Page 21 of Odder Still
“We are the power of this city, both in the literal and the metaphoric. We are their sole supplier and guardian of fuel, but more importantly we are the stability—the authority—the entire city relies upon. If we crumble, so does Maraheem.” He plants his cane against the tile, his attention turned toward those I assume must be Raghnaid’s board members. His unfocused gaze is stunning in this moment, determined to the core and just wistful enough to draw in the room. “Yesterday morning, we appeared to all the world as immovable and untouchable. Then my brother was murdered.”
None of his shock from the gate remains, but a perfectly manicured flash of grief crosses his stoic face, not mourning tinged in melancholy but the rage of an avenger. Alasdair means little more to me than a name the lower people hate, but the way Tavish looks now, I would kill for his resurrection. The board members clearly feel the same, all lips tipped down and eyes shining. Even the workers nod along.
“Our people already interpret Alasdair’s death as a sign of our waning authority. And despite all efforts to control the ignation leakage, they will soon brandish that as a failure in our abilities as well. We stand in these grand halls, and we crumble.” He needs no curse to amend his claim because his entire sentence is an oath of its own. It cuts through the room, a diamond blade sharpened to the finest of points.
His mother’s eyes narrow.
“Adding a single aurora to a collection the populace has already lost awe of will do nothing to fix this,” Tavish continues. “We need to strengthen ourselves beyond the ordinary, not to patch up our cracks but to give the city—and the North Seas—a new reason to bask in our power. And by the grace of the Trench, we have been handed that on a silver platter.”
A flicker of the parasite’s warmth bubbles in the back of my mind, repeating the phrase ‘Bask in our power,’ and then, ‘That sounds tough.’ I don’t know what to make of it, whether to see it as a reminder that Tavish is a Findlay, and Findlays have more power already than any single family should, or that Tavish doesn’t quite believe in that power, even if his heart and soul seems crowned in it right now. My confliction shatters the spell he’s set on me, and I catch the slightest tremble in his fingers as he motions in my vague direction.
“Never before have we seen an aurora implant on a human. This is the scientific breakthrough of our time! We are the only ones with access to it, the ones with the opportunity to unlock the future, and every new advantage it might grant us.” Tavish pauses there, letting his claim solidify in the enraptured room.
Raghnaid’s interruption comes so sharp that I can already feel it knock the first crack into his argument. “You seem to have given this much thought.” It sounds like the start of an execution, her breath after the pull of the blade in preparation to swing for the throat.
Tavish doesn’t give her the chance. “Indeed. And as Findlay Incorporated’s public ambassador, it’s my duty to arrange for surveillance and study.” From his papers, he produces piles of forms, gliding a small device over their titles before setting them neatly onto the board table in easy reach of the members. “I have proposals here from the heads of our laboratory and ignation engineering departments, signed delayed-disclosure agreements from everyone who saw the subject entering the upper city, official press releases for distribution to the other company heads, and, since the subject is not a part of any specific big seven company’s holdings, I’ve informed the assembly and received temporary waivers from them allowing for immediate instigation. Sheona is currently working with the laboratory staff to prepare a secure quarter for baseline recordings.”
It’s a pity that Tavish can’t see the expressions his mother slips through, her cheekbones lifting and her lips pursing, then falling, a choked rise in her shoulders and finally her entire body going taut. “Well thought through indeed. It seems nothing more is needed—for the moment.” Her low words carry like a threat. She waves her fingers, flipping on her heel. “Have the copies delivered to my assistant immediately. This meeting is adjourned.”
Each step she takes clicks like a thunderclap as she exits the door opposite Tavish’s. A bustle of voices immediately overtakes the room, board members and workers each talking on their individual sides with exclamations that overlap exactly.
“Rubem?” Tavish sets the rest of his papers down and holds out his free arm.
“I’m here,” I say, as though I might be anywhere else, as though I have any choice in the matter. Everything I could add, both good and bad and all the in-between, lodges in my throat. He rescued me from his mother—rescued me through a feat he must have been planning since long before I arrived in this boardroom. And I know he’s likely not here for me as a no-man’s lander named Rubem, but as a responsibility and a tool he’s decent enough not to let break, but it feels nice all the same.
I press my palm to his arm. Three different people call his name. He grips my elbow, and I can’t tell whether he’s holding me in place or just plain holding on to me.
Sheona bursts into the room with a bundle of folders. She takes one look at the chaos of the attendees, all of whom seem to want Tavish’s attention, and clears him a path out with the discretion of a howler monkey. Tavish leads me through the gap she creates, half pulling, half falling back toward the door he’d first entered from. His cane clanks into its frame. It catches there, and he catches, too, jiggling it uselessly.
I nudge it off with my toe and help him into an empty, sweeping hallway.
“Wait for me while I hand these off,” Sheona grumbles, still holding her folders like she might bludgeon someone with them. Her attention fixes on me, and though her only other weapon is her snarl, calm and precise and calculated to perfection—so different from Lilias’s reckless fury—it alone fills me with dread. “You will treat him like your life depends on his well-being.”
“I do,” I say.
Her eyes narrow, but someone tries to badger their way past, and she grunts, yanking the door shut before they can.
I shudder from a mixture of relief and fear and a million other things I can’t identify. Some part of me never imagined I’d get this far, not when my legs never seem to step in the right direction. Without Tavish, I wouldn’t have, and the power he now holds puts me at the mercy of his whims. If I’m offering him this kind of control, I can’t be apathetic about it.
Tavish may have this handled, but he can’t be the only one.
I draw myself straighter, trying to put together the kind of words that will be a match for his own, but as I turn to him, I no longer find the king from the boardroom. Tavish’s single sliver of fear—that one tiny tremble—has multiplied itself into an earthquake. He clutches his chest. His knees wobble.
“Fuck,” he sobs, too fast, too shallow. He leans against the wall, supporting himself between it and his cane. He slips toward the floor.
My chest tightens. I catch him, grabbing his forearms in mine. He flinches at my touch, but as I utter an apology, he clutches me back. “Easy there,” I say softly. “Do you need anything? Does it hurt?”
“No,” he wheezes, and for what seems like an eternity, he just leans on me, breathing and shaking. Finally, his lungs seem to loosen, the gasps deepening. “It—it’s passing now.” He breaks into a small laugh, choked and weak. He tries to right himself, but his legs still quiver. “I can stand. I should stand.”
Hesitantly, I let him. He only wavers once. My hands feel too useless now, and I tug out the little coin Ivor gave me, tossing it into the air just to give them something to do. “You’re all right? You’re sure?”
“Sure enough. I haven’t had an attack that strong since my first year speaking to the board. It merely shocked me, is all.” Tavish’s lips pull so taut they must hurt. He straightens further as Sheona returns. “We should be going.”
He turns on his heels, and though each step is slow, he moves steadily toward the spiraling stairway on the other end of the chamber.
I don’t follow. “What are your plans for me?”
Tavish stops, Sheona already ten steps ahead of him. His brow tightens. “To help remove your parasite.”
