Chapter Twenty-Six Patrick #2
There was more he could say, more wounds to carve, but that would do nothing for him. So he stood straight again, counted the passing seconds while Polly composed herself.
“You’ll help us,” he said. “And save your fuckin’ apologies for someone who believes ’em.”
She sighed, caught tears on the cuff of her sleeve. “And once I do help you,” she said, resigned, “you’ll throw me into the canals.” She’d spent enough time in Kenton Hill to know what befell traitors. And none had betrayed Patrick quite like her.
“As I said,” he lied, “whether you live or die will be up to you.”
Polly’s jaw twitched. She knew, just as Patrick did, that he couldn’t let her live after this.
“Any moment, the police will come,” Tamir murmured, fretful. “Any moment!”
“If you don’t start sayin’ somethin’ useful in your next breath, it’ll be your last,” said John to Polly, lifting a knife he’d procured from Tamir’s kitchen drawer.
He buried the tip into the woodgrain, balanced it with the pad of his finger.
“Rats are meant for canals, ain’t they? Just like you said.
Translate the fuckin’ book, or I’ll take you swimmin’ myself. ”
To her credit, Polly didn’t beg for release. It seemed to Patrick as though she was fighting herself, weighing outcomes. He understood then that she was a creature bent on survival above all else. Above the Artisans. Above the Craftsmen.
Such a person was, at the very least, predictable. They always chose the path of least resistance.
She folded now, not bothering to look at the book again. “I can read it,” she said. “But there’s something I want in return.”
And John stood, pulled the knife from the timber. In a blur of movement he was behind Polly, his forearm banded around her neck, the knife at her throat.
“If you kill me, there’s not a single other who can translate it!” Polly said, the warning slipping quickly from her lips, her voice pitching. “And there is nothing to stop me from sending a scribble right this second to the head of Morland police, or directly to the House.”
“You got a death wish, miss?” John said, his arm tightening.
“Then kill me,” Polly whispered. It didn’t sound brave. It sounded like defeat. “Lord knows there’s nothing left for me in the Trench.”
Realization struck Patrick then. “You want a way off the continent.”
She looked at him. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“There’s nowhere else I can go,” she said miserably.
“I’ve been turned out by the House, by my own family.
I’ve betrayed the Union. Betrayed every friend I have.
” Her eyes met Nina’s briefly. “I want something more than gambling dens in the brink. The ship in Hoaklin,” she said.
“I’ll trade the translation for passage on that ship. ”
Patrick didn’t intend to give her a damned thing. “Translate the book, and I’ll get you on that ship,” he told her. “It’s due to anchor by the end of the month. I’ll give you the location and instructions. We’ll part ways tomorrow, and I’ll rest easy knowin’ I’ll never see your face again.”
Polly swallowed, eyes pricking with tears. “I want you to take me there yourself. Ensure they allow me aboard. It will give me time to translate the entire text,” she said.
“We’re on the clock actually,” John said. “You’ll read it tonight. Skim for the important bits.”
“Verian Script is more complex than you can imagine!” Polly insisted. “Each symbol encases multiple meanings. Sometimes entire phrases. It takes time to pull them apart properly.”
“What do you mean ‘pull them apart’?” Nina asked. “Explain.”
Polly shook, the knife edge still balanced at her throat.
“Leave her be, Dad,” Patrick said to John.
Polly exhaled in a gust as John’s blade disappeared back into his shirtsleeve. Her forehead was coated in perspiration. “Was there a cypher text with the book? A sort of… glossary?” This question, she directed to Theo.
Theo frowned. “No, none that I know of.”
Polly frowned. “My grandfather had a book of glyph cyphers. I—I can try and translate it from memory, but it’s been years. I haven’t practiced.”
Patrick rubbed frustration from his eyes. “Dig deep, then, Pol, or that steamer is sailin’ off without you.”
She sighed, chin wobbling slightly. “I’ll need paper,” she said.
Tamir procured some parchment from his Scribbler’s cranny, and Polly opened the book to its first porous page. The first symbol was strange. A snakelike curve cross-sectioned in several places, encased in a house, or a pyramid maybe. The lines tessellated.
Polly traced the pattern with one finger as though memorizing the shapes, and as she did so, ink appeared on Tamir’s blank page. A perfect imitation.
Polly paused and looked up at us. “Each symbol has layers, do you see? If one can find the layers, they can decipher the code.”
“We ain’t in class,” John said. “Get on with it.”
Polly swallowed. Then she considered that symbol on the page, the strange lines that both connected and diverged.
At first, nothing happened, and Patrick began to wonder if it were all a ploy. Perhaps Polly was only delaying them, betting on the police arriving sooner rather than later.
But suddenly, the ink on the page warped. Disentangled.
Slowly, ink melted and reappeared. Certain lines evaporating, as though Polly were merely testing it, like moving a game piece around a board to check its merit.
No one spoke, except Polly, whose lips moved while she worked, whispering to herself. Her forehead creased in concentration.
But soon, the ink seemed to separate in a permanent manner. Polly’s eyes widened with fervor.
The single symbol became three. One oblong, one serpentine, one cutting.
“Joan,” Polly read, her finger beneath the first symbol. “Dione,” she said for the second. “Idia.”
Patrick’s hand went to his jaw, grazing the stubble there. He’d not heard the names in many years. “The three daughters,” he said quietly.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one rattled by the names. John had paced away, his hand dragging through his overgrown hair. Nina stared at the book, lost in her own thoughts, though her face had softened. The wrath in her diverted for now.
“What does it mean?” Nina asked no one in particular. “What do the three daughters have to do with Idia’s Seam?”
Polly balked. “Idia’s Seam?” She turned then to Patrick, to Theo and John. “That’s what you’re searching for?”
“Lest I didn’t make it clear enough, Miss, you ain’t in a position to ask questions,” John muttered, but his eyes were on Patrick, his tongue running over his bottom lip.
Nina’s eyes were distant. “The three daughters. But it’s only a Crafter’s myth.”
“So is Idia’s Seam,” Patrick countered.
Theo scoffed. “They’re not the same. The three daughters was a story concocted by heretics. God had only one daughter, and she sacrificed herself in the Battle of Belavere. There are no records, no evidence at all that another two fought alongside Idia.”
“Learn that in school, did you?” Patrick asked. He imagined Theo dressed like a swank schoolboy, still wet behind the ears, some soft-faced nursery maid tightening his belt and wiping his nose each morning.
What a smug little bastard he must have been.
Theo’s mouth tightened. “I did.”
“Pardon me,” said Tamir, inserting his head into the circle. “But who are these ‘three daughters’?”
Of course, it was Theo who answered first. “A group of apostates—the self-proclaimed Stewards—once claimed that there were three daughters of God, and that they lived as simple farmers. Some of the less… educated folk still propagate it as fact—”
“Crafters,” Patrick uttered darkly. “Have the bullocks to say what you mean, Teddy.”
Theo bristled.
“And these Stewards.” Tamir pressed, steering them away from a fight. “What do they say about the other two daughters?”
“That their blood was just as magical. Just as powerful,” Nina said. “That they could grant wishes.”