Page 56 of Odder Still
I can’t give up yet, though. There must be one last hope for me. I will dig until I die, or I might as well have never started.
“The finfolk,” Tavish exclaims, so abrupt that a pair of seabirds take flight.
I put back the weapon. “What?”
“The finfolk,” he explains. “Lachlan referenced one of their scientists as having those revolutionary ideas about the auroras taking energy from other places. If anyone outside of Maraheem can help you remove it, I bet it will be them.”
My instincts say no. Every search for a scientist’s help so far has ended with someone looking at me and seeing only an aurora to play with. But maybe that wasn’t because they were scientists, but because they were Findlays. And maybe this close to being consumed, I’d rather die knowing those that the big seven have oppressed the most will learn from my loss than bleeding out in a human hospital where they won’t know enough to stop my parasite from latching to a new victim.
“Right.” I pull myself to my feet. Each motion feels like it might be my last. “Where are the finfolk, then?”
With what must be every ounce of theatrics he can muster, Tavish stands, too, cane in hand. “Glenrigg is their only village in Mara that they haven’t been run out of yet. It’s tucked into a tiny, mountainous firth about a half day’s walk north of here, which they cohabit with a group of outcast pixies from the mainland. If this scientist lives anywhere permanently, I suspect that’s where they’ll be. But the village has an ignit that makes anyone who approaches it lose their mind. Few who go there come back alive, and those who have report waking from some kind of hypnosis after being bound and hooded.”
“Perfect. I lose my mind on a regular basis.” The idea sounds almost desirable in my current sorrow-saturated and alcohol-free state. “I doubt it will be a problem for me, though—ignits don’t seem to affect me the way they should.” The purple paralyzer disintegrating in my grip proved that without a doubt. “But you’ll still be caught in its pull.”
“I trust you’ll guide me through it.” The words are out of him with such speed and confidence that it makes my heart warm and ache all at once.
“Then we go to Glenrigg.”
As I turn toward the northern hills, I can’t quite put Tavish out of my sight: his tussled, damp hair twisting in the breeze and his rumpled wealth, such a contrast to the landscape’s rugged desolation. He deserves someplace safe where he can plot his return to Maraheem in peace. But if I tell him outright that he need not come to Glenrigg, I’m too afraid he’ll realize it’s true. He has better things to do than to follow me.
I loop my arm through his and set off, not giving myself the time to wonder at the ethics of my selfishness.
Though we walk as straight a line up the coast as we can, our conversation meanders like a wild vine. We strangle meaningless topics while avoiding anything resembling our current predicament, as though the recent past infects it. Tavish informs me that the skies are grey here more than they aren’t, and I taunt him with descriptions of the southern sun, the way its warmth seeps into you no matter how cold the air is. I explain the way the Murk hosts festivals of light that cut rainbows into the nighttime gloom, and Tavish scrutinizes all the despicable revelries the inland loch kelpies are said to partake in, too many of which involve stealing humans—either to marry or consume live, depending on who tells it. Tavish listens to my recanting of the myths of the South, and in return I learn that selkies are generally home-loving folks, of whom only the Gayle family have instigated much travel, but those few adventurers bring back wild stories that are passed like delicacies from person to person.
As the sun drops toward the horizon, the hills turn mountainous, forcing us onto a ragged beach that eventually veers inland. It leads to a narrow inlet of sea—the firth Tavish had mentioned—cupped by monstrous hills that cast the whole region in long shadows. As we move into their majesty, I spot a vine-enveloped tower in their crowning rocks before trees shoot up around us, blocking it out.
With each step, Tavish’s hold loosens, until he’s draped from my arm. A sloppy grin engulfs his face, ghastly in the low light and the lingering grief of losing Sheona. “Isn’t this a good, good night? The sky smells of air, like it’s meant to be breathed.” He loops away from me, swirling his arms out.
I step back to avoid being jabbed by his cane. “It’s certainly better than the stuff Maraheem pumps out.”
A hint of ignit energy buzzes in the back of my mind, not near as strong as the power I drained in the pool room, but far more constant. It slips into my pores and fills me up, making the world clearer and each step swifter, easier. My parasite curls contentedly around me, reverberating with a soft happiness that’s nearly intoxicating all on its own. I almost snap for it to stop, but the feeling eases our joints, letting our fears relax.
Tavish slows, knocking his cane into a rock with a sluggish curiosity.
I take his arm and pull him along. “So, this is what losing your mind looks like?”
“Lost what now? I must have put it somewhere.” He ruffles awkwardly though his pockets before reaching for the ones in my vest.
I wrap my fingers around his and guide him along. “It’s all right, you can share mine for a bit.”
“How thoughtful.” He plops his head against my shoulder.
I brush back a lock of his curls. He hums, such a soft sound that it loses every hint of his voice’s usual diamond edge. Without the characteristic Findlay tone, he seems smaller, younger, less prince and more poet. Less serpent and more dove. I find I like both versions of him equally; one does not seem complete without the other.
I wrap my arm around his back. Beneath the smothering purple sky, this almost feels peaceful. And it’s that feeling which prickles fear in little bumps along my arms.
Tavish twirls his cane in lopsided circles, knocking it unceremoniously into so much of the thickening forest that I have to slip it from his fingers for fear he’ll snap it. He barely protests. Each of his steps comes a little faster, as though he’s being yanked onward by a puppet master. Or a form of hypnosis.
The trees give way to a clearing littered by a few large boulders and shrubs, the firth’s waters lapping at a rocky ledge on the far side. In the center of the outcropping, a vibrant-yellow ignit nearly the size of my head glows from the top of a boxy machine. Great cords connect the machine to metal dishes pointed at us—targeting the ignit’s effects away from Glenrigg. The tower I noticed earlier must have informed the town to activate it, making potential intruders distracted and hypnotized by the time they reach Glenrigg’s entrance, easy pickings for the pair of sentries seated on a little wall, their rifles still in their laps.
One look beyond them proves just how thoroughly the town depends on their ignit defenses. It spreads out from the rocky ledge on stilts over the water. Its inhabitance must be impervious to the cold, because the wooden buildings are little more than floors, columns, and roofs; the privacy of their interiors protected, not by walls, but by trellises of climbing roses, wispy-fabric draperies, and small, potted trees with dainty leaves. The light from colorful glass pots within the wall-less houses cascade into the darkening evening, illuminating the bridges hanging between buildings and the walkways floating on the firth’s surface, ladders made of wood and cord connecting the two.
Tavish tries to step from the edge of the trees, his attention fixed on the Glenrigg ignit. I pull him gently back. As I do, a swirl of grey blooms in the center of the ignit. My parasite snaps our attention to it. The grey patch bursts through the stone like a storm, sucking in the light. The thrum of the ignit’s power fizzles and zaps out.
Tavish blinks suddenly, jerking upright. “Good fuck, that was a nuisance.”
The statement has barely left him when the ignit rights itself, color spilling back through it, overtaking the grey until it’s no more than a tinge at the stone’s center. Tavish’s momentary sobriety vanishes.
