Fic: Web of Fate, Chapter 1
2026-05-25 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rodoTitle: Web of Fate
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:rodo
Chapter: 1/17+E
Length: 4,459 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
Chapter 1: On the Row
The scene was a gruesome one; it would remain seared into his brain until the day he died. In truth, Philo had seen worse, both as a soldier and at the Constabulary. But those bodies, disturbing though they had been, had remained unmoving, firmly on their side of the invisible line that separated the dead from the living. The haruspex had not. Lungs that no longer needed to breathe had filled with air to speak the words that had been denied to her in life.
“You need not worry, Inspector,” she had said. “Soon, she will pay for what she has done. I can see it all. She overreaches, even now. She always does. She did when she thought to trick the gods, when she tried to make a prophecy apply to her son when it had always been meant for another. But the gods are not so easily tricked.”
Philo had thought she was mad. She hadn’t been particularly sane when she’d been alive, after all. Death, he had figured, probably hadn’t helped. But he couldn’t help but listen to the words spoken from beyond the grave. Neither could Tourmaline. They had both stared at her, transfixed. They had both borne witness.
“The prophecy will come true. But all her efforts will come to nought. It will be her husband’s son who will become a greater man than even his father, not hers. It will be a hard road, Inspector. I don’t envy you. Take care.”
*
The Year of the Martyr 648
Philo woke with a start, and not for the first time. It had been the dream again. Even after a year, the haruspex’s words haunted him from time to time. At his side, Vignette sighed and blinked slowly. It wasn’t quite day yet. The murky light streaming through the windows told of the twilight between night and day. Beyond the window, a train rumbled past.
“The dream again?” Vignette mumbled, still half asleep with her head nestled against his shoulder.
Philo nodded. “Yes.”
Vignette sighed again. They had talked about that day at length. She’d heard the story from Tourmaline as well. To Philo, it was a memory of something he wished he could forget. To Tourmaline, it was the crowning glory of the giant heap of shit that was her life in The Burgue. Vignette was different. She believed in the haruspex’s prophecy even if Tourmaline didn’t, and Philo tried his best not to. She’d always seen something in him that he hadn’t. Maybe it was greatness. Martyr only knew Philo didn’t deserve her love. He was just a man, and he had no illusions about what kind of man he was. He’d left her, after all. He’d lied to everyone, coward that he was.
A year on, and there had been no sign of greatness, far from it. There had been hardship aplenty, though. For everyone, not just for Philo. Life was hard for a critch in The Burgue. Always had been, but the attempted assassination of the Chancellor and the war that had followed had made it even worse. Every critch was under suspicion, and wartime rationing hurt those the most who didn’t have much, if anything, to begin with. And Philo, for better and for worse, was critch now. At least their work was still needed, since most of the able-bodied men had been drafted. As long as The Burgue needed them, they wouldn’t starve.
“Just forget about it,” Vignette – the lion’s share of the better parts of being critch – advised him. “Prophecies are like that. They’ll come true whether you want them to or not. That’s what the books said.”
Philo smiled. She was talking about the books in her library, not any Burguish ones. They’d had this conversation a hundred times already, or so it felt. It helped – during the day. He was busy with other things. It was easy to forget about destiny and prophecy when hunger dogged your every step and surviving took all you had. At night, when he slept, it was a different matter. It was as if an old foe stalked him in his dreams, making sure he never forgot. He dreamed of the haruspex on average once a week, and every time, he woke up breathless and scared of the future. He didn’t want greatness.
There were few things Philo wanted – or rather: allowed himself to want. Equal treatment by humans and fae, equal treatment of humans and fae, a future in which he could work as an inspector and do his part – all those were things he tried not to allow himself to want, because they were impossible. What he wanted was, in order: Vignette, always Vignette. It had taken him seven years of separation to realise he wasn’t complete without her. She was his life, and he was hers, and if there weren’t a war, he would have married her already in a place that allowed it. Next was a good night’s sleep. He got one more often than not, thanks to being bone-tired after the day’s work. Third was enough food to keep from starving. Fourth was being warm. Winter in The Burgue was not for the weak. Winter in The Burgue, if you couldn’t afford to buy coal at its current exorbitant price, was worse. He longed for summer whenever he left the nest of sheets and blankets he and Vignette had made upon their bed. Even now, his breath was fogging in the weak morning light.
“Go back to sleep, Philo,” Vignette told him, as if she could hear the wheels turning in his mind.
“It’s almost time to get up anyway,” he protested.
“It’s our day off,” Vignette argued, still half asleep and snuggled to his side. He wished he could sleep some more, truth be told. “And later, you go talk to Mima Sawsaan.”
Philo really didn’t want to.
“No, really,” Vignette said. She knew his thoughts too well. “Talk to the Mima. It’ll help. It certainly won’t hurt.”
Philo drew Vignette closer and took a deep breath. He didn’t answer, just tried to lose himself in her scent. She had heard all his excuses by now, and he didn’t want to repeat himself. Or maybe he was getting desperate. He liked Mima Sawsaan well enough – but also did his best to avoid her. She saw through him as if he were a stained glass window, and Philo didn’t like being transparent. A lifetime of trying to conceal who he was had instilled in him a fear of being seen. No, the last thing he wanted that day was to be judged by a mima.
So naturally, he found himself standing in Mima Sawsaan’s shrine later that morning. Vignette had talked him into it after all, and he didn’t have anywhere else to be while she visited Tourmaline. It looked more or less as he remembered – a statue of Saint Titania, surrounded by whatever sad flowers the believers could scrounge up during wintertime, as well as the odd candle. The candles tugged at his mind until he, too, went to the box and dropped a couple of stivers into it. It had been years since he last lit a candle – at Finch’s insistence, he remembered – at the Martyr’s altar. For good luck, since he was going to join the army. Now he lit a candle not for himself or the Martyr, but for his mother and her saint. The small flame flickered in the dewy air that hung over the city on most winter days. How such a feeble thing might gain someone the favour of a god or saint was beyond him.
Philo found the mima in the adjoining building, near the hearth. There were a few faithful milling about, for the alms and the warmth, most likely. Winter had killed its fair share on the Row already. When she spotted him, Mima Sawsaan’s eyes brightened and darkened at the same time in a way that made him wish he hadn’t come.
“How can I help you today, Mr Philostrate?”
Philo sighed and cursed himself for not just lighting a candle and leaving. “Vignette thought you might advise me in a matter that has been bothering me.”
“But you don’t think I will be of any help,” she concluded with a smile. Talking to a mima was like talking to yourself.
“It’s worth a try,” he countered diplomatically.
“You’re desperate,” she translated.
Philo raised his eyebrows in exasperation. There just wasn’t anything he could say that she wouldn’t misconstrue – or construe correctly.
Mima Sawsaan smiled. “You haven’t been to see me in a year, and now you, a self-avowed sceptic, light a candle to the saint. You are not as hard to read as you think.”
The candle had nothing to do with the question. The fact that Philo could still hide a small part of himself made him relax a little. Mima Sawsaan, for all her canniness, didn’t see everything.
“Now tell me, what is bothering you?”
And so Philo told her. Well, he left out some things. “Do you remember the haruspex you sent me to?” he asked, and when the mima nodded, he continued. “I was there when she died – after she died. She was dead, but a part of her wasn’t. She told me something. A prophecy of some kind. She said I’d be a great man, a greater man than even the Chancellor.” Well, unless Absalom Breakspear had any more illegitimate sons he didn’t know about, but Philo thought that unlikely.
Mima Sawsaan stared in the distance for a while, as if remembering something that happened a long time ago. “You speak of the gloaming. It’s the realm between ours and the next. I’ve heard that there’s magic that can suspend one there at the moment of one’s death, but I’ve never met anyone who witnessed it. It is a place beyond time, beyond space.”
“So she spoke true, then?” Philo didn’t want to hear the answer, but he always asked, even when he didn’t. It was part of what had made him such a good inspector.
“Yes,” Mima Sawsaan said. “But it is not as simple as that. Tell me, what is greatness?”
Philo pondered his answer for a moment while he studied the other fae around. Old, sick, weak and desperate. Wishing the world were a better place and praying for it to become so, because that was the only thing they could do. “Achieving great renown, I suppose. Or changing or shaping the world.”
The mima hummed and proceeded to stare at things that weren’t there. “Most people only think about the former. About riches, about power. But sometimes, it’s not as simple as that. Sometimes, a person just happens to be in the right place at the right time when their small decision changes the world. Sometimes, their contribution – important though it is – goes unacknowledged for decades. Sometimes it never is. And there is another way to be great, too – to be moral and upstanding, to help those in need, to not abuse one’s power when most people would.
“In short, there are many ways to be great – greater than a Chancellor, even – and prophecies are always tricky. They never mean what we think they mean. Their meaning only becomes clear after they’ve come true. If the haruspex prophesied you greatness from the gloaming, then greatness you will have. Or maybe you already do and just don’t know it yet.”
Philo raised a doubtful eyebrow at that.
“Don’t mock me. You’ve done what few have, I hear. You had a chance to slip back into the life you had before, to hide who you were. It would have been an easy life, or at least an easier one than the one you have now. But you chose to stand by the truth. Some would say it takes a brave man to do something like that, maybe even a great one. There are many measures of greatness, never forget.”
Philo didn’t know if that made him feel any better. “You think that will make the nightmares go away? Fooling myself into thinking her prophecy has already come true?”
At that, the mima laughed out loud, drawing the curious stares of some of her flock to her. “No, Mr Philostrate. But soon, you will be too busy for nightmares. I sense a great change coming for you. Maybe it is your destiny. Maybe something else. Whatever it may be, take care of yourself. Your mother was one of mine, and so, by extension, are you.”
“Will you pray for me, then?” he asked, as if prayers were of any use. The mima’s words had disquieted him even more than the nightmare. Her promise might not be a prophecy, but rather a prediction. That only made it seem more real.
“Always,” she promised him.
Before he left, he handed her some more of his hard-earned coin for her flock and those who were less fortunate. There was no shortage of work in these times, what with the new war being fought even closer and more desperately, but not all were strong enough to work on a line at a munitions factory for fourteen hours a day, six days a week. And not all were welcome, with many humans being suspicious of all fae and faun, even though a saboteur or spy might just as easily wear a three-piece suit and a human face.
*
Aisling Querelle’s voice echoed through the small room with its walls covered in peeling paint, accompanied by the crackly static of the phonograph. Philo sat in his chair by the window with his eyes closed, letting the music wash over him. No matter how often he listened to the recordings, her voice never lost its magic. When he closed his eyes – as he did now – he could see things reflected against the insides of his eyelids. Maybe they were memories from before his mind had truly formed. Maybe they were dreams half-remembered. Whatever the case, the melancholy feeling that inevitably came with them always made him wonder about what could have been. If Aisling had raised him, if he’d been allowed to keep his wings. What kind of person would he be?
Familiar steps ascended the stairs in the stairwell. They tugged Philo back to reality as Aisling’s voice reached the crescendo of the song. It was slowly fading as the tune reached its end when he opened his eyes to look at the door.
The first thing Vignette did as she entered the apartment was cast her eyes about to look for him. The moment she spotted him, her face brightened, and he felt his own mirror her expression. Whatever spell his mother’s voice wove, it was dispelled when he saw Vignette. His life might not have been an easy one, but she had been worth all the pain and loss.
“How did your talk with Mima Sawsaan go?” Vignette asked.
Philo cocked his head and shrugged. “How’s Tourmaline?” he replied, changing the subject to avoid yet another heavy conversation about the future.
Vignette smiled impishly. “Same as always,” she answered, shrugging out of her coat. Then she walked over to him with a telltale sway in her hips. “Full of gossip, for one. And she’s started writing again, did I tell you? She read me some of her latest creations.”
She came to a stop in front of him. Philo craned his neck to stare at her face. She still looked like an angel to him, her brown curls and braids framing that delicate face almost like a halo. Slowly, she placed her hands on his shoulders. The warmth of them felt soothing – his muscles must have cramped up in the cold. For a moment, Philo took his eyes off hers to press a kiss to one of her hands. The responding chuckle vibrated through the air.
“Erotic poetry, was it?” That’s what she’d said about her friend’s poetry once, half in jest.
“Not so much any more, these days. But enough of Tourmaline,” Vignette said, before bending forward and kissing him. The heat that had simmered below the surface grew to a fire within moments. Philo kissed her back with a fervour that surprised even him, grabbing her hips and drawing her into his lap.
Vignette wasted no time either, grabbing him by the tie and working it loose in between heated kisses. She’d had practice this past year, and it was gone in a few moments, followed by his waistcoat. Philo wasn’t as quick to return the favour – the sudden heat felt unbearable, especially since Vignette kept rocking her hips against his in a more than distracting manner that made him forget what his hands were for. When he moaned and completely lost track of her buttons, she laughed.
“Do I have to do everything?” she teased.
“You’re more than welcome to,” Philo murmured against her ear. The shiver he felt run through her was mirrored by his own body. Then he kissed the crook of her neck, and it was Vignette who forgot about his buttons.
They did make it out of their shirts in between kisses and caresses, sighs and moans. Eventually. Philo knew Vignette’s body better than his own, knew how she liked to be touched, what drove her mad with lust. He loved using that knowledge, running a single finger along her spine and swallowing her moans. When Vignette arched her back and unfurled her wings, Philo’s breath caught at the sheer beauty before him. She was a vision, almost hovering above him with that ethereal glow slowly spreading through her wing membranes. Then she pressed her pelvis down against his, and he gasped. He was hard. If she kept this up much longer, he wouldn’t last.
But Vignette knew him as well as he knew her. She fluttered to her feet just long enough to step out of her trousers. Philo didn’t bother doing even that much. He felt impatient, so he just pushed his own halfway down his thighs before grabbing Vignette’s arm and drawing her back into his embrace. He was too eager now, wanted more of her, wanted to see her wings light up in blue and turquoise.
He completely lost himself in her before he even entered her. He always did. As soon as she kissed him, she became the only thing in the world to him. Her beauty took his breath away. Her smile lit his veins on fire. And her wings… Martyr, he could spend a lifetime staring at them as they rocked against each other, dancing to a rhythm without music. Philo had been made for her; he could think of nothing else but the feeling of Vignette’s body wrapped around his. He rocked up against her with a groan as they made love on that chair in front of the window, shielded only by the gauzy white curtains and not caring one bit.
When Philo finally came – and Vignette but moments later in a burst of colour – a calm settled over him that he’d been lacking all day. Ever since he’d been woken up by that damn dream. They didn’t part, not at first. Instead, Vignette wrapped her arms around him as their sweaty bodies cooled. Soon, they’d need to relocate. It was too cold to remain unclothed for long, outside the bed. But for now, Philo was too content to care about the cold.
“I love you,” he mumbled against her shoulder. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Vignette joked, patting his shoulder. “I love you too.”
And that was the truth of it, Philo thought. He didn’t say it often enough, even though she deserved to hear it every day. Even though she knew it. She was his everything. What else did he need besides her? Certainly no prophecy. And he promised himself that no matter what might happen in his future, he’d never part with her again. Prophecies were nothing but words, and words were wind. Vignette’s warm body was the truth.
*
It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him next. Rather, it was a loud, insistent pounding at the front door to the room they rented. Vignette was already sitting up, body taut with alarm, when Philo turned and groaned.
“Open up! Ministry of Defence!” a gruff male voice proclaimed for all the neighbours to hear.
“What the fuck?” Philo cursed. He exchanged a look with Vignette, then they both jumped out of bed and threw on yesterday’s clothes. It was not quite the middle of the night yet, but too late for any decent person to be up and about. The knocking continued, and Philo could hear their neighbours stir in their flats as well. He abandoned the search for his shirt and waistcoat and merely put up his suspenders over his undershirt. At the same time, he tried to step into his shoes, and Vignette looked for hers.
The men outside were about to knock down the door – or so it seemed – when Philo opened it with the chain still in place. His eyes fell on a middle-aged man with a full brown beard streaked with grey and a receding hairline. He wore the uniform of a military intelligence soldier. Behind him lurked a couple of others from the same regiment. Bad news, Philo surmised. He’d done his best to avoid military intelligence back when he’d been a soldier. If you didn’t, they’d get you killed sooner or later. That had been the wisdom passed around the campfire by the veterans.
“Can I help you… Lieutenant?” he asked, checking the shoulder straps.
The officer huffed. “This is the residence of a” – he checked a clipboard in his hand – “Vignette Stonemoss. Formerly of Anoun.”
Philo’s heart constricted. Not Vignette. He barely even noticed that the man hadn’t bothered to introduce himself.
“What’s this about?” he asked. Behind him, he heard Vignette approaching.
“Miss Stonemoss is being conscripted to serve the war effort. Now step aside. We don’t have all day.”
Philo didn’t move an inch, but he saw the officer’s eyes move past him. He’d seen Vignette, and the set of his shoulders told Philo he wouldn’t leave without her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the soldiers shift.
“Philo?” Vignette asked without giving voice to the question.
“No,” was all he could force past his lips.
What happened next happened quickly. The soldiers started to move. Vignette wrapped her arms around him and drew him back, aided by a flutter of wings. The officer stepped back. Then his men kicked the door in. The old chain was no match for a set of Burguish boots. Those of their neighbours who were still asleep were awoken when the door crashed into the wall. Philo and Vignette had retreated just in time to avoid being hit. Still, within moments, their little room was filled with soldiers. The men assembled around them, blocking their escape. One of them even grabbed Vignette’s arm, but Philo clung to her with all he had, and she to him. In the end, the officer called his men back. They stepped away from them, forming a circle. Philo just tightened his grip on Vignette’s hand.
“Look,” the officer explained. “This is all official, and it’s been cleared with your friends at the Raven, girl. Just come with us without making a fuss.”
“No,” Philo repeated.
“Not until I know what this is about,” Vignette added.
The officer made a face. “Military secret. Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. Now stop kicking up a fuss, pix lover, or I’ll report you. Only critch in these parts – humans have got to stay on the other side of the fence. But you knew that already.”
A heartbeat’s silence followed. “I am critch,” Philo said. He’d said it countless times, to fae and man alike, in this past year, and it was the truth he had always known, but the sentence still felt strange in his mouth. It always came out a fraction of a moment too late. And yet for some reason, it was what got the lieutenant and his men to shift their attention to him. The atmosphere in the room changed, and a glint appeared in the lieutenant’s eyes as he went back to scanning his list.
“You’re not on my list,” he said. “If you’re a half-blood, why aren’t you on my list?”
“Why would I be?” Philo asked.
The lieutenant stared at him. Philo stared back. He felt Vignette at his back. He would never give her up. If they took her, he’d look for her until the end of time itself.
The lieutenant still stared at him. At his head, his ears, then he stalked around him and examined his back and feet.
“You’re telling me you’ve never been convicted of passing? And yet you pass better than some of my men, let alone those we’re supposed to pick up.”
When he came to a halt in front of Philo again, Philo shrugged. He hadn’t been. That much was true. The man didn’t have to know that Philo had passed for most of his life. He just hadn’t seen the inside of a prison for it, only that of a Constabulary cell. For a good minute, the officer continued staring, as if he was weighing his prospects, weighing Philo and his words. Finally, he sighed.
“You better not be lying to me, mate. There’ll be a medical exam, and you’ll be in trouble if you fail.” Then he nodded to his men and motioned for both of them to follow. Philo and Vignette exchanged a quick glance. What else could they do? As long as they could stay together…
They were led out the door, down the stairs. Philo was still in his undershirt, his boots unlaced. Vignette’s braids were a mess. Their neighbours’ eyes followed their trek down the stairs, hidden behind spyholes or curtains, but Philo felt their stares on his back. Outside, on the street, waited a black coach like the ones used to transport prisoners at the Constabulary. Vignette’s grip on his hand tightened when she saw it. Philo wished he could reassure her. The soldiers opened the back and gestured at them to get in. They did, sliding onto the bench to one side as the door fell shut. The latch was closed, and the soldiers moved. In the darkness, Philo could see shadowed faces whenever the gaslight from the street passed the window’s bars. Here, he finally dared to wrap an arm around Vignette.
“Do you know where they’re taking us? Why?” she asked the others.
The answer was silence.
Prologue | Chapter 2: Opportunities
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:
rodoChapter: 1/17+E
Length: 4,459 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
The scene was a gruesome one; it would remain seared into his brain until the day he died. In truth, Philo had seen worse, both as a soldier and at the Constabulary. But those bodies, disturbing though they had been, had remained unmoving, firmly on their side of the invisible line that separated the dead from the living. The haruspex had not. Lungs that no longer needed to breathe had filled with air to speak the words that had been denied to her in life.
“You need not worry, Inspector,” she had said. “Soon, she will pay for what she has done. I can see it all. She overreaches, even now. She always does. She did when she thought to trick the gods, when she tried to make a prophecy apply to her son when it had always been meant for another. But the gods are not so easily tricked.”
Philo had thought she was mad. She hadn’t been particularly sane when she’d been alive, after all. Death, he had figured, probably hadn’t helped. But he couldn’t help but listen to the words spoken from beyond the grave. Neither could Tourmaline. They had both stared at her, transfixed. They had both borne witness.
“The prophecy will come true. But all her efforts will come to nought. It will be her husband’s son who will become a greater man than even his father, not hers. It will be a hard road, Inspector. I don’t envy you. Take care.”
The Year of the Martyr 648
Philo woke with a start, and not for the first time. It had been the dream again. Even after a year, the haruspex’s words haunted him from time to time. At his side, Vignette sighed and blinked slowly. It wasn’t quite day yet. The murky light streaming through the windows told of the twilight between night and day. Beyond the window, a train rumbled past.
“The dream again?” Vignette mumbled, still half asleep with her head nestled against his shoulder.
Philo nodded. “Yes.”
Vignette sighed again. They had talked about that day at length. She’d heard the story from Tourmaline as well. To Philo, it was a memory of something he wished he could forget. To Tourmaline, it was the crowning glory of the giant heap of shit that was her life in The Burgue. Vignette was different. She believed in the haruspex’s prophecy even if Tourmaline didn’t, and Philo tried his best not to. She’d always seen something in him that he hadn’t. Maybe it was greatness. Martyr only knew Philo didn’t deserve her love. He was just a man, and he had no illusions about what kind of man he was. He’d left her, after all. He’d lied to everyone, coward that he was.
A year on, and there had been no sign of greatness, far from it. There had been hardship aplenty, though. For everyone, not just for Philo. Life was hard for a critch in The Burgue. Always had been, but the attempted assassination of the Chancellor and the war that had followed had made it even worse. Every critch was under suspicion, and wartime rationing hurt those the most who didn’t have much, if anything, to begin with. And Philo, for better and for worse, was critch now. At least their work was still needed, since most of the able-bodied men had been drafted. As long as The Burgue needed them, they wouldn’t starve.
“Just forget about it,” Vignette – the lion’s share of the better parts of being critch – advised him. “Prophecies are like that. They’ll come true whether you want them to or not. That’s what the books said.”
Philo smiled. She was talking about the books in her library, not any Burguish ones. They’d had this conversation a hundred times already, or so it felt. It helped – during the day. He was busy with other things. It was easy to forget about destiny and prophecy when hunger dogged your every step and surviving took all you had. At night, when he slept, it was a different matter. It was as if an old foe stalked him in his dreams, making sure he never forgot. He dreamed of the haruspex on average once a week, and every time, he woke up breathless and scared of the future. He didn’t want greatness.
There were few things Philo wanted – or rather: allowed himself to want. Equal treatment by humans and fae, equal treatment of humans and fae, a future in which he could work as an inspector and do his part – all those were things he tried not to allow himself to want, because they were impossible. What he wanted was, in order: Vignette, always Vignette. It had taken him seven years of separation to realise he wasn’t complete without her. She was his life, and he was hers, and if there weren’t a war, he would have married her already in a place that allowed it. Next was a good night’s sleep. He got one more often than not, thanks to being bone-tired after the day’s work. Third was enough food to keep from starving. Fourth was being warm. Winter in The Burgue was not for the weak. Winter in The Burgue, if you couldn’t afford to buy coal at its current exorbitant price, was worse. He longed for summer whenever he left the nest of sheets and blankets he and Vignette had made upon their bed. Even now, his breath was fogging in the weak morning light.
“Go back to sleep, Philo,” Vignette told him, as if she could hear the wheels turning in his mind.
“It’s almost time to get up anyway,” he protested.
“It’s our day off,” Vignette argued, still half asleep and snuggled to his side. He wished he could sleep some more, truth be told. “And later, you go talk to Mima Sawsaan.”
Philo really didn’t want to.
“No, really,” Vignette said. She knew his thoughts too well. “Talk to the Mima. It’ll help. It certainly won’t hurt.”
Philo drew Vignette closer and took a deep breath. He didn’t answer, just tried to lose himself in her scent. She had heard all his excuses by now, and he didn’t want to repeat himself. Or maybe he was getting desperate. He liked Mima Sawsaan well enough – but also did his best to avoid her. She saw through him as if he were a stained glass window, and Philo didn’t like being transparent. A lifetime of trying to conceal who he was had instilled in him a fear of being seen. No, the last thing he wanted that day was to be judged by a mima.
So naturally, he found himself standing in Mima Sawsaan’s shrine later that morning. Vignette had talked him into it after all, and he didn’t have anywhere else to be while she visited Tourmaline. It looked more or less as he remembered – a statue of Saint Titania, surrounded by whatever sad flowers the believers could scrounge up during wintertime, as well as the odd candle. The candles tugged at his mind until he, too, went to the box and dropped a couple of stivers into it. It had been years since he last lit a candle – at Finch’s insistence, he remembered – at the Martyr’s altar. For good luck, since he was going to join the army. Now he lit a candle not for himself or the Martyr, but for his mother and her saint. The small flame flickered in the dewy air that hung over the city on most winter days. How such a feeble thing might gain someone the favour of a god or saint was beyond him.
Philo found the mima in the adjoining building, near the hearth. There were a few faithful milling about, for the alms and the warmth, most likely. Winter had killed its fair share on the Row already. When she spotted him, Mima Sawsaan’s eyes brightened and darkened at the same time in a way that made him wish he hadn’t come.
“How can I help you today, Mr Philostrate?”
Philo sighed and cursed himself for not just lighting a candle and leaving. “Vignette thought you might advise me in a matter that has been bothering me.”
“But you don’t think I will be of any help,” she concluded with a smile. Talking to a mima was like talking to yourself.
“It’s worth a try,” he countered diplomatically.
“You’re desperate,” she translated.
Philo raised his eyebrows in exasperation. There just wasn’t anything he could say that she wouldn’t misconstrue – or construe correctly.
Mima Sawsaan smiled. “You haven’t been to see me in a year, and now you, a self-avowed sceptic, light a candle to the saint. You are not as hard to read as you think.”
The candle had nothing to do with the question. The fact that Philo could still hide a small part of himself made him relax a little. Mima Sawsaan, for all her canniness, didn’t see everything.
“Now tell me, what is bothering you?”
And so Philo told her. Well, he left out some things. “Do you remember the haruspex you sent me to?” he asked, and when the mima nodded, he continued. “I was there when she died – after she died. She was dead, but a part of her wasn’t. She told me something. A prophecy of some kind. She said I’d be a great man, a greater man than even the Chancellor.” Well, unless Absalom Breakspear had any more illegitimate sons he didn’t know about, but Philo thought that unlikely.
Mima Sawsaan stared in the distance for a while, as if remembering something that happened a long time ago. “You speak of the gloaming. It’s the realm between ours and the next. I’ve heard that there’s magic that can suspend one there at the moment of one’s death, but I’ve never met anyone who witnessed it. It is a place beyond time, beyond space.”
“So she spoke true, then?” Philo didn’t want to hear the answer, but he always asked, even when he didn’t. It was part of what had made him such a good inspector.
“Yes,” Mima Sawsaan said. “But it is not as simple as that. Tell me, what is greatness?”
Philo pondered his answer for a moment while he studied the other fae around. Old, sick, weak and desperate. Wishing the world were a better place and praying for it to become so, because that was the only thing they could do. “Achieving great renown, I suppose. Or changing or shaping the world.”
The mima hummed and proceeded to stare at things that weren’t there. “Most people only think about the former. About riches, about power. But sometimes, it’s not as simple as that. Sometimes, a person just happens to be in the right place at the right time when their small decision changes the world. Sometimes, their contribution – important though it is – goes unacknowledged for decades. Sometimes it never is. And there is another way to be great, too – to be moral and upstanding, to help those in need, to not abuse one’s power when most people would.
“In short, there are many ways to be great – greater than a Chancellor, even – and prophecies are always tricky. They never mean what we think they mean. Their meaning only becomes clear after they’ve come true. If the haruspex prophesied you greatness from the gloaming, then greatness you will have. Or maybe you already do and just don’t know it yet.”
Philo raised a doubtful eyebrow at that.
“Don’t mock me. You’ve done what few have, I hear. You had a chance to slip back into the life you had before, to hide who you were. It would have been an easy life, or at least an easier one than the one you have now. But you chose to stand by the truth. Some would say it takes a brave man to do something like that, maybe even a great one. There are many measures of greatness, never forget.”
Philo didn’t know if that made him feel any better. “You think that will make the nightmares go away? Fooling myself into thinking her prophecy has already come true?”
At that, the mima laughed out loud, drawing the curious stares of some of her flock to her. “No, Mr Philostrate. But soon, you will be too busy for nightmares. I sense a great change coming for you. Maybe it is your destiny. Maybe something else. Whatever it may be, take care of yourself. Your mother was one of mine, and so, by extension, are you.”
“Will you pray for me, then?” he asked, as if prayers were of any use. The mima’s words had disquieted him even more than the nightmare. Her promise might not be a prophecy, but rather a prediction. That only made it seem more real.
“Always,” she promised him.
Before he left, he handed her some more of his hard-earned coin for her flock and those who were less fortunate. There was no shortage of work in these times, what with the new war being fought even closer and more desperately, but not all were strong enough to work on a line at a munitions factory for fourteen hours a day, six days a week. And not all were welcome, with many humans being suspicious of all fae and faun, even though a saboteur or spy might just as easily wear a three-piece suit and a human face.
Aisling Querelle’s voice echoed through the small room with its walls covered in peeling paint, accompanied by the crackly static of the phonograph. Philo sat in his chair by the window with his eyes closed, letting the music wash over him. No matter how often he listened to the recordings, her voice never lost its magic. When he closed his eyes – as he did now – he could see things reflected against the insides of his eyelids. Maybe they were memories from before his mind had truly formed. Maybe they were dreams half-remembered. Whatever the case, the melancholy feeling that inevitably came with them always made him wonder about what could have been. If Aisling had raised him, if he’d been allowed to keep his wings. What kind of person would he be?
Familiar steps ascended the stairs in the stairwell. They tugged Philo back to reality as Aisling’s voice reached the crescendo of the song. It was slowly fading as the tune reached its end when he opened his eyes to look at the door.
The first thing Vignette did as she entered the apartment was cast her eyes about to look for him. The moment she spotted him, her face brightened, and he felt his own mirror her expression. Whatever spell his mother’s voice wove, it was dispelled when he saw Vignette. His life might not have been an easy one, but she had been worth all the pain and loss.
“How did your talk with Mima Sawsaan go?” Vignette asked.
Philo cocked his head and shrugged. “How’s Tourmaline?” he replied, changing the subject to avoid yet another heavy conversation about the future.
Vignette smiled impishly. “Same as always,” she answered, shrugging out of her coat. Then she walked over to him with a telltale sway in her hips. “Full of gossip, for one. And she’s started writing again, did I tell you? She read me some of her latest creations.”
She came to a stop in front of him. Philo craned his neck to stare at her face. She still looked like an angel to him, her brown curls and braids framing that delicate face almost like a halo. Slowly, she placed her hands on his shoulders. The warmth of them felt soothing – his muscles must have cramped up in the cold. For a moment, Philo took his eyes off hers to press a kiss to one of her hands. The responding chuckle vibrated through the air.
“Erotic poetry, was it?” That’s what she’d said about her friend’s poetry once, half in jest.
“Not so much any more, these days. But enough of Tourmaline,” Vignette said, before bending forward and kissing him. The heat that had simmered below the surface grew to a fire within moments. Philo kissed her back with a fervour that surprised even him, grabbing her hips and drawing her into his lap.
Vignette wasted no time either, grabbing him by the tie and working it loose in between heated kisses. She’d had practice this past year, and it was gone in a few moments, followed by his waistcoat. Philo wasn’t as quick to return the favour – the sudden heat felt unbearable, especially since Vignette kept rocking her hips against his in a more than distracting manner that made him forget what his hands were for. When he moaned and completely lost track of her buttons, she laughed.
“Do I have to do everything?” she teased.
“You’re more than welcome to,” Philo murmured against her ear. The shiver he felt run through her was mirrored by his own body. Then he kissed the crook of her neck, and it was Vignette who forgot about his buttons.
They did make it out of their shirts in between kisses and caresses, sighs and moans. Eventually. Philo knew Vignette’s body better than his own, knew how she liked to be touched, what drove her mad with lust. He loved using that knowledge, running a single finger along her spine and swallowing her moans. When Vignette arched her back and unfurled her wings, Philo’s breath caught at the sheer beauty before him. She was a vision, almost hovering above him with that ethereal glow slowly spreading through her wing membranes. Then she pressed her pelvis down against his, and he gasped. He was hard. If she kept this up much longer, he wouldn’t last.
But Vignette knew him as well as he knew her. She fluttered to her feet just long enough to step out of her trousers. Philo didn’t bother doing even that much. He felt impatient, so he just pushed his own halfway down his thighs before grabbing Vignette’s arm and drawing her back into his embrace. He was too eager now, wanted more of her, wanted to see her wings light up in blue and turquoise.
He completely lost himself in her before he even entered her. He always did. As soon as she kissed him, she became the only thing in the world to him. Her beauty took his breath away. Her smile lit his veins on fire. And her wings… Martyr, he could spend a lifetime staring at them as they rocked against each other, dancing to a rhythm without music. Philo had been made for her; he could think of nothing else but the feeling of Vignette’s body wrapped around his. He rocked up against her with a groan as they made love on that chair in front of the window, shielded only by the gauzy white curtains and not caring one bit.
When Philo finally came – and Vignette but moments later in a burst of colour – a calm settled over him that he’d been lacking all day. Ever since he’d been woken up by that damn dream. They didn’t part, not at first. Instead, Vignette wrapped her arms around him as their sweaty bodies cooled. Soon, they’d need to relocate. It was too cold to remain unclothed for long, outside the bed. But for now, Philo was too content to care about the cold.
“I love you,” he mumbled against her shoulder. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Vignette joked, patting his shoulder. “I love you too.”
And that was the truth of it, Philo thought. He didn’t say it often enough, even though she deserved to hear it every day. Even though she knew it. She was his everything. What else did he need besides her? Certainly no prophecy. And he promised himself that no matter what might happen in his future, he’d never part with her again. Prophecies were nothing but words, and words were wind. Vignette’s warm body was the truth.
It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him next. Rather, it was a loud, insistent pounding at the front door to the room they rented. Vignette was already sitting up, body taut with alarm, when Philo turned and groaned.
“Open up! Ministry of Defence!” a gruff male voice proclaimed for all the neighbours to hear.
“What the fuck?” Philo cursed. He exchanged a look with Vignette, then they both jumped out of bed and threw on yesterday’s clothes. It was not quite the middle of the night yet, but too late for any decent person to be up and about. The knocking continued, and Philo could hear their neighbours stir in their flats as well. He abandoned the search for his shirt and waistcoat and merely put up his suspenders over his undershirt. At the same time, he tried to step into his shoes, and Vignette looked for hers.
The men outside were about to knock down the door – or so it seemed – when Philo opened it with the chain still in place. His eyes fell on a middle-aged man with a full brown beard streaked with grey and a receding hairline. He wore the uniform of a military intelligence soldier. Behind him lurked a couple of others from the same regiment. Bad news, Philo surmised. He’d done his best to avoid military intelligence back when he’d been a soldier. If you didn’t, they’d get you killed sooner or later. That had been the wisdom passed around the campfire by the veterans.
“Can I help you… Lieutenant?” he asked, checking the shoulder straps.
The officer huffed. “This is the residence of a” – he checked a clipboard in his hand – “Vignette Stonemoss. Formerly of Anoun.”
Philo’s heart constricted. Not Vignette. He barely even noticed that the man hadn’t bothered to introduce himself.
“What’s this about?” he asked. Behind him, he heard Vignette approaching.
“Miss Stonemoss is being conscripted to serve the war effort. Now step aside. We don’t have all day.”
Philo didn’t move an inch, but he saw the officer’s eyes move past him. He’d seen Vignette, and the set of his shoulders told Philo he wouldn’t leave without her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the soldiers shift.
“Philo?” Vignette asked without giving voice to the question.
“No,” was all he could force past his lips.
What happened next happened quickly. The soldiers started to move. Vignette wrapped her arms around him and drew him back, aided by a flutter of wings. The officer stepped back. Then his men kicked the door in. The old chain was no match for a set of Burguish boots. Those of their neighbours who were still asleep were awoken when the door crashed into the wall. Philo and Vignette had retreated just in time to avoid being hit. Still, within moments, their little room was filled with soldiers. The men assembled around them, blocking their escape. One of them even grabbed Vignette’s arm, but Philo clung to her with all he had, and she to him. In the end, the officer called his men back. They stepped away from them, forming a circle. Philo just tightened his grip on Vignette’s hand.
“Look,” the officer explained. “This is all official, and it’s been cleared with your friends at the Raven, girl. Just come with us without making a fuss.”
“No,” Philo repeated.
“Not until I know what this is about,” Vignette added.
The officer made a face. “Military secret. Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. Now stop kicking up a fuss, pix lover, or I’ll report you. Only critch in these parts – humans have got to stay on the other side of the fence. But you knew that already.”
A heartbeat’s silence followed. “I am critch,” Philo said. He’d said it countless times, to fae and man alike, in this past year, and it was the truth he had always known, but the sentence still felt strange in his mouth. It always came out a fraction of a moment too late. And yet for some reason, it was what got the lieutenant and his men to shift their attention to him. The atmosphere in the room changed, and a glint appeared in the lieutenant’s eyes as he went back to scanning his list.
“You’re not on my list,” he said. “If you’re a half-blood, why aren’t you on my list?”
“Why would I be?” Philo asked.
The lieutenant stared at him. Philo stared back. He felt Vignette at his back. He would never give her up. If they took her, he’d look for her until the end of time itself.
The lieutenant still stared at him. At his head, his ears, then he stalked around him and examined his back and feet.
“You’re telling me you’ve never been convicted of passing? And yet you pass better than some of my men, let alone those we’re supposed to pick up.”
When he came to a halt in front of Philo again, Philo shrugged. He hadn’t been. That much was true. The man didn’t have to know that Philo had passed for most of his life. He just hadn’t seen the inside of a prison for it, only that of a Constabulary cell. For a good minute, the officer continued staring, as if he was weighing his prospects, weighing Philo and his words. Finally, he sighed.
“You better not be lying to me, mate. There’ll be a medical exam, and you’ll be in trouble if you fail.” Then he nodded to his men and motioned for both of them to follow. Philo and Vignette exchanged a quick glance. What else could they do? As long as they could stay together…
They were led out the door, down the stairs. Philo was still in his undershirt, his boots unlaced. Vignette’s braids were a mess. Their neighbours’ eyes followed their trek down the stairs, hidden behind spyholes or curtains, but Philo felt their stares on his back. Outside, on the street, waited a black coach like the ones used to transport prisoners at the Constabulary. Vignette’s grip on his hand tightened when she saw it. Philo wished he could reassure her. The soldiers opened the back and gestured at them to get in. They did, sliding onto the bench to one side as the door fell shut. The latch was closed, and the soldiers moved. In the darkness, Philo could see shadowed faces whenever the gaslight from the street passed the window’s bars. Here, he finally dared to wrap an arm around Vignette.
“Do you know where they’re taking us? Why?” she asked the others.
The answer was silence.
