Nine Years of Silver

by Parker Foye

  "Unhelpful, Quinn." Briar tried to keep his expression neutral. He didn't know this Quinn. This Quinn didn't know him. "I work for the Rangers. It's my job to find Dupont."

  Snorting derisively, Quinn pushed away from Briar and back to his feet. He took a stuttered step, as if to start pacing again, and Briar took advantage of Quinn's distraction to snatch the gun he'd fallen beside. Muscle memory almost had him aiming it at Quinn but he waited. The gun was a backup plan he didn't yet need.

  Briar's heart thudded a beat as Quinn stared at him, at the gun, out the window. Quinn chewed his lip until it split, blood dribbling down his chin and dropping off the cliff of his jaw. How many times had Briar seen him with a busted lip? How many times had he kissed more loving bruises into it?

  "Quinn, I—"

  Moving swiftly, Quinn leaned over Briar again, facing him upside down. Briar squinted to focus on Quinn's bright eyes. His hands firmed on the gun.

  "Were you happy in the city, Briar Augustin?" Quinn asked.

  Briar wondered what his upside-down smile looked like. It felt thin. "Very happy."

  "Then you ought get back there," Quinn bit out, fast and fierce, then span in place, his bare foot scratching against the floor. His knife flashed and Briar raised his gun to shoot, but by the time he'd scrambled to be right side up, all that remained of Quinn was the echoing thud of his feet on the stairs and a single drop of blood on the boards.

  SEVEN

  Briar left the house on Carlisle Street not knowing if he'd drawn any closer to success. He hadn't found Dupont, nor any true trace of her, but Quinn had as much as said Dupont was in town. How else would Quinn know Dupont's name unless he sought her, too?

  The concerning question of why someone like Quinn would seek out someone like Dupont was one Briar didn't get paid to answer.

  In any case, Briar had burned half his allotted time in Lastings and found nothing anyone would pay him for. He hesitated a moment at the track to the beach, considering paying a call to Lena for help, but dismissed the notion. A favour, freely given, was worth more than anything sought in desperation.

  Yet Briar was desperate. More than when Dupont had been a payday, more than maintaining his reputation, he needed to find Dupont before Quinn did…whatever he intended to do with Dupont. Briar didn't know what Quinn had been doing over the past decade, aside from revenging himself on would-be miners, but he didn't deserve to be mixed up with Dupont. No one did.

  Briar had met all sorts in his work with the Rangers, and over the years he'd learned most folk occupied the middle spaces, at least when life let them. Few people occupied the extremes of good or evil in their day-to-day—but Dupont? Dupont was the tip of a knife buried to the hilt in badness.

  When Briar had tried for the law, he'd had a notion about keeping folk safe. Time passed and he came to think of the Rangers as a job, like any man putting in his time. Even the hunt for Dupont had seemed like any other, at first, though he'd known going in he'd need time after to shake it. Like stirring up silt in the water and waiting for it to settle.

  The thought of Quinn meeting with Dupont brought back every protective instinct Briar had put away for safekeeping.

  Yet Briar could walk from Carlisle Street to the cliffs and get no closer to Dupont. He did well in a hunt over open land, through wide city streets, not in the warrens of Lastings. He realised his arrogance in assuming the same rules would apply by the sea as they did in the city; what the Rangers had taught Briar didn't work in Lastings. It would be like asking a fish to fly.

  But Briar didn't want to quit, and he didn't want to wait for Noah. He stuck his hands in his pockets and tilted his chin, retracing his steps as he walked into the wind. If anyone was looking, they'd see him tall and confident, not bowed by the wind or the spray. He followed the streets back into the centre of town, but scarcely saw the cobblestones as his mind turned again to—perhaps had never turned entirely from—Quinn Lawrence.

  If anyone knew the rules of Lastings, it would be one of their stories.

  Quinn proved elusive as ever. In a burst of inspiration, Briar checked Quinn's old house on the cliff but found only a ruin without even fishbones to keep it company. His chest burned to see it, though he chose to blame exertion from the cliff walk.

  Briar then systematically visited all the places he hadn't been prepared to admit he recollected the day before, when Quinn had been a ghost and not someone who Briar had smelled recently. Their rocks, out at Lastings' limits; behind the train station where the weeds grew high; the worship house with its blurry graves; Briar's old neighbourhood where folk twitched their curtains and kept their mouths sewn. Every place a memory Briar had neatly pressed in his soul. Each a shroud he was lifting in favour of the light.

  A second Lastings' sunset had been and gone by the time Briar returned to his hotel. His steps were heavy as he trudged up the street, hunched beneath a cloud, and let himself inside. Up the stairs, to the last room on the left. Dark as his mood was, he nearly ignored the note pinned to his door. A message from Adrienne, likely. He didn't have the temper for it. But, figuring she paid his bills, he snatched it from the door before lumbering inside, shouldering the door closed behind him. Keys went to the side table, boots kicked off, thumbnail beneath the slit of the thin envelope.

  A petal fell out. A curl of paper fell after. Briar reached to catch both but only managed the petal, and rubbed it between finger and thumb as he knelt for the paper. He stayed kneeling as he recognised the careful copperplate, old fashioned when their fathers were young.

  I missed you, Briar Augustin. Go home.

  Briar stayed kneeling for a long time.

  EIGHT

  They tracked him to the empty belly of the mine, where he finally stopped crawling. He'd thought the dark would disguise his blood trail, but he could hear footsteps echoing in the tunnel. Light flashed ahead of them, brightening his foxhole with dancing shadows.

  Briar leaned heavily against a wooden post, one of many shoring the tunnel after a collapse a generation before. The men who'd mined the seam had long since passed, taken by the collapse or the dust that had filled their lungs and halved their allocated breaths. Sickly black coughs had turned their moon-pale skin red. Briar's chest constricted with panic. He'd be like those miners before long. He could already feel the weight of mine dust in his chest. He smothered a cough back into his mouth.

  He'd called Adrienne, days ago, and asked her to wait on coming. He'd been someone different, then. He'd thought he'd have more time. But he'd returned to the dark and would remain there until she came for him. Perhaps she'd record his passing. No one wanted to die unnoticed, to slip away in the night and have the world spin on none the wiser.

  Footsteps. Laughter. Briar had dreamed of laughter like that, hadn't he? It echoed along the tunnels, from every direction and none. It crawled into his mouth. Briar laughed, and slapped his hand over his mouth. He tried to shove the sound back in. Had she heard?

  "Ranger Augustin?"

  Light flashed from her knife as she neared. The report said Dupont had sawn into her team, at first, in some kind of rage, then started to explore. She'd painted walls with viscera. The law had puzzled over the images, saying they were maps, or messages, or cries for help. Briar figured the only crying done had been by those poor fools thinking Dupont would share her take with them. They'd found knives at the scene. The kind anyone might find in their own home.

  Briar didn't want to be explored. He snatched another breath from the dark.

  Pale hands reached out of the mine walls and grabbed Briar from behind. One snaked across his chest, one sealed over his mouth. Briar screamed but no one heard him. Tears stung his eyes. The hand on his chest reached up to wipe them away and Briar went slack when he recognised the webbed, beloved, fingers. Splinters dug into his throat from the wooden post when Quinn yanked him through it and into the walls of the mine.

  NINE

  Briar woke before dawn and dressed quickly, gulped terrible coffe
e from a delicate cup, and set out for the shore where the fisher folk launched their boats. Drizzle soaked him in short order but he wouldn't be dissuaded. He had one more sunset and no time to waste. Quinn had spent all his hours at the sea; if anyone knew to speak of him, it would be the fisher folk by the nets. Sleep still lingered in Briar's eyes when he reached the group sitting on their portable chairs, battered tin cups steaming at their feet. The air smelled like a storm.

  Yet, again, not a one would part their lips for Briar.

  "He's lived here his whole life," Briar told a man with a creased face and fingers that were all joint. He repaired a net swifter than he might have as a boy. "Quinn Lawrence. He's—" beautiful; deadly; my heart outside my body and I didn't even realise— "short. And fast." Briar sighed, frustrated at himself. "I'm looking for him. It's important."

  "To you, perhaps. But what'll you do should you find him, so?" the man asked, squinting up at Briar.

  "Nothing. Talk. I need his help."

  The man resumed working his net in clear dismissal. Briar stared at the top of his head where his knit cap had been neatly repaired. He'd forgotten they'd always been that way, down at the shore. Smiles for Quinn, but for others? As cold as the north wind in winter.

  Briar fingered the curl of paper in his pocket, the soft petal. The old man was only the latest door shut to him. He rubbed his face, trying to rub the blood back from where the wind had bit his cheeks, and began to trudge over the pebbled beach, thighs burning with effort. There were other places yet to search and one remaining day until Noah came in from the city with his guns. Briar would find a clue before then. He must.

  Dawn crept slowly across the beach. Where light hit the patches of sand it glittered like broken bottles. A glint caught his eye and Briar changed direction to pick up the green stone of weather-beaten glass. He smiled at it in his palm.

  "There's a ghost taken up the lighthouse."

  Briar nearly stumbled when he turned quickly on the uneven ground. An old woman glared up at him with her hard eyes, her face as weather-beaten as the prow of a ship. She scarcely reached his chest.

  "Pardon me?" Briar didn't know what else to say.

  The woman shifted in place. "Ghost been moved in since you were here. Sad thing, so scared of the water." She looked away. "You find him, now. Set him right."

  Before Briar could ask a follow-up question, though he scarcely knew what, the woman shuffled toward the line of boats bobbing in the shallows. Her step never faltered over the sand or stones. Briar watched her jump nimbly into a boat and lift the oars, heaving away in swift motions like she'd done, in all likelihood, every day of her life.

  Eyes on his back made Briar glance at the last man who'd shut him down. The man pointed toward the old lighthouse like he thought Briar might be confused. Then he returned to his net. No one else looked up from their work.

  Briar was confused, but not about the lighthouse or its new ghost. He remembered he and Quinn being fascinated by the ruined old building and daring one another to look; he'd have wound his way there eventually, if only when he exhausted more likely avenues. But he didn't remember Quinn ever being afraid of the sea. The notion made Briar queasy, like seeing an empty net dragged to shore.

  Yet Briar was looking for ghosts and the lighthouse held one. He changed direction away from town and headed along the coast. He pocketed the glass beside Quinn's note.

  The lighthouse was farther than Briar had thought and the morning had truly set in as he approached. It slumped at the edge of the rocks, its silhouette jagged where the roof had collapsed inward, like someone had taken a bite. Rocks broached the water like cresting whales around the outcrop, where wreckers had once enticed fortunes to shatter their purses open. The great lightbulbs had been smashed before Briar was born, with no light ever shining over Lastings' sea but the moon. Ships no longer came close enough to worry the shore, having navigated their money south generations before.

  Briar's spectre waited there. Quinn stood scant inches from the break of the waves. His trousers were rolled to his knees, his ropy calves dusted with hair. When Quinn seemed content to be planted there a good long while, Briar walked closer, enough to see fine tremors shaking Quinn as waves drew ever closer to his naked feet. His webbed toes were nearly buried in the sand.

  "We staying out until the tide comes in?" Briar asked, unable to stand a second more.

  Slowly, Quinn shook his head, his gaze not leaving the distant horizon. Briar couldn't be certain if Quinn had blinked in all the time they'd been standing there. However long that had been. Briar wasn't sure. Each wave had brought a year back to him, until no time had passed since he'd left Lastings and been the boy who loved Quinn Lawrence.

  "Can go in, if you like," Quinn said, not looking at him.

  Briar looked away from Quinn and at the lighthouse. "This where you live?"

  A sinuous shrug. "Here and other places." Abruptly, Quinn took three long steps from the breaking waves. He met Briar's eyes. "You want to see, Briar Augustin?"

  It was Quinn's privilege to live however he pleased, Briar reminded himself. Casting the brooding sky a wary glance, Briar nodded. "I'd be honoured."

  Manners, like his mama always said, despite Briar's first instinct to recoil from the notion of anyone living in the ruin. He imagined shattered glass and cobwebs, flotsam and jetsam and the stale scent of places time had forgotten. Carlisle Street but colder.

  He was glad to have held his tongue when he saw the home Quinn had made from the lighthouse's corpse. Neatly-mended curtains hung at the windows, their stitches tidy though the thread didn't match, while similarly kindly-mended furnishings were set in the round main room, oriented toward a brazier with smouldering embers.

  Morning followed them inside, making Quinn soft with warm colours as he busied himself unpacking a knapsack left by the door. A glint from a long knife made Briar turn his head, and he breathed out on discovering Quinn's enemy was a slice of seeded loaf he slathered with honey. The bread hung from his mouth as he continued to clatter about. Briar forced his attention away. Quinn moved like a dancer and Briar didn't trust himself to know he had only until the performance ended to indulge.

  Briar sank into the well-loved couch, which sighed with stale smoke. He sniffed. Quinn continued making kitchen noises. Briar thought of the note in his pocket.

  "Are you looking for something?" Briar called.

  A cupboard slammed. Water poured. A strange noise, a rustle.

  "Quinn?"

  Briar's beating heart returned from the kitchen, carrying wild roses in a chipped vase. They used to sell the like at the nightmarket, a certain blue Briar hadn't seen anywhere outside Lastings.

  "Pretty, don't you think?" Quinn asked, as he set the vase on the low table by the door, just so. He scrubbed his tufty hair as he turned and dropped to sit tailor-style at Briar's feet.

  If not for their ages, they could have been a decade gone. Even the bruises on Quinn's face took Briar back, echoing one beating or another, and Briar again brimming with the helpless rage as had filled him throughout his boyhood. Even love had made Briar angry for how it consumed him, with no one able to understand how vast and terrible a thing it was to love and be loved as he did.

  Years had made Briar realise most people felt the same way about their first love: confused and overwhelmed and enormous. With Quinn once more at his feet, Briar wondered if he hadn't been right the first time. Vast and terrible, indeed.

  "I got your note. I missed you, too," Briar said, before he could think better of it. His hands shook with how he wanted to hold Quinn. He didn't move. The chasm between them was filled with blood and tears, and no one ever returned to Lastings once they freed themselves. Not for keeps. Not until the sea claimed them.

  Quinn held onto his bare feet and rocked a little before stopping himself, abruptly, with a flinch. His jaw firmed. He looked up at Briar.

  "Folk say Dupont has money," he said.

  Absorbed with Quinn's tics, Bria
r startled at the reminder of his purpose. Dupont. Money. The job. Guns and Noah, not the ghosts of Lastings' past smelling of brine and honey-bread. Business, not—this.

  "Money? I don't know anything about it. I'm with the Rangers." Briar edged forward, meaning to entreat, but stopped when Quinn started looking hunted. He eased back. "I'm here to take Dupont to the city, for my job. That's all."

  "What about her money?" Quinn asked, insistent.

  Briar hadn't heard anything about cash but it would make sense, Dupont returning to Lastings for a stash she'd hidden at some previous point. Killing the partners from the score to claim a bigger cut for herself. He could see that story unfolding. He'd heard the like before.

  But again, why Lastings? And if Quinn knew, then Adrienne must, so why hadn't she mentioned the cash? They'd get a finder's cut for its return, and Adrienne had never stiffed Briar on his share before. There would be no sense in starting now. But, more than all of that, why were the hairs on Briar's neck prickling like they did when someone was lying?

  Briar leaned back, casual-like, and stretched out his legs, nudging Quinn's foot with the toe of his boot. Quinn relaxed in turn, though only a fraction; lightning ran through him like a storm on the water. "You know, I can't help you if you don't trust me, Quinn."

  It was the wrong thing to say. Quinn's eyes flashed and Briar saw the killer from his daddy's story. Quinn rocked to his knees, lip curled to show the shark's teeth Briar had loved.

  "Don't need no help from the city," Quinn snarled.

  Despite himself, Briar's heart ached at the roads between them. A beat later he shoved away the hurt, since Quinn spoke truth, and Briar was a grown man and a Ranger besides. He forced himself to remain relaxed. Going for his gun wouldn't help none and Quinn hadn't yet moved beyond posturing.

  "You want Dupont, don't you?" Briar asked, voice steady.

  After a fraught moment, Quinn subsided and sat back on his heels. He chewed a ragged fingernail between his teeth. Briar saw where the high webbing between Quinn's thumb and forefinger had been torn and crudely stitched to leave a crooked scar.