Ned, cheek already purpling with a bruise, put his hands up in a show of mock defeat.
“Hey now, hothead. I only meant to sample the wares before they were sold,” Ned said in fake contriteness. Jack rounded on him, still spoiling for a fight. “If you aren’t going to share her, at least bring that pretty little sister of yours out once she’s grown back some decent hair.” With that comment, it was Deliverance who snapped.
She almost involuntarily grasped the root of a potted rosemary plant and swung it with the same force she swung her axe whilst chopping wood. Ned collapsed like a rag doll in a shower of herbs and terracotta fragments. Jack looked at her in awe as she panted with rage. She started forward with the intent of kicking the man’s rotten carcass down the stairs before Jack caught her in his arms. The man groaned and turned over. Not a carcass yet then, she thought ruefully.
Suddenly, Deliverance became aware that the music had ceased, and the entire guest list of the ball were spectating the events. Addie broke through the crowd with determined elbowing and skittered down the stairs toward them.
“Come on!” she called to them, reaching for Deliverance’s hand. “Let’s get out of here!” And just like that, the three of them absconded into the night.
***
Addie’s apartments were not far from Aunt Claude’s estate. They were able to hoof it on foot, clambering over fences awkwardly and skittering across some darkened lawns. Both Addie and Deliverance tore generous rips in their finery, but the freedom of the escape was well worth it. They were breathless and giddy by the time they let themselves into her apartments.
“Oh, the looks on their faces!” Addie hooted, tears of laughter streaming down her heart-shaped cheeks.
“I think Mrs. Wentworth might have peed her pants!” Jack bellowed.
Deliverance was laughing as well. In retrospect she was rather glad that wretched Ned fellow was still alive. But only a little bit. She had not felt her temper flare so wildly in quite a while, but she realized after studying Jack that he and his whole family had gotten under her skin, rooting themselves firmly in her heartstrings.
“I heard Lord Crandle declare you two a perfect match!” Addie added, still howling with laughter and aching ribs. Perfect match indeed! Two brawlers, Deliverance thought amusedly.
After they spent themselves laughing, Addie removed herself from their seated circle on the carpet in front of the fire Jack had lit with a flick of his wrist.
“Let me grab my medical bag and I’ll have a look at your hand, Jack,” Addie said as she left the room in search of her medical supplies.
Jack had been painfully flexing the hand he had used to wallop Ned. He felt Deliverance’s eyes upon him, and scooted closer. With his good hand, he smoothed an errant lock of dark hair from her face.
“You…” he said, gazing at her intensely.
“Are trouble? Scandalous? Base? Violent even?” she offered playfully.
“No. Beautiful.” And he kissed her slowly, deliberately. A cough let them know Addie had returned. “Go away, Addie,” Jack said, kissing Deliverance again. When Addie did not go away, he groaned and sat back. He handed over his broken hand to her in a resigned way.
She cleaned the cuts with alcohol and salve, then studied his hand for a second. “Does this hurt?” she asked, and Jack swore. “Yep, must hurt. I’m afraid it’s broken.”
“I should probably stop finding my fist attached to other gentlemen’s jawbones,” Jack replied wryly. “In my defense, this one attracts trouble.” He nodded at Deliverance.
She was about to protest when Addie said, “Nonsense. You just repel the masses. It’s a skill you have been exacting against your own kind since we were children. When you stepped away, the unsavory lot simply filled the void.” Her voice brokered no argument and Jack shrugged.
“All right, do your worst, Doc.” Jack nodded at his decidedly swollen appendage.
“Do not tempt me. I might remove it altogether,” Addie warned, but then took his damaged hand between her two, finely fingered good ones. She sat for a moment with her eyes closed, flicking beneath her lids. Then warm, vibrant green light shot from between their fingers. Addie kept her eyes closed, concentrating.
Jack sucked his breath in.
“Does it hurt?” Deliverance asked.
“A bit.” He wheezed.
“Shhh. Let me concentrate unless you are not overly fond of all your fingers!” Addie hushed them, eyes still firmly closed. After a while, her celeste eyes awakened and she released Jack’s hand. The magic light dissipated, leaving them with only the natural glow of the hearth again.
“How does it feel? Can you flex this way and that?” Addie asked with almost clinical detachedness. Jack showed her his hand flexing and no longer swollen. The cuts along his knuckles had knitted themselves back together neatly under a series of white, creviced scars.
“Addie, you’re brilliant!” Jack exclaimed, rubbing his hand. “It’s completely healed!”
She tut-tutted at him. “Not completely. Give the nerves in your hand a few days to calm down. I could not fix those without an MRI.”
“Still brilliant. There are not many with Doctor Pennington’s magic skill AND academic prowess. She’s the reason Eleanor is still with us.” Jack praised his friend. Addie, seemingly unflappable, did blush at this.
“You treated Eleanor for her cancer?” Deliverance inquired. Addie nodded. Jack must truly feel a connection with this woman, Deliverance decided, although part of her came to this conclusion unwillingly. She brushed these unwelcome feelings aside though, and they enjoyed each other’s company well into the wee hours of the morning.
Finally, all yawning, Jack rang Stevens to come retrieve them, laughing when he told him no, they weren’t at Aunt Claude’s anymore.
“What are your plans tomorrow?” Addie asked Deliverance as she was showing them out.
“We are going to the university…Oxdale…to meet someone,” Deliverance told her.
Addie’s eyes glittered. “Ah, the den of miscreants!” she exclaimed but added, “Oxdale has a long history of thwarting the government with its politics and research. It’s a bit of an Arcanton cultural tradition. They battle back and forth and prevent one from becoming too powerful over the other, and the rest of us profit…I suppose. Although Jack never does tell me what he does over there all the time.”
“If I could tell you, love, I would,” Jack said, pecking her on the cheek in goodbye.
“The day after, though, Deliverance, let us go riding!” Addie called, and Deliverance agreed as they stepped out the door.
“Difficult night?” Stevens inquired, eyeing Jack through the rearview mirror of the automobile.
“Highly entertaining,” Jack replied, putting his arm around Deliverance, who was wearing his jacket.
Stevens drove for a few more minutes before suggesting, “The next time you decide to have an entertaining evening, sir, might I offer you the use of my taser?”
CHAPTER 19
Deliverance
Despite the lateness of the hour in which they retired, Deliverance was awake at dawn. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she stood, sipping a mug of cof
fee on the balcony of her room. She pulled the blanket wrapped around her closer as she regarded the new day. The watery ale of the morning light sunk the shadows slowly into the neighboring structures and the flowers in Mrs. Potter’s garden cloaked themselves yet again in color. What would this day bring her?
Today they were to meet Lord Asher. However, Deliverance now knew that finding him was merely the beginning of some greater problem, some complex task that she and Jack would have to navigate together. His fixture at her side seemed a constant, although Deliverance was not entirely sure why. Whether altruism, ideals…even love was the causation of his steadfastness, or some other motive she had yet to understand. It was hard to wrap her mind around the entirety of the issue when so much was still shrouded in darkness, an object not yet focused, like the camera Eleanor had shown her the other day.
A small wren flitted down to join her on the balcony, torqueing its curious head this way and that.
“I’ve nothing to give you, little friend, unless you’d like some coffee. Something about your manner makes me believe you do not need any, though,” Deliverance murmured absently to her little impromptu companion bouncing along the stone balustrade, singing for her. Behind her, the inner door to her chambers clicked open and Eleanor let herself in. “I will see if I have any leftover toast for you later, friend,” Deliverance said to the bird and turned to go inside.
Eleanor demanded a full account of the evening, which Deliverance promptly gave her. By the end of the telling, Eleanor was sprawled out, flabbergasted across the chaise.
“I can’t believe you could get into so much trouble from the time I went to bed until now!” the girl exclaimed. The shadow of hair reemerging from her scalp was a cool slate grey, making her eyes glow a shade just darker than amber in the morning sunlight.
“Will it…cause trouble, do you think?” Deliverance asked her.
Eleanor lifted her head from her flopped out position and replied, “Probably not. Jack is rather untouchable. He seems to skate along however he pleases, society be damned. And so far he has been none worse for the wear.” Then Eleanor abruptly switched gears, another expression Deliverance learned from her study of the Arcantons. “Let’s see, today you shall be going to university. How shall we dress you today?”
Deliverance ignored the fact that Eleanor seemed to regard her has her personal, life-sized doll and focused on the fact her advice was indeed quite helpful.
“We could go with the typical pullover and jeans…but no. You’re going to Oxdale. Not some local place,” Eleanor mused.
With the discarding of the jeans and pullover idea, Deliverance felt a pang of wistfulness. She rather liked that style of dress. It was comfortable and versatile—she could climb and move freely without worrying about tears.
After rummaging through the armoire, eventually Eleanor selected a sweater, jacket, tall boots and some stretchy blue pants. The soft leather boots cradled her feet and the plaid scarf provided a bit of extra warmth. Deliverance was satisfied with Eleanor’s selections and Eleanor seemed to approve as well, although their criteria for selecting outfits did seem to be at odds more often than not.
Jack knocked, coming to collect her.
“Good morning, Fuzzhead,” he greeted his sister and then Deliverance. “Good morning, Gorgeous.”
“I don’t see why I can’t come with you today.” Eleanor pouted, playing with the buttons on the chaise upholstery.
“Because you’re our ace in the hole, and we have to keep you in the hole for a while longer,” Jack replied.
“That’s really not an explanation,” Eleanor argued. Deliverance agreed she had a point. What did that even mean?
“It is if I say it is,” Jack retorted, and his sister relented. Apparently, Eleanor knew more about holes and aces than Deliverance. Before they left, Deliverance remembered to leave a bit of toast out on the balcony for her wren friend. And then they were off.
“It’s a little over an hour’s drive from here,” Jack said as he took the wheel of one of the cars. Deliverance considered the relative size of Arcanton, which was really a large island, like Nar, with a series of outlying islands, and tried to put the scale into her brain. She was struggling though. Jack arched an eyebrow at her.
“The Outside is so…vast,” Deliverance explained.
“Indeed, and this is just a small day trip. Someday I will take you to the Indus plains, the Egyto-Levanine valley, the Kathmalu mountains, the Carib islands…everywhere and anywhere you desire,” Jack said animatedly as he drove. Deliverance did not feel like squelching his good mood and so kept the thought to herself that Mrs. Potter had warned him against making overreaching promises. Jack was a dreamer. He needed his dreams to fuel the fire, so to speak.
As they left the city, the panorama of the car windshield took on green rolling hills, gently changing into autumn color. The climate here seemed much the same on Nar, although perhaps Nar was a bit harsher. Jack assured her the winters here brought snow as well, although not in the abundance to which she was accustomed.
“You are very well traveled,” Deliverance commented as she watched the pastures roll by.
“Some of it is from my days in the military, although they hardly ever sent us anywhere pleasant. Some of it is from my work in the Senate. Some of it is just plain old academic curiosity,” Jack replied. “St. Andrew’s, the college we are going to in Oxdale today, has one of the best cultural anthropology programs in the world. It’s been really quite a privilege to work with them…well, most of them. Some of them are a bit odd…academic sorts, you know.” He glanced at her.
“Well, I guess probably you don’t know. Some of them are a bit eccentric, Lord Asher included…just so you are prepared.”
Deliverance nodded, digesting this warning. Why would her mother send her out to find a crazy person? And what could he possibly do for her and her situation?
Some parts of Arcanton looked a lot like the farming plots on Nar. Although the occasional mechanized tractor dispelled that notion. Cows were still cows though, Deliverance mused.
Buildings were not, however, still buildings in Arcanton. As they pulled through the outer historic gates of Oxdale city, Deliverance was swept away by the grace of the architecture.
“Most of it is Gothic, although there are still some medieval buildings standing, and a few more modern ones sprinkled here and there,” Jack said as they exited the car park. The sweeping sandy-colored blocks were punctuated by flying buttresses and dark-paned windows, spires reaching up to the sky in intricate repeating patterns. The green lawns stretching in between the structures seemed opaque in comparison.
“That’s the Bedlam Library over there. I’ll take you in there later. If you think our private library is expansive, you’re in for a treat,” Jack said, pointing out this structure and that as they walked along. “Ah, here we are. This is St. Andrews’ main hall.”
Jack held open an imposing, ratcheted door, and Deliverance felt she had been blown into another world. Here, inside, the lines were modern and clean. Students and faculty walked around not in the Edwardian dress of the English posh society, but a mixture of tweed jackets, pullovers, and lab coats. All carried stacks of books, satchels, and reems of paper. Others carried thermoses of coffe
e, or wore smart looking eyeglasses, and earbuds playing music floated by. Deliverance could almost smell the learning in this place, the budding of mind, the exchange of ideas. She looked around in wonderment as she followed after Jack. They went up a couple flights of stairs, dodging distracted looking students and muttering professors as they went and ventured down a long hall. Jack disappeared behind a door for a minute.
He came back out scratching his head in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” Deliverance asked.
“I think he’s moved his office spaces. Damn, it was here the last time I worked with him, but he’s become something of a recluse. Wait right here. I am going to see if I can sort this out. I know he is back today and they certainly have not fired him with his boatload of completely unearned tenure under his belt,” Jack said, shaking his head and frowning. “I’ll be right back.”
Deliverance wandered up and down the hallway with it speckled, shining floors and cork bulletin boards for a while, but Jack still had not yet returned. As she passed one of the back doors of a lecture hall though, a single phrase jumped out at her, arresting her complete attention.
“The Restricted Zone of Nar,” a disembodied voice intoned into a voice microphone. Deliverance froze, not daring to move for a beat. They were lecturing on Nar in this hall! She looked around furtively, and then, making her decision, slipped into the back of the stadium-like lecture hall.
A smartly dressed woman in pumps and a lab coat stood at the very bottom on the stage with a light upon her. The rest of the hall was darkened, but Deliverance could see it was more than half full of students in various states of awake. They all, however, sat up a bit straighter when the lady at the front mentioned Nar. Deliverance silently slipped into one of the padded lecture hall seats in the very back and waited with abated breath.
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