Haught grinned at them, a wolf’s grin. And he let go the globe which hung where
he had left it, in midair, spinning and glowing white and a thousand colors. The
light fell on him and on her drawing room and paled everything. Then he tucked
it up again under his arm and ran one hand through his hair, sweeping it from
his face in that child-gesture that was like the Haught she had known, the
Haught who had shared her bed and been kind to her. Both of them stood there on
the same two feet, the mage she feared and the man who had given her gifts and
loved her and gotten her and him into this damned mess.
Whatever it was he had gotten, it was not a natural thing and it was not
something the Mistress meant him to have, Moria knew that by the look of it and
of him. And she was cold inside and full of a despair so old it made her only
tired and angry.
“Dammit, Haught, what the hell are you into?”
He grinned at her. Delight radiated from him. And he looked from her to Stilcho
to the man on the floor, the grin fading to curiosity.
“Well,” he said, and came closer, his precious strange globe tucked up in his
arms. “Well,” he said again when he looked down at Straton. “Look what we’ve
got.”
“You can help him.” Moria remembered her foot and a touch of hope came to her.
“You can help him. Do something.”
“Oh, I will.” Haught bent down and laid one hand on the Stepson’s booted ankle.
And the Stepson’s whole body seemed to come back from that diminished, shrunken
look of something dead, to draw a larger breath and to run into pain when it