The Key to Starveldt

by Foz Meadows

  As Manx chuckled at his own joke, Evan felt something hard and angry settle inside him. He could feel Manx’s humour, taste his tolerant belief that Evan would always be worse for wear after a night out, despite the fact that Manx himself was, at present, much more out of control. So maybe I am an idiot. No sense, always good for a laugh. It’s not like I’ve ever tried to be anything different. But Harper’s in real pain. What’s funny about that?

  ‘Way to kick a man when he’s down, Manx,’ he found himself growling. ‘That’s real classy.’

  Startled, Manx’s mismatched eyes widened. ‘What?’

  Evan extricated himself from under his friend’s arm. ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Take a joke, Evan!’ Manx looked genuinely offended, which might have held more weight were his speech not slightly slurred. ‘What, you think I’m glad Harper’s gone crazy?’

  ‘You could just show a little respect, that’s all.’

  ‘Respect?’ Manx laughed, too loud. ‘Coming from you, that’s pretty rich. When have you ever respected anything? You get trashed all the time!’

  ‘I’m not the one who woke up wearing a lizard sombrero!’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying!’

  ‘Guys!’ Jess held up her hands. ‘Easy! Hey! This is not necessary. Let’s go grab some lunch, or something, sit down and cool off. We’re all worried about Harper, but that doesn’t mean we need to go nuts. Okay?’

  Evan nodded, though his muscles didn’t unclench. Manx was staring at him with a foggy mixture of surprise, anger and indignation. Laine was outwardly as calm as ever, but she radiated concern when he looked her way, a wave of mingled support and curiosity. Irrationally irked by this, Evan focused on Solace. Although he’d never noticed it about her before, his newfound sensitivity appreciated that her emotions were well contained, noisy only when he reached for them, yet still evident in the expressive motions of her face and eyes. In that respect, she was an odd contrast to Laine, whose tranquil features concealed a wealth of inner turmoil.

  Smoothing her hands down the fabric of the long burgundy skirt that Jess had helped her choose, Solace grinned and made a face, which Evan couldn’t help but return.

  ‘Lunch?’ she asked.

  It hadn’t really been that long since breakfast, but more food wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and having an immediate plan might help them all calm down – himself included.

  ‘Lunch,’ he agreed.

  11

  Restitution

  With Jess in charge, it wasn’t long before all five of them were squeezed around a table in a venue as close to a cafe as the Rookery seemed to come, which is to say, there was food being served and a place to sit, but the barista had tentacles.

  ‘So,’ said Manx, looking between Solace and Evan, ‘care to enlighten us about what just happened?’

  ‘What do you mean, what just happened?’ Evan replied, clearly irked by the question. ‘Harper got drunk, we helped him. End of story.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’ Manx rubbed a hand over his face. Though still worn out, he looked like himself for the first time that morning. Evidently, anger had succeeded in sobering him up where nothing else had. Before, Solace had never quite appreciated the fact that Manx was the eldest among them by several years. In light of the morning’s events, it suddenly seemed to matter. ‘You know something, or you wouldn’t have got so shitty just now. Tell us.’

  Solace saw Laine tense. Unaware of what she and Evan had learned through the Castalian magic, the psychic was fearful, not of what Evan might reveal, but of being forced to endure a speculative conversation on the matter. All of them were tense, frazzled by the severity of Harper’s actions, and despite Manx’s technical maturity, his current mood wasn’t doing it much justice.

  Thrall him, said the Vampire Cynic. Just this once. Make him calm. Change the subject. Now!

  Solace rebelled at the thought. Though she’d never felt any compunction about befuddling strangers, friends were another matter. It was a type of betrayal, surely? But as Manx opened his mouth to resume his inquisition, Solace laid her hand over his and caught his mismatched gaze. Gently, she let a trickle of power seep into her voice.

  ‘Let it go, Manx. We’re all tired. Let’s talk about something else.’

  A ripple of relaxation crossed his face. Solace hoped the others would put it down to exhausted acquiescence, assuming they noticed at all.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, to Laine’s visible relief. ‘Yeah. Let’s do that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Jess, leaning her elbows on the table. ‘Now we’ve got our crazy out of the way, how about telling us what happened in the satyr’s grove? Or do you still want to wait?’

  ‘No,’ said Solace. ‘Now’s fine.’

  Taking a deep breath, she explained where the satyrs had taken her and the content of her visions – it took a minute to settle her friends after she revealed that Glide was still alive. Solace progressed to her fight-slash-conversation with Sharpsoft and, finally, how she’d collapsed in front of Salesian. It made for a strange recitation, but to their credit, her friends let her speak without interruption.

  ‘That wacky Sharpsoft,’ Evan said, once she’d finished speaking. ‘Always popping in and out of reality, dropping a dire warning here, a cryptic clue there. Bastard.’

  ‘I thought you said he was on our side?’ said Manx, rather waspishly.

  ‘He is.’ Evan waved an arm to attract a waitress. ‘That doesn’t mean he’s not infuriating.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Jess muttered.

  Solace opened her mouth to speak, but was forestalled by the arrival – on rollerskates, no less – of a striking waitress wearing rainbow-striped tights and a black velvet T-shirt dress. Smiling broadly, an action that caused the vibrant butterfly tattoo on her left cheek to dimple, she plucked a pen from behind her ear and asked, in a cheerful, lilting voice, what they’d like to eat.

  Much to everyone’s surprise, Laine answered for the table, reeling off orders as if from memory, despite no one having laid eyes on a menu. The waitress wrote everything down, grinned at them again and glided off, leaving Solace and the others to stare at Laine.

  At their expressions, the Goth girl heaved an exasperated sigh. ‘Psychic,’ she said. ‘Is that really so difficult to remember? Besides, there’s a menu on the wall and we’re all hungry. No need to waste time.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jess, shooting Evan a warning look. ‘Anyway, we’re on Liluye’s dollar, or whatever the local currency is. Free food is good food.’

  For a long time, that was all anyone had to say. Solace didn’t know how to feel, and so propped her chin on a fist and stared into the middle distance. After a minute, she fixed her gaze on Jess, who seemed to be thinking, too. A tingle of premonition jolted up Solace’s spine. Of all the puzzles that had arisen since they’d reached the Rookery, the only one that hadn’t been solved was the block on Jess’s Rarity. What had stopped her friend from casting the bones? Salesian had suggested that she was simply too scared of the future to view it correctly, but even though Jess had admitted that something similar had happened before, Solace remained curious.

  The butterfly-tattooed waitress returned with the food that Laine had ordered. Whatever else Solace thought about the psychic’s current frame of mind, she couldn’t fault her selection. There were salads, pies, sandwiches and a pitcher of unfamiliar juice, and if the fillings of some of the more regular-seeming dishes were just a little bit unusual, at least they were tasty. Despite their earlier meal, everyone was ravenous, and the food vanished with speed.

  Although she needed to eat carefully in order to avoid consuming anything her body might reject, Solace was happier with a full stomach. Sitting back, she went over the day’s events in her mind – had it really been just one day? It was as if everything that had happened since crossing at the sign of the singing hawk occupied a discreet bubble of time, whole and perfect. She wondered what was happening back on Earth, and realised, with a sinking f
eeling, that they still had to do something about Glide. Ignoring the fact that her first – well, not love, because whatever Glide had been to her, he’d only been it for half an evening – dalliance, then – had been revealed as a traitor and murderer, he was still their responsibility. Sharpsoft had let him live, but rather than flee, he’d returned to the warehouse. Looking for what? She didn’t know, but suddenly, the thought of not even trying to find out was unbearable.

  ‘I had three visions,’ she said. Though she spoke softly, a hush came over the table as her friends looked up and listened. Under their collective scrutiny, she felt as though part of her self were being eroded. ‘I don’t know why I saw the things I did, but they’re all we have to work with. My old group home … I’m just glad everyone there is all right. If I knew how to rescue the man in the dungeon without putting us all in danger, I would. He looks like the kind of person who could help us, and even if not, nobody should be left to die in a place like that. But I don’t, not yet. And that leaves Glide.’ She sighed. ‘We have do to something about him. Any suggestions?’

  ‘No,’ Evan said, simply.

  Solace blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, no. We don’t discuss this here and now. We wait.’

  ‘Why?’ growled Manx, his thrall-calm wearing off.

  ‘Because,’ said Evan, with lethal patience, ‘Harper and Paige and Electra have every right to weigh in on whatever it is you’re about to say, and they’re not here, in case you’d forgotten. They’re back at the rooms, which is where we should be, too.’

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Manx looked thoroughly abashed, and also slightly furious that Evan had castigated him from a position of moral high ground twice in one day. Solace felt chastened, but the feeling lifted slightly when Evan caught her eye: his anger had been at Manx, not her.

  ‘We go back, then,’ said Jess. It was a call for peace. The two men glowered at one another across the table. Men, the Vampire Cynic noted. When did they stop being boys?

  Then, with a sigh, Manx nodded. ‘Back,’ he said. ‘Together, or not at all.’

  Paige sat quietly by Harper’s side, her heart so twisted it felt like she was dying. More than once, she’d reached out to touch the hole he’d tried to burn into his chest, only to pull back, afraid of waking him. At first, Electra had kept her company, a blessed silent presence while the tears had trickled down her cheeks. But when Paige had asked if she could be alone, the blonde girl had smiled and exited without hesitation, shutting the door softly.

  Harper turned over in his sleep. Paige held her breath until he settled again. We’ve been through so much. They’d slept together only once, an ill-advised one-night stand after Harper and Laine had broken up, but for all her yearning, it had never gone anywhere – there’d been too much awkwardness, too much unsaid. And then Laine had kept living with them, Laine with her perfect skin and awful talent, Laine who’d known, and whose every glance thereafter had thwarted every attempt she made to scab the wound over and forget. But she knew now that she’d been wrong from the beginning; the fault of silence was hers. Harper would never have abandoned her. All she’d had to do was speak. If she’d managed just those words, small and sharp, so many years ago, would this still have happened? Would the only person she’d ever truly trusted be lying here, sick to his heart and gut, with burned clothes and his beautiful eyes closed?

  All my fault. But please, please, let it be better.

  Her throat tightened, signalling the arrival of yet more tears. Paige did nothing to stop them. Harper had come running for her last night, pushing through the Rookery crowds even as she, burdened by her conversation with Laine, had looked for him. Somehow, they’d found one another. He’d been tense and angry that she’d run off, but still her Harper underneath it all, still unsuspecting of the Great Lie. And part of Paige – the coward, the child who ran away – had wanted to play along.

  But instead, she told him. Broke him. That it had been necessary made it no less painful. He’d staggered away like a man bereft, leaving her adrift, closed in on herself like an oyster. She didn’t remember when Laine had found her again, or what had passed between them. Quite possibly, there’d been no need to speak at all. They’d looked for him, but by that time grief and exhaustion had weighed them down like stones. They’d returned to the rooms to sleep. It hadn’t even occurred to Paige that Harper wouldn’t be with them when she woke; that he would still be lost.

  Her free hand was resting on the edge of Harper’s mattress. Out of reflexive guilt, she went to pull it away.

  ‘Paige. Don’t.’

  Harper looked up at her with bright brown eyes, the slender fingers of his right hand clasped gently around her wrist. It was all she could do to breathe.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

  A thundercloud crossed Harper’s face. ‘Don’t, I said!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blame yourself. Paige, none of this is your fault. If one of us owes the other an apology, it’s me – I was the one who let it happen, I was so stupid –’

  ‘Harper –’

  ‘But even then,’ he went on, ‘even then, it’s not my fault. I’ll feel guilty forever. But it wasn’t my fault, and it sure as hell isn’t yours. Don’t carry it anymore.’

  His voice was ragged with grief, bile, sleep. His face was ashen, his breath was foul and his clothes stank like a hobo’s fire, but in that instant, he couldn’t have been more beautiful. A cry escaped her lips. Wearily, Harper held out his arms.

  ‘Come here. Please. I’ve missed you so much.’

  Half hanging off the edge of the bed, Paige tucked herself against him. He was so much taller, her feet came to above his ankles, leaving her head to nestle against his shoulder and throat. More tears threatened, but this time, she held them back, closing her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her.

  12

  Traitors Under Friendly Skies

  When they returned, it was to find Electra sitting by herself in the main room, reading a paperback romance novel. At the sound of their entry, she put the book down and smiled.

  ‘Paige and Harper?’ Evan asked.

  Electra cocked a thumb at the door. ‘In there. I heard voices a little while ago, so he’s probably regained consciousness, but there’s also been a good deal of yurking since then, too.’

  ‘Yurking?’ asked Jess.

  Electra mimed vomiting.

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Paige chose that moment to poke her head into the common area. She still looked wan, but her eyes sparkled. Whatever had happened to effect the transformation, Solace wished them well of it. There’d been enough doubt and tension for one day.

  ‘What’s up?’ Paige asked, easing herself around the frame and pulling the door shut. ‘You guys look kind of traumatised.’

  ‘Glide is alive. Solace wants to do something about it,’ said Manx.

  Paige’s face hardened. ‘Tell me.’

  Solace hesitated. ‘Should we wait for Harper?’

  Paige paused, considering. She shook her head.

  ‘No. He’s better than he was, but still throwing up. I’ll speak for him.’ She turned a shrewd eye on Evan and Manx. ‘That jin’sa is strong stuff. Electra told me you guys drank a gallon of it last night, but here you are, walking and talking. Guess you must have livers of steel.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Manx, with what Solace was prepared to categorise as indecent pride.

  Jess snorted and sat down, the cue for everyone to find a seat.

  Paige perched on the arm of Electra’s chair, looking more like a pixie than ever with her crossed ankles swinging above the floor. Belatedly, Solace realised another reason for her friend’s changing appearance: Paige’s pale hair was growing out, her pink and purple streaks fading. It made her look oddly wistful, or would’ve done, had her face not reverted to stone.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Tell us what you saw.’

  Once again, Solace related the contents of her Cas
talian visions, though neither Paige nor Electra seemed overly interested in the details of the group home or the dungeon. Just as before, it was Glide’s name that they clung to, and when Solace had finished, it was Glide they discussed.

  ‘Kill him,’ Paige said instantly. There was no levity in her tone. Solace felt the hairs on her arms stand up. ‘He killed three of our friends. Burned them alive. He’s a murderer. Kill him.’

  Gently, Electra reached up and rested a palm on Paige’s wrist. ‘If we do that, then we’re no better than he is. Sanguisidera and the Bloodkin kill. We don’t.’

  There was a moment of tension. Something flickered in Paige’s eyes – regret, fear – and then she sighed, staring down to where the floor met the wall.

  ‘Then leave him,’ she said, flatly. ‘Just let him go, like Sharpsoft did.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t trust Sharpsoft?’ Evan asked. His tone was unusually respectful.

  Paige blinked, but didn’t look up. ‘So did I. And if he really had killed Glide, I would’ve been happy. But Solace was there when he told Sanguisidera that Glide was dead, and now she’s seen him alive. Electra’s right. Whatever we still don’t know about the Bloodkin, it’s obvious they would never have let him go.’

  ‘So we do nothing?’ Jess spread her hands and glanced around the room. ‘Because even if we decide not to take supernatural justice ourselves – which, don’t get me wrong, is a good and noble thing – we’d still be within our rights to tip off the police. Let the humans handle it.’ She paused, and then bit down a wry laugh. ‘Huh. Now there’s something I never thought I’d say.’

  ‘He’s an arsonist and a murderer,’ said Laine, softly. ‘Just because we’re above killing him doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be punished.’

  ‘Can we do that, though?’ Electra asked. ‘Without implicating ourselves, I mean.’