“In case I got a cold.”
A pause. “In case it was relevant,” he says, with great dignity.
I close my eyes. The futon is warm. The blanket is warm. Beside me Dis is a cool, steady presence and the shadows around him are still, settled, none of that violent restless movement from when he thought I was wounded.
“I’m going to be fine,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” says Dis. “You are. I intend to ensure it.”
I don’t say anything to that. I don’t trust what my voice would do.
Nobody has ever looked after me when I’ve been ill, at least, not since I was small enough to have no recollection of it. I’ve had colds and fevers and stomach bugs and once a fairly unpleasant bout of flu, all of which I dealt with alone in whatever space I was living in at the time, with supermarket paracetamol and whatever was on television and the particular grim competence of someone who has learned there is no other option.
Now I am lying in a summoning circle under a blanket that was tucked around me by an ancient shadow king who has been storing information about cold remedies from daytime television in case they were ever needed.
I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t know what to do with any of this.
“Disney,” I say.
“Rest,” he says firmly. “We can talk later.”
I rest.
Outside, Bristol gets on with its afternoon. Inside the circle it’s quiet and warm and Dis is still there and presently, without entirely meaning to, I fall asleep.
When I wake up there is a cup of tea on the floor beside the futon, still warm, with the smell of honey wafting from it. Bunny must have brought it up and Dis must have directed him to leave it within reach.
I sit up slowly. My head still hurts, but the cotton wool feeling has eased slightly. Dis is sitting on the futon beside me, watching me with those blue eyes that I have completely failed, over all these weeks, to become indifferent to.
“You should drink that,” he says. “It has honey. This Morning was very specific about the honey.”
I pick up the tea. I drink it. It’s good, warm and sweet, and my throat is grateful.
“Thank you,” I say. “For... all of this.”
Dis looks at me steadily. “You would do the same,” he says. “You have done the same.”
I think about the hand through the circle.
“Yeah,” I say. “I suppose I have.”
We sit together in the quiet circle, me with my tea and my cold and my blanket, Dis with his shadows and his centuries and his carefully stored knowledge of daytime TV cold remedies. Outside it starts to rain, soft and steady against the window.
It is, all things considered, not a bad place to be.
Chapter 20
Caught with my Pants Down
Theshowerhelps.Notenormously, not in the way that showers help when you’re well and it’s a normal morning, but in the specific way that being clean and warm helps when you feel like something that’s been left out in the rain for too long. My head is still stuffed with cotton wool and my throat is still complaining, but I feel marginally more like a person and marginally less like death warmed up.
Getting here was a whole thing.
Dis had objections. Significant, vehement, extensively articulated objections to me leaving the futon, getting out of the circle, and going to the bathroom unsupervised. He couldn’t stop me, obviously. The binding doesn’t allow him any authority over my movements. But he made his feelings known with a thoroughness that was exhausting, and I’d had to promise, in specific terms, that I would be back within fifteen minutes and that I would shout if anything happened.
I hadn’t pointed out that I couldn’t actually shout loudly enough to be heard over a running shower.That felt like information that would only cause more problems.
