The Key to Starveldt (17 page)

‘Tell him,’ she whispers. ‘Tell the truth.’

The vision shifts a final time, though whether it shows the present or future, Solace and Evan cannot tell.

Harper sits at an unfamiliar bar on the edge of the Rookery plain. Before him is an amphora of jin’sa and a small pottery cup. He pours the contents of one into the other, staring at the slosh of liquid. He lifts the cup and blows across the surface, as though cooling it. Instead, his breath brings fire. The jin’sa burns like brandy. Harper drinks it, flames and all, coughing as blue sparks smother on his tongue.

He should have known.

He should have kept her safe.

It’s all his fault.

As he lowers the cup, Solace and Evan feel themselves wavering. The vision pulls back, swooping out through the bar and over the crowds outside, allowing them a glimpse of its location.

Everything shatters.

‘Oh, God.’

Solace coughed into the grass. Her bones felt like lava; her head felt worse. Beside her, Evan made a sound somewhere between fury and whimpering. As he flipped onto his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of wetness on his cheeks. Her own were similarly damp, she knew. They stared at one another.

‘Why show us that?’ His voice cracked. ‘Didn’t need to know. Just. Didn’t. Need to.’

‘I know.’

‘What do we do now, huh?’

‘Sleep.’ She’d never felt so exhausted.

Evan almost laughed. ‘Yeah. That sounds about right.’

Each helping the other, they stood, shambling back to Jess, Manx and Electra, who were still obliviously enjoying themselves.

‘We’re off,’ said Evan, his words sounding thick and slurred. ‘Back to the rooms.’

‘Sleepy,’ Solace added, and then, lest they get the wrong impression, ‘sick.’

But her friends were too drunk to pass intelligent comment; Jess waved them away, while Electra lolled in Manx’s lap, her fine hair spread out like a net of gold. As she and Evan turned away, Solace found herself wondering,
is that how we look from the outside
?
Are we always so senseless, when we’re drunk
?

The question obsessed her all the way back to the rooms. It was that, or think on what they’d learned.

‘Need to talk to you,’ said Evan, once they’d fumbled their way inside. ‘Not now, though. Too drunk. Too messed up.’ His blue eyes were bloodshot.

Numbly, Solace nodded. ‘Just tell me when.’

‘I will.’

She paused, resting her palm on the door of the room she’d claimed earlier. ‘Night, Evan. Or day. Or whatever.’

‘Night,’ he echoed. ‘Or whatever.’

Solace was asleep before she even hit the mattress.

Liluye had just closed her laptop when Sharpsoft materialised in her private chambers, bone-coloured coat aswirl in the green-tinged breeze of his teleportation. Sighing, she pushed her chair back from the small rosewood desk and stood, watching as his eyes glittered like constellations of silver, gold, amethyst. She shook her head, not quite laughing, and stepped forward.

‘You should know better than to stare at hawks.’

‘Hawks should know better than to stare at eagles.’

‘Eagle, are you?’ She tilted her head, savouring the familiarity of his features. She knew her share of immortals, but few she called friends, and fewer still lovers. Despite his gifts, Sharpsoft was an infrequent visitor, and never without reason. There were times his distance irked her. Nonetheless, she felt a ripple of pleasure at seeing him. ‘Have you news of Solace Eleuthera?’ she asked.

‘I have. She departed your Castalian room with a head full of secrets, theories, dreams. Now, she learns of herself, and of others.’

‘Do they learn, too?’

‘In part.’ He twined his fingers with hers. Liluye shivered, but did not move towards him.
Not yet.
‘The smallest child still doubts. The rest look inwards, solving puzzles they have set themselves. Grief has a scheme concerning Starveldt from which I have been excluded. He doesn’t trust me. I expected as much, but it is troubling.’

Energy strobed between them, pulsing like a third heart. ‘I wish it had not come to this,’ Liluye said. ‘These children, their choices. That so much should hang from so slender a thread! But of course, the universe jests with us. It has happened before; it will happen again. The prophecy is gilding. Nothing more.’

He lifted her chin softly with the forefinger of his free hand. ‘You have interpreted it, then? What is to come?’

‘Though it grieves me.’ She pulled away from him, abruptly tired. He released her without protest. ‘I cannot tell them, Sascha. I said I would explain everything, but now that I know, it feels impossible. Such unearned truth would only damage their resolve; and they are so young. I fear I have forgotten youth. Do you remember it?’

He smiled at her sadly. ‘When you call me by that name, I feel I can. The past is another country. We have become its disinherited kings.’

‘And queens.’ Liluye studied the far wall. She was a creature of confidence, but there were still times when words failed her, when four centuries of experience were not enough to convey the tensions wrapped in the beating muscle beside her left lung. Her chest tightened, expanded, tingled. She stared at the unicorn tapestries, two treasures she’d rescued from neglect and ignorance. Up close, they were worn – not threadbare, but ancient in the way of museum artefacts, woven from a mixture of silk and wool. The first showed a lion, a young woman and a unicorn seated beside a forest pool, gazing at their reflections in the still water. Other, smaller animals peeped out at them from the surrounding foliage: cat, greyhound, monkey, frog and – her mouth quirked – hawk, the latter perched imperiously on the outflung branch of a tree. In the second, the same maiden stood beneath a starry sky, her outstretched palms resting on the unicorn’s flank and the lion’s head. All three looked upwards with beatific expressions, eyes turned to where a hawk hung in flight beneath a full moon, its dark wings limned in silver.

‘Internal knowing,’ said Sharpsoft, coming to stand behind her, ‘and appreciation of external beauty. This is what they show?’

Liluye nodded, enjoying the warm pressure of his hands on her shoulders. ‘There are six others, you know, on Solace’s Earth. They depict the five senses and an emotion commonly interpreted as love, or desire – a unitive bond. My two would complete the set.’

‘There is no set without them.’

‘So you say.’ She leaned her head back against his chest and closed her eyes. ‘Set theory disagrees.’

She felt him chuckle. ‘Since when did you care for the vagaries of higher mathematics?’

‘Since when did you visit me without higher cause?’

‘Ah.’ He inhaled deeply. Liluye breathed with him: two chests rising, falling. It had been a long time, such a long time since she’d been close to someone. But Sharpsoft always had his price. ‘There, we come to the crux of things.’

She spun slowly beneath his touch, until they were facing once more. His eyes whirled with a hunger different to that which lit her own, but one which was no less familiar. For an instant, she was saddened.
Would that I knew you half so well.

Sharpsoft gripped her arm. ‘You have a transgressor in the Halls of Iron, one who broke the Old Law. A slaver. Where is he?’

‘Awaiting justice.’

He paused. Like a perfume, she could sense his guilt, his craving. She knew his path was a knife blade, but that made it no less of a conflict for her to abide.
The Old Law does not forbid such punishment, such bargaining. Even so, I should refuse. And yet –

He kissed her. A mulled wine heat, drugged with spice and narcotic. Power coursed through her, and knowledge. The bittersweet dregs of his existence mingled with the fire of her own. His hunger was like an infection, burrowing into the soft muscle of her lips and tongue until greed overtook her, and she kissed back with a ferocity that stifled any qualms. When they parted, her hands were clasped to his cheeks. A fine sheen of sweat covered both their faces, and their breath came in gasps.

‘A gift.’ He swallowed the plea.

Liluye nodded, pressing her head to his. ‘A gift, then. For the dream of youth.’

With some difficulty, she stepped back from him and called on the ties binding her to the Rookery. The Words sang through her skin like boiling music, knitting her consciousness into union with her strange home. With dizzying speed, she reached into the slaver’s cell, brushed the angry clamour of his mind and
pulled
, parting the atoms between
there
and
here
until, with a rush of displaced air, the criminal materialised, collapsed and gasping, at her feet.

‘Thank you,’ Sharpsoft whispered. Trembling with borrowed exhilaration, lust, exhaustion, Liluye stood aside. The man groaned, struggling to his knees, but Sharpsoft was already crouching across from him with eyes that spun like blades. Grasping the man at shoulder and chin, he sank his teeth into the slaver’s neck, savage with need. Liluye placed one hand on the back of Sharpsoft’s head, feeling the pull of muscle beneath scalp. The slaver moaned and spasmed. Blood shone red against the bone-pale leather of Sharpsoft’s sleeve, though little was wasted. He fed like a man starved; and he was starving. Being what he was, how else could he live?

When Sharpsoft was done, Liluye recalled the Words and removed the slaver – not dead, but thoroughly drained – back to the cell. Knox was on duty, she faintly recalled. He’d know what to do.

Beneath her palm, Sharpsoft shuddered and straightened. Wildness radiated from him, and guilt, commingled with Liluye’s own lust. A demon shared. There was a smear of blood on his mouth.

‘Justice, Lilu?’ he croaked.

‘Justice,’ she echoed, and pulled him hungrily towards her.

‘I
t’s a hat,’ said Jess.

Manx stretched. ‘Yes.’

‘A hat with – just to be clear – a lizard on it. A real, dead lizard.’

‘An iguana, yeah. It’s been stuffed.’

‘I can see
that
. Any idiot can see that, but it doesn’t address the issue!’

‘The issue being?’

‘Manx, you’re wearing a goddamn reptile! On your head! With pride! It’s like you’re the lovechild of Carmen Miranda and a taxidermist!’

‘Wasn’t there a movie about that?’

‘I don’t care if there was a miniseries starring Brad Pitt as the bowl of fruit –
you’re wearing an iguana
!’

‘Quick favour?’ interjected Solace, trying desperately to keep a straight face. ‘If you guys ever decide what the hell you’re talking about, don’t tell me.’

Jess shut her eyes and gestured blindly at Manx’s head. ‘Just – look!’

They hadn’t meant to get drunk. At least, nobody had ever stated it as last night’s goal, despite the enthusiasm with which they had worked towards it. Nonetheless, drunkenness in the Rookery – and its inevitable consequences – had occurred.

Manx’s hat fell broadly into this category.

With a pang of guilt, Solace realised she had no idea what had become of Paige, Laine and Harper. Had any of them made it back to the rooms? Had the vision she’d shared with Evan of Harper drinking alone already happened, or was it yet to come? And if so, shouldn’t they change it? Could they?

Her head swam. Despite having switched to water long before everyone else, the
jin’sa
had still made such an impact that even her vampire constitution couldn’t prevent such a well-deserved hangover. Closing her eyes, she banished all thought of Manx’s headgear and tried to find some aspect of herself that didn’t feel grubby. There wasn’t one.

From her perch on the edge of an armchair, Jess groaned with more feeling than theatre. Manx – sombrero and all – was sprawled on the lounge, and by his waxy skin and bruised eyes, Solace thought he must feel even worse than he looked.

‘Manx,’ she said, ‘take off the hat. You look ridiculous.’

‘That’s what I’ve been saying!’ Jess gave a limp toss of her hand. ‘Where did you even find it, anyway?’

‘Someone gave it to me last night, after the others left.’ Manx tugged weakly on the brim. ‘Huzzah for drunken souvenirs, right?’