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throat,” said Locke. “One more hardly signifies.”
    “He’s the best.” Jean flung his coat over a chair, set his hatchets down, and removed a bottle of blue wine from a cabinet. “An alchemical expert. A real smirking rat-fucker, too.”
    “It’s all for the good, then,” said Locke. “What would the neighbors say if I consulted a man who screws rodents?”
    “We need his opinion.”
    “I’m tired of being a medical curiosity,” said Locke. “If he won’t come, he won’t come.”
    “I’ll call again tomorrow.” Jean poured two half-glasses of wine and watered them until they were a pleasant afternoon-sky color. “I’ll have the self-important prick here one way or another.”
    “What would you do, break his fingers if he won’t consult? Might make things ticklish for me. Especially if he wants to cut something off.”
    “He might find a solution.”
    “Oh, for the gods’ sake.” Locke’s frustrated sigh turned into a cough. “There is no solution.”
    “Trust me. Tomorrow is going to be one of my unusually persuasive days.”
    “As I see it, it’s cost us only a few pieces of gold to discover how unfashionable we are. Most social failures incur far greater expense, I should think.”
    “Somewhere out there,” said Jean, “must be an illness that makes its sufferers meek, mild, and agreeable. I’ll find it someday, and see that you get the worst possible case.”
    “I’m sure I was born immune. Speaking of agreeable, will that wine be arriving in my hands anytime this year?”
    Locke had seemed alert enough, but his voice was slurring, and weaker than it had been even the day before. Jean approached the bed uneasily, wineglasses held out like a peace offering to some unfamiliar and potentially dangerous creature.
    Locke had been in this condition before, too thin and too pale, with weeks of beard on his cheeks. Only this time there was no obvious wound to tend, no cuts to bandage. Just Maxilan Stragos’ insidious legacy doing its silent work. Locke’s sheets were spotted with blood and with the dark stains of fever-sweat. His eyes gleamed in bruised sockets.
    Jean pored over a pile of medical texts each night, and still he didn’t have adequate words for what was happening to Locke. He was being unknit from the inside; his veins and sinews were coming apart. Blood seeped out of him as though by some demonic whim. One hour he might cough it up, the next it would come from his eyes or nose.
    “Gods damn it,” Jean whispered as Locke reached for the wineglass. Locke’s left hand was red with blood, as though his fingers had been dipped in it. “What’s this?”
    “Nothing unusual.” Locke chuckled. “It started up while you were gone … from under my nails. Here, I can hold the glass with my other one—”
    “Were you trying to hide it from me? Who else changes your gods-damned sheets?”
    Jean set the glasses down and moved to the table beneath the window,which held stacks of linen towels, a water jug, and a washing bowl. The bowl’s water was rusty with old blood.
    “It doesn’t hurt, Jean,” muttered Locke.
    Ignoring him, Jean picked up the bowl. The window overlooked the villa’s interior courtyard, which was fortunately deserted. Jean heaved the old bloody water out the window, refilled the bowl from the jug, and dipped a linen cloth into it.
    “Hand,” said Jean. Locke sulkily complied, and Jean molded the wet cloth around his fingers. It turned pink. “Keep it elevated for a while.”
    “I know it looks bad, but it’s really not that much blood.”
    “You’ve little left to lose!”
    “I’m also in want of wine.”
    Jean fetched their glasses again and carefully placed one in Locke’s right hand. Locke’s shakes didn’t seem too bad for the moment, which was pleasing. He’d had difficulty holding things lately.
    “A toast,” said Locke. “To alchemists. May they all be stricken with the screaming fire-shits.” He sipped his wine. “Or strangled