Chapter 14 Room Service
Room Service
The kitchen—wide, airy, and with its granite countertops ruthlessly scrubbed—was their usual pre-patrol meeting point, though Ignatius would probably have preferred his Elder and Younger use the armory.
“Real cute.” Jake shook his head, shrugging into his coat. “Puts cell phone and ID at the top of every list. Stubborn girl.”
“That’ll serve her well when she faces the Flame.
” Ordinarily Erik would be preparing for patrol with their Younger, but instead, Ignatius was going to take point tonight.
It was Father’s first time on patrol in a while; Erik’s job was to be on call for the lirai, who had spent the afternoon making progressively longer lists of things for her protectors to fetch and carry.
Some, like shoes, were reasonable enough.
Others, however… “She wants houseplants? Father didn’t tell her we’re going to travel? ”
“Control wants more daylight before we do, though. You’d think they’d want her locked up in an active temple by now, but…
” Jake tested his knives, spun them, and slid bright blades back into their homes, then popped his jacket collar.
Grunts always complained about higher-ups having no idea what the front lines were enduring; it was a very human reflex.
Probably the only one a Son had left. “I think she’s just being difficult. ”
Taking all the identifiable packing off luxury purchases was going to be a chore, but it was better than slogging through muck and killing shadowbeasts. He didn’t envy Jake that at all. “Well, her entire life’s been turned upside down.”
“Shoulda sealed her first thing,” Jake muttered, as if that would have done any good in this situation. He shook his head, settling his coat afresh over layered clothing plus the weapons rig. “Easier to make her see reason, but no, you had to be all noble. Anyway, Father’s bringing his sword.”
That was news. “Sounds serious.” Of course, a lirai at a frontier, almost forgotten temple—even just a potential—wouldn’t go unnoticed. The non- or semi-sentient would gather; the smarter unclean would be planning.
“It sounds overprepared.” Jake was a big believer in improv.
Ignatius’s feelings on preparation closely mirrored Erik’s own, and Erik further thought improv wasn’t any goddamn use without planning providing a foundation. “Well, we are Boy Scouts. After a fashion.”
“Bite your tongue, bro.” Jake blinked and grinned, an amused echo of the orphan boy he had been so long ago, arriving at Nightshade’s dormitories for initial training. “I haven’t helped a little old lady across the street in decades.”
“Well, you’ve got tonight.” Erik’s hands tingled with the urge to check his own weapons, probably the equivalent of a nervous tic. “Go get started.”
Jake laughed, sketched a small salute, and left.
Erik finished with the tray—a sprig of fresh rosemary in a tiny fluted vase, in case the chicken needed more seasoning—and was surprised into immobility, suddenly wishing he was prepping for patrol instead.
It wasn’t that he underestimated Ignatius, or Jake, but…
he just would have felt better if he was out killing unclean instead of held in the house, waiting for the lirai to get another whim or the shadowbeasts to chance the temple’s passive defenses.
He felt the change as Father and Younger Brother left, akin to a weather front moving through.
Erik’s head cocked; he stared at his reflection in the wide bay window over triple sinks.
Keeping the place updated was fun; he liked construction work.
Maybe after they took their potential to the Flame, they could come back.
Or settle in a temple closer to other lirai-held territory, expanding the clear zones.
Wouldn’t that be nice. Finding even a single potential opened up the world for a Son.
It wasn’t just the prospect of a Dreamer liking you enough to seal up and shut off the Mad God’s constant whisper; an active temple with access to the Flame meant you could catch glimpses of lirai and get a little peace, the need for constant painful second-guessing of your own motives and thoughts ameliorated by proximity to their deep, soft power.
Balancing the tray on one hand while he knocked was like a coordination test in training. He could even make it a game, so steady water in the carafe didn’t ripple. Erik listened intently, hoping she wasn’t going to come at him with part of the bedstead.
They’d barely finished repairing the smaller liraim.
“Come in, I guess.” A reluctant mutter on the other side of the baffle, and from the sound of it, she was near the window. The door swung wide, and there she was, arms crossed, staring at him.
Black sweater, a wide ballerina neckline slipping to show the curve of one pretty shoulder, her hair a wild mass of half-combed tangles, shadows under those twilight eyes, and a pair of combat boots bought just that morning laced up so tightly they probably hurt peeking from under jeans-hems, their precious lirai regarded him mistrustfully.
The table was scattered with paper both flat and wadded, scribbled on and blank, and plain white boxes were piled on her bed.
The lady had certainly kept them hopping.
“Oh.” Her hands dropped to her sides. Did she actually look relieved? “It’s you.”
“Yes ma’am.” He barely knew where to look, or where to set the tray. “Dinner. Lemon rosemary chicken, pilaf, California chenin blanc. Father thought you might like it, but if you don’t I can—”
“I order my own drinks.” But a faint smile touched her soft, chapped lips, and she hurried to clear the table. “Sorry, let me just… okay, there. I didn’t expect room service.”
“You think we’d let you starve?” The instant it was out of his mouth, he regretted the question. There probably wasn’t much she didn’t think them capable of at the moment.
“To make me amenable? Maybe.” She eyed him sidelong, a flicker of those big dark eyes. “I wouldn’t put it past him. The old guy.”
So her irritation was settling on Ignatius.
He was going to lose that particular bet; Erik had been sure she’d hate his own clumsy guts.
“Father’s just…” He checked the heat-bubble over the plate, keeping the dish at optimum temperature.
Everything rather artistically arranged, if he did say so himself.
“Well, he’s set in his ways, and he has to argue with Control all the time to get us equipment.
” Not that she needed to know about budget battles, or that she’d fallen into the hands of frontline grunts unable to provide even a fraction of a lirai’s due.
“He doesn’t want to lose you. You’re important. ”
“If you say so.” Her chin jutted slightly; she laid paper and pens on the crowded bed, carefully not turning her back to him. “Where’s yours?”
Sleet swept the window, a soft restless stroking. It was a miserable night outside even with a Son’s ability to turn aside freezing, falling water. Durability and weather tolerance was often an additional curse. “What?”
She didn’t roll those expressive dark eyes, but it was probably close. “Where’s your dinner?”
“I… um.” Erik went over the tray again. Plate, bread plate, bread basket, cutlery, water tumbler, water carafe, wineglass, wine bottle sweating tiny clear drops—everything present and accounted for. Then the full meaning struck home. “Oh. I don’t need one.”
“I’ll feel rude, eating in front of you.”
That was a surprise. He would have thought she was past being polite. “I suppose I could get another wineglass? Or just use the tumbler, or—there’s your bedside glass, I can bring you a fresh one after—”
“You don’t eat?” Her distress was almost visible, pinging around the room in high-pitched waves, a sonar of despair. “Or you just don’t eat with me?”
Now wasn’t the time to tell her exactly what a Son of Ymre subsisted on.
Food was fine if you couldn’t get the usual stuff, though.
“It didn’t occur to me that you’d want company.
” Erik fought the urge to stand at attention.
It didn’t seem like she’d find that at all comforting, either. “Especially mine.”
“That’s fair.” She glanced at the plate, a shy doe eyeing a meadow. “You don’t have to, I guess.”
“A lirai’s invitation is an honor.” It wasn’t quite an Ignatius impression, but it was close, and Erik had the satisfaction of seeing another of those tiny, fleeting smiles. “Come on, tuck in. You’ve got to stay strong.”
“If you want to brainwash me, there needs to be less protein.” Another faint vertical line had begun between her winged eyebrows, and she didn’t take the chair he pulled out for her.
Instead, she settled in the one Erik had used a few hours ago, and regarded him with some trepidation. “You know that, right?”
Was that what she was afraid of? “I’ll let Father know.
” Erik bent—slow, no sharp angles or twitches, just as if he were stalking a motion-sensitive beast like an iraich or a siphoner—and took the plate, arranging it in front of her.
He was trying not to loom, but he had to lean close to get the wineglass settled, the way he’d seen waiters in better restaurants perform the trick.
“In the meantime, you should really eat something.”
“Father?” She sat bolt upright, almost quivering, and though the glow of potential through her was soothing, it had an edge of rasping almost-fear. “Is he your dad?”
God, no. Erik all but shuddered. The few faint impressions remaining of his earthly chromosome donor weren’t as bad as training or the night battles, but they still sent a shiver down his spine.
He’d been outright glad to go to the orphanage; he’d never asked, but Jacob probably felt the same. “More like a sponsor, I guess.”
“Have you ever met any others like you? Or like me? Lirai?” She handled the word tolerably well.
“Yeah, back in Europe.” He sank into the chair across from her, painfully slow.
“There’s lots of us, though. We’re just soldiers.
Potentials—you know, people with the ability to become lirai—are much more rare.
” All the statistics he’d heard were in the neighborhood of one in around fifty thousand civilians, and plenty didn’t survive adolescence.
The only thing the shadowbeasts liked better than snacking on defenseless potentials was getting close to full-blown Dreamers.
But the latter had the Sons, not to mention the Flame’s, protection.
She didn’t need to know what kinds of odds she’d bucked at the moment, though, so he searched for something else to say.
“We’re frontliners, didn’t get sent stateside until training was finished.
We took this satellite territory to keep the fringes clear.
Closest active temple is… oh, probably Stanfeld. ” Ignatius would know.
True to form, she seized on that little piece of intel. “And where are we right now?”
You’re pumping me for information, beautiful. That’s okay. He couldn’t blame her, and it made no difference anyway. “A little north of Longpoint.”
“Good neighborhood.” She touched her plate with a fingertip. Fragrant steam lifted as the heat-bubble folded aside, sensing the end of its usefulness. “I’m sure the schools are nice.”
Easy access to prime hunting grounds. Ignatius was always talking about how they should have some backup, any backup, occasionally even muttering about how Control expected miracles without parting with any funding to provide them.
“I wouldn’t know.” Erik sat just as straight and tense as their potential, waiting for her to change her mind.
“So, Erik.” She poured with a facility that showed a bit of food service in her past but gave him the wineglass and the wine, confining herself to water. “Do you have a last name?”
“No ma’am.” Not any I’m willing to claim. He’d even have to think and count on his fingers a bit to figure out exactly how old he was; he was fairly sure any kin he had was plowed under by war or poverty by now.
“Family?” she persisted.
He could answer that easily enough, chapter and verse. “The Sons are my family, ma’am.”
“It’s not ma’am.” A mild flare of irritation, but at least she was regarding the plate as if it contained something remotely edible instead of offal. Progress was being made. “It’s Liv.”
“Not Livvie?” Button your mouth, Erik.
“You can try Ms. Stellack.” She picked up her heavy silver fork, and her shy glance was more mischievous than he might have thought her capable of. “But not Miss like the old guy says. Where did you find that fossil?”
He found me. Erik could still remember standing at the end of his dorm bed, his hair freshly cropped and the mark burning on his wrist, while Ignatius paused, eyeing him.
Lirai had first pick of new Sons, of course, but Fathers going out to the front lines came right after, and it was good to be found acceptable for once.
“Somewhere in a sediment bed, I guess. How’s the rice? ”
“All right.” Did she look, of all things, hopeful? “You want some?”
“Not very hungry.” He took a slice of the bread, telling himself it was just to remind her he was mostly human and not as big a threat as the unclean.
It wasn’t bad, for mass-produced baked goods masquerading as restaurant quality.
In an active temple instead of a fringe one, there would be a chef or three in kitchens kept humming at every hour to provide anything a lirai might take it into their head to consume. “Thank you.”
That seemed to soothe a little of her anxiety, and Erik might have congratulated himself on finally handling her the right way if several tiny nails hadn’t scraped featherlight over his skin, tightening the sleeve that kept muscle, bone, and blood neatly packed.
A man was just a sausage, when all was said and done.
“Excuse me,” he said, politely enough, and left her with her fork in midair, closing the liraim’s door as softly as possible.
* * *
It was a leng-spider, a crafty hunter. Still, it obviously didn’t expect a Son to fall upon its unprotected back as it worked at breaking the eastern curtain of defenses.
The thing was easily dispatched, and with the wet and cold sluiced away by sorcery, Erik returned to find the barely touched tray still on the table, food rapidly cooling since the heat-shell had been broken.
The lirai had hidden in the bathroom the entire time, her pulse entirely too high, thudding in his own ears.
He wanted to knock on the door and ask if she was all right, but what purpose would that serve? So he just took the tray and retreated, trying not to hear that frantic heart-pounding and wishing he knew what to say—if anything—to make her a little less afraid.