"Well, maybe." Rien bit her lip, wondering how much to tell him. And then he turned and offered the scissors, handle first.
"Come cut my hair," he said. "Please."
"I'm drunk," she said, and he laughed.
"Just take twenty centimeters off the bottom and try to get it straight across. And tell me what you mean by maybe, brother's daughter."
She took the scissors and studied him. "You'll have to sit. You're too tall." The last of her wine went down with a gulp as he turned the chair around, and then she gave him the glass to set aside and took the comb he gave her in exchange. Carefully, she began to comb out his hair. It was softer than it looked, its weight pulling curls that might otherwise have been as tight as her own into waves. "What I mean by maybe, is, I think we're being mani. .. manipulated."
"You're not that drunk," he said. In the mirror, she could see his eyes were closed.
His hair was as smooth as she could make it, and with the curl and the braid, it wouldn't matter too much if she made the edges ragged. She laid the comb on his thigh, tugged a section of hair taut with her left hand, and halfway up his back began to snip. "Perceval fought with Ariane, and Ariane took her prisoner."
"And treated her dishonorably."
"But Ariane was exactly where Perceval would find her. And doing something that would ensure Perceval would challenge her. And just to ensure the action—she was led upon the crime."
"Suspicious," Tristen admitted. His hair was damp; it made the cutting easier.
Rien parted out another section and drew it straight, measuring it against the first cut. "It gets better."
He lifted his chin, and even when speaking kept his neck straight and his head still. Another lock as long as her forearm dropped to the floor. "Elaborate."
"Perceval was carrying a virus when she was captured. One that incapacitated her after we escaped. And that I also caught."
"Not a deadly virus."
"Very deadly," Rien said, finally articulating the thought she'd not quite been able to force herself to accept. She wouldn't think of Jodin, or of Head. "To a Mean. It laid both of us out, even with treatment. I think it was an influenza."
"Someone used her as a vector."
Rien nodded, her jaw muscles aching with the strain of holding back tears, and severed another lock of Tristen's hair. "Half of Rule could be dead by now."
"I understand." He snaked a hand back, caught her wrist, and squeezed. "Rien, I believe you."
"It's a conspiracy," she said, between small snips to get the edge even. She stepped back. He shook his hair out, and it fell around his shoulders like a rippled cloak.
"Yes," Tristen answered. "I do believe you are right. And I also believe we should have some more wine now. Don't you?"
"If you'll tell me how you got locked away," she said, greatly daring to lay a hand on his shoulder.
He met her eyes in the mirror.
It was full light when Rien returned—alone, for Gavin had gone out exploring. Perceval slept curled tight around a pillow, sheathed in Pinion as if in a clamshell, both fists pressed against her chin, the blankets draped haphazardly. She wore an open-backed nightgown Rien had never seen, too white to have come traveling with them.
Her father must have brought it for her.
Rien wrapped her arms around herself. The flush of alcohol was already fading; she didn't know if that was because it had taken so little to intoxicate her or because her symbiont filtered her blood. She thought of Tristen, the glide of his razor along the edge of his jaw, and reached out and stroked Perceval's scalp, the soft stubble prickling her fingers.
She felt Pinion watching, but the parasite wings permitted her touch.
It was a kind of opposite, wasn't it? Tristen couldn't wait to shave the beard away, and here was Perceval, all shorn like a sheep, and defiant with it. Rien thought she could shave Perceval's head for her, too. If Perceval would let her.
With a rustle, Pinion unfolded. But not violently. Rather, like the wings of the sleepy pigeons Rien had once tended in their cote, before the job was handed down to a younger Mean. Perceval's head moved under Rien's hand. She turned and blinked drowsily, brown eyes made enormous by the unrelieved bones of her face.
"Is it time to get up?"
"No," Rien said, and kissed her.
She looked hard, but her mouth was tender. Rien cupped her face in both hands, feeling skin—soft, with rough patches, the hard oval of a blemish. Perceval's mouth was wet, resilient. So much more yielding than Mallory's.
The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.
Rien's heart pounded as if she had just walked out of a sauna. Perceval's long hands lay flat against her shoulders; without touching, Pinion unfolded, arched over them and crossed behind Rien's back, a sort of bower. For an instant, Perceval kissed her back, and the beating wings were in Rien's bosom.
And then Perceval slid her hand around, pressed her fingertips to Rien's chest beneath her collarbone, and gently levered her away. "No," she said, softly. "Rien, I'm sorry. I'm fallow. Asexed. I don't want this."
"You're female." Not like Head, Rien meant to say. But Head might be dying or already dead, half the world away. And somebody had used Perceval to do it.
She had kissed Rien back. And so Rien leaned down, as if she would kiss Perceval again, because she hurt so, and was so lonely, and because she loved Perceval as she had not known that she could love. And was stopped by no more than the pressure of Perceval's hand.
"Being male or female has nothing to do with desire."
"You don't want me."
"I don't want anyone," Perceval said. Rien stepped back, still half drunk and groggy with wakefulness, and watched Perceval rise. She crossed to the window and threw the drapes open with a flick of wingtips. "Desire is a distraction from duty. I prefer to be celibate."
Rien pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Her lips still tingled. "But you could get it fixed."
Fixed. Like a cat. Rien was ashamed as soon as she'd said it.
"I could," Perceval said. "But then I would not be me."
"I love you," Rien said, hopelessly. And Perceval turned back, framed between the patterned russet drapes, and grasped and squeezed Rien's hand.
"I love you," she answered. Then she tugged Rien's arm, bringing her around to the window, where they could stand side by side, watching the suns' reflected light filter through the black trees beyond. "Where did you go?"
"To see Tristen," Rien said. She leaned against Perceval's side, and Perceval let her. She had been the strong one; she had been the savior. And now they were in Perceval's place, and any salvation would have to be Perceval's. "What did your father want?"
Perceval turned to her, and Rien already knew her well enough to hear the conversation they let pass unspoken. "Our father," Perceval could have said, and Rien could have answered, "He doesn't think so," and that would not have been exactly true, any of it.
And so Perceval said, "To apologize." When she shrugged, her parasite wings brushed the ceiling. She jerked her eyes at the arch of them, a gesture that managed to include her maiming, her shorn hair, and maybe the world.
Rien could not imagine a member of the Conn family seeking forgiveness. Even if she had seen a portion of Benedick's apology with her own eyes.
Well, perhaps Tristen. But Tristen was different.
And Tristen was theirs. Hers and Perceval's. After a fashion. "Tristen and I think the whole thing was planned. That you were meant to be a sacrifice."
"Father agrees. He said he wondered what might have happened if Ariane had killed and devoured me. If there was another virus in me; if I am poisoned more ways than one."