Quiet fell between them, the cafe still in the mid-afternoon lull.
“What would you do,” Sam said, breaking the silence after a long moment, “if someone told you, you had to betray your sister to save her life?”
She shrugged. “Eat them, probably.”
“Eat them,” he asked, and incredulous smile tugging on his lips.
“You asked.” She took another slurping sip of cream.
He glanced across the table once more, his own cup—of tea, not cream—long abandoned and cold, a thin film already long since formed across the top. Then, rising, he shook his head, grinning. “Eat them…I admit, I’ve heard worse advice. You, um…” He paused, straightening his lapels. “You said your mom used to tell you to buck up. She doesn’t? Anymore?”
Her eyes were inky and unwavering on him as she laid her small hands neatly in her lap. “The dead are quiet here.”
“You have a place to stay though? That’s safe, warm?”
She gave a curt nod.
“But if you didn’t, you’d know to tell Teddy or me?”
“There’s no need to worry, Mr. Alderton,” Chim grinned, flashing her pearly whites. “I told you. If anyone bothers me too much, I’ll just gobble them right up.”
Eat them.
Sam envied the irreverence of childhood.
His eyes trailed the cracks between the cobblestone path, following the jarring pattern of the grayish stones. He’d run these paths as a little boy, when they’d still tolerated such childish outbursts of joy.
Of course, he’d been taken with the idea of being a gentleman, he recalled. He’d wanted so desperately to prove he wasn’t like the other sons of whores. To prove he’d been worth the gamble.
Anymore, though, he spent most of his time trying to prove he was still the little boy that flouted the authority of the nursery governess and ran defiant down the garden trails.
He’d tried to be that boy, when he’d met Teddy. Carefree and light and full of adventure. Teddy had seen through it at once, naturally, but he’d never minded, that Sam wanted to be someone else.
I don’t know who I am. He’d found himself leaning on a split-rail fence in the most exquisitely expensive black suit money could buy, overdressed for the barnyard where Teddy stood, scattering corn for the chickens. Three months of seventeen had seen his first kiss, breathless in the meadow. His second kiss, beneath the rose arbor of the introduction ball. And hell. Unimaginable hell.
Well, who do you want to be, Teddy had murmured, a half-thoughtless remark as he dipped his hand into the pail, sweet split corn running through his fingertips.
My mother’s son.
He’d paused, sea-blue eyes flicking over, darkened in the fading light. What was her name, he’d asked softly. If you don’t mind.
Rebeca. Rebeca Alderton.
Teddy had pursed his lips, giving a well, there you have it kind of shrug.
So, that’s who he was. Sam Alderton.
And Sam Alderton looked out for those he loved. He would go to the ends of the world, fight to the death, tear the universe apart, if it meant they stayed safe and happy.
His pace was reluctant, finding the carriage house.
I am a good man.
I am a good man.
I am a good man.
And I am doing this for her.
He gave a soft touch to the envelope in his breast pocket.
He kept it near his heart.
Like Elsie.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.
This is the last time.
Not the first time he’d made that promise to himself at the carriage house door.
He raised his fist to knock.
And paused.
Voices—a voice, really—drifted through the door, wary, half-shaken, the Commissioner’s slick tenor smoothing out quick consolations.
Clark had company.
ELSIE
“Hope is the refuge of the living.”
~Greysha Boewliç
“Take care, love,” Clark said softly, giving her elbow a squeeze. “We’ll talk again soon.”
Nodding, she watched as he closed the door to the carriage house with a soft click, the snap of a lock following close behind.
It must’ve been hours she’d been in there, because the sun had long since disappeared beyond the horizon.
A city.
She was death, cold and dark and ended even before she’d begun.
He was a merchant.
And he peddled life. A chance to start over, to make something better.
To be something better.
A quick glance around, to get her bearings, eyes straining against the night—
She drew a sharp inhale, her step back reflexive.
Leaning against the brick, hands stuffed in his pockets, Sam was watching her.
Shadowed.
Waiting.
His expression was somber. Mournful, even.
He pushed himself off the wall, and with a couple shuffled half-steps, the light from the windows bled across his face.
Across his still-damp cheeks.
“Elsie—”
Turning on her heel, she didn’t wait to hear the rest.
TEDDY
“Right and wrong. It’s all just guesswork in the end, a game none of us can win.”
~Adrian Lynch
She was not difficult to spot, on the wrought-iron bench bathed in cold light.
Snowflakes were beginning to drift down from the darkened sky, fat and slow as they waddled down, down, down to the ground, soaking up the sounds of the world.
Teddy had always loved the smell of snow.
The way the air was just clean, the hint of wood-burning stoves lingering across the top of it all, smoky and warm.
She must’ve been there a while, he realized. Her black hair was undone in waves down her shoulders, her back flecked with glistening white, her eyes vacant, even as her face was streaked with tears.
“El?”
Her head snapped up, her sharp inhale puncturing the night.
But her surprise was short-lived as he sank down beside her, and she dissolved, leaning her head on his shoulder, chest heaving renewed sobs.
“Sam told me what happened,” he murmured quietly, drawing her in close. He brushed a kiss across her forehead, squeezing her shoulders—a universal bandage for broken hearts. Even in the winter, she smelled vaguely like roses. Some perfume, or something, that Sam had given her when she’d turned sixteen that she’d managed to ration thus far.
Sniffling, she dared a glance up in his direction. “Did he tell you he’s a—a lying—lying sonofa—”
I was at Clark’s. I overheard him talking to El, of all people—Teddy, he’s making promises to her he can’t keep! He was talking as if he—he knew her mother, and she was drinking it up!
Of course, why he’d been at Clark’s—presumably the job, but he hadn’t outright said—
“And Fletcher, h-h-h-he’s…well, it’s done—” She was cut off by her own coughing, a half-sob still working its way in.
A hell of a night.
He’d checked the lodge, first—and found Fletcher’s note, second. Going home. Love you, El.
And she didn’t need that tonight. Another good-bye. Not after having a falling out with Sam—about what, Teddy was still fuzzy on the details.
“I don’t want to go back.” Her voice was a whisper buried in his coat. “I can’t, Teddy. I can’t go crawling h-home—”
“Sam said you’re still welcome to stay with us. With him, I suppose,” he amended. It wasn’t his apartment. Wasn’t his life, as much as he pretended it might be.
“With that motherfuc—
“He said,” Teddy cut in over the top, “he’ll keep to the sewing room, while you’re there.” A lie. But if Sam knew what was good for him, he’d oblige, anyway, lest he find himself on the receiving end of that damned knife he’d stuck her with in the first place.
She s
wallowed, pressing the tears from her swollen eyes.
Not a no.
“El?”
“What,” she breathed.
“What did he tell you? About…your mom? Sam didn’t say what he heard. Just that Clark made some, er, rather grandiloquent promises.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “He told me a lot of things. That she w-was brave. And strong. A-a-and that she—she l-l-loved me—” Her voice broke, dissolving once more.
It’d be enough to break anyone’s heart.
Elsie had come with snow and death.
Tessa had been cold and buried not two days when he’d awoken to a screaming baby sister. Their eldest brother, Tom—he’d hated Elsie. And maybe it’d drifted towards something akin to apathy, even passing fondness, through the years, but there was always resentment in his blue-gray eyes when he looked at her, a sort of why can’t you be her sort of look.
Their parents did what was usually done, when a bag of gold and a merchant’s bastard ended up on someone’s doorstep—though the attempt to pass her off as Marlene’s natural-born child, a little Solstice surprise, was somewhat marred by the almost complete disinterest in the baby girl.
Now Teddy, he’d been sort of fascinated by her. That she wasn’t Marlene’s had been plain enough, so there was a mystery, right there. And she cried—a lot—and he had a knack for helping, so eventually he’d just scooped her up, as best as his eight-year-old self could, and she’d settled down, and that was that.
It’d always been the two of them.
And it was odd, now, sitting here with her on that wrought-iron bench beyond the darkened bookstore, the bench that they’d sat on hundreds of times, sharing sweetrolls and tears and hugs and stories, because it was just the two of them again.
The thought wasn’t comforting.
Just the two of them, and hadn’t those been such sad times. Just the two of them, because there’d been no other choice, nobody else looking out for either of them. Just the two of them, and right now, it meant there’d been loss, loss of love, loss of comfort, loss of a fragile trust so delicate it’d been forged with fractures.
“Tell you what,” he murmured, rubbing her arm with a gloved hand, “let’s go. There’s dinner waiting, and hot tea.”
“At Sam’s.”
“Yeah.”
She scoffed, pulling away, shaking her head in disdain. “So, you’re still with him. He told you what happened, and you’re still—”
“What do you want me to do, El?” he sighed, rising. “I’m not about to leave him because you two had a spat—”
“It isn’t a spat, it’s betrayal—”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but you have no right to ask me to walk just because he decided—no, no, I’m not doing this. I’m not fighting with you, El. And I’m not breaking up with Sam. You have a problem with him, you march right into that apartment and tell him. He has been your friend for nine years. He has dragged you out of gods-know-how-bad of places, he has fed you, he has clothed you, he has loved you, and you know what,” he added, hitting his stride, “at the very least, I think he deserves a piece of your mind. You at least owe him that.” Holding out his hand, he raised an eyebrow, challenging her to refute him.
Glowering, she took his hand, pulling herself up.
A small victory, he supposed.
One he was praying he wouldn’t regret.
CHIM
“Leave no stone unturned, and no debt unpaid.”
~Dryadic Proverb, from the Book of Adagic Texts
Chim strolled idly by the dock, popping another piece of candy in her mouth. The mende was a fool. And she lived to for the Game. That, and sweets.
The man at the store had been very fun. Much funner than the mende.
Not that she’d been planning to pay for the bag of sweets. Oh, no. She’d had an excellent story cooked up. There’d have been tears, pleading, a tale about a crippled mother and an unemployed father, a sick baby brother…
But he’d played the Game better. Had happily given her the candy before she’d even realized the Game had begun. All in all, a brilliantly strategized round.
The least she could do, really, was pay him back.
The dock-man had been tough, Chim mulled, picking a piece of gristle from between her teeth. Though the decades-long marinate in cheap ale had certainly helped.
Belching, she rose, smoothing out her blood-stained smock. It was a pity. She’d liked the white one. But she was such a messy eater.
With care, she unfolded the brown bag of candy, pulling a mint from the assortment of sweets—there was nothing worse than having dock-man on her breath all night.
The minty sweetness began dissolving on her tongue, and she resumed her stroll by the harbor. One dock-man for a bag of sweets.
Not a bad price. Not a bad price at all.
TEDDY
“I kept her in the pages of books, in the sound of the leaves through the trees, in the songs we sung as children, and deep in my heart, where I hoped she might finally be safe.”
~Theodore Alderton
That night, Teddy dreamed of his sister.
“Shh!” Tessa was giggling through the admonition, though, squirming beneath the blanket as she lay in between them.
“You’re the one who should shh,” Tom whispered, and he was grinning, head propped up on his hand. “They’re gonna hear you!”
She looked at Teddy, her laughing eyes glittering in the moon, the moon like milk, he remembered they’d called it, the way it poured into the window, cold and fresh, and her fingers found his ribs, tickling with the dexterity only little sisters could possess. He stifled his laugh in the pillow, but not before letting out a shriek of surprise.
Their giggles faded, eventually, and Tessa’s small arm had settled around his waist, Tom’s arm around them both, the three of them huddled together in the cold of winter.
It felt so good, soaking in the warmth, knowing that beyond the blanket was an unrelenting chill, but beneath it, they were safe.
His hand was around Tessa’s, her skin hot.
Hot…and sticky.
Something was wrong.
“Tess,” he whispered, shaking her shoulder.
Her eyes were wide, shining in the moonlight, empty blue wells.
The bed was soaking wet, the warmth fading as something dark leeched into the pillowcase, into the sheets, into the blanket, into his skin, and there was no laughter on her face, now, nothing but terror. “Tessa,” he said, and he could hear his voice, scared, young, as he shook her shoulders. “Tess, wake up!”
Darkness coated his hands, glistening—blood—and she wasn’t waking up, he realized with a jolt, wasn’t doing anything but laying there, her tiny little body jolting, shivering—
“Tess!” He was screaming, now, tears hot as she convulsed, and he was trying to hold her still, cradle her in his arms until—
Until he could fix her.
He could fix her.
A knack for helping out, but he’d seen what happened when people got hurt, he knew he could do more than help them, and he could help her too, if he tried hard enough.
His shaking palm was pressing against the gouge deep within her skull, trying to stem the waterfall. There should’ve been that spark, when his skin hit hers, that rush through his veins, the fire, the heat, the prickling deep within his fingers—
He could hear it, Sam’s machine, and he tried to picture it, whirring away where his heart should be, stringing that Thread through the hole in her head, but she was disintegrating.
Falling to pieces in his arms.
Fading, until there’d be nothing left.
Already, her face was blurring, like it’d been for years, her features contorted with time and pain, and there were just little bits of her hanging on. Her brownish-red curls, brushing what might’ve been rosy cheeks, but he didn’t know, couldn’t see—
Blue eyes melting into his own until they were simply his, dea
d in the mirror, and she was all he could ever see—
His fingertips were searing, and nothing was happening, nothing—
Burning and cramping and pins-and-needles and nothing—
Nothing—
Nothing—
He awoke as he always did, when he dreamed of Tess.
A flare of prickling sparks against his skin where someone had touched him.
Sam.
Sam, with worried eyes and his low, honey voice.
And tears.
So many tears.
THE FIRES
I find myself reflecting on the essence of the flame.
Warmth. Comfort. Destruction. Revenge. Retribution. Grief. Victory. Warning. Light.
It can be a symbol for the passion sparked in our hearts, a rallying point of an angry crowd, the rising of the sun, the crumbling of the familiar.
It can cleanse the earth. It can destroy the earth.
And I think the complication of the flame, really, is that it is never simply one of these things, so much as all of them, all at once.
~Sam Alderton,
excerpt from a letter dated November 2nd
THE BEAST
“There are few things so dangerous in this world as the hope of faith.”
~Greysha Boewliç
She had been perfection.
Her fear had been juicy, ripe, full of the hope of decades yet lived, deep with just enough years to embed within her a terrible, frightful, wonderful, delectable comprehension of worldly terrors.
She had been perfection.
But as with them all, it’d run stale, just before the end.
“Don’t know why he’s dumpin’em here,” the Muscle muttered, tossing her over his shoulder like a bushel of wheat, “people’ve been askin’ questions…”
The Beast only growled, bristling at the blasphemy. To question the Master was to question life itself. It was to stare into the face of a god and see nothing but imperfection, it was—
Death and the Merchant (River's End Book 1) Page 11