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Jarnath was sprawled on the couch, with his head in Harper’s lap, in a pose that was probably intended to convey deep despair and helplessness, but was too obviously calculated to achieve either effect. He was, unsurprisingly, whining. It might have started as words, Khem judged - it usually did - but by this point it had devolved into vowel sounds squeezed through an exaggerated pout.
“Calm down,” Harper said. He rolled his eyes at Khem, but kept patting Jarnath’s head soothingly. “I’m sure it isn’t that bad, or we can fix it if it actually is this time. And there’s always arson.”
“You must help me.” Actual words; almost impressive. “I need you, Harper. Nobody else understands.”
This was probably true, if only because nobody else - except Rylfein - was particularly susceptible to Jarnath’s dramatics. Usually a moot point, because very few people were immune to Harper, so the end result was about the same, but it saved time and tempers. Which was, after Jarnath had left the house grinning and Harper had called Tabuirr for actual details, how Khem found herself involved in planning the Shadow Night party for the Church of Vhaeraun’s youth group.
Tabuirr had given Jarnath six months and a frankly absurd budget to arrange the party; Jarnath had spent most of it on ‘inspirational envisaging’ and ‘stress reduction’, and successfully purchased a six-pack of Diet Coke for thirty children to share. There were five days left before the party, which Khem spent mostly in driving large quantities of food and decorations to the church hall. Harper stopped even pretending to sleep, arranging the traditional party games and constantly on his phone finding out what the traditions were in the first place. It generally sounded something like, “What do I know, I just think maybe something blunter than butter knives for literal children, fuck you, Vhaeraun, I don’t work for you, what do you mean I need six pieces of faceted black glass and a matching obsidian, who even sells obsidian, do I need to rob a museum or something?”
Katy was in an artistic ecstasy of draping every available surface with black materials of different textures and choosing the best places for the mirrors and candles. “This one burns blue, Khem, it’s going to look so cool, the churchins will love it.”
“What,” Khem asked carefully, “is a churchin?”
“The youth group? Church urchins?”
Like the rest of Katy’s nomenclature, this was unanswerable, so Khem left Katy to hang the disco ball and went to get another load of black lace curtains from her car. When she came back, Rizven had moved the stepladder to the doorway between the main hall and the kitchen, and was steadying it as Katy climbed up to hang a small plant above the door. It made for an incongruous splash of green against the otherwise unrelieved black and silver of the hall. Katy was fond of plants, but they were not typically permitted to clash with her colour schemes.
“Why the plant?” Khem asked. “Is that a new directive from Tabuirr?”
“It’s mistletoe,” Katy said, as though that was a complete explanation. Khem looked at Rizven, who shrugged. “You know? It’s tradition – okay, maybe not a Vhaeraun tradition, I think it might have been a druid thing to start with – but when two people meet under the mistletoe, they have to kiss.”
Rizven looked up at Katy, who was holding the mistletoe above her head as she fastened it into place, and said, “Oh. D-does that mean w-”
Katy looked down at Rizven, and said quickly, “Well, not have to have to, that’s not cool, you should only kiss people if you want to, and it’s not, you know, binding, it’s just an old tradition that I thought might be fun, although maybe it shouldn’t be at a kids’ party now that I think about it, I’m going to go ask Harper, okay, bye!”
Khem frowned as Katy scurried away. There was something familiar about that burst of Katybabble, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“I’ll t-take those,” Rizven said, also a little faster than usual. “Katy t-told me where to p-put them.”
The mistletoe looked slightly less out of place two nights later, with all the finger foods, cake and candies laid out on the black-draped tables adding a little more colour. There were candles and mirrors scattered all around the room, making for a flickering confusion of light and shadow. Smaller tables were set up for those games that needed one; the slitted boxes for fines, forfeits and donations waited to be filled; there were pouches and masks ready in adult and child sizes; and Twitch was stretched out in a corner of the kitchen to await his big moment.
Twinkle was playing scales on her instrument that looked like the bastard child of a guitar and a gutted piano, while Adinaun leant against the wall behind her looking more bored than murderous, which was generally a good sign. Both of them wore the black clothes and black half-masks that were apparently mandatory for Shadow Night parties. It all looked rather funereal to Khem, and she’d never cared to wear black herself, but Katy had been delighted. She’d appeared in one of the more complicated black dresses Khem had ever seen her wear, with a mask trimmed in glittering black beads and sweeping black plumes.
Jarnath, when he arrived with Rylfein in tow, wore a very similar mask. “Well, this all looks wonderful. I knew I could leave it all in your capable hands!”
Harper coughed once. Then louder.
Jarnath squinted at him – probably, the mask and candlelight made it a little difficult to tell – and said, “Do keep that cold to yourself, Harper.”
The third ‘cough’ barely covered the words “thank you”.
“You’re welcome,” Jarnath said brightly, as Harper sighed. “Come, Rylfein.”
Tabuirr and his partner Yauntyrr turned up soon after that. Tabuirr was, in a less glittery way, as formally dressed as Katy, and his mask only partially concealed a grin like a genial shark’s. “An auspicious Shadow Night to all of you.”
Khem joined Harper and Aunrae in a sort of vaguely positive mumble, while Katy said “Shadow hide you – that’s right, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t heard that in years,” Tabuirr said. “Thank you.” He turned slowly around. “Really very well done. It would have been much simpler if I wasn’t compelled to ask J – what is that?”
“Oh, that’s the mistletoe,” Katy answered, and when this failed to enlighten, launched into an explanation virtually identical to the one she’d given Khem and Rizven.
“How very interesting.” Tabuirr glanced at Yauntyrr, whose expression was much harder to read under the mask. “Now, before the children start arriving – you’ve all got your pouches?”
Khem nodded with the others; it hung low at her side, within easy reach of children.
“Who’s running the shadowstones game?” Tabuirr continued.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Tabuirr held a velvet bag out to Aunrae, who tipped its contents out into her hand. To Khem’s eyes, the seven black rocks were identical, but Aunrae picked one out and held it up for closer scrutiny. “Nice. ‘ere, you don’t want me to go easy on ‘em, like, let ‘em win?”
Tabuirr shook his head. “That would be entirely against the spirit of Shadow Night. There are no guaranteed victories, even for children.”
Harper winced slightly, but Aunrae grinned and poured the stones back in their bag. “You got it. Stop by yourself, see how that goes.”
Tabuirr chuckled, and Harper said, “Katy will adjudicate the Liar’s Crown, Adinaun will run the dagger-throwing, I’m on general wrangling, and Khem is Candleward until she has to get Twitch.”
“Perfect, my boy. I’ll expect your invoice.”
Khem didn’t see the movement, but suddenly Harper had his hand around Tabuirr’s wrist, which was an inch from the pouch at Harper’s hip. “Nope, I’m not that easy,” Harper said. “Try again later.”
Tabuirr laughed and took Yauntyrr off in the general direction of the food, and Khem took a moment to check her pouch. Unsurprisingly, everyone else in the room had already managed to sneak one of their tokens into it – even Katy, which probably explained both the unusually prolonged hug earlier and the aggressive way she’d smoothed invisible wrinkles out of Khem’s clothes afterwards. Well, that had also served Khem to put one in Katy’s, but that was the only one to her credit.
Unlike most of the Shadow Night games, the pouches wouldn’t be scored and attracted no forfeits; it was a statement of ‘look, I could have picked your pocket if I wanted, but I chose not to’. People who were good at it, like Harper, would take an empty pouch home as evidence of their skill, while those like Khem were probably supposed to comfort themselves with evidence of how many people liked them too much to rob them, even if they could. Presumably it made more sense to Vhaeraunites.
The ‘churchins’ started arriving, vastly outnumbering the parents or guardians who accompanied them. Many arrived in masks and with pouches at their side; others paid their first forfeit of the night and took a set. All black, of course. The adults usually found a glass of punch and then another adult to stand near a wall with. The children were almost immediately absorbed into the crowd that swirled around Harper, except for the few who went straight for the cupcakes and one girl who squared her shoulders and headed for Aunrae and the shadowstones.
The ambient noise of the hall rose with each new arrival, as did the temperature, despite the gust of frigid air that came in every time the door opened. That wouldn’t do the candles near it any good, and Khem went to see if she could shelter them at all while under a stern directive from Katy not to move any candles, or mirrors, or block anything. It was supposedly a good omen for a few candles to blow out or burn out ahead of time, but the Candleward would be cursed if they lost too many. Khem was not terribly worried about Vhaeraunite superstitions, but having agreed to do the job, she intended to do it well.
If it could be done, anyway. She nearly lost one to a particularly vicious blast of wind, and then almost caught her sleeve on fire when Tabuirr’s voice suddenly boomed out of Twinkle’s mic.
“Blessed Shadow Night, everyone!” There was a ragged but enthusiastic response. “Welcome to our little celebration, especially those of you who haven’t been to a Shadow Night party before. We only have three hours before midnight, so I won’t take up too much of your time with speeches.”
He could have taken slightly less, Khem decided, pushing her sleeves back and paying better attention to the recalcitrant candle than Tabuirr explaining how the games worked, and that the plant over the curtain to the kitchen was a druidic tradition that his young friend Katy had included, which was entirely in harmony with Vhaeraun’s acceptance of other cultures or peoples, so please feel free to kiss under it if you felt inclined, but without impeding people moving in or out of the kitchen. He also touched on the progress the church had made that year, and the projects that would be supported by the forfeits collected tonight, which was where he visibly started to lose the children.
“My dear young friend Katy – raise your hand, Katy – yes, there she is - will start the Liar’s Crown shortly. Everyone, have a wonderful and wary evening. We just might have a special visitor around midnight,” Tabuirr concluded, with a theatrical wink. Some of the churchins cheered, obviously familiar with the tradition and what to expect, while others weren’t sure, and there was a whisper near Khem’s elbow of ‘no, silly, Santa’s not real.’ There was a small tug at her pouch, too; she left the candle burning, stepped out of range and headed for the shadowstones as Twinkle started playing again.
Aunrae seemed to be enjoying herself, grinning as a small child sniffed hard and handed over a chocolate coin as forfeit. “You should go again, you were so cl – oh, hey Khem. Come to ‘ave a go?”
“It’s barely a quarter past nine,” Khem said, “and you’re already tired of taking chocolate from children and want to win actual money?”
“Nah. Well, yeah. Kind of. I can eat the chocolate but ‘is Nibs over there, the old one, not, you know ‘is Nibs ‘is Nibs, ‘e gets most of the what you might call actual proceeds. So it’s swings and roundabouts as far as I’m concerned.” Aunrae poured the black rocks from one hand to another. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“For you, yes,” Khem said, but took the chair the small child had vacated opposite Aunrae. “I admit I wasn’t really listening when Harper explained how the game works.”
“Nuffin to it. What it is, is basically your average shell game, ‘cept without the shells. One piece of obsidian –“ she flipped a shiny black rock into the air – “and six pieces of bog-standard black glass. I fiddle wif ‘em, then you tell me where the obsidian is or you pay. You can look at ‘em, but you can’t touch, so even if you lose track of the valuable one, you still got a chance if you can tell ‘em apart.”
“I could just pay up and save you the time.” Khem sighed. “But then, I wouldn’t get to see you work from the proper perspective.”
“Exactly,” Aunrae nodded. “Now ‘ere we go.”
The display was something between juggling, shuffling cards, and playing a keyboard that had rocks on it, and it was very fast. Khem hadn’t been certain she’d spotted the obsidian to begin with, and within a second the rocks were only darker shadows in Aunrae’s hands anyway. At one point several of them were spinning on the tabletop, and another on the blade of a knife Aunrae had suddenly produced. But it disappeared, and the rocks were still, and Aunrae was holding her hands out to demonstrated they were empty.
“That was very prettily done,” Khem told her.
“Aw, fanks. Now, whatcha think?”
“I haven’t a – Aunrae, those are only six rocks.”
Aunrae’s grin widened. “That’s my smart friend Khem, wif the complicated maths. Yeah, there’s six there. You reckon the obsidian’s one of ‘em?”
They still looked functionally identical to Khem; her geology simply wasn’t up to the task of distinguishing obsidian from glass. She knew Aunrae, though. The one fundamental of shell games was – well, actually, it was don’t stop and play, but close behind it was it isn’t under any of the shells. So, where was the obsidian, if it wasn’t on the table? Not up Aunrae’s sleeve, that would be too obvious, but after that… Aunrae had a lot of pockets, or it could be under her shoe, or in her hair, or… It was unlikely Aunrae would have swallowed it, at least this early in the evening, but anything short of that was plausible.
“It’s not on the table,” Khem said, “and after that, I don’t know.”
“Nice,” Aunrae replied. “Now pay up.”
Khem reached into her pocket, and felt – “You,” she said, smiling as she pulled out the forfeit and the obsidian, “are a menace.”
“I know,” Aunrae said, proud as Twitch with a rat. “Plus, you’re an easy mark, it’s a good fing you ‘ave me and Harper to watch out for you.”
“It is. Speaking of which…” Khem thought for a moment. “I can’t speak to the adults who came with the churchins, but otherwise I’m prepared to bet that you take a forfeit from everyone here except Tabuirr, Yauntyrr, and Twinkle.”
“Twinkle’s weird,” Aunrae agreed. “And I don’t know if I’m complimented or you’ve hurt me feelings that you reckon I can’t con the geezer couple.”
“I’m not sure about them. Yauntyrr might not play you, but Tabuirr definitely will, and they’re his rocks to begin with.” Khem shrugged. “And Harper’s doubly uncertain: he might not catch you, or he might catch you and decide to forfeit anyway. But everyone else? If they play, they’ll lose.”
“See, now you’ve created a whatamcallim, financial incentive, for me to rig it.”
“A small bet,” Khem said. “Besides, I think you enjoy the game too much to throw it.”
“Yeah, guess I do.” Aunrae grinned. “Twenty bucks, and we’ll settle up tomorrow.”
Khem left her shuffling rocks for one of the adults – the mask made it harder to tell, but Khem thought it was probably one of Tabuirr’s subordinates, the one generally called ‘the Polisher’ – and joined the audience gathering in front of the stage as Twinkle finished her song and asked everyone to quieten for the Liar’s Crown. Harper had herded most of the children into a rough circle, seated on the ground. Katy‘s skirts were pooled around her on the floor, and she was shooing a couple of the youngest off them and away from the Liar’s Crown. It gleamed and sparkled on its black velvet cushion, rather more convincingly than its purchase price or component materials would have suggested. It might not be easy, Khem thought, for Katy to award it to someone else.
“Everybody ready?” Harper asked. “Belgloth, that’s my ear, please leave it attached to my head.” The toddler laughed, but allowed Harper to pry his fingers away. “Thank you. Take it away, Katy.”
“Okay, sooo...” Katy preened her mask and looked around the ring. “You may know me as Katy, but really I am the Sorcerous Scourge of the Seas, the Free, Fearless and Fabulous, the Pirate Queen Ceitidh Mhùilneir.” There were a few soft impressed sounds, and something that probably would have been a scoff, if Harper hadn’t caught it and withered it with a glance in its earliest stages. “My home port is on a floating island that only my first mate Harper can find. Last month, we were running ahead of a vicious storm when we came upon a lost baby kraken.” Katy told the children about how they had tried to help the kraken while the storm came down on them and broke their mast, leaving them completely unable to flee when the parent krakens came back and decided that the ship had attacked their baby.
Khem found the exact details of how the dashing Pirate Queen and her crew had escaped the predicament a little difficult to follow – something about fashion, life advice, a magic pearl, and a potted ficus – but the children were rapt, and the applause after “and we sailed into harbour with the sunset dyeing our purple silk sails, with just enough time to make it to the party tonight!” was enthusiastic.
“That’s nothing,” said the teenager to Katy’s left, once it was quiet enough. “Last semester I almost failed geography. So I stole the teacher’s car keys from his desk drawer –“ and the game continued around the circle. Some children followed Katy and claimed improbable or fantastic things about themselves, while others stayed grounded in reality. Some spoke with practised conviction; others broke down entirely or giggled uncontrollably. Harper took his turn and told them about how he had once made a birthday cake so perfectly that not a speck of flour had gone awry and the resulting pinnacle of cakedom had been bought by an influencer who later claimed to have baked it herself. That was more farfetched than Pirate Queen Katy; Harper waged regular battles with pre-mixed pancake batter, and his victories cost significant collateral damage.
Belgloth, when Harper prompted him to tell a lie, nodded solemnly and claimed to be “four now, and it’s my birthday yesterday.”
“He’ll go far,” Tabuirr muttered approvingly, somewhere behind Khem.
Once all the stories were told, Katy cleared her throat. “The best liar tonight was… Twinkle, can I get a drum roll, please?” Twinkle did not appear to have brought a drum, but imitated one on the wooden body of her instrument in a way that appeared to satisfy Katy’s dramatic instincts. “The winner of the Liar’s Crown is the Dragonslayer Mialee!” The little girl stood up amid general applause, and curtseyed to her audience before approaching Katy and being crowned. It was a little large for her, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was grinning wildly and fielding plaintive requests from other churchins to ‘borrow it for a moment, just to try it on, I’d give it right back, honest!’ which seemed approximately twenty percent genuine, ten percent attempts to run off with it, and otherwise an excuse to slip tokens into pouches.
Khem did a quick assessment of her candles. She’d lost one near the door after all, but that wasn’t a major problem. She rounded the room, choosing which eight more would most evenly lower the overall level of light. Nine every half hour until ten forty-eight, then a decreasing number of the remnants every nine minutes, until the final candle was extinguished at midnight. Supposedly it was something symbolic about the lengthening shadows of the longest night of the year, although Khem suspected that the earliest Vhaeraunites had possessed a sizeable interest in candle manufacture or fire insurance. Forty-five candles was a great many to manage, especially around children.
Once they all seemed under control, Twinkle was singing again, and Katy was leading a raid on the mini pain au chocolat, Khem decided that she had earned a moment with Twitch. A glance confirmed that nobody was sufficiently near the mistletoe to pose a potential problem, and Khem passed through the thick black curtain to the soft electric light of the kitchen. Twitch thumped his tail, but was apparently feeling too lazy to get up to greet her, or to beg for treats from the other person in the kitchen. Black mask and black scrubs, with a few stains that suggested he’d come straight from the emergency department; hunched over the first aid kit with a line to his mouth that suggested he’d prefer to still be there. Possibly he had come in by the kitchen door and stayed; she thought she would have noticed if he’d been watching the Liar’s Crown.
“Good evening, Zilnith,” Khem said. She hadn’t frozen, and her voice sounded quite natural to her own ears – casual, friendly – but she didn’t trust that assessment. It was simply too hard to hear herself speak over the yammering at the back of her skull: what was she doing? Sex was such an unnecessary complication, it had already complicated things with Harper, which had already been stupidly overcomplicated and painful, and it was all sure to implode messily at some point, what was she really doing?
She was, Khem told herself firmly, as she’d needed to multiple times since she’d decided to make that first proposition, occasionally having sex with someone she liked, who liked her. This was something new, and of course she would fuck it all up at some point, pun not intended but apt, but at the present it was – good – and she would enjoy the situation while it lasted.
“You look ill,” Zilnith said, as though she’d done it specifically to annoy him. “If you’re going to faint, kindly go home and do it there, where it won’t be my problem.”
“I’m – fine,” Khem said, after a quick internal diagnostic to determine that it was at least physically true. Then she realised, and laughed. “I’m just wearing black. You generally don’t see Thayans in black unless they’re trying to look recently disinterred.”
“Hmph. Well, if you’re sure.”
“I already sent an idiot to your hospital today. Providing you with a second patient when you’re off-duty would just be rude.”
Apparently satisfied with the contents, Zilnith zipped up the first aid case. “Was it the second-degree burns to hands and chest? The explanation of how he got them was less than convincing.”
“Nothing so exciting,” Khem said, settling herself on the floor next to Twitch, and paying the proper attentions as he plunked his head in her lap immediately. Unfortunate effect on her complexion aside, it couldn’t be denied the black outfit hid stray Twitch-hair more effectively than her usual clothing. “It was the one who booked in for a half-sleeve and lied about being on anticoagulants, then fainted at the blood.”
“Ugh. Yes. They’ll live, probably. And I’m not off-duty; Tabuirr insisted.” The mask made it a little difficult to tell his expression, but ‘utterly disgusted and put-upon’ was often a safe guess, even when he hadn’t been compelled to attend a children’s party after work.
“My sympathies.”
“It’s not the first time,” Zilnith said, shrugging. “So long as the dear little vhaeraths keep all their bodily fluids inside their relevant orifices, and the throwing knives are blunt enough, I might even get a few hours’ rest before I get called back to the hospital.”
“Could go either way.” She could hear herself think again, partially due to Twitch’s presence, and partially because Zilnith’s consistent disgruntlement was, in its particular way, reassuringly solid ground. “Harper organised it, Adinaun’s running it. I don’t think he had time to re-sharpen the knives provided, and I suspect he won’t let anyone else handle his personal weapons, but I’m not certain. ”
Zilnith sighed. “At least reattaching fingers is relatively simple. I take it that’s tonight’s Black Beast?”
“Yes.” Twitch gently caught Khem’s fingers in his teeth for a moment, which usually meant that a treat was requested before additional scritches should be administered. “You could attempt bribery, if you wanted, but it’s probably too late to affect the outcome. Rylfein keeps a pocket of treats and has been taking him on walks for a few months now.”
Zilnith chuckled. “How very foresighted of him. Still, I’m certain your pet will play his role adequately – much better than the year the Beast was my black ghost knifefish in a travel tank.”
Khem tried to picture it for a moment, then shook her head. Apart from the obvious absurdity of Zilnith sliding a small cube of water around in the darkness, Tabuirr would need to have applied a great deal of pressure for Zilnith to risk one of his fish in a suboptimal environment for three hours or more, and there were surely easier alternatives. He probably wasn’t serious, but she wasn’t certain. “At least you would have had guaranteed results.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” There was an edge to his grievance that sounded rather more genuine than Khem had expected. “Three years of cossetting that specimen, then someone bumps me in the dark, the cover misaligns, and it jumps into Jarnath’s face. He shrieks, nearly tramples my fish, then proclaims that the Black Beast’s blessing is one more proof that he’s our new messiah. And people applauded.”
“Revolting.” Khem gave Twitch a final caress, and got to her feet. Probably she should make an attempt to place a token, but realistically she’d only be caught. “I hope your fish made a full recovery.”
“Eventually,” Zilnith said, “although it spent over a month in quarantine and under close observation before it could be reintroduced to its home tank. Aquaria are carefully-balanced environments; bacteria from exposure to Jarnath could upset them entirely.”
“That’s a zoonosis nobody needed,” she agreed. “I should probably go check the candles.” It was true, but she lingered a moment more. Accepted responsibility aside, it was very tempting to remain in the kitchen with Twitch and Zilnith rather than return to a party full of children.
“Ah, you’re Candleward. You haven’t lost your chance of causing a second-degree burn tonight after all.”
“It’s not actually one of my life’s ambitions,” Khem told him. The way she was smiling felt extremely foolish, and the mask would do very little to hide it; she decided not to care. “Besides, as previously discussed, it would be rude to give you extra work.”
“And Thayans are known to be the soul of courtesy, of course.”
“Naturally,” Khem said, matching the dryness of his tone. “I would even be so polite as to give you a warning, if you missed Tabuirr’s opening address.”
“I did, as a matter of fact.”
“Katy put mistletoe above the door,” Khem said, pointing upwards as she pushed the curtain aside. Zilnith sighed, one of his repertoire that clearly expressed ‘I really cannot stand any more of this nonsense’, which sounded like he didn’t need further explanation.
Khem stepped through the doorway –
- and into Katy. They hadn’t been moving quickly, but it didn’t take a high-speed collision to push either of them off-balance, and for a moment it was unclear whether one or both of them would hit the floor. Fortunately, the only casualty was Katy’s éclair, which hit the wall and slid down it, leaving some of the filling behind it.
Katy squeaked. Khem continued to hold onto the doorway until she was certain her feet were under her. A small child said ‘ouch’, possibly as a demonstration of empathy rather than because they had been hurt themselves. Back in the kitchen, Zilnith snickered.
Twinkle, of course, played on.
“Sorry, Khem.”
“No need to apologise,” Khem replied. “I wasn’t watching where I was going either.” Then, because Katy’s eyes flicked up towards the mistletoe, and because Katy knew better than to ask, Khem leaned down and kissed Katy’s forehead the way Harper did. She felt awkward and stupid about it – she was mostly okay hugging her friends nowadays, but kissing was another matter – but Katy looked both surprised and very pleased.
Katy tightened her arms around Khem’s waist, and said something that Khem didn’t quite hear properly, but seemed to be that that wasn’t the correct kissing style for mistletoe, but she was glad anyway and wouldn’t have traded it, and Khem hugged her back for a long moment, before she went to extinguish her next nine candles.
None had burned out while she was distracted. That done, Khem picked up a plate and looked over the available food. Most of it, although too sweet for her preference, showed significant depredation, and only crumbs remained of at least two plates of Bren’s best cupcakes. Then Khem smiled. Tucked at one corner of the table was a bowl of samosas, with Katy’s best handwriting in purple glitter pen warning that they were extremely hot and painful to eat. There was a wobbly sketch of a skull with fire in its eye sockets and smoke around its head on one corner of the card, just to make the point clearer. No: it wasn’t a skull and smoke, it was Khem and her scalp tattoos.
They were for her. And they were, as Khem discovered when she took a bite, almost as hot as advertised, and extremely good. She added two more to her plate, and wandered over to watch the dagger-throwing.
It took up the width of the hall, far away from any of the other tables, with black ribbons to mark off buffer zones and lines to stand behind at different distances from the various targets. Some had bullseyes, or were human in shape, but there was also a couple of large stuffed toys that would probably have been spider-shaped before they became so battered. Adinaun was talking to a small child with unusual patience, apparently instructing them on how to throw the knife so it wouldn’t just fall onto the floor. Harper was also watching, wearing the fond smile he saved for children and his favourite idiots.
“You,” Adinaun said; it looked like he had only just noticed Harper was there. “Come here. This kid wants a gun. Needs a demonstration why not.”
“Sure?” Harper shrugged and arranged the kids following him behind the safe line. “What did you have in mind?”
What Adinaun had in mind, it seemed, was something between a contest, pairs juggling, and a combat. Knives were thrown at targets or at each other, or just spun up through the air and down again, flashing silver in the light of reflected candles. The effect was visually mesmerising, but somewhat spoiled by the way they were also throwing jibes and insults around; Harper occasionally reminded Adinaun to mind his language in front of the crowd of enthralled children.
Khem hadn’t meant to stay and watch Harper being skilled and dangerous and happy. It was the worst kind of self-indulgence, little more than pressing on a bruise to prove it still hurt and that the injury was real after all. You didn’t feel better for it, and you only damaged the area more, delaying any healing that might be had… but it was still here, a hook in her guts and a thorn in her throat, tsu-yareth in all its yearning hopeless futility. ‘Fell in love,’ they said in Common, and for once their idiom made sense. Fallen in love like fallen down a wellshaft, and the choice then to stay trapped in the narrow dark, or blindly try to climb up a sheer surface to a hatch that might be locked.
She hated thinking in similes, and couldn’t afford to let the mood take her anyway. Khem reminded herself that that wasn’t fair, it hadn’t felt like that at the start and sometimes still didn’t, then straightened her spine, pushed the messy tangle of Harper back where it belonged, and took her now-cold samosas to a seat near Twinkle. Khem had no real ear for music, but concentrating on the sound and the other currents among the guests was a distraction, at least. She rather thought Twinkle was currently playing some variant of Purple Worm. Katy was conducting a discussion between Calomph Tambris and Jarnath, possibly about fashion, although some of the hand gestures were more usually associated with explaining the plot of Double Trouble. Aunrae was grinning widely; her current mark was Zilnith. Some of the adults around started to cheer, looking in the direction of the kitchen… ah, that was a reaction to Tabuirr and Yauntyrr kissing under the mistletoe.
As Khem was making the ten-thirty round of candles – she’d actually lost two that time, possibly the treatment for blue flame made them unreliable – three adults approached her with that kind of purpose that generally either meant flirtation, or –
“Maelvin Deghym,” the guy in the lead introduced himself. “We were just discussing current affairs, and the perspective of a Thayan - ah, expatriate? – would be a valuable addition – what do you think the Council of Zulkirs are up to in Rashemen?”
- or politics. Sometimes that meant an interrogation, either out of a genuine desire for information, or out of suspicion, but more often it meant that the other person wanted to give a lecture. Either could be exceedingly tiresome, but was usually better than the people who stared from a distance and then called the police to report a spy. She did enough work for Tabuirr that his people mostly knew about her, but she didn’t recognise these.
“You can say ‘refugee’. I won’t be offended,” Khem said, which sometimes defused hostility into lurid imaginings of life under the Zulkirs’ regime, and thence into pity. It wasn’t exactly accurate, but it was considerably more suitable for conversation than ‘a bitch Thay is running on a leash half a world long, betting on whether she’ll come back when pulled or break her neck against the strain’.
“If I had any great insight into Thayan foreign policy,” she continued, “doubtless I’d still be on the other side of the Storm Shield.”
“Their loss is our gain,” Maelvin said, although in a cursory way that clarified she was a candidate for long-winded, one-sided and probably condescending political discussion rather than of sexual interest. “Where are you from?”
“Nethentir,” Khem said, which made Maelvin nod sagely and name the autharch who governed the neighbouring city of Nethjet, although he did get the area’s tharchion correct. He continued in a similar vein with only mild encouragement from the others with him, and the occasional one-word answer or interjection from Khem. Possibly the knowledge level of an interested outsider would have been both useful and gratifying if she had been a Thayan spy; as it was, she tallied ten factual errors, three logical fallacies, two unsupported assertions, and one case where he appeared to have simply missed the joke before she grew bored enough to excuse herself.
It was in this last hour and a half before midnight that Khem had most to do as Candleward, and the highest chance of getting herself cursed. At ten forty-eight, she extinguished half the remaining candles, leaving only nine alight for the entire hall. Eyes would adjust, up to a point, but it was genuinely difficult to tell what was happening further away now, and she wasn’t sure whether some of the shapes in the corners were shadow or churchins who’d fallen asleep. Voices hushed, and people moved slowly and carefully.
“Gather in, everyone,” Twinkle called, light and merry. “It’s time to dance.”
Harper had mentioned this was part of the usual Shadow Night festivities, but nevertheless Khem was surprised at how quickly churchins and adults both came to stand near Twinkle, and the obvious excitement as they waited for the music to start. Harper and Katy had a crowd of churchins, and Tabuirr was practically dragging Yauntyrr by the hand to get to the front. Khem squinted. Jarnath was standing over one wall, with Rylfein; she didn’t need much light to recognise the distinctive Jarnathian ‘never in a million years’ posture. Adinaun was probably causing the occasional flash of light along a blade behind Twinkle, and – really? Zilnith was standing at the edge of the group, arms crossed. She wouldn’t have guessed that at all.
A sharp elbow collided with her ribs, and Khem jumped as Aunrae laughed. “Gotcha.”
“You didn’t need near-darkness for that,” Khem said, and rubbed the incipient bruise.
Twinkle started to play. It sounded… cheerful, Khem supposed. There was movement, sort of aimless swaying, from the people gathered, but apparently most of them knew the song and started to sing when Twinkle did.
Squish, squish, stomp, stomp
No more spider chomp!
Four stomps on the first line, two small jumps at the end of the second. That seemed to be the main point of it, although some people twisted as though grinding an imaginary arachnid into the ground, and what they did with their arms, if anything, seemed to be a matter of personal preference. It was, at least, a less disturbing sight than the unsettling unison of the macarena dance at Jorran’s wedding; besides, the mental image of Jorran beaming jovially and attempting to perform the requisite hip gyrations had taken a long time to fade.
Stomp, stomp, squish, squish
Make the shadow’s wish!
Harper and Katy seemed to be enjoying themselves; Harper was spinning her around as they kept up with the stomping. Zilnith, on the other hand, was technically doing the same steps, but as though he begrudged every single one of them. Khem wouldn’t have thought it possible to jump sullenly, but he was really was.
“Look like a bunch of chickens, they do,” Aunrae observed. “Just needs a little more scratching and pecking.”
“Certainly more convincing than the chicken dance at Jorran’s wedding,” Khem agreed.
“They aren’t ‘alf arachnophobes, this lot. I ain’t sayin’ I’m fond of the buggers, too many legs an’ all, but this’s a bit, what’s the word, paffological, innit?”
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Khem said, shrugging. “I wasn’t arguing then, either.”
“Yeah, but havin’ a whole dance about it is just weird.”
Stomp, stomp, smite, smite
Spiders squashed tonight!
That was nine minutes; Khem moved around the dancers, and chose the last candle near the knife-throwing to put out. It seemed unlikely anyone would want to go back to it, or the shadowstones, as it got darker. Which reminded her to slip into the kitchen, and check that those lights were also out, which they were, and Twitch was nothing more than the source of even and untroubled snores.
By the time Khem returned to Aunrae, Harper and Katy had successfully hybridised the spider-stomping dance with one they called the conga. Most of the dancers had been absorbed into the snake, with Tabuirr holding onto Harper’s waist and Yauntyrr fast behind him, while Katy, in the lead, seemed to be chasing Zilnith.
“Now we get rich,” Twinkle sang, the dancers with her, “And that’ll show the bitch.”
‘Bitch’ was about twice as loud as any other word had been; and it wasn’t only the small children yelling, but even some of the spectators. Khem thought she’d even caught Jarnath’s particularly irritating voice in the roar.
The song repeated a few more times, until even the chorus of ‘bitch’ sounded ragged and breathless, and the smaller churchins had dropped out to sit on the floor giggling. Twinkle brought the song to an end with a flourish that was partially lost in applause, before people drifted away to get a drink and catch their breath. The spider-stomp dance, Harper had said, was done late, so as to wake everyone up again before midnight, but the laughter and noise were soon blunted again by the increasing darkness of the room.
Eleven fifty-one, and Khem extinguished the candle nearest the food, leaving only two alight. This was Twinkle’s signal to begin another song. This one was unaccompanied, and to Khem it sounded quite different to anything else she’d performed that evening – older or simpler, perhaps, but there was something in it that seemed intended to discomfit.
Other voices joined in, threads of sound drawn out of the darkness, but otherwise sourceless. Granted, she’d never heard most of these people sing before tonight, and the spider-stomping song had been more like yelling anyway… but none of them sounded familiar at all. Weren’t children’s voices usually higher-pitched than these?
Long night, shadow night
Darkness clusters in
Deep night, shadow night
Our freedom yet to win
There was something abruptly alien about the whole room, the sense of a context she was missing entirely, a force strange and possibly inimical strongly at work around her. Khem had encountered the sensation often since leaving Thay, but it rarely descended so suddenly or powerfully. It did not feel dangerous, exactly, but it made her fingertips itch all the same. She wanted to get out - but that wasn’t rational. None of it was rational. She refused to be intimidated by a song sung in a dark room by people in cheap black masks.
Blest night, shadow night
Curse the faithless twin
Last night, shadow night
Let no light burn within
She stepped defiantly away from the solidity of the wall, and struck out for the nearer of the remaining candles. The texture of the singing changed as she moved among the singers – she could almost discern one voice from the next – but lost none of its uncanniness. Her target burned in front of a fractured mirror, a steady spark reflected in golden streaks and tears. Khem watched it and settled her mind. Its edges fluttered with her breath, and the mirror showed the faint reflection of her hands, resting on the table.
A final note, held low and wavering, then silence fell at last and brought the familiar shape of the room around her again.
She could almost hear the way Katy would have commented, ‘That was creepy.’
A few minutes more, and Khem extinguished that candle. That left one, a lone point of light in the dense, breathing darkness. She couldn’t exchange a glance with Harper to hand over responsibility for it - she had no idea where in the hall he was now – but that was just caution. Harper wouldn’t need a reminder. Khem blinked a few times, then made her careful way towards the kitchen. She bumped into someone within close proximity of the mistletoe, but pushed through the curtain before it could become an issue.
It was even darker in the kitchen, which had only the microwave’s clock for light. Khem put out a hand, took a step, knocked her hand against the counter from an unexpected angle, and groped her way to the door that led outside. “Twitch,” she called softly. “Come here, please.”
There was a long sigh, which turned into a heartfelt groan; he had been dragged callously from his proper environment and soft bed to this place, ignored for hours, and now asked to interrupt his sleep to go out into the cold.
“I know,” Khem agreed. “But it won’t be for long, and then I’ll take you home.”
A quiet whine, and then the sound of paws on lino, and something very large and warm was leaning heavily against her, incidentally pressing what felt like a very full pouch into her side. “Thank you,” Khem said, and scratched gently behind his ears to demonstrate her gratitude. If she were completely honest about it, she wasn’t enthusiastic about going outside herself. There were about seven minutes left before midnight, and no necessity to be cold for all of them, but she didn’t intend to miss their cue either. So she indulged them both for a minute or two, before opening the kitchen door.
It was below freezing, judging by the glitter of frost on the carpark asphalt, and clear enough that Khem could see better by starlight and streetlights a block over than by the single candle left inside. No visible moon, which she remembered Tabuirr had been very pleased about. She led Twitch around to the main door, where he veered off to sniff the front wheel of Rylfein’s motorbike thoroughly; presumably Dog-Dog had left some message there for him.
Despite the cold, for which she was in no way dressed, it was pleasant outside. There were the sounds of distant traffic, instead of too many people talking or singing, and if the crisp air bit at the exposed parts of her face, at least it smelled clean and fresh. Well, catastrophe had failed to strike so far, and had little opportunity remaining; it looked as though the churchins had enjoyed their party; and if there were many more productive ways Khem could have spent her evening, it could definitely have been worse. She hoped Harper and Katy had enjoyed themselves.
“It is midnight,” Tabuirr’s voice came through the outside speaker, and Khem called Twitch to her side. “The deepest part of the longest night of the year. Vhaeraun blesses us this Shadow Night. We open the door, inviting the Black Beast to cross our threshold and bring us his favour.”
The door began to swing open.
“Go,” Khem whispered to Twitch. “Go to Rylfein, or Zilnith, or one of the children,” and she slapped his rump lightly to send him forward. Twitch trotted off obligingly, and he was about to stick his nose in the door – then there was a streak of blackest shadow, a hiss, and a yelp from Twitch, who galloped back to Khem whimpering, and tried to hide his head in her hand.
He was trembling and whimpering, and Khem bent down to comfort him. He was obviously terrified, and the party would just have to do without their Black Beast; she’d never seen him like this before, not even when they’d once passed a house fire. “Shhh, I won’t let anything happen to you. It’s all right. You are brave and magnificent and have no reason to fear.” It seemed like a long time before he stopped shaking, and by that time Khem’s teeth were showing an annoying tendency to chatter, which didn’t make it any easier to coax him across to her car.
She got him set up across the back seats, and turned the engine on to warm him and defrost the windscreen. The internal light of the car showed a nasty scratch – multiple claws – across his muzzle and the most sensitive part of his nose, which didn’t explain all of his terror. Admittedly Khem spoiled him, but Twitch playfought with Dog-Dog sometimes, and occasionally stuck his nose into some piece of wildlife who resented it; it wasn’t the first time he’d been scratched or even bitten. With more scritches and soothing proclamations about how he was wonderful and she loved him well beyond reason, and a few treats from her pockets, he eventually closed his eyes and settled down, although there was still something of the whine about his breathing. “You’re okay,” Khem said again, stroking the broad smooth top of his head. “I promise, I won’t be long.” He slitted an eye open as she got out of the car, but made no further protest.
There were sounds of confusion and joy coming from inside the hall, and the electric lights came on as Khem crossed the carpark. Tabuirr proclaimed ‘Behold the Black Beast, the favour of Vhaeraun incarnate this night!” into the mic, which suggested that whatever had attacked Twitch had gotten into the hall –
It was an odd sight. There was a wide space around Harper, and people staring. Harper himself looked a little bewildered, a little awkward, with his neck craned as far away from his right shoulder as possible. This was probably due to the fact there was a black cat perched on it. The cat was very black, with none of the rusty staining black fur got in sunlight; very blue-eyed, which Khem didn’t think was common in black cats, and especially not that intense artificial blue, somewhere between anodised titanium and public swimming pools; and it was, without a doubt, the smuggest thing she had ever seen. Hard to say how it projected that attitude, but it made Jarnath at his worst look abject.
Katy was reaching up to offer the cat scritches, but it stared through her just as it ignored the handful of children who were doing much the same thing. Aunrae met Khem’s eyes, and shrugged; like Yauntyrr and Adinaun, the sudden appearance of a cat where Twitch was expected was something she didn’t care much about. But Jarnath looked a little sick - probably just his allergies, and doubtless he would start sneezing histrionically in a moment – and Zilnith stared at the cat as though it made as little sense as a ghost to a scientist.
“Well, hello,” Harper said to the cat, and offered his hand for it to sniff. “You’re a handsome puss-puss, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”
The cat rubbed possessively against Harper’s fingers, and declined to comment further.
“Will you let all the nice people pet you too?” He smoothly lowered himself to one knee, bringing the cat in easy reach of the taller children. The cat apparently decided this was not to its taste, and leapt down, then trotted for the door. Khem, having no desire for it to scratch her as it had Twitch, stepped out of its way.
It was probably the uncertain lighting, or else purely coincidence, but it appeared to wink at her before it disappeared into the shadows of the carpark.