“And you expect people to believe that?”
“If they believe I sank Endura, they’ll believe anything.”
Possuelo huffed. Rowan wasn’t sure if it was out of frustration, or if he was squelching a laugh.
“Our story,” Possuelo said, “is that Scythe Anastasia was found in the vault alone. As far as anyone knows, Scythe Lucifer disappeared after the sinking of Endura, and either died there or is still at large.”
“Well,” said Rowan, “if I’m still at large, you should let me go. Then I really would be at large, and you won’t be lying about it.”
“Or maybe we should put you back in the vault and return you to the bottom of the sea.”
To that, Rowan shrugged and said, “Works for me.”
Three years. In the grand scheme of things, three years was barely a microsecond. Even by the standard measures of post-mortal experience, it wasn’t very long, for the post-mortal world remained the same year after year.
Except when it didn’t.
More had changed in these three years than in the past hundred. It was a time of unprecedented turmoil. So as far as Anastasia was concerned, it might as well have been a century.
They told her nothing else, though. Not Possuelo, nor the nurses who attended her.
“You have all the time in the world now, Your Honor,” the nurses would say when she tried to press them for information. “Rest now. Trouble yourself later.”
Trouble herself. Was the world so troubled now that a small dose of it might render her deadish again?
All she knew for sure was that it was the Year of the Cobra. Which meant nothing without context to judge it – but Possuelo clearly regretted telling her what he already had, feeling that it slowed her recovery.
“Your revivals were not easy ones,” he told her. “It took five full days until your hearts could even be started. I don’t want to expose you to undue stress until you’re ready.”
“And when will that be?”
He thought about it and said, “When you’re strong enough to knock me off balance.”
So she tried. There on her bed, she thrust the heel of her hand forward and into his shoulder. But it didn’t yield. In fact, it felt like stone – and her hand bruised as if her flesh was nothing more than tissue paper.
It burned her that he was right. She wasn’t ready for much of anything yet.
And then there was Rowan. She had died in his arms but at some point had been ripped from them.
“When can I see him?” she asked Possuelo.
“You can’t,” he told her flatly. “Not today, not ever. Whatever path his life will now take, it will be in the opposite direction from yours.”
“That,” said Anastasia, “is nothing new.”
But the fact that Possuelo saw fit to revive him, rather than allowing him to remain dead, said something – although she wasn’t sure what it said. Perhaps they simply wanted him to face his crimes – both the real ones and the imagined.
Possuelo would come three times a day to play truco with her, an Amazonian card game that dated back to mortal times. She lost every time – and not just because he was more skilled at it. Anastasia still had trouble holding things in her mind. Simple strategies were beyond her. She was no longer as sharp as she had been; now her mind was as dull as a ceremonial blade. She found it incredibly frustrating, but Possuelo was encouraged.
“You get better each time we play,” he told her. “Your neural pathways are being repaired. In time I’m sure you’ll provide me with some competition.” Which just made her throw her cards at him.
So the card game was a test. A measure of her mental acuity. Somehow, she wished it was just a game.
The next time she lost, she stood up and pushed him, but once more, he didn’t lose his balance.
Honorable Scythe Sydney Possuelo had gone to Endura’s final resting place for the diamonds but left with something far more valuable.
It had been quite the subterfuge keeping their unexpected find a secret – because within moments of finding the two bodies, the Spence was forcibly boarded by a horde of infuriated scythes.
“How dare you open the vault without us present? How dare you!”
“Calm yourselves,” Possuelo told them. “We haven’t touched the diamonds, and we weren’t planning to until morning. But not only is there no trust between scythes, they have no patience for one another, either.”
And when the other scythes saw on the deck two figures that had been hastily covered with sheets, they were naturally curious.
“What happened here?” one of them asked.
Possuelo was not a good liar – and he was sure that any lie would be spelled out across his face, drawing suspicion – so he said nothing. It was Jeri who saved the day.
“Two of my crew,” the captain said. “They got caught in the cables and were crushed.” Then Jeri turned to Possuelo and pointed. “And you had better be true to your word – the Amazonian scythedom will compensate them for their troubles when they are revived.”
The scythe from EuroScandia – Possuelo couldn’t remember her name – was livid. “Speaking to a scythe with such disrespect is a gleaning offense!” she said, drawing a blade, but Possuelo stood between them.
“You would glean the captain who delivered the diamonds to us?” said Possuelo. “This is not something I will do, nor will I allow you to do, either!”
“But her insolence!” shouted the EuroScandian.
“His insolence, at the moment,” said Possuelo, further flustering the angry scythe. “Captain Soberanis, keep your disrespectful tongue silent, and have your deadish crewmen brought below and prepared for transport.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Jeri said, and casually brought a flashlight beam across the open door of the vault.
The other scythes were so dazzled by the diamonds they saw twinkling in the darkness that they didn’t give a second thought to the bodies being carried away. Even when one hand flopped out from under a sheet, revealing it bore a scythe’s ring.
In the end, the diamonds were divided, the founders’ robes packed for museum shipment, and the bodies of the illustrious Scythe Anastasia and the notorious Scythe Lucifer went with Possuelo to Amazonia.
“I would very much like to meet her once she’s revived,” Jeri told Possuelo.
“As will everyone else in the world,” Possuelo pointed out.
“Well,” said Jeri with a grin that could charm a turtle from its shell, “good thing I’m a friend of a friend.”
And now Possuelo found himself sitting across from Anastasia, playing cards as if it were nothing at all. Could she read in his face how momentous this all was, he wondered, and how terrible the tightrope they’d have to walk?
Anastasia could read some of it. What was easier to read was Possuelo’s truco hand. He had a number of tells. Body language, tone of voice, the way his eyes moved across the cards. And although truco had a high element of chance, if one could exploit an opponent’s weaknesses, the odds could be turned.
It was hard, though, when he said things that seemed intentionally designed to distract her. Such as teasing her with maddening tidbits of information.