In Veritas

by C. J. Lavigne

  “She’s gone to visit your boyfriend again,” Santiago notes. One winged eyebrow lifts.

  “Christ,” breathes Colin, “don’t—she’s already frightened, now you want to—”

  “I’m sorry.” The magician’s apology is quick and tastes of cranberry, tart but sincere. Verity isn’t sure whom it’s meant for. She only shakes her head and turns back to the angel on his couch.

  “It’s okay. I knew.”

  “Right.” Colin closes his eyes, long fingers plucking at the blanket someone’s thrown across him. “Do you know why? Honest question. It’s the weirdest thing.”

  “I don’t—I should ask him. I know. But we aren’t talking much. I lie to him, and it’s a cloud of hornets or rattlesnake stings, it’s....” Verity sees Colin’s fingers twitch again, his glow dimming, and she swallows, looking away. “Poison,” she concludes. “Maybe it’s a metaphor? It doesn’t taste like one.”

  “Understand I’m not upset when I say this. Or, Christ, jealous. But mostly, her royal highness looks around a room—she looks through a room—and the only one she recognizes is me.”

  “Is Jacob in danger?”

  Santiago’s voice comes velvet in the dimness. “We don’t think so. Ouro keeps checking, but she still just ... stands on your street, staring. I admit I don’t get the appeal.”

  “I don’t know what she wants. If she wants.” Verity folds her arms, looking down at Colin on his battered couch. His eyes are lit only by occasional sparks of falling star. He closes them.

  “I know,” he mutters. “She’s a damn cipher.”

  “You’re sick,” she says. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that I’m sorry because it makes things worse, so ... um. I wanted to—I still don’t understand. About Jihan, and you, and—the Chalice. I mean, if it’s a cup or not a cup, or what’s in it, or….”

  “We’ve lost the words for it,” agrees Colin. The sparks of his gaze are still visible through his paper-thin lids. “Shit, I don’t know, either. Chalice seems like an awkward word. I saw a cave, once, and a lot of rock. I know something’s building here, and people are straggling in as sure as those poor little dragons are gathering on rooftops. But we’re just ... enduring.” The white lashes lift, and he looks up at Verity. “If we’re sitting around waiting for Jihan to find some miracle way out of here, well … she hasn’t done squat. I asked her about it. She walked away and came back an hour later to give me a dead rat.”

  “What Privya said is true—that Jihan could destroy the world. I can smell the earthquake, like dust and some terrible deep ... I want to help you, but she scares me. And she’s lost.”

  Colin coughs, but there’s glitter in it. “Shit, yeah, that’s about right. Stefan and I keep going in circles about it. I knew Privya blamed Jihan for something. I thought it was Alethea. I mean, it is, but I didn’t know about a whole damn city.”

  “Whatever escape Jihan might know about—she opened the earth, almost too wide. You must care about that.”

  “That a walking bomb brings me rats? Oh, god, yeah, I care.” The angel sighs. He looks like a fevered child, his hair damp with sweat, but his grimace is old.

  “If it matters to you,” Verity offers, as mildly as she can, “should she be just…?” She waves a hand back toward the shadows where Jihan last departed.

  “I care,” says Colin again. “What are we going to do, though? We’re not going to tie her down based on something we hear she might be thinking of. I don’t think we could, or that she even makes plans. There’s not enough left of her.”

  “Anyway, it’s worth the chance.” Santiago speaks with arms folded, one shoulder leaning against the wall.

  The angel blanches. “Stefan—”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” murmurs the magician. “Death? Maybe nothingness is better than living crammed like roaches in a wall. You can’t say you haven’t been thinking about it.”

  “I can, but Vee’ll know I’m lying.” Colin’s concession is wry, but there’s a salt edge to it. His voice is thin. “No. I don’t wish death on the world. What am I supposed to believe, though? That all this shit’s for nothing? That we’re all just going to waste away in here? Or Jihan blows us all to hell, or Privya blows them to hell?”

  “Anything’s better than this.” Santiago’s voice is soft and serpent-scaled. “Look, I’m not saying we should all throw in with Privya. But maybe Jihan’ll get it right this time. She knows things. She doesn’t talk, but she knows. Like when she wrote Vee’s name on the wall.”

  “Like when she stabbed me?”

  “She didn’t kill you. You’re here. Maybe that’s part of the plan.”

  On the couch, Colin sighs. “She does know things. The days Stefan doesn’t make any money in the market, she’ll have already come in with a box of chocolate or a bag of apples or—a half-full pizza box, God knows where she got that one from. She’ll pull me back on a sidewalk before a car speeds around the corner. She stood out on the street one day, staring at the damn alley until I went to check on her, and just as I got there, some truck came by and two men dropped off this couch by the garbage. It isn’t big, you know? It isn’t all the time. It’s not like she’ll answer to her name. But if she starts dragging a cot together, we can start getting ready for a new arrival.”

  “That’s, um, a lot to bet on a maybe.”

  “She follows me around like a lost child or a lonely wolverine. Why?” The angel’s scrawny fingers tighten on the blanket’s edge. “She knows something. Aren’t you the one who can tell what’s true?”

  “The future is grey.” Verity sighs. “The past tastes like ... smoke and oregano. I know what she almost did. Privya says Jihan needs me—or Privya does. I don’t know what that means, or how, except Alethea stopped Jihan, last time.”

  “Stopped her from what?” Santiago’s voice is cold. “The quake, fine, but otherwise ... what? An apocalypse or a door? We don’t know because she didn’t finish. Now she can’t tell us.”

  Verity turns her head; the magician is a trick at the corner of her vision, quick as the playing cards he shuffles. “The earthquake is true,” she says. “And Alethea, who was like me. But the ‘why’ is all bound in ‘maybe’ and ‘I think’—or you think, or Privya does. I think the danger is true, but—it’s all possibility. What she might do. What Privya would do. Whatever they want from me—I don’t like to see you fading here.” She sighs. “I think the power will come back on today. I think time is running forward. How long do we have before the Chalice?”

  “Christ.” Colin burrows a little further under his blankets. “Weeks, if we can believe the posters. If she published the exact friggin’ date. But look—” His eyes are open, flaring like falling stars. “You’re right, of course. As utterly beautiful as it would be to have some miracle way out of this hell—if there’s a chance Jihan could hurt anyone, we can’t risk it. Don’t know if there’s a fucking thing we can do about Privya.” He shifts, and Verity can almost hear his bones creak, his skin rattling like dry paper. He extends a hand toward her, his fingers outstretched and his shirt sleeve far too loose. “Take my hand.”

  It’s a flickering moment of temptation. Santiago’s attention jerks up to her, dark and disapproving. “No,” says Verity anyway, startled.

  Colin coughs. “It’s not for you. I mean, shit, yeah, I want to help, I can feel that ache behind your eyes—but I want to know what you say without the world screaming at you. What’s real, Vee? Can we get out of here? What—what do we do next?”

  “I’m not,” murmurs Verity, and “I don’t—” but the angel is watching her with broken, glittering eyes.

  She puffs air between her lips and tries to take a moment to think, but a wave of sound laps at her calves—whispers and exclamations carrying faintly down the long hall of the between, heralded by the frothing impact of a shout.

  A length of shadow flows from Santiago’s sleeve and leaps into the shape of the dog, Ouroboros whipping back down the corridor even as Ver
ity, Colin, and the magician turn to see Rick running into view, his hat askew and his shoulder bumping the wall as he presses to the side, trying to avoid huddled figures on cots.

  Beacon blue flares from Colin’s eyes. “Christ, what—”

  “The girl.” Rick skids to a halt, narrowly missing a rickety wooden side table and waving his hand back in the direction he came from.

  Simultaneously, Santiago says, “Privya.” The magician’s tone is grim, his gaze gone distant as he looks through the eyes of his shadow.

  “Oh,” says Colin. “Crap.” His hand snakes out again, knobby-wristed; he wraps thin fingers around Verity’s sleeve. “Help me up. Stefan, go on, see what she wants.”

  Santiago shoots Verity a single fierce glance, then moves nearly as fast as Ouroboros, grabbing Rick and pulling the scrawnier man with him, back toward the mounting cloud of consternation. Verity, meanwhile, holds still, letting Colin get a grip as the angel grabs up his cane and rises. He lets the coat slide away, despite the winter bite; his wings rustle and flex as he steadies himself. She is careful not to touch him, though light glimmers in the veins just under his skin, threatening to soothe.

  “I love her, too, you know. That’s the hell of it.” Colin sighs, spider-fingers locking around Verity’s sleeve. “All right. Let’s find out what’s going on.”

  She is careful, but the boy at her side seems reinvigorated by the commotion, and their main difficulty is navigating the tight space of the hall. Colin pulls his feathers to his shoulders, dropping just slightly behind Verity so that she can balance him while still avoiding the sea of beds, tables, and small food piles that block parts of the worn floor. The rest of the long hall is empty now; they make their way past discarded books and a scattered group of ragged plush toys. They move quickly, but Colin’s steps falter at intervals, and Verity must occasionally pause as the growing mutters blind her, like rolling clouds of fog or an oncoming storm.

  It isn’t long before there are people blocking the corridor, necks craning as they cluster, but they press themselves to the walls to give way before Colin—and Verity by proxy. A girl with blue hair sends rolls of toilet paper scattering when she kicks them, scrambling to pile them up again while still keeping half her attention on what has become a confrontation just inside the door from the theatre.

  The first thing Verity sees is Santiago standing with his arms folded, black on black in the dimness of the narrow walls. The small light burning just behind him details the edges of Ouroboros’s bristling fur, the dog pressed to the magician’s thigh. Its head is lowered, its ears back.

  “It’s really not necessary,” Privya is saying. Her hair is pulled back in a loose knot, barely contained by a faded green ribbon. She is wearing a puffed winter vest over a bulky wool sweater and a skirt that falls in wild rainbow layers over tight-laced military boots. She looks like any teenager.

  Verity, with a start of alarm, looks past Privya to see that Alan is in his armchair, Sanna’s small form cuddled in his lap. The little girl is playing with an old bear that even from a distance tastes of fresh sea air. She is paying the newest visitor no attention whatsoever, though her grandfather’s arms are around her and the old man’s gaze is intent on Privya.

  Privya, for her part, is studying Santiago, but her gaze shifts to the crowd down the hall; she offers Verity a quick smile that vanishes as she looks to Colin. “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” she says. “Why would I? We’re all in this together. Even you, Warner. You make stupid choices, but at least you’re keeping these people alive. Tell your dogs to stand down. If you want to keep your refuge a secret, maybe don’t print it on posters.”

  Santiago and Ouroboros both bare their teeth, but Colin says, “Stefan,” and the magician and his shadow-beast go still, their hackles raised. The magician’s fingers fidget deftly with a handful of cards. The dog’s tail lashes in tandem.

  Colin sighs, keeping one hand just below Verity’s elbow as he adjusts his weight, leaning on the cane. His wings rustle at his shoulders, but behind them, Verity can feel the small crowd pressing. They are quiet now, the whispered waves fading to an anticipatory tide that laps low at her ankles.

  “Why are you here?” Colin asks, and the sorrow of it drags like a stone warmed by the sun. “Vee told us what you did to that man by the river. Is that what you’re about?”

  “About?” Privya is genuinely perplexed; Verity can taste it in a flash of pomegranate, phantom seeds scattering in the air. “I am what I am. If I didn’t feed when I needed to, it would be much worse in the end. There was a time when I mourned their losses, but that was before I knew what their numbers were doing to us. Would anyone here,” and she raises her voice to carry down the hall, “choose one of them over one of us? You don’t need to celebrate death. But if you had to pick? I mean, as it turns out, you do actually have to pick.”

  Verity hears the stirrings behind her and feels the angel’s fingers tighten around her sleeve. Past the unmoving sentinels of Santiago and Ouro, she sees Sanna squirm in Alan’s lap, reaching for a gleaming strand of uneasy fear, and the old man stroking his granddaughter’s hair.

  Privya says, “I’m sorry.”

  Verity is startled to realize that she’s being addressed. Privya watches her, continuing, “I could have warned you. I just wanted you to see—all of it, what it’s like, everything we could show you. I hope you weren’t afraid.”

  Verity is just as startled to hear herself admit, “No.” She is trying to look at Privya, but she catches Santiago and Ouroboros tensing, ready as whips. Colin only squeezes her arm.

  Privya’s voice is lower now. An old rage is fossilized in the depths of her gaze, and it gives the lie to her young face more than the faint scent of water and brimstone ever could. Her grief is older and deeper than Colin’s, and no shining sparks rise to lighten the burnished mahogany of her eyes. “I was made. I didn’t choose. Ask Mr. Warner what that feels like. Do you know he’d die for me right now if he had to, even knowing that I hate him? None of this is about what I am.”

  Verity swallows. “Did Alethea know?”

  “Of course. She knew me inside out.” Privya tilts her head slightly to the side, studying Verity. The green ribbon is jaunty in her hair. “Have you decided?”

  Suddenly, everyone is watching her. Verity wants to quail beneath the weight of it, but the angel is leaning on her arm, and she holds herself rigid. She swallows and looks at the floor to keep the wash from her tongue and skin—the darkly flowered attention of Santiago and the dog, the peppered breeze of Privya’s expectations, the honey-gold comfort of Colin’s silent hope. She is aware of Sanna squirming, and the crowd breathing in the wood-splintered hall. Alan is walnuts and leather; she isn’t sure why, but she can’t look to him, either.

  She tries to speak, but succeeds only in wetting her lips. The sound she makes is something like half of a hum.

  “Leave her be,” says Colin—sharply, for him.

  “I can’t,” replies Privya, equably. “None of us can. She’s the one who stands on the borderline, but she can’t stay there. Even doing nothing is a choice.”

  Colin’s presence is sweet in her throat, and Verity swallows again. “You want me to help you hurt people,” she says then. “I ... I don’t think I can.”

  She doesn’t think Privya is surprised. When she risks a glance upward, the girl only stands, arms folded, melted snow glittering in her hair and the slow death of centuries somewhere behind the youth of her face. “It’s self-defence. Do you think you’d be incapable of that, if I attacked you? If I came for your feathered friend? Oh, keep the dog back, I’m not threatening any of you.”

  Santiago and Ouroboros have both advanced two steps, the magician’s stride as silent and gliding as the dog’s. “Get out.”

  “She’s given you an answer,” says Colin, mildly, a rasp in his voice. “Is that what you came for?”

  “Not entirely.” Privya rolls her eyes at the magician looming over her. Not only does he cast a
shadow over her face, even with the dog beside him, but the hall around him darkens, obscuring Alan and the shivering Sanna. Verity is relieved to see the little girl appears to have escaped Privya’s attention entirely, though Alan is watchful. His expression is hidden in the bush of his beard.

  Privya deliberately looks away from Santiago, apparently unmindful of how close Ouroboros’s jaws are to her calf. Instead, she directs her words to the press of people grouped behind Verity and Colin. “If you’re sick, stay here. If you can manage the outside, don’t leave us to do all the work ourselves. Come find me in the market when you get tired of sitting and rotting.”

  “Get out.” Shadows pool in Santiago’s eye sockets; the dog lashes a serpentine tail. Verity hears mutters from behind; she feels feathers brush her back.

  Privya is serene. “A thousand years ago, you might have been something to reckon with. Now … I’ve seen your street corner tricks. You won’t even touch me at all with your angel watching.” She reaches for the knob of the old door, and adds to Verity, “You’re making the wrong choice. I know the look on your face, though—I remember it on hers.”

  The moment of Verity’s hesitation is enough for Privya to touch the door and slip through. There’s a spark to it—a distinct, static charge of impossibility when the between opens outward and the girl exits via the door with one side.

  Alan stiffens immediately. “That’s it!” His exclamation is lost in the sudden hubbub that fills the narrow hall. Colin staggers, but Santiago has swooped in before Verity can react; the angel is braced between the magician and Ouroboros, letting go of Verity as he winds his fingers in the dog’s fur.

  “That’s it,” crows Alan again, his arms around his granddaughter, but his focus entirely on the door. “Vee, did you see? I almost had it. She knows the quick way, all right.”

  “I saw,” says Verity, “but I don’t—”

  “Christ, what the fuck was that about? Stefan, don’t fuss.” Colin shakes his head, straightening, adjusting his weight on the cane as he leaves the other hand on Ouroboros. His wings flex behind him, long enough to brush both walls. “Everyone move back for a bit, will you? Not you, Vee. Alan, you’re fine.”