Meek

Chapter 35: Before Midnight

"You need me," she said.

"Do I?" Eli asked.

"I know the catchphrases and the watchwords. If you don't say the right thing, the marquis will vanish before you clap eyes on him. You don't want to scare him off, so you need me"

Eli scrubbed his hair with his fingers. "And you're going to help because that potion made me tell you all my secrets?"

"No. Yes. That's one reason. I'm going to help because I owe you and because you owe me and because I know what you've been through and ..."

"And what?"

She tilted her chin upward at him. "I don't want to tell you that either."

"So what?"

"So please don't ask me to."

"I think we're beyond politeness at this point. I'm asking you."

She exhaled. "Because with Chivat Lo, I gave myself to a monster. And I made him worse, I made everything worse."

"And?"

"And you're also a monster, but I'm going to make you better. I'm going to help you stay ... you. Not for you--not only for you. Also for me. This is something I need to do. I can't return. I can't go home. Not like this. Not until I ..."

"Redeem yourself?"

"Yeah."

"That's what I am to you? A way to get make yourself whole again?"

"Yes. I'm a dryn, Elishiv. I've wandered too far from the forest paths, and now what I want, what I need--" She showed him another sad smile. "I want to rest among the roots when I die. I want my bones buried in the trees, which means I need to do better. I need to be better."

Her bones buried in the trees? Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. "And being better means helping me? Even though I'm a monster?"

"Not 'even though' so much as 'because.'"

"Really? I'm a monster?"

"I know you don't disagree."

He snorted. "Yeah, but you don't have to be so sure about it."

"I'll prove it to you, then. Your plan is to kill the marquis and then what?"

"Then I'm going back to the mountain."

"You're not going back."

"What're you talking about?"

"They fed you people, Eli."

"Yeah, but--"

"Don't make excuses. That's monstrous. You like them? Fine. You're loyal to them? Fine. Even though you suspect--and I think you're right--that it's your blood that's loyal to them, that doesn't matter. The feeling is real. And you think you owe them, so--"

"I do owe them."

"Okay. Though ... I'm not sure how much of those memories you can trust. But fine, you owe them. Still, going back? That isn't right, Eli. They eat human beings--they fed them to you. You're not going back."

"I don't have anywhere else."

"You will."

Eli raised his hands in exasperation. He didn't understand this strange, familiar girl. She was too young and too confident about the oddest things. So vulnerable, so wounded, yet so unflinching. First she'd tried to die for Chivat Lo then she'd immediately abandoned him. Well, she'd been raised in one of the most remote and unusual corners of the valley. Maybe that explained her. But also ... she really did know Eli. She knew everything that had happened, every shame and sin and sorrow. And she didn't recoil. Instead, she'd put her life in his hands.

Of course, she also insisted that he owed her for saving that life.

"The marquis will arrive shortly after sunset," she said.

"Wait, what? Tonight?"

"Yes." She rose in a single motion from her cross-legged position. "We have six or seven hours to prepare."

He stared at her, blank with surprise. Tonight? He'd expected days to plan, to brainstorm and plot and lay the groundwork. Hours. What could he do in hours? He needed to prepare an ambush against the marquis's best guards. Outnumbered, outarmed. For a moment, he considered delaying. Maybe he shouldn't use Chivat Lo's apartment, or Barent Manor, for the ambush. But no, the girl was right. He needed her passwords, he needed the marquis to expect a friendly reception.

And if the marquis realized he'd killed Chivat Lo, he'd retreat into the Keep like a turtle into its shell. Eli would never get another chance like this. At least not before the militia wiped out the trolls. So six or seven hours ...

He was still frowning in thought when the girl left the room with the bucket of ashes.

One of his sparks idly followed her toward the kitchen, and watched from the hallway. She reached onto a dusty shelf behind a braid of garlic. She moved the ceramic dishes aside and grabbed a stack of dingy pewter saucers.

"This is one of his emergency caches," she said to the empty kitchen. "They're silver beneath the plating. I'll grab a few things while you, uh--decide how we're going to do this. Jumping out of a tree or dropping a roof on him won't work. Um, can you hear me?"

The spark couldn't reach her: the kitchen was only a few yards from where he was sitting, but she was too far inside. So he stood and crossed to the door and almost touched the spark to her hand to say yes, he could hear her.

Then he didn't. So far, she only had his word for what he'd become. She had no evidence of anything--except his healing. But mages of the Palm healed, too. That wasn't completely strange. Unlike sparks. Unlike whatever he was, which began at 'strange' and continued past 'bizarre.' Better not to tip his hand.

So he just spoke from the doorway. "What's wrong with jumping out of a tree?"

"If you don't kill him immediately, you won't get a second chance. And any one of his guards could easily beat you in a fair fight."

"Not easily," he said.

"Mm. You heal fast, but I don't know if you've noticed that you keep getting your arse kicked. The guards could've killed you in the clinic if they'd bothered stabbing you a few more times. I could've killed you any time in the last two days. Despite your--"

"Wait. Two days?"

"Well, more than one-and-a-half."

He scowled at the copper pans on the rack. He didn't know what a lost day changed, if anything, but he didn't like having that kind of gap in his life. Not that he could do anything about it. And he had the vague outlines of a plan already. His only real edge was his ability to heal: to drop a ceiling on himself and survive.

Though yeah, he didn't know how to drop a ceiling on anyone. So he was toying with another idea. An idea that needed more than a few hours of deliberation. Well, too bad. He didn't have more than a few hours. And also ... he still wasn't sure about the girl. He could use her, sure. He didn't trust her, though. He thought about that as he walked through the apartment again, checking the windows, looking for obvious escape routes. He didn't find any. The drop to the lower roofs was four stories--and six, in some places, to the cobblestones.

When he finished his inspection, he found the girl in Chivat Lo's bedroom, rummaging through his desk.

"I'm heading out," he told her. Partly to see if she'd object. If she was setting him up, she wouldn't want him wandering off alone.

"If you don't want the stairs to squeak," she said. "Stay on rightmost edge--if you're facing upward--and skip every third step."

"Huh. That noise is intentional? A sort of alarm?"

"Chivat Lo was a little paranoid."

"He trusted you."

"He understood dryns. Well, he understood how to use us. My biggest fear was that he'd share the knowledge with--with other people like him."

Eli thought about that. "You mean that he'd tell them that if you threaten a dryn's family, she might pledge herself to you for life?"

"There's more to it than that, but yes. Men like him, there's nothing more valuable to them than someone they know won't betray them."

"You shared that knowledge with me."

"Mm. Didn't you say you were heading out? Why're you still here?"

So apparently she wasn't worried about him wandering off alone.

He checked the landing with a spark then left the apartment. The front door felt heavy, though it moved easily on oiled hinges. Reinforced, to keep people from breaking in. A strong bolt, too.

Thank you, paranoia.

When Eli headed downstairs, he switched between making the steps squeak and moving silently. She'd told him the truth: one edge of the stairs--excepting every third step--was silent. He paused, considering. There was nowhere to hide in the staircase. Nowhere to run. A choke point, if he could use it ... but he didn't see how.

He left the manor and walked the neighborhood again, mostly to check if anyone was following. Well, mostly to check if the girl's accomplices were following. He didn't spot anyone, so he kept wandering and shopping, stopping at a few market stalls.

Then he returned to his lodgings and thought about his plan. With a little luck, he might pull it off. He'd need less luck if the girl helped, but he couldn't ask her, he couldn't rely on her. Maybe monsters like him and Chivat Lo always suffered from paranoia, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't trust her.

He checked everything was ready then grabbed his basket--covered in a cloth to conceal the newly-purchased contents--and returned to the tower. He walked silently up the stairs that time, despite the weight of the basket, and a spark found the girl in her own cramped room.

He watched her for a second, then unloaded his basket in Chivat Lo's apartment and returned to the landing. When he opened the door to the girl's bedroom, she was tucking clothing into a satchel, with a stuffed saddlebag and a trunk at her feet.

"Almost done," she said.

"With what?"

She gave him a look. "Packing."

"Right." That worked perfectly. "We'll store everything at my lodgings. We can pick it up after this is ... done."

"What's your plan?"

"I'll tell you once we're there," he said.

He slung the saddlebag across his shoulder and grabbed the trunk in both arms. The girl wore two satchels and her little knit ... bludgeon. Halfway down the stairs, Eli realized that maybe he should've responded differently to the sheer amount of stuff she'd packed. Like, what was her plan? But he'd been too busy thinking about his own.

Back at his lodgings, Eli set down the trunk and saddlebags and told her, "You're staying here tonight."

"No. Why?"

That time, he gave her a look.

"I can help you," she said.

"You'll help by staying here. I won't worry about anything happening to you."

"You're not worried I'm going to get hurt. You're worried I'm going to hurt you."

"Either way," he said.

"I'm not staying here."

So he tied her wrists behind her back with the same cord that Chivat Lo had used on him. She didn't try to stop him, except with words: "Blight you, Eli! Don't do this!"

He eased her onto the bed, then knelt to tie her ankles together.

"I'll come back for you when I'm done," he said.

"Aren't you going to gag me? What if I scream?"

"Then I'll know I can't trust you."

"You prick," she said.

Except actually she'd said 'you prickle,' which must've been a dryn thing. Which almost made him change his mind, but not quite. For good measure, he carried her across the room and set her gently on the floor and tied her to a post that ran along one wall.

"You're making a mistake," she said.

"I talked to you for fifteen hours straight. In all that time, did I give you a single reason to suspect that I don't make mistakes?"

"Bury my bones!" she snapped. "This is stupid and reckless and--and insulting."

"You kicked me in the face."

"Well, yeah, but only because--"

"Twice. And tried to chop my head off."

Her shoulders slumped. "At least tell me what you're planning. Then I can explain why it's dumb."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I already know it's dumb."

She snorted a half-laugh. "I know you, Eli. I know you better than anyone else does. Even better than, uh ..." She gargled. "Her."

"Mist-Beneath," he said.

"Huh?"

"The cave witch. In Iolian, her name is Mist-Beneath."

"That's what--" she gargled again. "--means?"

"Yeah."

"Well, even she doesn't know you like I do. You hid nothing from me, which means you have nothing to hide and I ..." She turned her earnest gray gaze upon him. "We're connected, you and me. We're a matched pair. We're partners and--shut up! Don't say anything dumb!"

He closed his mouth.

"Just do me a favor, okay?" she asked.

"Depends."

"Don't die, Eli. There's ... more to be done. There's more that needs doing."

Something in her tone made him pause. "You think you know something. About me, or about ... I can't tell what."

"About what you need to do. About the reason for you. About the only goal that makes any sense."

"And are you going to tell me what that is?"

"No. Because you're acting like a complete burl."

He grunted. "I'll be back before midnight."

"You better be."

He touched her shoulder, then turned and left her there.