Chapter Fifteen
“ANY PREACHER CAUGHT DEFYING THE SACRED LAW OF THE HERALDS BY STRAYING FROM ITS ORIGINAL MESSAGE AND PURPOSE WILL BE STRIPPED OF THEIR MEDALLION AND SUBJECT TO FULL PROSECUTION UNDER THE LAW. FOR THE LAW IS THE VOICE OF THE HERALDS HERE BELOW.”
Mama sings.
I stand with her in the chapel in Covenant.
She sings Trinity’s song and it rises to greet her, growing louder and louder until it vibrates painfully in my ears and shakes the ground beneath us.
The orb of the Gate of Heaven teeters and rolls to the ground, splintering apart.
The statues of the Twelve Heralds tremble, cracks spiderwebbing across their surfaces, and then suddenly they crumble and flake away into piles of rust. The base of their dais splits wide, blue-white light pouring from it.
I bend low over the light, peering down inside—
I come to with a gasp in a blazing bright room, the cold light of a dozen naphtha lamps searing the backs of my eyes.
I squint as my pupils adjust and I can slowly take stock of my surroundings.
Small, with walls lined with neatly labeled shelves and no windows, but an open doorway off to the side.
I’m in the middle of the room, stripped down to my undershirt and pants, lying on what looks like a modified apothecary chair.
Beside it is a table lined with medical and surgical instruments.
There’s a needle and a flexible tube jammed into my arm, and on the other end of it is a pouch of clear liquid hanging on a hook—and an unfamiliar person with a round, tan face, dark, angular eyes, and slightly faded tattoos across their neck and forearms. The sides of their head are shaved, and the rest of their long black hair is wrapped up in an intricate pile of braids at the back of their head.
“You’re awake.” They quirk a smile at me as they reach for a pile of clean towels and a bottle of ointment on a nearby table. Then they look over their shoulder and holler, “Booker! Your friend is up!”
I struggle a little, trying to sit upright, but the person puts a hand on my shoulder to restrain me as Orion ducks through the doorway.
“Hey,” Orion says softly, coming up next to the chair, “how are you feeling?”
I lie back on the chair again, though the tension doesn’t leave my shoulders.
My eyes flick around the room warily as the strange person ducks out of sight, making a ruckus somewhere else in the room.
“Less likely to face-plant on the street. Which is an improvement. Where the hell are we? How long have I been out?”
“Only a few hours. It’s midafternoon.”
“A few hours?” I jerk upright only for Orion to grab my shoulders and pin me back down. “Your best buddy Clint said we had two days at most, and here I am just wasting hours of that on—”
The stranger pops back into view with an armful of medical supplies. “Necessary medical attention to keep you alive? Yes, how wasteful.” They dump everything on one of the shelves and then head for the door, giving me a little wave as they go. “I’m Liren, by the way.”
Orion leans one hip against the side of my chair. “Liren is Atlas’s spouse.”
I frown at the empty doorway Liren disappeared through. “Atlas got married? I didn’t know.”
“There was no way for you to know,” he says with a shrug. “Atlas is a rogue preacher, wanted by the law almost as much as the Skywayman is. Their marriage isn’t even a matter of public record.”
Rogue preacher. That part is new to me, too. Last time I saw Atlas, he was twenty, newly ordained to deliver the doctrines being handed down by the Heraldic Ministry. Apparently, he’d tipped over into public rebellion and excommunication since I pushed Orion away.
I drop my head back against the chair with a clunk. My limbs still feel shaky and hollow. “I don’t understand what happened out there. I shouldn’t have collapsed like that.”
“No?” Liren swings back into view, tapping their chin thoughtfully. “Because by my count you were exhausted, dehydrated, bruised in several places, and—this one’s my favorite—stabbed. Twice.”
I shoot a glare at them as Orion laughs. “I got that fixed. I took hair of the dog.”
They snort, folding their arms over their chest. “Oh well, then, who needs real medicine when you got black market pseudo-magic, right? Hair of the dog is an imperfect solution to major injuries, even when it’s done well.
” Pressing cloth to the needle in my arm, Liren pulls the tube out in one smooth, quick motion.
“And I’m betting that you played a little fast and loose with the dosages here, based on how your wounds reopened and you dramatically collapsed in public.
That shit can be very hard on the body, and it’s not—hold your arm up like this—permanent for everyone.
It depends on your metabolism, your health, even your activities. ”
Orion shoots me a sympathetic look. “Train heists and storming towers are probably not on the approved activity list.”
My left arm up by my ear, I wiggle my fingers, seeing how they respond. “So am I better now? Can we go?”
Liren arches an eyebrow. “To be honest? You need sleep. You need real food. You need to be off your feet and out of trouble for at least a week.”
Orion puts out a hand before I can respond—which is probably a good thing because I was about to say something salty. “What if that’s not on the agenda for us?”
“What is on your agenda, then?” Their eyes are steady on Orion’s face. “Kicking up a ruckus after escaping a prison train seems like an ill-advised move.”
Orion grins, shrugging. “Those are my best moves.”
Liren grunts, amused, and stomps over to the cabinets on the far side of the room, disappearing in a racket of clattering.
“Fine, can you guarantee me a few hours of rest at least? Just a few hours.” They come back with a little stoppered jar and a handful of bandages that they push into Orion’s arms. “This jar has an ointment that should help with pain and inflammation around the wound. Keep it clean. Regular dressing changes. Got it?”
As Orion nods, Liren squeezes his arm. “You can take them upstairs, Baby Booker. We got a free room or two where you can both rest for a minute.”
I try to get up all on my own, but I’m so exhausted still, my muscles about as useful as mush.
Orion ends up pulling my arm around his shoulder and taking my weight, half carrying me down a short, dark, narrow hallway and through a swinging door.
It opens into a big, warmly lit space filled with round tables and chairs, the walls lined with naphtha lamps surrounded by amber glass to cut down on the usual blue-white glare.
On the far side, big windows face the street, busy and blazing in the midafternoon sunshine.
The nearest wall is dominated by a long bar of welded steel-gray metal, backed by shelves of moonshine and budge, ale and hooch and benzene.
“A dram shop?” I stop and look up at Orion with raised eyebrows. “You took me to a dram shop?”
“No, I took you to Liren. Liren just happens to work out of a dram shop when they’re not using their medical education to help out devilishly attractive outlaws like you and me.”
Atlas comes down the stairs, dressed in new clothes, no hat to overshadow his face or cover his short mohawked locs. He eyes me leaning against his brother and gives me a small, tight smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re looking a lot livelier.”
“It helps that your partner stopped me from actively dying.” I wave vaguely at my face. “Brings the color back into a person’s cheeks.”
That softens his expression a little—not my deadpan sense of humor so much as the mention of Liren. “They’re good at that.”
Orion walks me to the bottom of the staircase. “I was just taking Val upstairs to rest.”
“I’ll help them.” Atlas steps down level with us and takes my free arm. Orion opens his mouth to protest, but his brother cuts him off with a shake of his head. “You are tired and worn out, and you badly need a steam shower. Go take care of yourself for a few minutes. We’ll survive.”
Orion wavers, looking between me and Atlas, and I finally spot the shadows beneath his eyes. And then mentally kick myself for only noticing it now and not when I first woke up. He’s tired—really tired—but he’s still hesitating.
I pull myself out of his grasp, transferring my weight to Atlas. “I’m good. You go.”
Another moment, and then Orion finally nods and heads off for the steam showers.
Atlas wraps an arm securely around my shoulders. “Shall we?”
At the top of the stairs, the hallway branches off in either direction, punctuated by doors with little oxidized green numbers hung on them.
A lot of dram shops double as inns or magdalena houses or occasionally all three, depending on the place.
Atlas ushers me to the right and past several closed doors, finally shouldering open the very last one.
Inside is a shabby room that only has a saggy bed with a cheerful old quilt, an end table, and an adjoining washroom.
He guides me to the bed, and I sink gratefully onto it, trying to hold myself together as exhaustion tugs me down. There’s a dull pinch growing in my muscles, and the walls and the floor and the ceiling swim out of focus.
And then, all at once, the room is gone and I’m somewhere else.
Someplace drenched in green, in plants that look nothing like the ones that line the central greenhouses.
Plants that tower and twist and bloom with bright colors.
Water beads across my skin. I’m surrounded by faces I don’t know but somehow love, and the air is filled with voices calling, calling out, calling my name—
An elbow nudges me in the ribs, not entirely gentle. “You still with us, Bruinn?”
I blink and look around, but it’s just me and Atlas again, no one else. I straighten a little, gripping the edge of the mattress. “Sorry. Must still be a little out of it.”
Atlas hums, skeptical, and then sits down next to me, his hands loosely folded in his lap. “I’m going to be honest, Val. I kind of hoped my brother and I would never see you again.”
I go still, my eyes fixed on the worn, tarnished floor.
The words hit like a blow, knocking the wind out of me.
I was never as close with Atlas when I was a kid, but I’d still known him, grown up alongside him.
He’d always been soft-spoken and kind and never given me any idea that he might not like me.
Then again, that was all before Orion and I shattered apart.
“That sounded harsh.” Atlas heaves a long sigh. “But I’ve always appreciated knowing where I stand with folks, for better or worse, and I respect you enough to grant you the same in return.”
I clear my throat, feeling like I should say something in my own defense. “I wasn’t—I didn’t plan on it. Not until…”
I can’t finish the sentence, but that’s okay because he does it for me. “Your sisters,” he says, nodding solemnly. “Orion mentioned as much while Liren was patching you up.” He puts a hand gently on my shoulder. “I am sorry about that.”
Everything about his calm, sympathetic tone rankles, and I shrug him off with a snarl. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like they’re already heading for the Depths.” I twist my head to glare at him. “I’m going to get them back. Alive.”
He meets my glare without flinching. Just cool, solid energy. Nothing to burn against. “I have no doubt you will. I just wish you’d left my brother out of it. You hurt him plenty the first time around.”
That shuts me up again, and I look away. I’ve pretty deliberately never thought about how much I might’ve hurt Orion.
“You know, I figured out you were the Butcher years ago.” My eyes snap over to his face, and he smiles a little.
“Don’t look so surprised. Just because you and Orion were off in your own little world, oblivious, doesn’t mean I wasn’t watching.
I saw how you changed, when you changed, and I put the pieces together.
” He shakes his head, staring off into some middle distance, remembering.
“It seemed impossible at first. Valene Bruinn as the Butcher of Covenant. You were, what, fourteen years old? It was scary as shit to watch you turn into that, do you know that?”
I don’t. But I know what it felt like to become it. How quickly and easily I slid down the slope after my first job. How little effort it took to pull on the mask and put blood on my blades. To throw out every good thing my parents ever taught me until the only moral code I had left was paper.
But I can’t admit that out loud. The words taste too bitter on my tongue. So I roll my eyes and push up off the bed, using the momentum to make it over to the window and sink against the sill. “I did what I needed to do to keep me and my sisters safe.”
“I understand that. I’m the same way, believe it or not.
” Atlas gets to his feet, tucking his hands into his pockets as he turns to face me head-on.
Everything about his stance is loose, relaxed, but his face is as dead serious as I’ve ever seen it.
“So I need you to hear me right now, Valene Bruinn. The Butcher. Whoever you are. I am not a violent man. I’ve never shot a gun at anyone my entire life.
But the moment you hurt my brother—or your mess gets him hurt—is the moment I break that streak, you understand? ”
A flood of emotions sears through my body—anger, guilt, self-loathing—so bright and hot it almost blinds me from the inside out.
My skin crawls with it, and I want to peel it off my body.
But I can’t do that. So instead I swallow it all down, tighten my jaw against all the retorts and comebacks, and jerk my head in a quick nod.
Atlas eyes me, weighing my response, and then shifts backward on his heels, turning for the door. “Get some rest, Val,” he calls over his shoulder. “It sounds like you’ll need it.”
A moment later, he’s gone, and I’m alone in the room, pressed against the smudged panes of the window, staring out into the bright sun.