Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The underground was like something straight out of a fairy tale—an urban fairy tale.
It really was as if the escalators had taken us into a fantasy world that existed in the artificial light that flooded these tunnels from what had to be hundreds and hundreds of lamps.
Under our feet, the wooden street showed signs of regular use.
It wasn’t a yellow brick road, but to me, it was just as magical.
I was licking my spoon clean, trying not to stare at all the people. Some had wings, some had tails. I saw some tentacles too. Real tentacles.
Possibly the most surprising sights were all the mundane things, like the trash cans and benches.
We walked past one on which two gorgons were sitting side by side, their snake hair intertwined, the black eyes of their snakes sneakily looking at us.
I’d have missed that if I hadn’t seen Kasey do it all the time.
“It’s really clean down here,” I said, scooping out the last bit of roasted hazelnut before tossing the tub.
“I think Valentin fines people for littering. He’s such a stickler.”
My eyes went wide. “Valentin takes care of all of this?”
“Hawthorne does.” Soyer shrugged. “Valentin just manages stuff. And makes his stickler rules.”
A delivery person on a bike passed us by, staring at us with wide eyes and an open mouth. So did a four-armed woman pulling a trolley behind her; the kind you’d take on an airplane as a carry-on.
I leaned closer to Soyer. “Am I imagining it or are people looking at us?”
“You’re not imagining anything. They are. One more question.”
“Huh?”
“Those’re the rules, Amory.” He looked at me, fixing me with his black eyes that had their own gravitational pull. “Unless you can think of things to bargain for more answers.”
I laughed. “You’re shameless.”
“Damn right. Ah. Here we are.”
We’d arrived at a food truck. It smelled as if they were cooking with lots of oil and carbs, so really good. My mouth was watering before we’d even made it to the short line—just one guy with reddish brown wings and a normal-looking guy.
“…is what I’m hearing. You just have to tell him what you want, man,” the normal-looking guy said.
The winged guy groaned, and I saw that he had tiny little horns on his head too. They looked cute. That seemed to be a theme with horns, all of them were surprisingly cute.
“But he said casual. Casual! And then he goes and does that!”
“Well,” the other said, then he turned when we approached and fell silent, his eyes going wide. He was staring at Soyer. “W-we’re so sorry. Please go ahead.”
The winged guy literally ruffled his feathers and turned. He didn’t have normal features, the lines of his jaw more angular than a human’s. If it hadn’t been for the feathers, I’d have thought he was a gargoyle.
“Oh, shi—right. Please go ahead.”
They moved out of the way before I could tell them not to, and Soyer hooked his arm around mine, pulling me forward.
“What do you feel like, Amory? Their bramboráky are quite good.”
The other two were walking off and sitting down at one of the small tables in front of the food truck.
I turned my attention back to Soyer. “Do you know them?”
“No.” He looked up at one of the guys in the truck. They were very big guys, and also…their faces had extras. Three mouths, six eyes. I stared for a moment but shut it down as fast as I could, because one of them was glaring. More at Soyer, but still.
“You’re bad for business,” the glarer said to Soyer.
Soyer met…at least two of the guy’s eyes. “I’m bringing you my business.”
The other clicked his tongue. Tongues. “And we’re happy to have it, of course. The usual?”
Soyer nodded. “For me, yes. Amory?”
“Uh, hi!”
The first multi-faced person snorted, the second smiled at me. With two mouths, possibly with three, but I couldn’t really see the third. I wasn’t really sure where to look.
“Hi there. What’s it going to be for you, sir?”
“Well, what’s good?”
The menu was behind them. I should’ve read that instead of staring like they were some sort of exhibit. The grumpy one was already frying up something, Soyer’s order, I was guessing.
I turned to him. “What’re you getting?”
“Potato pancakes. We’re not sharing.”
I chuckled. “In that case, the same for me,” I told the less grumpy guy, picking two eyes to focus on.
“Sure. Applesauce on top for you too?”
“Applesauce?” I looked at Soyer. “You’re putting applesauce on hash browns?”
One of the guys working the truck cackled, but I wasn’t sure which one. Soyer looked at me like I’d imagine he would at a caveman discovering running water.
“Yes. It’s what goes on top. And they’re not hash browns, they’re bramboráky.”
One of the cooks leaned on the counter. “Sir, if you’d rather try the dill sauce, it works quite well with them too.”
I nodded. “I think I’ll do that, thanks.”
“Dill sauce.” Soyer clicked his tongue.
“What? I like dill. You’re the weird one here.”
There was more cackling from the cooks, then what sounded like one of them kicking the other, and I wondered how many legs they had.
“Hmm. Is that so? Amory, this is not the way to get more answers out of me.”
The grumpy cook flipped the potato cakes, making the oil he was cooking them in sizzle anew. On a whim, I decided to be a lot more bold than I was comfortable with normally. But if anything Elias had said was true, well, then I was well known, maybe even here. And maybe I could use that.
I tried looking sad. “Oh. In that case… Hey, are you willing to answer a question for me?” I asked the nice cook who’d started chopping a bunch of dill.
He stopped and looked at me. It fell into place then. It was like he had one face next to the other, all of them placed around his head. Realizing that made the eye contact easier.
“I guess? Sir, I mean.” I saw his Adam’s apple bob, and the grumpy cook was glancing at Soyer.
I opened my mouth to ask what they were.
I stopped. That would come off as rude, I was pretty sure.
Soyer, who was still holding my arm, stroked the back of my hand.
Phoenix mind reader that he was, he had probably already guessed what I’d wanted to ask them, but he generally didn’t mind being rude, so he wasn’t likely to stop me.
“Right. How’d you get the truck down here?” I asked the cook instead.
He visibly relaxed. “Oh. There’s an elevator. They use it for construction too. Just had to schedule it and tell them the weight and measurements, and then we had a permit to drive here. Slowly.”
“A permit.”
He nodded. “Yup. She’s road-worthy.”
“Obviously,” the grumpy cook added.
The nice cook kept a set of eyes on me without staring, but he went back to his dill, and our hash browns—or potato pancakes—were done before long. The nice cook put a lot of applesauce on Soyer’s; almost more applesauce than potato pancake.
They served the food in biodegradable dishes, which surprised me, given we were, well, in the underground.
“Do you want to sit or keep on walking while we eat?” Soyer asked. We’d moved a few steps away from the truck, and the winged guy and his buddy were getting back in line.
“If you don’t know those two, why did they give up their spot in line as soon as you showed up? Is that a Black Shuck thing?”
Soyer grinned from ear to ear. “Ah. Your final question, and I’ll grant you the extra. Yes, it is a Black Shuck thing, and yes, they let us go first because they are kind, considerate people. Table or walking, Amory?”
“You’re cute when you’re trying to be scary. Table.”
I wasn’t really sure that was true. I’d seen Soyer when he was scary, and it wasn’t cute. But it was worth saying that. His eyes went wide, and he pursed his lips while I grabbed one of the small round tables to the side of the food truck and sat.
“My heart, you’re playing with fire.” He took the other chair and shoveled some of the applesauce with potato pancake into his mouth, crossing his legs.
I frowned and tried some of my own food. The thick dill sauce was good, and the pancakes were crisp, perfectly golden, and thinner than I was used to.
“Wow. These are delicious. When you say I’m playing with fire, are you talking about your libido again?” I said the last bit in a whisper.
Soyer grinned. “Mmm. You know me so well. Would you like to try a bite of mine?”
He held up his fork for me with a big bite covered with applesauce on there. I shook my head.
“I’m good. You can have some of the dill sauce if you want to try something normal.”
“No. That’s sacrilege, but you don’t know any better, so you’re forgiven. You’re in a good mood today. I like it. The things the threat of a vacation can do to a man. I’d have done this sooner if I’d known.” He ate the pancake bite himself.
I poked at my food, my thoughts drifting. The man with the wings was stretching them as he and his buddy placed their orders, their conversation growing more agitated. They walked away side by side, deeper into this world beneath the city.
“It’s just that I had a nostalgic moment earlier when you and Dwayne were talking. I don’t know. It put me in a good mood.”
Soyer raised his left brow. “I’d say you’re too young to be so beholden to nostalgia. Care to share?”
I considered how. Soyer knew more about my daydreams than anyone, but I still wasn’t sure how to explain what being alone at the Moonlight in the middle of the night meant to me.
“You know I always worked the night shift? Well, not always always, but for a long time. And I always closed up. But just before, when things get so quiet…the Moonlight is like a bubble of light, floating on the dark ocean of the city.”
My cheeks heated as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and I felt silly. But Soyer didn’t laugh. He looked at me while thoughtfully spooning more applesauce into his mouth.
“Night is comfort.”
I nodded. “I guess so.”
“Funny how things change. Funny how they don’t. I always liked being able to see the stars. When I looked up at the night sky, I thought I should be able to count them, but I never managed, even if I forwent sleep to do so.”
I leaned on my elbow. Soyer didn’t really talk about his past much, but I got the feeling this was an old memory.
“Were you, like, one of the early astronomers?”
He huffed. “Not by the longest shot. I simply…had cause to be out a lot at night.”
He paused, and my heart squeezed tight. He’d told me the story of how he’d snuck into the witch’s garden and eaten all those cherries one night.
“Sorry. I—”
“Hush. You worry too much about me, my heart.” He uncrossed his legs and folded his hands in front of him, his applesauce pancakes momentarily forgotten.
“I lived in London for a time. Old London. London before there was electricity and public transport. Night then was scary. You can’t really tell a person’s intentions in the darkness, and some people considered the city to be like a forest in which they were the strongest and everyone else their prey. ”
“Did something ever happen to you? Back then?”
He didn’t answer right away, but the pause was subtle. Still, it spoke volumes. “No. I was the Black Shuck at that time already. I wasn’t looking for prey, but the shadows felt quite comfortable.”
“Huh. I went to London once. With my family.”
This time, the pause was noticeable, though I was pretty sure it had nothing at all to do with his memories or the things he didn’t want to tell me. “I see.”
“That was before things were bad. Obviously. Sorry, you know that.”
“Amory, do not apologize for your birth family. Ever. In you they had a precious gem, but they were too blind to see it, so they cast it aside instead.”
That made me blush again, and I smiled at the compliment. I didn’t necessarily miss my family, but thinking of them… I wasn’t sure whether hollowness was the correct word, but it made me feel something like that—an absence the shape of which I wasn’t quite able to make out.
“I do wonder if Florence is okay. Not every day, but generally. I wonder if she’s okay.”
Soyer’s face went very still, and his entire posture stiffened. “I’m sure she is. I could ask Simeon to give you an update if you’d like.”
I stirred my dill sauce. “I wasn’t going to go see her.”
“My heart, if you need to see her, you can. I’d just very much like to go with you.”
That made me chuckle. “You think you can scandalize her again?”
“I know I’d try. I enjoyed being a rude gay.”
Warmth spread through me, and the stale hollowness I had felt just a moment ago vanished. I reached out to take Soyer’s hand. “You’re the best rude gay I know. You’re my absolute favorite rude gay.”
“Awesome. Is my rude gayness charming enough to make you go straight home with me once we’re done eating?”
I rested my chin on my hand. “So soon? I thought we were going to explore a little more?” I looked around. “There has to be more to this place than a food truck, right? Did you see that ad for the cocktail place? Dazzle?”
Soyer groaned, his shoulders sagging. “You’re killing me here, but fine. You do need to get out more. Does it have to be the Dazzle?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what else is there. Or here. I don’t know how deep these tunnels go.”
His eyes twinkled when he looked up at me. “I have something in mind. I think you’ll like it. Go ahead, finish your food so we can go.”
If Soyer was excited, so was I. We both ate our Bohemian potato pancakes in silence, the underground bright and strange all around us. Almost as strange as Soyer dipping the fried goodness in altogether too much applesauce.