“According to the newspaper, the body was found near the Shambles,” he said, tucking his neck a little deeper into his scarf as the wind cut down their street.
“I know where that is.” Unlike Sebastian’s hunching, Lord Fine stood very straight as he walked, seemingly unbothered by the cold. “Are we looking for the murder scene?”
“Eventually,” Sebastian said. “If what happened to you is the same as what happened here, then I bet no one heard this murder. In London, Mercier used some kind of silencing magic in that alley, that glittering cage around you.”
“He did, until you showed up and it vanished.” Lord Fine tilted his head. “What exactly did you do to it?”
“Destroyed it.”
Lord Fine’s eyebrows went up. “You can do that?” he said curiously. “Is that why you told Mercier his magic might not survive your battle?”
“That was a bluff,” Sebastian admitted. “I cannot destroy living magic, the magic tied to another paranormal. But the flames Mercier had made, or the cage he’d made—those I can destroy, if I use enough force.”
The streets were lined with little shops and pubs and eateries, in the shadow of the giant church. It was a busy town, people filling the sidewalks and cars squeezing around each other on the narrow roads.
“Maybe before we look for the murder scene, we should talk to the shop owners and market sellers,” said Sebastian. “Even if they could not hear anything, maybe someone saw something odd.”
Lord Fine frowned. “Why would they talk to us?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“What, you just walk up to people and they talk to you?”
“Usually.”
Lord Fine pursed his lips. “I suppose I’d forgotten that every skirt in England is eager for your time.”
“Don’t be silly,” Sebastian said. “Some people don’t like my accent, or my Spanish.”
“Some people don’t like opera. The world is full of classless philistines.”
Sebastian blinked.
“Xenophobia is a waste of time,” Lord Fine went on, like he hadn’t just paid Sebastian something of a compliment. “Everyone is a foreigner somewhere. Foreigners are just people and all people are universally terrible, so what’s the point of disliking foreigners in particular?”
Sebastian side-eyed him. “Qué cínico.”
“How cynical?” Lord Fine guessed, correctly. “You see? People are predictable, whatever the language. It’s always the same conversations, about the weather or a particularly good cheese or what a bastard I am. Which is your mother tongue anyway, English or Spanish?”
Sebastian shrugged helplessly. “I was born right after America invaded Puerto Rico and we went from a Spanish colony to an American one. I spoke Spanish at home but the government tried to mandate English at school, and then I went to university in America when I was sixteen.” He made a face. “My brother speaks both with almost no hint of the other, and excellent French and Italian too. But I have an accent now even when I speak Spanish, and I never get idioms right.”
“Some people like accents,” Lord Fine said pointedly. He pursed his lips. “Spain, America, the Caribbean—you move between a lot of worlds. I’m only English.”
“Sometimes it feels like the world was only made for people who are one straightforward thing,” Sebastian said. “I was a colonizer’s kid who got colonized. I’m not exactly Spanish or American, and I’ve been anchorless from the island so long I don’t know if I get to call myself Puerto Rican anymore.”
“You don’t owe anyone a simple explanation for yourself,” said Lord Fine. “You’re allowed to be everything you are at once, and if anyone thinks you’re too complicated, tell them to fuck off.”
Sebastian snorted, but that had made him smile. “I don’t really tell people to fuck off.”
“That’s a shame. I highly recommend it.”
That drew a surprised laugh from Sebastian. “Not all people are terrible,” he said, with feeling, glancing at Lord Fine from under his flat cap.
“As if I would listen to your Panglossian prattling,” Lord Fine said. “You think I’mnot so bad; you’re clearly addled.”
“You’re not bad atall,” Sebastian protested.
Lord Fine raised his eyebrow. “No?”
