Page 46 of Odder Still
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Tavish sniffles, grabbing a fistful of my shirt as if to anchor himself. “They’re right, Ruby.” His voice might be a rustle of glass wind chimes or a clink of porcelain. “Damn assassin should’ve killed my mother instead. Not Ailsa. Not Ailsa…”
I hold Tavish, wishing I could do more. But if I knew how to make grief dissipate, then maybe the wounds in my own heart would have healed over by now. So, I merely let him stay within my warmth, giving him a place of safety as best I can, trying to tell him with my body,You can have this for as long as you’d like, even though I know it’s a lie.
“These people didn’t know her. They don’t ken how much of her was genuinely good, how similar she was to all of them, how our family hurt her, too, with my mother’s disdain and my father’s disregard.” His broken tone can’t compete with the celebrating crowd. He hiccups back a sob. “And now they never will.”
Someone from across the bar gives us an odd look, but they don’t bother coming over. Tears must be common in the lower districts, coming in quantities far larger than the numbers of handkerchiefs. We’re all a little worn here.
“I just have to ask the owner about Lilias. Are you all right—”
“I can manage.” It isn’t quite an answer to my question, but perhaps it’s what he needs to hear from himself. He pulls away.
I leave him sitting at an empty table.
The bartender pauses from pouring beers long enough to give me a suspicious glance and state that Ivor Reid won’t be in until late. When I ask about Lilias, he freezes.
“Lilias Erskine?”
My heart bursts into a frenzy, the parasite leaning against my consciousness with such a mix of eagerness and fear that I almost slap the side of my neck to knock some sense into it. “I think so. She had a brother who died recently during an expedition, if that helps?”
“Aye. Lots of people around here got caught up in her reckless nonsense before she left, even more now that she’s back—people who should know better than to put their lot in with a fiend like her.” His words have the sort of edge that implies his gripe is nearly as personal as mine.
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“Why you asking? You aren’t BA,” he concludes after a momentary double glance. His lip wrinkles. “She sway you, too?”
“She fucked me over, is what she did.” The parasite weaves through my mind and curls down my arm in tingles. I itch to scratch at it, like ridding myself of it is a kind of revenge. Maybe Lilias isn’t responsible for the assassinations at all. Maybe this is just an excuse to make her pay forsomething. I give too few damns to care. “I won’t bother anyone she’s working with. It’s just her I’m after.”
That last statement takes the pinch out from the bartender’s brow. He leans in. “Try the Breac building, three blocks up. Last I heard, she’s got the rooms above the brewery. Stinks of malt—you can’t miss it.”
I add my own amalgamation of dread and hope to the emotions I share with the parasite. “Thank you.”
He grunts in return. “If Ivor asks, I told you nothing.”
The foam on the next beer he refills makes my mouth water, and I leave before I can impulsively start checking my pockets for spare change.
I nudge Tavish. “We have a heading.”
As he turns to come with me, he laughs, his crystal voice slicing through the melancholy that seems to linger in the air around him.
I don’t know whether to be happy or worried. “Is something wrong?”
“Aye, most things. But somehow, it still feels a little right, you ken?” He almost smiles. Almost. “Though I could never manage it without your help. I should thank you.”
“You helped me first.” My next words stack up, but I have to force them out. To know what he thinks of them. “You could have saved yourself back in the library by putting all the blame on me. I was the one who caved in the ceiling, after all. I had access to your knife. I have experience with killing. I have a grudge against your family. You could have thrown me under the boat.” I expect something, anything—shock, confusion, dramatic balking—anything but the knowing look he gives me, his eyes focused somewhere past my face and his expression filled with the sort of harsh openness that could crack the earth.
“It would’ve been easy,” he says.
That answer cleanses and haunts all in one. Because he chose not to betray me. But he saw the opportunity, saw a conclusion no truly innocent person would have come to. He saw it, and had to make a decision, and maybe it was an easy choice for him, or maybe it was a coin flip. I tug the change from the trolley out from my pocket, flicking it between my knuckles. For everything I know of him, Tavish is too fair a person to truly consider selling me out, but he did waver on coming with me. He could waver just the same in the future and end up landing the other way. I have to be ready for that.
The atmosphere of the streets has changed during just the little time we spent in the bar. Guards pass in bundles, driving ignation-powered carts. Lower-district civilians lurch out of their paths, avoiding eye contact. The paths clear as most people move into the buildings, and I try to keep Tavish and myself tangled in the few remaining crowds, swerving us through tunnel alleyways whenever the guard carts come too close for comfort. We cross the corner where two days ago Jean the conspiracy theorist waved her fliers in my face. Only her pamphlets remain, most of those already scattered across the streets. My gut churns.
By the time Lilias’s building finally comes into view, my thoughts spin a mile a minute. The stench of beer suffocates the whole block. I pull Tavish up to the door beside the brewery and yank at the knob. It refuses to budge. “Locked. Looks like a basic key system, though, none of your fancy ignation and lasers.”
“Can you use those little sticks to open it? You ken how to do that, don’t you?”
“Pick it?” I laugh despite the guard cart on the street behind us. “I’ve done my share of terrible, but I’m not that kind of criminal.”
