Page 58 of Destroyer

“Archie Hill,” said Archie. He pressed his well-formed lips together in obvious disapproval.

Neither of them made to shake hands.

Gwyneth and Ru shared a look. They knew what Archie was doing. Because he and Ru had shared a bed in the past, because she knew he cared for her more deeply than he would ever let on, he was feeling protective. Even jealous. In any other man, such behavior might have put her off. But Archie had been her friend from the start, and while he was guilty of more than his fair share of buffoonery, she cared about him. And just like any true friend, she was even fond of his flaws.

“Archie loves knives,” Ru offered, pausing in buttering a slice of warm bread. “Kitchen knives — ancient ones. He's not going to stab you.”

Archie shot Ru a look of exaggerated betrayal. “How dare you say such a thing when you know full well I’d happily stab Fen. Anyway, my knives are special. I prefer not to discuss them with the uninitiated.”

Ru stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Would you rather me talk about your obsession with that musician from Mirith?”

Gwyneth snorted.

Archie shifted, his smile strained to the point of near breaking. “On second thought, the knives are fine.”

Gwyneth smothered her laughter and leaned forward, commanding attention. "Don’t worry, Arch, we would never reveal that little tidbit. Your secret stays safe with us.”

Archie was clearly desperate to turn the conversation away from his favorite musician, the famous harpist he had written letters to as a teenager, repeatedly asking for her hand in marriage. Ru and Gwyneth hadn't known him at the time, but he had told them the story once while drunk and would never live to hear the end of it.

Ru bit back a laugh. Color was high in Archie’s cheeks, his jaw clenched so tightly she worried he'd break a tooth, yet still feigning a cheerful smile. Fen, across the table from him, looked on with mild dark-eyed bemusement. She had missed her friends. She hadn’t realized until now how hungry she had been for their joy, the peace their laughter brought her.

“Good,” said Archie, “in fact, let’s forget all about that little tidbit, shall we? Simply erase it from our minds. Knives aresomuch more fascinating than… than other things. With their serrations and their various uses.” He stabbed a small potato with his fork, nostrils flaring defensively.

Fen cut in then, saving Archie from further embarrassment at the hands of his friends. “As a historian,” he said, holding up his bread knife as if it were a prop, “I’ve always been interested in the domesticity of past lives. The blades they may have wielded in safety, rather than on the battlefield. If you’d be willing, I’d love to read any papers you may have written on the subject.”

Ru beamed at Fen.

Archie, on the other hand, seemed unmoved. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, pointedly avoiding Fen’s gaze. “Wonderful. Yes. No doubt that will be stimulating for us both.”

“If we’re going to work on this projecttogether,” said Gwyneth, cutting in with thinly veiled ferocity, steering the conversation away from stabbings, “first on the docket should be a research plan. Ru, do you have an idea of how you’d like to approach things?”

“Slowly,” said Fen.

“Yes,” said Ru, considering, “but the pace will come naturally as we build out a schedule. I have a list of everything I believe we’ll need to start, equipment-wise, and a list of questions we should answer. But above all, I think we need to remember that this is incredibly dangerous. We’re going to be in close proximity to a potentially volatile object that could be… well, magic.”

Archie and Gwyneth shared a glance, then, a look that said they were preparing to finally voice something they had been talking about behind Ru’s back.

“We’ve been meaning to ask you, Ru,” Gwyneth said, hesitant. “After what happened at the dig site… will you be alright? Studying the artifact, I mean. It won't… dredge up memories?”

“We’ll quite understand if you need to—”

Archie's words faded to a meaningless hum in Ru's ears. She set down her fork, her appetite fleeing. She had expected trepidation about her belief that the artifact was magic, doubt from her friends, but this…

Dredge up memories.

“I'll be fine,” she said. Her hands shook, twisting in her skirts.

Memories of black dirt at her feet, a remnant of unspeakable destruction. A smooth stone beneath her touch. Lady Maryn’s cry of fear.

Nausea clouded Ru’s senses, a sudden terror that she would vomit there in the mess hall. She tried to breathe more slowly. Archie had said something else; they were waiting for her to respond.

The artifact, as if waking from a slumber, caressed her mind, filling her with that spreading warmth. But it wasn't enough. Not enough. Her breaths came too fast, too shallow.

She glanced up at Fen, just for a half-second, and he caught her gaze with firm reassurance.

“I’ll be fine,” Ru said again. “I need…”

“It's just,” Gwyneth went on, pushing. Her expression was free of malice, yet her words turned like a knife between Ru's ribs, “you knew those people. Spoke to them. And now they're gone.”