Page 46 of Brave Truth

It got him another of those measured smiles, and she let him sit. It was only a moment or two before Claudio joined him, settling with a tiny bit of space between them. Then there was a cough from Orion, and Claudio closed that gap, thigh to thigh. Still entirely appropriate, but deliberate. Hypatia and Orion were sitting much the same way, with Orion stretching his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Before anyone said anything— or did anything about drinks, if there were drinks to be had— there was another sound, of claws on the slate tile.

Orion said, his voice both entirely amiable and also suddenly specific, “You’re good keeping confidences from people not in this conversation, yes? All about other people’s personal matters. Nothing that goes against any oath you might have made professionally or anything like that. We wouldn’t ask that.”

“Something Claudio knows?” Matty asked immediately, which got a chuckle from Claudio.

“Yes. And Orion’s quite right, it’s someone else’s personal things. The way you wouldn’t say someone else is Uranian, or whatever term we’re currently using.” He seemed entirely amused, but he also shifted to let his hand rest palm down on Matty’s knee.

“Sure. Glad to keep it confidential. I can make oath on it? If Claudio helps with the language?” Matty offered, but that was waved off immediately. Almost at the same moment, there was a sinuous movement of something gloriously brown, like the best bark on a healthy tree.

It took him a moment to make sense of it. Then he realised there was a flash of white on the chest and belly, and that it was some sort of weasel or stoat. No, stoat, he knew the difference. It was relevant for materia work, though he’d rarely seen one in the wild. Or whatever you called a slate terrace facing a large expanse of precisely tended garden.

This one seemed entirely unafraid, prowling up to the space near the empty chair. The stoat bounded up onto the chair, peered at Matty directly with deep brown-black eyes, before there was a shimmer of something that was pure magic. Matty blinked at the worst time, but when he could see again, there was a woman sitting there.

Cammie. Of course he knew her on sight. He’d been in classes with her for five years, and he’d spotted her at May Day. It did not remotely help. Her brown skin was lighter than the stoat’s fur, but her hair was darker, so perhaps it came out somewhere between? And perhaps he was not entirely connected with reality quite this moment, if he was thinking along those lines.

He took a breath, feeling Claudio’s hand on his leg, swallowed, and remembered how words went together, making a try for sentences. “Cammie.” A pause, more than the name was a trick right now. “Pardon, have you always been able to do that?”

She laughed, her curls dancing, and then she tucked one leg under the other, entirely defying ladylike posture. “For that, you get the first choice of the drinks. You’ve definitely earned one. Actually, you’d be able to figure it out, depending on how much attention you were paying when we were in school. My eyes changed colour when I figured out the shifting. Blue eyes on a stoat would look odd.”

There were about three score questions he now had, but he would be polite. About Orion’s hand, about Cammie’s four legs, about whatever else was going to be flung his way this evening. He had expected some challenges, but he had to admit he had not remotely anticipated these. “It explains the question Claudio had about rabbits. You were following along from the portal?”

“Oh, you are clever. Well, still clever. You were clever then, too.” Cammie bounced up on her feet. “What will you have? I can make quite a good run of cocktails. Or there’s always decent brandy, we keep some local Sussex cider on hand here....”

Matty glanced at Claudio, who shrugged. “My friends will do what they will. Nicely handled, though. Cider, if Matty doesn’t know what he wants, Cammie. For me too. We’re sure where we stand with cider.”

That, now, was what tipped Matty over the edge and into giggles. Claudio’s hand on his knee twitched once and shifted to pat him on the shoulder while he tried to regain his composure. Then there was a voice in his ear. “Arm good?”

Matty managed a nod, and before he’d finished, there was an arm slipping around his shoulder, perfectly placed, settling there like Claudio had done it a thousand times before.

Chapter 31

That evening

Claudio had never done this before. But he knew— without knowing all the details— that Matty had been brave a dozen times over already tonight. That Orion meant every word of what he’d offered with what he’d said, what he’d done, and how he’d chosen to do it. That everything would be all right, actually far better than that pablum, with his friends. The question about the rest of the world remained.

He’d never sat like this with Electra, though admittedly there were an increasing number of other things with Matty he’d never done with Electra. Lengthy conversation that truly traded topics back and forth for hours, for example. The romp that kissing turned out to be, even before they got around to hands and bodies against each other. He certainly had more on the list.

The simple physicality of it, though, kept striking him, and he hoped it would always bring that slight moment of unadulterated delight, like light shining through cracks. Glowing and beautifully insistent, something he couldn’t ignore.

Now, Matty’s giggles subsided. He took a breath, let it out, and leaned slightly into Claudio’s shoulder. That part felt excellent. Claudio shifted slightly to make it comfortable for longer. That part, he at least had a little experience with. He’d ended up with Orion using him as a pillow often enough over the years.

Matty didn’t quite have Orion’s shoulders, and he didn’t move the way Orion did. Well, Matty hadn’t had years of Isembard’s private tutelage, and he wasn’t a duellist at heart. But Claudio had been struck, seeing the two of them together for the first time, by how generally alike they looked. A matter of approach to the world, facing it squarely and firmly, as well as physical looks.

Cammie, thankfully, had extracted herself from her perch on the chair and gone for drinks. She must have had most of them ready because she came back immediately. Three ciders, a gin and tonic for Orion, and a Pimm’s Cup for Hypatia. As she handed the bottles round, she wrinkled her nose. “So, where do we start with the strategy?”

Orion tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa, the one that wasn’t around Hypatia. “Matty,” His voice was a rumble, and something in it brought Matty’s head up, focused on him intently. There was a brief twitch under Claudio’s hand, but it didn’t seem bad, just slightly startled. “May I ask Claudio a question that involves you and is rather personal?”

Matty shivered, just once, like a cat reacting, then he said, “Better to ask than wonder in this case, yes?”

Orion chuckled, the laugh he had when he was entirely pleased with how one of his plans was going. Claudio was at least confident that whatever Orion had in mind, it was meant well and being done deliberately. Also, that if it didn’t work, they’d sort it out together. He then settled back, looking intent, if also at ease. “Claudio, my brother, my friend. Do you realise how hard you’ve fallen?”

It took a moment for the words to register, then Claudio swallowed. Hypatia let out a slight sigh, then said, “Matty, my husband is often educationally blunt. If it’s annoying, please tell one of us. If he starts citing related articles, tell him he can stop doing that unless you’re actually interested in the citations.”

Orion, still amused, said, “I don’t feel I have a strong enough grasp of the psychological literature to be confident citing it in this case. And I don’t need to. I know my brother. I’m right, yes?”

It had given Claudio a chance to rummage for words. “You are. Matty and I’ve talked about it, to start with. Not all the ways we need to, yet. We haven’t had time.” Blessed little time, given the way he’d been called out, and Matty’s more predictable but obligatory work schedule. Then, because it mattered, and this was, after all, why they were here tonight. “I need your help to figure out what we do about it.”

“All right.” Orion leaned forward now, Hypatia shifting so he could rest his elbows on his knees, fingers folded so the missing ones didn’t quite show. “Which part first?” Then he held up his right index finger. “What are your goals? Start there. Matty, if you don’t mind, you first, because Claudio’s going to twist himself in knots to match you, anyway. Might as well make it simpler to sort out.”