on the bed and noticed it no longer feared the floor. Stepping back she looked at it, so soft and sweet and safe and fair.
From Port she brought his fine teacup. She brought the leather book, uncut, unread, and utterly unknown. She brought the small stone figurine. All three of these she set upon the shelf beside his bed so he would have some beauty of his own.
And just like that, she had a gift for him: a safe place he could stay.
As much as she might want to stop and bask, she needed to keep moving. Three was the rule today. She needed two gifts more.
Auri went back to Port and eyed the shelves with her best maker’s eye. And since it was a making day, and with the wind so fair upon her back, she thought on what it was that he might need.
It was a different way of thinking. Even though she was not wanting for herself, she knew this sort of thing was dangerous.
She eyed the hollybottle, it teased at her, but she knew it wasn’t right for him. Not quite. It was an unexpected visit gift. The honeycomb . . . almost. She reached out to touch two fingers to the jar of laurel fruit. She lifted up the jar and held it to the light. It’s true that he was somewhat lacking laurels.
It clicked together then. Of course. She smiled a bit. What better to keep rage at bay? Besides, it was the third part of a thing she’d already begun. A candle. A candle would be just the thing for him.
She stopped then, all of a sudden, the jar still in her hand. She held her breath and thought about the hard realities of time. A candle meant melting. And melding. Most of all it meant a mold. She felt her whole face frowning at the thought of something dipped for him. It wasn’t right at all, he was not one for dribs and drabs.
No. A mold. It was the only way to make a candle fine enough for him.
And that meant Boundary.
She didn’t hardly hesitate at all. For herself she would not dare, but this was simply how it had to be. Didn’t he deserve a few fine things? After all that he had done, didn’t he deserve a fine and princely gift?
Of course he did. So Auri strode to Mantle. So Auri opened wide the iron-bound door. So Auri entered Boundary.
It was a clean and quiet place.
There was a workbench. It was dark and smooth and hard as stone. There were mountings on the sides. A vice. A set of floating rings. A burner stand. There were taps and faucets, well-arrayed: all steel and brass and iron.
There were shelves here, all mounted on one wall. Crowded with vast and varied tools of the craft. Acids and reagents in their stoppered glasses. Sulfonium inside a jar of stone. Racks of powders, salts and earths and herbs. Oils and unguents. Fourteen waters. Twicelime. Camphor. All perfect. All true. All gathered and factored and stored in the most proper ways.
There were tools here. Alembics and retorts. A fine wide wickless burner. Coils of copper tubing. Crucibles and tongs and boiling baths. There were sieves and filters and copper knives. There was a fine grinder and a gleaming clean screw press.
There were the stone shelves too. The careful shelves. Bottles hunkered there behind the thick, thick glass. These bottles were not tidy like the other shelves. They were not labeled. They were muttly. One held screaming. Another, fury. There were many bottles there, and those two were nowhere near the worst.
Auri set the jar of laurel fruit atop the workbench. She was a small thing. Urchin small. Most things did not fit her. Most tables were too tall. This one was not.
This room used to belong to her. But no. This room belonged