Twig

by wildbow

“Shh,” Helen said. “Sleep, Sylvester. You won’t be able to stay awake the entire time. Let it happen now.”

  I wondered if the real Helen would suggest that, or if my tired and abused mind was telling me lies because it wanted so badly to sleep. All the same, I let myself succumb to the tranquilizer, hoping I would be awake by the time we arrived in New Amsterdam.

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  Thicker than Water—14.4

  “—more permanent measure than what we’re doing now,” Duncan said.

  “I don’t agree,” Gordon said.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Duncan said, clearly exasperated. “But, as I’ve been trying to outline for the past while—”

  “This isn’t working,” Gordon said. “There are clear weaknesses, it’s only going to break down further, and while we’re doing this, we aren’t resolving the problem, right? That’s what you were going to say? Again?”

  “Yes. And there’s the part where this problem may be actively getting worse as he leans on us as a crutch. We all caught just how bad it got when we put Helen in charge.”

  “Yes,” Gordon said. “Nobody’s saying this is good or perfect. But I’m loyal to Sy.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Dunc, if you try that patronizing tone with me one more time, I will extinguish you, damage to Sy notwithstanding.”

  “Be nice, Gordon,” Lillian said.

  “You’re all too nice to him. Far too nice, considering what he’s suggesting.”

  “Don’t take me being quiet as me agreeing with him or tolerating him,” Jamie said. “I can’t stand him any more than Sy can. He’s been improving, but this? I can’t agree with this. And I think I’m very well placed to comment on this.”

  “The fact is,” Duncan said—

  “Duncan,” Gordon interrupted, voice firm. “Stop repeating yourself. Say something different, if you’re going to say anything at all.”

  “Is that your way of telling me to shut up?”

  “My polite way,” Gordon said.

  “Fine. I’ll say something new. Remember the rule? I wasn’t there for it, but Lillian or Mary would have probably told me. One Lamb can’t sacrifice themselves for another Lamb. Because that’s not fair. But one Lamb can sacrifice themselves for two or more Lambs, if the situation is dire.”

  “We’re not Lambs, silly,” Helen said. “We’re aspects of Sy, wrapped up in figments of memory.”

  “And,” Jamie said. “Even if we were real, which we’re not, the rule doesn’t allow for one of the two to make the call for sacrifice on behalf of another. If Sylvester and Mary’s lives were at stake, it would never be okay for Sylvester to decide to sacrifice me for the two of them. I would, if there were absolutely no way out of the situation, of course, as would most of us—”

  “I saw how you looked at me when you said that last bit,” Duncan said.

  “Yes. That was intentional. I would, but it would never be okay for someone to decide to sacrifice me for their sake and the sake of someone else.”

  “Okay, then,” Duncan said. “Then I’ll rephrase. Sylvester is self destructing. He—Don’t get out of your seat, Gordon. I’m not repeating myself. I’m saying that we’re speeding haphazardly toward a situation where we all get extinguished, Sylvester included. So maybe, maybe, it’s time to consider a more permanent solution than doing what we’re doing.”

  “I half agree with you,” Evette said. She paused. “More than half agree.”

  “You aren’t the only one, I don’t think,” Duncan said. “Going by the eye contact I’ve had from some people, new recruits and veteran Lamb alike, I’d guess almost half of the group agree with me or are torn, and are not wanting to rock the boat by joining their voices to mine, or to yours.”

  “He’s awake, you know,” Ashton said. “He has been for two minutes, pretending to be asleep, while he gets over the effects of the tranquilizer.”

  I opened my eyes.

  I watched as the Lambs stirred, each one settling down, as if they’d been slouching or lying down or standing in the aisle before, but now were finding seats, ready to get down to business. Lillian and the new Jamie, who had turned around to face the discussion, settled into their seats with their backs to me.

  Duncan met my eyes for a moment, then turned to stare out the window, saying something under his breath to Ashton.

  “I hope you’re rested,” Gordon said.

  I blinked a few times, getting a sense of the surroundings. We had stopped, and Leeds was once again sitting across from me, with the Lady Moth in the seat next to me, keeping me from the aisle. The window to my left was sealed.

  Jamie, Gordon, and Helen occupied the empty seats nearest me. Evette stood on the seat behind Leeds, peering over top of it. The window outside suggested we had arrived in New Amsterdam. I could see the tall buildings, but from my seat, I couldn’t crane my head to see how tall they really were.

  I took stock of them, the emotions, the clear distress that followed from the debate with Duncan, then looked across the aisle at Duncan once again.

  “Sy,” Gordon warned.

  Not that I was in a position to do anything. My body was sluggish, and the noble was fast. The sword point touched the hollow of my collarbone.

  “You’ve somehow managed to seem concerned about something that isn’t us,” Lord Leeds said.

  Jamie was already in the seat next to me. He and I took a moment to adjust, then offered Leeds a small smile by way of response.

  As I moved my head, I felt something strange. I swallowed hard, testing.

  “We fixed your throat,” he said. “Our doctors did.”

  I didn’t let my expression change any.

  He didn’t react, didn’t offer me any tell. He simply moved the sword, giving me three feather-light taps on the underside of my chin with the blade. Bidding me to stand.

  I did.

  “Marcella,” Moth said, as she rose from her seat, “Watch this one.”

  Indicating Shirley.

  Shit flows downhill, I thought.

  “Keep up,” Leeds said, as we approached the door of the train car.

  The scene was akin to a dark mirror. The nobles gathered at the end of one train car, in the covered space between cars, and in the next car, where the doctors were. Several doctors filed through, filling the space between nobles, who spaced themselves out a fair amount.

  There was a surprising degree of positioning, and the dark mirror was one that put the nobles in stark contrast to the Lambs. Everything was deliberate, where the positioning was so fluid with the Lambs.

  For us, it had always been something we naturally did. Once we got to know each other and things became second nature, we would take up positions as the situation warranted, as comfort levels and skills in different fields dictated.

  For the nobles, it felt mechanical, even as they did something very similar. Everyone had a place they belonged, ordered by hierarchy. They were, as far as I was aware, more similar to one another than individually specialized, and that informed how they moved, where they stood, and the order they fell into.

  There were other parts. The Lambs had never been tall. Even when Gordon had died, he’d been approaching his later teens, he inevitably would have been tall when full grown, and he’d only been just a little shorter than the average man at that point. That was another contrast.

  The Lambs blended in. These nobles did not. They never would.

  With a noble on either side of me, Leeds with his sword point touching me between the shoulder blades, we walked down the ramp that had been attached to the train, down to the train platform, and took our first steps into New Amsterdam. Doctors quickly opened up tall umbrellas and stood beside their nobles, shielding them from the rain. I was left with no umbrellas to shelter me, and the downpour soaked me through in a matter of seconds.

  I turned my eyes skyward and let the water wash over me. So many hours in the train without washing had left me dry, restless, and itchy. In
this, I felt more like myself. The fact that it was a city of perpetual rain but not Radham made it feel more like familiar ground than I might have in Radham itself.

  It was eerie to be looking up at the sky and to see the buildings spearing up in my peripheral vision. I had seen buildings that were ten stories tall, but they were unusual things. Brechwell had had towers, which might have been that height at their highest. Here, it seemed like one in five buildings were about that tall, and another one in five were taller.

  All of the individual spires that reached up in this manner made me think of the tines of an actual crown. With the rain pounding down and the spires reaching upward, I felt an immense pressure, and there was something that felt like home in that, too.

  The details captivated. Everywhere I looked, I could see things. Academy created life crawled on the outside of buildings, trimming branches and cleaning windows. I could see buildings that were fascinating, because of the styles of architecture that I’d never seen before, because of the styles and building features that had no rightful place in the Crown Jewel of the Crown States. Buildings that looked like they had been half demolished, and had churches rise proud out of the ruined stumps.

  Churches. I’d been warned, I’d heard tales, and seeing that anachorism in all its stone and stained glass still startled me.

  I saw buildings that had biological reinforcement, which was hardly anything new, but the reinforcement was meat. Spires of meat and stone that breathed. Spires with bridges connecting them. Castle features grew here and there like tumors on proud buildings, haphazardly thrown on. I could see what I suspected were individual academies at various points in the cityscape, nearly hidden by the forest of tall buildings.

  Everywhere I looked, there was crowd, but it was a messy, dark, jagged sort of crowd, the edges made ragged by the addition of countless works and experiments.

  Everything about it surged, was growing, was alive, striving to break new ground.

  I’d seen this before. I’d seen the aftermath of that, too. Drawing the analogy and then trying to wrap my head around this took my breath away.

  It felt like home and it felt like an alien world, and that might have been because it had everything.

  I took it all in, water running over me, and there was a stillness and a silence that made me feel even more disconnected from this city.

  I looked closer, and I saw the Lambs. Some were close. Gordon, Helen, Evette, and Jamie. Others were further away.

  All were silent, all stared at me.

  And as I realized why, as I looked for Lillian and Jamie and saw them standing beside one another, their backs to me, I lost what I’d nearly reclaimed. The loss might have been intentional. Self-sabotage.

  I’d very nearly snapped out of the fugue that had held me for the duration of the train journey.

  Jamie found his place beside me. My focus turned to picking out the pertinent details, to assessing the situation. Escape wasn’t possible, so I didn’t try, not yet. Jamie was the right one to have at my side in this moment.

  The doctors and the remainder of the nobles filed out. A large stitched held Shirley in its arms. As if we were a military regiment, everyone with their preordained places, Monte near the lead, with two doctors on each side of him, a row five people wide, two stitched carrying bags, then another row, with Moth and her three doctors, and so on, with me toward the middle, Marcella at the tail end with the overlarge stitched and Shirley.

  We marched on, the sword periodically pricking me to keep me moving, and I took in all of the details I could. There were so many. The faces in the crowd as they bowed and curtsied en masse, when the nobles could only see the tops and backs of their heads, but I was short enough to see the faces beneath, staring, stricken with awe and fear.

  People as far as a city block away moved to clear a path and bend the knee.

  Ahead of me, I saw a noble peering over the crowd with a predatory eye. He hadn’t spoken during the journey, except to add his voice to the discussion of what to do with me, out of earshot. His hair was long and dark and flowed out from beneath a brimmed hat. He wore a vest made out of what looked like spun gold cloth, which matched the band on his hat brim.

  He walked at a leisurely pace, and he didn’t slow as he reached out. He touched the face of someone in the crowd. With three long fingers touching one side of a young woman’s chin, he drew her forward. She stumbled but he didn’t let his fingers fall away. She dropped her bag, leaving it behind, and she quickened her pace to match the casual walking speed of a man two feet taller than she was, though she was a grown woman of twenty or so.

  She was beautiful, her hair pitch black, kept dry by a fashionable hat that was as wide as my arm was long. The hand held her chin up and out, so it was raised, her back straight, her footsteps quick, as if she was being held off the ground and she had to stretch to touch the ground and propel herself forward. Not that she was being held up. Because I could see her in profile, I could see that her eyes were large, dark and very expressive. The expression evidenced three different sorts of horror and terror.

  If I had to guess, she had been slow to curtsy, and the noble, with a keen eye for beauty, had picked her out in advance.

  It was as if those three fingertips had the same ability to find purchase as Helen’s did. One touch was all it took, and the target was ensnared. But the power being used here wasn’t physical power or perseverance. It was purely one of influence and standing.

  Fingers as long as my hand was from heel of the palm to fingertip reached out, and drew pins out of the young woman’s hat. Freed where it had been pinned to her hair, the hat fell free, drifted my way, and was trampled under the feet of doctors. The hat no longer shielded her from the rain, and water ran down her face and the neck exposed by her ‘up’ hairstyle, not so different from the Moth’s.

  The fingers pulled out more pins, and the hair came free, falling out of its careful arrangement.

  Finished with that, the noble settled a hand across one of her shoulders, guiding her forward.

  She cast one quick glance back, over her shoulder, toward the family she’d just been pulled from, and I couldn’t see her face because of her hair and the angle.

  Then she looked back over the other shoulder, into the thick of the procession, and her eye fell on me.

  In the downpour, without her hat, her hair now falling free, hair stuck to her face, and her makeup ran, a streak of bold blues and black tracing down from her eyes to her chin.

  It was a desperate look. I almost saw hope in it, and that was a sad, sad thing. She’d looked back at family, and had turned away, no doubt with the realization that there was no hope to be found there. Her family couldn’t petition, nobody would call out and rescue her, no solace would be found.

  But then she’d looked at me, and I was an unknown. We feared the unknown because fear dwelt in the gaps, but she’d reached a point where her world had been turned upside-down in an instant, and in a world that was only fear and silent terror, the unknown potentially held saviors, just as it once potentially held monsters.

  Even if the potential savior took the appearance of a rain-drenched boy four or five years her junior who walked with a sword pressed to his back.

  We ignored the quarantine tents. By the time we had put the station and the surrounding space behind us and reached the road, all traffic had stopped and parked. People on both sides of the street bowed.

  The nobles had brought a patch of stillness to this city that seemed so much like a pot that had boiled over.

  A line of carriages extended down one side of the street, parked, and the crowd and other parked vehicles kept me from seeing where the line started and ended.

  Six people climbed into each carriage. With so many nobles and so many doctors, the stitched, Shirley, me, and the dark-eyed woman, the carriages filled up faster than seemed reasonable.

  Every third carriage or so pulled out onto the road and started on its way with no passengers at all
.

  “Guards at the nearby buildings. If they’re trying to maintain control over this city, then they’ve established this as a point to protect. It’s likely impossible to get into any of the nearby buildings without getting past squadrons of armed men and countless checks,” Gordon observed.

  “They established a routine,” Helen observed. “This trick with the carriages is something usual for them.”

  Helen speaking made me think about food, which made my stomach gurgle.

  Nobody commented.

  The noble in gold, the woman with the dark eyes, two Academy doctors, Leeds and I climbed into a single carriage. I sat between Leeds and the noble in gold, facing the other three.

  “You seem to be my designated jailor, my lord,” Jamie and I observed, to Leeds.

  “I’ll gladly be your designated executioner,” he said. “Quiet.”

  We fell quiet.

  Sitting one seat to the left and across from us, the woman with the dark eyes stared at her feet. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “What’s your name?” the noble in gold asked, his voice soft. The deeper speech sounds had a warm burr to them, rough in a way that evoked images of someone older than he was, or similar to the voices of those from regions of Crown Territory that had once spoken more guttural languages. I had little doubt, hearing it, that it was a burr that had been designed, trained.

  “M-mine, my lord?”

  “Yes.”

  “Therese, my lord.”

  “Therese. Good. Are you of high birth, Therese? A respected family line?” the noble asked.

  “My lord, my father is a banker. He works hard, he earns a good living, and he left me wanting for nothing, but he did so by working as hard as he did.”

  “Not of a respected line, then, no.”

  “No, my lord, but we routinely socialize with those who are.”

  He stared at her, intent, and she was diminished in the process, like a flower might crumple and wilt as a flame drew close.

  I could tell that she was doing her utmost to avoid sobbing or sheer hysteria.

  “I will make you into an aristocrat,” the noble decided.