Gilded Latten Bones

She had been good but her uncles never approved.

She got all starry-eyed and lost in her imagination.

'Tinnie?'

'I'm sorry, Malsquando. This. . It's. . It's a lightning strike from a clear blue sky. He really said he wants me?'

'Like I told you, I think he used you to create the fairy queen. You wouldn't even have to act. You could just be you. As long as that you isn't the Tinnie that got everybody so mad. .'

She jumped up and down like she was Kyra's age. 'I know what you mean. I learned my lesson. I'm not that Tinnie anymore. Garrett, sweetheart, you know what this means?'

'It means you need to get together with the Remora and convince him that you aren't that Tinnie anymore.'

'No, dumbhead. It means that if I don't mess this up I can tell my uncles to go to hell. They can find somebody else to keep their damned books.'

Epiphany! Though she hid it well Tinnie didn't like her life much. 'They'd have to pay somebody.'

'Yeah!' She had been trying to be what they wanted her to be. I had suffered because she tried to make me into the man they thought she ought to have. 'If you're running some practical joke on me, Malsquando. .'

'He's been trying to get hold of you for days. You wouldn't let him.'

'I thought. . Never mind.' She bounced up and down again. And didn't turn sour when I suggested that she move into a better light so I could more fully appreciate the view.

I was, for the moment, content. We were rolling along just the way we ought. Only one teensy gnat in the ointment.

Old Bones and I needed to have a sit-down when he woke up. He needed to make his thinking clear. He was the serpent who could slither the deepest cesspits of the human mind. He could explain why he preferred Strafa Algarda to the woman who had been closest to me for an age.

Kyra galloped in. I was sure she would want to know who had been using the guest room bed. Instead, she said, 'Our coach is here.'

Tinnie said, 'It is way late. I need to get Uncle Oswald and Artifice home so they can be treated.'

I struggled into a sitting position. 'We all need sleep. Kyra, can you see if Dean needs any help? He's got to be half dead by now.'

She went. Tinnie asked, 'What about you?'

'I'll manage.'

'You need to rest, too. But somebody has to let Singe in when she gets back.'

'Dollar Dan can handle that.' The ratman was in Singe's office, staying out of the way.

'That sorceress will be here, too.'

'She might be,' I admitted.

Tinnie took a first step in changing the rest of her life. She let that go. She didn't ask questions. She didn't try to manipulate me by telling me how much she trusted me.

Old Bones had had some impact after all.

66

I didn't know when Singe and Strafa came back. They didn't bother to wake me up. I lay back down after Dollar Dan, the Tate women, and their coachmen hauled Uncle Oswald and Artifice away. I was asleep before Dollar Dan locked up behind them.

I slept on the floor. The Windwalker used my bed. Not only did I miss out on the temptation, I knew nothing about it till late next day. By then I was in a bad temper, fighting a terrible cold or incipient flu. I was surly with everybody. Singe had to be the pleasant face of the household to the rest of the world.

I hurt all over. And Old Bones was asleep. But Playmate was awake, ambulatory, trying to help Dean. He looked a lot better, though the plan had been to keep him unconscious several days more.

He had missed his doses of the stuff that had kept Morley down.

Dotes was seated on the end of the cot. He moved gingerly when he moved at all. It hurt him to talk today.

Him being upright brightened things a lot.

He said, 'I hope you feel better than you look.'

'I doubt it.' I climbed onto the other end of the cot, which creaked but held. I told him about my latest brush with the darkness.

Penny appeared with a stack of handkerchiefs. I suppressed the urge to grab her wrist and pull. Keeping right on, growing up.

She offered a half curtsey, fled.

Morley chuckled. 'Time's been good to her. So you've made up.'

'Sort of. I don't know how long it'll last without Old Bones cracking the whip.'

I heard Singe talking to somebody in the next room. Then somebody left the house. Singe joined us. I said, 'You look frazzled. Did you get any sleep?'

'Some. We had the usual luck.' She sneezed.

'You, too?' I offered a hanky. 'They lost you?'

'This is not a cold. It is a continuing reaction to something they used to stop me from following them. I did not stop to identify ingredients. I got away fast. The compound was designed to ruin my nose forever.'

'You're all right?' I was concerned despite my own bad humor.

'Yes.'

'Strafa?'

'She's all right, too. I owe her. She pulled me back before I got a nose full. She brought me home. She just went back out. I don't know why.'

'You're suspicious?'

'Just a feeling. Probably mostly because she is so interested in you. I shouldn't distrust her for that. She is too simple to be evil.'

That was an interesting notion.

Morley drank it in without comment.

I said, 'I'm going to try to get up, now. I have some business that needs doing.' I thought. I ought. It had been a long night.

Singe said, 'I'll get a chamber pot.'

I lifted my butt eight inches off the cot, could not find the strength to get any higher. Then I realized that I didn't need to go as badly as I should.

Morley grinned when he saw my frown deepen.

'Wait a minute.'

Singe said, 'The cleaning women took care of you, too. You hardly groaned. And you definitely needed the work.'

I faced a creative linguistics challenge but was too sluggish to manage more than an apathetic, 'Dirty rotten rackelfratz.' I did turn red.

'It is just a job to them, Garrett. They said hardly anything. And you really needed it. You were a mess.'

I used another handkerchief.

Singe added, 'I will ask Dean to prepare a camphor breather.' She left. I blew some more and worried about how bad the cold would get once it got down into my chest.

I was not looking forward to that.