Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five by Justina Robson Page A

shuddered slightly with the mention of the old house. ‘I don’t get it. You didn’t even live there then.’
    ‘The landlord agreed to store a lot of my stuff. When I was touring I’d leave it in the basement or in one of the lockups.
     The energy sink meant any magical things were pretty much secure. I sent Friday there. It’s an earth energy well. He’d be
     right at home.’
    There was a moment’s silence as she noticed his defensiveness but didn’t pursue it, and he was relieved. ‘He’s evidence in
     a genocide,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, one which has never gone to trial,’ Zal said. ‘Nor will I should think. Is that why you want him?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Apart from Xavi, Friday’s all there is left. But it occurs to me that there might be a lot more to him than
     that. I want to talk to the people inside him.’ She meant the spirits of the long-deadelves who had shared Xaviendra’s fate as the subjects of unsuccessful experiments; theirs much less successful than hers.
    ‘Most of them have gone, passed over,’ Zal said but he was uncertain.
    ‘I want to find out. Unless you know of living elves who are contemporaries of Sarasilien’s? The thing is, I used to be convinced
     that Sarasilien was the one who had left their bones in Zoomenon as evidence; he was the good guy in the war I imagined. But
     here’s Xavi, and it looks like he wasn’t much good at all. Do you think he could have had a hand in what happened to you?’
    ‘No,’ Zal said. ‘I’m not sure he had much of a hand in what happened to you either.’ He held up a hand as she started to interrupt.
     ‘Not that he couldn’t have been involved. Just that it violates every principle of the world that I hold to for anyone to
     succeed in having so much control.’
    Lila thought it over. ‘That’s just
your
theory though.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And if you prove otherwise I’ll be very upset.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Are you going to prove otherwise?’
    ‘For my own satisfaction I’ll prove something,’ she said.
    Zal looked at the sand clock on Malachi’s vast and expensive banker’s desk. ‘Four a.m., still early. Let’s go dancing.’
    Lila rubbed her cheek against his own. ‘Let’s dance right here.’
    ‘Oh well,’ he said, pretending to be disappointed. ‘I suppose so, if we must.’
    Later, as they lay naked under the strew of their clothes she said, ‘Did you have a beer vision?’
    ‘Not really,’ he said.
    He didn’t mention the odd sensation he had experienced while she was gone. He felt that he’d nodded off as he was playing
     the piano, just for an instant, and as he’d faded out there was something else, most definitely not asleep, which was looking
     out at the room through his eyes. It had felt very real, but he had known it was the beer. Like it said on the Dark bottles:
any hallucinations, visionary experiences or out-of-body journeys resulting from consumption of our ale will be accompanied
     by our illusory guarantee – it ain’t real, so don’t fix it!
    Now that he thought about it, that was less comforting than it seemed.
    Lila fell asleep for a moment, her head back on his chest, then shegave a small start. ‘Teazle. What happens now? He’s alone. They’ll kill him.’
    Zal put his arms around her. ‘Doubt it.’
    ‘It felt better the other way, when we were married.’ She went back to sleep. He could feel the drop of her energy into stillness
     like a fall. It almost pulled him with it but he didn’t want to sleep. He stayed awake until well after dawn thinking about
     the dragons he’d met.
    First there was the water dragon who had eaten Arie, and now spat her up again without apparently digesting any of her more
     repulsive aspects. When he was her prisoner it had talked to him, after a fashion, but he’d thought it only remarked on his
     strange dual nature. Now he wondered if it had only been waiting for her.
    The other one was the green dragon that had