J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Something occurred to Mira. Something dark. “How did Archer die, Holt?”

His voice was low. “That’s not something I like talking about.”

“If things are going to be anything like what they used to be between us, I think you have to.”

Holt didn’t look at her, just stared at the ground, thinking. Whatever he had to say, whatever the truth was, it wasn’t something he liked dredging up. Mira felt trepidation, waiting for him to respond. It was what she had wanted to know, of course, but she hoped whatever it was didn’t shatter the rest of her feelings for him.

“Like I said, I never knew Avril. She left before I got to Faust,” Holt finally said, and Mira had to slide closer to hear. “But Archer I knew. For a while he was a friend. He was… Volatile isn’t the right word. He swung one way or another, and you never knew what he might do or when. Lavished his friends one second, then threatened to have them executed. When he was good, he was very good. When he wasn’t, he… wasn’t.”

Holt kept staring at the wooden floor, slowly tracing patterns in the dust with his finger while he talked. Mira had only heard his voice this conflicted when he’d told her about his sister, about how he felt responsible for her loss.

“Archer was in love with a girl at Faust,” Holt continued. “Her name was Evelyn. Pretty girl, hair almost as dark as Ravan’s. She was a cook, had a food stall in the Commerce Segment, made these really great puffed pastries. Always reminded me of Pop-Tarts, you remember those?”

Mira did, and smiled in spite of herself. She liked the strawberry ones best.

“Archer loved Evelyn, but it wasn’t mutual. She loved someone else. She told Archer, told him nicely even, and that was not a smart thing to do.” Holt stared at the patterns he’d made in the dust on the floor. “Sometimes I wonder how obsessed he would have been if she’d just given in to him once or twice. He would have moved on, found something else, it was his way. He couldn’t hold onto any one desire very long.

“But she didn’t. She refused him. Pointedly. And Archer Marseilles was definitely not used to that. He went to his father. Tiberius rarely denied him anything, especially things he thought were trivial, like some little girl who made pastries in the market. He decreed they were to be married. The next day. So Evelyn and the other boy did the only thing they could.”

Mira could guess what it was. “They ran.”

Holt nodded. “Tiberius was furious. Now it was serious—someone had defied the Menagerie leader, and that was something he couldn’t let stand. So he sent Ravan and me to find them. It was what we were good at, after all,” Holt said with a note of bitterness. “Pastry cook and a blacksmith, both about fifteen? Yeah, they didn’t make it very far. Didn’t know how to move fast or cover their tracks, and they certainly didn’t know how to handle someone like Ravan. It wasn’t much of a chase, is what I’m saying. We brought them back, and when we did, they dragged the boy off to the gallows and Evelyn up to Archer’s room.

“They started my tattoo that night,” Holt said, his voice growing more animated with repressed feeling, and Mira felt a chill build in her. “It was my reward. Was going to start with a star point, a rare thing, but Tiberius was grateful, and generous when it came to Archer. I didn’t even feel the needle, I just stared up the Pinnacle to Archer’s room. I could see the lights there, flickering, candles or a lantern. I knew what was going to happen there. I could hear the crowd roaring at the gallows. I knew what was going to happen there, too.”

Holt studied his half-finished tattoo. “I looked down at the thing forming on my wrist, and… it was hideous to me. Bigger it got, the more dread I felt. I told them I needed a break, told Ravan I’d be back. She gave me this odd look, I remember, like a part of her knew or guessed, but, still, she didn’t follow me. At the time I didn’t think she would have understood. I’m still not sure she would have.”

The statement was an admission of just how close Holt and Ravan had been, but Mira’s views on everything now were so conflicted, she wasn’t sure what she felt about it.

“I moved fast as I could, knew I could only save one of them, there wasn’t time for both. I chose Evelyn. I don’t know why, maybe because I knew her better, the girl with the Pop-Tarts. Maybe because I thought her fate was going to be worse than the boy’s. Who knows.” Holt looked out through one of the gaping holes in the gymnasium, watching the lightning flash outside. “I went to Archer’s room, I burst inside—and I’d gotten there before it happened. He’d pinned her on his bed, he had a knife. I told him to stop, to get off her. Archer just stared at me. Then he laughed. He didn’t really believe I’d do anything to stop him. After all, I’d always stood by before, everyone had—stood by and let him do whatever he wanted—but… not this time. I told him I’d shoot him between the eyes if I had to. Told him he had to let her go. He didn’t listen, he just laughed again, told me I could stay and watch if I wanted, and then moved back towards her with the knife. So I shot him.”

Mira exhaled her tension. She wasn’t sure what she felt.

“It was clean, one bullet,” Holt said, his voice a whisper once more. “The girl screamed, I remember that. I grabbed her and pulled her out of there, got my things and left. We barely made it out before they sealed the city. Worst part was, coming back down—we heard the cheers at the gallows, we knew what had happened. I saved that girl’s life, but there wasn’t any gratitude. She didn’t look at me with any less revulsion than she had Archer. I remember that, too. Maybe if I’d saved them both, but… I didn’t.”

“What happened to her?” Mira asked.

“Covered our tracks for three days, laid false trails. I knew Tiberius would send Ravan, and that he would want me dead, but she never found me. Not sure if that was because I knew her so well—or if she let me go. Either way, I set the girl loose, got her on a Landship for Winterbay. Never heard from her again.”

Holt kept his stare on the floor. Mira watched him sit there, reliving everything, torturing himself all over again. She knew how he felt, she suddenly realized. All this time she felt distant from him, even looked down on him for just almost being in the Menagerie, but the truth was, she was no better. She’d made similar mistakes. She’d tried to fix them in similar ways, and she lived with the consequences, just like him.

Mira reached out and pulled Holt to her. He rested his head on her shoulder as she ran her fingers through his crazy, unkempt hair.

“Why do we… make our decisions after it’s too late?” Holt asked quietly. “Even when they seem obvious. Why don’t we make them right there and then, instead?”

It was a question Mira had asked herself many times. “I don’t know.”

They both sat there staring out at the ever-darkening landscape beyond the walls of the crumbled gym.

EVERYTHING WAS DARK AND SILENT. Peaceful even. But within all the blankness, Zoey sensed something like movement. Wavering bands of light floating in the emptiness, but not of any specific color. It seemed, instead, like a mix of all of them, blended into a spinning shape that was there and not there, always just out of view.

Zoey had seen colors like this before. When she was with the Royal and his Hunters. It was how their presences manifested in her head. Which meant, wherever she was, a similar presence was close to her now.

Scion. You are safe.

It was a projection of pure sensation shoved into her mind, and the words were the closest Zoey could get to its most intrinsic meaning. It was exactly how the Royal communicated with her, but this was not that presence. It was different. It wavered at a different speed.