Chapter 24

THAT EVENING

B y half-six, they were back in Griffin's cottage, and Charlus had disappeared, back to do mysterious things in Trellech. Annice wasn't sure what to do with herself. She didn't want to go back to a dark, quiet house - with not much around to eat. But she didn't want to intrude.

Before she could excuse herself, Griffin was leaning on the table, one hand on it. "Do you want to stay for supper? There are things to heat, or if you didn't mind going out for something, that would be fine, too." He wiggled a hand. "I did like the fish and chips."

"Sure." Annice swallowed, because that had sounded grudging. "If you don't mind."

"Not at all." He rummaged in his satchel, pulling out some coins and handing them over. "If I'm not out in the sitting room when you get back, I'll just be a minute. I'm going to wash up a bit. You're welcome to do the same, now or after."

"When I bring the food." It wasn't exactly drizzling out there, but since they'd found Bobs and the cart, it had been threatening to, and that would make everything gritty. Annice could go fetch food. She knew how to do that. She might not know a lot else, besides that and finding and carving jet. Annice closed the door behind her.

When she came back twenty minutes later - there hadn't been much of a wait, nor people wanting to gossip with her - there was no one in the sitting room. "I'm back?" Her voice hitched on the second word, and she was sure it made her sound awful.

"Wash up, if you like. I'll be out in a min." Griffin's voice came out remarkably clearly from another room. Probably his bedroom. She went into the loo to find his own kit neatly laid out. Apparently he was the sort of person to use a charm rather than a razor for shaving, because she didn't see one. But there was also soap and a handful of ointments and lotions and such. Of course, she didn't touch anything, but it was right there, and there was that burst of memory of living with Grandad. It wasn't just the masculine scent of the soap, but also the darker colours for whatever bits and bobs he had. And the tidy leather case for it all, the comb and brush made of some dark wood.

He still hadn't appeared when she came out, drying off her hands on her skirt. She set herself to work putting the food out before hesitating. Then she decided to be brave. "Beer to drink or tea?" She pitched her own voice less successfully, but instead of a comment back, she heard him come out. Just one cane, and she didn't know what to make of that. He'd changed into different clothing. Trousers, different trousers, and a smoking jacket, a dark blue lined in a muted dark golden yellow, that should have seemed garish and didn't.

"Beer for me, thank you. Though if you don't mind getting it, that would be grand. But whatever you like for yourself." Griffin made his way steadily but a bit slowly, more slowly than earlier in the day, over to the sofa, sitting down on it. "And sit where you like, of course."

The other easy chair, the one she'd used last time, was across the room. Pulling it over seemed like a lot of fuss, so instead she gathered up two bottles of beer before coming over to sit on the other end of the sofa. Annice glanced over at him, and he took one bottle, opening it with a charm, and then held out his hand for the other one.

"You use magic differently than I do." It came out of her mouth before she could think better of it, and then she could feel herself blushing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Oh, that's not rude. I hear a lot of rude, these days, and I can tell the difference, down to a fine art. Oh, this is just the thing, yes." There was an entirely honest pleasure in his voice, in his distraction at the food, that made her turn to watch him. Annice had expected someone like him to be confusing, and he certainly was, but she'd expected him to hide what he wanted, and he wasn't. Not now, about a decidedly working class batch of fish and chips. Not about hunting in the hut, earlier, and he'd lit up like a lamp on the beach, figuring out the jet.

"People are rude to you?" That was a thing that confused her. Griffin seemed not entirely refusing to talk about it. She could start there.

"My legs. The way some people think, it's terribly rude of me not to be consistent. Sometimes the chair, sometimes the crutches, sometimes the cane. Though mostly not just the cane or canes in public, they take me more concentration. But around the house, it's easier sometimes. Or just a change." He shrugged. "And then many people want to know what happened, like it has some simple answer."

She opened her mouth to ask, because he hadn't explained it, before she closed it. Then she reached for her plate, where she'd dumped out the chips, because if she was eating one, she wouldn't be saying something awful.

Griffin chuckled enough to make her look up. "You're not asking, and that's lovely of you. If you want to know, I'll tell you. I don't tell most people. I didn't tell Charlus until this trip, actually."

"That's just more confusing," Annice said. "I mean, you work with him."

"I told him the parts that applied to the work. That I need the chair or crutches or whatever handy, where they live when I'm in my office, that I can't be the one to run upstairs. There is a lift in the building, but it's not terribly reliable, and going up and down is hard. Worse, when it's busy, because as you've seen, I'm definitely not fast."

That made her half-smile. "Very determined, though." She focused on her food again, looking away.

His voice got quieter, not quite like whispering a secret, but not in the clear way he usually spoke. "Usually, I just say it was the War. Which it was, but the Healers aren't entirely sure what happened. Some combination of an explosion, the local magic, my magic, my sensitivity to the land magic, even if we were in France. Anyway, my head and my feet don't always talk to each other reliably. Or my leg goes weak. Usually not both at once, not these days, but I can take a bad tumble if I'm not careful. And that's definitely worse on the stairs. And with a chance of taking me out of doing anything on my own. I broke my wrist once, and that was the worst. I couldn't write, even reading was hard, and I couldn't go anywhere without the chair and someone to push it, because I couldn't trust my legs with only one cane."

Annice risked a glance at him to find him watching her. She swallowed, thinking through what to say. "You seem like you've sorted out what works."

That got her a sudden smile, something glowing like amber or sparkling in the depths like the few opals she'd seen up close. "Enough. I have many good things in my life, some I'm still sorting out. But that's like everyone, isn't it?"

Annice felt like she was far more about failing to sort anything out, but there were the good moments. There was making jewellery, talking with Ruth, even today's outing, which had felt good even if it had been only partially successful. "I, um." She swallowed. "I envy you that. The good parts. The— you know things I don't."

"It's not just you. I know things a lot of people don't. And I don't know things other people do." Griffin took a few bites of his fish, the batter crumbling off into the chips as he did. "You know things I don't. The jet, for one."

"Finding the talisman, though." Annice fumbled through trying to find words for it. "I've heard about that, but never seen anyone do that."

"Do you want to learn? I could teach you in an hour or so." Annice's chin came up immediately; she'd never really considered that might be an option. Finding the jet, searching the beaches for it, could take hours, normally. A charm like that would change everything.

Only, it wouldn't really now. Not with the demand for jet dropping more every year. Twenty years ago, forty, it would have set up a family for life. Now, it would just torture her with what she didn't have. Family. Stability. An idea of what her future looked like. But magic didn't actually fix much of anything, maybe.

If all of that showed on her face, Griffin didn't comment on it. He cleared his throat after a brief silence. "Though I suppose we ought to figure out how we're spending our time, and you coming to Trellech." He seemed distracted by that. "Charlus was arranging for a room at the inn. They're used to all sorts of people there, working with the Ministry, if you're worried about it."

Now Annice was looking at her plate again. Without moving, though she could feel her hand twitch. "I've never stayed in one. Never been out of Whitby or nearby. Yorkshire, anyway."

"Ah." Griffin considered. "Would an explanation help? Or would you rather not have it from me?" He then leaned forward, taking a bite of his food again.

Before she could stop herself, it burst out of her. "Why do you keep just thinking I could learn it? I know jet. I can't see how to keep making a living with it, but I know it. I understand it. It's, it's." She lost the word for a moment, then found it again. "It's conchoidal fractures, that's what it's called. Straight lines don't make sense, and you think in straight lines. Mostly."

"Most people accuse solicitors and barristers of thinking in twists." Now he was laughing, and that was both confusing, and made her look at him again. He didn't quite have that same glow as earlier, but he was relaxed. He took another bite of his food, then considered. "You showed me your workshop. There are so many parts to it. I know from seeing that you can sequence things. You can decide when it is time to move to the next step. You can take safety precautions, and understand the ones that don't matter most of the time, but absolutely do sometimes." His shoulder shifted just a little. "And I was thinking about something else today."

Annice didn't know what to say to that, but she also didn't want him to stop talking. "Oh? About, about what? Your work?"

"About my meeting yesterday. That was with Lamont Morgan, who is head of the Courts, and also Lord for Trellech." Griffin almost seemed about to say something else. Then he went on. "We were talking about this project, of course, but he also said he'd been watching me because he was concerned that I was, mmm. Being conservative is probably more accurate, but he said cautious, with myself. With how far I reached." He coughed. "Pardon, I'm not good at talking about some of this, entirely not in practice."

"I— if you'd rather not, I don't mind." She did want to know. But here they were, back earlier in the evening, like making a spiral loop around a bit of jet, not quite coming back to where they started.

"I rather think I'd like to make a try with you. If you don't mind." Griffin's voice had gone softer again. "Lamont suggested - the way people we look up to do, really - that I had been overly cautious. Not extending myself, because of my injuries and recovery. That there were concerns about whether I would be quick enough to act as needed."

"That's unfair!" It came bursting out of her. "Judging like that."

"That is, in fact, what we do. Make judgments, discern what needs doing and how it is best done. I don't blame him for that." Griffin hesitated, his voice a little uneven, but he went on as Annice twisted to look at him better. "There's a particular thing he's thinking about. But I have been thinking about it since yesterday. Rather late last night, actually, the sort of staring up at the ceiling thinking."

"And you think he's right?"

"I think he's not wrong about how it's perceived by others. And." Griffin leaned forward slightly. "I got on to thinking about you a bit. You have a space you know, one you understand, one where you are very skilled. But as you've said, you don't know where you go from here. You could keep on as you are, for a little, but probably not all your life, not unless there's some new grand fashion for jet and less superstition."

"Or I marry someone who can carry the public face of it." Annice felt herself grimacing. "I don't want that."

"Don't want marriage, or don't want to hide your skills?" Griffin held up his fingers. "They're two distinct problems."

"Don't want to pretend my skills aren't mine. That feels wrong to me. Lying, repeatedly, and every time, it chips away a bit more of me until there won't be anything left." Then she shrugged, looking down at an angle at the table. The fish and chips, the remains of them, would not react to what she said. "The only offers of marriage I've had the past decade are about being someone's nursemaid, or taking on someone who can't make good in anything else. Marrying someone who did their part, that's one thing. Taking on all that burden, and then lying? No."

When she managed to glance at him again, he'd done that thing with his head, cocked a little to the side, as if he were listening to something. Griffin gave it a moment, that caution that she could see now he'd named it. "If, when you were in Trellech, I introduced you to a couple of people who do similar kinds of work, carving stones, working with jewellery, would you be interested? You know some skills already, I'm fairly sure you could learn the others. There are some programs for training fees and such."

She blinked. "Why would you even do that?" Then, suddenly, she stood. "Thank you for supper and thank you for helping today. I just realised something I have to do. Um. Later. Tomorrow. Something." She heard him almost say something, the pitch of it before a word. Then she was rummaging for her cloak, not sure what she was doing, but sure she couldn't keep being there.