Tara asked me to write an additional scene. She supplied me with the details.
Her nerves have been crawling at the bottom of her stomach for three days now. She feels weak, washed out, the feeling you get when you can’t sleep, when you’re too wired to bother trying. Clive is coming; it’s always this way when Clive is coming.
It’s always this way with Clive: the feverish anticipation, the inevitable crash. She doesn’t even like him, but she’s in love with him. A part of her realizes that she’s tied herself to him, but she’ll reach the end of that rope. Sooner than later.
Clive’s passion comes and goes. In general, he’s more passionate about winning than enjoying the fruits of victory. It was better after the incident with Whirljack, but that was mere jealousy, nothing particularly unique to him. This time, he kisses her, but it’s clear he’s distracted; the embrace is a program he needs to execute before he gets to business. She’d like to say it’s wooden, but wood isn’t so stiff. The Atlas Tree is warm to the touch where Clive is cold.
Clive tastes like metal. He feels like winter. He smells like soldering compound and drive coolant. Patrick smells like a forest. Patrick has gone out to a pub, conveniently getting out of the way. Patrick has said nothing about what happened between them the other night; she’d think she dreamt it, but there’s a palpable dead zone hanging in the air when they talk.
“I need you to have Dolparessan customs look the other way on a few shipments I’m importing,” Clive says.
“Shipments of what?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“In that case, you should be aware that Skarsian customs spot-inspects random shipments. I have no control over that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snaps. “You’re the Empress of Sideria now. You can make things happen.”
“I’m the Empress of Sideria, and there’s still old, bad blood between myself and the Matriarch. If her inspectors find contraband in something mine pass by, they’ll be hell to pay.”
“Perhaps you’re forgetting who put you on that throne.”
Tara smiles sweetly. “Whirljack Riordan?”
“You’re so amusing. Whirljack is good at marshaling the hoi polloi, but that’s where it ends. You would have gotten nowhere without the backing of my special forces.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure why the Matriarch agreed to my divorce.” She pours herself a drink. “You aren’t going to budge on this, are you?”
“We need that shipment, Tara.”
“Does it matter to you in the least what you put me through? What I go through out of love for you?”
“Love,” he says, “is a notoriously unreliable quantity. I’d prefer your loyalty to your love.”
“You have my loyalty, then,” she says. “I’ll do what I can about the shipment. Render unto Caesar, as they say. Is that all you want of me?”
“Not all,” says Clive, grasping her lightly by the elbows to pull her closer.
She detaches herself. “Pity that I have plans for tonight.”
Clive is mildly surprised, more startled than hurt. “You couldn’t rearrange them?”
“The rope proved to be shorter than I’d anticipated.”
“What?”
She smiles again, shaking her head. “It’s nothing.” It really is – she isn’t even angry. All those months since the demise of St. John. All that time spent fretting, and obsessing, and covering for Clive – to have it end, just like that. “I have to get ready to go out.”
Clive shrugs. “As you wish. I’ll contact you once the shipment is in.”
“Feel free,” she says. She can’t wait for him to go now. She doesn’t even notice the oppressive, heavy atmosphere he brings anymore. It feels to her like she’s slipped sideways through spacetime, slipped into those floating days, not the days of falling in love, but of realizing that one has already fallen.
She checks her appearance in the mirror. She looks perfect. She’d thought she was getting herself ready for Clive. Well, it’s a good way to save face. She can never admit the truth to Lady Madonna – she’d never hear the end of it.
“He smells like the forest,” she says. “How could I not have known?”