Chapter 41: Chapter 39

I was expecting to land on something soft. Maybe an awning, a pile of refuse, a puddle of water, anything. That was how it worked, right? In stories, the hero would face certain death and then find themselves saved just in the nick of time by mysterious circumstance. I was no hero. Instead my body hit solid ground. Rough round cobblestones greeted my body; the shock came first, then the pain, then the garbled, muted scream that barely escaped my lips through a crushed windpipe. Rib cage shattered, left arm twisted and malformed, knee caps cracked. The pain that tore through my body was immense and it dominated my every attempt to even move a single limb. My left cheek lay against the stones and I could feel a warmth forming beneath it, pooling out and trickling in the grout beneath the stones, a beautiful glistening red beneath the glow of the moon.

The voice had told me to jump. I had listened to it, and now I was dying in the streets of Auglire. Why had I listened? 

Why? 

It was beginning to occur to me that mysterious voices in the back of my head were not likely to be an irrefutable source of life and death advice.

At the edge of my vision I could see my fingers sitting at the end of a useless limb; my brain sent a signal for them to move - they twitched slightly in response. My body was broken, I was broken. My thoughts wandered to Sheena, the sister who had claimed me, the one I had resented for so long, and I wondered why I had wasted so much time. She was someone who cared about me, who had sacrificed me, and how had I repaid her? I was going to die half naked in a back alley, was this what all her training and care was for?

Pitiful. 

Get up.

“Can’t,” I muttered soundlessly in response to the voice that was now nagging at me. It wasn’t really a voice, just a feeling, or rather an idea. Still, it was real, and it was wrong.

Stand up, Lyra.

“Would you look at that?” I heard the familiar voice of Greta above me. If my body hadn’t been so broken I might have cringed or had any reaction to the sound of her voice. But my body had nothing left to give.

“Pitiful, that,” Arn said. “You’re so repulsive she’d rather be dead than listen to your voice for another moment.”

“Oh rugg off,” Greta snapped. “That’s our payday laying there dead on the stones, ‘ow you expect to feed ourselves now?”

“She wasn’t the only payday, Greta,” Arn informed her. “Those medical supplies we’ve got crated up in there-”

“A trifling after Old Jaf takes his cut,” Greta said. “Let’s go find another girl.”

“Aye, then,” Arn said, resigned. “plenty to choose from.”

Get up. The voice said again after they’d gone. Lyra get up.

“Rugg off,” I said quietly as my vision began to fade. The world grew darker, the pain began to numb. My body was broken but I felt it less and less as my mind began to go. Crimson blood, my life force, was running, seeping toward an iron drain cover in the center of the darkened alleyway and with it went my mind. 

Lyra, what is broken does not need to remain broken. You are better than this. You are more than this. Stand up Lyra. Stand up and do what you need to do.

“I deserve this,” I said to no one. I expected the voice to argue but was greeted with nothing but silence. As I lay there, waiting for the end, I noticed something disturbing; the forming darkness began to recede, and a sharp pain formed in my arm, followed by a cracking, grinding noise. The same followed with my chest, then my legs. Sharp pains followed by immediate relief, my strength and awareness returning little by little. My arms twitched, my head rolled, and suddenly my ears were filled with sounds from both ends of the alley. Voices, wooden wheels against cobblestone, the dumping of waste buckets; splashes of water against stone. What was happening? 

She lives, A new voice said.

Of course she does. 

I lived. With sore arms I managed to push myself upright and sat forward on my knees, palms against the stone. Gradually, I rose, standing amidst a puddle of gleaming blood, my shift soaked in the same. I took a step and then yelped as my ankle shrieked in pain. So, miraculously, every part of me but my ankle had healed. Hilarious. Ignoring the pain, I limped forward, out of the alley and emerged onto a street that wasn’t in much better condition than the alley, but it was at least populated with people, most of them dressed in rags, some better off than others. Tall glass lantern poles lined the streets every ten feet, casting an eerie yellow glow on the darkened passage,n a ironic illumination on a stretch of road and a people that had much to hide. I stumbled down the sidewalk, still dizzy, passing a group of men in black, gray, and brown coats. A woman in a ragged gray dress, a bandage wrapped diagonally about her face, covering her right eye. A boy sat shivering against a wall, a man in with a long beard in a tattered overcoat, dozens of people brushed past me, all of them ignoring my dishelved state. Just another girl with messy hair a a blood-soaked shift, nothing to worry about.

I was hungry. Maybe the mysterious voice had something to say about that. I listened closely but no disembodied advice came to me. Was that all, then?

My travels took me to the end of the street, to a right turn that led to another row of mismatched houses, broken windows, and smoking chimneys working in tandem with the gas-lamps to blot out the night sky. I was alive, I was healthy, and though I was hungry, I had a chance to make it back. Back home, back to Sheena. I could do it, but which way? Everything around me looked the same. Ragged people, burning street lamps, decrepit buildings. I stumbled between two buildings, careful to keep my ankle off the ground as much as possible and found myself on a landing overlooking a lower section of the street. A cart filled with hay just below, more people shuffling about the darkness, a rolling carriage, a vendor’s cart illuminated with colored lights, a limping dog. So much life, and yet none of it seemed meaningful. I crept down a set of stone stairs into the lower street and walked past a large, well-lit building. Another brief alleyway brought me to an intersection and as I looked up, I gasped at the sight of the Bokenshire bridge towering above me. It was huge from up top; I had seen it coming in, months ago when I’d arrived here from Axock, but from below it was a monstrosity, the wide paved surface four hundred feet above my head. The structure loomed like a shadow over the slums and made me feel more than insignificant. The good news: if I could get to the top of the bridge, I would be able to draw the attention of a city guard and would likely be returned to the campus, probably to a very annoyed Sheena. I was halfway home. 

I limped toward the massive bridge supports, hoping to find a way up but as I grew closer I realized that it would be far more complicated than that. Getting to the base of the structure would require finding a way there and there were several buildings blocking me between here and there. After about ten minutes of walking, I sighed as my stomach growled and I returned to the square with the brightly-lit building. It was a misshapen structure like all the others, but it was two stories tall and looked out onto the street with a set of eight bright windows set into crusty walls. I sighed again. What could it hurt? As I approached the set of double doors in the front of the building, I could hear the sound of a single voice from within, and as I quietly pushed the door open, it was a shock to find the entirety of the front room filled with people, each one sitting at a table, each dressed in different colors and shades. Dirt-soiled faces, women in rough cotton dresses, men wearing faded button-down shirts and rough trowsers. The inn was dimly lit with oil lanterns hung from the walls, the wooden floor dark and faded. At the front of the crowed, a man dressed in a suit that feigned nobility but the threadbare state of his jacket hinted at a poverty of his own. He was older than me, probably in his mid-twenties with a soft face and light-brown hair that came down just past his ears. Possessed of a confidence I could only dream of, he addressed the crowd, their attention seemingly in the palm of his hand. 

“…the time has come,” the man said. “For the ‘High Lady’ to fulfill her responsibilities to the people! For the ‘High Lady’, to admit her shortcomings! How many of you have gone hungry? How many of your children have fallen ill as you wait and hope for the Lady to fulfill her promises?” 

The man spoke loudly, gesturing broadly with his arms to the cadence of ‘here here!’ from the crowd, some of them offering light applause, and others raising their mugs in agreement. 

“And then what of those who have tried to prosper and failed because of the Lady’s draconian tariffs? Her insistence that we pay for her highly taxed goods while foregoing the wares of good, honest merchants! She has forced us into poverty the name of national defense! She would watch us fail and flounder while the nobility prospers and resides in their luxurious manses! Are we not men? Are we not women? Who are we, but the life blood of Auglire? Merchants, tailors, bakers, cog makers, those who bring life to Klocby! Will we sit by and allow her to rule our lives? To decide whether or not we ourselves may prosper? Or shall you join with me, with us, and take our protest to the streets? Will you stand with me and make a statement? Ladies, Gentlemen, we are the next generation, we are the future of Klocby whether the High Lady and her gaggle of nobles wish to admit it or not! Your mothers will tell you to respect the nobility. Your fathers and your grandfathers will tell you that you must pay heed to tradition! To blazes with it all! We are not our fathers, we are not our grandfathers! The traditions of the past mean nothing if the future is one of illness and poverty!”

The room was ablaze with the sounds of applause and cheers as the man continued his speech, pacing back and forth on the wooden platform throwing his hands and making strong, absolute statements. Even I found myself supremely impressed with his portrayed intentions. As I stood there listening, tucked away in the shadows near the door I felt a tug on my shoulder. Looking to my right, I saw a woman there, perhaps Sheena’s age with brown hair bound back with a ragged bow. 

“Good Goddess,” She said, loud enough for me to hear over the roar of the crowd. “Girl what happened to you? Come along, let’s get you cleaned up!”

I didn’t have much choice in the matter; she placed a firm grip on my upper arm and led me around the back, past the cheering crowd and to a door at the side of the tavern. We passed through a hallway, the woman speeding up as we passed several wooden doors. Finally we took a left and walked up a staircase leading to the second floor, and eventually a room with several chairs, a threadbare couch, and a table off in the corner. The woman stopped me in the center of the room and stood back to look at me. 

“Goddess be good!” She exclaimed. “Your face! Who did this to you?”

In that moment it occurred to me that somehow my bones had healed, but there were parts of me still bruised, still battered. Not to mention my shift was soaked through with blood. 

“I…” I said hesitantly. “There was a woman…and a man. They took me and-”

“Aye?” The woman said, regarding me with concern; she cupped my chin with her hand and turned my head, examining what must have been a nasty bruise on the left side of my face. “Do you know their names?”

“I’m sorry…” I croaked. “But who-”

“Oh never mind all that,” She said. “Let’s get you cleaned up and in some proper clothes!”

Before I could object, she rushed me across the room and shoved me into a tiny washroom complete with a galvanized tub, filled already with water. 

“Take that nasty thing off,” She said, indicating my shift. I immediately paled. 

“I…could I have some privacy?” I asked her, my voice beginning to shake. She frowned. 

“Dear, I need to look at those bruises,” She informed me firmly. “You don’t have aught I haven’t seen before.”

“I…I don’t know about that,” I said in a squeaky voice, shrinking back toward the wall. 

“Nonsense,” She said quickly, stepping forward and taking a handful of my shift in her hand. “Come now, let’s see.”

No further objection from me would suffice and I struggled very little as she pulled it over my head, dropping it into a pile on the floor. I stood there in the small room, naked as she ran her hand over the bruises covering the entire left side of my body.

“Did you fall?” She asked me. I nodded. “What do they call you?”

I started to tell her my name and then I thought better of it. “Allie.”

“Allie,” She smiled and nodded. “My name, is Melina. This might all seem odd to you but I can’t very well resist helping a girl in trouble, and you are, obviously, a girl in trouble. Now get into the tub, clean yourself up and we’ll find you something to wear!”

I watched her leave the room, completely baffled as she apparently ignored my anatomy completely. Did she not care? I looked nervously toward the tub, but then shrugged and lowered myself into the lukewarm water. It felt good, surprisingly, and I immediately took a wash rag from a table beside and scrubbed dried blood from my arms. As I worked, I couldn’t help but notice the bruises that Melina had been referring tom. My left arm was several shades of bluish-black with patches of white skin poking out from beneath. Upon further inspection, my chest was in the same condition and they were all equally painful - a pain I hadn’t noticed until now. Whatever had healed me, had only done so much and I was apparently on my own for the rest of it. As I finished and crawled out of the tub, Melina returned with a bundle of clothes in her arms.

“They could be a touch big on you,” She said apologetically. “I doubt we’re much the same size, close maybe.”

She handed me the bundle; it was a simple white chemise with a brown over-dress, nothing fancy. I shrugged into the clothes and stood quietly while she worked the laces. 

“We ought not do it too tight,” She said. “lest we agitate those bruises, goodness, how are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. 

“Well, come on then,” She said as she ran a brush through my hair. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

Something to eat turned out to be a few pieces of rukon breast and a bowl of thick stew, both of which I shoveled into my mouth as if my life depended on it. I’d known I was hungry but I didn’t realize I was that hungry. She at across the table from me, resting her chin on her fist as she observed me eating. I finally stopped mid-bite and set the spoon down. 

“I um…thank you, for doing this,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes trained on the bowl. 

“Tis no trouble,” She assured me. “Might I asked a question, though?” 

Great, here it comes.

“I…guess…” I said nervously, closing my eyes and gripping the table. 

“You live as a girl?”

“Yes,” I said simply. 

“And how do you find it?”

“It feels right,” I shrugged. “I’m…I’m sorry, I know I’m…you probably expected a real girl when you brought me up here-”

“One piece of anatomy doesn’t make you a fraud,” She interrupted me. I looked up, meeting her eyes as she grinned slightly. “‘sides, Allie, choices are something we’re short on these days. Good to see you made yours.”

“It wasn’t so much of a choice,” I said carefully, my eyes dropping to the table again. “I just…I am…this. It hurt to live any other way.”

“In the end,” She said. “We all have to be what we are, ain’t no choice about it. Finish your soup.”

She rose from the table and crossed the room as I slid another bite into my mouth. Behind me, the door opened and I turned to see the man from downstairs enter. The loud one. 

“Taking in strays, Melina?” The man said as he gave me a cursory glance. I cringed and shrank into the chair.

“Girl’s name is Allie,” Melina said. “and there’s aught you should know. I heard it through the vines tonight that Greta and her partner lost some ‘merchandise’ and they were about for another, then I see this girl wander into the inn soaked in blood and bruised like a peach. What say you to that?”

“I say that’s interesting!” The man said, suddenly upbeat. I turned and glanced nervously toward the door, ready to run. “Calm down girl, my name is Quinn, Quinn Mallory. I’m a bit of a traveler, so to speak, but right now my business is in Auglire. Tell me, by what circumstances do you find yourself here?”

I rose cautiously from the chair, folding my hands in front of me, wringing them anxiously. 

“I ah…I….was taken,” I said carefully, not sure how much I wanted to give away.

“Can you describe who took you?” Melina moved toward me, laying a hand on my shoulder. “We mean you no harm, I assure you.”

“A man,” I said in resignation; I saw no choice but to cooperate. Even if I could escape the room where would I go? “A huge man…and a woman with black hair and-”

“Greta and Arn for sure,” Quinn nodded. He began to pace. “And you escaped?”

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“I jumped…from the roof,” I nodded.

“Would explain the bruises,” Melina confirmed. “and if she escaped, she must have some idea of where they were keeping her.”

“Indeed,” Quinn agreed. “Allie, are you aware of the spread of the Zlitian plague in the Thompson quarter? That’s what they call it anyway, poor choice of words if I say so myself.”

I shook my head. 

“Long story really,” Quinn told me. “Bottom line, the Thompson quarter is quarantined and supplies were sent by the High Lady - a rare display of generosity on her part if I do say. But, you see, Old Jaf and his cohorts intercepted it, and now he has crates upon crates of food and medicine sitting idle wherever Greta and Arn call home. I have interest in liberating these supplies and it seems you may be the only person to know where they are.”

My mind traveled back to my time in the cellar and then the piles of crates that had been in the storeroom upstairs. Yes, the man, Quinn, was probably right, but if I gave him that information, would he let me leave? Was I a prisoner here?

“Whatever we plan to do, we ought do it quickly.” Melina suggested. “There’s some stirring in the city, north of the Maussen district. They say the High Lady is declaring martial law, ought not be long before we see troops in the slums.”

“I will gather the men, then,” Quinn said, stepping toward the door. “Tonight, we take back those supplies and we put an end to Greta once and for all.”

“You mean to kill her then?” Melina cocked her head.

“I mean to do what needs to be done,” He assured her. “And with all she’s done, it could be said she deserves no less.”

Quinn exited the room, leaving me alone with Melina. I turned and looked to her apprehensively and she gave me a confident smile.

“You carry yourself quite well,” She told me, leading me over to the couch. “Your mannerisms, your voice, gestures, all of them very feminine. Had I not seen you undressed, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. But you’re so nervous, have some confidence, would you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I feel…I feel as if I’m a fraud, I know you say I’m not but-”

“I ought fix your hair,” She suggested. “A tangled mess, it is.”

I sat silently as she walked across the room and retrieved a soft-bristled brush from a nearby desk and then went to work on my hair. I was suddenly reminded of Sheena and the way she meticulously brushed my hair, though with Melina it didn’t feel like a threat - more of a kind gesture. 

“Where do you live?” She asked me. “You are clearly below the age of majority. Have you parents? Family? Do you go to school?”

“I…have a sister,” I said carefully. “I live with her.”

“Then you’ll want to be getting back to her,” Melina said as she finished with my hair. “Did your sister teach you then? To be so feminine? You’re quite good at it.”

“Yes,” I nodded. I couldn’t give away too much information in this exchange; it was clear they hated the nobility and while the Rossi family wasn’t exactly nobility, they weren’t that far below it. 

“It’ll be a bit,” She sighed. “You ought stay here for a bit, even after we’re done with Greta. The city watch is on patrol and they’ve pulled out all the stops. I don’t know what they’re looking for but even you should know well enough not to get in their way.”

The door opened again, and Quinn entered with two new men and one red-headed woman, several years older than Melina. 

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Quinn said, taking a seat on a nearby chair while the others did the same. “Greta’s on the prowl. Seems she and Arn left their girl for dead and when they came back she’d crawled off.”

Melina snorted.

“Allie, this is Rod, Swiggart, and Pid. Associates of mine,” Quin gestured to the three newcomers. “Now it seems we are going to have a bit of a problem; Old Jaf can assemble a fairly large force of thieves and bandits, all under his employ, his choices are to either murder you or move the supplies. That leaves you in a rather precarious position.”

“Aye,” Pid nodded, scratching her head. “We can’t very well put up a fight against everything Old Jaf could throw at us.”

“He has money behind him,” Rod agreed. “and he’d burn this place down in a heartbeat if it wouldn’t lower his influence in the area.”

“Not a bad point,” Swiggart chuckled. “burn this place down and we’re a dry district.”

They continued to talk, ignoring me for the most part. Embarrassingly, I looked down and realized that I was clutching Melina’s hand. She smiled reassuringly at me and we waited until the conversation returned to the subject of the warehouse.

“Well,” Quinn sighed. “They can attack us, but we need those supplies. How many men do you suppose we could muster?”

“Tonight? Does it matter?” Pid raised an eyebrow. “We cross Old Jaf, he’ll keep coming, and coming, and coming. No night’s going to be safe after that.”

“That settles that then,” Quinn said. “We’ll just have to kill Old Jaf.”

“I knew you’d say something like that,” Rod rolled his eyes and other others followed suit. “How then do you suppose we’ll do that?”

“A bullet ought to do it,” Quinn suggested, eliciting a groan from the room. “and it’ll be easy enough to lure him out.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Melina demanded.

“Allie here can tell us the location of their storehouse, and then, well, we use her as bait.”

“If we know where the storehouse is, then why would we need bait?” Pid raised an eyebrow.

“Dramatic effect,” Quinn shrugged. “But in all seriousness, let the girl wander the streets while we take the storehouse. They can’t hit us on two fronts. Besides, we have a severe advantage tonight.”

“Which is?” Melina looked to me almost nervously, and I wondered why she would care so much.

“The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth garrisons have deployed troops to shut down everything south of the Maussen district, as mentioned earlier. Old Jaf is cut off from, well, any sort of assistance that he might have otherwise had. Frankly, if we want to put an end to the man, we won’t get a much better opportunity than tonight.”

“Kill Old Jaf,” Pid scoffed. “Why I nary thought I’d see the day.”

“Now Quinn,” Rod said, almost in a lecturing tone. “Can this really be done? Do you think we can kill Old Jaf without retribution?”

“You take Old Jaf, and suddenly, hundreds of people find themselves unemployed,” Quinn rose from his chair and began to pace the room, he placed a thoughtful finger to his chin and nodded. “Yes, they’ll flock to us.”

“That’s a silly notion, that,” Swiggart snorted. “What would you need with an army? What would we need with an army?’

“Better to have them under our thumb than another’s,” Melina pointed out. “You kill Old Jaf, suddenly you get New Jaf and the like.”

“And the fight begins again,” Quinn smiled. 

“What you’re talking about,” Rod said. “Is going from revolutionary to crime lord overnight. I dare say I don’t know if I wish to be a party to that.”

“What I wish is to help the people,” Quinn said sharply. “To bring them hope where the High Lady brough them despair, by her will or not. Through her negligence they suffer and if we have the resources to bring them a small but fleeting taste of happiness then by the Goddess it stands as our responsibility to do so!”

“Quinn,” Melina smirked. “You’re among us now, you need not turn everything into a political speech.”

“Yes, yes,” Quinn waved his hand dismissively. “It is…difficult not to become enraged by the state of things and I need not tell you that!”

“So this plan then,” Melina looked to me, squeezing my shoulder. “You’ll send her to the streets?”

“A solid plan, for true,” Swiggart shrugged. 

“And we can save her? When they come for her?” 

“I can’t see killing Greta as a difficulty,” Rod smiled. “Arn though, he might prove a challenge.”

“That man is the size of a galleon,” Quinn agreed. “And yet…”

The group continued to scheme and plan, ignoring me for the most part. I heard my name, ‘Allie’ come up a few times and occasionally Melina would steal a glance at me. At one point, Quinn walked to a chest of drawers on the other side of the room and fetched a long roll of parchment with a partial map of the city which he laid on the table before the couch and between the chairs. It was surprisingly detailed, showing and in-depth representation of the surrounding buildings, alleyways, shops, homes, vendors, hiding spots, and it featured a wide range of notes scribbled in the margins. The entire time, however, all I could think about was Sheena. How I’d abandoned her, how I was here now. How there was no way back to her. If I spoke up, if I told these people who I was, how would they respond? What would they do with me? They hated nobles well enough, and I was a Rossi. What a predicament I had wandered into!

“Allie,” I heard Quinn say with irritation; it occurred to me that he had likely spoken to me once already and I’d probably missed it. I looked up and met the man’s gaze, all eyes in the room were focused on me now. “You can show us the storehouse? On this map?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Outside this building, up the stairs, you see them there, on the map? It should be in this area,” I circled the area on the map with my finger. 

“That building then,” Swiggart said, jerking an index finger at a specific section of the map. “Do you recall when the city watch stored ammunition there?”

“Aye, I do,” Quinn nodded. “That building has been vacant for the better part of a decade. Now Allie, you understand your part in all this?”

“You’re sending me to die,” I nodded. “I’m no better off than I started.”

“Fair assessment,” Rod laughed. 

“Did you enjoy eating our food, Allie,” Quinn looked to me with a stern expression in his eyes. “Do you not feel you should at least play some part in this to express your gratitude?”

“I feel that I enjoy breathing,” I snapped, suddenly angry. 

“You can’t fault the lass for wanting to live,” Pid shrugged.

“You’ll live,” Melina assured me. “‘Tis not the first time we’ve done things of this sort.”

Maybe not. Maybe they did this all the time but they had no care for me; I was a stranger to them and they had no reason to save me. Quinn asked if everyone was ready; I remained silent as the others gave their agreement and Quinn rolled the parchment map, replacing it in the drawer from which it had come. 

“You need not fear,” Melina told me, giving me another useless reassurance as the others filed out of the room. “We’ve no reason to want you dead.”

“You’ve no reason to see me alive,” I pointed out. “no one’s coming to save me, I’m not stupid.”

“No, I suppose you aren’t,” She smiled. “but you ought have more faith in people.” 

Faith. Now there was a concept.

I wondered what Sheena was doing right now. I wondered if she even cared about me. While I was there, while I was her sister for the short time that I was, she had cared about me but now that I was out of sight, out of mind, what investment would she have in me? I had never asked to be her sister, she had forced it upon me, and at the time it had been a mechanism of my survival - the only way to escape the inevitable as the High Lady put into motion her cold, calculating machinations that could have very well saved my life that night. It was Sheena who had seen through my outer shell, it was Sheena who had embraced me, and it was she who had seen fit to try to bring out the potential in me. But, alas, I was a failed experiment. I had been tested, and I had failed. Given the best of opportunities and thrown them away. That was the way of it, wasn’t it? That was who I was. Nothing more, nothing less. I glanced toward the door as Quinn strolled back in, a short revolver in his hand that he snapped closed and gave a spin.

“Melina,” He said. “If you don’t mind, we need to get started.”

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