Twig

by wildbow

  “How kind of him,” Mary said, very dry.

  “And then—” Nora started, before being interrupted.

  Lara put a sleeve-clad arm out, smushing her forearm against Nora’s face. “—Then he said he wants to let people know that children need protecting. The future needs protecting. This situation will scare the people here. Make them act. He said the Devil’s old alliances are breaking down and they might not tolerate him any more. If we don’t get the Devil, then he will.”

  “You forgot a whole part! Lacey said stuff and Sylvester said he was complicated and—”

  Lara smushed up Nora’s face again, interrupting. “That part wasn’t important. I was trying to be brief and efficient.”

  “We can leave it at that,” Lacey said. “They summed it up. There was more, about his bigger plans, about the Lambs, but they don’t matter for this mission. Later, I, Nora, or Lara will fill you in on what he had to say.”

  She could see Lillian and Mary practically squirm with their desire to hear just what Sylvester had had to say. In another situation, she might have felt bad for them. In this situation, she only felt a pit of concern in her gut.

  “He’s a whirlpool,” Lacey said, doing her best to diplomatically address that concern, “The closer you get to him the greater his leverage. Get too close and you’re no longer in control.”

  “Interesting metaphor,” Duncan observed. “I think that’s the fifth ‘Sylvester is dangerous’ metaphor I’ve heard in the last two days. Maybe the most accurate one.”

  Lacey gave him a small smile. “Thank you. Listen, I know I’m not in charge. I’m here to watch, offer some counsel based on what I know about Sylvester, provide a bit more legitimacy to the group than you might otherwise have, and to dole out pills. I’m not the leader. But if you’re willing to take my advice, I would strongly advise that you keep your eye on the prize. Put feelings aside. You have a plan. Stick to it. Don’t get caught up in Sylvester’s pull.”

  “Devil first, then Sylvester,” Mary said. She had a hard look in her eyes again. It hadn’t taken much to remind her to put her feelings aside. But Mary was like that. It might even be a programmed trait, something that Percy had done to her, much like he’d made her so very focused on training her body and her expertise with weapons.

  Mary was easy. Lillian—Lacey could look at the girl and see that she wasn’t wholly convinced. The pit of concern remained in Lacey’s stomach.

  It would, much like the girls’ desire to ask more questions, and the myriad other distractions that Sylvester would throw in their way, be something that she had to put off until later.

  “Exactly,” Lacey said, before reaffirming, “Stick to the plan.”

  It wasn’t wholly by accident that she met Lillian’s eyes briefly as she said the latter part.

  “We know where his new headquarters are,” Mary said. “We took down three of his new lieutenants this morning, and we put down the Skippers last night. They won’t be reinforcing him. The Apostle and the Witch are dead. The Spears, I forget what they called themselves exactly, they’re still out there, but there is enough animosity and enough loyalty to other corners that I’m not sure if they’ll be confident in getting involved. It’s time. We hit his headquarters.”

  Lillian nodded.

  “What are you thinking?” Helen asked, walking around the periphery of the group, placing herself between Lara and Nora and putting an arm around each of their shoulders.

  “Hm?” Lillian asked. “I’m trying to anticipate Sylvester. I think… Duncan and I are primary targets. He’s made that clear enough with Duncan. Sorry, Duncan.”

  “Not your fault,” Duncan said.

  “You’re thinking he’ll use our focus on the Devil to come after you?” Mary asked.

  “One of us,” Lillian said. “Probably when the task is very nearly wrapped up. If I had to guess, he’ll turn us into a liability somehow. I can think of several times in the past he’s disabled people with poison and then held the antidote at arm’s length. He could use something that affects our mental faculties, something that binds us to an area…”

  “He used gas to deliver a drug payload last night,” Duncan said.

  “And to cover his retreat just now,” Lacey added. Nora nodded her agreement at that.

  “Turning us into a liability ensures we can never use our full strength against him, we’re constantly off balance. And…” Lillian spread her hands. “…I don’t know. He’s more able to draw us into his flow in the way Lacey described.”

  Lacey nodded.

  “Something to watch out for,” Lillian said.

  There were nods all around.

  “I guess it works that we’re all together now,” Lillian said. “How are you all?”

  “My group is managing,” Duncan said. “We had a moment of nice teamwork, with Ashton on point. Sylvester went and found someone that could shrug off Ashton and left her and her boyfriend lying in wait with a gun.”

  Ashton smiled.

  “I mentioned that,” Lara said. Nora pointed at Lara, as if to confirm.

  “Not in so many words,” Mary said. “Good job, all of you.”

  “I didn’t really do anything,” Lara said.

  “You communicated after the fact,” Duncan said. “It’s what you’re made to do.”

  The little experiment nodded. Just as the nod concluded, Lacey could see a glimmer of some emotion the girl wasn’t completely hiding, as she looked toward the ground. Disappointment? Frustration?

  A part of her wanted to respond to that. To make a mental note to put in the effort later, to encourage the girl, explore the feeling in question, resolve the problem.

  The Lacey of four years ago might have.

  “They’re doing well. We ate well, rested as well as we were able. I’m not sure how much we can contribute, but my experiments and I will help with the Devil if we can.”

  “Emmett, are you confident, giving some direct help? I can guide you,” Mary said.

  Emmett nodded.

  “Good. We stick together as a group, keep watch as we move to the Devil’s headquarters, then we split up,” Mary said. She looked to Lillian for confirmation, and Lillian gave her a short nod.

  The group moved on. Mary, Emmett, Ashton and Helen took the lead, Mary talking to Emmett, who was mostly content to listen, and Helen clinging to Ashton, while quizzing him.

  Toward the middle of the collected group, Abby walked Quinton, and Nora and Lara talked to one another, bickering.

  Lacey walked with Duncan and Lillian, the three of them trailing behind the rest. The wheels of Lillian’s case clacked as they rolled over the wooden slats of the covered footbridge.

  “No injuries?” Duncan asked.

  “Very minor ones. Mary wanted to be on the hunt all night, but after she got a bad scrape, I decided we were done. Too tired, and she’s only human. More focused than most, but you can’t keep up that focus for hours on end without something suffering.”

  “It’s good you got rest,” Duncan said.

  “Agreed,” Lacey said. She’d worried when they had had to vacate the headmaster’s house, but the Lambs knew how to secure temporary accommodations.

  She liked Duncan. He tried, he was focused, and he had a lot of promise. There were things he needed to work on, he’d effectively been dropped into this role without seeking it out. They shared common background in that.

  “How are they?” Lacey asked.

  “The little ones? Reliable, scared, impenetrable, and sensitive.”

  He didn’t even need to name them.

  “I’m worried this is a test run, a prelude for something that’s in the works. A second Lambs team?”

  “It’s not,” Lacey said. “And I say that as someone who knew about the project when it was only a concept.”

  “I agree,” Lillian said. “Can’t be. Doesn’t work, that’s not what the Lambs are.”

  “Clever, capable experiments with a partial emphasis on their me
ntal abilities,” Duncan said.

  “Operating as a group,” Lillian said. “Built to lean on one another.”

  “Right,” Duncan said. “We had that for a moment, dealing with the two teenagers that had the gun. If someone like me can strike the right note once while fumbling with the instruments I’ve been provided with, I feel a sustained note could be doable with practice. With a lot of practice. Or with someone else at the helm.”

  He leaned forward to look past Lacey and give Lillian a pointed look as he said it.

  “You don’t want the job?” Lillian asked.

  “No. Not at all. Not in the long run.”

  A stepping stone, Lacey thought.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect. Would Lillian talk about the merits of the job? What she appreciated about it?

  “I think I understand,” Lillian said. “I didn’t want the role either. Not at first.”

  “Hm,” Duncan made a noise. His expression was knit into something more thoughtful and concerned.

  “Spooky to think about?” Lillian asked.

  “Heh. Very spooky,” Duncan said, smiling.

  “Duncan?” Helen called back. She beckoned for Duncan to come forward, while clutching Ashton’s head to her side.

  The smile dropped off of Duncan’s face.

  “Very, very spooky,” he reaffirmed.

  “Helen?” Lillian asked. “You can’t give her a prey response, or she’ll pounce on it. It’s all in fun, either way.”

  “The prey instinct is involuntary, in my case,” Duncan said. “It’s a question of gender, and Helen developing into a weapon against my gender. If we switched positions, I think you might find it harder than it is in your shoes.”

  “Maybe, but my shoes also benefit from years of experience,” Lillian said.

  Duncan held up a finger, “I could make an argument—”

  “Duncan, dear,” Helen cooed. “Sweetheart. Ashton and I would like you to join the discussion, pretty please.”

  “—And I won’t, now that I think about it. Thank you, Helen,” Duncan said. He raised his voice, “One second!”

  “Thank you,” Helen replied, before leaning down to kiss the top of Ashton’s head, rubbing her cheek against it to muss up his tidy hair.

  Duncan spoke under his breath, “Why did that request sound menacing?”

  “Helen is not being menacing,” Lillian said.

  “Is there a tell? Something I can listen or watch for?”

  “No. I’m drawing on years of experience of dealing with her. You are in no real danger. Except maybe from Ibbot.”

  Duncan huffed out a sigh, “Would you? I don’t want to drop it when she tackles me or scares the living daylight out of me again.”

  He extended the leash of his tentacle dog to Lacey. She took it.

  Free to go, Duncan then picked up his pace, catching up to Ashton and Helen.

  “And I know just what argument you were about to make before she interrupted,” Lillian said, under her breath, in an uncharacteristic dark tone, “Thank you, Duncan, for not finishing the thought and making me slap you. You’re learning.”

  When Lacey didn’t venture a response, Lillian looked over and up. “You knew what he was going to say, I’m sure.”

  “I didn’t think about it,” Lacey said.

  “He can be so nice to be around when he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth,” Lillian said. “But get him caught up in an argument or put him on his back foot, and he says things that he shouldn’t.”

  It took Lacey a moment to catch up. He was going to turn the tables. Accused of being weak in the face of Helen, was he going to say something about Lillian and Sylvester?

  Yes. It was good he’d kept his mouth shut. Thank you Helen, indeed.

  Rather than comment, Lacey said, “I’m trying to stay objective, and not get too wrapped up in things. I made that mistake once upon a time, when Sylvester was involved. I promised myself I wouldn’t repeat it when I agreed to come on this trip.”

  “Uh huh,” Lillian said. “So, based on what you just said, you’d tell me that earlier, when you were talking about Sylvester’s pull and the threat of getting too close, you weren’t saying it to me?”

  There was a significant gap between the time that Lacey had first been involved with the team, when Lillian was brand new, and the present day. She’d kept tabs on how her project was doing, and how the Lambs were operating, but Lillian hadn’t been part of what she asked about and looked for.

  A mistake, that, and one she regretted. Maybe she could have offered more counsel. Maybe she would be more aware of just how canny Lillian could be, after years of keeping up with the Lambs. Periodic sharing of Sylvester’s doses of Wyvern, too, according to the higher-ups.

  “When I talked about the whirlpool, I was talking to you, yes,” Lacey said.

  Lillian shook her head a little.

  “I don’t want you to suffer where I’ve suffered,” Lacey said. “I look at you and Duncan and I see a glimmer of my old self. The Academy is cutthroat. Radham more than most. If you fall behind or make a mistake, it can take a long time to get back to where you were.”

  “‘What was it you said? ‘Stick to the plan?’,” Lillian asked.

  “Absolutely. Here, and in the greater scheme of it all.”

  “Greater scheme. I just now realized… when Sylvester was talking about his, you cut off the girls. You didn’t want him to say it. Was it because you were worried we would get caught up in his pull? Something big, drawing our attention and drawing us closer, until we’re swept up in it?”

  Lacey frowned a little, then glanced at Lillian. She saw the look in her eyes. “Speaking of realizations—”

  “You’re deflecting, Lacey,” Lillian challenged. “I’ve spent long enough around Sylvester that I’m not about to get distracted by something that blatant.”

  “That’s fine,” Lacey said. “But you’re more defensive and hostile than you should be. How much of the combat drug did you inject into yourself before you went into the building?”

  “I played it by ear. The mood response to the drug depends on my mood, so I have to adjust.”

  “I’m well aware of the peculiarities of different combat drugs,” Lacey said. “I have a gen. spec. in drugs and poisons. I know how that can sometimes be necessary. That in mind, when your mood is far outside the usual bounds, your judgment when ‘playing something by ear’ is not always going to be optimal. You can overshoot.”

  “I don’t think I overshot,” Lillian said.

  “Alright,” Lacey said, doing her best not to let her doubts creep into her tone.

  “Who was the liar in the group?” Lillian asked.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Sylvester was given massive doses of Wyvern from a very early stage in his life. I know he learned from others. He started off by building his identity as a mosaic of the people around him. He’s very good at lying, but your response just now, I don’t think he got the lying from you. Deflection, maybe, but not deception. You’re too transparent.”

  She’d let Lillian see or hear her doubts, then.

  “I don’t think the others in my group were good liars,” Lacey said. She paused. “But if they were, I don’t suppose I would have realized. Could it be the other Lambs?”

  “No,” Lillian said. “Not the other Lambs. He resisted copying anything important from them, because it was his job to mold himself around them, around us.”

  “I know that, but there were a number of redundancies,” Lacey said. “He learned lockpicking, like many of you. Acting and presentation, like Helen.”

  “And he got it in his head to learn some of Mauer’s manipulation, and Fray’s approach, and he picked up some bloodthirstiness along the way,” Lillian agreed. “But I’m talking about the Sylvester in the very, very beginning. Before he started picking up those things. I was with the group for a year and a half before he even dabbled in lockpicking again. Redundancies came later.”

  �
��I don’t know,” Lacey said. “I think deception and lying are pretty endemic, in the Academy. Rich compost to grow a schemer.”

  “Maybe,” Lillian said. “I won’t argue it. Like you say, I could be under the lingering influence of the drug.”

  There was bitterness in the sentence.

  Babysitting. How ironic, that when she’d tried to look after the child in her care, she’d pushed him away. But when she’d resolved not to do it, she found herself stuck with the responsibility.

  “I would recommend…” Lacey said, as carefully as she could, pausing to find her words. She didn’t get the chance.

  “That I don’t use the combat drug again,” Lillian said.

  “Yes. Dealing with Sylvester will be hard enough, but if you’re in an altered state, even in the mildest sense, it might be something he can use.”

  “I already resolved not to, from the moment you brought it up. I’ve been trying it to see if I couldn’t get an edge, something I could use. We had time before we focused on Sylvester. I thought I’d try a test run in a more serious situation. The costs aren’t worth the gain, I couldn’t even really feel the benefits of the drug. I hoped I could find a chemical that might cover up weaknesses, but they only ever hurt me.”

  Lacey diplomatically held her tongue.

  “Before,” Lillian said. “When you stopped Lara and Nora from talking about Sylvester’s big plans. That was on purpose. To keep the Lambs from getting excited about it?”

  “Yes,” Lacey said. “In part.”

  She didn’t let that thread of the conversation drop after all. Well trained by Sylvester.

  Lillian nodded, seemingly satisfied, but then asked, “Academy mandate, or your own decision?”

  “Mine.”

  Another satisfied nod. Lillian switched hands, pulling her case behind her with the other. Lacey wound up the leash around her hand, bringing the tentacle dog in closer.

  Abby was watching out for Sylvester, keeping her eye on the surroundings, on ledges and rooftops. She kept getting distracted by Quinton or by the birds that were trying to find shade from the summer sun.