“I know. Me, too.” A few final lines, their scritching the only sound in the chamber, and then she placed the paper on the floor beside her chair, using the inkwell to weigh it down. “The desecrated graves aren't the only reason I'm here.”
“I figured as much.”
“Paschal, you and I don't know each other that well, but we've worked together. I know Julien trusted you, and I know that you know Julien trusted me, no matter what I…what my life's made me. I really hope that means I can trust you, now.”
“Assuming what you're about to ask of me doesn't give me reason otherwise.”
“Heh. All right, that's honest enough. Paschal…why the happy hopping hens am I even wanted by the stupid Guard? I didn't kill anyone before I left—anyone human, anyway—and even if you had any jurisdiction over what happened in the Outer Hespelene, there are lots of important people who can explain it all, and I don't know why you're looking at me like that but you're making me really nervous.”
“Widdershins…”
“I also recognize that ‘I don't want to tell you this’ tone of voice. I've heard it so often, I'm basically fluent in it as a separate language.”
“It's just, you…” Again he seemed unable to continue. The mess on his desk suddenly seemed to require very close scrutiny.
For her own part, Shins was beginning to feel as though she had an equal amount of slowly uncrinkling paper in her stomach. “Spit it out, Paschal. Please.”
The guardsman sighed, and when he finally did look up at her again, she was somehow frightened by the sympathy in his expression. “‘In the name of Demas, justice, and the laws of Davillon,’” he said, clearly quoting, “‘the street thief known as Widdershins—real name unknown—is to be apprehended on sight, with all due force, on suspicion of having murdered Major Julien Bouniard of the Davillon City Guard.’”
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The room, the world, turned themselves over so completely that she might have fallen to the ceiling if she didn't keep a death grip on her chair.
“What?” When she finally squeaked it out, the voice wasn't her own. Only later did she realize it reminded her, more than anything else, of the girl she'd been ten years before.
“Widdershins—”
“How could you think that? How could anyone?”
“I don't think it!” he assured her. “But the order and the suspicion come from the top. Most of the Guard haven't heard the whole story of what happened in the graveyard that day, and it's not as if they'd likely believe it if they did.”
“But you were there! You could tell people what happened!”
“I didn't actually see any of it, remember? Julien had me standing watch at the gate. I only know what happened because you and the others told me—and if I hadn't already seen Iruoch in action, I'm not sure that I would have entirely believed it.”
Shins tucked her knees to her chest, her heels resting on the seat. “Gods. They think I…. Oh, gods…”
Paschal looked like he wanted to get up from behind the desk and do something to comfort her but hadn't the first idea what. It was so very like Julien that she almost broke into tears and a wide smile simultaneously.
“I'm not sure it would have mattered if I had been a witness,” he explained. “Commandant Archibeque seems quite certain of your guilt. If I could show any sort of genuine, hard evidence, that might change things but…” Even his helpless shrug somehow jostled one of the stacks, the papers idly threatening to topple.
“Olgun?” she whispered. “Do we know him?”
Nothing but puzzlement. Okay, so either this Archibeque really, truly believed, to his toes, that Shins was guilty of a crime that was nothing akin to her prior record, or…
“How honest is he?” she asked bluntly.
Paschal's brow furrowed. “Major—and then Commandant—Archibeque has been a fixture since before I joined the Guard. There is no one in this organization more trustworthy!”
Shins waited for more, then, “But?”
“What? What ‘but’? But what?”
“Wow. Everyone's starting to sound like me. Come on, Paschal, we both know what ‘but.’ It's the ‘but’ that you very, very loudly refrained from saying.”
The guardsman's scowl survived a moment longer, then faded. “How do you do that?”
“It's easy. After a lifetime of trusting nobody, you can just sense a but coming from a mile away.”
Other than the sound of Olgun nearly asphyxiating in hysterics somewhere in the back of her head, utter silence followed that pronouncement.
“I am going to pretend you found a better way to phrase that,” Paschal said finally.
“Would you?” she asked through a blush that would have been visible in the dark. “I would so appreciate it.”
“Commandant Archibeque,” he reluctantly continued, “hasn't been quite the same since his promotion. It's almost certainly just stress and adjusting to his new authority, mind you. But, while he was always stern, he's become excessively strict. And he's making a lot of pronouncements—such as your guilt—where proper investigative procedure would allow for suspicions and theories at most.
“I do not,” he added hastily, “believe it suggests any manner of corruption on the man's part.”
“No, I'm sure you're right,” Shins said, already running through various scenarios for finding out if he was wrong. “Thank you for talking to me, Paschal. I know you could get in real trouble.”
She stood, and he rose as well. “Was the right thing to do, and it's what Julien would have wanted of me. I hope you find whatever it is you need to find before…well, soon.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Do you need an escort out? Someone to make your presence appear legitimate?”
“Thank you, again, but no. I've got it.” She was already out the door, turning to shut it behind, when she paused. “Paschal? Things aren't really on the verge of open war on the city streets, right? Davillon hasn't gotten that out of control, has it?”
If the young major's expression hadn't been answer enough, his comment of “I'm not sure where you've been the past few seasons, but you might give some serious thought to returning there” certainly would have been.
It would only be much later that evening, at the end of shift, that Paschal would notice. He couldn't begin to imagine when or how it had happened—he'd had his eyes on her for the entire conversation, and she'd never left the chair—but when he reached to collect the Guard-issued rapier he'd leaned upright in the corner nearest his desk, it was simply gone.
At which point, after a long moment gawping like a fish who'd just discovered fire, he was—despite his best efforts—too busy laughing, and recalling some of Julien's less believable but more exasperated stories, to be angry.
Leaving Paschal's office did not translate directly into leaving the Guard headquarters. Widdershins had someone else to see.
Or, well, to look into.
She wasn't especially concerned about being recognized. The changes in hair color and wardrobe, her skill with adjusting her posture and pace to blend in, the inaccuracies and vagaries of her “wanted” portrait, and of course the fact that the Guard headquarters boasted all sorts of visitors and messengers at this time of day…. Frankly, Shins was all but guaranteed to go unnoticed even before Olgun began subtly encouraging people to look the other way.
Assuming she didn't run into anyone who actually knew her. A guard who'd arrested her in the past, perhaps, a fellow Finder being brought in for interrogation, or possibly Archibeque himself, since she still had no idea why he had it in for her, could all ruin her efforts, her day, and quite possibly the rest of her natural life.
So, easy it might be, but no point in dawdling.
It didn't take long, just a few moments of loitering and wandering the building—its walls stained an oily charcoal by years of exposure to cheap oil lamps—to learn which room she wanted. Given the quantity of traffic in the main halls, it was far more
difficult to find a moment of privacy long enough to slip the lock and get into said room. Ultimately, it required Olgun providing a distraction—the poor courier wouldn't suffer anything worse from his stumble than a bruised knee, but he'd be ages reordering the stack of papers he'd scattered—and funneling as much assistance and luck as he could into her efforts at the latch, before she finally managed to crack the door open long enough to duck inside.
Dim, but not dark; the sun's smallest fingers felt around the edges of the shutters, providing enough light to see. The shelves and desk were bigger, the stacks of paper neater, and the back wall had that aforementioned window, but still and all, it wasn't all that different from Paschal's.
Or rather, it didn't appear all that different.
It smelled off, for one, though Shins found it impossible to put her finger—or her nose, to be more accurate—on what it was. Only later would she realize it was the absence of scent that had nagged at her. That lingering combination of sweat and ink and food and drink and a dozen other little things, the scent of work, was faint, too faint, far more so than even the presence of the window could justify.
Then, of course, was the fact that Paschal's office hadn't made Olgun scream.
Shins's plan had been to carefully scour the room, sift through the papers, hunt for the slightest sign of any connection between Commandant Archibeque and Lisette or the Guild. That, if one were to judge by the divine conniption she'd just experienced, would no longer be necessary.
“Holy horsebubbles, Olgun! Calm down!” Then, after a frozen moment spent waiting to see if her own outburst had drawn any attention from beyond the office door, she continued. “Are you sure?”
The god's response to that question was so blasphemously profane, Shins wasn't entirely certain he hadn't just mortally insulted himself.
“All right, yes, you'd be in a position to know! I wasn't thinking. Don't say it.” She pondered, mind spinning, while casually rifling a random drawer without really paying any heed to what lay inside. If the fae had been here—and often enough to leave an aura Olgun could sense even in their absence—what did that mean, exactly?
“So, what, the commandant's been meeting with them?”
Her head swam with sensations and images of various mixtures, liquid concoctions of color swirling around and within one another. One of the pair was disturbingly akin to blood.
It only took her a moment. “It's mixed with the commandant's aura?!”
No, not quite. Another few flashes of uncertainty were enough to explain that Olgun couldn't swear it was Commandant Archibeque. But some human-fae combination had been present within, and frequently.
“Lisette?”
Again, no. That sensation, he'd recognize.
“Then I don't unders—can the fae possess people, like a ghost or demon? Do we need, I don't know, special medicine, or an exorcism? Does the Church of the Hallowed Pact even do exorcisms anymore?”
And then, “You know, that's starting to get really aggravating. If you're going to keep shrugging at me, you can hopping well grow some shoulders already, yes? I—”
The deity's power surged, making her ears crackle, and then she could clearly hear the sound of steps out in the hallway. Steps that grew louder, nearer, with deliberate purpose.
“Right, we'll discuss shoulders later. Don't forget to remind me! Make a note of it. ‘Shoulders.’”
And speaking of shoulders, she had hers (along with the rest of her) through the window, and the shutters tugged closed behind her, before whoever was approaching—be it Archibeque or some lower functionary—could crack the door to the office.
Not, in and of itself, the most inconspicuous exit, but luck—perhaps with a nudge from Olgun; she never did ask—was with her. The commandant's window opened up on a smaller street, to one side of the building, rather than on the main thoroughfare out front. Between that and the thick, soaking mist that threatened to coalesce into yet another heavy rain any minute now, only a smattering of passersby witnessed her unorthodox exit. And while Shins drew more than a few peculiar looks and puzzled mutters, she'd be long gone before anyone—even should they decide to do so—had flagged down and returned with an actual guard.
Arms wrapped tightly about herself, save for those moments when she needed to wipe water or strands of hair from her face, Widdershins made her way back toward more comfortable environs. Her cold clothes pasted themselves to her skin, making her shiver, and the moisture in the air was so think it didn't merely smell but tasted of society's many odors. She was almost sure, were she dropped blindfolded anywhere in the city, she could instantly guess her rough location by the specific combination of flavors.
Which is why she noticed almost immediately when the harsh grating of fire and smoke crept in to season the bouquet. The sting of fumes, the grit of ash, the sharp tang of what had once been wood…all scarcely hinted at in the tiny whiffs that reached her, but imprinted so heavily on her memories that she gagged; her eyes began to water for reasons other than the weather. Something about a burning building…
Fire had ended her childhood, changed her life into something unrecognizable for the first of what would become many, many times. It was not a scent, especially when it snagged her unawares, that she would ever be comfortable with. She couldn't imagine how such a blaze had gotten started in this weather; it must have been intense.
Something else to do with the ongoing chaos and upheaval, no doubt. Still, it was far enough away that Shins couldn't see any billowing smoke amidst the lighter haze, and while the wind wasn't precisely steady, she could tell that the fumes came from nowhere near the direction she was headed. No matter how severe the blaze, the weather would keep it from spreading too terribly far before the locals got it under control.
She felt a pang of sympathy for whoever owned the burning place (or places), and another surge of fury at Lisette, for causing so much widespread hurt and chaos with her insane machinations. Still, deepest and darkest truth be told, what Shins felt more than anything else was relief.
It was good to be reminded, on occasion, that not everything that went wrong in Davillon was her problem.
How in the name of every damn god of the damn Pact did I get roped into this?!
Evrard d'Arras strode—more “stomped,” really, though he'd have rejected the description as undignified—across cobblestones made dark by evening and slick with the ever-present humidity. The wind whipped his long coat about his ankles, where it also collected dirty runoff and occasional speckles of mud from his feet; not-quite-rain dripped from the corners of his tricorne hat. (Popular in all the most fashionable Galicien circles, the damn things never had caught on in Davillon. Of course.) At roughly every third streetlight, he forced his hand to unclench from the hilt of his sword, to hang casually at his side, only to find before long that it had wrapped itself about the weapon once more, seemingly of its own accord.
Oh, he recognized this mood when it came over him. He wanted trouble to find him, wanted someone to give him an excuse to burn off some aggression. Enough self-awareness to identify the feeling, not remotely enough to dismiss it. The scrunch of his leather gauntlet was accompanied by a soft, unintended growl of his own.
He didn't even like the bloody woman! Oh, he'd developed a grudging respect for her during the Iruoch affair, and he no longer nursed the sizzling coals of hatred he'd once felt, but that was about the kindest he could say. He didn't like her attitude, he didn't like her presence, he didn't much care for her friends—though he still harbored more than a bit of guilt toward the girl, Robin—and he sure as hell hadn't wholly forgiven her for burgling his family's ancestral tower during the years the d'Arras clan were “political guests” in Rannanti. He wanted nothing from her but to never see her again (and perhaps the return of the rapier she'd stolen).
So how does she keep talking me into these things?!
He was fortunate enough to come across a discarded bottle at that point, a rare occurrence in this nicer dist
rict, and kicked it across the road with a vicious, childish glee. It shattered against someone's doorstep; the clatter set some nearby dog to furious barking.
He knew how it felt.
Everything the damn thief had said was true. He did care deeply for his family's name and honor; he didn't care to let people suffer when he was in a position to stop it; and he did, indeed, feel that these new fae meant last year's task remained undone.
He would even admit to himself, if no one else, that fear drove him as well. If he did have to face more monsters like the nightmarish Iruoch, he wanted it to happen according to his plan, not theirs.
But none of that explained it, not really. Wanting to preserve the d'Arras name, to help people—a far distance indeed separated that from “volunteer to hunt monsters and criminals.” Evrard was neither guardsman nor professional soldier, for all that he was a better duelist than most who did practice those professions. Refusing to get involved in this mess would have left no blemish at all on his honor, personal or familial.
Then why the ravenous burning hell, he began again, am I—?
At which point an abortive scream and a dull crunch sounded from behind. With barely time for a quick flicker of Careful what you wish for, Evrard, he pivoted, dropping into a defensive stance, his rapier flying free of its scabbard…
In time to see that his skills weren't precisely required.
Jogging and leaping along the rooftops—only the easiest gaps and smoothest roofs; she still hadn't fully recovered, even with Olgun's aid—Widdershins had followed Evrard for blocks. Or, rather, she'd followed the two men, dressed in shabby coats more than large enough for hidden blades, lingering a short ways behind him.
She'd been almost certain they were tailing him, and she lost the “almost” when they halted in their tracks the instant he'd stopped to kick that bottle. They clearly didn't want to be noticed.
“Let us,” she breathed at Olgun, reveling in the feel of his magic as it began to surge through muscle and flesh and bone, “notice them.”