Twig

by wildbow

  “You’ve got a good attention to details,” he said. “You knew my name and background, knew out who I was, and only one other person managed that today, and she was in the background during one of my other jobs. You knew how devastating I’m purported to be.”

  Jessie groaned slightly to herself, both because her suspicion was wrong and because of the ‘devastating’ malarkey.

  “Jessie knows too, obviously,” Sylvester said.

  Jessie asked, “You are aware that the ‘devastating’ thing was bait? A signal to you from the Lambs? They were trying to get a response out of you, and you fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Not a definitive one,” Jessie said. She looked over her glasses at him, to better see him clearly, without the filter that blurred the most minor details out of the world while lowering the burden on her memory. “But I wanted to rain on your parade a little, before you got too much of a parade going.”

  “How sweet, looking after me, pruning my ego.”

  “Someone has to,” Jessie said. She poked him. He played up his response to the poke in his side, acting as if it had been harder than it was.

  “I didn’t buy it for a second. You’re going to have to step up your game if you’re going to start pruning me.”

  “I’ll have to outsource and make sure every single one of our new recruits know not to take you seriously.”

  Sylvester turned his attention to Mabel. “Ignore Jessie, please. Except don’t actually, because she’s as key a member of this team as I am. For now, let’s focus on why I think you’re so critical for the Greenhouse gang.”

  Sylvester ducked his head down. His arms rested on his knees as he sat beside Lillian, close enough he could have reached across her right shoulder to tap her left shoulder if he could.

  “I want you to forget about all that for a moment, okay? Forget Professor Moron. Listen to me. When you joined the team, I wasn’t that happy about it. For reasons. Because we had a good dynamic going without you. You successfully changed my mind. That’s not to be understated.”

  “I feel a tad self conscious about this,” Mabel said. There were others in the train car. Most were engaged in their own conversations, but they were keeping an ear out for what Sylvester was saying.

  “Be self conscious in a good way. The Greenhouse Gang is full of very dedicated, clever students, who have a good eye for watching their backs. When you stood up to Ralph, you naturally secured your position, understand? You made sure you communicated unambiguously. That’s going to go a long, long way with that small group of students and with all the others like them. You need to trust me on this. I’m not the type to lie about this sort of thing.”

  “I’m under the impression, from what the posters said, from what you’ve said, and what you’ve demonstrated, that you’re something of a charlatan and a liar. Proudly so.”

  “I’m a good reader of people. You still managed to surprise me. That puts you in a special class of people who I really want to keep close at hand.”

  “You change your mind like other people change clothes, you dunce. That’s the point of Wyvern,” Lillian said.

  “It is, but how many people affect a serious, lasting, meaningful change in my brain? Who gets to take up that limited real estate and memory capacity? You earned your dang place on the team, despite every single one of my doubts about you, understand?”

  Lillian didn’t have a ready answer to that.

  Mabel fell silent, thinking over the words.

  Sylvester lowered his voice. “You helped me out last night. It might have made all the difference, giving me the strength to tackle a situation I was dreading. If I’d been more tired? More irritable? Things might have played out differently.”

  Lillian nodded.

  “I want to surround myself with smart people. Because I really like smart, capable people. Especially those who surprise me and those who are going to back me up when it counts.”

  “If you wanted capable people, Beattle might be the wrong place to look,” another student commented.

  “Bullshit,” Sylvester said. “I’m over the dang moon with some of the people that grabbed my attention earlier today. They’ve been lifesavers already.”

  He moved his hand in what could have been interpreted as a gesture in the direction of Mabel, Rudy, and Possum.

  “They made today easier. That counts for something.”

  The parallels were there. The way Sylvester talked to Lillian, the way he talked to Mabel.

  Jessie could think back, pick from an ocean-vast collection of Sylvester expressions, covering a range. From there, it was a process of cutting it down. Every expression had a shorthand code to help with the recording and retrieval. She could simply think ‘is it more intense an expression than this midrange one or is it less’, and prune half of the list. After a few discards, she was in a set range.

  It was the original Jamie’s system. He’d written about it in books, along with mnemonics from the early days. Sylvester’s lopsided smile was ‘sinew’. Eschewing vowels, it had the letters to indicate strong-neutral-weak in intensity, for left corner, lips themselves, and right corner.

  There was too much for Jessie to find her way through her own overcrowded mind without some shorthand.

  If the extrapolation to Jamie’s written records was correct, Sylvester might already be interested in Mabel to the same extent he was interested in Lillian, once. The timing would be the last available book that the original Jamie had written in. Not the last available entry, but an entry eight days prior.

  Sylvester had finished talking to Lillian. He had reaffirmed her place in the world. Said in as many words that she should pay less attention to the outside world, inviting her to listen to him and give his words a special weight. He had rewarded the confidence in him by giving her the chance to refute a small point of argument, then strengthened his argument and built her up as a hero of the moment.

  Jamie saw how Lillian’s body language had changed. She had relaxed quite a bit.

  They sat together, backs to the front of the couch, not actually sitting on the couch itself. It was half-littered with children’s things.

  “Are you going back to your dorm tonight?”

  “Why is that even a question? Where else am I supposed to go?”

  “Mary’s got an appointment, she might sleep over in the lab or get in really late. Jamie’s going back for checkups.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Lillian said.

  “From your tone, I’m not sure you do.”

  “I can see right through you, you know,” Lillian said.

  “Oh, can you now?”

  “If I—” Lillian started. Then she lowered her voice. “If I assume what happened that night in Brechwell happens tonight—”

  Jamie, reading a book in the other room, barely overhearing but putting the pieces together all the same, felt a lurch of surprise. Something not in the books, something that confounded his understanding of the Lambs and where things stood.

  “—you’ll laugh at me and say you meant I should stay in Mary’s bed and wait for her. And if I assume Mary’s bed, you’ll—”

  He wondered if he should get up and leave, or make his presence more known.

  “I’ll what?” Sylvester asked.

  “Call me dumb and tease me for missing the point,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “Seems like you put a whole lot more attention into the first thought, climbing into my bed, than you put into the second thought, staying over with Mary.”

  “You’re horrible!”

  “And you’re wrong, Lil. Very wrong. Because you called yourself dumb, for one thing, and because you thought for a second that I would use that night against you. Never. You’re not my enemy. Not since you saved Mary. I can be a jerk, but I will not go after you when you’ve had a bad day and you’re lonely. I will not punish you—”

  Then he dropped his voice.

  Jamie onl
y caught the sound of his name. Not his own name, but Sylvester had said ‘Jamie’.

  Analysis of this memory fragment had suggested Sylvester had said something akin to, ‘if you need closeness while you’re missing Jamie.’

  Jamie, at mention of his name, stirred. He caught a glimpse of Sylvester touching Lillian’s cheek, wiping away one tear.

  He felt like an intruder. He passed out of the dining room and into the kitchen, past Frances, who was picking through a plate of crackers, probably while—intentionally—eavesdropping on Sylvester and Lillian. She wouldn’t have caught all or even some of it.

  “Jamie,” Sylvester called out, from the other room.

  Jamie approached the sitting room again.

  “I’m sorry if we disturbed your reading by talking,” Lillian said.

  A comparison of memories suggested her cheeks had been wiped dry. A comparison of other memories suggested Sylvester had had his handkerchief in another pocket before he’d sat down with Lillian to talk about Professor Morehen.

  “You didn’t disturb me any,” Jamie said.

  “I was wondering what you were planning for the rest of the night.”

  “Oh,” Jamie said. He recalled the conversation. He chose his answer carefully. “I’m procrastinating on going back for my appointment. I was going to make sure Ashton is getting settled, and then maybe have tea before leaving at the last possible minute.”

  Jamie recalled dorm schedules and times, then quickly added, “Ten thirty? I could walk you back if you’d like, Lillian. Or if you really wanted, I could walk you back sooner than that.”

  His heart pounded in his chest. His skin felt tight around his connection scars.

  He wanted to do the right thing, he wasn’t sure what the right thing was. He wanted to leave the door open for Lillian to choose what she wanted. If there was any bias, he wanted her to be closer to Sylvester.

  There was no reason for her to feel lonely or feel like the interloper among the tighter-knit Lambs. Not in the way Jamie so poignantly felt now.

  “That’s late,” Lillian said. “I think I’ll stay the night, I’ll wait for Mary or something.”

  “Or something,” Sylvester said.

  Lillian turned a little pink at that. Rather than give Sylvester more fuel, she turned, “I’m going to go steal something of Mary’s to wear.”

  She went upstairs.

  Left there with only Jamie, Sylvester looked as uncomfortable and disconnected from things as he’d looked comfortable with Lillian.

  Sylvester rubbed the back of his neck, and he didn’t make eye contact.

  “Thank you,” Sylvester said. The pause was a little too long before he said, “For looking after Ashton, for being helpful.”

  It felt like there was a chasm between them.

  How was Jamie supposed to say he was thankful too, for the call out, the chance to close the gap just a fraction?

  “Thank you,” he said. He injected a pause of similar length. “For taking care of our medic.”

  “Yeah,” Sylvester said.

  To compare memories, snapshots of images, Sylvester earlier, Sylvester while talking to Lillian, Sylvester now, it was akin to the diagrams and disease progression photos in books about poison and disease. It was as if every moment in Jamie’s company was a half percentage point or so of Sylvester diminishing, the joy leaking out of him, the grief welling up.

  “I’m going to go see to my tea. Would you want some? Would Lillian?”

  “J—hey,” Sylvester said, abrupt.

  Jamie stopped mid-step.

  “You could blow off your appointment. Stay over, like Lillian is. Kids might make some noise, first thing, but…”

  Sylvester couldn’t even meet Jamie’s eyes as he said it. It cost more than half of a percentage point of Sylvester to even voice the offer and entertain the idea of it.

  “No,” Jamie said, even as it killed him to put it into words. “Focus on Lillian for now. She had a bad day.”

  It killed him just a little more to see Sylvester’s relief at that.

  It was a lonely, sad, beautiful memory. Jessie, in reliving it, sorting things out in her head, had started to drift off.

  The conversation was ongoing. She could tell where she had started to nod off and where she’d been more lucid by how much she had transcribed to memory.

  “—goes back to what I was saying about surrounding myself with capable, intelligent people,” Sylvester was saying. “We get you lot an education. That means finding capable back-alley doctors and ex-professors to teach you.”

  “The problem,” Jessie said. “Is that the kind of capable, back-alley professor who would work with rebellion have been snapped up by various rebellion factions and are working elsewhere.”

  “That is an eminently solvable dilemma,” Sylvester said. “Also, you’re awake. Lift your rear end up.”

  “My rear end?” Jessie asked.

  But she did as she’d been instructed.

  Sylvester slid a heavy coat underneath her. The coat, pulled from nearby luggage, was suede trimmed with fur. For colder weather.

  “Turns out an uninsulated train car is cold at this time of year,” Sylvester said. As Jessie straightened out her legs, Sylvester folded the coat around them. He got another bit of clothing out and set it behind Jessie, giving her a cushion. He draped a third, lighter coat over her as a blanket of sorts. “Sleep if you need to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  Jessie nodded. The contrast to the memory was a stark one that left her a little speechless.

  Sylvester turned to Rudy, Possum, and Mabel, as if nothing had happened. “If you want it, if you’re less interested in the learning and more interested in the doing, that can be arranged too. Be a part of the inner circle, kind of.”

  Ah, so this was where they were in the current pattern. The bargain, the negotiation past boundaries with an offer of greater intimacy. An invite to bed, an invitation to the inner circle.

  Then… the next step in the pattern would be for Sylvester to physically test those boundaries. Would he get up soon? His foot wasn’t far from Mabel’s. A light kick? A tap?

  Watching, she settled down, sitting less and lying down more, the padding behind her serving as a pillow. More memories threatened to rise up and pull her into a deep sleep, nothing like what the machine could do, in organizing and strengthening the threads, making the connections shorter, and keeping the worst tangles of threads from getting too weighty and potentially pulling material down with them.

  When and if that happened, it would be like that memory on the second of February in Tynewear, when she had taken an alternate route after buying food. In that memory, there was a building face, and the details of that building face were absent where they had once been recorded in detail

  Dropped at some point in the last week, while she had been distracted with the imminent plan to steal Fray’s plan.

  Jessie waited to see if Sylvester would continue his game of almost-flirting to the extent of physical back and forth with Mabel. A physical intimacy, even if it was boot tapping boot, gauging how much she might let him in.

  Jessie had never really known jealousy, not until that day Lillian had been captured and brought to the top of the tower. She didn’t experience it now. This, with Sylvester making her warm, was nice and welcome.

  “I want to learn and be a part of any decision making, especially if I’m looking after the Greenhousers. If that’s possible, that is.”

  “Well, Mabel, if you try that and manage it, you’ll redouble my belief that you’re the kind of smart, capable person I want near me.”

  Mabel wasn’t one to blush, but she did look pleased at the prospect.

  Not quite a physical and minute extension of intimacy, but in his easy verbal jousts, he’d inched closer. No surprise there. Even the fact that he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was saying exactly what he needed to say to win Mabel over wasn’t so surprising. He could be so dense sometimes.


  No, the real surprise was Sylvester’s hand reaching down and taking Jessie’s. He kept talking, as if nothing had happened.

  “I want the strong students to make the weakest better. No more competition,” Sylvester said. “We’re all in this together. You teach each other what you know, and Jessie and I are going to get all of you some teachers. Some here and there will stand out from the rest. Jessie and I can be teachers to them. That’s the beginning.”

  “What’s the middle?” Rudy asked.

  “Taking on nobles. Not picking fights like we’ve been doing, not the reckless, mad attacks. I want to take them on on our playing field. Lambsbridge and Ewesmont playing field. I want to know what makes them tick, and then I want to take them apart. The Beattle students are what shape the playing field. Coordinated work.”

  Sylvester was so excited at the prospects. He looked happy.

  She could cross check. She could find similar expressions.

  Sylvester sat in the window in their apartment in Tynewear. He had a mug of a favorite tea and a plate of favorite cookies with him. The tea was only available every few weeks and in short supply, while the cookies were often sold out. A new piece of music played on the music machine. Sylvester had had a good night with his stealing and fencing, and he had spent nearly all of it on luxuries and small amenities.

  Music ticked over to a new piece, and as it got underway, he twisted in his seat, nearly spilling his tea. He looked at Jamie and, smiling wide, excited, he indicated the music player, not speaking for fear of disturbing this sound he liked so much.

  No. At the root of that moment was being at peace, not being truly happy.

  Sylvester and Lillian, together in the morning in Lugh. Before Gordon had died.

  No. Animal comforts, but not joy.

  There were other moments, but as Jessie followed the threads and looked for patterns in this hard to capture emotion, one that couldn’t be taken as a set of facial expressions and broken down into a ‘minnow’ or a ‘sussex’, she had a feeling about where that pattern pointed.