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"Just a friendly piece of advice," he answers. Maple's ears go back and she shoots Silje a nervous look, an almost apologetic look, as though she's embarrassed by some thought that has just flitted from Taym's mind into hers.

"I think I was overly pessimistic," he announces abruptly, reaching for the drink Sebastian had gotten for him, although he drinks it exactly the same way he'd been drinking the swill: without savor or relish, as though it were tepid water. And then, with no shame for being nosy: "Who's Martha?"

"The opinions of geriatric women are the opinions of young women, without the inhibition of false modesty to suppress them. Thus: I shun your collar." He is seized, abruptly, by a coughing fit, but Maple doesn't move a muscle, and so this is apparently normal for him. He speaks through the tail end of it, eyes watering: "Spent some time on the water myself, you know."

"It was utter s**t," he replies, surprisingly cheerfully. Perhaps the prospect of avoiding throwing up has acted as a balm to his bad mood. Or maybe it's the smoking. Or both. "******** sun off the water like someone putting a knife in your eyes. Listen," he says. He apparently does this a lot, at least when he's drunk and feeling expansive. He leans onto his elbows, gesticulating with his cigarette. "Listen. Do you know about the Swan?"

For a moment Taym wishes he hadn't brought it up, because he'd been thinking only of Maple and Silje and now realizes he'll have to tell the man what sort of place it is when it's not Maeve's base of operations.

"It's a brothel," he says bluntly. "I bring it up because the Madam has some lurid ******** fascination with Chosen--she's one herself, strange as that is--and if you haven't had a chance to talk to her, you might." Honestly, Taym couldn't give less of a s**t whether any given Chosen speaks to Maeve or not--he can't stand the woman--but the idea had flitted through his head that she would give him a ferocious dressing-down and the idea of Sebastian being harangued by a stern and powerful woman makes Taym happy.

Taym is not above debasing himself for the sake of later come-uppance. He longs to see Sebastian brought low, and more to the point, he longs to get out of this stuffy room and into the air, and onto his feet. "She's very generous with Chosen," he says vaguely. Maple shakes her head like an irritated horse.

Maple's not too far off, to be honest. She has the look about her of a creature that spends a lot of time shivering.

"I don't go there on her business," Taym says drily, sounding disgusted. "It was a matter of curiosity, since we were on the subject of being... what we are." And it hadn't been, but no matter, now. Silje's body language suggests that soon Sebastian will leave, and Taym will have a reason to get up without rudely abandoning the man.

And, in a sense, this is a novelty: since becoming Chosen these random encounters have increased, and Taym, frequently lonely, finds himself grasping at the straws of company they provide, even when the company is someone he finds himself so opposed to: someone like Sebastian. Truthfully, nearly everyone meets with his disapproval nowadays--anyone will do, then, if they give him the time of day. Sebastian has not only offered him a few minutes' conversation, he's bought him a drink and tried to buy him food even if it was what Taym would deem swill.

He feels slightly guilty about wanting to see the man yelled at, as he realizes all this at once. Only slightly. It's offset by self-reproach. "Your friend looks uneasy. Claustrophobic?"