Shoestring Theory

SIX

“Cy!”

When she called out to him, it was all he could do not to sigh in relief. He would’ve had to find her otherwise, and as shown time and time again, he was a middling actor at best.

Still, he had practiced excuses under his breath all the same, testing out different ways to lure the princess to his quarters in the event she was recalcitrant to follow.

Cyril turned to greet her, and luckily for him his smile was quite genuine. “Tig? What is it?”

“What do you mean ‘ what is it?’ You’ve been avoiding me all evening!”

His brows rose. “It’s your night. I hardly felt it appropriate to monopolise you.”

“Is that why you danced three songs with my fiancé?” She stalked over to him and gracefully linked their arms together. “I’ve not seen you in a whole month ! Did you not miss me? Have I done something wrong?”

Cyril’s heart broke for her all over again. A month would have been like the beat of a hummingbird’s wings compared to how long it had been since he’d last seen her .

He shook his head. “It’s not that. I did not mean to offend, Tig.”

“Well, you have. And now you’re to spend some time with me, as your future queen.”

Finally, he allowed himself a moment of levity. It came easier than he’d expected. “As my queen? Shall I curtsy? I can walk two steps behind you if you’d like.”

Tigris’s face soured. “As my friend . You are friends with the future ruler of Farsala! Don’t you feel lucky? You should want to rub elbows with me as much as possible!”

“I had thought tonight you would want to spend time with King Atticus.”

Surprisingly, she rolled his eyes. “I’m about to spend the rest of my life with that man. He can spare an evening without the pleasure of my company.”

“Do you not like him?” He had no idea how she couldn’t . He had been so charming on that dance floor. And from what he could remember, he was a remarkably reliable man.

She waved her hand in front of her face in dismissal. “Oh, yes, I like him fine. He is very pretty, I suppose. He is kind to me, and the match is well suited.”

“Don’t you sound smitten.”

She shoved his side. “Oh, I’m sorry . Not all of us can have whirlwind childhood romances with my brother.”

Cyril felt his grimace so strongly he feared his teeth might shatter. He should’ve known this would be the first thing she’d ask about.

He was still going to attempt ignorance. “Mm. Sounds like gossip, which of the courtiers has her fluttering eyes set on our dear Eufie?”

“Oh, shut up !” She shoved him again. “Don’t be shameless! Especially not after the way he danced with you tonight.”

“Like he wanted to wring my neck?”

Tigris rolled her eyes. “Like he wanted to do something to you, certainly.”

“Commit an atrocity…” he murmured.

Her brows knitted in concern. “Have you said something to upset him? Can I help?”

Cyril relaxed, shoulders slumping to be flush against hers, and sighed. “No, no, it’s… we are having a disagreement. I can fix it.”

“…I don’t think he’s truly mad at you,” she said after a moment. “He thinks you hang the moon.”

Maybe he used to .

Cyril let himself smile again. “You’ve done an expert job changing the subject from your own love life, my queen.”

“Sto – p! Don’t call me that, it gives me gooseflesh.”

“Tigris…” he prodded.

“Well, what do you want me to say? He is wonderful, Cyril. His palace is beautiful, he speaks well, he carries himself nobly, he has curious interests, he keeps some game as pets, he likes the snow, he excels at mathematics, he is very handsome, he is older, but not a lecher. We will be happy and our kingdoms will prosper.”

Cyril really took in the last sentence. Even if Tigris was saying it in jest, he would make sure it came true if it was the last thing he did.

“But?” he said.

“But… but nothing. That is it. He has no flaws that I can think of.”

“So you are happy.”

Her whole body sagged. “Can we go back to talking about your little spat?”

He was truly surprised. He hadn’t expected Tigris’s feelings on her fiancé to be so divided. But, in all fairness, he had never asked . The princess was such a shining beacon of light, and every time she talked about Atticus, she was effervescent, enthusiastic about the match.

But Tigris Margrave had a way of making anything sound exciting.

He patted her arm. “I do think you’ll warm up to him. He was very kind to me tonight.”

That got her attention. Her eyes lit up. “Truly? I told him you were fragile.”

Cyril very nearly choked. “ Fragile ?”

“Not in a bad way! You’re just… you’re our Cyril.” she reached up to card her hand through his hair, thoroughly ruining the styling. “But I just said if he upset you, he would not be worth my hand.”

“Ah. I am the secret measure on which you choose a match.”

She shrugged. “I trust you.”

His heart caught in his throat.

After a beat, he shot her a mischievous grin and tugged on her arm. “Do you know what I think we should do?”

Tigris said nothing, but her chin lifted in curiosity.

“I know Tantie keeps a stocked liquor cabinet in the kitchen floor of the tower. We ought to throw you a bachelorette party.”

Her face split into a huge childlike grin and she hung onto his arm to allow him to lead the way. “You always have the best ideas, Cy.”

They snuck up to the fourth floor of the tower like a couple of children, despite Tigris having complete reign over everything within and outside of the palace. Tigris grabbed bottles of sweet, sugary liquors and bitter spirits and Cyril collected glasses in his arms, in all sizes, so they’d be able to mix absolutely foul concoctions more easily than swirling liquids from bottle to bottle.

“Is Auntie even able to drink any of this?” Tigris giggled as she tucked a bottle of absinthe ( absinthe !) under her arm.

“I’m sure she does” – Cyril waved his fingers vaguely in front of his face – “something to the pattern so she doesn’t poison herself.”

“She’ll outlive all of us if nobody stops her,” Tigris joked, and Cyril did his best to laugh in a way that didn’t betray a shakiness in his breath.

When they finally made it down to his quarters, he was a pile of nerves. He opened the door first and ushered in Tigris, who had already started on a stout vial of old whiskey. Either she was desperate to have some actual fun or she truly had doubts about the wedding. With some hope, Cyril would be able to assuage one of those, if temporarily.

He cast a surreptitious glance at the cage he had purchased earlier. It hit him about waist high, and was big enough to be conspicuous, but in the mess of his room, it was almost invisible. Just to be safe, though, he had blanketed it with an old sheet and, fearing the newly unpredictable whims of the creature within, wove a silencing spell into its threads.

Tigris, unawares, deposited all but the one bottle she was drinking from onto a desk. Cyril did the same with his collection of disparate glasses.

“Actually, should we go into your room?” she said. “I’ll braid your hair for you, it’ll be like we’re kids again.”

Cyril did not look her in the eyes as he scanned the living quarters for anything that would give him away for what seemed like the dozenth time.

He did manage to crack a thin smile. “Ah, yes, the alcoholism of my childhood.”

“You know what I mean!” She was next to him now, and prodded a finger onto his back. “I will give you the finest advice on how to woo my brother.”

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

She ignored him outright. “He likes blondes.”

“I am blonde, Tig.”

“Then you already have a leg up over the competition!”

The truth was, during their sixth month of marriage, when Cyril had been going through a particularly jealous streak watching Eufrates charm foreign dignitaries day in and day out, his husband had almost shyly confessed to him that every single person he had courted in his youth had held some passing resemblance to Cyril himself, be it the colour of their hair, their build, the way they dressed. It had become such an object of distress for Eufrates that after a while he had sworn off courtship altogether, instead of settling for imitations of what he truly wanted.

The memory of it made Cyril shiver. They had been happy together, once.

But now he could not afford to think about Eufrates. He guided Tigris deeper into the room as she rambled on about her brother’s likes and dislikes, as though Cyril didn’t know the man inside and out.

“Further, he is a most embarrassing lover. I once saw him draft a three-page letter to a girl he was seeing –”

Hm. Mine were five pages.

“ – only to discard it because it didn’t ‘ feel genuine enough’.”

“I think you are avoiding talking about yourself again.”

“I am no –”

Finally , she was where he wanted her, in the centre of the room, where Cyril had spent hours crafting that damned sigil. Her bare feet (she had discarded her shoes at the door claiming discomfort) sank into the ancient rug he’d used to cover it up and, as if picking apart a cat’s cradle, he unwove it so the circles he’d drawn were visible. They began to glow in a bright, yellow-white light.

He caught her limp body before she could hit her head against a side table. Cyril had grossly overestimated his own strength because he did not manage to do this as smoothly as he’d expected to. He heaved with her weight, nearly being pinned down underneath her, but somehow, he managed to drag her over to a nearby empty sofa. Evidently, he was not the strong, sturdy knight who could easily support a damsel in his arms like Tigris deserved, but he would have to do.

From his studies in anatomy, he knew the inert human body was a true burden to carry, but he was not expecting even her head to weigh as much as a ton of bricks when he tried to make her comfortable against some fluffed pillows on the edge of the seat.

Nervously, Cyril checked her pulse, taking her wrist against his ear and listening in carefully. He breathed a sigh of relief upon finding there was none to be heard. That meant his spell had worked, and he had not simply rendered his dear friend and future queen unconscious for no reason.

It was, as far as plans go, completely unhinged , but it was the best he could come up with on such short notice. He had the means, the resources.

Tigris Margrave would not be able to die from a human illness if she were not human. And it just so happened that Cyril had the perfect empty vessel following him around and eating his leftovers at his disposal.

With a flourish as though revealing a parlour trick, he lifted the white cotton sheet covering the cage and examined the animal within.

Oh. She looked quite angry.

“Okay…” he murmured to himself. “Alright.”

Slowly, he found the nucleus of the silencing pattern and plucked at its string, dismantling the entire spell. The result was immediately cacophonous.

Cyril had no idea cats could get this loud, but Tigris was really putting that Abyssinian throat to the test. She yowled and growled and hissed with reckless, indignant abandon, pawing furiously at the metal of the cage.

“Tig – Tigris, sh – Tig, Tig, please .” He put his hands up like a beggar, trying to soothe her enough to explain himself, but he was doing a very poor job of projecting confidence.

“Tantie will hear,” he tried. This only incensed her more. Cyril groaned and dropped to his knees so he was at eye level with the cat.

Slowly, he approached the cage. “Tig, I’m begging you to let me expl–”

Slash!

Tigris had managed to thread Shoestring’s skinny arm through the bars and figured out how to summon his claws. As though she’d practiced being a cat her entire life, she had swiped three ruby red lines clean across Cyril’s forehead.

That shut them both up for a moment.

Cyril reached up to touch the hot flow of blood that was beginning to sting under his hairline. She had cut him quite deep. For her part, Tigris eyed him horrified, and retreated into her enclosure.

He saw this and even as a red line cut across his left eye, he drew closer. “No! No, it’s – it’s fine!”

Because he made no attempt to stop the bleeding, it began to drip onto his clothes and the circle on the hardwood in a way that shouldn’t be so familiar to him. Cyril ignored this and prostrated himself before Tigris so far down he was now smearing blood on the floor as his forehead pressed against the cooling wood.

“I did not…” he said, quickly. “I was not joking, when I said what I said to you some weeks ago. Tigris, I am your humble servant. You may cut me however much you would like. I am desperate to keep you safe.”

He sat back up on his thighs and now there was a bright red splotch on his head, circularly diffused like a setting sun. He was trying not to concentrate on how much it hurt.

Tigris cringed at the sight and let out an afflicted mewl. His eyes widened.

“Ah, right. I had meant to do this right away. My sincerest apologies, Tig.” He reached out carefully with both hands for her. “May I?”

She hesitated but gave him a slight nod. Cyril threaded through both their patterns until he found the particular way he wished them linked. Suddenly, if she wished it, he could hear her thoughts.

“For fuck’s sake, Cyril, cover up that wound!”

Well. That was as good a place to start as any.

“Would… you like to be let out first?”

“You’re haemorrhaging on the floor!”

“Alright, alright. I was trying to be polite.”

He stood up (swaying ever so slightly) and found something within his claustrophobia of a living space to fasten over the cuts so the bleeding would stop. Then, he cleaned himself up as best as he could.

“There. All done.”

“You’ve turned me into a cat , Cyril,” she said.

“Well. Actually. Turning you into a cat would have been far easier. See, if I rearranged your pattern, I could transmutate your form into that of a cat, but what I’ve actually done–”

“Shut up! Get me out of here.”

Cyril did shut up, so quickly his lips disappeared into a line on his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

He opened the cage and stepped aside to give her space to stretch out and wander the room. Mercifully, she did not try to run away, though Cyril had a spell ready for that just in case.

“What have you done?” she said.

“See, that’s what I’ve been trying to–”

“Is it a prank? A hazing? Did someone put you up to this? Are you evil now? Do you not want me to marry? Are you secretly in love with me? Are you secretly in love with Atticus ?”

As Cyril heard her recite her laundry list of theories directly in his mind, his head began to hurt all over again. He tried to address at least some of her concerns.

“I am not evil and I am gay, now if you’ll let me–”

“Wait.” She looked down at herself. “What happened to Shoestring?”

“Shoestring is dead.”

That silenced her like a slap to the face. It gave him time to lower himself to the ground and sit, cross-legged, in front of her. He realised just how exhausted he was when his shoulders sagged as if under bags of wet sand.

She approached him quietly. “I… since when?”

“Over a month ago.”

“But… but that can’t be! I saw you two together! Just a few days ago.”

“That was nothing. That was…” He rubbed at his eyes as though he could scrape the weariness from them. “A ghost.”

Even with the memory of Shoestring trailing alongside him, nothing like his actual familiar, he had not been able to accept his death until now, until he had offered up his body to Tigris. He was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was still very sad over the loss.

Despite it having been decades and decades ago by now, he remembered the day Shoestring had come to him like it was imprinted in his mind.

It was actually within his first year of living in the palace. He was only a child, having just turned six, and the pressure of suddenly being a courtier was beginning to weigh on him. It was not as though he was not of noble blood, but there was a difference between being a lordling over a handful of small fields in the outskirts of Farsala and living in the palace, taking lessons alongside the prince and crown princess.

One day, bolstered by the stupidity of childhood, he decided to run away. He had done it quite properly, too, just like in picture books. He left a note ( “Dear Grand Mage Aunt Heléne, I have decided to quit magic and return home. I am sorry. Goodbye. Cyril” ) and tied a bindle to a stick, carrying only the essentials (a favourite toy, a loaf of bread and sleep clothes – he’d forgotten water), and set off into the woods he was barely familiar with, treading through that year’s particularly harsh winter’s snow that climbed halfway up his ankles. He wrapped himself in wools and thick cottons and donned very sturdy boots, but he could still feel the bite of frost against his nose and through his gloves to his fingertips.

There was no other choice, though. Aunt Heléne was too severe, and the court looked down on him. Tigris was kind, but boisterous. Intense to the point of frequently putting herself and others in danger for the sake of a thrill. Eufrates was… well, Eufrates was a mystery. The prince stared at Cyril endlessly, eyes boring into him like he was trying to make him combust with the power of thought alone. He did not say many words to him, but they were all curt and indecipherable. He seemed to hate it when Tigris brought Cyril along on their adventures, claiming he would easily get hurt. Cyril was convinced it was actually because he found him a nuisance at best and an interloper at worst.

He had not exactly been showered with love back in his hometown, but he missed its familiarity. He had no interest in being grand mage. He didn’t even have a familiar!

In any case, it was a story with a startlingly predictable end. Cyril had gotten lost in unknown territory, he’d eaten up his bread right away instead of rationing it and by the time the sun set, there were tears frosting over on his cheeks.

He tried to make his way back to the palace, but the woods were too thick and he couldn’t see the light of the windows that was the lead to getting him back home safe.

In the end, grim though it seemed in retrospect, Cyril, age six and a month, had well and truly resigned himself to his fate. He sat down on a bank of snow and tucked his knees into his chest, fighting to preserve at least some warmth. Though, he doubted he’d make it through the night.

That was when he heard the smallest, most strangled, most pathetic mewl imaginable, coming from under a tree to his left.

On shaky legs, he got up to investigate and found a browny-orange kitten curled around itself – very much like he was doing earlier – and shaking like a leaf.

Cyril wasn’t sure what he was looking at, not at first. But he had an inexorable feeling deep in his chest that, somehow, if he died here, the cat would die with him.

He unbuttoned his heavy coat, just enough to be able to tuck the animal inside it and closed it back up again, warming it up with his own heat. Upon realising this wouldn’t be enough, he remembered the very basics of his lessons with Aunt Heléne, stone-faced and inflexible, making him repeat himself over and over again until sweat beaded on his brow.

The first thing a mage tended to learn upon instruction was how to spark fire.

Cyril’s hands were frozen solid, even despite the gloves. He breathed and breathed and rubbed them against one another until he felt the painful sting of motility returning to his fingertips.

He strummed through the pattern in clumsy, defrosted motions, until finally a flame ignited on a pile of leaves he’d prepared. He kept the fire going through magic just long enough to make sure the snow wouldn’t put it out and dropped the spell with a heavy, huffing breath.

The flame endured – grew, even – and Cyril drew himself and the kitten nearer to it. It felt invigorating. It was the best warmth he’d ever experienced. The animal tucked against his chest gave an agreeable purr that Cyril somehow instantly understood as pride.

They were found very quickly, before dawn, because the entirety of the king’s guard had set off to search for him. One knight spotted him dozing curled completely into himself, next to the enduring flame that seemingly never spread but never went out. A ring of thawed, premature spring had formed around Cyril as he slept, and when told of this, Heléne said he was a marvel.

The king and queen were waiting for him, which surprised him no end. Rohan kneeled down to his level and ruffled his hair and Micaela let out a sigh of relief that almost sounded like a sob. Next to them was Heléne Laverre herself, who, for years after, Cyril thought had looked intensely cross with him, before the wisdom of adulthood made him realise the knot in her brow was actually guilt. She gave him a week off from lessons and the very first thing she taught him once that was over was how to project a shower of starlight within the confines of a room, a dazzling endeavour for a child.

The Margrave siblings were loath to be seen without him. They became a true trio, though Tigris was still quite rough and Eufrates was still as mysterious as ever. They had both hugged him tightly when he returned, though, and he noticed (but he did not think deeply into it) that Eufrates’s eyes were sleepless and red.

There wasn’t any question on whether or not he was allowed to keep the cat. It was his cat. His familiar. And, in a lazy, Shoestring-like way, he had saved him from a premature death.

Cyril named him Shoestring because, despite the wealth of toys he tried to spoil the stupid thing with, his favourite plaything was the laces on his boots. Also, he named him Shoestring because he was six years old and did not have a particularly brilliant mind for names. The cat slept in or around his bed from the day he found him in the woods to the day he died in that cottage.

In the end, Cyril had not gotten very far in his homebound expedition, but he had gotten exactly what he wanted, which was not to be alone.

It was almost comical how, even decades later, Cyril’s second attempt at suicidal ideation had happened for the self-same reason.

He was awakened from his reverie when a paw softly pressed against his thigh.

“I’m sorry, Cy.”

Cyril shook his head. “It is no matter.”

Tigris tilted her head to look at her own limp, lifeless human body laid out on the sofa, and he could practically see her stomach turn. He had never actually witnessed Shoestring cough up a hairball, but perhaps there was a first time for everything.

“Why on earth have you done this to me?” she croaked.

“It is a rather long story.”

“I’m sure cats have nothing but time.”

He regarded her for a moment before he finally steeled himself and told her everything he could recall. Starting with the most ridiculous thing.

“I am not actually the Cyril you know. I lost count a while ago, but I must be approaching fifty.”

“Fifty what?”

“Fifty years old , Tig.”

She stared at him with those great, big, cat eyes, but said nothing. It was as good an indication as any that he was meant to continue.

“I am from a future in which nearly everything–” He paused. “ Everything has gone wrong. There is so much, I hardly know where to begin.”

“From the beginning, Cyril.”

The way she spoke to him was so preposterous in its imperiousness that he felt as though he was finally getting a glimpse of the queen she was meant to be. He flashed her a wry smile and made himself comfortable.

“The summer after your wedding, you fell terribly ill. We all thought it a passing sickness at first, a more severe symptom of a particularly bad heat wave. I might have guessed your death a thousand ways – which, for the record, I did not – but no one predicted Tigris Margrave would be felled by a simple pox .

“We suspected foul play, of course. Me, your brother, your husband, the guard. I can assure you we left no stone unturned in our investigation. There was no particular reason why you should die of disease , but in the end, we could find nothing. It was a natural death. An unfortunate tragedy. A normal, human illness.”

He saw her brow furrow then lift in slow realisation. Tigris did not get the credit she deserved. She may not have been the most intelligent , but she was impossibly clever.

Cyril merely nodded. “The physician never determined exactly what it was, but it was definitely not borne by wildlife. And I doubt even more that it would fester within a familiar’s body.”

He could feel she had questions, but all she said was, “So then what happened?”

Cyril sucked in air through his cheeks. Somehow, that had been the easy part. Tigris, who was nearly as devoted to her brother as he himself had been, was sure to find the rest of the story unbelievable.

“Naturally, Eufrates was crowned shortly after. He wasn’t… prepared for it. Not even when you were bedbound. I truly believe he was convinced you would bounce back stronger than ever any day then.”

Cyril held a deep contempt for his husband. Despised him, even. But he found he did not hate the man enough to rake him through the coals in front of his own sister, so that was all he said on that matter.

But ‘ unprepared’ was a gross understatement.

Eufrates Margrave had been terrified by sovereignty. Cyril had never seen him so brooding, so tense, so awkward . He thought he might have to hold his hand while they were putting the crown on his head, like a child being fed medicine. He would wake up nearly every morning hoping it had been a terrible dream.

The prince had never wanted power. He had received the exact same education as his sister, and at times he excelled at it, but he hadn’t taken it seriously . The idea of him inheriting anything but a plot of land (preferably by the sea) where he could retire to become a playwright or an author was completely ludicrous. He was the bard prince and Tigris was to be queen, and he would very proudly cheer her on or offer brotherly advice if she truly wanted it, and that was the end of that.

Often, in the first years of their marriage, he would corner Cyril in some alcove between meetings and, half joking-half serious, ask him to run away. There were plenty of councillors in his ear dying to take his place, let them fight for it. Eufrates was going to whisk his lover to the other side of the world with a handful of coin and stolen horses. Over time, his fantasies had grown quite elaborate. They would become traveling performers, busking for a wage. They would steal from the coffers, a small amount, just enough to live off modestly for the rest of their days. They would return to Cyril’s parents’ home, take over the land there. He would learn husbandry and Cyril could manage their accounts. They would become pirates on the high seas. They would tour the world, aimless, but in love.

Eufrates’s words were so nectarine that Cyril found himself falling for them each and every time, if only for a moment. But then he would look him in the eye and ask if he meant it, and every time, Eufrates shook his head and laughed. He was being silly. He was being indulgent.

Eufrates had been noble, once. Dutiful. Cyril would not rip that away from him.

“But you never did recover,” he continued on, though he was starting to feel a hoarseness in his throat. “I – we all saw the coffin to prove it. We all said our eulogies. And he had to be king. There was no one else.

“Honestly, he took it on the chin, at first. Tried his very best. And we were married shortly after.”

Tigris’s round eyes grew wide as saucers. “You what?”

He frowned. “Really? This is where you interrupt me? Over ballroom gossip?”

“I am happy for you, idiot!”

“Well. Don’t celebrate just yet.”

He sighed and steeled himself to keep going. This truly was the hard part.

“A while later, Tantie died – nothing as dramatic as you. She went peacefully, in her sleep. I think it was the grief, which seems awfully unfair. I was grieving.

“And just like that, I had her job. Imagine that. The pair of us, running a kingdom.” He did not mean for the words to taste quite so bitter on his tongue.

“Nobody really liked it, that we were married. The grand mage had too much sway in court. As you know, I’m not from a particularly noble family. There were more suitable options. I couldn’t even give him children, though – I am the greatest wizard of my time. I’m sure I could’ve figured something out if I got creative.” Cyril pursed his lips and swatted the idea away as though it were a fly. “Regardless. It never came up.

“He was never as aware of what was said about me – about us – among the courtiers and council, but I’m sure it reached him eventually. I think that’s what started it. We were too young. He became self-conscious. He wanted to prove himself.”

Tigris was watching him with the held breath of someone witnessing a chariot careening off a cliff. She looked as though she wanted to order him to stop talking and tell her another story, or fix the ending to this one so it wouldn’t be quite so dire. He wished she would.

“I think Eufrates grew… paranoid. He started putting together an inner council, only his most trusted advisors–”

“That sounds sensible,” she said immediately.

Cyril nodded. “I thought the same. I was in it, after all. I helped choose the members. Whatever he needed, I helped . But it wasn’t enough. It escalated. He began to see cutthroats in his own shadow. Foreign assassins posing as diplomats. He’d lock the doors and windows to our room at night. One time, I cut myself on the dagger he kept under his pillow.” He let out a strained laugh, as if remembering a fond mishap. “He mustered up the royal guard into something more. A proper army. His more loyal knights were training soldiers now. His old hunting mates became generals. He had me brew both poisons and antidotes, just in case. I wove a barrier around the palace. I surveyed the construction of the wall built around the capital. If I wanted light entertainment, I could watch a phalanx march right under our window. I should mention he hadn’t touched his lute in years by then.”

The atmosphere in his room, once festive, grew tense and heavy. He glanced briefly at the bottles of liquor lined up on his desk. Perhaps there might be some use for them tonight after all. He wondered if enchanted cats could drink.

“Anyway, while all this was happening, we still had frequent meetings with your widower Atticus. I didn’t speak to him much, but… Eufrates liked him, in the beginning. He was a guiding hand. Another young king of a small territory he could look up to. They spent quite a bit of time together.

“Which is why I was thoroughly perplexed when one day my husband confided in me his plans to invade Cretea.”

Cyril began speaking faster, not giving Tigris the chance to interrupt him.

“He didn’t call it that. No – o, he called it something else entirely. The annex . They were allies anyway, there was no reason the two countries shouldn’t be as one. He came to me with this like it was a logical solution to a problem we’d always had. And you know your brother. He has quite the way with words.

“He was convinced, he swore it on his life and mine, that if he didn’t make the first move, Atticus would. That King Wulfsbane would take advantage of his youth, his naiveté. I don’t even think he thought him an evil man. Just a sensible king who saw a good opportunity.

“The day after he proposed this plan to me , he pitched it to his war council – there was a war council now, by the way – and at that point no one would say no to the king.”

“You would.”

Cyril gave her a heartless, tired smile. “It was a clean takeover. Only took a few weeks. Minimal casualties, really. I think Atticus surrendered once he realised Eufrates wasn’t in any mood to take prisoners. The Cretian Annex happened twelve years into King Eufrates’s rule. So, you see, it was a gradual shift. The lobster doesn’t realise it’s in a pot until it’s soft and tender for dinner.

“I didn’t hear much about Atticus after his dethroning. I think he went into hiding, tried to rally up some kind of rebellion. Not that he was the first one. The first fool to try and start a revolution against Farsala’s handsome new despot was very publicly beheaded.”

“And you – you sat there and did nothing ?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not one of my strengths, but I’m still a trained healer. I administered the anaesthesia.”

Tigris stared at him for a long moment, slack-jawed, waiting for the punchline that wasn’t going to come while he raked a hand over his hair, still slick with fresh blood.

“I loved him,” he said.

“…Keep going.”

“Are you sure?” Cyril asked this as gently as soothing a babe.

“Yes, Cyril. I am sure.”

“Very well. You’ll be happy to know we’re almost at the end. Mostly because I left court just four years after the annex. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“What broke you?”

“Cowardice.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and repeated herself. “What broke you?”

Cyril let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I think… I–” By instinct, his fingers reached up to grip at his chest, where the ring hung. “He didn’t love me anymore.”

She was looking at him like something disgusting at the bottom of her shoe. He thought if she tried to scratch him again, he would gladly allow it.

“Anyway,” he sighed. “Believe it or not, after the annex was when things really started going south. Before, all of this was politicking, with little to no effect on the common man, but then… well, rumour spread that King Eufrates somehow cursed the land. He was a bad king, the gods or the fates or nature or… something was coming to collect divine retribution. It’s a shame it was at the cost of his people. Crops withered, plagues spread, cattle died. The landscape became so dull and grey you could barely grow a weed without it shrivelling away to nothing. I went to Farol – did Atticus ever take you there? It’s beautiful for honeymoons. A must-see if you’re in Cretea – which is a seaside town, so it took a while for the rot – that’s what the locals started calling it – to spread, but it did. It reached everywhere your brother ruled. It even changed the seasons. One long winter, all year round. Red clouds in the horizon. Like a bad dream.”

He had been trying to avoid remembering those bleak, bygone days that by now seemed a nightmare away. Recounting them like this opened up fresh wounds and seemed to drain him of vitality. He was sure that if he could spell his way into looking through Tigris’s eyes, he would see himself as he was again, back bent, head down, old, withering, waiting to die.

“It got so bad the sky went dark. The whole sky. I was rationing candles like they were ingots of gold. And the food? Well, when there was any it was awful. You should raise the kitchen’s wages when you’re queen, by the way. They’re the backbone of this entire palace.”

“I’m not taking queenship advice from you.”

Cyril raised his hands up in surrender. His tone and mannerisms had been light, defusing, but he instantly sobered up upon hearing the acid in Tigris’s voice.

“That’s… very fair. I am sorrier than I can ever be. I am here because I want to fix it.”

“ How are you here in the first place?”

“Ah! Yes, well. There’s the end of the story so far, isn’t it? After Shoestring died – don’t worry about that. It’s mage business – I realised I wasn’t long for this world either.

“So I devised a bit of a… last resort. A spell so powerful it required the loss of life to rightfully balance. Took me the whole month to look into it, too. It’s not like there’s a surplus of mages willing to dabble into human sacrifice, but I’d taken most of my books and notes with me when I… left, so I was able to scrape something together.

“It was a coin flip. I didn’t think it would truly work. More likely I was to die in Farol in a pool of my own blood surrounded by the scribblings of a desperate madman. But evidently some higher power took pity on me, because here I am.

“I am back, over twenty years in the past, and I had the chance to make things right.”

“ Had the chance?”

She was too clever, really.

“Well… my first plan failed.”

Tigris said nothing, which meant he had no other out but to elaborate.

“I was going to kill him.” He quickened his speech again so there could be no interruptions. “I was remarkably bad at it, but I did try.”

“You tried to kill my brother!?”

“If you had seen what he’d become–”

“What did you become?”

She might as well have punched him in the gut. His throat felt dry and sandy.

“I know… I know . But I told you, I’m trying to–”

“Why couldn’t you kill him?” She sounded hopeful, which is when he realised that he’d omitted the most important part.

“I know what you want to hear. It’s because we are married, but not in the way you think. When we were wed, I… well. This is embarrassing, now that I’ve got to explain it out loud…”

“Cyril.”

“Yes, alright. I wove a spell into the pattern between us. A powerful one, too. Vague though the wording was. The vows you say during the ceremony? I made sure they stuck .” He pulled the threaded ring from his shirt to show her. “I put it all on this. We would share our burdens, we would never be apart, in sickness and in health, in… this life or the next.”

Cyril spoke slowly now, as he let the words sink in. She would figure it out on her own without coddling, and he watched with no relish whatsoever as she did.

As an aside, he had never seen a cat go through the full range of human emotion before.

“He’s here too.”

“Indeed.”