Twig

by wildbow

  Yep. He got it. I wasn’t supposed to go to the gate.

  Bo Peep flinched as I looked in her direction. Wary.

  “Best if they go on their own. I’m bruised, I’ll slow them down,” I said.

  It sucked to see the relief on Bo Peep’s face, even as she tried to hide it.

  “If you’re sure,” Duncan said. “You want to stay here?”

  Did I want to stay here? In the dining hall, where I’d spent far too much time over the last week? With only the Infante and a few hundred students that didn’t like me for company?

  The Infante was staring at me.

  “No,” I said, averting my eyes. “Not—”

  I hesitated.

  “—Not alone,” I said, quiet.

  “Then come,” he said, without the moment of hesitation or the look of pity I’d worried about. “We’ll do what we can.”

  I wasn’t sure what the rules were, if there were rules for personified mental breakdowns and weaknesses. The Infante was quiet, he stood off to the side, sometimes with company, often nobles, but he was omnipresent. The more attention I paid him the more attention he paid me, but at the same time, he worked to catch me off guard, keep me on edge, and exert his presence.

  So far, being in the company of the Lambs was good. It kept my attention constructively elsewhere. It shored me up in other ways.

  It was equally possible that the rigid definition of the rules that might keep this abstract force at bay would be the avenue he used to get me, to trap me and crush me, to return to saying those same devastating words he’d used in New Amsterdam, and this time he would have the advantage of having access to the entirety of my mind.

  I’d told the others to kill me if the Infante started appearing and having an influence over me. I’d wanted to articulate that he was the end of the road. The greatest threat. He wanted to bring about an ending, both in my head and in reality. But Jessie hadn’t cared. She understood.

  A part of me wished I could run off and be the one to wake her up. To have that sleeping beauty moment.

  “I’m going to find Lillian,” he said. “Mary’s just over there.”

  I looked. ‘Just over there’ was down a short stretch of hallway, twenty paces. I could see where the door was open and the mottled sunlight reached past the open door and into the hallway.

  “Or do you want me to come with?” Duncan asked.

  He’d developed compassion of a surprising degree, if he realized that being alone for even that long was something that worried me.

  “No,” I said. “They said it’s urgent. Go find Lillian.”

  “Alright.”

  I ignored the Infante and Percy as I walked down the hall. There had been reconstruction work, recently, where apparently one of the spider things I’d released had started to lay eggs. Sections of wall had been cut down and boards had been sawn to measure and set into place. Sawdust was piled high at points, and the boards with the eggs clustering them like barnacles were piled at other points.

  I held out my arm, running it along the wall, letting the sawdust accumulate in my cupped hand as I walked.

  I came to an early halt as I saw that Montgomery and the Moth were standing by the door. The Mothmont nobles from the train. I had to think for a second, deciding if I wanted to walk through them or around them.

  The hesitation created a moment where I inadvertently eavesdropped. I shifted rightaways into intentionally eavesdropping.

  “—scarily competent,” Mary said. “He brought this entire Academy to its knees, and one of those times he more or less did it on his own.”

  Talking about me.

  “That’s not a good thing,” a male voice said.

  “We have a mission,” Mary said. “Maybe the most important we’ll ever have. Because I don’t think humanity or the experiments get many more shots. I won’t say this is the end if we fail, but it might be decades before someone else is positioned like we’re positioned, understand? And if we fail or if we decide not to fight them on this, then the next people will find it that much harder. The nobility will be that much more secure, the Academy more advanced. We must do this.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m more scared than passionate. All of you aren’t going to think less of me for admitting that, but it’s the nobles. It’s the Academy of the Crown States. We’re not well positioned at all.”

  Another voice, not as deep, said, “We’re in an even worse position if we have to worry about him going crazy and setting us back weeks again.”

  I raised my hand to my face

  “He killed the Baron of Richmond in Warrick,” Mary said. “He assisted me in killing one of the Baron’s bastard sisters. He assisted another Lamb in killing another. More to the point—”

  Mary said that last word hard, and I imagined her gesturing with a blade as she said it.

  “—he wasn’t even at his best when he paralyzed Hackthorn, understand?”

  ‘That much was clear,” the gruff voice said.

  “No,” Mary said. “Not that part of it. He was alone. You understand? He did it single-handedly, but he’s one piece of a greater system. The Lambs. He might have brought a school as grand as this to its knees, and that’s something he can clearly do, but it’s Jessie who clarifies the when, the what, the who. It’s Helen who twists their arms and whispers in their ear, breaking them. It’s me that slits their throat when necessary.”

  “What about Lillian and Duncan? They keep you in working order?”

  There was a note of derision in that.

  As if it was very clear that they saw Mary as the experiment, not the woman. Or that Lillian wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping the likes of me in good working order.

  “They cover what comes after the giant is made to kneel, the body broken, the throat slit,” Mary said. “They piece things back together.”

  “Listen, you seem like a nice girl,” the voice said. “You’re good with a blade, I won’t deny you that. If you killed a minor noble, that’s amazing. Credit to the Lambs. But this is something else entirely. It’s bigger. Almost as big as it gets. I saw a glimpse of Sylvester when it was bad, here. You didn’t. I don’t think this is doable.”

  “Any commentary, Sylvester?” Mary asked.

  I raised my head, my hand dropping to my side.

  The Mothmont twins weren’t at the door anymore. Percy and the Infante were still there.

  I stepped into the room.

  “Sylvester,” the soldier said. He looked like someone who had been a soldier before we’d come to Hackthorn, rather than one of Davis’ conscripts who was acting in the capacity of a soldier for us.

  No, there were twenty or so people who fit that latter label.

  “I want to find the best way forward. Nothing personal intended.”

  I shook my head. He started as I raised my hand, one hand moving closer to his weapon. I clasped one of his shoulders with a dusty hand in passing, as I approached Mary.

  “We’re taking a break from sparring,” Mary said.

  “She beat Carson with a knife, when he had a saber,” one of the bystanders remarked.

  “She did,” Carson said. The true soldier, my critic. “Credit where it’s due.”

  I held up a hand.

  Mary didn’t toss the knife so much as she threw it at me. I trusted her throw, let my fingers close around the handle as it slapped against my hand.

  “Spar?” she asked.

  I was already moving before the word was finished and pitched as a question. A thrust, which she parried. I followed up with a short swing, drawing a sharp angle as I cut back in the direction of the knee of her leg, closest to me.

  There was a psychological reason to it, and it was the most obvious target. I did see a flash of emotion in her eyes, all the same.

  She cut for my face, and I pulled it out of the way.

  There was no phantom to inform me. I had no phantom Lambs anymore, as far as I could tell. Only the actual Lambs. But I knew Mary
, for the most part. I trusted the way she moved.

  Her hand motioned in a signal. Left.

  Her foot followed, blade at the toe of her shoe. I stepped back and struck it with my own blade as it passed me, sending the blade back the way it had come, into the slot at the side of the sole.

  From the noises of the crowd, she hadn’t revealed that particular trick yet.

  Left thin long, she signaled.

  Her hand flicked out, a knife slash, fast, hard, and seriously capable of injuring me if I was slow to react, but I was stepping in close. The knife wasn’t the threat. Another knife emerged from her sleeve, razor wire attached to it. It flew in a tight arc. Being in close was the only place that the blade and wire wouldn’t reach.

  My chest pressed against hers, and as she took a step back, I matched her. She brought her head back—an imminent headbutt, and I brought my head forward, the top of it moving in the direction of her face, not to headbutt her, but to deny her the room to rear back and smash forward. She turned her head instead.

  Without looking and without her giving me hints, I put a hand out, catching the wrist of her other hand before she could bring a blade around to stick it in my side.

  My right hand tried to do the same to her. The back of her knife hand caught the crook of my elbow.

  We broke away in the next instant. Mary’s knife cut my sleeve. My hand slipped under her shirt and came away with another blade.

  One, two, she gestured.

  What was that?

  We stood there, pausing for the moment. Neither of us panted, but I wanted to. All of my aches and pains were coming to life.

  But this was important.

  You, left, she gestured.

  I swung my right arm, instead.

  Her fingers moved in a curious way, one I might have taken as a gesture. But then I saw the metal. Between finger and fingernail, tiny grooves of pale metal, notches for the wire to sit in. I pulled my hand back, and the loop of wire that was enclosing it caught only the blade I held, pulling it out of my grip. I passed the blade I’d swiped from beneath her clothes to my right hand.

  Three, she gestured. Then, left.

  She kicked, left leg, short and sharp, for my leg. I only barely caught the gesture of four before she followed up with a swing.

  That led into a brief and intense series of movements. It wasn’t quite a clash of blade on blade or arm on arm, but it might as well have been. Knives were scary, knives were dangerous, and there wasn’t a movement that couldn’t have seriously hurt the other if we’d been a little slower or a little less on our guard.

  My injuries were starting to complain all the more. I wasn’t sure of my grip on my knife, and my back hurt more than letting her cut me would’ve.

  But I was on the outs with Mary, and I needed to fix that. I’d wounded her in a way I could never properly apologize for.

  She backed off, tossing a blade into the air. The hand made the gesture nine before the blade landed in it once more.

  Oh. Was that what she was doing? She was counting all the times she rightfully should’ve and would’ve killed me already?

  I hoped that if I made a mistake important enough for the audience to notice, that she would act on it. It wouldn’t do if our ‘dance’ here made this look like a routine or farce. It was, in a way, but we wanted me to look good, and I wanted to close the distance between Mary and I.

  I stepped in, aiming to move unpredictably, and moved into her personal space.

  She retaliated, as she should’ve, and I fended her off, but I did see a fleeting eye roll from her in the process.

  I remained close, my hand passing beneath her skirt, brushing her thigh, touching another blade handle. She moved her leg before I could take it. The angle had been wrong.

  “It’s been years since you pulled that one, Sy,” she said. “You were a child then, you can’t get away—”

  I exhaled.

  By all rights, she should’ve remembered this one.

  The sawdust in my mouth blew out as a fine cloud, catching her in the mouth and eyes.

  Immediately, her actions were sharp, dangerous. She was blind in the moment, and acting definitively was the only way of responding that didn’t leave her vulnerable for any longer. I barely managed to keep her from cutting me.

  I stepped well back out of range, glanced at the surroundings—a classroom with almost no furniture in it, the rest cleared out or in use elsewhere. I tossed my knife in Mary’s direction.

  The sawdust wouldn’t bother her for long, but she coughed. She was very aware of the sound of steel striking the ground, the ringing of it. Steel was her song.

  Hefting a wooden chair, I approached. She heard my footstep and stepped to one side before swinging. She struck the chair, and paused, off guard in the moment and wholly unaware of what she’d just collided with.

  I kicked one of her legs out from under her, butted at her with the chair when that didn’t actually make her fall, and then planted the chair on the ground, the legs of it on either side of her body. I planted my foot on it, pinning her. I didn’t really feel safe pinning her otherwise. Having a nice solid piece of wood and a few feet of distance

  Mary lay there, blinking hard, coughing once or twice. I turned my head and spat, the sawdust that had soaked with my saliva forming clumps.

  “Fifteen,” she said, when she’d decided she could speak.

  “How did we get from thirteen to fifteen?” I asked.

  “What’s this?” Carson asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Mary gestured. Left.

  Left?

  The knife came at me out of nowhere. My movement to react suffered for the odd angle of the trajectory and the fact it was a touch slower than a normal thrown knife. I swatted it out of the air, and cut the back of my hand in the process. Wire.

  “You don’t need to show me,” I said. “I do believe you. Also, ow.”

  “I cut the Infante with that trick. Knives that don’t fly straight.”

  I nodded. I was very aware now of the Infante, standing off to one side.

  Moving my foot, I pulled the chair back. I offered Mary a hand in standing, my back protesting at the momentary pull of her weight.

  That, I was assuming, would be both the last exertion I would manage today and all in all, this was something I’d be feeling for two full days.

  She segued straight from rising to a standing position to a hug.

  “Dance with me?” I asked. “Fight alongside me?”

  “You’ll need to catch up. You were terrible.”

  “I was fine. I won.”

  She gave me a look, eyes dangerous. I could read her mind. Fifteen.

  I smiled. “I won, still. I did catch you off guard.”

  “You won’t catch them. Not consistently.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I gave her a squeeze.

  She was so Mary to hug. I could feel the weapons in sleeves and at the trunk of her body. Her collar was stiff in a way that told me there was something hidden in it. But she was a girl and it was a nice hug all the same.

  I broke the hug, wishing I didn’t have to.

  “You need practice.”

  “I need to heal first,” I said.

  “You do,” she said.

  We were both very much ignoring the other faces in the room. It was… an intimate moment, in its own way. Not because we were so very close, even when hugging, but because we had been very far away. We’d moved closer together in a very personal way that only we really understood.

  I was very cognizant of the fact that not all of this would parse. I knew I had critics and this display wouldn’t change it.

  There was so much repair work to be done. Not all of it would be sawdust and fixed carpets.

  The faith of the people we were leading into battle against an unstoppable enemy was perhaps more important and far, far harder to fix.

  “I missed you,” I said, putting those other people in the background for just
another moment longer.

  “I missed you too,” she said, and she said it very casually, with less than half of the emotion I’d used. She sheathed her weapons, slipping each blade into its place. When she was done, she met my eyes. Her hand gestured.

  Hurt Lamb I destroy you.

  I responded with only a, please.

  She nodded.

  With that, I might not have been forgiven, but I knew we could move past it. I remained very glad that she hadn’t turned one of those counts of coup into an actual wound. The Mary of a year or two ago might have.

  “Mary!” a voice called out.

  It was Nora, as tall as me and shrouded in white cloth.

  We stepped out into the hallway. Nora peered past the shawl to stare at me with multiple alien eyes and a face with narrow slices of chitin biting through and peeling away from raw, red flesh, almost like terminal hangnails.

  “You’re here,” Nora said. As dangerous as she might have looked, she shied back a hair as Carson stepped into the doorway as well. “The others want you… and Sylvester as well.”

  “You paused,” I said.

  “I had to ask,” she said. “We have guests.”

  “Guests?” I asked.

  “An Academy Headmaster. He’s arrived early, we think he wanted to check that the coast is clear.”

  “The coast is the furthest thing from clear,” I said.

  “It’s—” Nora started. She paused. “Jessie says we know him.”

  “We know him?”

  “Jessie says he was the headmaster of Dame Cicely’s, and might still be,” Nora said. “Jamie wrote about him. She says you said, then, that the headmaster was, quote, ‘in cahoots’ with Geneveive Fray.”

  “Fray’s announcing herself,” I said.

  Previous Next

  Root and Branch—19.3

  Mary, Nora, and I reached the Lambs just in time to see the ship pulling into the harbor.

  The Lambs, Emmett, Bea, and the Treasurer were all at the tower that stood over the gate. A zig-zag path led from the harbor, up the cliffs and into to the backside of Hackthorn.

  “He was on the deck, I’ve seen his portrait and Jamie wrote about him,” Jessie said. “Edmund Foss.”

  “Can we bar the doors? Pretend not to notice him?” Lillian asked, her voice still soft. It was as if she was trying to whisper so as not to be heard by a guy who was a speck to anyone that wasn’t holding binoculars.