Relief from admitting everything came and went, leaving in its wake the beginning of the end: until now, he realized, he’d allowed some vestigial hope to linger at the back of his mind. Perhaps he’d waited for a miracle to happen, or for Brielle to find a solution. Now, he’d cast his last stone into the pond and let it drown.
But was that the last stone? a voice whispered in his mind. Is there a solution, perhaps?
Lena’s smile shrank, but didn’t disappear. “I realize it’s hard for you, but I can’t help myself. I’m happy.”
She embraced him again, this time carefully, the way a mother would a child.
He patted her on the back. “I’m sorry that I can’t feel the same.”
She let him go, stood, and picked up her shirt. “What’ll happen to you?”
“Do you care?”
A pause, and then a plain, “Yes.”
“Daelyn will either imprison me or send me to my family estate. Permanently.”
“Then I’m sorry, too. But I want you to know you’ve done good. You may not believe in the Mimic Tower, but you must believe in something, no? There are many things in this world we can’t explain.”
Shea thought back to the deer and said, “For example?”
“Did I tell you why Drakiri won’t let strangers into their home?”
“Because most strangers are assholes?”
“Because we don’t know where our true home is.”
“Last time I checked your homeland was in Pangania—or do you mean it metaphorically?”
“Pangania was a waystation, nothing more.”
“So Owenbeg is your second asylum? Where are you from then, originally?”
“We have no records of where we really came from, only that we arrived from elsewhere, and letting a new person under your roof is seen, traditionally, like sharing this—a vulnerability.”
“You people possess too vivid a shared imagination.” When she placed her hand on the doorknob, he said, “I don’t want this to be the last time.”
“Then start by cleaning out your wine cabinet.” She took a step into the corridor and paused. “I’ll be leaving Owenbeg sometime in the future. You asked if I care? Here’s the real answer: you could join me—if your queen doesn’t put you under lock and key.”
He remembered the roundabout they’d ridden in the settlement, the world’s colors spinning around them, the birds, the smells of autumn.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“Be careful, then,” she said and closed the door behind her.
Dear sis, my beautiful flower—I think I’ll stay quiet for a while. I want to be quiet. Too much has happened, and I don’t think I’ve got the strength to carry on even our imaginary conversations. Don’t be mad at me (I know you can’t, the dead are the only ones in this world who are at peace), and I swear I’ll talk to you again. I’ll become whole again.
Just not now.
4
Shea entered the tavern. Behind the counter, the barkeep poured the last drops of the summer into a beer jug—he must’ve intended to drink it himself, because the establishment stood otherwise empty save for Shea, a decrepit drunk whistling a snore on the bench next to the coat hanger, and Brielle.
She sat in the corner by a lattice window. The lozenges were red in the center, and the sun filtered through that spot, painting a warm shape on the back of her palms lying on the table. It occurred to Shea how bad it looked, the color of blood on her hands.
He lowered himself opposite. “How are you doing?”
Brielle kept silent.
“I would talk about the weather, but it’s agonizingly unremarkable today.”
“Cut it.” She squinted at him, and it was only then that Shea noticed she had no drink.
“What’s going on, Brielle?”
She smiled with only her lips. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“What about?”
“You promised me two months.”
The barkeep swung back his head and poured in the beer.
“I promised us two months.”
She leaned forward. “You slept with Lena yesterday.” Shit. “I noticed by accident,” she said. “I saw her exit your quarters.”
“Has anybody else seen her?”
“One witness isn’t enough for you? Do the math, Shea—what happens if I slip a word or two to the duke?”
As though having fulfilled his function, the barkeep lowered the jug on the counter. The drunk stopped snoring, and silence stretched across the hall, too thin, too ready to pop.
“What? Why would you do that? Brielle, what’s happening?” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it back.
And, as if to compensate for the loss of intimacy, she leaned forward even closer. “You’ve betrayed me, that’s what’s happening.”
“Betrayed you by what, by sleeping with Lena?” She had a romantic affection for him, it dawned on Shea, and cold beaded his forehead. How the hell hadn’t he noticed it before? Two sharing a secret, only able to confide in one another, a fertile ground for all kinds of feelings…
He cleared his throat. “Listen, I find you attractive, too… But, please don’t take it the wrong way, our meetings were only that, meetings—”
Brielle started back like a mechanical toy, studied him with wide-open eyes—and then burst into laughter. The drunk by the coat hanger jolted and sat straight.
“What on Earth are you on about, Shea? I couldn’t care less if you found me attractive.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said you have a secret and I know it, just as you know mine. So if you’re planning to report everything—”
“Report? To whom?”
She raised her finger, and he looked where she pointed. Through the window, past the triangle rooftops, the castle hill was dark at the base and evening-gold at the top where the walls rose.
“Listen, I give up,” Shea said. “I give up. I don’t want to play this game anymore. Just say whatever you have to say.”
“Look at Kayleigh’s wing.”
Oh my, she’s right, she’s absolutely right. The abandoned wing should’ve been dead, but it wasn’t. Shea’s old balcony and his old windows—one of them stood open, and he thought he saw a movement behind it.
Brielle said, “Is he here to double-check or to arrest me?”
“He who?”
“You tell me. Another guy from the capital, judging by the accent. Did you tell him all about my mistake? How Brielle screwed up basic calculations?”
Why haven’t I seen him? he wanted to ask—but, of course, he already knew the answer. The person he’d seen the most of these days was the village boy with linen sacks full of booze.
“I bumped into him right after the decommissioning,” Brielle said. “He was talking to Patrick. Wears black gloves.”
…walking into a pocket-size theater, eight or nine rows, six of them empty, lowering himself next to a slender man in black gloves, and—’consider this an opportunity’…
“I haven’t reported anything to anyone, Brielle. But I may know the guy. I used to know him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You shouldn’t. I realize how it looks—I wouldn’t believe myself, either.”
“If he isn’t here because of you, then why?”
“Of that, I’ve absolutely no idea.”
5
The picture carried an almost nostalgic air, the narrow path between the battlements a rivulet of stone flowing from the mass of the old castle. Almost. After all, they’d tried to kill him there, Patrick and the duke—but still, for Shea, the memory of seeing Kayleigh’s wing for the first time interlocked with the image of the tower, the feeling of anticipation, the first sign of promise since the moment he’d traded his career for the little pink dress in the airship’s shadow.
And now he’d done the same again: destroyed whatever he’d had left on principle.
He squinted: someone was there, at
the far end of the path. In darkness, the figure was a writhing grub—he couldn’t even guess the height. He dove back under the archway and waited.
The figure assumed form and Patrick shot past him, eyes straight ahead.
What the hell is the duke’s military counselor doing in Kayleigh’s wing? Consorting with the new tenant?
He held still until the steps died down. Then he followed the narrow path.
The tower’s furnace through the embrasures, the staircase leading downward, the corridor with the gas lamps. He hesitated—after all, he had no plan for what would come next—and knocked on the door.
“Come in, Ashcroft,” said the familiar voice.
Shea pushed on the doorknob and entered his old room. “How did you know it was me?”
“Easy. You don’t knock the way the majordomo knocks—apart from her, two people have reasons to see me at this hour, and one of them just left.”
“Hello, Aidan.”
It was really him—he stood at the window, looking at something outside, thin, black-gloved fingers between the curtains that dripped evening onto the floor.
“Come in, come in, Shea. Great to see you. Have a drink—the carafe’s in the bedroom.”
He turned and smiled the way people smile who use courtesy as a tool—earnest at a first glance, but with a whiff of professionalism. Gray eyes scurried across Shea like two spiders, assessing. “Your timing’s impeccable—although I honestly can’t tell if it’s by design. Were you following Patrick?”
Shea kept silent. Slender, taller than average but not too tall, with pleasant features but not beautiful enough to stand out in the crowd, the only distinguishing thing about Aidan was his black gloves. He was someone you felt safe to confess to. Probably would’ve made a fine priest, too.
“Aren’t you going to have that drink?”
“I think I’ve had enough for today,” Shea said.
“Oh yes, I’ve heard, I’ve heard.”
“You’ve heard—have you been spying on me?”
The smile retracted halfway, vacating the eyes. “I really hope that’s a rhetorical question.
“This place,” he continued, “it’s beautiful, sure, but it lacks finesse. You can’t spy on people—you actually struggle to filter out all the irrelevant parts of their life stories. Why don’t you take a sit?”
“Why don’t you tell me what Patrick was doing here?”
“Telling me he was going to Duma.”
“To Duma—why?”
Aidan pursed his lips in an amused manner. “Because I sent him there?”
“Sent him?”
“Oh, easy. I told him the saboteurs he was looking for were holding a rendezvous in Poltava an hour from now. You know, the village past the border.”
Of course. Patrick still believed Duma was behind those gaping mouths in the tower’s walls.
“It was poor sportsmanship. I didn’t even need to plant evidence. I just mentioned to him the saboteurs would be in Poltava, and he immediately took off.”
“What do you want with him?”
Aidan gave him a faraway look, like a chess player who doesn’t quite see his opponent because part of him is inside his next move. “We must get rid of him, I’m afraid.”
“Are you crazy? For heaven’s sake—what’s up with people today? I’m not killing anybody, Aidan.”
“Then Patrick will kill you.”
“He’s already tried, and I don’t think he would go for it again.”
“And that’s where you’re in error. I do know he’d paid someone to assassinate you—but that was a brute from the village, and now he’s hired a professional. He’s meeting him in two days to pay him off.”
“The duke—”
“This time, Patrick isn’t acting on the duke’s orders. He’s keen. He wants to make up for his mistake, and you’ve provided him with the perfect opportunity—I’ll bet good money the coroner’s report would say, ‘died in a state of severe inebriation from choking on his own vomit’.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” Shea said.
“Then you have two choices: die or leave Patrick to me.”
“Why are you doing this? I think you think you’re helping me—but why?”
Aidan lowered himself into a chair and, with a hint at a smile, nodded toward a couch. “Do take a sit.”
“Tell me.”
“Let’s make a deal, shall we? You ride with me to Poltava, I tell you why I’m here.”
“I am not going to kill Patrick.”
“Then, I guess we’ll see what happens when we get there.”
Shea sat. “What would happen is, there would be no blood. I’d reason with him. Convince him I’m no threat.”
Aidan studied him again. “Still an idealist. Perhaps it’s a weakness. Perhaps I’ve backed the wrong horse.”
“Backed the…?”
“I’ll explain in an hour, at Poltava.”
“Aren’t you afraid of causing a diplomatic incident?”
“It’s a puny border village. Worst case, we bump into a patrol—and remember, I speak the language, I know how they think.”
“That’s right—you’re Dumish, correct? You mask your accent so well, I forgot that.”
“Therein lies the difference between us,” Aidan said quietly. “After a decade at the Red Hill, I still don’t have the luxury of forgetting. But I digress. We’ll tell the sentries we were inebriated and took the wrong road. With you in your current state, we won’t even need to do a lot of convincing. I’m more concerned about the goons Patrick will bring with him.”
Now there are goons. But a voice inside reminded Shea that Aidan was right. The military counselor had tried to kill him. Why did I assume Patrick would simply accept his failure? Was it the same arrogance that drove me to convince the duke to get rid of the Drakiri devices?
The room submerged in silence while a thrush somewhere in the courtyard drummed out the minutes.
“Okay,” Shea said. “I’ll go. But remember: no blood.”
“Let’s hope Patrick agrees.”
At the stables, Aidan simply nodded to the keeper, a fellow with a beard that seemed to have picked up rust from the gate. “Hullo, James.”
The man produced a smile so wide one could count all his remaining teeth.
“Just how long have you been here?” Shea whispered.
“For a week,” Aidan said. “I found out you’d made friends, and had to work fast.”
He selected two horses, a chestnut mare and a beautiful pitch-black stallion.
“This one is the duke’s. The name’s Onyx. I’m quite fond of him.”
6
They followed a creek down the plain, meager hillside covered in bush’s bristle to their left, forest to the right. The water was glass, reflecting little but the clean cider sky and the cloud front to the west.
“It’s going to rain soon,” Shea said. “How do we evade the border sentries?”
“Our friend Patrick is a military counselor, he knows the patrol patterns. We just have to follow him.” A wave of the black glove, sweeping three smudged auburn spots at the horizon. Horses. “The difficulty, actually, lies in not being noticed by them—at least not until we’re deep enough into Duma territory.”
“Were you planning on killing him there?”
“Of course. Duma would dispose of the bodies to avoid a diplomatic incident. They’d cover it up for us, Shea.” He half-turned in the saddle and produced a smile. “I’m still planning it, you know.”
“No. I’ll talk to him.”
“That would be putting too much faith into your own persuasive abilities. See that you don’t learn it the hard way.”
The clouds blinked, grunted, prompting a neigh from Shea’s mare.
“Easy, girl,” He patted her on the neck.
The mare neighed again.
“Calm your animal down, Shea. You don’t want them to notice us.”
“Easy, girl, easy. There’s nothi
ng to be afraid of.” Yet.
Shea clung to the black mane and shot a glance back: ten miles away now, against the first pale stars, the tower looked like its twin from Lena’s folio: no longer a part of the sky but an extension of the earth, as though something immense had tried to get free and pulled up the crust in the process.
He turned and concentrated on what lay ahead.
Aware now of his mare’s tendency to voice its discontent, they covered the last quarter mile to Poltava on foot.
First to emerge from the darkness was a rundown fence with three chestnut horses tied to it. Then came a dragon, and another one, and another, wooden figurines straddling the roofs’ ridges—or were those logs someone had pulled from a bonfire?
How had the duke put it? See what they’ve done to the place, see it for yourself. Above Shea’s head, thunder rolled like a roly-poly, left to right, right to left, and the rain started, abruptly and in full force, making the houses’ burns seem fresh.
For all the talk of Poltava, it was a tiny village, no more than fifty homes—and half of them were coal husks, death on one side of the main street, life on the other.
“Why on earth won’t they rebuild those?” Shea said.
“There’s a decree prohibiting that.”
“Why?”
“So that people will remember.”
“My knowledge of history is rusty, but wasn’t it Duma that massacred this place?”
Aidan sighed. “This depends on whose account you’re inclined to believe.”
“The duke thinks so.”
“Then it must be true, right? If the duke thinks so.”
On the live side, behind the rain torrents, fireflies of windows smoldered.
Shea said, “Where do you suppose Patrick went?”
“Look, Patrick does what Patrick does. He arrives. He intends to find the saboteurs, so what’s his best move? To interrogate some locals. They tell him, of course, that they haven’t heard of any secret congregation—which is the honest-to-goodness truth. But, knowing Patrick…”
“He would presume they’re sheltering the criminals.”
“And his next step…?”
“Obviously, to search the houses.”
Tower of Mud and Straw Page 6
