Twig

by wildbow

  “I have to ask,” I said.

  “Do you have to?”

  “At the risk of opening up old wounds…”

  Her voice was barely above a whisper, “I don’t know, Sy. That’s a… horribly complicated thing, and a part of me worries I’ll feel fine and good up until I don’t, and that scares me.”

  “Scares me too,” I said.

  “But,” she said, and her voice was quieter still. “I think I don’t feel two steps behind, when it comes to where we stand, respective to each other. I got… a coat, even if it wasn’t the color I wanted.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re not putting me in a bad place, where I’m having to straddle two sides.”

  “I kind of hauled you violently over to this side, into a place where we’re holding the hoity toity of the Crown States captive.”

  “You did. But it’s steadier footing. I’m not divided anymore. And I’m not sure that fixes everything or even half of everything, but…”

  She moved her head, and she let it rest on my chest.

  The first night she’d shared a bed with me, she’d done much the same. She’d clung to me more, and maybe she would have here, if I wasn’t holding her hands to keep the syringes at bay, in case turnabout was fair play.

  The weight of her head on my chest made a weight lift from me, in its odd, paradoxical way.

  I felt her sigh, and I felt even more of that weight lift. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, I saw the Infante standing where Helen had been, and I became very aware of how he might use this situation.

  Ah no.

  I postponed closing my eyes again for as long as I could. Eventually, I blinked, and the Infante was gone.

  I heard his voice, as if from another room. “You were made to destroy, Sylvester. You were baptized in poison.”

  I didn’t dare move or speak, in case that tipped this ever so delicate situation to his care.

  I shouldn’t have done this. But if I shouldn’t have, then I couldn’t necessarily trust myself to do it again.

  I couldn’t ever have this? I’d been given a taste of it with Lillian, then with Jessie, and now with nobody at all? Was that how it went?

  Moisture in my eyes didn’t help with my attempt to keep from blinking. I failed, and I saw the Infante had moved closer, crossing half the distance from where he’d been.

  My hand still holding Lillian’s, my fingers interknit with hers, so she couldn’t curl them in and use the syringes on me, I moved our hands so I could run the back of my hand along Lillian’s hair at the side of her head.

  I found myself having to blink again. The Infante was gone.

  If he closed the distance again—

  “You have known hard, undeniable truths since you were capable of looking for them. Death takes us all. Some sooner than later,” the Infante said.

  He sounded as if he was in the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice soft.

  “For?”

  “Everything,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” Lillian said. “Life’s too short for regrets, isn’t it?”

  I screwed my eyes shut.

  I gave her a peck on the lips.

  Every time I let my guard down? I lose something?

  She moved her hand a fraction, and moved my hand in the process. I was very conscious of the chain pulling across her throat.

  It felt like seconds and it felt like hours, that I was suspended in that state of tension, striving not to move, to give him anything.

  I’d pulled that chain tight, and in my stillness, I’d already done what I’d feared I would do in the future. My hands felt hot now, compared to how cold hers were.

  I knew she was already dead.

  I opened my eyes to see one of the things I’d hoped never to see—the lifeless face of the Lamb who was supposed to live, at my hands. Instead I saw the Infante’s face, so broad and so close that it consumed my field of vision.

  An illusion. Past and present and future hopes and fears getting confused. I vaguely recalled something about the syringe fingers hampering circulation and temperature. Too late to matter. I’d let him in.

  My mind refused to see, hear, to communicate, to feel.

  I felt hot fluids run down my fingers.

  “Careful, Sy.”

  It took a concerted effort to surface, to figure which way was up and to bring myself there, out of the recesses. It was harder than the last time.

  A saucer was in my hand. Tea sat on the saucer.

  I felt disoriented as I looked first at Jessie, who knelt beside me.

  I looked at Lillian, very much alive. She had her head on my chest, and she looked half asleep.

  “What—”

  “I arrived and asked Lillian if she needed a hand. She said she needed an edge for if you woke up and it came down to another brawl, something to surprise even the likes of you,” Jessie said. “I thought I’d give you a cup of tea to hold and see how you handled yourself, but she drifted off by the time I was finished stirring the milk.”

  The tea? The hot liquid?

  “Jessie—can—”

  Jessie reached down and brushed hair from near my eyes with her fingers.

  “No games? No shenanigans?” I asked. “Can you—can we talk?”

  She took the tea, and she disappeared from my field of vision.

  She returned, and she brought a cushion from the window seat. We extricated me and put the pillow beneath Lillian’s head. She hugged it tight as soon as I was no longer in her reach. She had the key to undo my shackles from the chair, and with the length of the chain, we wound it around my midsection before attaching it to my other wrist.

  We stepped into the hallway, walking past the tea trolley with the tea, Lillian, Helen’s and my meals, and the little platter of biscuits, berries, and cream.

  “I lost a bit of me again,” I said. “I don’t know—did I do anything? Say anything?”

  “No.”

  “How long ago did Helen leave the room?” I asked. “How long ago did the tea arrive? That’s the same tea? Lunch tea?”

  “Less than a minute ago, and it’s the same tea.”

  I shivered.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Had Jessie disturbed me from my spell of madness within moments of it starting?

  Jessie took my arm, hooking hers through it.

  “The thing with Lillian,” I said.

  “It’s fine, Sylvester. Mostly fine.”

  “Mostly fine isn’t perfectly fine and it doesn’t feel fine, Jessie. I’m losing my mind, I’m a danger to her and to you, I’m a danger to me and to everything we’re trying to do.”

  “And I’ve dropped three memories, Sy, and it’s hard to shake the notion that I have a few days or weeks left. Helen’s on edge and Duncan pulled emergency measures to mellow her out in the short term, but her hormones are going to zig-zag. Mary appears fine, but she tends to keep the dangerous things under wraps.”

  I pressed my lips together. I wanted to say things and I didn’t, because it was pointless. It would only distract.

  “Sy. We move forward as best we can. We move forward without sabotaging ourselves and each other with doubts. The others have already agreed we do this with you in chains if we have to. But we’re going to do this.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s not. But honestly, Sy, if you think we need to watch you better, we will, and if you have other concerns, voice them, but don’t—don’t let the concerns become the concern.”

  “I don’t want to push anyone away,” I said.

  “I told you a while back, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me. I’m not going anywhere as long as I can help it.”

  “I don’t want you to tolerate that Lillian and I…”

  “Sy—”

  “I feel like a cad, Jessie. You deserve better than a cad.”

  “You were a c
ad when Jamie took to you, and you were a cad when I did. I’m probably genetically predisposed to like you, and if and when we exact revenge on the Academies, we can exact revenge on them for that.”

  “Ha ha,” I said, dry. “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I. You’re not paying attention, Sy.”

  “I’m paying enough attention to know you’re tolerating stuff when you say you’re okay with it.”

  “Sy—”

  “Jess.”

  She drew in a breath, hugged my arm against her side, and kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke. “You know what I am.”

  “I know.”

  “Connect the dots, then. Realize what I am. I never forget. The memories are… right there. Neatly categorized, all in order. You talk about you and Lillian like… I don’t even know. Like you want me to be bothered by it.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “It’s almost like it. But you’re missing the key detail. To me… you were with her five minutes ago. The memory is fresh in my mind.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  Ah.

  “To me, you came down the stairs from the bedroom, and Lillian had a skip in her step and you looked more relaxed than I’ve seen you in a long time. It might as well have been five minutes ago, and the memory is fresh in my mind.”

  I nodded, with emphasis.

  “It might as well have been that I just saw you sneaking a kiss, sitting with her on the back steps of the orphanage. I just saw you tuck a bit of her hair behind her ear and lean in close and whisper words of encouragement.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “If it was going to bother me or break my heart it would have done it a long time ago, because there are an awful lot of small moments anyone would be envious of.”

  “I don’t have many of those moments,” I said. “I don’t—those memories aren’t there.”

  “I know, Sy. But listen, okay? I don’t feel diminished, because I remember my moments. I remember you buying me the same nice pen from that store in Tynewear twice, because you forgot you’d done it the first time. I remember you making me tea and sitting with me, and we had the conversation with Mr. Bubbles. I have the moments I overheard you talking to Shirley and saying the nicest things about me. Our little game of one-upmanship, to ease into things, fumble our way forward in a facsimile of a real first relationship, awkwardness and all, and I remember the various fumblings of yours and of mine, and it’s especially nice.”

  “You’ll have to tell me those stories,” I said. “I’d love a refresher sometime.”

  “Anytime. Any time there’s not anything more pressing, I’ll tell you stories. I’ll be your memory. I’ll refresh you on the seventh time we slept in the same bed after becoming a pair and you kissed my scars—all of them, as numerous as they are, and—”

  As steadfast as she was, Jessie rarely got choked up, but she’d gotten choked up here.

  “It mattered an awful lot,” she said. “And I wouldn’t trade my moments for Lillian’s any day.”

  I turned to her, and my forehead pressed against hers. I would have held her, if it wasn’t for the chains.

  “Well,” I said. “Anytime there’s not anything more pressing, if you need a refresher…”

  She brushed the side of my face with her hand.

  “If I reach for that memory, I can almost relive it, it’s so clear. I relive an awful lot of moments with you an awful lot,” she said.

  “Apparently pretty awful,” I said.

  “If we get to the point where we need to figure things out, we’ll figure them out. And if you or Lillian decide one way or the other, I’ll step back, still at your side, and I’ll be pretty happy with the memories.”

  “Yeah, no,” I said. “That’s just not going to work, you damn martyr. You’re too willing to retreat, on the surface of it, but the emotions always shine through.”

  Jessie smiled.

  Then she lifted her head.

  I followed her line of sight. Looking through the window toward the rest of the Academy, I could see it was the gossamer thing, making its slow approach to our building. It moved with few anchors, and the wind pulled at it, hard.

  It advanced, and it reached out, attaching its anchors. It didn’t mount an attack.

  Instead, as if the great thing had sighed and something had left it in the process, it billowed in response to the wind, and then it began to collapse, draping itself over the girl’s dormitory, and the bridges to either side of it.

  Its descent and the movement of the creature against the exterior of the building made a rasping noise. Here and there, windows were slashed and broke. Things outside fell, pulled down by strands that anchored reflexively.

  As final moves went, the thing had managed its final attack well.

  Its well poisoned, the thing had needed food and water from an outside source. Our opposition hadn’t had a lot to spare, nor had they had the ability to send it to other sources of water, given how we were bordered by polluted ocean to the east and a wasteland to the west.

  We’d weathered the attacks. The nobles redirected and captured, they didn’t have much. Now they didn’t have the gossamer thing.

  By unspoken agreement, Jessie and I went to collect Lillian and find the others. Duncan, Mary, and Ashton were in the other dormitory, coordinating defenses. After the enemy’s initial focus on the admin building had proven useless or even detrimental, they’d turned their full focus to the other dormitory. No alarms had been sounded and no tap-code messages communicated. We had to assume they were alright.

  Lillian stirred awake with a gentle shake of the shoulder.

  “Did you get him, Jess?”

  “She got me,” I said.

  “Sorry I missed it,” Lillian said.

  She took my hand and stood. Jessie looked her way, and Lillian avoided the eye contact.

  I remembered the cold horror the Infante had brought me. It made me uneasy, being around her.

  Before we were halfway to the penthouse garden that served as the girl’s dormitory headquarters, students from the garden found us.

  “Hi Leah,” Jessie said. “Where do we stand?”

  “Access to the garden is limited. We’re using the small library.”

  “Good enough. Show us the way.”

  The library was actually a narrow space, only two paces across, separated into three levels. It had the odd effect of being shaped like a space for a book to fit into, and as we used it for a meeting place, many students gathered on the ledges above that overlooked the central area of the library.

  Many, many of our rebels were gathered at the window. Most had binoculars or spyglasses.

  When we went to investigate, instead of providing answers, one of them simply handed a pair of binoculars to Jessie. Lillian got the next set, while I, chopped liver that I was, was the last to get a view.

  There was a group standing where the bridge joined the building. The tallest among them was waving a kerchief. The flag of surrender. It looked like they were mostly aristocrats. No Nobles, no Doctors. Not the ones we were really interested in going after.

  Were all of the aristocrats surrendering? No. But it was the first crack in the facade. They’d lost most of their big weapons, and others were being stripped away. They were hungry and feeling that hunger, and many would be thirsty.

  It wasn’t wholly out of the question that they would surrender in this moment. They were of the higher class. They had pride. Starvation and destitution threatened that.

  Supposedly.

  “We’re not going over to talk to them,” I said. “If they want to talk, they can come to us. They know the bridges are rigged with bombs, they haven’t dared to cross one since the first was blown. If they’re serious, they’ll take the risk that crossing that bridge entails, and they’ll negotiate on our turf.”

  “Makes sense,” Jessie said.

  We had our people make their exit and wave our would-be recruits over. I
t turned out they were proud. It turned out they were serious.

  They crossed the bridge, and negotiations got underway.

  Previous Next

  Root and Branch—19.12

  “Check them for weapons at the door, confiscate any you find,” I instructed the group of rebels. “Offer them nothing. When you’re done and they’re settled, stand at the edges of the room.”

  “Spaced out, or…?”

  “Spaced out, sure. Then keep quiet. If you make eye contact with them, don’t be the person to break it. If they say anything, ignore them. They’re going to react, they’ll push, they’ll say things, and they’ll threaten you. But you’re the ones with power, alright?”

  That got me a series of nods from the rebel soldiers.

  “If you absolutely have to say something, keep it short, firm, along the lines of ‘I’m going to need you to be quiet’, and make sure they can see your weapon in its holster. If you’re losing your nerve, if you can’t stay firm, or if anything comes up, I want you to use gestures, alright? Two fingers extended while your hands are in front of you, as if to cover your watch, like so. We’ll be watching from around the corner and we’ll call you out of the room.”

  I didn’t miss the fact that they glanced in Jessie’s direction to confirm that it was okay to listen to me.

  “If they’re not cooperating, then show them the door. If they don’t cooperate there, then, hm, one of them should hang back so they can run to us, shouldn’t they?”

  The question was aimed at me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The chances there are a problem are slim. You’ll be fine.”

  Jessie gave the confirmation, and the students headed to the door.

  Lillian and Helen caught up with us around the time that we were hearing the commotion at the door. One loud voice with crisp enunciation stood out from the rest.

  “Duncan, Ashton, Mary and the younger Lambs are on their way, and your lieutenants are heading over there to replace them. Nora is hanging back there so we know if anything happens.”

  “Our lieutenants.”

  “Sure, Sy,” Lillian said.

  “You can give them orders and they’ll listen.”

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “Well, I mean, you’ve always wanted to run an Academy, and Jessie and I worked hard to get to this point. Mary’s taking to this and she’s enjoying having soldiers to order around, I think.”