Chương 208: Chapter 229: Busting Bruce

Bruce looked concerned, and that expression was very out of place on his sarcastic, ironic face.

"You don't seem like you're all right," he said, setting down his screwdriver. Even mixed with orange juice my affinity can detect alcohol. If I've invested this much into my sorcery I need to get the benefits whenever I can, right? Even if it's just knowing when my cousin is getting an early start.

"Yesterday was harder than I expected," I admitted, sitting across from him. I pulled out the brass coin and started it spinning. The candles in here were at half-light, and Bruce was wincing. So, this is a "hair of the dog" situation. I nodded to Petty, and then to the snooty valet who was bringing in the morning broadsheets. He gave me a terse nod, apparently I'm still not fully forgiven for making him break character while my life was falling apart.

I am just now realizing that I let myself take a lot of shit off of people that I shouldn't. This isn't just about Nathan, I probably give almost everyone more patience than I should. Why am I putting up with this much attitude off of a hired dogsbody just because I didn't let him distract me with his aspirational roleplaying while there were dead bodies being unearthed? Petunia's eyebrow climbed.

"You told us it would be an easy one."

"It was," I said, and I could hear myself whining.

"No danger, no extraordinary effort, no pain or fear. But there was one thing that I thought could no t fail, and it kinda failed. And that put me wrong-footed. But mostly, it's that there was basically nobody to talk with for thirteen hours. I have badly underestimated how much I crave company. It's bad enough that I have to mind by myself all night long, but that's eight hours when I can keep myself as busy as I like, and I can tend to my own dreams too.

But yesterday I just sat, and tried to fiddle with some paperwork, but mostly I just stayed quiet with my thoughts and tried not to disturb the guy's meditations." Bruce chuckled.

"You really get bored that easily? Need some jingling keys?"

"Not really the boredom that got me," I admitted.

"it was just lonely. I don't think I do well on my own anymore. For three years I was alone in a room about ninety-percent of my time, mostly just saw people when it was time for maids to clean my room, or lunch being delivered. I'd get visitors some days, once or twice a week." Petty nodded along, "Yeah, you must have pissed them off pretty bad. Two weeks under those conditions is considered a severe form of mental torture." Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Two weeks?" But I had to scoff a little.

"I wasn't tortured. That place was exceptionally comfortable. I had a butler. All the books I could need and a private chef."

"Were you alone for twenty-two or more hours a day?" Petty pressed.

"Yes."

"Were you confined in those conditions?"

"Yeah?"

"And could not leave if you wanted to?"

"I had a bell-pull. I could call a servant in, most hours."

"And they would socialize with you?" Well now I don't have anything to say about that, actually.

"I wasn't tortured," I repeat.

"I was pampered. I just don't like being alone now." Bruce broke open his soft-boiled egg.

"I think Cousin Natalie would know if she had been tortured, Petty. Leave her be. In any case, you're among friends and family once more, and unlike your swain from yesterday, I don't intend to shut up. Now, your dispatch agency has given us back some interesting reports."

"You get reports on me?" He waggled a hand, and then tapped a few papers that were spread out near him.

"Well, remember that Petty and I are designated to run day-to-day affairs for the family in the capitol. And while neither of us asked for a breakdown of your activities, the office you picked has a very meticulous view of record keeping and sends itemized invoices. And starting yesterday afternoon, you've given them a lot to do. You've opened up a crystal appreciation society? A protective syndicate for manufacturers of coach-whips? A lobbying committee for the advancement of sorcerers? A hydrangea club?

A charitable organization to distribute day-old bakery leftovers to beggars and orphans? Two real-estate speculators, four bank accounts that don't go anywhere, an insurance company and a single post-office box. Are you funneling a lot of fees through the city works department for some kind of elaborate prank?"

"Most of those are a lot cheaper than you'd think," I said.

"I looked up the forms and filled everything out myself instead of using a preparer, it's a big difference." Petty looked at me over her teacup.

"That must have taken days."

"It took nights," I said.

"I like having stuff to work on at night." Her teacup clacked gently down on the saucer.

"I don't really understand about your sleep. You've mentioned it but I don't actually understand." I tucked in my elbows as the cook's maid came alongside my chair to serve me a nice little breakfast salad. Eggs, hard-boiled then chilled, sliced over cubed hard cheese and fine-minced leftover ham, all over a bed of spinach, arugula and grated carrot. I dolloped on some ranch dressing and thanked the girl before she curtsied away. I turned back to Petty.

"Keeping it very simple then. You've an idea how my sorcery works-" I demonstrated by lifting every plate on the table up by a couple of inches and then set back down.

"And, I have senses that work much the same way, I can 'feel' substances or materials or items even if I cannot see them. So, the vodka in Bruce's juice, each of the rubies in your necklace, the precise number of silver coins in the pockets of people near me. I, ah, try not to talk too much about that aspect, people often react badly if they find out how much I know."

"I should say so," Bruce said, goggling at me.

"Vodka, Bruce? At second bell?" Petty glared at him, setting her forearms on the table. She does not need to clench fists to make the threat clear.

"Only a little!" he protested.

"It's dangerous to stop drinking too suddenly. Anyway, Natalie? You were saying?" I laughed a little.

"So, oversimplifying for brevity, while I'm asleep my powers are still at work. My mind is dreaming and my body is resting, but the essential me of me is able to sense, spell, and study. I can manipulate books, write out pages, plan things, and catch up on schoolwork. I can even move my body a little but not well, and it doesn't look right."

"You have a roommate?" Petty pressed.

"She's a very deep sleeper." But also, even if she's asleep it helps me to have her there. I'm going to have trouble when I graduate school and have to get my own place. Unless I'm already committed to one love interest and I can just shack up with them. Or maybe one of the cousins wouldn't mind bunking in with me. I find myself getting a little nervous even contemplating sleeping for eight hours in a room by myself. My close brush with a return to prison has stirred up a lot of old fears, I think.

Bruce started polishing his glasses.

"So, with several hours to yourself, which you could be using to read the trashiest novels with no fear of being witnessed, you instead work all night to draft up corporations and charity funds that all seem to own each other in some bizarre webwork."

"Not how I would have put it. But exactly true as far as that goes," I allowed. Bruce looked up at me with Nathan's face, his glasses still held in his handkerchief.

"So, even after the magic senses, the telekinesis, the flight, the effortlessly perfect grooming, the ability to vanish at will and also level a city's worth of stone, you also get eight extra hours than us?" He sounded affronted. He looked affronted. I would have to infer from there that he was affronted. But Petty just looked concerned again, the mother-hen instincts kicking in.

"Sorry, do you say that you never really sleep?" She laced her fingers together, knuckles whitening.

"Like you're never actually unconscious?" She's only a couple years older than I am, but I think set off her protective instincts because I'm basically doll-sized next to her.

"Not in the way that other people sleep," I say. I need to hold some information back. These are the sort of clues that people can put together and come up with the wrong answers. Lich answers.

"Ah hah," she said.

"And if I told you that long-term sleep deprivation is one of the very worst forms of mental torture?" I speared a forkful of salad, and contemplated it.

"I would thank you for your concern," I said, "because I know it comes from a place of love and consideration. But, my mind does really sleep while I'm like that, just as much as my body does. It's the innermost me that stays awake, and that's very different."

"Is it though?"

"It really is," I promised her. I took my next bite and munched.

"And, just for my information, how long has that been going on?" She knew that I understood she is still worried about me. She's not just staying informed, she's still worried. I know it, she knows I know it, et cetera. But playing along is the heart of getting along.

"Six years in this fashion," I said.

"But I believe that before then I may have been doing something somewhat similar but not retaining full memory of it in the same way."

"Okay, I need to leave that alone," she said. I think she was on the verge of getting rather upset.

"But you haven't had a single night's sleep in over six years?"

"No!" I said, oddly defensive now. Her tone was rubbing me the wrong way. A combination of concern and accusation.

"I've had seven or eight nights that I slept normally!" All of those were occasions I was so tired that I fell asleep before I could dislodge the soul from its seat. She looked at Bruce for support. Bruce was looking at his empty screwdriver like a man betrayed. Petty looked back at me.

"Have you... considered it? Maybe if you tried that you could feel better about a lot of things?" I stared down at my salad. The spinach looked fine, it was my appetite that was wilting.

"Cousin Petunia. I have recently taken actions that put me on notice of every assassin in this duchy. Duskare, the House of assassins, is in the same faction as the Freckentops and royals. I live in a building that never locks its doors, where nobody knows all the staff by sight. The Academy's grounds do not have enough security to keep the grad students from sneaking out for a pint, and I'm not permitted to hire additional guards.

I've survived three attempts on my life on school grounds, and several more during camogie games. Multiple girls have disappeared from my dorm building and been found dead later. If I can keep a part of me awake to guard the door, I'm not going to experiment with getting an extra-good night's sleep. With my luck, the only time I really tune out and go entirely unconscious is the next time someone tries to kill me. I cannot stress enough how coincidences like that keep happening.

It's always, always when I let my guard down."

"That's how letting your guard down works," Bruce pointed out.

"Not helping, Bruce," I chided.

"I'm fine Petty. Soon enough I'm going to be able to live off-campus and hire elite guards around the clock, and then I'll sleep like a baby when I'm not busy. And it'll be very comfortable but it won't make that big a difference." I could see Petunia reluctantly give up this argument. Bruce saw it and saw the need for a segue.

"All right, but this is bothering me. Why hydrangeas?" he asked, pushing the paper towards me.

"Oddly specific." And I felt myself brighten up.

"Oh, but hydrangeas are fascinating flowers to grow! First-" and like that I was off to the races. Bruce knows me well enough to poke at get me chattering about my hobbies, and I'm happy to let him lead us away from awkward conversations. Especially before either of them connects up that I could actually be handling the day-to-day affairs of Harigold's capitol presence, even with all my schooling.

I'm quite capable of taking all the paperwork and questions every night before curfew and reply to it all overnight, posting it out the next morning. There was never really a need for me to delegate the management of this endeavor to them. They would probably understand if I just told them that I wanted to keep them involved even if I'm making my ambitious surge for power. But it's different to tell them that they are trusted and wanted, or tell them they are trusted and wanted and needed. People like to be needed.

Hydrangeas only carried the conversation until the end of breakfast, and we switched topics a few times as we put on our topcloaks and hats and called up the carriage. After all, making time to share myself with my cousins means moving at their pace, not enforcing the strict efficiency that I normally travel with. A driver arrived and Petunia stepped up to give directions while I allowed myself an opportunity to brood over yesterday's events again.

What if I got to the fire temple after years of waiting, and the core of the essence of fire told me that I'm not ready? That I haven't earned my way? What if yesterday's rejection wasn't a one-off, but that any essence I'm stalled on is stalled for a reason? While they were all distracted, I walked over to the horse and tried to commune through the shared affinity. Forty percent is not bad, it's not nothing, but it's just not up to my standards. And it is enough to make a connection.

From me to this animal and to the essence that it embodies. I laid a hand on the carriage-puller's forelock and leaned in close.

"You know I don't hate you, right?" I muttered.

"All that other stuff was just misunderstandings." It looked at me from the corner of its eye, but it was just a horse.

"Come on, Natalie. Your reputation is for eccentricity, not whatever this is," Bruce called to me. I hustled to get into the carriage with them, and pulled the door shut. The driver pulled a lever and the runningboard folded up, and with a suggestion on the reins he started the horse ambling forward.

"You were talking to the horse?" Petty said, eyebrow up. I smiled brightly at her.

"I was talking to that which the horse represents." Since there is absolutely no way to respond to that, they changed the subject. Sometimes my best method for avoiding difficult questions is just to answer a little bit. Most people outside of sorcery have little capacity to understand what it is, they treat essences and affinities like it's a sigil or a formula and not, quite simply, exactly what it sounds like. Petty leaned in on Bruce, her shadow pressed on him like it had weight.

"You're going to behave yourself today, right Bruce?"

"Indubitably!"

"And not like 'that counts as behaving for Bruce', right? No antagonizing people, even if you're sure it won't escalate. No needling, taunting, jabs, backhanded compliments or insinuations."

"Cousin Petunia!" he said, with almost-real outrage.

"Next you'll demand that I suspend all sarcasm for this outing!" Her mouth tugged a smile at one side.

"I'm holding that in reserve so I can escalate the first time you slip up and ridicule someone."

"From my cousin! My dear Aunt Wanna's only daughter! I swear, my own mother would not confine me so!"

"Your own mother has been so jaded to your jibes for ten years that she's given up hopes of curtailing you," Petty quipped back. Not normally her style, but with some people (such as Bruce) you really do have to speak their own language (busting his balls) to get your message across (don't embarrass me today). Since he was dismayed and aghast I had to speak up and get my own kicks in.

"If Petty gives the word, I'll make all of your shoes one size smaller."

"You can't do that!" he protested, outraged. Then he paused a second as he considered that, concluded internally that I'm exactly the person who would not hesitate, and instead took refuge in hope.

"You couldn't do that," he corrected, this time insisting that it was outside of my capabilities. Petty shot me a look and that look came loaded with a question. She was clearly curious to know if this was outside of my capabilities. I nodded back to her.

"I wouldn't even need to set foot in the house." She seemed satisfied by that. She turned back on our cousin, and he looked miserable as she continued.

"Now then. No talk about barbaric blood sports. No talk about how sport forms diminish the honor or the dishonor of the deadly blah blah blah. Enjoy it, let other people enjoy it, and if your opinions become troublesome take them out to the hallway." Bruce looked chastised, I think maybe I had heart-eyes. I have never seen this side of Petty before. I have rarely witnessed a dressing-down like that in this life. Usually if anyone's getting taken down like that, I'm the one delivering.

I think maybe a few months of wrangling extended family and their personal affairs throughout the city has changed her somewhat. Until now, I've not really asked myself how they and Thumper would get along, but I think that she and Petty at least might really hit it off.