Chapter 13 Water Between Worlds #3
“Gain more?” Jackson growled. “How can you say that?”
Now, she could see Paris, pinned against the wall in a long purple gown, a sword drawn at her throat. Her delicate hands were up, Jackson keeping his distance despite having the upper hand.
“Do you know why it was so easy for you to sneak in?” she said, “because people don’t kill here.
They don’t steal here. We don’t have poverty.
Lambspeak isn’t sucking the life out of people, he’s not eating their memories and emotions for the sheer pleasure of it.
He doesn’t want to create a new or better world like Peter claimed to. Humanity is fine as it is to him.”
“You think a Strike capable of everything he’s capable of is content to just let people exist?
Strike have Madness in their blood, Paris.
Madness. You saw what it drove them to do in the war.
They can’t help themselves.” Jackson cursed, “You helped the ROSE once, didn’t you? Or have you forgotten that too?”
“I’ll never forget who I was, but more than that, I know who I am now,” she said.
“You say all of this about being afraid for our future, that it’s not the future you want, and yet here you are, betraying every single word with how you’re acting right now.
You didn’t come here to kill me. If you hated the world so much you would have already killed yourself. ”
“That’s not possible and you know it,” Jackson barked back.
“Not possible? Why?” Paris asked, chin lifting.
“Because he keeps getting in the way.”
Paris caught Ella’s gaze as she eased into the room. Paris’s eyes remained focused on her, eventually drawing Jackson’s attention. He backed away from Paris at the sight of her.
“You stayed,” he said as if her presence did more than visibly disarm him. He said the word like he was accusing her, but with the vaguest sense of relief, like she was the one familiar thing in a strange land.
Paris noted something in his reaction, the subtlety in her smile carrying a message as she lowered her hands.
Jackson rubbed his face, putting the sword away as he walked past her, leaving Paris and Ella in the room together.
Ella followed him out. “Jackson,” she said, confused. “What’s going on?”
Jackson turned toward her in the hallway as she reached for his arm. He locked eyes with hers, “Why didn’t you go back?”
“I couldn’t.”
“It’s all going to happen again,” he whispered, searching her face. “You can’t trust this place. You can’t trust me. You can’t trust anyone.”
Ella watched him fade into darkness, Paris walking up behind her. “He’ll be back. I hardly think he can help himself, as stubborn as he seems. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
Ella looked over at Paris. She seemed as unphased and collected as always. As if noticing the concern in Ella’s face, Paris smiled.
“I’m fine,” she said, “Unfortunately, reliving his memories like he did will make adjusting to peace that much harder. The war is too fresh for him and peace is going to be challenging for him to deal with.”
“You know about Lambspeak too?” Ella said, testing Paris’s reaction, who seemed completely unbothered that she had brought it up.
“Lambspeak was the only Strike not in league with Peter. Independent, and at times a bit unpredictable, but with no real desire to dominate people. On rare but important occasions, he helped the ROSE, though only the higher ups in our order knew about it. He’s largely harmless.
These days, he only really cares about his own survival. ”
“These days?” Ella asked, feeling a subtle twinge of the kind of alarm she’d seen Jackson express.
“Yes. I’m expecting him here in a few months,” Paris replied, “Jackson will warm up to the idea. You’ll see it’s not quite as terrifying as he makes it sound.
He’s always been a bit alarmist when it comes to Lambspeak, but you must know better than anyone Ella, that Strike are capable of more than cruelty, just like we are.
They form strong attachments to humans. It can be poisonous, but I think, perhaps, there is room for it to be healthy as well.
I believe they reflect what we feed them. ”
Ella knew she could spend the rest of the night thinking about that statement alone, but another detail irked her in Paris’s presence as she inspected the empty hallways. “You dismissed your guards. You knew he was coming.”
“I’ve known Jackson for a long time,” she replied, still seemingly unphased by Ella’s questioning. “Can’t help but confront members of his team. It’s his best and worst quality.”
“You were on his team?” Ella asked.
“I’m not the one he came for,” Paris said, “not really.” She glanced down at Ella with a soft smile before returning back to her room, and waving back with a delicate hand, “Bright and early tomorrow.”
Paris prepared to shut the door, holding it open for a second longer as she peered out and said, “Oh, Ella.”
“Yes?”
“You’d mentioned the other day how you’d broken the curse on Jackson and woken him up.
I’m sure you managed to catch a glimpse of Lambspeak.
You can talk to him, you know, if you let your mind drift from the present.
I’d encourage it. You should test Jackson’s skepticism yourself if you get the chance.
Lambspeak is the reason Jackson wasn’t fully swallowed into Peter’s curse, unlike the other remaining Strike who may very well be trapped inside it forever. ”
Ella waited there in the hall, finding it strange how Paris’s and Jackson’s recommendations differed so strongly. Ella decided not to mention that Lambspeak had already spoken with her.
“It may be unclear at first,” Paris added, “but the more time passes and the more you interact with him, the easier and clearer it will be. Eventually, it will feel completely real.” At that, she closed the door.
Paris’s and Jackson’s words continued arguing in Ella’s own head as she walked back to her room, half expecting Jackson to pop out and scare her.
Crawling back under the covers, she was tempted to close her eyes and seek out Lambspeak, hopefully to clear out any uncertainty around her opinion about him.
As she stared at the ceiling, she decided against it, knowing it would all be clearer tomorrow and the day after that.
Lambspeak would be here in several months.
She just needed to give the dust time to settle to understand how to best prepare for something like that.
For now, perhaps because Ella hungered for optimism, Paris’s remarks sunk deeper than Jackson’s.
Ella wasn’t sure if she was just tired of being on edge, or too exhausted to be afraid, but she curled up in the covers, and wrapped herself in the reality Paris had painted for her.
By every indication, it seemed that Paris was right and that anyone here long enough would realize that the war was a thing of the past. Jackson was still fresh from the battlefield, fresh from a curse that had stranded him in a much more hostile place than her own.
This was a wonderful place.
Ella kept repeating it to herself, thirsty for comforting truths.
One day, Kay, Jade, Samual and her other friends and comrades would join her here too.
The war was over, and Ella was confident that once she remembered what happened to Peter, she could confirm that truth for everyone.
He must be dead.
After all, what reason would someone so powerful ever have to hide?