Thomas stares at him, sniffs his breath.

“It’s catching then,” he decides. “You said it to Grendel. ‘An angel playing at vice.’ Charlie Cooper is going to change the world.” Thomas puckers his lips as though to spit, swallows it instead. “Are you going to scrape it off him, or just sink him in the pool?”

And Charlie stands there, listening to him, already connected to Thomas by fine tendrils of Smoke, chest to chest and hip to hip, his blood alive to a single truth. This is it, our duel. Who would have thought it would be like this? Me, kind, goodly Mr. Cooper, standing here, lighting the fuse. And he, the dark one, standing in my way. In another moment we will go at each other with our fists.

A duel.

Or else Livia will decide.

“You are afraid,” Charlie taunts Thomas. “We can make a difference, and you are shaking in your boots. I can smell it in your every breath.”

They are standing close now, have stepped into each other’s exhalations, too close even to throw a punch.

“Tell him, Livia,” Thomas says without turning, “Tell him it is dangerous; madness. He loves you. He will listen to you.”

They both start when she closes the gap and puts a hand on each of their arms.

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Oh, how well she understands them both. Everything is written in their Smoke.

Their friendship is in there. Charlie’s doubt and Thomas’s secret longing for the Smoke. She is there, too, flesh and blood, the things each wants to do with her; their focussed wonder at that body beneath her dress. It is as though they have all shed their clothes.

“Tell him,” Thomas says again, exhaling the words into Charlie’s face.

Then he appears to remember that it was she, Livia, who led them back to Julius’s corpse. The thought diminishes him, slumps his shoulders, pulls down his chin.

“You too, then?”

He does not wait for her nod.

“How eager you both are,” he goes on, spiteful now, all alone, “to dance to milady’s tune. She blew you a kiss, Livia, and taunted Charlie about his father. And here you are ready to do her bidding. In the name of the people! Do you think the people want it, the chaos you’ll be starting for them here?”

Before Livia can answer, Charlie does.

“I want it,” he says, half in anger, half in wonder at himself. “I need it. Otherwise, Father will. .” He trails off, catches himself, a hint of amusement lightening his Smoke. “That’s awfully selfish, isn’t it?”

Thomas frowns and smokes and walks away.

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