The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy

Osric and Aurienne arrive on the other side of the waystone, and a shepherdess warns them that Widdershins, the old philologist, is “pixie-led” and isn’t worth speaking to. As the two go to his house, they bicker over whether Osric should torture the man. When they meet Widdershins, he has a colander on his head and refuses to answer their questions about his old work. He reminds them of his dismissal from the Order and tells them to leave. After insinuating that Osric is a literal bastard, he relents and directs them to a bucket in his shed, where the remains of his work are stored. Aurienne worries aloud, wondering whether she’ll become as discombobulated as the former philologist seems to be. The two inspect Widdershins’s notes, and they also find a plaster cast of the Monafyll stone . Together, they transpose the notes into Aurienne’s notebook. Aurienne finds the information useful and fascinating, as Widdershins writes of a cure for all evil. She takes the bucket with her. As she and Osric argue over his prospects, their anger brings them physically close. When Aurienne draws back and leaves, Osric reflects on how wasteful it is for her to have such bright eyes.

As the Haelans work to keep the latest sick children alive, Aurienne cannot keep her emotions at bay and hugs a child whom she believes will soon die. She avoids looking at the child’s chart so that she won’t be able to learn whether the girl is still alive during her next shift. Xanthe asks Aurienne to dinner in her office and explains that the Haelan Order has received no funding to battle the Pox in the Tīendoms since its outbreak four months ago. None of the nobility are fulfilling their duty of noblesse oblige. Aurienne reminds her that inoculation is nearly at hand, thanks to the efforts of her friend and colleague, Élodie. Although she avoids voicing it, Aurienne shares Xanthe’s frustration toward the nobles’ indifference to the epidemic.

Osric reaches out through his deofol, but Aurienne ignores him and focuses on administrative work alongside her assistant, Quincey, who is infatuated with her. Just as she is about to let Osric’s deofol through, her friends Cath and Élodie arrive, discussing the emotional stress of dealing with so many sick children. They lie on the floor and talk about the mandatory Pox assignments, recalling that during the last Pox outbreak 100 years ago, all the host children died. As her friends sip tea, Aurienne slips out to speak with Osric’s deofol; it tells her that Osric is now barely able to use his seith. She agrees to see Osric at his home in Rosefell Hall.

As she is leaving, she witnesses the Wardens fighting and killing four Order-less intruders who are equipped with incendiary devices. The bodies of the intruders are transferred for organ harvesting while Aurienne and the others look on, unsettled by the inexplicable attack. A Warden escorts Aurienne to the waystone and reminds her that although the intruders are likely well-funded, the money wouldn’t have come from another Order because of the standing Peace Accords that prevent the Orders from attacking one another. The Warden recalls the last time they encountered a Dreor (an Order whose tācn may or may not threaten the mental health of its members). The Warden states that it took two of them to bring the Dreor down.

Aurienne arrives at Rosefell Hall, which is in severe disrepair. Osric appears sluggish and in disarray. When she asks about his family, he jokes that he killed them all and is insulted when she believes him. He then admits to having killed his father, although his mother died of other causes. She comments on the faded wealth of his home and takes pleasure in the decrepit state of his living conditions, believing that the surroundings reflect his lack of moral fiber. When he disrobes for her examination, Aurienne is disoriented by her genuine attraction to him—a feeling that hasn’t occurred since her last relationship with a mysterious woman.

Aurienne finds an embolus (a clot) in Osric’s seith channels. Clearing the clot would normally require surgery, but Aurienne is the only person who can use her seith to clear channels without surgery. She strikes a bargain with Osric, requesting that he learn what he can about the attack on Swanstone; in exchange, she will heal him of the embolus. As he considers her proposition, his colleague and self-declared best friend, Leofric, enters his home without warning, and Aurienne hides. Leofric drunkenly asks Osric to look at his genitals and promptly removes his pants. Osric orders him to leave and only succeeds after much tomfoolery. Once alone again with Aurienne, Osric denies being friends with Leofric. After an attempt to negotiate further, he accepts her bargain, and Aurienne removes the clot, feeling chagrin at healing an assassin. He walks her back to the waystone, and on the way, they banter about their next healing excursion.

Later, Aurienne’s deofol finds Osric after he completes another assassination. At her instructions, he meets Aurienne at Muckle Flugga on the night of the Blædnes Moon a few days later. Aurienne is in disarray after having taken a quick shower, and Osric is once again struck by how casually comfortable she can be with him. They walk to a lighthouse, and she explains that her data pointed her to this location and time, though she doesn’t understand Widdershins’s reference to a black sun.

Upon reaching the lighthouse, they discover that it is occupied by bandits. Aurienne asks Osric not to hurt anyone. He argues that he will only do so in self-defense, but he won’t promise not to murder them. The bandits attempt to steal Osric’s boots, and although he gives them multiple warnings to leave, he eventually knocks one of them unconscious and makes the others flee. He and Aurienne enter the lighthouse and climb to its top, discovering many beds and realizing that this group of bandits was particularly large . Osric blocks off the path to the lantern room and its outdoor platform. As the sun sets, they look to the horizon, seeking clouds and the black sun. Soon, a dark flock of gannets swarms them, and Aurienne guesses that this is the reference to the black sun. As the creatures descend upon them, Osric and Aurienne reach for each other’s hand.

The birds block out all the light, and Osric and Aurienne can feel the mysticism in the air as she heals him. As the moment passes, Aurienne runs a diagnostic with her seith, but Osric is still not healed. They are both severely disappointed, but Aurienne feels weak from using so much of her seith. Her “Cost” appears (the symptoms of overusing her magic), and the skin on her hands splits open. Osric hurries her inside. Aurienne rests and reflects on the intimate, vulnerable moment that they shared during the healing when she overheard Osric pleading aloud for the treatment to work. She realizes that deep down, he is just a man, and she finds that she doesn’t hate him after all. Because the tide has set in, they cannot leave.

When the tide recedes, the bandits arrive with reinforcements. Aurienne forbids Osric from killing them and begs the bandits to let them pass. They laugh and Aurienne once again implores Osric not to play god and accelerate their deaths. Osric argues that she also plays god by extending people’s lives. She believes that healing people is an action in service of good, but Osric insists that these men aren’t good. He then brutally murders all 40 of them.