A croaking raven’s laugh at the unexpected sight. Even as he realized there’d still be a recording there, somewhere, in the mess.
Tried to say to Sintra, “How did you find me?” Wasn’t sure it came out right.
Sintra gave him more water to drink. Perched beside him on the armrest. “The city is catching its breath this morning. There is no one in this building now. Not a single Partial. No eyes left in this apartment. Their attention is elsewhere.”
“How did you know? To look here.”
Her voice from above him, matter-of-fact: “I’ve followed you here before.”
“When?”
He felt her shrug. “I’ve followed you everywhere. Especially the last few months. Before the towers started firing on the Spit. I have followed you so much I know more about you than you do.” Not said like a joke. More like she was weary of it. Tired of being a shadow.
The words lay there, in the sunlight. Finch picked over them again and again. Didn’t find what he was looking for.
“Did you kill them?” she asked. Motioning toward the bodies.
“One of them.”
“But not before he got to you.” Said it like he was a problem to be solved. Like a threat.
Finch thought for the first time about the sword on the floor. Looked toward it.
His own gun appeared in her hand. Again.
“Finch…”
“Are you here to finish me off?”
“No, just to stop you from doing anything stupid.” She held out a pill to him. “You’ll feel better if you take it. Maybe long enough to get back to your apartment.”
Took the pill gladly. Willingly. A test both of him and of her. Swallowed. A vague warmth spread through his limbs.
The old absurd idea crept up on him with the warmth. It still isn’t too late. We can get out of Ambergris. Cross the river. Make it to Stockton or Morrow … Readying himself to make the argument again. That if they left together they could leave their old selves behind, too. But he couldn’t get the words out. Dust on his tongue. To say them would mean he was delusional. That he was pursuing a ghost.
“What happened to the man who was here before? Your case?”
A deep, shuddering breath. “First, tell me the truth,” he said. Had no cleverness, no deception, left to him. “Whatever it is.”
She considered the question for a moment.
“We work with the rebels sometimes, in exchange for other favors. Who was the man in this apartment? Was it Duncan Shriek?”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“The Dogghe. My people. Who was the man in this apartment?”
The Dogghe. The Religious Quarter. She was part Dogghe, part Nimblytod. Had no known address. Came to him in the night. Seemed to move around the city with ease. Of course she worked for the Dogghe.
“Yes, Duncan Shriek,” he told her, because it didn’t matter anymore. “Someone who is an expert with … doors. Why me? Why not Blakely or Dapple. Or even Wyte?”
The words still came out slowly. Mangled. It took her time to recognize them and respond.
“You had no record up until two years before the Rising, John. That made us curious … What was Duncan Shriek’s mission?”
“To stop more gray caps coming through. What were your orders with regard to me?”
“Coming through what?”
“The towers. Was it always that way? Between us?” From the beginning? An ache now that wasn’t from his wounds. A slow-motion treachery. A life concealed.
“Finch, what can you tell me about Ethan Bliss?”
“I loved you.” Let go of the words now, while she couldn’t really see his face. When it didn’t matter anymore. He had nothing to say to her about Bliss.
Her slow response: “And I liked you, John. I really did. I wouldn’t have slept with you, otherwise. No matter the mission.”
A childish bitterness, but he was too weak to keep the poison out of his mind: “You left behind some of your notes once. I had suspicions, but I never went to the gray caps with them. I never told anyone.”
A mistake. He could feel the retreat in her words: “You might never have had to find out. We could have continued having our fun. The mystery of it. You liked that very much, I know. But a normal life? Like regular people? We aren’t regular people. We were playing roles.”
“What roles?”
Her voice took on a harshness that he knew shielded her as much as him. “You were the protector. I was the exotic native girl you liked to fuck.”
“That’s not true.” Wanted no part of what she was doing.
“Isn’t it? None of you really see us, John. Only what you want to see.”
“And what do the Dogghe want? What do they want out of Ambergris?”
Anger in her voice. Desire and need, too. Just not for him. “This was our place, John. Before your people came. Before the gray caps. And maybe it will be again.”
“The rebels will never let that happen, no matter how you help them,” Finch said. “Neither will the gray caps.”
“Maybe they won’t have a choice. Maybe this time we will just take it.”
Saw it now. In the chaos of conflict between gray caps and rebels and the Partials. The Dogghe might hold on to the Religious Quarter. If they were lucky. If others weren’t.
“I won’t answer any more of your questions,” he said. “You already know the answers, I think.”
He sat up. Took her in while he still could. A beautiful but tired-looking woman in her early thirties. Hair messy, face long and pinched from stress.
“Did your father ever recover?” he asked.
“What?” The question, after all the others, seemed to take her by surprise.
“From his trauma. Did he recover?”
She looked down, away from him. “Yes, he did.” Was that a tremor in her voice? “He’s passed on now, but he had as good a life as anyone.”
He reached out, touched her shoulder. Her skin warm. Like he remembered it.
She clasped his hand. Eyes bright as she met his gaze. “Clean yourself up. Find someplace safe to be, Finch. The next time I see you, I might be forcing answers from you. And I really wouldn’t like that.”
He nodded.
A flash of those green eyes. She put his gun down on the table. “I’m leaving it for you, but I’m taking this.” Held up the metal strip Shriek had used. Unmistakable that it, ultimately, was what she’d come for.
“You shouldn’t.” But beyond caring. “It’ll do more harm than good.” To me.
“John, I don’t think you really know the difference.” Then she was walking out the door, down the hallway. Gone for good.
Finch stared after her for a moment. Then hobbled to the window. Looked out.
The towers were complete. They shone with green fire in the light. Between them, impossible scenes flashed so fast he caught only glimpses. A vast blue dome like an observatory. Replaced by a mountain topped by a tower. A city of gleaming buildings taller than any he’d ever seen. A forest of vine-like trees. A roiling sea over which egg-shaped balloons floated, trailing lines of shimmering light. And on it went. Almost beyond comprehension.
At some point soon, the scenes would stop changing. They would settle in on one scene. They would settle in on the gray caps’ home.