“People are rude to you?” That was a thing that confused her. Griffin seemed not entirely refusing to talk about it. She could start there.
“My legs. The way some people think, it’s terribly rude of me not to be consistent. Sometimes the chair, sometimes the crutches, sometimes the cane. Though mostly not just the cane or canes in public, they take me more concentration. But around the house, it’s easier sometimes. Or just a change.” He shrugged. “And then many people want to know what happened, like it has some simple answer.”
She opened her mouth to ask, because he hadn’t explained it, before she closed it. Then she reached for her plate, where she’d dumped out the chips, because if she was eating one, she wouldn’t be saying something awful.
Griffin chuckled enough to make her look up. “You’re not asking, and that’s lovely of you. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. I don’t tell most people. I didn’t tell Charlus until this trip, actually.”
“That’s just more confusing,” Annice said. “I mean, you work with him.”
“I told him the parts that applied to the work. That I need the chair or crutches or whatever handy, where they live when I’m in my office, that I can’t be the one to run upstairs. There is a lift in the building, but it’s not terribly reliable, and going up and down is hard. Worse, when it’s busy, because as you’ve seen, I’m definitely not fast.”
That made her half-smile. “Very determined, though.” She focused on her food again, looking away.
His voice got quieter, not quite like whispering a secret, but not in the clear way he usually spoke. “Usually, I just say it was the War. Which it was, but the Healers aren’t entirely sure what happened. Some combination of an explosion, the local magic, my magic, my sensitivity to the land magic, even if we were in France. Anyway, my head and my feet don’t always talk to each other reliably. Or my leg goes weak. Usually not both at once, not these days, but I can take a bad tumble if I’m not careful. And that’s definitely worse on the stairs. And with a chance of taking me out of doing anything on my own. I broke my wrist once, and that was the worst. I couldn’t write, even reading was hard, and I couldn’t go anywhere without the chair and someone to push it, because I couldn’t trust my legs with only one cane.”
Annice risked a glance at him to find him watching her. She swallowed, thinking through what to say. “You seem like you’ve sorted out what works.”
That got her a sudden smile, something glowing like amber or sparkling in the depths like the few opals she’d seen up close. “Enough. I have many good things in my life, some I’m still sorting out. But that’s like everyone, isn’t it?”
Annice felt like she was far more about failing to sort anything out, but there were the good moments. There was making jewellery, talking with Ruth, even today’s outing, which had felt good even if it had been only partially successful. “I, um.” She swallowed. “I envy you that. The good parts. The— you know things I don’t.”
“It’s not just you. I know things a lot of people don’t. And I don’t know things other people do.” Griffin took a few bites of his fish, the batter crumbling off into the chips as he did. “You know things I don’t. The jet, for one.”
“Finding the talisman, though.” Annice fumbled through trying to find words for it. “I’ve heard about that, but never seen anyone do that.”
“Do you want to learn? I could teach you in an hour or so.” Annice’s chin came up immediately; she’d never really considered that might be an option. Finding the jet, searching the beaches for it, could take hours, normally. A charm like that would change everything.
Only, it wouldn’t really now. Not with the demand for jet dropping more every year. Twenty years ago, forty, it would have set up a family for life. Now, it would just torture her with what she didn’t have. Family. Stability. An idea of what her future looked like. But magic didn’t actually fix much of anything, maybe.
If all of that showed on her face, Griffin didn’t comment on it. He cleared his throat after a brief silence. “Though I suppose we ought to figure out how we’re spending our time, and you coming to Trellech.” He seemed distracted by that. “Charlus was arranging for a room at the inn. They’re used to all sorts of people there, working with the Ministry, if you’re worried about it.”
Now Annice was looking at her plate again. Without moving, though she could feel her hand twitch. “I’ve never stayed in one. Never been out of Whitby or nearby. Yorkshire, anyway.”
“Ah.” Griffin considered. “Would an explanation help? Or would you rather not have it from me?” He then leaned forward, taking a bite of his food again.
Before she could stop herself, it burst out of her. “Why do you keep just thinking I could learn it? I know jet. I can’t see how to keep making a living with it, but I know it. I understand it. It’s, it’s.” She lost the word for a moment, then found it again. “It’s conchoidal fractures, that’s what it’s called. Straight lines don’t make sense, and you think in straight lines. Mostly.”
“Most people accuse solicitors and barristers of thinking in twists.” Now he was laughing, and that was both confusing, and made her look at him again. He didn’t quite have that same glow as earlier, but he was relaxed. He took another bite of his food, then considered. “You showed me your workshop. There are so many parts to it. I know from seeing that you can sequence things. You can decide when it is time to move to the next step. You can take safety precautions, and understand the ones that don’t matter most of the time, but absolutely do sometimes.” His shoulder shifted just a little. “And I was thinking about something else today.”
Annice didn’t know what to say to that, but she also didn’t want him to stop talking. “Oh? About, about what? Your work?”
“About my meeting yesterday. That was with Lamont Morgan, who is head of the Courts, and also Lord for Trellech.” Griffin almost seemed about to say something else. Then he went on. “We were talking about this project, of course, but he also said he’d been watching me because he was concerned that I was, mmm. Being conservative is probably more accurate, but he said cautious, with myself. With how far I reached.” He coughed. “Pardon, I’m not good at talking about some of this, entirely not in practice.”
“I— if you’d rather not, I don’t mind.” She did want to know. But here they were, back earlier in the evening, like making a spiral loop around a bit of jet, not quite coming back to where they started.
“I rather think I’d like to make a try with you. If you don’t mind.” Griffin’s voice had gone softer again. “Lamont suggested - the way people we look up to do, really - that I had been overly cautious. Not extending myself, because of my injuries and recovery. That there were concerns about whether I would be quick enough to act as needed.”
“That’s unfair!” It came bursting out of her. “Judging like that.”
“That is, in fact, what we do. Make judgments, discern what needs doing and how it is best done. I don’t blame him for that.” Griffin hesitated, his voice a little uneven, but he went on as Annice twisted to look at him better. “There’s a particular thing he’s thinking about. But I have been thinking about it since yesterday. Rather late last night, actually, the sort of staring up at the ceiling thinking.”
“And you think he’s right?”
“I think he’s not wrong about how it’s perceived by others. And.” Griffin leaned forward slightly. “I got on to thinking about you a bit. You have a space you know, one you understand, one where you are very skilled. But as you’ve said, you don’t know where you go from here. You could keep on as you are, for a little, but probably not all your life, not unless there’s some new grand fashion for jet and less superstition.”
“Or I marry someone who can carry the public face of it.” Annice felt herself grimacing. “I don’t want that.”
“Don’t want marriage, or don’t want to hide your skills?” Griffin held up his fingers. “They’re two distinct problems.”
