Twig

by wildbow

  “Tell them I got lucky,” I said.

  She shut her eyes.

  I took hold of Candida’s wrist, and I backed away, keeping the gun leveled at Mary.

  “Sy.”

  I froze.

  “You won’t ever get the drop on me again. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nodded, blinking away the tears.

  I turned away, fleeing the scene. My companions were only with me because they had no place else to go. We found our way onto one of the cargo cars, and they, Candida included, sat as far away from me as they could.

  I love you, Mary Cobourn, I recited the words again, in my head, as I pulled the knife free of my shoulder.

  Previous Next

  In Sheep’s Clothing—10.20

  “It looks like we’ve reached Tynewear,” Chance said, as he peered out the tiny window of the train car. The train was slowing—we’d had to change early on, and had then resigned ourselves to a very long train ride. Warrick hadn’t been close to Radham, a full night of travel away, and we’d had to go past Radham and then some. The days were short, given the season, but it was demoralizing to be cooped up from the time the sun rose until it started to set again.

  We hadn’t had long to operate between trains, and the bread and cheese I’d scraped together during that short span of time amounted to one modest meal each. Lainie hadn’t wanted to eat, but as the day stretched on, she’d found her appetite, eating ravenously and then crashing into an exhausted, depressed slumber, her back to me. Chance had come with me to get water, but the water hadn’t lasted long.

  I’d suggested another stop for supplies, which would have meant waiting for a later train, but they’d decided to endure. There was an eagerness to get where we were going, to break away from the purgatory that came about in striving to get there.

  The train car had been too quiet, despite Candida’s efforts to make conversation. She was perhaps the only one who was looking forward to getting to our destination, and made heroic efforts to highlight the good parts that had been working and living with Drake and Horace and her other companions. I admired the effort and simultaneously doubted that Lainie or Chance were listening that avidly. Something might have percolated through, but the effects would be slow to show up.

  One person could only hold up a conversation for so long. Candida had tried. I hadn’t even really been able to make the effort. I’d dozed without sleeping and I’d recalled the Lambs, bringing up the mental pictures and imaginings while not talking to them. Chance and Lainie were uneasy enough around me as it was, without me talking to thin air.

  I banished the silent ghosts. It didn’t make me any more or less lonely, or do anything to ease the pressure that weighed on my chest and shoulders. I wanted to cry like I might want to vomit if I were ill, in hopes of finding some relief from the horrible churning feelings. I didn’t let myself.

  I started standing in the same moment that Candida extended a hand to Chance. Oblivious to what I was doing, she asked, “This is it, then. Could you help me stand?”

  He did, with Lainie offering a hand. Candida rose to her feet, a full head taller than either of the adolescents.

  “You’re leaving too?” Chance asked me, on noticing my movement. “You said you were making sure we safely got where we were going, but you didn’t say you were coming.”

  “Yeah,” I said. My own voice sounded strange to my ears, and it had nothing to do with the latent damage to my throat. Had I even said that much during the train ride?

  “How long are you staying with us?” he asked. Still wary, his body language and tone were very clear about how displeased he was with the idea. Not that he would fight me on it. He wasn’t in a position to.

  “Not long,” I said. “An hour or six, depending. We just happen to have the same stop, and I want to see my promise to Candida through.”

  The train came to a stop. We were still gathering ourselves together, Chance getting his coat that he’d rolled up and offered to Lainie as a pillow. I collected the paper bags from the bread, and the cloths the cheeses had been wrapped in. I carried the Baron’s rapier in one hand, and held both the trash and my little bag of stolen luggage in the other.

  “Tynewear is Crown-controlled, isn’t it?” Chance asked. “I mean, the Crown States are all Crown-controlled, but this is an especially unfriendly place, if you don’t get along with the Crown.”

  “I don’t know much about Tynewear,” I said.

  “I remember,” Candida said. She had to pause as another train came rushing past us. The fact that the train had stopped was allowing another one to pass in the opposite direction. “When you asked what cities were close to Lugh, your friend suggested this one.”

  “Yeah,” I said. The fact that the train was passing us meant we couldn’t step out onto the tracks on the far side. We had to leave by way of the station. I stepped up onto a crate and peered out the window, then stepped down to haul the door open. Though it wasn’t a coastal city, I could smell the ocean, and the cold air had a sharpness that owed to the moist environment.

  The station platform was well lit by a combination of lamp-posts and by trees. The design of the lamp-posts seemed to encourage a very diffuse light, and the light frost that had accumulated on the glass made it almost ethereal. The leaves of the trees glowed a soft blue, and the snow muted that glow, too. The train platform was wide enough for two carriages to safely pass one another, yet it stood empty, the landing layered with a light snow that would need shoveling soon.

  I looked further out. The buildings were tall and narrow, spread across several islands and joined by bridges that arched high. The water that flowed between the islands was the likely source of the smell of the ocean. A light snow, frost, and a combination of the bioluminescent leaves and the yellow-orange of the artificial lights decorated everything. It was only the early evening, and yet the city seemed to be at rest. No tension ran through everything, no monsters lurked, and no people stared.

  Turning around, looking to the horizon, I spotted the weak glow of the nearest city to Tynewear. Lugh was out there, burned and wounded, but still perched on shores. Tynewear had areas where the buildings were different, each delineated enough that I could mentally mark out the boundaries, and the area closest to Lugh would be where the military was set, as if they’d wanted to be ready to respond all the sooner if the order to wipe out the decrepit port city was given.

  Lugh had been a barnacle, clinging to the rocks. Tynewear was an artificial city, planned and carefully cultivated. Where water formed the lifeblood of any city, the point around which most cities grew, Tynewear had an abundance to the extent that I could imagine, with diffuse lights and all, that the city was a modern Atlantis, drawn beneath the waves. At the same time, the city lacked any bones I could easily make out, with few points or reference, landmarks, or even major roads. A jellyfish city.

  “You’re right,” I told Chance. “It’s an Academy city.”

  Candida spoke, “When the first war over the Crown States happened, Tynewear was a major victory for the Crown. In Lugh, they say some of the people who fought hardest fought at the battle of Tynewear.”

  “And they plopped this pretty little city down to commemorate the occasion?” I asked.

  “I think they hoped to extend their influence outward,” Candida said. “But they took Scarborough Harbor, and the dissidents moved to Emers, where my parents are from. They moved into Emers, and the people moved to Angler’s Port.”

  “Oil and water,” I said. “The troublemakers wouldn’t mix. In trying to wipe out the troublemakers, and they just concentrated them in smaller areas.”

  Candida nodded.

  “It’s strange, hearing people talk about the Crown like that,” Chance said.

  “If you’re coming with me, you’d better get used to it,” Candida said.

  Lugh would have been one of those last points of concentration Candida had talked about. Too much trouble to take, too stubborn, the Crown had
set up this shining gem of a city where the people of Lugh would have to pass through if they wanted to leave, as if to show off the disparity in power and wealth, and then they’d let Lugh slowly rot away.

  Candida hugged her arms to her chest, “I’m only here because it’s where Drake and I were going to meet up, after we left Lugh. But he doesn’t know… he doesn’t know I might be coming back, does he? He might not even be here.”

  Might not even be here.

  I took one last look over the city. I found the brightest point and spoke, “Candida? You’ve been here before, right?”

  “Often enough. My mother used to take me shopping here, twice a year.”

  “There’s an area, and I’m hesitating to call it the downtown area, but the buildings are taller, and the lights bright and artificial. There are four buildings with bioluminescent plants growing up the sides, almost like they’re crowning the city?”

  “That’s—” Candida paused, thinking. “The theaters. There’s some shopping along there. The most high end stores. I think the dress my mom wore at the event in Warrick was bought there?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Why does it matter?” she asked.

  I didn’t want to talk about it, just in case things went sour at any point. They were sour enough as it was. “It doesn’t, really. I just wanted to wrap my head around the city. Are there any areas your mom wanted you to steer clear of?”

  “The Marina, and the Boatyards. They’re close together. The Marina is where young soldiers and young gentlemen mingle,” Candida said. “The Boatyards, similar idea, but the boys who gather there aren’t gentlemen at all. They’re laborers who build the boats and bring in cargo from the docks. My mother worried about my reputation, if I went down to either spot.”

  “So you made a point of sneaking away to visit every chance you got?” I guessed.

  “I got one chance,” Candida said. She hugged her arms close to her body, cold, and then allowed herself a smile. “It was a good night. My mother was apoplectic.”

  “We’ll go that way, then,” I said. “The Boatyards. Even if we don’t find Drake, we’ll find people who might know where to look. Just give me a few seconds to see if I can get this sword in my luggage without it sticking out and looking weird.”

  My voice still sounded alien, like something detached from me. If that part of things came through to Candida, she didn’t let it show on her face or in her voice. “Thank you, Sylvester. Not just for this. For everything.”

  Where they stood, a distance away, Lainie and Chance stared at me, standing further back than necessary. Lainie with her red hair was standing in the orange-yellow light of the streetlamps, Chance stood in the pale blue light from the nearest tree.

  As if they were accusatory specters, reminding me that my rationale for helping Candida find her way and get her life back wasn’t wholly altruistic. A big part of it was that I just didn’t want to be alone.

  ☙

  “I don’t do charity,” the woman said. She was done up with too much makeup, which was a damn shame. I felt like she lost more in trying to be glamorous than she would have had if she’d gone with a bare minimum. She was cute, in a girl-next-door sort of way. Perhaps that was the city at work, with no room for girls next door or for cuteness. When seeking ladies of the evening, were the sailors and young noblemen unconsciously rising to a higher standard, because of what Tynewear was?

  A city that people visited, that nobody seemed to stay in, they wouldn’t come just for what they could find at home.

  “You have carvings on the frame of your building here, and while they aren’t like the ones I know from back home, they seem to suggest that children in need can find refuge here.”

  “That’s right,” she said, imperious. Right here, in her element, she was practically a noble, she was so sure of herself. “Children. You look old enough to have hairs on your balls, and you’re the youngest one here, looking at you. The boy there stared into my cleavage like he was going to fall in, and I’d guess the blind girl is older than me.”

  “She’s just tall,” I said. “And in his defense, you have very nice cleavage.”

  She didn’t look impressed in the slightest. One hand perched on her hip, which sat askew.

  “We’ve been through hell,” I said. “And I know you hear that every damn time, probably, but it’s especially true here. Look at me. I’m missing an eye and an ear, and those are the third and fourth worst things I’ve had to deal with in the last week.”

  I endured her penetrating stare.

  “For the record,” she said. “That language is the sort that starts fights in a city like this, with the clientele that comes knocking on this door.”

  Language? What had I said?

  Oh. Hell, and damn. The anti-church sentiment was strong, here.

  “You do a very good job of looking piteous,” she admitted.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s a skill I’ve cultivated.”

  “Most try to hide how clever they are. They play dumb and act meek.”

  “If I was planning to stay and hoping to game you and take advantage somehow, I might, but when I say I don’t plan to hang around, I mean it. I need half a day to get some funds together, see about visiting a doctor, and run an errand. One third of the funds I get will be yours, in exchange for your hospitality.”

  “Only a third?”

  “One third for them, one third for me.”

  “I have only so many beds, and the working men and women who rent beds from me to do their business pay me more than a third. Not to mention that that’s money I know I’m getting back. Not some hypothetical amount from a brat I don’t know.”

  “Name an amount. I’ll stay up to a week, and I’ll get you that amount.”

  “Any amount?”

  “Within the bounds of reason,” I said.

  “For four people? Eight hundred for one night.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Chance cut in.

  I raised a hand, not looking at him. “Three people. I won’t be sleeping.”

  “Six hundred, then.”

  “It’s… eight o’clock?”

  She stepped back and away from the door to move further inside, and looked over her shoulder into some adjacent room. “Just past seven.”

  “Get them settled. I’ll get you half by midnight, or you can kick them out. Then I’ll get you the rest by dawn.”

  “You seem confident.”

  “I’ll give you collateral,” I said. “Provided it doesn’t come with questions.”

  She arched a neatly-plucked brow.

  I removed the bundle of cloth from the top of my little luggage case. The handle of the rapier was visible, the blade stabbing into the case, which I’d latched closed around it, pinching it in place. I checked the coast was clear, and then drew the blade, extending the handle in her direction.

  “Probably worth three hundred on its own,” I said. “If you could find a place to sell it. You keep it, up until I come up with the money at dawn.”

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, turning the blade over in her hands.

  “A dead noble,” I said.

  They were the magic words. Dangerous ones, to be sure, but magic all the same. I could see her eyes widen, her composure briefly defeated.

  “You were telling the truth, then,” she said. “You really have been through the gauntlet, if you had to deal with them in any capacity.”

  The most direct capacity.

  “Midnight, then,” she said. “Three hundred. Another three at dawn. They stay in the room I give them.”

  I nodded. “Can you feed them?”

  “If you pay three hundred and fifty at midnight and dawn,” she said.

  Merciless.

  “Alright,” I said.

  The price was almost worth the looks I was getting from Chance and Lainie. A complete outfit meeting their higher class standards might have cost that same forty or fifty dollars.

&nbs
p; “And you don’t bring trouble down on my house,” she said, in a warning tone. “If you get nabbed, then don’t send anyone to come get me, asking for help.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “And I almost believe you,” she said. She looked again at the sword. She gave me a concerned look. “You said something about a doctor? For your face?”

  “Someone who does good work,” I said. “In a city like this, there has to be one. The trick is finding one who would work with me.”

  “We have one in-house,” she said. “He rents the top floor, so he can pursue his own projects, and provides discount work if any of my girls need or want it.”

  “Ex-student?”

  “Student,” she said. “He wanted a place to study, and a house here was better than the dormitories, he thought, with more elbow room to practice. Come on in, I’ll introduce you. Don’t expect the house discount, though.”

  A doctor in-house. Exactly what I’d hoped for when I’d chosen a place like this. I walked inside, and held my breath, willing my sinuses to adapt to the air, that was no one part oxygen to five parts smoke and ten parts perfume. It only got worse as we made our way up to the middle floors, where Lainie, Chance, and Candida were given a room, and then worse still as we made our way up to the topmost floor. The house madam knocked, and a man opened the door. Young, skinny, and wearing a bathrobe like most doctors wore lab coats. Close to a hundred cigarettes had been extinguished across three ashtrays on his desk. Clove, by the smell of them. The room was almost worse than downstairs, stench-wise.

  “Work for you,” the madam said, in a perfunctory way, before stepping back to the stairwell.

  I flipped up the eyepatch, and saw the student wince.

  “One eye, then?” he asked.

  “And an ear, for me.”

  “Ears are easy. Does the eye need to work? Does the ear need sensation?”

  “No,” I said. “Not for now. I just want to look presentable. But there’s a young woman in a room on the middle floors, a guest of mine. Before she leaves, I’d like to get her some working eyes. Maybe fix her muscles. They were surgically ruined. I’ll pay.”