7.08
I sat there, cold, hurting in too many ways to count, enjoying the fact that I had just a few minutes before someone tried to kill me or do worse.
It was like waking up, and feeling a kind of tranquility where I was warm, comfortable, and all of the negativity of the past and responsibilities of the future had yet to spring to mind.
There was just the moment.
Evan’s body expanded and contracted by the smallest discernible fraction as he inhaled and exhaled in my cupped hands. He was healing fast, and seemed to have largely shut down or fallen asleep while he put himself back together.
I stared down, half at him, half at the ground.
Success.
Not victory, but success.
As was always the case with this sort of thing, reality began to sink in. I remembered Duncan and the kids. The effect that had kept people indoors would be fading, and it was only a matter of time before Toronto woke up and resumed business as usual.
My eyes roved over the street. Houses stood like tombstones, blasted with snow to the point that brick and siding were dusted white, and the space between the houses was an uneven plain of snow, rising and falling, with a vague trench in the middle where the snow had piled on the road, rising where snow had been shoveled onto lawns or pushed there by the plows.
“Are you okay, Rose?” I asked.
Not supposed to ask that, I remembered. But I didn’t feel very verbose. Talking was the last thing I wanted to do, because it only served to banish the lingering calm.
“He was focused on me, I was focused on making him lose his bearings.”
I searched around until I found where she was speaking from. A larger piece of my pendant-mirror, lying in front of me. I couldn’t imagine it gave her much room to stand. Maybe all the pendant-shards together?
“You’re okay, though?” I asked.
“Yeah. You? How are you managing after all that?”
I couldn’t sum up the words needed to explain it. How did I convey how not okay I was, without inviting pity or giving her the wrong impression?
“I killed Laird, I think,” I said. “Fuck, I said I wouldn’t hurt him too badly if I could help it, and- fuck.”
“You broke a vow?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
She didn’t respond, I didn’t volunteer anything, and a few moments passed. The momentary tranquility of earlier was swiftly giving way to anxiety. I’d known it would, I just didn’t like how firm a hold that anxiety had on me.
Evan began to pull himself together. He was still bloody, but he seemed largely intact. He experimentally fluffed himself up, relaxed, then fluffed up again.
“Problem?” I asked.
“Blood in my feathers. Feels weird.”
“A bath might fix it,” I said, glad for the change of subject, the simple, implicit question I could actually answer. I was doubly glad that Evan was talking more or less normally to me. “That is, if being magical doesn’t fix it before then.”
“That’d be weird,” Evan said. I raised my hand to my shoulder, and he hopped onto his perch there. I moved my scarf so he could take shelter. “Can I give myself a bath?”
“Probably,” I said. “Not sure if it’ll come off, might have to wait until you molt. Again, allowing for being magical.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “Or it could be my thing. Evan Matthieu, blood sparrow, biting out chunks of eyeball and fighting monsters!”
Thinking of blood made me think of Maggie, odd as it was. I looked in her direction, and saw her sitting on the tire that was mounted on the back of the sports utility vehicle, a matter of feet from the circle.
“Chances are good that you’d influence your natural properties, if you made a habit of getting that bloody,” Rose said.
“Huh?” Evan asked.
“Soak yourself in blood probably would give you power of a sort.”
“Cool.”
“I think some Others and practitioners do that sort of thing… but if I’m remembering right,” Rose said, “There are drawbacks.”
“Aww.”
“I’m going to vote against the blood-bath strategy,” I told Evan.
“Awww. Why?”
“To be safe. And because we need to wrap this chat up and get down to business.”
“Aw-” Evan started. He cut himself off as I angled my head, bumping him with my jaw.
“I’m not objecting,” Rose said. “But are you alright to move?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I need a second opinion. I swore… fuck, I can’t remember the exact wording. I wouldn’t move until this was decided.”
“I think you’d be lying if he broke free and the fight continued,” Rose said. “I’d say this is pretty decided, but if you want to sit there and wait-”
“No,” I said. “I feel like if I don’t get moving as soon as humanly possible, I’m just going to stop.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “I’ll be over by Maggie.”
“Sure,” I said.
She was gone before I even started pulling myself back up to a standing position.
Too many close calls, situations where I was potentially breaking vows.
This whole dynamic, it was perfectly suited to the cool customer, to the men and women, boys, girls and Others who were coldly calculating, unflinching, with strong memories and keen attention to detail.
That wasn’t me.
“Hey,” Evan said.
We were alone. A quick check verified that none of the Behaim kids had approached.
“Hey,” I said.
“About before?” Evan asked.
I felt the emotion like a weight on my chest.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Is that a serious rule against me doing the blood sparrow thing or is there wiggle room?”
I let out a small half-laugh. “No rules. I said it was a vote, because it is. We’re partners. You make the choice, ideally with my input in mind.”