Summer, according to Mordrid, was nothing more than an excuse for human beings to display what terrible jobs they did dressing themselves. That, and an excuse for otherwise normal people to pretend to have nothing sensible to do with themselves. Summer, unfortunately, was the busiest season for the inhabitants of the Lethrin Castle in the Midnight Isles. This was why Mordrid hated summer— above all other things— and made sure that the rest of the households under his father’s lofty banner knew it.

Sitting in his breezy tower room at his writing desk, he tapped out a distant song with his littlest finger. The tower room was one of the few places that wasn’t sticky with the heat of summer. Lethe, his nurse, was sitting just off a little ways, making sure that Mordrid took his medications at the appointed time. Sometimes he forgot. It was generally agreed within the Isles that this was poor form.

Visitors were frequent, but mostly unexpected in the Midnight Isles. It was rare for visitors to stay in the Isles for more than a couple of weeks—no matter what the conditions they arrived under. I, of course, would become the exception to that rule. Even servants were hard to keep on. Lethe, a slight woman only a dozen years older than her scantly-dressed charge, was the longest standing servant to date. She had been living with Mordrid, his father, and his uncle in the main mansion since the time Mordrid had been a very young child. She was also a deaf mute, which might have contributed to her general acceptance of the conditions through which she toiled.

At that moment I stood in the doorway, a place I had become accustomed to standing. No one entered Mordrid’s room without being specifically invited. No one was ever invited except Lethe, who seemed to be the sole human being whom Mordrid enjoyed instead of merely tolerated.

Today I was the one to summon him down to the midday meal because his father and uncle—the only other ones brave enough to linger on the threshold of Mordrid’s room—had both been conveniently out on the unsettled end of the island, hunting for sport, and the cooks had fingered me out to go and fetch Mordrid in their short absence.

This was unfortunate simply because I was bound to bear the blunt of various forms of sniping and petulance—not that Mordrid was a foul person. I would be the first to say otherwise. He had just received some very foul correspondence recently.

“Cousin Mordrid.” I ventured quietly. He was my only cousin. I used to lament that fact until I met his cousins. His uncle has a handful of rather annoying brats who graced the Isles with their incessant whimpering and groaning every so often. Mordrid did not look up. I thought for a moment that he was daydreaming, or perhaps memorizing some part of his mother’s letter, but the tell-tale momentary grimace across his unremarkable face led me to believe otherwise. Nidiena, Mordrid’s mother, lived far away, but wrote regularly. She and Mordrid’s father were Duchess and Duke of the Isles and a surrounding sparsely inhabited territory known on the main land as Odrieona.

Mordrid knew the land simply as Saer, which meant ‘forgotten’ in the old language of the natives. That was what the region often was, and that was how Mordrid liked it. It was never a question in my mind, with the way his face would twist very slightly at the barest mention of company. No one spoke of what Mordrid did or said, mostly. It was generally agreed that this was also bad form.

“Cousin Mordrid.” I tried again, a little more insistently. I tried to get Lethe’s attention, thinking that maybe she could tap him on the shoulder and bring him to attention. However, she kept her docile, almost unintelligent gaze straight ahead. I groaned, and shouted his name. “Mordrid!”

At that he did look up, fixing me with his distant eyes. The inner halo of his iris was a striking golden green, the outer rim black as coffee beans. “And in what way may I help you, cousin Aserin?” He asked, in a cool, toneless way that hardly seemed to require his lips to move at all.

“It’s time to go eat.” I said blandly.

He fixed me with a heavy gaze, and paused before speaking. “I haven’t had my medicine. Forgive me.” Lethe rose, and dropped a satchel of medicine in his lap almost immediately, seeming to sense what her charge wanted. I watched in silent abhorrence as he carefully downed a series of pills and powders and liquids, his face hardly changing. He had grown accustomed to the bitter and often downright unpleasant drugs he was required to take daily. He handed the empty satchel back to Lethe, who hurried past me and away, leaving me alone with Mordrid. I wished she hadn’t.

“What, cousin, were we talking about?”

I scrambled for words. “About food, Mordrid. Food.”

He seemed to consider the prospect of food for a long moment before finally nodding, saying more to himself than to me, “It’ll be good to get up for a bit.” Shaking out his coat a little bit he buttoned it up over his underclothing and climbed into a pair of heavy black pants. I tried not to let my face flush. His behavior would have been utterly unacceptable.

Meeting me at the door, his dark, rakish hair uncombed and untended to, Mordrid offered an elbow to me. “You look lovely, Aserin.” He commented quietly. “New dress.” It wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t a query. It was a certain, solemn observation.

“Why yes, Mordrid, it is new.” I answered readily. “It came for me with a handful of other things on the boat last Thursday. I did depart from court rather quickly, as you recall.”

He nodded.

Faltering, I continued to ramble, “As such, a few things were still on call from the seamstress. Mother was just kind enough to send them along.”

“Very kind.” He agreed. That was the way Mordrid spoke: in short phrases. Holding a conversation with him was a practiced art that his father had perfected, I was fairly bad at, and at which his uncle made no attempts. He walked languidly, but his body was all awkward angles. Even still, he had the step and the holding of a court-bred man that belied his scanty nineteen years of life in a secluded duchy.

We stopped outside the terrace. Mordrid didn’t like going outside very much. “Yes, Mordrid. It rained yesterday. I assure you it’s quite dry.” I said quietly.

He didn’t respond, but allowed me to open the door and lead him gently through the grey terrace and its rose gardens. He began flagging a little, staring distantly at his shoes. Tightening my grip on his elbow, I took his other hand in my own. It was cold but soft. His were not the hands of an aristocrat, but of an invalid. He had never held a weapon in his life, and very likely had never lifted anything heavier than a book. “Mordrid, please come on now.” I entreated in an undertone.

He seemed to rouse himself from his stupor and nodded slightly, saying dimly, “Lead on.” His eyes were so far away that I doubt if he saw me at all.

We passed through the rest of the terrace without further incident, with me leading him. Once safely back inside he took the slight lead again, and our uncomfortable silence resumed. This was worse than enduring the lazy, burning comments his uncle had promised. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought him out. It seemed like it was going to be a bad day for him. A very bad day.

Reaching the door to the dining room, Mordrid released my arm and held it open for me, then swiftly got my chair. Lethe was already sitting in the spot across from where I had settled, and Mordrid took her proffered hand and sat neatly down beside her.

At the other end of the great oak table there sat a bearded man with dark lanky hair, braided and thrown over his shoulder. Mordrid’s father. He waved a lazy hello to me, and I bowed my head slightly.

Beside him sat a rather imperious looking blonde man with a long nose and a very pretty set of green eyes. This was Mordrid’s uncle Tannon. He was dressed in the fine cut hunting garb of a man half his age, and had the general figure to match. He smiled sweetly at me. He had suffered a rather unfortunate slight at court, and had retired to the Isles for the year, and had given up on most civilized things in life outside of hunting, gloating, and fashion.

On Lethe’s other side there sat a very nervous-looking young lady and a little girl who looked as if she might be her daughter. On my other side sat three elderly gents. Guests. The first since I had arrived two weeks ago. According to Tannon, strange things generally didn’t start happening to guests until they met Mordrid. More than a few of them connected the dots. More than a few of them blamed and even took out their frustrations on him. He didn’t really seem to care.

Mordrid’s father, Duke of Odrieona, smiled down the table at his son. “How was your morning, son?”

“Warm.” Mordrid responded blandly.

“Extremely seasonable weather recently, don’t you agree?” The Duke asked genially. “Except that awful bit with the storms yesterday and the day before. Did it really take you all the whole morning to find the castle?” He directed this latter statement towards the guests.

The three men laughed warmly. “Oh, yes. I’m afraid we had a real bit of trouble. Kept walking in circles and such. It seemed like the paths were changing around on us.”

The woman nodded grimly. It seemed as if they had all come off of the same boat—which, I realized belatedly, had sunk.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay for however long you wish. You have already met me, my brother Tannon, and miss Lethe.” The Duke explained slowly. “This,” he gestured, “Is my son Mordrid,” and to me, “And my niece Aserin. She’s visiting for a while from court.”

The loudest of the three men, a short, stocky little thing hidden mostly behind a mustache, introduced the group of guests. The lady’s name was Gretchen, and her daughter’s name Laurel.

I welcomed them all cheerfully, throwing my court manners into practice again. Mordrid didn’t look up from his plate. A vein was itching in his temple. He hated visitors. Typically, they hated him right back.

The servants brought out the meal and everyone began serving themselves. A roll gravitated towards me and buttered itself, though no one noticed.

Soon after that had happened, Mordrid’s plate began covertly assembling itself. He looked terribly distant again.

Lethe offered a couple of dishes to Gretchen and her daughter, which they took, gingerly. Before anything could be taken from the tray, however, Laurel’s drinking glass broke. Laurel’s mother stared at it, transfixed.

Tannon laughed loudly, his ears reddening in embarrassment. “It happens all the time, really. It’s old glass, isn’t it, brother?”

The Duke, unshaken, nodded and clapped for a servant to brush away the shards as quickly as possible. “Very fragile stuff. So sorry.”

Gretchen continued to stare at the spot, however. The glass’s shadow was still on the table, yet there was no glass. Seeming to realize this, Tannon deftly placed his own glass there.

“Surely it’s been a long day, don’t you want some rest?” A voice asked in Laurel’s ear, loud enough that everyone in the area heard it. It certainly wasn’t Tannon’s voice.

Gretchen blinked, confused. “What’s going on?” She demanded, clutching her daughter’s shoulder protectively.

“Well, what do you say? Are you tired?”

Gretchen stared around at the others.

Mordrid sat up in his seat as if suddenly realizing something. In a voice vaguely like the one that had been speaking he asked, “Are you?”

Gretchen relaxed, focusing on Mordrid. “You…confused me. Yes, I am tired, and I suppose Laurel is too. Does it show?”

Mordrid nodded glumly, his mouth slightly open, just in case.

The Duke clapped again and a servant came to show Gretchen and her daughter to a room. He offered the same for the three men, but they seemed chipper enough and declined.

The rest of the meal continued without real conflict. One of the men’s carefully buttered rolls disappeared without him remembering eating it, and Gretchen’s empty plate was spelling out words with crumbs. No one else seemed to notice, though.