I don’t remember when I fell asleep, only that it was evening when I woke up. Zack still wasn’t home, and Adeline was still asleep in my bed. Most of my questions as to what had happened in Oskari had been answered, but not everything. And I reckon it’s mightily important I mention: there was one part of Rhian’s plan that Bells hadn’t told me. He hadn’t told me that after lighting the explosives and bolting the underground, he was to return to Palisade and tell Councilwoman Kelly everyone was dead.
While I waited for Zack to come home, I started working on the reports for Councilwoman Faust. To begin with, Strauss. He’d been her focus because, unlike Rhian and Michael, she didn’t have much of a baseline for his functionality outside solitaire. Mates, by now, we already have a clear picture of Strauss. The man was inexperienced, but he was adaptable, solid as a rock, and he’d moved through the mess like a champion. But he’d also been permanently impaired.
That’s where I reached an impasse.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think Strauss could overcome the obstacle, it was whether or not I thought Kelly, Faust, and Hall would think he could. I could be honest and do my best to convince them he’d be fine. I could also not tell them. I could pretend I had no idea at the time of writing the report, wait and see what Faust expected of everybody first. There was no church left in Oskari for Strauss, so, that was a factor. The other problem was: Strauss was gone. I had no way of knowing how long he’d be at the lair. So—
“I lost track of Andrei Strauss during the events in Oskari, but he’d been overheard making plans to leave afterward with Rhydian Sinclair. Neither has been seen.”
Over at the bed, Adeline sighed and shifted her position. Was she waking up?
I waited, and nothing.
I walked over to the bed, grabbed the side of the mattress and gave it a good shake.
Nothing.
I poured some water from my canteen into my hand and sprinkled it on her face.
Nothing.
So, back at the desk, I started on her report.
I hadn’t observed Adeline much firsthand, but Rhian’s plan wouldn’t have been possible without her. I’d seen her take charge, I’d seen her improvise, empathize. She’d integrated perfectly, bonded with Strauss, and she and Rhian were thick as thieves. There wasn’t anything to omit or lie about.
Well, except that she’d somehow been deposited in my bed. I did omit that.
Michael—that one was a bit of a head-scratcher, mates. I didn’t know what happened to Michael, only that he was unconscious when Everleigh last saw him. I could say he was with Alexander, but Alexander wasn’t meant to be helping us anymore. Then again, this part of the task was over, so—aye, he was with Alexander and Rhian. But what to say about his performance? Well—
He’d faced off against several Anima, kept his calm, built morale, and grew relationships around the village. But he’d had to make a difficult decision where Varis was concerned that may have maintained the group’s stability, but he’d put himself at risk, and there was a casualty as a result.
“…unaware of an infiltrator…”
“…turning incident happened while they were away…”
“…no way of knowing…had Michael in her clutches…”
“…no outward changes in behaviour…”
Aye, that would do.
Finally, there was Rhian. I wondered—
But my wondering was interrupted by a knock at the door.
That was new. I fussed with the blankets around Adeline, arranging everything so the bed looked messy, and then I tossed my cloak over her face. I opened the door.
“Can I come in,” Everleigh asked.
I stepped aside and let her in, locking the door as if it mattered. “Aren’t you worried about running into Zack?”
“The Law’s going to have his hands full after last night.” She paused and looked to the lump in the bed. “Why is there someone in your bed.”
“When isn’t there someone in my bed?”
Everleigh stared.
“I actually don’t know why she’s here,” I said. "But she's in a special sleep."
“I can wake her up.”
“Thanks, but I’ll wait for Zack. He must have had a reason for… this. Also, why are you here?”
“To remind you to take Anne to her fitting.”
“No offense, Everleigh, but—”
“There’s something going on at the Gander, and I’m too busy to handle it.”
“I can’t leave Adeline here alone.”
“Can I see her.”
I positioned myself between Everleigh and the bed, blocking Adeline’s lump from view. The lass deserved at least some privacy. “No, that’s weird, mate. But I’ll do what I can about Anne.”
Everleigh unlocked the door and opened it. “Okay, bye.”
“See you,” I said.
When Everleigh was gone, I removed my cloak from Adeline’s face, and I went back to my report.
It was after four in the morning when the lock clicked, and the door opened. Zack stepped through.
“Andrei Strauss is aboard the embark,” he said.
“Good.” I pointed to Adeline. “Explain.”
“I can’t, not entirely.”
“What do you mean you can’t, not entirely?”
Zack ran a hand through his hair and stepped over to the table, leaning against it. He sighed heavily. “I did as you asked. I concentrated a selection of Anima where you showed me, and then I realized something. Those who weren’t set on fire by proximity to the explosions, would be crushed, and would spend an eternity wriggling beneath the stone.”
“Uh—”
“And all I could think about was Jakob, and I put them all in a trance, Feargus Finlay. And I laid them all to rest—seventeen. And then I—and then I fled. I must have fled, because the next thing I remember, I was standing on the hill, with her.”
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“Mate, why is Adeline in my bed?”
“She was alone, and she was frightened.”
“What did you say to her?”
“…It’s humiliating.”
I waited patiently.
“Fine—it went something like: ‘Tick, tock, what a fine watch you’ve got. I do believe your time has come. And what, I wonder, will your pretty story be? Romance? Tragedy? It all begins with me.’”
“You’re joking.”
He wasn’t joking. “The surviving Anima are bound to retaliate,” Zack said. “If it were me, Feargus Finlay, I would have a closer look at the board before deciding where to place her.”
“Place her?”
“Is that not something you’re doing anymore?”
I took a breath in and out through my nose. “Strauss is aboard the embark, but that trip shouldn’t have taken this long. Where have you been?”
“Spying on your sister.”
Finally, mates, something reasonable. “What was she doing? How’s Michael?”
“Not well.” Zack explained that Varis had tried to turn Michael, but the process had failed.
“Can’t you help him?”
“I tried,” Zack confessed. “While your sister was reviewing his options with Alexander and Ivana.”
“Wait—why was V there?”
“Alexander brought Ivana in the event your sister decided to have him turned.”
“Rhian wouldn’t.”
“She didn’t.”
I moved to my snack drawer and found a hard candy at the bottom, popping it in my mouth. I avoided looking at Adeline, who was still sleeping, the entire time.
“There has to be some way to help him. He can’t stay like that, right?”
“No, he can’t.”
“What about Della?”
“Alexander went to see Della before going to Ivana. Your sister has decided to avoid long-term hospital care and has opted to bring him home to his family in Leberecht. They’ve already left.”
True story: the candy was the only thing keeping me from throwing up. Michael was going to die.
“Know it’s not your fault,” Zack said. “Michael Reider made his choice.”
“It’s entirely my fault, but I don’t even deserve my own self-pity, so—” I looked to Adeline from the corner of my eye. “I have to take care of a few things. Can you stay with her?”
Zacharias said he would, and while I got ready, he collected Everleigh’s violin from the back corner of the room.
He started playing just as I was leaving.
I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t listen, so I shuffled through the snow for the first twenty-two minutes after leaving the cabin. Ultimately, Rhian made the right choice for Michael. He’d go on to say as much himself eventually. And at the time, even though I knew about the Trio and that there was something not quite right going on in Leberecht, I had no way of knowing Marta would bring Michael to see The Artist. That was an unexpected collision, mates.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
It was a miserable walk and eventual run to Jaska, and I found Anne in her room at the Gander. She looked tired, but seemed happy to see me. I was happy to see her, too. Anne was a nice lass.
“Jack, we’ve missed you around here.”
“And I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you lot,” I answered, and I meant it. The past couple days had taken everything out of me not to quit and start having fun again. “Are you free this morning? Everleigh asked me to take you to The Steel Needle for your fitting.”
“That’d be nice, yeah, sure.”
Before leaving the Gander, I brought Anne to see Vera in the kitchen. She was busy preparing breakfast for the brothel crew, so we gave her a hand with that, and we nibbled at the food she set aside for us along the way. She seemed especially interested in making Anne comfortable that morning, and I caught Vera looking in her direction when she thought no one was paying attention. Interesting enough, but it could have also been nothing.
Vera had a good relationship with everyone at the Gander. After breakfast, we left.
It was early enough in the day that Vivienne had time to squeeze Anne’s appointment in unexpectedly. Seeing as I was the target audience, I got first looks. She looked mighty cute in the cat costume, but I as I was giving her a look over—you know, checking the work—I spotted a fresh bruise on the back of her arm, and a faint, almost healed one on the side of her neck.
Workplace injuries weren’t too uncommon around the Gander, so it was possible, but the one on her arm looked like fingers to me. Vivienne caught my eye for a second, but it wasn’t the time or the place, so neither of us said anything.
When we left The Steel Needle, it was snowing.
I escorted Anne back to her bunk at the Gander.
“I know I asked you to show me around your office next time we got together,” she said. “But would you mind just staying here with me for a bit?”
“Need a cuddle?”
“Yeah, I could use a cuddle.”
We really did just cuddle, and after leaving Anne asleep in her room, I made my way to Tanis’s office. She was looking a bit tired, too, that day. We sat in the corner chairs.
“Jack, please tell me you’re here to ask for some shifts.”
“Still no bartender?”
“We tried someone out the other night—egh—but besides that, I need your expertise. There’ve been some murders going around.”
“Bit like a bad cold this time of year those murders, aren’t they?”
Tanis chuckled. “Right, well, the victims are all clients of ours, and I need you to find, or not find, any connection to the Gander before the investigators start looking our way.”
“How do they even know the murders are connected?”
“They were all strangled with a belt.”
I remembered a conversation with Captain Kavelin a while back. He’d mentioned there’d been an isolated incident with the same execution. Seemed the problem had grown into a serial case, but with Faust due, Adeline being in my bed, my traumatized roommate performing spontaneous theatre, and Sebastian missing, I really didn’t have time for detective work at the moment.
But it’s like Everleigh Gloom said in this very book: a problem without a solution is a more annoying problem. So, instead of saying no to Tanis, I presented a new option.
“You know how much I love this place, Tanis, but I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment—it’s almost unmanageable. But what if I send someone else instead?”
With Alexander and Rhian gone, bringing Adeline to the estate was risky. She’d be mostly unguarded. Zacharias warned me the Anima would be looking to retaliate, so anywhere in Oskari was risky, really. But the brothel was safe, and Adeline was smart, and a telepath. And as far as the drink mixing went, she was a scientist and a perfectionist. I reckoned she’d get the hang.
“If you think this person can do the job, then I’ll take any help I can get,” Tanis said.
“Aye, she’s up for it. I’ll send her around as soon as I can.”
Before I left, I asked her to keep an eye on Anne.
After finishing up in the city, I went to check up on Oskari and to see V. The church was no longer standing, but there’d been enough open space around it, and along the path through the underground, that none of the houses around it had taken any damage. It was unsightly still, and upsetting for the locals who were starting to rely on faith again.
It was a cold day, so most of the villagers were inside. I skirted around, and made my way to the back of the Widow’s Peak and let myself in.
V was sitting at the desk, writing something on a piece of paper she thought she got away with covering. She flipped a page in her ledger, and smiled over at me. It was a bit of a loaded smile, though. She may not have been a fan of Michael’s, but she knew I liked him.
We hugged for thirty-two seconds before she closed the Widow’s Peak. For the rest of the day, we burrowed in one of the fancier rooms upstairs where there was loads of food, and tons of cookies, and even though she hated it, she asked me all sorts of thoughtful questions about Michael.
I asked her if she’d teach me how to weave a basket. She said she would soon.
Thinking back on it now, it’s funny—or maybe not funny, but—aye, it’s funny how one of my worst days was also one of my best days.
A Night at Home With Zack - Entry Log #5
“I’ve had a closer look at the board.”
“Have you? And?”
“Can you wake her up in the morning, please?”
“Of course.”
“You probably shouldn’t be here once you do.”
“No, probably not. But on that note, Feargus Finlay, I should tell you: I’m moving into my man-cave. I’ve grown to care for you a great deal, but not the cabin. Never the cabin.”
“You know I'm sad to see you go, but it really was inevitable.”
“So it was. I’m sure we’ll collaborate in the future, and if you wish to visit, you only have to blow the whistle.”
“What should we do with our last night?”
“We never did get to sing our new song together.”
“I can’t sing, mate.”
“Sure you can.” — “Here you are, follow along. You’ll come in at the chorus.”