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Sequins, sequins everywhere, and it would take more than the impending end of the world to get Palamedes Sextus – Heir to the Treacherous and Secretive House of the Sixth, Master Warden of the Library, Youngest of History, Typist in the Models of Psychometry, Once Attendant to the Archivist Zeta, Currently Deceased (ish), and, above all, the Hand of Camilla Hect – to wear them.
It was, first and foremost, an ethical question. He had no idea where the sequins had originated from, nor what they were made of. There was no way for him to be able to properly guarantee that the top came from a sound origin. He further couldn’t guarantee that the top was not supposed to belong to someone else. Or that that someone else would allow him to wear it.
Plus, it was just tacky.
“Your flaw, Ianthe Tridentarius,” Palamedes carefully (and discreetly) folded the top into a precise rectangle, and carefully (and even more discreetly) set it to the side of the bed he had found himself sitting on. “Is that you are a romantic.”
La dite Tridentarius – Once Heir to the House of the Third, Now Lyctor to the Emperor Undying, Saint of Awe, Explorer in the Further Reaches of More Kinds of Necromancy Than He Could Count, Princess and Prince, and, above all, the Twin and Heart of Coronabeth Formerly Known as Tridentarius – scoffed at him. “You know very well that I have more flaws than that, Sextus.”
“Perhaps,” was all he could admit, “but that one will be your downfall.”
Ianthe studied him with eyebrows raised in a harsh way that most people would have said didn’t suit her (indeed, most people would say there were few things that suited her). Unfortunately for her, he was beginning to know her too well for that. “Is that so?”
Was it? Maybe not. Maybe he was mistaken, off the mark, flawed his analysis, but after months spent inside of her head with her, he was confident that he was within the margin of error. Unfortunately for him, she was a better mathematician than he was, and he didn’t think she would inclined to double-check his maths right now. “Yes.”
Ianthe scoffed again. He had to admit that it was impressive, the sheer level of scorn she was able to put into a single breath of air. She had probably practiced it (whether that practice was born of her own volition, however, he wasn’t sure he wanted to guess). But she didn’t deny it.
Instead, she just reached back into the immense and interminable pile of assorted and (as far as he could tell) entirely random pile of clothes that had appeared around the walls of the bedroom they were in. In went her hands, in went her head, her torso, almost her entire, and out came…
More sequins. A deep, light black this time, reflectively mesmerising as it flowed through his fingers like a dark current. “How about this one?” Ianthe had caught him feeling it. She drew a finger down her chest where the top would’ve splayed outwards in a V. “All the girls love slutty. And it suits your eyes.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Come on, Sextus,” Ianthe whined, a little petulantly, in that moment reminding him dearly of Crown, but without any of the bite to it. She had heard his silent lack of denial. “Help a gal out here. You can’t wear grey every day. It’s boring. And I know for a fact that you’re not my type of boring. Dull, perhaps, lacking in creativity, pointedly devoted to someone who is truly boring, but not boring yourself.”
Still, he folded up the sequined top with the slutty V through it into another neat rectangle, placing it (less discreetly, this time) onto the pile of carefully folded tops (and skirts and scarves and scandalously skimpy underwear and more). “I would appreciate it if you did not insult Camilla.”
“I’m a romantic, you pedantic sexy librarian, you,” she dismissed his appreciation like the breeze, “and insults are a love language.”
Were they?
“What about…” Ianthe plunged herself back into the growing pile of fabrics and textiles. This time, Palamedes almost thought he’d lose her entirely in it. She took an eternity, probably along the line of days, if he was counting correctly. Fifty-four hours, approximately, give or take. “Mahogany?”
If he said yes, he had the terrible feeling that she would make a pun about wood and how fertilely it grows. Most people, he suspected, would accuse her of having a horrific sense of humour. But then, most people would say that without really listening to her puns. “No.”
She rolled her eyes. She still tossed the mahogany top at him, the reddish brown sweater landing heavily in his laps, made for a tundric winter that he would (hopefully) never know. He folded it up, like the others, and placed it with the others. “Maybe… heliotrope?”
The fluorescent cross between pink and purple would definitely not have suited him, even before taking into account the sheer… laciness of the garment the Saint of Awe was holding up. He wasn’t sure if it was his size. “Ianthe…”
“Oh, I know!” Ianthe exclaimed with a sudden eurekic burst of inspiration, before disappearing into the pile for another thirteen hours (give or take – he still wasn’t entirely sure how the chronology here worked). “Viridian!”
A blueish green, hints of chromium and oxide, with just the right amount of grey lines cutting through the edges to highlight his waist. This one, he had to admit, would suit his eyes. Ianthe Tridentarius had, despite her best attempts at appearing otherwise, an eye for fashion. “You’re avoiding the question.”
She… scoffed at him, again. Continued to avoid the question that she had to answer, that they both had to answer, and plunged herself back into the pile. “This one, you have to admit,” she came out grasping a pristinely white and admirably frilly dress shirt, “would definitely…”
Pristinely, that was, where it wasn’t glistening with the soon-to-be-stains of red, vivid, blood. Admirably, that was, where it wasn’t scuffled and torn with the scars of a blade.
“Oh,” was all Ianthe could say when she looked at it, mouth forming an imperfect o. As an afterthought that wasn’t really an afterthought but that was still whispered nevertheless, she added, “I know this one.”
“It’s not too late.” He tried not to sound too desperate, too pleading, too begging or supplicating. He knew she despised it when anyone tried that on her (only Crown could, and only from Crown would it work every single time). “Please, Ianthe. It’s not too late, for you, or for Naberius.”
The second name only produced a sneer. “Do you know what your fatal flaw is, Master Warden?” A sneer and a contemptuous tone that complemented the expression with perfect aggravation. He didn’t want to know where she had learned it from. “You, sir, are a total fucking hypocrite.”
She was still clutching the bloodied shirt.
“It’s not too late, Ianthe,” she mimicked his words in the highest-pitched accent that her vocal cords could reach. “Why are you still in the Mithraeum, Ianthe? Why did you eat Babs, Ianthe? Why don’t just throw yourself onto the fanatics’ pyre and save them the trouble of straining their own arms, Ianthe?” She huffed. “Please!”
Still clutching.
“You, of all people, should knows this, Sextus. A brilliant necromancer… a student of history… able to anticipate every plot twist in the canon… I’m disappointed, to be frank.” Her name was not Frank. “One flesh, one end. Perfect lyctorhood. Without cavaliers, the concept wouldn’t exist. And without John, cavaliers wouldn’t exist. And yet, you devote yourself to it.”
All he said was, “Please, Ianthe. You—”
“You must’ve read the stories.” She finally tossed the bloodied shirt to the side. She didn’t bother to see where it landed. “Everyone has. The ugly sister kept in the shadows of the beautiful, kind one... plotting and scheming to corrupt the pure maiden... who can only be stopped by a dashing knight with a bulging… bicep and a very, very big sword. It’s a classic.”
He had read a couple along those lines. None of them had been worth re-reading. “You can’t avoid the question forever.”
“You clearly haven’t gotten the memo, babe: I’m the bad guy.” Ianthe shrugged, as if that was all there was to it. “Duh.”
Before Palamedes could beg her one more time, she disappeared back into the pile of clothes. In her absence, he let out a small sigh. Found himself needed to push his glasses back up his nose. He tried to count the time. Sixty-nine seconds, if he was right. Or sixty-nine years. It was hard to tell.
When she re-emerged, she was holding a white dress with red edges that would never cover enough of his thighs and had never been designed too. It was perfect. The ideal of a sexy nurse, in every aspect. It was every one he had ever imagined, every one he had ever written about, distilled into their finest aspect and their finest flaws. He wanted to kiss her.
“Hm.” She frowned at it without giving away whether she wanted to kiss him too. “You’re seeping into me.”
He was, as much as he increasingly wished he wasn’t. For all the ways in which he had planned this confrontation out, for all the outcomes he had tried to anticipate, he shared a same fatal flaw as her: he was a romantic. And, unlike her, he didn’t see the necessity to burn and rave to conserve it and everything else with it. Life was too short for that. “Would that be a bad thing?”
“Would that be a bad thing?” She threw his words back at him, as she was wont to do. “Of course, it would be a bad thing, you ink-stained bibliophilic whore of a healthcare fetishist! I have plans, you know? Plans that are far, far too valuable to be mucked up by you and your ambidextrous pet.”
Helpfully, Palamedes pointed out that, “Your friends would stop seeing you as the bad guy if you shared your plan with them.”
“All the world’s a stage and we are merely players. each another’s audience,” the Saint of Awe sighed with all the burden of a melancholic thespian. “Life’s just improv, babe, and I intend on yes, anding what’s given to me until I can turn this sorry tragedy of a resurrection into something worth applauding. The show must go on, mustn’t it?”
In another, simpler universe, maybe that was who it would’ve gone. He would’ve gone to all her performances, a standing ovation after each fall of the curtains, a fresh book instead of flowers backstage, and then coffee in a cosy little nook by a moody river as they bickered over which one of them was misplacing the variable, the end of the world nothing but a distant scene, with many acts left to go.
He had read stories like that.
He had liked stories like that.
They weren’t his. “I’d really rather not fight you.”
“C’est ça la vie,” Ianthe shrugged, as nonchalantly as she could. He would miss that, dreadfully – she was, as much as everyone was convinced that she was otherwise, and as much as she delighted in the strength of their conviction, a terrible liar. “I don’t intend on going gentle into your good night. Sorry, babe.”
It… It was a shame, and there was no sense in pretending otherwise. “That’s a shame.”
“That is,” she, unexpectedly, agreed with him as she stepped away from the pile of clothes to make herself a seat on the floor in front of the couch. In front of him. Her back against it, she leaned her head against his thigh. Held up the sexy nurse outfit. “You would’ve looked really hot in this.”
Palamedes found himself laughing. He had never imagined that he would be miss her, had never intended for the sentiment in the plan, but now that it was here, he found the play too full, and the climax too near. “Funny,” his hand found her hair, “I was just thinking the same about you.”