Chapter 34 #2
“Nothing, I was just way out in the middle of nowhere a few days ago and now I have to go ten minutes to the left of the middle of nowhere again,” she says. “The message came from a neutral settlement—-not Cedrae.”
“Those exist?”
“Not technically, but practically, yes,” she says. “I don’t know how Kesia sent you the message, since she doesn’t have elixir, but that’s where it came from, so I have to go talk to the proprietor of that undoubtedly fine establishment.”
“If Kesia gets back to you, can I come along?”
“If she gets back to me, I’ll probably need you to.” She takes the mug that Isre is still holding, now empty of coffee, and says, “I have one more favor to ask you.”
“Need more of my blood?” he asks her. “Some spit, maybe?”
“Very funny.” She crosses the street to return the mug, and Isre follows her. At least he’s obedient—-another good thing about soldiers.
They walk around the corner to the lonely alley where Hela’s Finch is parked. She opens the passenger--side door, where the plant is buckled into the seat. She constructed a tent out of brown paper to shield it from the sun.
“Lift up that flap,” she says to Isre, pointing at it. “And touch what’s under it.”
Isre looks at the paper structure, then at Hela. She winces a little. She probably could have made her request sound a little less like a prank.
“I think we’ve reached my limit on weird shit,” Isre says to her.
“It’s a plant,” Hela says. “It’s sensitive to light. And I just need to confirm something.”
Isre sighs. “What’ll happen if I touch it?”
“It’ll give you eternal youth.” Hela rolls her eyes. “I don’t know what’ll happen. Probably nothing.”
Isre considers her for another long moment, then brushes past her and reaches for the brown paper. He lifts the corner of it up, and peers beneath it, at the softly glowing plant with its leaves drawn up into a teardrop.
He reaches out and brushes his finger against one of the leaves. Hela waits, staring at the plant, searching it for any sign of change.
It doesn’t stir.
“Okay, then,” Hela says. “Thanks. Be seeing you.”
“Jodi pulled the pin from her hair and let her curls cascade over her bare shoulders. It was a hot day on the farm, and all the field hands were sitting in the apple grove with their lunches, so she was alone at the creek. Or so she thought—-”
“What the retrograde hell are we listening to?” Parin says as he buckles his seatbelt.
“We have an hour drive ahead of us,” Hela replies. “And I am invested in Jodi’s future success.”
“I can tell you exactly what happens—-one of the farmhands is totally spying on her, she’s furious at his audacity but also sort of turned on, they start a love affair but can’t have a future because he’s but a mere farmhand, they break it off, and then some contrivance makes it possible for them to be together, the end. ” He fiddles with the air vents.
“I bet you ten pieces that’s not what happens,” Hela says. “On account of I bought it in the ‘ladies who love ladies’ section.”
They’re driving over the most boring landscape imaginable. Hela flips a switch so the sun shade rolls down over the windshield, and leans her seat back.
She doesn’t usually spend this much effort on something that’s not an official job, but apart from her own curiosity .
. . Elegy asked her to follow up on this.
And even though she remembers Elegy as a grubby preteen girl with scraped knees and the inability to keep her mouth shut, she still can’t pretend that Elegy isn’t who she is. Daughter of the Sword. Hope of Cedre.
So if Kesia Forint, traitor to Cedre and accomplice to Elegy’s husband’s murder, is connected to this plant and its origins . . . Hela is going to find out what she can.
By the time they make it to the neutral settlement, where the bar—-inelegantly named Bob’s Bar and General Store—-is nestled between two vacant buildings as flat and plain as they come, Parin is too invested in the story to get out of the car.
A farmhand didn’t, in fact, happen upon Jodi bathing in the creek—-that honor went to the mayor’s daughter, who was cruel and cold and widely known to be a snob.
A forbidden love affair followed, and Parin was currently begging Jodi to break it off for good, while Hela was arguing that such passion couldn’t be denied.
“We’ve been sitting here for ten minutes,” she says finally. “We can listen all the way back, come on.”
Parin sighs, and they get out of the Finch.
Bob’s Bar and General Store has dark windows and a glowing sign in the door shaped like a beer bottle.
On either side are the bare buildings common to ruins in this area.
They’re built on top of old buildings, using the crumbled walls as a foundation.
She thinks this place used to be a store, and she can’t imagine a world with so many people in it that all these spaces were necessary.
Even with all the Talusar and Cedrae put together, they couldn’t fill all the ruins she’s seen.
The world was so much bigger before the Empty Time.
Before whatever array of catastrophes destroyed it.
A bell rings as they walk into Bob’s. On the left is a wood--veneer bar top, and a filthy tile floor with a few high tables clustered on it.
On the right is a little store—-a few shelves with cleaning products and wrinkled produce and stacks of towels and, of course, tobacco.
There are a few people at one of the tables gathered around a small obsidian, watching something that looks like an old movie.
And there’s a woman behind the bar, older, a rag hanging over one shoulder.
She raises her eyebrows at Hela, like that’s a greeting.
“Hey there,” Parin says, sidling up to the bar.
“Save it, kid,” the woman says. “Are you here to drink or are you here to cause trouble?”
“Do we look like trouble?” Hela says.
“Yes,” the woman says, like it’s obvious. “The only Cedrae who come out here are either Scouts or soldiers, and you don’t look like soldiers.”
“I feel like that might be a compliment.” Hela thinks she might be half in love with this woman. “We’re not here to give you any grief, we just want to know if someone’s been by here recently.”
“Lots of people have been by here, it’s a bar,” the woman says.
“All right.” Hela sits on the bar stool. “Was one of them a Talusar soldier, a woman, kinda tall, middle--aged, asked for your help sending a message?”
“I think I would remember someone like that.”
“That’s not a no.”
The woman braces herself against the bar top, her fingers tapping the wood. She squints at Hela for a few seconds.
“Listen,” Hela says, lowering her voice. “Her son wants to get in touch with her. That’s all.”
“Her son? Why’s he not here himself ?”
“Because he’s a Knight of Cedre, and he’s got more important shit to do.”
It’s a risk, revealing Theren’s identity to this woman. But if she’s right about the woman’s hesitation, Hela needs to back up her story with some concrete details to show she actually does know Kesia’s son. Not that she actually does, but . . . no one needs to know that.
The woman looks her over for a few seconds, and then nods.
“If you leave a message for her here,” she says, “I’ll be sure that our mutual friend gets it.”