Chapter 6

Sharp Remarks & Remarkable Sharpe

he panel on dystopias was packed, though despite the crowd, anyone in a chair or other aid that put them below standing eye-height found themselves not ignored but quickly moved to the front by their fellow attendees. The new knockerfae volunteers had gotten everyone perfectly mic’d, and so the conversation could flow without technical issues; the moderator—a transwoman friend of Sokeenun’s named Dot—was doing her job very well, asking questions and not otherwise participating except to nudge people back on topic as needed.

It quickly became clear that despite all of this, one of the panelists was determined to make problems. It started with simply dominating all the other panelists—Aix heard someone call out, ‘let her speak!’ from the back of the crowd when he interrupted Sokeenun for the third time. But it didn’t stop there, and when he made a veiled remark about how the present-day society was dystopian for ‘changing the definition of woman’, Eveline not only stood up (a threat in and of itself, she was six and a half feet tall and wearing heels), but walked down the aisle and right up to the edge of the front row, and stared him down.

Everything was quiet for a moment, tense.

‘Go on,’ she said, smiling like a knife. ‘Finish your sentence, teppista. Say it to my face.’

Aix locked his chair and stood up too, heart racing and tense, but glaring, leaning on his cane. ‘And mine, too,’ he said, his voice low and not trembling as much as he felt, as he bored a hole into the man with his eyes.

One by one, every trans person in the room stood up, including all of the other castrati in the back:

‘And mine!’

‘Mine too, you bully!’ one of the kids in front said.

And then everyone else that could stand did, standing in solidarity.

‘Say it with your whole chest!’ Keisha called from the back.

‘Booooo!’ Pippin called, her Flash red and her Mask in a big frown, hands cupped over her mouth. It was the most damning thing a clown could think to say to anybody on a stage of any kind, and she’d figured out a ‘panel’ was a kind of stage instantly.

‘Boooooo!’ the other half dozen clowns in the room joined in.

‘Go home!’ someone yelled.

‘I was invited here!’ the man shot back.

‘Well it looks like you’re un-invited!’ one of the knockerfae shot back instantly.

‘No hate allowed at IthalaCon!’ someone yelled.

‘No hate allowed!’ the kids started to chant with each other, ‘No hate allowed!’

When he looked demandingly at the moderator and the other panelists, Sokeenun—knowing Dot was a little too shy for her own good, lifted her mic—everyone instantly fell quiet to let her speak.

‘You did break IthalaCon’s cardinal rule. The consequences for that are that you have to leave—isn’t that right, Miss Greene?’ she asked Dot.

‘Yes,’ Dot said, ‘yes, that’s true. Please go, Mr Richards.’

As soon as he’d left, the room erupted in cheers, before settling down again. Eveline caught Dot’s eye and bowed to her, before going back to her seat. Pippin crawled back up to Aix’s lap when he sat back down, and he held her tight, Pippin snuggling close and purring. It was hard for him to pay attention after that, he was shaking a little. He wished he wasn’t in the front row. That made it so much harder to leave, or be in distress, or cry….

Beside him, someone else sitting on the seat of her rollator—he didn’t know her, she was an older white lady—pulled a hand away from her crochet and put a hand on his back.

‘You’re doin great, kiddo,’ she whispered, and didn’t take her hand away the entire rest of the panel, rubbing every so often while Aix hid his face in Pippin. When it was over, Aix felt a lot of the tension ease. He wasn’t trapped anymore, he was free to talk, and move, and there was no spotlight searching around for someone to punish if they did those things.

‘Thanks,’ he said to the lady, who patted his back gently, and started crocheting again.

‘Good to see the family standing up for one another,’ she said. ‘I remember my first time. I was so sick afterwards at my girlfriend’s apartment! But that doesn’t matter in the moment, he didn’t know that. You looked very frightening,’ she said admiringly. ‘Hello, darling!’ she said, as Eveline came over to Aix, crouching down to kiss him on both cheeks—through their masks it was more of the gesture of gratitude it was meant to be rather than personal affection (though it was both). She hugged Pippin too, who beeped happily.

‘Hello, signora.’

‘Loomed better than a Nightwatch on Halloween,’ she said, and Eveline laughed her pretty laugh.

‘Is that a saying, in America?’ she asked, and Aix knew all of his new coven played up the Charming Foreigner act with strangers by now. ‘I must go see my sister, but I am proud of you, Aix.’ She had heard his heart, of course, and how it had raced enough to indicate an anxiety attack; she wanted to be sure he knew his effort was recognised. ‘Remember you have medicine.’

Oh right, Aix thought, as she went up to the table, he did have medicine. He dug in his purse, finding the little bottle and putting one of the quick-dissolving anxiolytics under his tongue. Pippin patted his arm with approving little noises and a sagely nod, and Aix tried to focus on something else.

‘I’m Aix,’ he said to the crocheting lady, presently.

‘Chaz,’ she said.

‘I love that name,’ Aix said. ‘What are you working on?’

‘Hat?’ Pippin said, leaning over Aix’s arm, her little Ears lifting excitedly. Chaz chuckled, showing them a half-finished square.

‘No, no, just some granny squares while I use up my scraps.’

‘Hat? Hat peas?’ Pippin said, turning on the Big Baby Eyes and the Tiny Pleading Voice.

‘Oho, I see how it is!’ Chaz laughed, ‘you want a hat.’

‘I’m—she has an auntie who crochets for her,’ Aix said, trying not to apologise or stop Pippin, because they had an agreement that Pippin was allowed to do her customary Act, which was Be Cute and Get Gifts. She was a regular little grifter, that way.

‘Well, she’s so little; and anyway, it’s been a few years since I’ve had anybody her size asking me for things. And her a zanni! That’s going to make you popular, in this town.’

‘Oh?’ Aix said. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Dorabaga; she’s a legendary little clown that used to live in old Boston.’

‘Me!’ Pippin said, turning her Mask green and orange, and giggling. Chaz paused.

‘No…’ she said, smiling at the little clown. ‘Is it really?’

Pippin nodded. ‘…Hat?’ she said, hopefully.

Chaz laughed at her single-mindedness, finishing the granny square and opening her bag of yarn. ‘Come on then, Dorabaga, come see my yarn and pick what you like.’

Aix chatted with Chaz for a while, proud of himself for remaining politely evasive about how he’d come to be with Pippin, and people started coming up to him—knockerfolk, most of whom he also knew; wereanimals, he recognised here and there. It was so strange to see them again, but he was glad, and it made him realise he missed Baltimore—that it had become home.

But he’d barely been there, and hadn’t been able to really settle in and start work—not for lack of wanting to. He wasn’t very tired, and he’d just eaten, so the seemingly-endless stream of people coming up to talk to him, introduce themselves, and chat was all right with him. There weren’t any more panels tonight that he needed to go to, and he had nowhere to really be until tomorrow morning. There was a freedom in that, especially in knowing that he had someone in his corner—someone who was used to defending people much, much harder to defend; people like career politicians and millionaires.

He realised that he really just wanted to talk to her; but it was well past business hours. Well, he could try texting; people texted in formal situations all the time, nowadays, as weird and rudely informal as it still felt to Aix. After the latest conversation partner had left, Aix texted Ms Sharpe:

Hello. I was wondering if you wanted to see me now, or wait until tomorrow? ~Aix

To his surprise, the answer was immediate—his phone started ringing. Pressing down the urge to answer it immediately, he looked at Pippin. You come outside and see me after you’re done picking yarn, okay?

Yeye, detu Duckie.

Aix wheeled out into the hallway, going over to an empty corner and answering. ‘Hello.’

‘I’m glad you messaged me; where in the hotel are you?’

Aix told her the meeting room and was about to tell her the floor but she cut him off with an ‘I can find you, just stay there.’ And hung up. Sensitive as Aix was, it stung; but he tried to reason with himself that it was just setting up a meeting, and maybe she was trying to minimise contact that could be breached by the cops. That was probably it, he decided, thinking back on all the stories he’d watched that involved phone call lengths as evidence.

He hoped they got along. He wondered what she looked like—probably she was white, and dressed in suits and had full femme hair and makeup all the time, with probably good-quality anti-aging plastics, because she was a courtroom lawyer and had to present an appearance that commanded power and respect, which was very hard in such a bigoted environment as law enforcement, and hinged on her adhering to beauty standards if she was a woman. He wondered what that looked like, nowadays—his last frame of reference was the 90s.

He wasn’t the only person out in the hallway—there were little groups of people talking, and one lady sitting in one of the chairs directly across from the door to the meeting room, knitting. Still, when Sharpe got to the wide hallway and started for him, it was unmistakeable. Her hair was up in a bun, iron black shot through with white streaks at her temples, and under her cream overcoat, her suit was navy; to Aix’s delighted surprise, she was using a cane—a very sharp cane, black with a brass handle.

Aix waved, unlocking his brakes but staying where he was. ‘Hello,’ he said, when she got close enough.

‘Can we talk in your room?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, we can, let me grab—oh, good girl, Pippin, coming out to me right away. Thank you,’ he said, as Pippin trotted out of the meeting room by herself, pausing to look at Sharpe. ‘This is Ms Sharpe, she’s our lawyer friend.’

Pippin’s little Ears perked up, but in clowns that meant they were having very harlequin-like thoughts, as did the red her black lips were turning. Pippin wasn’t sure about this lady.

Hey. Be nice. She’s here to help us from the cops. That’s her job, she has to look like that so the cops think she’s scary and powerful, like Nightwatches do.

The red disappeared immediately, and Pippin smiled, Ears relaxing as she smiled at Sharpe. ‘En!’ She threw up her arms.

‘She’s asking for a hug, she knows a cane means you get to decide how the hug works,’ Aix said to Sharpe.

‘I’ve never met a clown before,’ Sharpe said, ‘you’re very cute, aren’t you?’ she said to Pippin. ‘You may hug my leg if you want, and then we must get going. Are you tired?’ she asked Aix.

‘No, I have a nocturnal schedule these days,’ Aix said, wondering how much she knew.

‘Yes, everyone I spoke to indicated as much; it’s something I like quite a bit, I’m a night-owl myself.’

‘I’m not very fast with this chair yet, I say that because you were doing the City Walk, and I won’t keep up if you do.’

‘Can you have someone push you, or would you rather not?’ Sharpe asked, as Pippin came back over to Aix.

‘I could, actually; Pippin,’ Aix said. ‘Can you get Felice to come push me?’

‘Fissielissie! Fissielissie! Yay!’ Pippin said, jumping up and down excitedly a few times before running back into the meeting room crowd.

‘I’ve watched a lot of videos of clowns; but she talks a lot more than any of the ones I saw,’ Sharpe observed.

‘She’s quite old,’ Aix said, ‘and grew up very habituated to people. Older clowns are much more chatty.’

‘Who is Felice?’

Aix gestured to the blue-haired figure coming up to them, Pippin cradled in his hands. ‘Felice, Ms Sharpe. Ms Sharpe, this is Felice, he’s one of my students in the craft. Will you push me, Lissie, dear?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He put Pippin in Aix’s lap first, and pulled the handle from its hidden place in the back of the chair. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Back up to my room,’ Aix said, and they started to wind their way around the crowd. Aix liked Felice, he had understood immediately not to go to fast or whip Aix around corners too much. He was, also, one of the shorter fellows, and that made pushing Aix easier on him, too. ‘Did you enjoy the panel?’ he asked Felice, knowing Felice would naturally ask Ms Sharpe what she was doing here, and who she was, and everything; and he suspected Ms Sharpe would not wish to talk about that openly.

‘I enjoyed it, I suppose—well, I enjoyed your Aunt. She had insight, and I was just conversing with her. A very dry wit, proper for an Aunt I think. Barbed. Venomous, even.’

Aix chuckled. ‘That’s why I like her.’

‘And all with such lilting tones. But I am interested now in those books she mentioned; Aloysius will write them down, he always does.’

The elevator opened, and Sharpe held it while Felice pushed Aix across to it. A few other people had been waiting, and two headed for the same elevator, a straight couple that seemed older than Aix but not old enough to be his parents, abled and thin and white.

‘Can we squeeze in?’ the man asked, as Felice was turning Aix around in the elevator car to face the doors.

‘No,’ Sharpe said, and hit the door close button. Aix managed to hold his laughter until the doors were fully closed, and then cackled in delight.

‘I like you,’ he declared. ‘You’re not afraid to be a bitch to the ableds. I like that in a person.’

Sharpe cracked a smile. ‘They can be trained to do most things.’

Aix laughed harder, at that.

‘May I ask now what is going on?’ Felice asked, quietly.

‘It’s privileged information, and better if you don’t know.’

‘I’m not a senator,’ Aix said; surely this was the kind of discretion only for celebrity? He wasn’t one. Besides, Felice didn’t exist, legally. Like all immortals, he dealt in cash only, and Swiss bank accounts for things that could not be cash—all vampires in a household shared the same account, it was very communal (and, Aix couldn’t help but notice, being that this had happened to him during his marriage, and had happened while he was on SSI, meant that you had no privacy in financial matters, and no way to leave without facing destitution; he’d already pointed this out, and was surprised when Phrixus immediately conferred with the others about it, and with René. Aix had no idea what had come of it, as yet).

‘You’re far more irreplaceable than a mere senator,’ Sharpe said, with a wry tone, as the doors opened. ‘Which way is your room?’

‘This way,’ Felice said, pushing Aix down the hall. ‘Are you in danger, Maestro Stregone?’ he asked of Aix.

‘Not if Ms Sharpe can help it,’ Aix said. ‘She’s the best there is.’

‘Thank you for your confidence,’ Sharpe said, as Felice paused by Aix’s door and Aix gave him the keycard to open the door with.

‘Can I at least tell him what you do? He’s my family,’ Aix said, wheeling himself into the room and to the little spot he’d designated as the chair’s parking space. When the door had closed, Sharpe looked around the room, and checked a lamp—for a bug, Aix immediately realised.

‘If we were bugged, Felice would know,’ Aix said, locking his brakes and getting up to go sit on his bed, Pippin jumping off his lap onto Sokeenun’s bed with the fluid alacrity of a cat. ‘Wouldn’t you, Felice?’

‘The Baltimore cops are more corrupt than I’ve ever seen, and I work in DC,’ Sharpe said, eyeing Felice. ‘Why would you know? You a security expert?’

‘He’s a vampire,’ Aix said, ‘they can hear electricity.’ He wondered if anyone had told her yet. He had no patience for not telling someone that was going to lawyer for him.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘It’s lucky you aren’t interested in government, as a group.’

‘We have our own to fret about,’ Felice said, privy to many of Aix’s questions, and how they had no answers. ‘You might ask our witch about that,’ he added, Aix’s presence making him feel daring. ‘I think I will shower,’ he said, and went into the next room, locking the door behind him.

‘I take it Erastos already told you about the Mummery,’ Aix said, as Sharpe went to sit in the desk chair and Aix powered off his cell phone, giving it to Pippin. ‘You wanna do something silly, Pippin?’

She perked up. ‘Ye!’

‘Go put my phone in the fridge.’

She giggled riotously at this, climbing off the bed and going to the minifridge, putting the phone inside. She went over to Sharpe next, reaching up her hands and flexing her fingers in the ‘I want’ gesture, and babbling a string of syllables, ending with ‘—peaspeas.’

Aix giggled, and was pleased when Sharpe very solemnly gave Pippin her phone. While she was putting it in the fridge, Gogo came out of the bathroom, curious. His tail was up, only starting to wag back and forth in surprise at the tip when he saw Sharpe.

‘Hello,’ she said, warmly enough that Aix knew she had cats. ‘Am I allowed to pet this handsome creature?’

‘Yes,’ Aix said, to both her and Gogo, who trotted up to her and sniffed her offered hand. ‘His name is All Seventy-Two Demons In Ars Goetia, or Gogo for short.’

Sharpe chuckled.

‘…We should probably talk about my case, huh?’ Aix said, nervously. ‘How much trouble am I in?’

‘None,’ Sharpe said, skritching Gogo.

‘Not even for skipping town?’

‘You left before you were accused of anything, and you haven’t been officially accused of anything. Don’t let the police convince you to act guilty, they’re very good at that; but ultimately have no evidence against you, and know that bringing charges would look extremely bad for them. The facts are that a disabled man was abducted from a public place and threatened with a firearm by a woman with a rap sheet as long as my arm across several cities. You didn’t fire the gun, in fact there’s no body and no witnesses. All they have is some blood and shells. If anything, we can counter-sue for causing you distress, but I don’t recommend that.’

‘Yeah no, I just want this to be over and I want to be able to go home and not fear the cops breaking in and killing me or Pippin.’

That gave Sharpe some pause—and forced her to realise she had never had a client like this, someone who lived in terror but wasn’t guilty of anything but the audacity to be alive. This wasn’t damage control, this was… well, justice. For once, she wasn’t using her skills to bend justice into shapes it wasn’t supposed to take. Most of her clients were worried about reputation or career—her current client had just spoken of fearing for his life. Surrounded by powerful people that were literally monsters, he still lived in fear of being murdered by law enforcement for existing.

Sharpe had been a criminal lawyer a long time, she’d gotten very good at the first rule of being one (‘Never Ever Judge The Client’); but hearing the actual terror in this kid’s voice, when he was the victim? It was sobering.

Corruption was hard to fight, that was the problem; and the police had closed ranks, even though Ana Heeren wasn’t and had never been a cop. Sharpe had asked various people about that—René, Frankie Gold, a few other locals Frankie introduced to her; and the only answer she’d gotten so far was that Ana and her mentor had made a name as the only people who could control the monsters, and as people that cooperated with the police; and that the monsters in Baltimore were particularly enmeshed with various things the cops resented not controlling fully: the sex trade, the black community, and the unions. The sex trade in particular had always been controlled very tightly by the vampires, had always been their domain. And well it might be—Baltimore itself had historically been known for its brothels. Until Heeren’s mentor had come to town, an elder vampire known as Diedrichs had kept an enormous amount of power in the city, power that he’d held as long as white men had been there, even through the outlawing of sex work.

‘There’s been a lot of history I’ve been catching up on,’ Sharpe said, ‘and many of the people I spoke to pointed me toward you, saying you have a gift for teaching history.’

‘Well you have to spark me with a question, but I’m happy to,’ Aix said.

‘A lot of the politics here are tied up in the Mummery—is that right?’

‘Sort of. Mummery refers to the way we hide in human society, and pretend to be human. From the very old word for acting. But yes, because of the Heeren and her mentor getting the police involved, now they think they have a right to meddle in our politics. This is exactly why the Mummery is in place.’

‘Do you have your own justice system?’

‘The closest thing we have to that is the system of Hunters and the Council. So… in Baltimore, it’s supposed to be me. Like until I die.’

Sharpe sat back, thinking on this for a while. ‘That is disturbing.’

‘I want a proper justice system, believe me. This whole thing about all the monsters getting along and trying to form a governing body? That’s new. That’s less than a hundred years old. The council is older than that, but it used to be all vampires; now it’s only half vampires, half everyone else. The vampires are the majority here, even though they’re not the only immortals, they’re the only immortal humans, with a stake or roots in human society.’

‘No, I mean—okay, yes, I agree with what you said. But it’s disturbing that the police are so intent on bringing you down, because of your position. You’re at risk of assassination.’

Aix paused. ‘…Going from being part of society’s untouchable population to being someone that can be assassinated is… I have so much whiplash. I bet you know how to deal though, right?’

Sharpe had to laugh at that, but covered her mouth. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I know you’re a historian and you’re right, historically—but it’s a lot rarer for politicians to get assassination attempts, these days.’

‘Ah,’ Aix said, trying not to feel stung by the laughter. ‘I don’t really live in the modern world, sorry.’

‘Well, it seems like the world beyond the veil is about as old-fashioned, so that makes sense for your context. It all sounds incredibly interesting so far, but maybe I’m burned out on current events, like everyone else.’

Aix shrugged. ‘I mean… people routinely encounter this cryptocosm and just disappear into it entirely as a result, I don’t blame you considering it. It’d be helpful to have some lawyers from a couple different places with democratic justice systems, so they could help make one for us. I’d sponsor you to the council, and I have a lot of pull. Mrs Gold would adore that, I bet; she’s been forefront of getting non-vampires onto the council, particularly werebeasts. Having one single werewolf when there’s fully a dozen kinds of werebeast, all with different cultures…’ Aix shook his head. ‘Ah, but you didn’t sign up for politics. Sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’ve been considering what it would mean to switch tracks for a while. I’m… well, I don’t use the term “burned out” lightly. My therapist has formally brought that up as a very real thing I’m starting to experience. I’m defence, and once you get one politician off, he recommends you to all his friends. It’s not like on television, defence isn’t the bad guy—but I fell into the section of it where I am.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Never defend a failson. Not even once.’

Aix laughed.

‘My concern is about just how secret I’d have to be. Would I have to completely cut off from the daylight world?’

Aix thought about it. ‘I don’t think so? You can’t mention stuff to outsiders, but René has always gone by that name and never explained it, and we have our own communications network that’s separate from the daylight internet. I think a lot of the time it’s about plausible deniability and not existing on paper—so, for example I didn’t have to change a lot about my habits, because I’m barely on the grid since I have been homeless until now. But for someone like you… I’m not sure how disruptive it would be. I have the authority to pick and choose people to tell stuff to outright, but I’m on the council and also being a Witch or Hunter means you’re supposed to know who is safe to tell or who needs to know. But you don’t talk about stuff on the phone, in texts, anywhere on the internet. You tell people things via the post or on safe phone lines—we have a copperline system all over the world, but it’s all landlines. You’ll find we deal in cash only. If you see a cheque, that’s an IOU not a banker’s cheque. Personally, I love it. I’m not a fan of the surveillance state.’

‘Understandable, considering,’ Sharpe said. ‘Going back to a seventies sort of technology sounds kind of relaxing.’

‘Yeah it’s great. The knockerfae are strong union people, I’m sure you could find somebody to clerk for you—or whatever that is called in the US. I’d…’ Aix realised what was going on, and took a deep breath, trying to centre himself. ‘Ms Sharpe, we need a justice system.’ He actually looked her in the eye. ‘Will you help us build one?’

Sharpe could have broken the drama—all the people she’d met here were die-hard theatre kids; but, then again, this world was legendary in scope—it had people that had lived through ages of sail, of steam, of times when death was around every corner, and the world was full of the unknown. They weren’t young enough to be jaded. And the people that weren’t immortal were historians by necessity—you had to be, when your average conversation partner could routinely mention things that happened centuries ago.

And fuck her if the way this kid was looking at her—looking at her when he hadn’t once met gazes until now—the way he gathered himself, and what he left in his wake…. There was such a loyalty around Aix that she’d been expecting a slick socialite, a—frankly, a politician. But no.

Sharpe remembered her grandfather; he’d been a lawyer too, the sort of old man that was spry until the end, that held the family together, that knew what everyone was before they did. He’d been the one to teach Sharpe that it wasn’t politicians that inspired the kind of mythic loyalty in stories—it was the storytellers, the wizened hermits, the wise witches. Those who held worlds in their eyes, that wove the tapestry of language with beautiful stories, that tended them, that made them grow. He had gone to war a second son, with an easy life promised when he returned; he had come home and passed the bar, become a fierce defender of those considered unworthy. He fought, tireless, in memory of the many he’d seen die—the working-class soldiers to whom he’d been officer, the prisoners, the hundreds of corpses, the dying and the doomed. Fiction was not in her family’s blood—but words were, and her grandfather had been adamant about what prevented evil in men.

‘All culture is in words, and man’s salvation is not in the words of these lawbooks, but in Wordsworth and Wilde, in Sullivan and Sondheim, in Tolkien and Terry Pratchett. It is in the worlds we make, not the one we know; in what we can imagine, in what beauty we paint upon the air. Lift up the wordsmiths, it is been given us to defend their words of creation with the words we memorise. They define culture, they make it and carry it in their words. We defend it with our words of Law—Law defends lives, Lore is what is worth living for.’

He’d written that in the flyleaf of the journal he gave every one of those of his descendants when they graduated high school. Sharpe’s family had largely been lawyers of one sort or another, though not all of them were criminal justice lawyers. But many were, because of her great-grandfather, because of the way he inspired people, lifted them up, made sure that no matter what path they chose, they learned to appreciate art, and humanity.

She saw that in Aix’s gaze, though it was young, and shaky; but there was a fire there, that had never stopped burning. In Sharpe’s life, she’d learned how to tell when someone had been through hell and back, when someone knew the way through it and wasn’t afraid of the flame anymore.

She had known she’d lost her way, that fear had been dragging her down a path for some years—the world was in shambles, she was only one person, she had to make a living, she had lost all of the people older than her, that had been there to guide her way; and her every previous step, every passing year of age, made it harder to turn back.

But, by God, this man made her want to try, again. It felt like she’d finally met someone who knew what he asked when he reached out his hand and said ‘follow me’. He knew what he was asking. He knew how hard the road would be. And the way he would lead was not out of selfishness, but hope. He was an artist of the old guard, a Bard. One of those wordsmiths her great-grandfather spoke of, who carried part of humanity’s heaving mass of Self.

‘Okay, Orpheus,’ Sharpe heard herself say, felt herself start to smile. ‘Lead the way.’

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