A fly has landed on Sid\u2019s pale finger. He lifts it, gentle and calm, up to his right eye\u2019s eyelashes.<\/p>\n
It is going to crawl down onto his eye.<\/p>\n
His left side is shuddering continuously but his right side has it under control. His eye has gone full clear, all quivering and awful jelly; he is wroth with the power of his (Torment\u2019s) House.<\/p>\n
It is perfect.<\/p>\n
At last it is perfect.<\/p>\n
It will crawl onto his eye. Maybe it will lay eggs there. And the world will be saved.<\/p>\n
It will \u2014 if he can just do this.<\/p>\n
If he can just get through this part, this last hard part, everything is sure to be fine. Everything will be OK forever. Just let it . . . just . . .<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a knock at his door.<\/p>\n
He twitches; it flies away; he howls. He beats his head against the table. He freaks out. He can\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n
Then he stands up. He walks to the door. He opens it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, hi, Emily,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat bad timing! I was just \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
He waves his hand vaguely.<\/p>\n
He waits for her gold eyes to throw him into confusion. He waits to forget what he was doing. But she isn\u2019t goldening him. She isn\u2019t bespelling him, not this time. She isn\u2019t keeping him from exerting the power of his House.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s just holding out a basket. She isn\u2019t speaking. The basket\u2019s got a cloth and some cookies inside.<\/p>\n
Sid sighs.<\/p>\n
He raises an eyebrow at her.<\/p>\n
After a while, she reluctantly turns on her speech amplifier. It\u2019s svart-elf technology. It lets her talk without straining. \u201cThey\u2019re cookies,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see that,\u201d says Sid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll rot your teeth,\u201d she says. \u201cI mean, if you eat enough of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He makes a face at her. She blushes. She looks away.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of creepy having her there, but there\u2019s only one of her. You can stand in a creepy point near somebody but it doesn\u2019t give the whole effect of the Keepers\u2019 House.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why you\u2019d think I\u2019d eat your cookies for that reason,\u201d says Sid. \u201cDental hygiene is extremely important. I am a good person, Emily.\u201d<\/p>\n
She just shrugs, forcibly hands him the basket, and she goes away.<\/p>\n
He closes the door. He drops the basket by the door and he starts shuddering. He doesn\u2019t want those <\/em>cookies.<\/p>\n Maybe later, when they\u2019re stale, and more crumbly, and less sweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A fly has landed on Sid\u2019s pale finger. He lifts it, gentle and calm, up to his right eye\u2019s eyelashes. It is going to crawl down onto his eye. His left side is shuddering continuously but his right side has it under control. His eye has gone full clear, all quivering and awful jelly; he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-9","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Hat_2_noBG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6010,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions\/6010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}