Page 74 of Odder Still
“So, are you going to drag me to Lilias now?” I ask, knowing he can’t. Not with the rainbows now pulsing beneath my skin. But Ivor could still make my quest to the upper very, very hard.
“No. The time an aurora might’ve helped us has passed.” He still looks at me with the wary presence of a viper who isn’t sure whether to bite or flee. “But if I let you go, what’d stop you from sending the BA raging through this district, a petty vengeance though it’d be?”
I glance to the stairwell and shake my head. “Going to the BA would cause more damage than good, for both of us.” Not for Tavish, though, who might waltz back into his estate to open arms if he can bring the rebels down first. But I can’t consider that now. I came here for me. I can focus on him after.
Ivor releases a heavy breath. He steps back, stiff with tension, or perhaps fatigue. “Whyareyou here, Rubem?”
Across the street, Tavish and Elspeth argue over the feel of a cloak so adamantly that Tavish even smiles, Elspeth badgering him like they’ve been friends for years instead of hours.
I ignore them both. There’s no need to mention their involvement in this. “The auroras are in trouble, something so rare and bleak it’s scaring mine. I need to get into the upper city—all the way to the Trench—without being seen. Whatever fate befalls Maraheem, this is a problem larger than just the city, or the selkies, or even the whole North.” I feel guilty leaving out what all this might do for me—the fact that I might not be trying to sneak into the upper at all if removing my parasite weren’t one of the things I’m likely to get out of it.
That doesn’t quite feel true anymore, though. With my parasite clogging my veins, I can’t pick apart where my love for the Murk meets its devotion to its kin or at what point that has turned into an affection for the full span of this world. But no matter how this whole mess has skewed my feelings, the auroras’ presence is a major part of the Murk and its ecosystem. They have a place there, just like the jaguars and the mer-snakes. Just as I should have had. Just as the creature inside me should, too.
Ivor’s brow lowers, his lips taut. As he hesitates, a cheer rises from the rooms above the bar, followed by the clatter of people rising. He presses his palm to my shoulder again. His fingers tighten on my vest as he leans in close.
“There’s a back entrance to O’Cain Fishery from the office ceiling of the abandoned warehouse on Seagrass and Rock Ridge. I hope you consider this a kind of repayment.” He slips a small key into my hand and pulls away. “But you should leave it be, laddie. If whatever nonsense is plaguing the auroras can wait, I’d suggest you all get the fuck out of Maraheem.” The seriousness of his tone is only amplified by his exhaustion. “We’re trying to save as many as we can, but we gave up enough already. We’ll give up more on both sides if we have to.”
I can’t tell if the ache in my chest is for the losses to come or those I’ve already witnessed. Maybe Ivor is right and reaching the auroras should wait. But the rush of corpses my parasite brought to mind earlier sits too fresh, too real for me to ignore. Something bad is coming. Perhaps something worse than a rebellion.
“Stay safe,” I reply, and slip the key into my pocket.
As I leave, the lights of the bar blink back on, but Ivor locks the front again, behind me. No soup kitchen tonight. For better or worse, there’s a far more violent compassion about to go down. And for better or worse, I’m walking away without trying to stop it or aid it. Guilt and doubt hang on every step.
But I don’t pause. I take Tavish’s arm with a soft “I found a way into the upper.”
I don’t mention that the rebellion is rising or that Lilias is here alongside her and Malloch’s partner in their crimes against the Findlay family. Later, there might be time for that. Later, when I don’t have to worry that this knowledge will be enough to make Tavish flip that fateful coin: his innocence or my future.
My parasite balks at me, crashing through my chest with a flush of irritation.‘Don’t let them cover up the truth.’
It’ll only be for a little while. There will be time for him to get on with his life soon enough.
It tosses back a pair of my own statements from one of my last days in the Murk, pairing them together to form something new: ‘Since they abandoned you’ and ‘I think I'm justified.’
I take a moment to piece the phrases into a single declaration.You think I’m clinging to him because I lost everyone else.There’s something more, though, something in my parasite’s bitter edge that I don’t want to admit. Just because they abandoned me doesn’t make it right to hold Tavish here.
I shove the thought away. That’s not what’s happening. I just know I can’t help him take down Lilias right now, so why put him in danger of her? My remorse only grows, though, with every tortured wrinkle on Tavish’s face and every taut step he takes.
We find the rusty signpost for Seagrass and follow it all the way to Rock Ridge. Ivor’s key unlocks the door to the warehouse on its corner with ease. My nerves tingle through our silent slink across its empty main floor and up to the overlooking offices, where a trapdoor in the ceiling opens to a tight mechanic’s tunnel that runs between the lower and upper cities. Then, those same nerves go so flat I could be a walking dead man. I heave Elspeth’s wheelchair into the mechanic’s tunnel and pull them up after, holding their hand as they reposition themself back into the seat. Their legs continue trembling. They seem not to notice, stretching out their arms before wheeling themself along in front of Tavish. His cane makes a faint click, click, clank as he accidentally taps it into Elspeth’s chair.
A tiny line of steam shoots from a crack in the pipes along the dingy, brown floor of the lower-district ceiling, but every so often a channel of ignation twists through a mechanism in the wall between ourselves and the upper. When we find another ladder, we take it up, despite the inconvenience of carrying Elspeth’s chair.
“The easier access points to Findlay Inc. are all in the highest levels of the upper districts. We should get as near to them as we can before we exit. It will take us through Greer O’Cain’s place, though.” Tavish chews on this tongue for a moment. “The BA thinks we’re long gone, and I can deal with any staff, so we should only have trouble if we run into someone important. Greer’s is one of few estates with no internal surveillance—they don’t trust Callum & Callum’s tech, and they don’t have the kind of leverage over them that my mother does by controlling the ignation all those systems run on.”
After climbing four more levels, the tunnel tightens too far for Elspeth’s wheelchair, forcing us out of the walls. We backtrack to a door and creep into the silver ghost world of the upper. It’s obvious from the first room that we’re in Greer’s living quarters, though they appear no more occupied than the Findlays’.
The only active lights come from the rare lines of ignation in the walls, their glow casting shadows against the teal and grey furnishings, making the metallic garnish stick out like veins beneath elderly skin. Even without his sight, Tavish seems drawn to the mere existence of the ignation, his empty brooch listless and dull in comparison. Every swish of motion from a distant room sounds as though it comes from the nearest dark corner. I swear I spot the bulk of a well-dressed selkie leering from a far hallway and a maid at the top of a stairwell, but each time they vanish, and no alarms sound after.
At first Tavish leads us based on guesswork and whispered descriptions, but soon he grows more confident. “We must be in the west wing. There’s a side door into the city through Greer’s secondary office. We should be able to slip out that way, so long as they’re not using it.”
We take a few more turns before reaching its massive, arching hallway.
“All the rooms look dark,” I whisper, the empty silence nearly consuming my words. Still, the eerie ease through which we traversed this place seems wrong, as though the estate has rolled away from us as it prepares to crash down like a tsunami. My parasite coils closer in agreement, the vulnerable, pleading nature of its worry creeping into my bones.
We slip through the fourth door on the left and find the silhouette of an exit across from us. It stands in the faint lamination of a huge glass wall, so many small grey sharks and dancing silver fish swarming beyond that it must be a proper fish tank. A desk takes up most of the room’s center. The collection of small, sea life-inspired sculptures guarding it form haunting silhouettes.
My breath catches.
Behind the desk, a flame sparks to life at the end of a small box. The holder lifts it to a cigar caught between their teeth, illuminating the scar that twists through their thin lips and along their cheek. They draw in a breath, and on their exhale a gust of smoke leaves, lingering in the air for a moment before a little machine behind them sucks it up.
