Page 37 of Odder Still
There’s a threat in there somewhere, and it takes me a moment to pick out its layers: first, that Raghnaid can cancel her son’s meetings on a whim; second, that it’s this meeting, the one where Tavish feels confident and knows he’s doing good for the city; and third, that she knows Dr. Druiminn won’t stand up to her over it.
Tavish picks at the skin around his nails, his scowl so deep it seems it might fold into his face. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”
This is it. Our position dawns, sharp and dark and red, like a sailor’s warning. If we can’t convince Greer to take me in—against the assembly’s judgment—then my only options are to flee from Maraheem or hope that when Raghnaid rips the parasite from my neck, it lends me a swift death.
I set down the letter. My hands shake.
“What will you do?” I ask. Tavish has sacrificed so much of his time and his energy for me already. If his mother forces him to pick between the good he’s doing for his city and the good he might do for a single, potentially doomed foreigner, his only sane option will be to choose his home. Something substantial, something permanent. Not the ghost that is me. And I could forgive him for it, nearly.
“If Greer would only reply to me.” He almost snarls the words, his diamond voice turned into something husky, entrapped in emotion, and his brow tightens as though its tension is the only thing that keeps him together. “It might not save us, but it would give me options.”
I can taste my own relief, almost sickly in its sweetness—he’s going to keep trying to aid me, at least for now. I run my palm down my face. Dreams, secret laboratories, plans falling apart. It’s all so much. So much I want either to charge headlong or collapse.
Sheona’s shower turns off.
The coin Ivor gave me appears between my fingers, unbeckoned, and I flip it, as though if I move my hands fast enough, the rest of the world will fall in line around me. It flows and twists, leaping and falling like a thing alive. I slap it onto the back of my hand and look to Tavish. “Isn’t there someone else in this city—this country, even—who knows about auroras and isn’t afraid of your damned mother?”
Tavish yanks so hard at his cuticle that blood blooms in the crack, filling across the underside of his nail. A grunt leaves him. “Technically, yes.” He wraps a handkerchief around his bleeding finger. “But you aren’t going to like him.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rainbow Blood and Cherry-Red Rebellions
If we are the moons and the tides, then is a heart like a spark,
no end to the blaze so long as it’s stoked?
Or is it the wood, with each piece used, used up for good,
leaving less and less flame till we’re alone in the gloom?
AS OUR WINDING PATH through the Findlay Estates takes us closer to the city’s apex, the décor bleeds ostentation, with sofas so plush that I think they might digest the people who dare to dirty their velvet exteriors, and gilding thick enough that it fights with the ignation glow for the prize of most dazzling. Raghnaid’s visage stares back at us from sculptures and paintings. Sometimes a man with a triangular beard and a gaunt face lurks behind her, but more often she reigns alone, swathed in wealth with an expression like a jaguar standing over its kill. When I turn away, I swear I see the blood of her prey dripping from her chin.
We ascend a sweeping staircase that leers above the rest of the city through ceiling-to-floor windows. Below us sparkles the brilliant glass and polished metal of tunnels and domes and bridges. None of the lower districts’ grimy, rusting exterior is visible from here. The haunting stillness of the climb seems to wash me out. I can feel myself fading away, piece by piece. The parasite shudders. A wave of exhilaration leaves it, fire and terror mixed together, bringing me back to life.
At the top of the stairs, Tavish holds his brooch to an ignation-fueled reader. The lock opens for him. We pass half a dozen doorways and parlors and finally stop in front of the library entrance. I take a breath. Sheona glares as stiffly as she did during his entire explanation of our situation, but Tavish gives her arm a little pat and pushes the door open.
This library must be triple the size of Ailsa’s literary crypt. Its ceiling rears toward the ocean surface, a dozen mobile ladders coating the monstrous shelves, while its far windows view out over the glimmering city. Books pile between the central desks, stacked in neatly controlled pillars. Malloch leans against the far wall, arms crossed and expression so empty they might not even be awake.
Ailsa bobs beside them. Her strawberry curls swirl back and forth, and she digs little indents in the stray papers she holds. The nibbled cut in her lip has grown into a ruby gash. She clamps her mouth into a harsh line as her gaze meets mine, pooling a drop of blood that slips onto her chin. She rubs it away with the back of a scarlet-smeared hand.
A man who could only be Lachlan Findlay swoops to a stop in the middle of placing a worn paperback on an already towering pile. He blinks at us from behind a pair of overlarge glasses. His angular beard and gaunt face resemble the portraits perfectly, but his scraggly head of thinning hair boasts more silver than red, and his near lack of freckles makes his skin glow pink against his dark-blue and green sleepwear. Or perhaps that’s the beginning of a blush.
A grin takes over his face. “Well, what a surprise! Tavish, and the guest! I was hoping Ailsa would drag you both up here.” He shoots his daughter a scowl that evaporates again the moment his attention turns back on us. “Science, you know, it waits for no one.”
I mean to introduce myself—the words are already piled up behind my tongue, ready to turn this into a different meeting than the one I had with Lachlan’s wife. But they stick there, trapped beneath a feeling of familiarity and a creeping dread that winds itself through my ribs. As though to confirm my feelings, Ailsa takes a step back.
“Come now, come.” Lachlan waves us into his literary labyrinth, tripping over his own slippers in the process.
I hesitate, but the look of desperation on Tavish’s face gives me something adjacent to courage. Resolve, perhaps. The knowledge that this might be our final option. If I can embrace it, maybe I can get something out of it in turn.
As we weed through the books, Lachlan dislodges a series of open tomes from a couch. “Not much space right now, but you can sit here—no, just Tavish.” He pulls me back. “You, let me get a look at that.”
Before I can resist, Lachlan yanks the collar of my shirt over one shoulder. I swallow down the bile that rises in my throat, trying not to think about the sweat on his fingertips or the way his voice prickles in my head. He prods the parasite, examining the lines excavated into my flesh by its dark expanse. They appear black at first glance, but a harder look reveals streams of a different color hiding in each. Heat pulses through them in time with the parasite’s feverish interest.
“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” Lachlan mutters, his tone skittering across my eardrums in an eerily familiar way. But whatever I can do to get closer to removing the parasite is more important than the goosebumps Lachlan raises between its rainbow-flecked strands. He sweeps by me and lurches open drawer after drawer in his web of desks and cabinets. He drags out some kind of extended eyewear and flips the lens, testing different combinations. “And you’re still you? Still maintaining full physical and cognizant abilities?”
“I’m still mostly me, for now at least. It’s straining to entrench itself deeper into us—intome—when I—we—gods—” My brain seems to spasm, the parasite digging its grimy fingers into it. I grit my teeth and think of it gone, dead, shriveled and pathetic at my feet. A spark of pain zaps through my skull. “Fuck off!”
