#I am endeared with ​his hand gestures and verbal instructions

[sunshineandlyrics]

📱 Another angle “I was just saying you could screenshot it and then zoom. Stick with me love”

FITFWT San Juan, 5 May 2024.

And another angle x

[cougarforcenty]

questions to fall...

a/n: how’s everybody’s noah situation? mine simply continues to spiral further + further. which is fine… it’s fine. more fic is the obvious solution. feedback is lovely.

summary: noah + close female friend are in love with one another but can’t deal with or confront that reality. the questions that are referenced in this fic can be found here.

word count: 3575

warnings: none

You glance at your phone for the umpteenth time. You realize you’re distracted right away and fix your eyes back onto the blank screen of your laptop.

But nothing is coming to you, your mind is ostensibly empty. Not a fragment of a thought of a morsel of a beginning of anything is being sparked.

You’ve got no ammo, no juice. You’re creatively and inspirationally depleted.

You mutter an obscenity under your breath as you cover your face with one hand and push the laptop away with the other.

You hear your front door open and don’t even look up in that direction because you already know who it is.

“Why must you let yourself in if you know I’m here?” You complain, still glaring at the laptop.

You’re in a real mood. You knew it before but you’re certain of it now as his presence descends upon your apartment. You always love to see him but often he’s a reminder more and more of things you haven’t come to terms with.

“You gave me a key so I would use it, did you not?” Noah asks rhetorically, kicking off his shoes and placing a takeout bag on the coffee table. He plops down on the sofa next to you.

You make a face at him.

“You’re a ball of sunshine tonight, huh?” he questions, studying you for a moment before his eyes flick over to the laptop screen.

You lower the screen on instinct, averting it from his eyes. He always does that and you’re always ready. He’s read your work. Hell, he’s SEEN your work but you’re so skittish about letting anyone read any of your scripts before they’re completely done and properly polished.

It’s pure instinct even with a blank page.

“Well, you can’t be cranky for too long because I brought you green curry and seaweed salad,” Noah explains as he reaches down and unbags the cartons of fragrant food.

It all smells delicious but you’re still preoccupied with how irritated you are that none of your prior ideas seem remotely good enough to attempt for your next script.

“I’m not hungry.”

Noah leans back as he pops a dumpling into his mouth. He eyes you silently while chewing.

“What?”

The word just slips out as this is the first time since he arrived that you’re actually looking at him. No matter how much time you spend together and how many years you’ve known him, sometimes his eyes on you still catch you off guard. It always surprises you when that happens, even still.

“What’s wrong?” he questions gently.

“Nothing.”

“Tell the truth.”

You sigh and lean your head back and squeeze your eyes shut for a second.

“I have no ideas, I’m tapped out.”

“I highly doubt that,” Noah counters, plucking another dumping from the carton with the chopsticks. He balances the carton on his lap as he extends the dumpling toward you, his other hand acting as a barrier underneath the hanging food.

You look at it and back at him.

“Open your mouth,” he instructs smoothly.

You relent.

“I’ve never once known you to have any shortage of ideas. Your mind is like the most expansive landscape that exists,” Noah responded. He reaches toward your coffee table to swap out cartons and starts devouring pad thai.

“All the ideas I had before seem dumb or derivative now.”

You set your laptop down and open up a pair of chopsticks and start picking out the carrots in the carton he’s holding.

“That doesn’t matter,” Noah assures you. “Your approach to the story is what makes it stylistically your own. Which also prevents it from being dumb.”

“One idea I was contemplating seems so trivial and ridiculous once I revisited it.”

“What is it?”

You watch him chew and don’t respond.

“You don’t want to tell me,” he continues with a small chuckle.

You’ve picked all you wanted out of his pad thai and settle for the seaweed salad he brought you.

“You know how writers are: neurotic and sensitive.”

You’re chewing when you notice his attention no longer predominately on his food.

“Is that mine?” Noah questions, casually gesturing to the oversized gray sweatshirt you’re wrapped in, your hands barely peeking out of the sleeves enough for you to hold the chopsticks properly.

His assessing eyes halt at where the bottom of the sweatshirt falls over your bare thighs.

“Yeah,” you shrug. “You don’t need to have clothing you refuse to properly wear anyways.”

“You know I like to be ventilated.”

On the tail of that response, you silently realize it is hard to reconcile things like this; him feeding you or you wearing his clothing. It was so seamlessly and easily apart of the intricate makeup of your dynamic.

When you really stop and think about it for too long you realize why people assume you two are together. You couldn’t actually blame how your circle of friends would roll their eyes when someone new had to clarify whether or not you two were a couple.

It hadn’t always been this way, you two juggling this blatant and palpable type of intimacy.

You had run in the same circles for some time and would have considered the other an acquaintance like many actors and photographers and models and writers and musicians who all know the same people, but about 18 months ago you two were at a party and randomly bonded over shared perspectives and quickly became damn near inseparable.

“Hey,” Noah interrupts your thoughts. “Where’d you go?”

“Hmm, nowhere.”

“You went to the idea,” Noah responds. “Tell me.”

You squint your eyes at him suspiciously.

“Believe me, it will help.”

You sigh.

“In the past couple of years, there’s this research that has been getting a lot of attention regarding how people fall in love and if it’s possible that a formulaic method actually exists that breeds a high likelihood of that specific outcome,” you explain as Noah listens intently.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it… the series of questions?” He inquires.

“Right. There’s a number of questions, at varying levels that both people answer and then they’re supposed to stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes,” you continue on. “Then poof, they’re in love or whatever.”

“You don’t believe that’s an effective way?” Noah questioned, clearly getting a read of your dismissiveness toward the general framework of the concept.

“Are you serious?” You can’t help but laugh. “No, it’s ridiculous. I was literally going to expound on all the flaws within that premise and the dysfunction that would likely result in these makeshift couples because of it.”

“But think about it, the very basis of it is transparency and understanding. There’s a level of disclosure that takes place. This makes people feel close and connected, it builds trust.”

“That happens in all relationships though, not just romantic ones.”

“At the core of it, everyone just wants to be understood and feel seen, the process of the questions helps to aid that at rapid speed. The prolonged eye contact takes away the verbal thoughtfulness of answering questions and deals with pure energy.”

“Of course your hopeless romantic ass would believe this works,” you lament rolling your eyes.

“And I am not at all surprised that your cynicism prevents you from seeing how it does.”

“I’m not a cynic,” you defend. “I’m a pragmatist. I see how messy and flawed and dysfunctional people are, we’re complicated beings. I think it takes more than some silly questions to truly cross the love plane.”

“Sometimes it’s not complicated at all. Sometimes it’s actually the simplest things that make people fall in love.”

There’s something visceral about the way he says it that makes you pause. Or maybe it’s the intention in his voice or the thoughtful expression on his face.

“Give me your phone,” you respond.

He retrieves it from his pant pocket without hesitation and hands it to you.

“I need to draft that as your next tweet, Aristotle,” you tease him as he snatches the phone back.

“You should have been a comedian.”

“I’m much too serious for that,” you respond good-naturedly.

It strikes you that this may be the first time you and he have discussed love in such frank terms. In a way that isn’t rooted in a conversation about one of his exes or yours. But as the immense blistering esoteric entity that it so often can be.

You suddenly recall the one time a mutual friend of yours had made a joke about Noah being in love with you, it was the first time you’d heard that but not the last.

You questioned why he would even think that. He said it was clear by the way Noah looks at you.

It’s not as if you haven’t noticed it, it’s just that he looked at everyone with a certain type of open affection and endearment.

“So let’s try it,” Noah says suddenly.

So completely in your own head, you have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Try what?”

“The love experiment,” he responds.

You laugh.

“What’s the matter? You seem pretty certain it’s illogical and won’t actually work,” Noah pointed out innocently. “What’s the harm then?”

“You’re being serious?”

Something about just the prospect of even attempting this with him gives you butterflies, despite your intrinsic doubts.

“Yup,” Noah responds as he starts pulling up the questions on his phone.

“Alright well, I need coping aides,” you lament as you place the food on the coffee table and get up to head to the kitchen.

You think you can feel his eyes on the back of your legs and ass as you walk away but you can’t be sure.

You return to the couch with a bottle of red wine and two wine glasses.

Tucking your legs underneath his massive billowing sweatshirt, you cradle your glass, hand him his and silently steel yourself for whatever this bit of bonding will reveal.

“I bet we’ve already discussed a number of these in roundabout ways in casual conversation,” you point out as you sip your wine.

“It’s a possibility,” Noah says. “Ready?”

You nod your head.

“Number one: if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?”

“You go first, I have to think,” you say.

“Easy,” Noah responds. “Osho.”

“What if he was in the midst of one of his self-dictated vows of silence? You’d be fucked.”

“It would be quite an experience either way. You?”

“Can I have two answers? One alive, one dead.”

“Sure.”

“Oprah.”

“Naturally,” Noah remarks as he sips his wine.

“Then anyone who was wrongfully convicted and executed on death row.”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, just absorbs your answer and nods.

“Wow.”

You pluck the phone from his hands and read the next question.

“Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?”

“Oh definitely, an accident.”

You’re taken aback by his response, it almost sends a chill down your spine.

“What do you mean, what kind of accident?”  

“Bungee jumping, scuba diving, scaling the side of a building, jumping out of a plane, something like that,” Noah says unemphatically.

Your anxiety is rising just hearing him talk about it so cavalierly.

“That daredevil shit isn’t worth your life, Noah. You need to just let that be.”

“Ah, things happen. I can go outside and get hit by a bus as well. That doesn’t mean I stay inside.”

Your hand covers your face momentarily as you shake your head.

“You stress me out.”

“I’ll try not to die anytime soon.”

“Don’t even joke like that,” you exclaim, your hand coming up to hit his shoulder.

“Answer,” he laughs at your reaction.

“I do not have a hunch,” you respond after a pause. “I don’t like to think about it.”

“Because it scares you?” Noah questions softly, his eyes piercing.

“Oh, we’re doing follow up questions as well?” You lament sarcastically.

“Yes.”

“Sure it scares me. Human beings have a hard time conceptualizing things we don’t have a true understanding of or reference for. But I also know that something will transpire similarly to being born that is incredibly beautiful and shifting. The part I don’t like to think about is the pain and fear leading up to the moment it finally happens. That’s what feels agonizing to contemplate. So how isn’t something I like to consider.”

The answer kind of emotionally winds you after you’re done supplying it.

Noah nods and then reaches his hand out and gently rubs your shoulder and touches the side of your face in wordless comfort. You hand the phone to him.

“If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?”

“Easy,” you exclaim. “I’d want to have the ability to speak and understand every language that exists.”

“Pfft, lofty,” Noah teases. “I’d just want to feel well rested every time I wake up, no matter what amount of sleep I’d actually gotten.”

“Hmm, that’s a good one.”

You take the phone back.

“Oh, this is a perfect one. For you specifically,” you lament as you began to read. “What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

He chuckles.

“Why for me specifically?”

“Because everyone loves you and you’re mighty affectionate,” you explain simply.

At that moment, as if on its own silent accord and in complete conjunction with the question, you notice that one of your bare legs is draped over his lap, with his hand grasping your ankle.

You honestly don’t even recall how it happened. The ease with which you two slipped into tactile intimacy was sometimes jarring and unintentional. Yet it happened so naturally that you wouldn’t even register it until the moment had passed.

So in truth, you couldn’t be shocked that 90% of your friends thought, at the very minimum, you two had slept together.  Even though you absolutely haven’t.

There was one night were you two crossed a line but it was a year ago and you’d rationalized it away.

You were both drunk and sometimes random things just happen.

A bunch of you had been at a party in the Palisades, celebrating the book release of a mutual friend. You noticed he had disappeared and when you went to retrieve him, you found him in a massive closet staring at his phone. You weren’t sure he even heard you when you said his name until he wordlessly grabbed your wrist and pressed you against the nearest shelf.

It was a blissful five minutes of mind-melting kissing and touching. He pretty much undid whatever pretenses you may have had within the space of that moment, to the point where you would have thrown caution to the wind completely.

But a tiny part of you wondered what caused it, what was the catalyst and if it was really even about YOU and him, to begin with, or whatever was on his phone.

So you stopped him and when he tried to bring it up the next day, you called it a mistake and shut him down.

In your mind, it’s just safer that way. There’s less messiness if you two keep your relationship platonic. If you get jealous, you don’t have a right to; you have to keep it to yourself.

There isn’t a danger of losing him completely if you two have a wretched breakup.

You need him too much to even chance that.

You also have a “no getting involved with any actors” rule. You’ve had it the moment you became a screenwriter. The talent and you don’t mix that way, or at least shouldn’t. Their roles were much more overt and public, yours more private. You felt secure within that logic.

“Everyone doesn’t love me,” Noah says, breaking through your thoughts as he downs his wine. “I’m quite obnoxious to some.”

“Hmm, the masses love you though,” you lament. “You’re a likable figure.”

“Well, thanks,” he says with that playful candor he so effortlessly displays on a whim.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“They play significant roles, without love and being able to express that love via affection, human beings, and the world by extension would feel quite dreary and rather fleeting.

“I agree.”

“You can’t take my answer.”

“I’d say they have significant roles in my life, but perhaps manifest differently. I think I’m maybe more verbal with my affection with certain people.”

“Really?”

“You seem doubtful.”

“Well, you do have a way with words. That’s obvious. But I wouldn’t say you’re overly generous with your verbal proclamations of affection.”

“Maybe not the way you are,” you counter.

“That sounds like a dig,” he observes, squeezing your ankle.

“Read the next question,” you say, changing the subject and handing him the phone. You finish off your wine and pour another glass.

“Tell your partner what you think about them, be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.”

“You go,” you insist. He’s not one to withhold compliments but you’re curious what he’ll say.

“What I think about you? Hmm,” he paused, silently studying you. Again, you feel warm under his gaze. Or maybe it’s the wine, it’s hard to tell and easier to blame it on the alcohol.

“Yes.”

“I think you’re probably the most complicated person I’ve ever known. You’re very caring and wildly smart. You’re so smart sometimes I wonder how you’re able to hold and effortlessly decipher through all the intellect you possess.”

“Aw, that’s very kind.”

He smiles lazily at you. There’s something about the way he assesses you openly that lets you know he isn’t done.

“You’re so fucking sexy.”

“Noah!” You feel your stomach clench.

“What?” he asked innocently. “The question specified complete honesty. I’m being serious. I don’t think you even realize how disarmingly sexy you are and it comes naturally. You don’t even do it on purpose which only magnifies it.”

You’re at a loss for words. You sip your wine quietly and avoid his gaze.

“I do declare,” he kidded with a laugh. “Have I left you speechless for the first time in my life?”

“Well I’m not gonna top that answer,” you admit. Acting as if you’re contemplating your own response rather than reeling from his. “You are immeasurably kind. Your kindness isn’t borne out of any ulterior motive. You are selfless in your kindness. You are the most gentle soul. You are also deeply thoughtful and talented.”

Noah smiles softly. He absentmindedly runs his hand from your ankle up to the back of your knee. You know he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but you feel every inch of his hand’s attention.

“Thanks,” he whispers. His gaze catches yours in a manner you aren’t prepared for.

“Stop it,” you insist, downing more wine. “This isn’t the staring part.”

He laughs.

“Do I get writing partner credit if you go with this idea?”

“No, this is simply an experiment.”

“Mhm.”

You grab the phone and read the next question.

“When is the last time you cried in front of another person? By yourself?”

“Oh geez, in front of another person? Probably like a week ago? By myself? Yesterday while watching a video on Instagram.”

“You cry very easily,” you admit. You’ve seen him cry a handful of times since you two became close.

“I do,” he admitted. “You?”

“Uh, last month probably when, I uh, when I went back home I had a bit of an intervention with my brother, about his uh… his addiction and I broke down.”

“Baby, I didn’t know,” Noah responds after a moment of silence. “You never told me that.”

You’d gotten on him about using that term of endearment with you in the past. You would remind him that you weren’t his girlfriend. But it sometimes would still slip out and after a while, you’d stop correcting him because you secretly enjoyed it.

“It’s fine. I don’t talk about it.”

He just nods his head gently, knows not to pry.

He silently takes the phone and sees you’ve finished the questions.

“Four minutes of eye contact?” he questions gently.

“That’s a lot,” you breathe as you set your wine glass down.

“You trying to opt out?”

“No, set the timer.”

He does and you settle in, telling yourself that you can get through it. Four minutes won’t last forever.

His gaze is comforting and warm the first minute. You will yourself to maintain it as you feel the air shift between you two.

He’s wordlessly communicating to you and you can’t avert the intention or the messaging; you can’t thwart the moment.

You feel emotions start to bubble up within you by the second minute's end.

“Fuck,” you murmur, trying to hold on as you feel yourself slipping deeper into whatever is transpiring.

Noah’s hand is on your thigh, against the edge of where the oversized sweatshirt has bunched up.

You don’t know what to say, you can’t manage words even if you wanted to.

His hand is on your neck and his face is suddenly so much closer.

“Tell me to stop,” he mutters.

But this is likely what can be referred to as a cosmic inevitability, and because of that, there is no recourse.

A moment later his lips capture yours and you have a fleeting thought of how you could ever think you’d successfully avoid such wonder.

[scifrey]

The Untold Tale - Chapter One

I am upstairs when I catch sight of the approaching cart and its cargo through the thick glass of my window. I assume the body in the back is a corpse, brought to me for study and then burial.  But no one handles a corpse with such care; the driver is directing the horse to travel slowly, avoiding each hole in the dirt road. They also do not stop to pick up a healer for a corpse. Yet Mother Mouth is in the back, hunched as best she is able over the blanket-wrapped body. 

They also do not stop to pick up a healer for a corpse; but there is Mother Mouth in the back, hunched as best she is able over the blanket-wrapped body. By the time I make it down the grand staircase to the foyer, three of my Men are lifting the body from the cart with careful concern. I gesture to the threshold, and they lower it onto my front step. As soon as they set the body down, I can see that my assumption that it still alive was correct.

It is a young woman. She is as wrapped in rough blankets as she can be with such extensive injuries to her back. The blankets are filthy and crusted with blood and other bodily fluids, which means it was probably the only protection against the chill spring morning that her rescuers could find.

Between the folds I can see what has been done to her. I contain my shudder of revulsion, but only barely. Possibly only because I’ve seen this before.

Bootknife has flayed her very prettily.

Artistic tendrils of bloody ivy are torn into the vellum of the young woman's flesh. Bootknife has written spells and agony into the muscle he's carved, into the wounds left by the strips he filleted from her. It's as detailed as any woodcarving for a stamp — some deep, some wide and shallow, some the merest scrape, only a layer or two of skin absent. Disgustingly beautiful. But it is not art.

It is torture.

She is unconscious. It is a blessing. I can't imagine how much the young woman must have been screaming before my Men had forced poppy milk down her throat. Well, yes, I suppose I can imagine it, I have seen quite enough of Bootknife's handiwork to envision her pain. What I mean is that I do not want to imagine it; can't bear the thought of the sounds that must have ripped her throat bloody.

I clench my hands into fists and jam them into the pockets of my house robe to keep from rushing forward and helping; a Chipping Master does not dirty his hands in labor. I hear the invective in my father's hateful voice in my head, and I take great pleasure in telling it to go drown itself.

All the same, I stay back. I would only be in the way.

Mother Mouth assesses the young woman's injuries, and when she is done together we ensure that there are no Words of Tracing carved into the victim's skin.

It would not do to give our enemies such advantageous leverage as to lead them straight to the Shadow Hand's home base. No matter that it appears to be no more than the manor of silly, crumpled Forsyth Turn, younger brother to the great hero Kintyre and a man quite stodgily attached to his library. Even the slightest slip would bring the Viceroy down on my Chipping, and I will not have the people under my care endangered.

I do not bother to ask why my Men were bringing the woman to me and not to the King; if the King had the security and ability to protect himself and those in his charge from the Viceroy, then he would never have secretly employed me as his Shadow Hand.

There is nowhere safer for the injured visitor to be spared from the renewed attentions of the Viceroy or Bootknife than Turn Hall. Not even Kingskeep.

Assessment done, they take the woman inside and up to a wing of my home that I have not entered in years. I catch the attention of my butler and order it opened specifically for this use.

It has been a long time since there has been a need for Lady's Chambers in Turn Hall. They have remained shut since my mother's death, even though it is the area of the house that is the most protected: by wards, architectural design and now, by the presence of my household guard. It has been even longer still since the need for a Lady's maid. My staff are nearly all men. This is not out of preference, but because there are no women in my household that required women servants, and it made sense to leave the town's supply of employable young misses for houses where they were more needed.

I am going to have to find a woman. Blast.

We linger in the hallway outside the room long enough for some servants to strip the dusty bed linens and replace them with fresh. Then I dismiss my Men to write up their debriefing reports, and I help Mother Mouth lay the young lady on the bed myself. The only way we figure she will be comfortable is belly-down, with her face propped to the side with a feather pillow.

With the young lady installed on the bed, I step back into a corner in order to remain out of the way. Mother Mouth takes a short breather – she is no longer young, her skin papery thin and scored with laughter lines, but still glowing with vitality - and all this rushing and lifting has winded her. Then she ties her silver-streaked hair back off her face and begins the careful work of spreading tinctures and ointments, mixing potions meant to neutralize spells and remove pain, and the gentle knife work of cutting away the meat that has rotted from neglect.

My staff moves around them both in an orchestrated dance, fetching in lamps and candles, water in an ewer; bringing in, using and then removing brooms and cleaning supplies; opening windows and laying a fire in the hearth. I do as I always do, what I am best at doing: I observe.

When Mother Mouth finally sits back, a smear of blood on her forehead where she had pushed a stray tendril of hair out of her face, I offer her a handkerchief. It is russet, the color that is associated with House Turn, my family. She takes it graciously, though she wrinkles her nose a little at the fineness of the fabric.

"We've had this discussion before," she says. "Good silk should be saved for dressing wounds, and rough cotton for wiping faces and noses."

"I agree, Mother," I allow, a smile sitting in the corner of my mouth and trying so very hard to stretch into the rest of it. "However, there are expectations at court, and when one's work relies on creating a good impression, the silk must be used for snot."

"And that's why I've no use for court, I don't mind telling you, my boy."

Mother Mouth rises and goes to the bag of medicines she had left on the bedside table. She pulls out phials and jars, each neatly labeled in her spiky hand. She is leaving behind tinctures and syrups to add to my young visitor's wine when she wakes in pain, bandages and ointments enough to cover the whole of the vicious patterns on her back several times over. She then promises to return in the morning to assess her healing.

"And send for me at once should she turn feverish or her wounds begin to fester and reek," she finishes.

"No stitches?" My memories of hearing Mother Mouth's instructions for care many times before brings my thoughts around to them. Mother Mouth has sewn each of my Men up at one point or another, myself included. There are none among the Shadow's Men who do not bare the gratefully earned signature of her needle.

"No," Mother Mouth agrees. "The slices that remain open are shallow. Where they are also narrow, there is no need. Where they are wide..." She shrugs. "I could not make the skin meet over the exposed muscle without tearing it. The rest of the deep cuts have begun to scar already. Better to cover it over with the salve and with Words and leave it to nature."

I nod, well used to this particular healer woman's pointed and honest instructions — she is the best within an hour's ride from my keep, and thus my preferred go-to physic. My men and I call her Mother Mouth because of her bluntness, her willingness to bully us verbally into obeying her commands, and always do so with a smile and to her face. She has another name, but has long since gamely resigned herself to this one.

"I will reapply both salve and spells personally when it is t-t-time," I promise.

"Oh now," Mother Mouth scolds playfully. "None of that. No need to be nervous, my boy. It's just a woman and a bit of blood."

"I'm not ne-nervous of her," I say.

She pats my arm. "Of course not. You're a good boy, Master Turn."

I pretend to bristle at the juvenile endearment, but it secretly pleases me. Mother Mouth has literally known me my entire life. She pulled both my elder brother and I from our mother. She set my broken arm as a boy when Kintyre dared me to climb an orchard tree to the top. She has put her hands into my brother's guts after his first run in with a goblin brigade, and held them in place until the Words of Healing could take hold. She closed my mother's eyes after the fever took the Lady Turn away. She called my father's corpse a silly shit while she cleaned it the day he drank himself into a tumble down the foyer staircase and into his own grave. She has more than earned a right to call me her good boy, should she so choose. And I always do my best to live up to it.

Mother Mouth packs her small case and takes her leave. When my staff has finished ferrying ewers of both hot and cool water, wine, a modest bowl of broth, fresh candles, towels, my mother's newly cleaned dressing robe, my mother's slippers, and my portable writing desk into the room, I dismiss them to their suppers.

One last young lady lingers at the door, and she must be freshly arrived for she does not wear a russet livery. I do not know her, and she seems eager to be of help, which is extremely encouraging. She is slim, her hands rough and calloused, giving her the appearance of one who looks like she works hard, and her apron is very starched. She resembles Cook – same rigidly marshaled brown hair, same firm lines around her eyes, very competent and very discreet. She waits silently in the threshold, obviously waiting for me to speak first.

"Hello," I say. "Yes?"

"Sir," she says and bobs a courtesy. "My mother sent for me, when she heard you had a lady guest, sir. Figured you'd want a girl in, sir."

"Very good of her to take the initiative. Well come and well stayed." I take a moment to go to my portable desk and scribble upon a fresh piece of paper. When the ink is dry, I fold up the note. "Your name, miss?" I ask.

"Neris, sir."

"Neris, you can read?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

"Excellent. Here." I hold out my hand. In it are a letter and a small sack of gold coins. She takes both.

"I would like you to return to your usual household with this and give both to your mistress. The envelope contains an apology letter to your employer, and enough coin to replace the wages she's already paid you this week. I would have you here until you are no longer needed at Turn Hall. And I will pay double whatever your current employer offers. Is that acceptable?"

She smiles, and there must be her father, for Cook's face has no such fetching dimples. "Oh, yes sir!"

"And you will move your things into the Hall come morning, won't you Neris?" I ask. "Ask your mother for a Turn-russet livery when you return."

"Of course, Master Turn," she says, dropping a courtesy, and vanishing in that lovely discreet way of lady's maids the world over. It's a vastly under-prized skill.

And then my new guest and I are alone.

My skin prickles at the thought of being trapped in a room with a person I know so very little about—I am not used to being the one on poor footing—and I go to the window to try to relieve the pressing sense of claustrophobia. It is silly; she is unconscious, and thanks to the poppy milk, will remain so for a good long while. I have nothing to fear from her.

Still. She is an unknown factor and I do not like those in the least.

There is a reason I'm the King's Shadow Hand. Who better for a spy master than the man who becomes physically agitated when he feels ignorant?

The sky outside of the windows has turned an ashy blue. Rain is on the horizon and the breeze is picking up accordingly. I open the sash just enough to allow in the fresh wet air, but not enough for raindrops when they finally start to fall. The puff of breeze against my chest, fluttering my shirt and Turn-russet robe, gives me a false sense of safety — I have an exit if I need one.

The breeze also flutters the heavy velvet drapes. Dust puffs out of the folds and onto the wooden floor. My mother was of House Sheil, and so much of the décor in her chambers is a deep, dark purple – the throw rugs, the comfortable upholstered chairs by the hearth, the bedding, all of it is patterned with curling designs of lilac and lavender and deepest indigo. It has been years, perhaps a whole decade, since my father had mother's chambers shut up. I suddenly realize how much I have missed purple.

The cloud cover is blocking so much of the sun that the room has become gloomy, and the details of the woman hard to catch. I make a second circuit for candles, which I light with a twig from the small fire in the hearth. Then I set the kettle that Cook had left on the mantelpiece onto the hook attached to the flume and wait for it to boil. A hot drink on a grey day is always a comfort, and the air in my mother's chambers is dry from being shut up for so long, so the steam will do us both some good.

Now to take care of this silly fear; I will observe the woman and decipher what I can of her, so that the anxiousness can finally dissipate long enough for me to get some paperwork done. I pull one of the chairs that stand before the fireplace over to the bedside, and settle into lush padding.

Then I look.

The first thing that registers is that the woman is in pain, despite the sleep brought on by the poppy milk. It is obvious by the creases in her forehead and the set of her jaw. Her hair is matted with sweat and other fluids that I do not wish to consider too closely. Perhaps I had dismissed Neris too hastily — my guest could certainly do with a wash, if only for her own comfort. But I am uncertain that it would not have caused her more agony, so perhaps it is best to wait until the young woman is awake and aware and able to help the maid.

Beyond that, I have no concept of who she is or where she may be from. Any clues that might have come from her clothing were lost when Bootknife cut them off of her. Her ears are pierced but there are no jewels from which to read her origins or history, no rings, no signets, no torques. How galling!

Her features resemble those of no family I know, which is impressive, as I have a very good head for faces. Her mouth is a small moue of pain, neither generous of plumpness nor waspish or thin. She has lines around the corners that indicate that she laughs heartily and frequently. Her cheeks are higher than I am used to, and smooth, and sprinkled with sun spots. Her skin is dusky in tone; it is quite similar to the color outdoor laborers from the Flung Isles to the south after a season's work, but not so reddish. Her skin is closer to the hue of well-cared-for honey wood, made even more yellow in tone against the Sheil-purple of the blankets around her. Her nose is short, adorable in a way that many women curse for being too childish looking. Her lashes are dark, and her eyes sweep upwards at the outer edges.

I can tell by the curve of her exposed back, where it swells into her hips at the bottom and to the sides of her breasts that she's never starved before, never seen a rough harvest or overlong winter.

In summary, she must be a well-off merchant's daughter, and quite possibly yet another merchant's wife. I would say a nobleman's, but she cannot be the child of any nobleman I know from court, legitimate or not.

She could be from another, distant kingdom beyond the borders of Hain, but I have met much nobility from Urland and Gadot, thought fewer from Brystall, , and she does not bear the trademarks of other houses that I know; her skin is either too light or too dark, her eyes too round or not round enough, her nose too snubbed or too high, her chin too round.

In short, the collection of her features does not come together to spell out her parentage.

Infuriating.

And fantastic. I am intrigued, instantly. How long as it been since I have been gifted with such a mystery? And that she was imprisoned by the Viceroy for so long without my knowing that he had kidnapped anyone…was holding anyone at all. It was an accident of circumstance that she was rescued, that I even know she exists. The Viceroy had been raiding magical archives and libraries the world over, and when I had put together the picture that the sorts of tomes he was stealing painted, I had ordered my Men to raid and retrieve. That they had also found her was sheer coincidence.

At least, I believe it is an accident. I cannot imagine any person would allow such agony to befall them for the sake of gaining my pity and entrance to my Hall. Spies usually do not bleed.

I cannot recall the last time something like this happened accidentally in my work, and my heart flutters against my ribs.

The entire situation is completely astounding. Magnetic. Incredible. And so impotently frustrating that I cannot know more, cannot have my curiosity slaked immediately. I wish she were awake to answer my many questions.

It is especially exasperating to admit that the only thing I can know for sure is that the Viceroy wanted something from her, and she refused to give it to him. I cannot guess what it might have been, for he has the power to take anything he wants — even her, had he so chosen. Mother Mouth had not said anything about signs of a violation, but perhaps she wanted to be delicate while my staff was in the room and she means to discuss it with me in the morning. The woman in my mother's bed is pretty enough; the Viceroy likes the pretty ones. I recall he has a sickeningly obsessive fascination with Sir Bevel, who is plain but has eyes such a dark blue that they are an anomaly. The Viceroy often threatens to pluck them out and have them rosined for a cloak brooch.

To resist the Viceroy for as long as this woman did, to keep her secrets for so many days that the pattern on her back had the time to grow so complex, must have taken real strength of spirit. As much as she must have been screaming, she had never told him what it was that he sought to learn.

I admire her greatly all of a sudden. There are very few who can keep secrets behind their teeth when Bootknife's art is in their flesh.

That makes her beautiful to me.

It does not matter how her features are arranged; her will is strong. And as it was Bootknife she was resisting, then I can hope that her morals are also true. I allow myself to follow the soft curve of her pain-paled cheek with my eyes, the delicate protrusion of the tendons in her neck, the place where her breast presses into the blankets and is hidden under her body. I am struck with a sudden swelling of attraction and I stomp it back viciously.

No. A woman as remarkable as this, unexpectedly arriving at Turn Hall? There is only one explanation — she is for Kintyre. Women like this are always for Kintyre.

The kettle over-boils. Water foams into the fire with an indignant hiss, bringing me back to gloomy reality, and I make myself a pot of tea. Then I settle back into my chair, my portable desk on my lap and an afternoon's worth of tedious paperwork stacked on its surface.

The only sounds that break the silence are the sputtering of the candles arrayed around the room, the slow tap of the rain just beginning to fall against the roof of the manor, and the pained, almost inaudible whimpers that my guest exhales with each labored breath.

I dip my quill into my ink pot, and add the scratch of a nib on parchment to the quiet symphony of pain. 

"Oh," the woman whispers, dry lips rasping against the silk pillow casing. "It's you."

I have fallen asleep in my chair, and the quiet murmur of her voice yanks me back to wakefulness so quickly that my portable desk clatters to the floor. Ink sprays across the wood and splashes over the Sheil-purple rug beside the bed, and I wince. Oh, mother's rug! It will take my staff a terrible amount of scrubbing to clean it.

There is nothing I can do about it at the moment, so I right the pot, step around the spreading puddle and toppled papers, and go to her side.

"Greetings," I say. "Water?" I'm not certain how I'll get the cup to her lips without spilling all over the pillow or forcing her to sit up, which will be a special new agony in and of itself.

She nods and presses upward on her hands, grimacing but holding herself there until I manage to tip the earthenware cup against her mouth. She sips slowly, grunting as her arms tremble. When the water is gone, she flops back down into the pillow and doesn't hold back the yelp that such an action causes. It makes the anger froth beneath the surface of my own skin, to realize that she has learnt how to move with such injuries in order to drink. That Bootknife must have made her learn.

And that I have been unable to spare her that pain in Turn Hall. I've failed my first task as her guardian already.

She shivers all over and my first instinct is to cover her snuggly with the blanket. But that would irritate her wounds, and allow fibers into the open ones, so instead I put the kettle back on the hook, stoke the fire back to life, and close the windows. Air that was fresh and crisp at sunset has become biting.

She watches it all with eyes that are a very normal, boring shade of muddy green, and yet which sparkle with keen observation. They are ever so slightly cat-like, turned up at the outside. I have never been on the receiving end of such an intent gaze before.

She watches the very same way that I watch.

I fidget until the kettle hisses, and then I pour the boiling water into the bowl my staff has left beside the ewer. I mix in the room temperature water until the heat is bearable and then sit on the side of the bed with the bowl and a cloth.

"May I?"

"Sure," she rasps. "This is so unreal."

"Your injuries are, in fact quite real, I'm a-afraid," I say.

She stares at me for a moment, and then turns her head back into the pillow, purposefully obscuring her expression. For a brief moment, it seems as if her eyes are wet.

"I know," she mutters into the muffling fabric. "It's insane, but I know."

I dip the cloth into the bowl and begin to bathe her back, careful to not over saturate it. It would not do for excess water to slip down her sides and soak into the bedding beneath her. It would make her very uncomfortable. The ointment has dried into a yellowish crust and must be wiped away carefully and reapplied. The warm water soothes her goose-pimpled skin, and she alternates between soft moans of gratitude and small hisses of pain caused by the wounds suddenly being exposed to the air or jarred.

"I've never seen you like this before," she grunts as I lean close to concentrate on cleaning around a fanciful curlicue carved into the sweet dimples right above where her back swells into her buttocks. The latter are covered with a blanket, to preserve her modesty, and I am careful not to jostle it.

"You've never met me before," I counter, without looking up, soaking in every syllable of her speech. Her words are queerly broad. "How can you say that you have never seen me like... Whatever it is that you mean by 'this'."

"That's also the longest sentence I've ever heard from you."

What a deliciously strange accent! So flat and lacking the jumps and dips that fill the speech of Hain Kingdom's people. I've never heard anything like it before, which both thrills and shocks me. Knowledge is my currency; so how can she hail from a place that I do not know? How can such a place exist, as every clue she gives up suggests?

I am careful to school my expression, to not appear too thrilled or eager.

"Of course," I agree. "As you've only heard six. Eight, if you count the last one, and this one."

She turns her face into the pillow and groans. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Again, 'this'," I say, because it's easier to look at her back and work on her wounds than look her in the face. I'm ashamed to be causing her pain. It feels like a stab in my own gut.

Useless old Forsyth, as usual. But Mother Mouth asked me to have her fetched in the morning, not in the middle of the night. So I will muddle through and try my best and hope that she does not chide me too much for the attempt at playing healer myself.

"Master Forsyth Turn, the King's Shadow Hand... boiling his own water and closing his own windows. Elgar Reed would be horrified."

I feel nauseous immediately.

Oh, no, no, how does she know? No one, save my Men and Mother Mouth are meant to know. The whole village thinks I am no more than the younger son left behind, the Master of Turnshire and the surroundings, and Lordling of the whole of the small but fertile Lysse Chipping; a man soft and slightly useless. That she knows, and speaks of it so casually...

A Shadow Hand must be secret above all else. The King will have me turned out — might even have me killed — for failing to maintain this secrecy. How can I function as Hain's spy-master if I am known?

"Oh," she says softly when my ministrations stop. "Oh, sorry. Shit. Sorry. I know, I know, it's not supposed to be talked about. I won't say anything else. I just meant, you know, you're the Master of Turn Hall. Shouldn't a maid be the one with the cloth? Shouldn't someone be here to open the windows and boil the kettle for you?"

"I am n-no lay-layabout. I am c-capable of do-do-doing it myself," I say, and I curse all the harder in my own head when hers cranes around on her neck, wincing as it stretches her wounds. She blinks at me like a stunned owl.

"Did you just stutter?"

"Of c-course n-n-n-not," I deny, but my words prove themselves liars. I bite my lower lip and scowl, fingers going so tight around the cloth that it creaks and water splashes down my arms, pooling uncomfortably into the bunches of fabric against the insides of my elbows. I hate that feeling.

"Oh my god, you stutter," she says, and her expression is a mixture of horror and amusement. "Reed never said anything about you stuttering."

"I do-do-do not stutter," I snap.

"Hey, no, it's cool," she says, rising up as if to turn to face me, but the motion makes everything in her back pull and she yelps again and flops back down to relieve the pain. "Fuck!" she screams into her pillow. She slams her fist against the mattress, clearly infuriated beyond coherence.

"S-stop," I say softly, setting aside the bowl and placing gentle hands on her right shoulder, the least cut up one.

She flinches away from my touch so dramatically that it looks more like a full body spasm.

"Don't touch me!" she screams.

I flinch myself, springing off the bed to give her the space she so clearly needs.

She goes still, save for her ragged breathing. One of the thin, deep cuts below her left shoulder blade seeps blood. A low coughing sound, muffled by the pillows, fills the air. I realize that she is sobbing.

Oh, Forsyth, you stupid man. You are useless at women.

"P-please s-stop crying." It sounds as stupid out loud as it did in my head, but I have no other way to convey my concern. Clearly my proximity is unwelcome.

I clench my fists and shove them into the pockets of my house robe, impotent in the face of her misery. Why is it that among spies and the dance of court politics I am assured and suave, but the moment I remove the mask of the Shadow Hand and become simple Forsyth Turn, I am such a useless, stuttering sack of skin? I hate it.

Eventually the tears wind down and she turns her face to me. Her muddy green eyes have become bright, even though the skin around them is red and swollen.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Why are you ap-ap-apologizing?"

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable about the stutter. I was just surprised. You never stutter when you've got the mask on."

I only stutter when I am upset or caught off guard. As a child I stuttered all the time, worse when my older brother teased. But I learnt, through sheer force of will, to suppress it. To think about each phrase as I want to say them, to hear it in my head, clear and whole, before letting my tongue taste the words. The Shadow Hand does not stutter because he is a personality I wear, a costume I conceived and I did not conceive him as a stutterer.

I lean down and pick up the bowl. The water has mixed with the ink on the rug, spreading the stain further. My paperwork is also a sodden mess. I will have to begin that report anew. Resentment flares at the thought of having to waste another evening in correspondence, but I cannot blame my guest. It was my own clumsiness that caused them to be on the floor. I should have picked them up right away. Stupid.

"I'm sorry about scaring you, too," she said. "I just... Don't like to be touched. Anymore. Don't surprise me."

"I understand. No woman enjoys my touch. I will fetch Neris, your maid," I say, and turn toward the door to do just that.

"Whoa, no, wait," she says, and I pause. I take a hesitant step back toward her and her hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around mine. I look down at our twined grip with dumb surprise. I can see her frustration at her inability to move. Warmth blooms against my sternum at the thought that she appears to want to touch me, to physically prevent me from departing. "I didn't say that. Why would you think that? I just meant that it freaks me out when people touch me and I don't know it's going to happen. I never said you have cooties. Stay. Please." I do not know how to answer. She looks up at me and adds: "You're the only one I know. I trust you. Please."

This is enough. I do not know how she seems to know me well enough to trust me, but she does. And I cannot betray her that trust. Even though I fear that it might be misplaced. I must do my best not to disappoint her.

"I will stay. I'll put the kettle on again, and finish your back," I say. She lets go, fingers brushing against the insides of my knuckles, and I clench my tongue between my teeth and memorize the ghosting sensation, trying not to let it get too far under my skin.

I can hear her shifting, trying to find a comfortable position. "God, do you have any painkillers?"

"I can send for poppy milk, but it will make you sleep again."

"That's fine," she says. "Sounds perfect, actually. Fuck, this hurts."

"That word again." I turn to face her, leaning back against the mantle as we both wait for the water in the kettle to reheat.

It is a good thing it is such a large kettle, or I would have had to send someone to refill it by now, and I believe that the young lady's pain is something she would like as few people to witness as possible. She said she trusts only me. Knows only me, though how she can know me at all is a mystery. Clearly she knows enough to know my deepest secret, and now my deepest shame, but how?

"Fuck?" she says.

"Yes. What does it mean? 'Fuck'?"

She giggles suddenly. "Oh my god, I can't believe I just heard you swear."

"It's an expletive?"

She giggles harder and I take it for an affirmative.

"And what about the rest of it?" I ask. "The things that you say you know and simply should not. Cannot."

She sobers immediately. She turns her head away and goes silent, her shoulders becoming rigid. She looks like she is preparing for a blow.

"Ah," I say. "This was what the Viceroy wanted. And what you would not share." She stiffens further at his name, but otherwise does not move. I walk across the floor to her side, purposefully clicking the wooden heels of my embroidered house slippers against the boards so as to prevent startling her. "I am going to lay a hand on your shoulder."

She nods once, and I do it, carefully, palm cupped on her whole right shoulder blade, fingers curved along her neck. She sighs into the touch and her tension eases.

"He doesn't know," she mumbles. "I didn't tell him."

"That I am the Shadow Hand?"

She nods.

"Is that the only thing he wanted to know?"

"No." Her voice is scratchy and low, so quiet and ashamed that I can barely make out her words. "But I didn't say anything. Not a thing, after the first day. He never even knew my name."

"That is something of which to be proud," I say softly, and I mean it. "Bootknife is not an easy man to defy. I've never seen such an elaborate carving as yours. You must have made him very angry."

"I did."

"Good girl."

She snorts. "Loosey."

Another strange word. "What's a loosey?"

"I am. It's my name. Ell-you-see-why Lucy Piper."

"You gift me with your name when all of Bootknife's attention could not wring it from you?" I ask, and the weight of what she has just done nearly sends me to the floor with shock. My knees shake and I have to put my other hand on the bed stand to remain upright.

"You'll protect it."

"I will," I vow. "I will, Lucy Piper." I take a moment to clear my throat and try to keep the tears that have sprung into my eyes from falling. What a great thing she has done. This conversation, her bravery, has left me flayed. Then I find the promised poppy milk that Madam Mouth left for her and help drip some onto her tongue. Lucy Pipers drowses.

When the kettle has boiled again, I resume cleaning her back.

Her eyes slip closed just as I have finished. I rinse out the cloth and spread it across what is left of her skin to keep her warm until I can move on to the ointment, and stand.

"Try to rest," I say, when the feel of the cloth startles her back to wakefulness.

"Thanks. Hey," she mutters sleepily, worn out by the pain, both the physical and emotional excursions. "You're not stuttering anymore."

"No," I agree. "I am not."

You can read the rest of the sneak preview over at Wattpad by clicking here, or check out the entire series here, and the rest of my books here.

Thanks for reading.