"I find it difficult. I am constantly distracted by the press of smells, the noise. There is poison everywhere, and iron so close that it makes my skin itch and my throat burn. I can only imagine how Mabry feels."
She reached one hand toward him and he took it, running his fingers over her calluses. She looked up into his face, trying to convey her sympathy, but he was looking intently at her hand.
"What are these from?" he demanded.
"What?"
"Your hands are rough," he said. "Calloused."
"Lacrosse," she said.
He nodded, but she could tell from his face that he didn't understand her. She might have said anything and he would have nodded that way.
"You have a knight's hands," he said finally, and let go of her.
Val rubbed her skin, not sure if she was trying to erase the memory of his touch or to recall it.
"It's not safe for you to keep doing deliveries." Ravus went to one of his cabinets and took out a jar where a butterfly fluttered. Then he pulled out a tiny scroll of paper and began to write in miniature script. "I owe you a greater debt than I can easily repay, but at least I can cancel your promise of servitude."
She looked toward the wall where the glass sword hung glimmering in the gloom, nearly as dark as the wall behind it. She remembered the feeling of the pipe in her hand, the adrenaline rush and clarity of purpose that she felt on the lacrosse field or in a fistfight.
"I want to keep doing deliveries for you," Val said. "There is something you could do to repay me, though, but you might not want to do it. Teach me how to use the sword."
He looked up from where he was rolling the scroll and attaching it to the leg of the butterfly. "Knowing it has caused me little joy."
She waited, not speaking. He hadn't said no.
He finished his work and blew, setting the little insect into the air. It flew a little unsteadily, perhaps unbalanced by the slip of paper. "You want to kill someone? Who? Greyan? Perhaps you want to die?"
Val shook her head. "I just want to know how. I want to be able to do it."
He nodded slowly. "As you wish. It is your debt to dismiss and your right to ask."
"So you'll teach me?" Val asked.
Ravus nodded again. "I will make you as terrible as you desire."
"I don't want to be—," she started, but he held up his hand.
"I know you're very brave," he said.
"Or stupid."
"And stupid. Brave and stupid." Ravus smiled, but then his smile sagged. "But nothing can stop you from being terrible once you've learned how."
Chapter 8
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at
evening we drink and we drink
—Paul Celan, "Death Fugue"
Dave and Lolli and Luis sat on a blanket in the concrete park, some of Dave's finds spread out in front of them. Cardboard stuck out from underneath the cloth where it had been used as a liner between them and the cold that seeped up from the sidewalk. Dave's head was tilted back into Lolli's lap as she rolled his dreads in her palms, twisting and rubbing the roots. Lolli paused, picking something out of his hair, pinching it between her nails and slicking her fingers with wax from the tin beside her leg. Dave's eyes opened; then he closed them again in something like rapture.
Lolli's flip-flop-covered foot, splotchy and red with cold, stroked one of Luis's thighs. A book was open in front of him, and he squinted at it in the dimming light.
"Hey, guys," Val said, feeling shy as she walked up to them, as though being away for two or three days made her a stranger again.
"Val!" Lolli slid out from under Dave, leaving him to twist onto his elbows to avoid his head hitting the pavement. She ran over to Val, throwing her arms around her.
"Hey, my hair!" Dave yelled.
Val embraced Lolli, smelling unwashed clothes and sweat and cigarettes, and felt relief wash over her.
"Luis told us what happened. You're crazy." Lolli smiled, as though that was great praise.
Val's gaze skated to Luis, who looked up from his book with a grin that made his face seem handsome. He shook his head. "She is crazy. Head to head with a fucking ogre. Loony Lolli, Sketchy Dave, Crazy Val. You're all a bunch of freaks."
Val made a formal bow, dipping her head in their direction, and then sat on the blanket.
"Loony Luis, more likely," Lolli said, kicking her flip-flop in his direction.
"Luis One-Eye," Dave said.
Luis smirked. "Bug-head Dave."