Twig

by wildbow

“Of course you’d say that.”

  “Of course of course!” I said. I allowed myself a half second to wish I had the Wyvern formula to help me better formulate my rebuttals. “I know how stupid people are! I can see it in half the people I talk to, I veer from stupidity to brilliance! I know! We have to be patient. We have to keep from destroying ourselves in the meantime. We have to keep the likes of you from destroying them.”

  From destroying us.

  I thought of Helen, of the others, beaten, battered, and in danger.

  “That’s how you justify yourself? That’s really how you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re such a child,” she said.

  “With the abilities of an adult,” I said.

  “A far cry from being adult,” she said. She heaved out a sigh, wings flexing. “I don’t think I have many ways out.”

  “You never did,” the Duke said.

  “I’ll chance being shot. If you want to catch me on the way down, feel free to try.”

  Then she started to topple backward over the railing. The Duke lifted his pistol, aiming skyward, rather than shooting.

  I bolted, running.

  I felt rather than saw the movement of the knife, just to my left.

  It raked her shoulder, and it caught her wing. Feathers and fire-resistant powder flew into the air. I saw her eyes, already wide and bloodshot, go wider.

  I dropped, throwing myself forward. I reached past the rails of the railing, grabbing—

  I seized a strap of her top with both hands. Her weight dragged me forward, my head and ribs slamming into the rails. I managed to keep my grip.

  “Let me go,” she said. Her fingernails bit into my arm. “Let. Go!”

  My fingers started to give. She was lighter than she should’ve been, more modifications, no doubt, but I wasn’t strong. I felt a pain in my hands that suggested they’d be hurting for days.

  And then the burden was lifted.

  “Power, and powerlessness, hm?” I heard the Duke speak, close.

  The Duke loomed over me. He grabbed her as she kicked and fought, and held her so she was face to face with him. An angel with the face of a demon and a demon with the face of an angel.

  She’d enhanced her strength with the combat drug, but for purposes far from fighting the Duke. Only to fly, or to make the attempt. She wasn’t up to fighting the Duke, even as he drew a syringe from one pocket and plunged it into her neck.

  I disengaged myself from the railing, clutching hands to my chest. I turned to face the burning building interior.

  It hadn’t been Mary to throw the knife that injured the wing, but Jamie. He was at the edge of the balcony now, standing by Helen’s body, and by Lillian, who was tending to Helen. They had to have crossed the fire the same way Helen and I did.

  Surprising, on a number of levels.

  Helen was breathing. She was alive. With Lillian there, she’d stay alive.

  “Good enough,” the Duke said. He was smiling like he’d just had the time of his life. The fact that Claret Hall was burning down hardly mattered. He raised his voice, loud enough for the crowd below and the pair’s sensitive ears to hear, halfway around the building, “Dog, Catcher! The Lambs need a way down!”

  He reached out with a free hand and touched the top of my head as he passed by, entering the building to collect the other Lambs and workers.

  Jamie and I stared at the surreal image. When we could no longer see him, his body cloaked by smoke and fire, there was a moment where we were supposed to speak, to look at each other, to joke.

  I felt the absence of that moment keenly.

  Previous Next

  Lamb to the Slaughter—6.13

  Avis raised her head, groggy, her vision unfocused. Chains and bands of metal clinked.

  The table she was bound to was set on a hinge so it could be laid flat, or tilted so she was standing up. Bars sat between toes and fingers, locking them in place, and a network of wires had been worked into her mouth and around her shaved head, locking jaw and tongue in place. Tubes fed clear fluids into her and drained out dark ones. Mechanical arms with more tubes, syringes, and other tools hung around her, poised like a dozen scorpion tails, ready to strike at her.

  Her gradual struggle, waking up to find out how firmly she was bound, made for a backdrop of clinks and grunts, quickly growing more intense.

  “Avis,” the Duke spoke.

  The noises ceased. Her eyes found us. The Duke stood, his doctors behind him. His wounds had been patched up, now virtually invisible, and he’d changed both shirt and coat for something less bloodstained. Jamie, Lillian, and I were there, Lillian beside Jamie, me off to one side, nearer the Duke, sitting on a table.

  “If your chest hurts,” the Duke said, “It’s because of the day’s surgeries. I imagine the drug you took was intended to kill you if you didn’t take a very specific antidote, but my doctors are very good. You are going to live, Avis Pardoe.”

  She was breathing harder, but she wasn’t physically struggling.

  He glanced at a piece of paper that sat on the corner of the same table I did. “Capsule embedded in your leg, I assume it would be activated with sustained flexing of the calf muscle, that has been removed. We have also removed, for the time being, your ability to use your thumbs and fingers independently. If and when we release you from your bondage, you won’t be able to stand, crawl, or make any vigorous movements without assistance. Should you try, your hip and shoulder joints will come free of the sockets.”

  He turned his attention back to her.

  “The bonds you’re in now are a formality, and I do like formalities, Avis. I’ve been told by my doctors that it is kinder to keep you like this, so you won’t accidentally hurt yourself. You’ve been given our best drugs to dull pain. I want you to think very clearly about things between visits.”

  She tried to speak. It was garbled by the wires in her mouth.

  “You had your chance to speak earlier. This isn’t a stage for you to say anything except what I want you to say. One of my doctors is going to remove the gag from your mouth, I am going to ask you a question, and you will answer either yes or no. If you take too long, I’ll consider it the same as you giving me the answer I don’t want to hear. You do not want to say anything but that yes or no.”

  She nodded a little.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said, as he signaled one doctor, “I don’t believe in torture. I don’t like it, even as I recognize just how common it is. Our own bodies torture us with hunger and pain if we put ourselves in the wrong circumstances. If you’re smart about this, you won’t experience either. You can say you won’t give me an answer, and nothing will be done to you, but don’t lie, and don’t say anything but ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

  One of the doctors stepped forward. Two keys were inserted into either side of the gag, latches clicked, locks came undone, and the entire thing jumped in the man’s hands. He withdrew it, and with it came a two-foot long cord of interconnected metal and tubes, with what looked like a lamprey worked out into the center of it all, thin streams of blood trailing from tiny teeth at the one end.

  Avis coughed and sputtered, gagging as the end of the tube came out. Her head bowed as she dry-heaved, coughing.

  The Duke spoke, very clearly, “Will you tell me where I can find the other cells of Percy’s enhanced clones?”

  She looked at the Duke, then at each of us. I could imagine the cogs in her brain turning, over and over, trying to figure out the trick, the catch. She coughed, trying to clear her throat.

  “No, I assume?” the Duke asked.

  “No,” she said, voice hoarse and gravelly to the point she sounded like an old man.

  The Duke nodded. “Doctor, I don’t believe there’s a need for the gag. You can leave it out. Avis, I’ll be back soon. Take some time to consider your next response.”

  She opened her mouth as though she was about to speak, then closed it. She looked between us, wary, before fight
ing her bonds anew.

  The Duke gestured to the door. I hopped down from my seat. The way things went, I wound up right beside Jamie as we passed through the door together, the doctors behind us.

  Not that ‘together’ was the right word.

  The Duke let the door shut.

  “My lord,” I said. “May I ask?”

  “Ask.”

  “Lord, time is kind of of the essence, isn’t it?

  “It is. Time is the operative word, as it happens, Sylvester,” the Duke told me. “You know, I’m very interested in the brain. You raised the topic with Avis Pardoe, and the timing felt serendipitous.”

  “Time and brains, my lord?” I asked. I felt as if he was getting at something.

  “While you were looking after your fellow Lambs at the Hedge, seeing that they got the care they needed, I was busy looking after Mrs. Pardoe. All four of my doctors worked on her. One worked on her brain. She’ll experience time in a very different way from now on.”

  It dawned on me. “With utmost respect, my lord, I’m assuming she won’t think you were gone for a few minutes?”

  “She won’t feel as if I was gone for a few minutes, no. In terms of raw thinking ability, I’m sure she’ll be able to rationalize it and logically work out that time is passing normally. But she’ll think faster in some ways and slower in others. Perhaps she’ll feel as if it has been days. Weeks, more likely?”

  He made it a question One of his doctors gave him a nod, and a murmured, “M’lord.”

  “Months aren’t out of the question?”

  “No, my lord. Not out of the question,” the Doctor said, quiet. “Without patience or pacing, years or decades aren’t out of the question either. It depends on her coping mechanisms. If she tries to keep count of passing seconds and minutes, it will seem more pronounced. The watched pot, in this case, never boils.”

  “No torture, no pain, no mutilation,” the Duke said. He looked pleased. “I’m doing nothing more than giving her the time she needs to reconsider her stance. After that, I will let her consider whether to turn in people she worked with, and whether to join the Academy in earnest, working to put herself back in our good graces. I suppose we might have her report the whereabouts of her family and acquaintances, for future leverage. I imagine it will be a productive night.”

  “My lord,” Lillian said.

  “Lillian, was it? You’re the student.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Speak your mind, child.”

  “I don’t—I think what you’re doing is torture. Worse than anything you could do to her body, my lord.”

  “I’d think a student was more on top of what the Academy is capable of doing, Lillian,” the Duke said. “Is it truly so bad?”

  “I wouldn’t wait too long, my lord. You may be underestimating how frail the average person is.”

  “Good advice,” he said, nodding. He touched her hair. “Good child. I’ll see to her after we’re done talking, then, rather than waiting the full thirty minutes.”

  Lillian ventured a smile.

  “I hadn’t considered. My doctors said it would be effective, and I almost didn’t believe them, but the principle wasn’t unsound, giving her more time to think, so to speak, or giving that time a different sort of meaning.”

  It was a weird thought, one that I couldn’t quite frame, in the context of who the Duke was. He hadn’t considered, which meant he couldn’t empathize, which meant…

  “My lord,” I said. “Was something similar done to you?”

  The Duke smiled. “It was. I do suppose I’ve had the advantage of it being the case from birth, something I’ve learned to harness, while our guest is experiencing it new, not a shift from a walk to a canter, or vice versa, but to a different vehicle altogether. Even I wouldn’t enjoy the deprivation of sensation she’s experiencing now. Doing nothing with my time is an alien idea to me, and wouldn’t have been permitted regardless. I wouldn’t say I think faster, but I can devote exactly the right amount of time to a problem as is needed. Brains are so fascinating, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, my lord,” I said, my voice falling in with the others.

  “When my brothers, sister and I were asked who was willing to come to Radham, the research being on brains here was one reason I volunteered,” the Duke said. “As clever as this small alteration to my own brain is, it’s crude. I often find myself wondering if my own heirs will have better brains. If it’s possible that one of you will be the model for the next generation of nobles. Or perhaps one of you will, when given permission, explore other options and open the doors to a new age.”

  “Yes, my lord,” we said. I was very cognizant of Jamie, who hadn’t had that permission to explore the options he’d dipped his toe into, and of Lillian, who knew about Jamie, but was a far worse liar than Jamie was.

  “Tell me, Lillian, what’s your end goal?” the Duke asked.

  “My goal, my lord?”

  “Do you want to become a noble’s doctor?” The Duke indicated the doctors standing at attention just behind him.

  “My lord, I’d—” Lillian started. She stopped abruptly as the Duke’s hand went up.

  “You don’t.”

  “No, my lord. I don’t mean any offense, I—”

  Again the hand went up. I was annoyed on Lillian’s behalf. Me, I could deal. I’d earned the man’s ire earlier, and I had no idea if I’d patched it up by courting his favorite topic or if I had a sword looming over my head, ready to fall. But he’d asked a question and he wasn’t letting her answer. He didn’t truly know her, and he was setting her up to fail. It was a blatant test. With three Lambs being patched up, I felt a little more protective of the ones who’d remained. Even if one was Jamie, who I had no idea how to deal with.

  “No, my lord,” she said, again. She stopped there.

  “Were I to start talking about the Lambs and how things work, my hopes for the project and the possibility for the Crown, heads would turn. I know how I was when I was young, my brain working the way it does, and I have many family members who are roughly your age,” the Duke said. He arched one eyebrow and looked at Lillian. “My younger relatives might well want to be Lambs, as a lark, or to have a way of stretching their legs as I did earlier today, I would imagine you’re the easiest one to replace, should we need to make room on this team.”

  Lillian was so bad at hiding her tells. I could see the horror on her face.

  I felt it, myself.

  “Or to move to a new team formed of nobles and higher quality work, now that I think about it,” the Duke mused. “Counsel, an unbiased perspective able to inform the new group about how things are done. You and three or four young nobles?”

  “My lord, I wouldn’t be worthy,” she said. She was trying to keep her expression straight. She tried a smile and failed. She cleared her throat, though it wasn’t her voice that had gone funny, but her face, as if she could make the sound and distract from what her face was doing.

  The Duke took it in stride as if it was something that happened daily.

  I felt a weird kind of jealousy and irritation at that. If he was doing that unintentionally to Lillian, then it wasn’t right or fair of him. If he was doing it intentionally, then he was bothering her in a way that was usually for me to do. Not to mention that I was a lot more careful about how I did it, while the Duke didn’t seem to understand any of the nuances here.

  “Hmm,” the Duke made a noise, considering. “The reason I ask, dear Lillian, is that you’ve earned my attention and my respect. If you know where you’re going, it could inform my choices, so I leave you as happy and close to your end goal as possible.”

  “A-a black coat, my lord,” Lillian stuttered.

  “A political appointment as much as it has anything to do with status. You could learn to navigate the playing field by studying certain Lambs,” the Duke said, indicating me.

  Had she given the right answer? Did this lead the Duke to think she belonged with the Lamb
s?

  “But,” he said. “You could well earn your professorship in record time, no matter where you are.”

  Nope. That’s the kind of conclusion that leads the man to think she could be put anywhere.

  Lillian managed the most insincere smile I’d ever seen, and she was trying.

  Was this man going to casually tear the team asunder, just like that?

  “My lord,” Jamie said, pulling attention off Lillian. “Is there a particular reason you’re thinking about restructuring the team?”

  “Yes,” the Duke said. “I’ve been reading your files, as well as the latest updates. It may be time.”

  I was approaching the limit of my patience.

  No, wait, scratch that. I’d reached it.

  “Lord Duke,” I said. I took a half-step to position myself forward and to one side, putting myself more in front of Jamie and Lillian, between them and the Duke. Jamie touched my arm, an instinctive movement, before he pulled away. I spoke, “You’re wrong.”

  Behind the Duke’s back, the noble’s doctors broke their stoic composure to give me looks as if I were insane.

  “You disagree,” the Duke said. Voice cold and dangerous. “I haven’t forgotten the insolence earlier. You test me.”

  “With all due respect, my lord, you were testing her. We all have default behaviors we go back to when we’re on unstable footing. Lillian’s a good soldier, she defaults to shutting up and following orders, to insecurity and not speaking up when she needs to. If you move forward with either of the options you’re thinking about, you will utterly destroy her. You will hurt the Lambs, lord Duke.”

  “A strategic break, nothing more.”

  “We’re growing, my lord, we’re still young, we’re not fully developed. Jamie’s improving by leaps and bounds, Lillian’s getting better. We’re evolving the team dynamic.”

  “‘Evolving’ may be the wrong word,” the Duke said. “Going by reports and what I’ve seen, things might be trending in the opposite direction.”

  He’d noticed. The realization almost took my breath away, stealing my ability to argue.

  I did what I could to hide my tells. “We’re effective as a group, my lord.”