Page 108 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

The storm had passed. Rain fell like a curtain of sighs.

They left the nymphaeum, two miserable, unsuitable fools, trudging through mud. They went up the juniper-laden steps and walked towards the house.

They passed the terrace. The hail had stripped the laburnum bare. The tree’s thousands and thousands of blooms lay crushed and damp on the ground, like whipped butterflies.

21

Standing O

Aurienne

Back at Swanstone, and properly attired, Aurienne sprinted towards Cath’s Trauma and Acute Care unit, where the injured Leyfarer awaited. She was soaked in a mist of hlutoform, gowned and briefed. The devitalised and damaged tissues at the amputation site had been debrided by the time she entered the operating theatre. Aurienne dealt with the coaptation of the severed seith channels, Cath with rejoining arteries, veins, tendons, and bones. Cath lectured surrounding apprentices as she went. Her wasp deofol zipped overhead and made pointed remarks if anyone’s attention lapsed.

The surgery lasted three hours and ended in success. The Leyfarer, when he woke, showed some recovery of function; he could twitch his fingers and summon seith to his tacn. He was transferred to one of the London hospitals for postoperative care, accompanied by Cath’s injunction to Please No Longer Touch Propellers.

Afterwards, Aurienne went to Xanthe with the letters Mordaunt had found—the evidence of the Kentish queen’s involvement in the Poxconspiracy. She and Xanthe passed over the Kentish queen’s previous correspondence with the Haelan Order. The handwriting was a perfect match. Xanthe sent her deofol to the Heads of their fellow Bright Path Orders, as well as to Vel, the lead Hedgewitch.

Felicette updated Aurienne on the seith-inhibiting serum, Quincey presented her with a few administrative crises, and she simulated interest in the goings-on in her lab.

Her feelings wouldn’t be compartmentalised anymore. They had burst to life, too vigorous to be pressed away again. The moment with Mordaunt in the grotto filled her thoughts. The fluttering butterflies, the scatter of hail, the spinning fossils, the dance of the ivy, the wanting so acute, the taint of it, the kisses upon kisses, the strawberries on his tongue as sweet as a love song.

That evening, she prepared for her outing at the opera with Aedan. She sat at her dressing table, untangling her hair as well as the mad events of the last twenty-four hours. She had snogged Mordaunt in a grotto.

More importantly, she had killed someone.

Why wasthatthe second order of business?

She, a Haelan, had murdered a Fyren.

Irrational. Undisciplined. Insane. That’s what she was.

Aurienne collapsed upon her folded arms. “I’m going mad.”

Acts of Warranted Brutality, who was killing some insect in a corner, looked up.

“I killed someone again,” said Aurienne.

The cat prowled sinuously towards her, leapt upon the dressing table, and sat next to the mirror.

“I’m getting worse and worse,” said Aurienne. “I’m becoming likehim. I can hardly step outside without murdering someone.”

The cat blinked her yellow eyes solemnly.

“But Mordaunt was drugged. Bound. On his knees. Helpless. And Lady Windermere was about to kill me. I hadn’t a choice. Windermerecame after Mordaunt because he protected us from Brythe. Ireallyhadn’t a choice, had I?”

Aurienne hid her face in her arms. It was time to accept that she was stained. That there was a teeming darkness in her, below her layers of discipline and morals.

The cat stepped delicately over hairpins and ribbons and onto Aurienne’s lap. Aurienne was almost too agitated to notice. She smoothed the fur between the cat’s ears with a fingertip.

“I don’t regret any of it,” she said.

Acts of Warranted Brutality closed her eyes in satisfaction.

Sweet Aedan was a handsomeIngenaut, one of Aurienne’s former lovers. She had agreed to attend the opera with him because he’d managed to get hold of tickets to see Madame Florimont, the Siren of Sélestat, the Greatest Set of Lungs in Opera History. Madame Florimont would exceptionally be in London for a single performance before moving on to atournéeof Prussia.

Aurienne had told Aedan they would go as friends.

In a gown of crystalline blue, she arrived at the London Opera House. The crowds were sparkling; the who’s who of the Tiendoms were out tonight in their most lavish attire, in gowns magnificent and coiffures downright architectural, adorned with flowers, pearls, and lace.