Page 64 of Odder Still
The knowledge aches in my chest, tight and a little furious, and perhaps I’ve only known Tavish a few days, but it feels like a few days longer than I’ve known anyone in all my adult life. A few days that have felt so very right, as far as Tavish is considered. But I’m not losing him to Maraheem yet. The least I can do is take advantage of the time we have left. “How about, before me or Maraheem, we start with breakfast? Beileag might even have your brooch ready for you. I know you’ll feel a little better with it on again, even if it can’t transform you.”
“Aye.” Tavish’s shoulders drop, but he gives me the smallest of smiles. His fingers creep from my hand up my bare arm, and his lips bunch, teasing. “Or perhaps a little somethingbeforebreakfast? If you’re still in the mood for seal.”
I laugh, and I kiss him with all the hunger of the hundred thousand days we’re not likely to get.
By the time we’ve had our fill of each other, the sun is a bit higher, though the sky no less grey. I watch Tavish dress, committing every elegant crest of him to memory before shoving on my own clothes. I button my shirt as far as I can, letting the sleeves dangle over my knuckles. In protest, my parasite uses the arm it’s woven through to roll up the opposite sleeve. I shake it, trying to dislodge its control. It hisses in my mind, stealing from my pet’s sounds of frustration until I give in, one sleeve rolled up around my worn fishnet gloves and one tugged down, hiding all but the final gleaming hints of my parasite’s hold.
It remains quiet while I slide on my boots and vest. I turn up one side of my shirt collar. It turns down the other.
As I pass a little mirror hung from cords against our makeshift wall, I freeze. Wrapped through the iris of my parasite-infested eye shines a glimmer of a rainbow, the usual dark brown turned to a midnight black. I swear I can see the faintest streaks of color beneath the skin of my cheek, too. From three steps back, it’s all indistinguishable, but up close, I am clearly an aurora’s host. If Coineagan can’t help me, that’s all my body may ever be. I have to turn away before the panic can set in.
I fiddle with my empty fingers as I wait for Tavish to tuck his supplies into his coat and take my arm in his. Even with his cane gently tapping, he trips a little on the stairs.
“They’re steeper here,” he mutters.
I feel the weight of his words in my chest.
We eat quietly, our comments limited to the appeal of sweet or savory breakfasts—of which I’m neutral and Tavish veers heavily into savory territory—and by the time we finish, one of Beileag’s underlings brings us the now drained brooch. Tavish clips it back onto his shirt collar, looking a little more whole than before. But only a little, and whatever peace it returned to him collapses again as the messenger warns us of a BA squad traversing the coastline.
“Dr. Coineagan saw them while coming in earlier this morning—they may even have moved on already. Beileag mentioned you wanted to speak with the doctor? If you hurry, you’ll find them down at the ignit, tweaking the stabilizer.”
“We’ll hurry.”
We do, so much so that I nearly lose Tavish at every turn.
I catch glimpses of the ignit through the buildings’ stand-in walls. It now shines with its activated glow; the Maraheem selkies must be near. My gut clenches as a sliver of panic runs through my parasite.They won’t get to us,I remind it.That ignit will stop them, even with its degradation.
My parasite curls itself close and, tucking into my corners, tries to bask in what little calmness I possess. But something about its reaction confuses me, though it takes a moment for me to piece it together.You could be trying to stop me from seeing Coineagan; I’m planning to remove you, and you’re only putting up a fuss about my clothing choices and whether or not the scientists are friendly.
It flings Tavish’s words at me.‘You ken that, do you.’
I’ve told you to stop that. It’s not your voice to use.
‘I get odder,’it snaps in reply. Its emotional residue barely changes but for a hint of something I can’t identify, a void that seems as though it’s trying its hardest not to bleed into me.‘Refused to let… go,’it says, twisting my words to Raghnaid.
I grit my teeth.I could very well make you.
A slew of memories confronts me, starting with Sheona’s final breath, then Malloch’s falling body and Ailsa’s corpse, scrolling back through every death I’ve witnessed until it finally lands on a spot of blood beneath falling flower petals and the sound of a much smaller me crying for his mother. That final image sets me aflame, annihilating any indecision I might have held.Maybe I’d prefer that to living with you inside me. Maybe I’d rather die and know you’re gone than live and have to deal with your reign on my life.
I expect rage or aggression, laughter or bitterness, but all I feel from my parasite is an overwhelming wave of sadness as it backs away, twisting itself into my past and vanishing to a distant warmth. I leave it be as the ignit comes into proper view and warn Tavish before breaking into a sprint.
A pair of sentries—two pixies this time—stand at attention while a finfolk tweaks the ignit’s holder. After Lachlan and Ailsa, my expectations of ignit-loving scientists have twisted more toward twitchy and impulsive, and it seems the universe has obliged me in the most unexpected way possible. Coineagan mutters to themself, moving with the same restless energy as the science-minded Findlays, but unlike the Findlays, they are immaculate under the eccentricity.
Their dusky brown, purple-tinted skin sparkles beneath a pinstripe top that pulls in a V from both shoulders and knots just about their waist, a tight necklace of black metal with purple stones gleaming at their throat. Their baggy, black pants tuck into tight wraps near their fin-covered feet, a pair of leather gloves flopping out of a side pocket. They bend over a black walker with shimmering purple grips, using it to stand back up to their incredible height of what must be a half a head taller than even me, broad shouldered with bulging arm muscles. Their thick rows of deep-purple head fins flare out behind them, the tips brushing the backs of their knees.
I lift my hand, calling as I approach, “Dr. Coineagan? I have a problem I’m hoping you can help with.”
“You might have noticed, I’m a little busy right now,” they grumble, but they turn to me, and their eyes latch on my neck. Their mouth falls open. “You have a—you’re a—ah, fuck me sideways. Come here, let me see it!”
Their lilac pupils shine in a way so reminiscent of the hungry gaze that Lachlan and Raghnaid and even Lilias gave that it terrifies me. I shudder, but my parasite pulls me back to my senses, focusing on the rounder edges of the finfolk: on the dimple that bunches up their left cheek and the wrinkling at the edges of their round eyes and the excited little bounce to their shoulders. I came here because I wanted my aurora to go to the finfolk.
I step toward them, but a bell clangs from within the mountainside watchtower. Its metallic din echoes eerily through the firth: a warning, despite the brilliant glow of the hypnotizing ignit. My parasite coils anxiously, leaning into my own worry. If we trap ourselves here, if they take us back to Maraheem, if Lachlan’s lab rips us apart—
Part of me knows I’m here to ask Coineagan to do just that, but it’s a small part tucked beneath a mound of hope, and my parasite overwhelms it all with our fear of the Findlays. The selkies who round the bend, though, are as far from the Findlays as possible, their clothes duller and thinner than anything in the upper. Behind them comes a third intruder. Even from this distance, I recognize her, not just the red curls or the determined stride, but the wrinkle of her nose and the bandages around her hand.
Lilias found us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
