Wolfgang was with the pianist, who had undoubtedly also feigned a ‘dreadful cough’ to force the composer to replace him for tonight’s opera performance. They were sitting on a bench behind one of the buildings, talking between themselves, and it was immediately obvious where Wolfgang’s good mood had come from. The pianist, maybe a year or two older, was handsome, with deep laugh lines in his cheeks, black eyes and deep blue hair. Wolfgang was younger but the conversation was clearly his, and he smiled at the pianist as the pianist smiled at him, the way Gaspard and the opera girl had both smiled at each other by the stables.
Needless to say, my arrival startled them both.
They stood up immediately, stung like they’d been caught in some illegal game, and Wolfgang’s blushed face lent nothing to his innocence. “You…What, is this your sign? Are…What…Are those cats?”
I held Cat 1 and Cat 2 under either arm. I had some scratches to show for it, and it was very difficult to balance my cane, but they’d both been surprisingly compliant during the trip from their academy to this one. “You’re free until I next call you.” I told Wolfgang, who was running his fingers through his hair, looking so disoriented that even the sound of my voice alarmed him.
“I…What do you mean, ‘next call’…? Where’s the horse?”
“Brigela.”
“Where’s Brigela!”
I thought it might be strange to say, ‘roaming the fields of the west coast, by my former Alchemist Academy, where, unlike here, there is plenty of grass to graze on, and where she insisted on staying, as she’d refused to join me, Cat 1, and Cat 2, on the shift back’. Instead, I said. “Gone.”
“Gone?! Mon Dieu, what do you mean gone? How did you get back?”
“You’re free until I next call you.” I repeated. “This one-sixth of the favour – it’s recurring.”
“You never said-”
“Continue your rendez-vous. I’m going to bed.”
I hadn’t expected this accusation of a ‘rendez-vous’ to strike him as much as it did. I’d said it as a word without weight – it meant a platonic meeting as much as it did a romantic one – but it was clearly the latter that had stirred him to an un-Wolfgang-like sense of visible panic. I paused, then regarded the pianist, who hadn’t reached the heights of Wolfgang’s alarm but was still further startled by what I’d said, perhaps even more so than he’d been by the cats. It was a useless thing to ask, but I asked, maybe out of some remote sense of gratitude for his assistance in tonight’s discovery: “Why are you alarmed?”
Neither of them answered. They didn’t even seem to settle when I walked off with Cat 1 and Cat 2. It was a slow amble to the Healers’ Wing, but it was so far into the night that it might have turned itself to morning, so there were very few officers on guard, all of which I tiptoed past quite easily. This was a decision without logic – there was no explanation I could give as to how I’d obtained the cats without revealing how I’d gotten to the Alchemist Academy in the first place. I’d whispered to Fox, ‘you’re coming in some weeks; if I take you now, it’ll be suspicious’, but Cat 1 and Cat 2 would create the same, if not much more, suspicion. How could I hide two cats? Two cats that were notorious for wandering around and being nuisances? How could I feed them and clean them and clear out their waste? There was no logic in this decision, and yet when I’d been standing in the forest with Cat 2 scratching at one foot and Cat 1 plopping herself down on the other, I’d known there was no choice but to take them with me. Reckless and stupid and illogical, maybe fuelled by the damned emotions that I couldn’t seem to purge myself of, but there was no way I could have ever left them.
The hallway of the Healers’ Wing was lit up by a handful of lanterns flickering with red flames on either wall. Cat 2 was staring around, scrutinising her new home, while Cat 1 was lazy in my arms, purring sleepily. I had to set her down to bring my room key out of my pocket, but my hands moved slowly, and even when I unlocked my door I didn’t push it open. I was trying to remember anything Ivra might have said about lavender provoking negative reactions in cats. My room had reached the point where it was more lavender than it was anything else, and though Cat 2, irritated, began scratching at the wood, I kept my hand on the door handle, waiting for myself to recall anything specific about lavender and cats.
Then I heard a voice:
“…if you wished, neither of them are here.”
And another:
“A tempting offer, but I must get back.”
I froze. Had he seen me? He was faced in my direction but looking down at the 19-year-old opera singer, who was leaning against the door she’d just opened, her back to me. Her hair was hanging loosely behind her, her nightgown was barely covering her shoulders, and when she touched the Baron’s chest, there was a disgusting intimacy between the two of them. “As you wish, Monsier le Baron.”
He took her hand and kissed it. As he lowered his head to do so, his eyes locked onto mine. Not in surprise, either. He had seen me from the moment he’d stepped out of her room. When the singer closed her door, oblivious as to my having seen their goodnights, the Baron freely put all his attention on me. He folded his arms and sighed, not unpleasantly. “Bonsoir, Avari. Although, with the time, it might well be morning.”
He approached. Instinctively, I took a step back, but he did nothing to me. He bent down and scratched behind the ears of Cat 1 and Cat 2, who both hummed contentedly. He was in no rush at all, letting the tension in the hall build as he rubbed their bellies, scratched their ears, smiling down at them. I didn’t move. I didn’t say a word.
When he straightened up, I glared at him, and he only looked mildly at me.
“Do you have an excuse?”
“Do you?”
He raised an eyebrow, but his expression had caught something severe. He obviously understood what I was implying but, for my sake, to give me a chance to imply anything other than what I had just seen, he asked: “An excuse for what?”
I had never heard his tone so sharp before. I wanted to say, ‘Your wife, she’s a Ciel’. I wanted to ask, ‘Where is she from? How is she seemingly the only Ciel left? Who helped her?’. I even wanted to ask, ‘Is she real?’. But why did I care? When he inevitably retorted with that question, when he demanded to know how his wife was any concern of mine, what could I say?
My tongue was bitter in my mouth, but I still found the defiance to force myself to say: “Your w-”
“Do you understand the concept of respect, Avari?”
The pause he gave implied that the question wasn’t rhetorical, but it made no difference to him when I didn’t give an answer. “You should be mindful of the comments you dare make. It would do you well to remember the hierarchy here, to remember this concept of respect.” But just like that, despite the stage set for a long lecture, he was turning around to leave. “It would do you well not to remember tonight at all.”
For each lamp, he pressed his thumb and index finger over the flame to kill it. “Lavender is toxic to cats,” he told me. And then, he was gone.
*
True to his word, lavender was toxic to cats. I moved them to a different chambre in the wing, an empty one for them to occupy all to themselves, then I had to also move my bedding and pillows because they refused to sleep on anything else. I couldn’t lock this door, but even if I could it would have made little difference. Cat 1 and Cat 2 were as clever as they were diabolic, and so before I’d even realised, they had manoeuvred to open the window and jump outside, only coming back in after I made several increasingly hostile pleas. Even if they hadn’t kept me awake, it was a night destined for no sleep. Panic and alarm waxed every inch of me, but I had no one to push this blame onto. The cats – why had I brought the cats? The lavender – why hadn’t I derooted them when they’d re-sprouted, why hadn’t I grown them deep in the forest? The Baron – how did he know? And what would he do with this knowledge?
I almost wished for Manon. I almost wished that she could tell me what was so wrong about me and how to fix it, or how to better hide it. I almost wished for her to crouch down in front of me, hands on my shoulders, and she’d say something annoying and sentimental and even though I would roll my eyes, I would appreciate having her on my side. But she’d never been on my side. She’d always been on theirs.
*
I meditated by the window. The cats climbed over me as I did.
I might come to the conclusion that Nature taught by example. In wishing for a hard heart, I had instead been provoked to tears. In wanting an explanation for the lavender portal, I had instead been flung into the Alchemist forest. Nature would not teach me by explanation. I had spent hours wandering through the trees, marvelling at the strange circumstance but also deeply suspicious as to how I would return. I didn’t want to be flung in the air once more and suffer a painful landing, but Nature would rather watch me err and stumble than give me direct answers. After finding Cat 1, Cat 2, and Fox all communed by one of our usual spots, I had taken the cats and thrown myself into various bushes to try and return. I was covered in scratches that I had yet to heal. It wasn’t until almost blinding myself in the thorns of a blackberry bush that I finally tumbled back to the North District, with Cat 1 and Cat 2 tumbling in with me.
If I had stayed? If I had walked into the Academy and sat in Ivra’s office, waiting for her to arrive and take notice of me? I was under the Général de Gérome’s custody, and so eventually I would be retrieved, but if I had just stayed for the night, the day, the week?
Afternoon took the opera singers away and evening brought in a huddle of artisans. A trainee weapons maker, a seamster, two bakers, and a would-be architect. I snuck in more food for the cats. I meditated, leaving the window open and feeling the warm springtime air dance around my room. Nature was always unbothered. I knew it was urging me to be the same.
The Baron knew. He knew of the lavender and he knew of the cats. He knew and so far he had done nothing, and so – there was no reason to hide.
“Ah, you’ve been missing the whole day!” Laclan clasped my shoulder, shaking me harshly. “I understand that the Semaine d’Échange means no classes, but you don’t get to hide in your room! I was talking to Gaspard and he…”
Cat 1 jumped onto the table; Cat 2 was close behind.
Laclan laughed, incredulous, then lowered his head so that he was level with Cat 2’s gaze. “Where did…? What are their names? Gaspard! Where did you find them? Gaspard!”
Gaspard was frozen in place, having been mid-step in walking over to our dinner table when he caught sight of the felines. Laclan was holding Cat 2 in his arms, his eyes lit up like a firework. “A cat!” They had the attention of more than just Gaspard and Laclan – several of the boys had turned to look at us, all just as confused, just as baffled. The officers on duty were also perplexed, unsure what they should do because clearly this had never happened before, two cats suddenly turning up to dinner. “Did you sneak them in? Did you summon them? Did…?” Laclan trailed off, one of the officers having finally approached us. The major looked to me, also wanting an explanation for these cats and their sudden appearance.
“The Baron has allowed it.”
“He has said nothing of-”
“I said, the Baron has allowed it.” I repeated. “That is all.”
Heat flashed in the officer’s eyes, and he seemed about to grab me to pull me to my feet when he faced two interruptions. The first would have been Laclan if he’d had the chance, who was about to move between us and serve as my defence. The second was the interruption that succeeded: another officer, the admiral that had supervised my Mezzanine cleaning all those months ago. “Leave him,” he said, “he’s the Baron’s prodige.”
To be taught by example – to be flung into a plain of brambles and trust that the fall would not puncture through me; to bring cats into the Mezzanine and trust that the Baron’s knowledge and silence had guaranteed me a certain level of immunity. A prodige. Later, Laclan would tell me that prodige meant ‘prodigy’ as much as it did ‘miracle’.
“Did you, ah, breathe them into existence?” Laclan asked me excitedly. He had brought the cat up to his face, cooing at it like it was a baby. “Are you from the rib of Avari, hmm? Are you an Eve made from his Adam? Do you know that story, Avari? It’s a Catholic tale. Gaspard can tell you. Gaspard!”
Cat 1 settled into my lap. “Their names are Cat 1 and Cat 2,” I said to Laclan. Cat 1 nuzzled against my palm. I stroked her fur. “And I hate them.”
*
The only exchange student I found interesting was Lillion Helewyse, a huntress.
“They’re like my cats back home.” She said to me, feeding Cat 2 a piece of steak she’d snuck out of the Mezzanine. “It’d d’ya good to get them on a steady diet. This’un’s fat. This’un’s lean.”
Lillion Helewyse, from deep in the Low Midlands, with her long brown hair and her warm brown skin, skin that held the same gold tint underneath that mine did. “Ma’s an animal carer.” She told me. “We look after beasts when they’re sick. Y’ever given a tiger a vinegar rub? Finnicky things, they are. Course, everyone in the Midlands has business with the Stymphalians. They’ve a lion, y’know that? A huge, beautiful beast named Kidi. I’ve bathed that boy twice.”
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She rode better than many of the First Riders here, despite only being on the cusp of 15. Her aim with the bow and arrow was so straight that she could puncture through an arrow itself. She reminded me of the instructor I’d seen on my first visit to the Military Academy. She could kneel on a galloping horse, close one eye, and fire off a shot gun to hit any target. Better than the First Riders, better than the Class A boys, yet there was very visible discomfort instead of exultation. Laclan openly heralded her, “one of the best I’ve ever seen! And a Midlander! A Midlander!”, but Gaspard was uneasy. “The French are different,” Laclan told me. "They’re weird. Ignore them.”
“I’ve a twin.” Lillion told me. “A textile weaver. Looks just like me, but on her it’s pretty.”
“That’s not as interesting.”
Lillion grinned at me. It must be a Midland thing, that wide toothy grin. “I’ll write t’ya when I’m gone. Maybe. I hate writing. Ask questions about these cats and I’ll do my best to give you expert-level answers. Remember – steady diet! Laclan Stymphalia says you’ll be in the Midlands this summer – d’ya best to ask for me.”
I nodded. Laclan nudged me about it later, fishing for details that weren’t there. “A twin,” he marvelled, “I’ve a million siblings but no twin, so unfair. Wolfe has a twin, you know that? A twin sister.”
3 weeks later, true to her word, I got a letter. The handwriting was somehow even more terrifying than Laclan’s, but she wrote in Elven, not French:
Avari!
I have done what you wanted! I planted that lavender in a super secret spot. You know, lavender doesn’t grow anywhere but Alluviale, but as promised, I’ll update you with whatever happens…
*
The day came for Ivra Vonglo’s arrival.
Following Brigela’s move to the fields of the west coast, the stables had been bolted shut and were monitored every single night. Even if Wolfgang hadn’t taken to avoiding me like I had caught a plague, it would have been impossible for him to get me a horse, even when utilising whatever value the Roqueforte-Cilliac name had. With no exceptions, no horses could be taken out without supervision or permission, and much less into the forest. The Class A boys had to devise a new way to have their Saturday night debaucheries. “It would be fine to run to the forest, then run through it, but to actually get to Dei Fura is another hour’s walk.” Laclan had told me, stretching out a yawn. “But, you know, ‘when there’s a will there’s a way’, and trust me when I say: there’s a very strong will.”
I stood next to the Baron, watching the carriage pull into the compound.
“Mademoiselle Cotillard,” he said to me, both of us looking straight ahead, “she writes often. She asks of you, of course, but she also gives general updates.”
Ivra Vonglo stepped out first.
“Whoever you choose to trust is ultimately your prerogative.” He continued. “But I would advise you to be mindful of the information you share. Motives grow and motives change.”
I didn’t respond. It was a pathetic attempt to poison the well of trust between me and Ivra. Behind my back, I was holding the letter that I had written to Romilio. I wanted to give it to her immediately, even if she would only be able to send it off once she’d left in 5 days’ time. The Baron’s words meant nothing to me, even if I did admittedly find it unsettling that he hardly gave me words at all. We seldom spoke. He didn’t call me into his office. He had never returned to the Healer’s wing since our last encounter. He left me alone. I couldn’t understand why, and I didn’t know what deal he was hoping to barter with his leniency. If it was trust he was hoping to buy, he would never earn it. I had been naive with Manon but he was no Manon. His villainy was much more obvious.
But his wife – I had a million questions about his wife.
“Avari,” Ivra Vonglo nodded at me, ignoring the Baron and all his officers, “you’ve grown.”
She wasn’t a hugger like Manon, far from it. “Where is Fox?”
“He refused to travel. Foxes don’t suit long journeys, I told you.”
“You told me about the cats.”
“Yes, well, the cats also refused. They chose to stay home. Of course, we tried to bring them with us, but they hissed and scratched. You know how animals are. They don’t suit travel.”
The Baron put his hand on my shoulder, smiling graciously at Ivra. “Bienvenue. It’s wonderful to have you and your team. Avari is very excited that you’ll be staying with him in the wing. Come, let’s walk.”
*
“They don’t know you can heal?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Good. That’s something they’ll take advantage of. That’s all they do – they’re parasites. Since sending you away, they’ve increased their state visits and threats of ‘supervision’. I would hardly say that Manon is adequate at her job, but we don’t need more bureaucrats. Even one is an insult. You’re being alert? Have you made friends?”
She wanted me to say no. The scrutiny in her eyes, the expectancy in her voice: she wanted me to say no. And she would be correct – it was unwise to make friends here, to soften myself in any way to people I didn’t know, to people who were more aligned with the French bureaucrats than they would ever be with me. I couldn’t admit that I’d failed, that despite my abrasiveness I found that I was susceptible to friendship, to kindness, even if I only had the patience for Laclan or Gaspard.
“Hmm.” She raised a purple eyebrow when I didn’t respond. “Do you have anything to tell me at all?”
I had given her my letter. It lay on her table now, sealed shut, addressed to Romilio. I shook my head. No. I had nothing.
*
I had meals with Ivra and the others. To be a child amongst adults – as I’d been all my life – it was suddenly disorienting, strange. They weren’t here as guests. The Healers worked in the medical bay and the Alchemists ‘conferred with the Baron’. I was allowed to miss my classes to sit and watch the Healers work, with Ivra standing to the side and overseeing the operations. For many weeks, since she’d written to inform me of her stay, I had been anxiously awaiting her, not just for the letter but also, foolishly, for the familiarity. Now that she was here, it was disorienting, strange. I avoided Laclan and the others, but I felt no more comfortable sitting with Ivra and her team. The Baron’s words were a stench on my mind, making me doubt and reconsider.
“What’s your favourite class here?”
“Natural Science.”
She nodded. “It must be nice to have updated books to learn from. It might’ve been for the best, sending you away to be educated. There’s a lot you have to know. A child like you…Maybe it was the wrong approach, in sequestering you at the Academy. There’s a lot you should know.” She took a long sip from her glass of water. “And conversely, there’s a lot you shouldn’t say. Secrets are important. A child like you – secrets are necessary.”
“I…” I waited for her to take another long sip of water. “What should I say? What shouldn’t I?”
My tone was more demanding than a simple question, and it made her frown but she didn’t chastise me for it. “If you’re doubtful,” she said, “then doubt. Your intuition isn’t useless. If I ask you a question and your senses tell you to stay quiet, stay quiet. No one needs to know about the eagles.”
A saying, maybe? ‘No one needs to know about the eagles’, meaning ‘no one needs to know everything’? I had never heard it before. I turned back to my food, more relaxed, more at ease. Ivra had always been Ivra, too objective to be liable to treachery. Her lying to me about the cats and about Fox must have a reason. It must.
*
“It’s just for the week, don’t be stubborn.” I whispered to the cats, who were quietly being moved into one of the rooms in the Officers’ Residence Hall, as permitted by the Baron. “I’ll bring Fox. Give me some days. I’ll bring him to join us.”
*
What made me different?
All the monks at the Monastery could do what I could do, and arguably much more beyond that. I had no relation to fire. It spoke in a language that I didn’t know and I had never truly bothered to learn. But Romilio could. He could raise a fire to consume a forest, or he could tame a blaze to less than an inch of his smallest finger. What made me different? There was no sort of innateness that was special to me. All that I could do, all elves could also. If they took the time to sit and listen to Nature, if they took the time to have a conversation with the air and grass and water around them, then they could easily do all that I could. Easily. What made me different?
This was something I had to believe was true: that all elves could do all things, that the monks and I weren’t anomalies. I could heal myself, other Healers couldn’t. I could heal quickly, and for what I lacked in delicacy and skill I made up for in speed. I could heal at all, despite being ‘too young’ for it, despite most Healers only finding this affinity decades into their life. I could try to reconcile all this with the fact that I had been raised by monks, that I had a close relationship with Nature, but it was difficult to be 100% certain because I had no one to compare myself to. No child monk. No child healer. I was one of one, but I truly believed that I wasn’t, that I couldn’t be. If all elves could do all things, then I couldn’t be.
Ivra faced constant pressure from the state about the Alchemist Academy, but the Monastery was entirely left alone. I didn’t know the specifics, but I knew that Delphia had been some sort of intermediary, that whatever history existed between the state and the Monastery was enough to let them be.
What would be enough to let me be?
“Do you find eagles here?”
I couldn’t understand this continual reference to eagles. “What?”
“Hmm.” And that would always be her response, a hmm. “Will you visit the Academy in the summer? The Monastery?”
I couldn’t respond without either lying or painting myself out to be pathetic. Again, my silence was answered with a, “Hmm.”
*
Now that I was avoiding him, Wolfgang stopped avoiding me.
He was leaning on the wall next to my door, staring at his riding boots that had tracked in clay and dirt. Ivra frowned when she saw him, asking how I knew him, if he was a ‘friend’ (I could honestly say he wasn’t). For some moments, she didn’t leave. She stayed standing where she was with her arms folded, as if whatever Wolfgang was here to say, he had to say it to both of us. “Pardonnez-moi, Madame,” Wolfgang’s ‘polite’ voice was somehow even more biting than his default, “mais est-ce possible de parler à Avari seul?” Is it possible to speak to Avari alone ? Then, he switched to Elven. “It’s about a class we share, about some work he’s missed during his days at the medical bay.”
It surprised her just as it had surprised me that Wolfgang could speak Elven so fluently. It lowered her guard, increased her approval, and wordlessly she walked into her room but left it ajar. She would hear us when we spoke. With how useless the walls were, she would hear us if we moved into the room next to hers and spoke there instead, but I was three rooms down, right at the end of the hallway. I didn’t want to invite Wolfgang in, but he still wasn’t speaking even now that we were without Ivra. Whatever he wanted to say, he didn’t want her to hear it.
But I had no reason to oblige him. I kept my door closed. “What is it?”
“Your avoidance of Laclan and Gaspard,” he said, his voice low, “that is because of this woman?”
An introduction to whatever he wanted to say, because he didn’t mind that she could possibly hear it. “They aren’t my friends. I don’t have friends.”
He looked at the ajar door, then pointedly looked at me, as if saying, let’s talk in your room so you can stop being a bad liar. Still, I refused. So he narrowed his eyes, a new plan in his mind. “And the lavender?” He asked. “What of that?”
He knew? “Don’t lie.” His voice had fallen to a harsh whisper. “I smell it on you. I told the others it was an orphan affectation and they’re careless enough to believe me, but we all smell it on you.”
‘An orphan affectation’? I wouldn’t open my door. I wouldn’t continue this conversation. I would kick him, and so I did, and he kicked me back, and then there was some struggle until Ivra poked her head out of the door to glare at us, like we were nothing more than rowdy children.
We settled.
“Let me in.” He whispered. “It’s important, you bastard. It’s about the horse. It’s about what you did.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“I’m not stupid. I can figure it out. And if you don’t let me in I’ll run and yell it to your Alchemists, to the Baron, to-”
I kicked him again, and truly he would have snatched my cane to try and beat me down with it, when he forced himself to stop, to turn around and close his eyes, clearly trying to calm himself down. Then he was facing me again, pulling something sharp – a pin, maybe – out of his blazer and shoving me out of the way so he could rattle it within the lock of my door. I couldn’t push him away even when I tried. He refused to move. There was nothing I could do to stop him from pushing my door open, tugging me inside, and then swinging it shut behind us.
The lavender was so much worse than before. It had taken over the whole room. It wasn’t just the desk that was unusable, but every space within my chamber. I had effectively moved in with the cats further down the hall, but now that Ivra was here I had moved back. When I’d refused to show her my room to prove that they hadn’t stuffed me inside of a shoe box, all she’d done was narrow her eyes and go ‘Hmm’. She must know I was hiding something. Everyone must know I was hiding something.
Wolfgang’s fingers went through his hair, eyes wide, taking in the lilac colour that my chambre was drenched in. The smell was so prominent that it was sickening. Lavender was the most stubborn plant that I had ever encountered, and yet, like with the healing, I couldn’t understand it at all, and Nature never gave a straightforward answer. Why did lavender refuse to grow outside of Alluviale? Why had lavender grown so easily with me? What made me different?
“The storm,” he said, his voice dazed. “That night, with the huge storm that no one could understand. That was you, wasn’t it? It was really you.”
He was walking around, so slowly, taking in the lavender, the lavender, and more lavender. Rather than respond to him, I asked: “How did you open my door?”
“You think I can’t pick a lock?” He sounded so distant, so stunned. “Sol and I used to get locked in rooms all the time. Every summer…” He looked up at the ceiling, where lavender had also overtaken the plain grey brick. “Mon Dieu.”
I pulled a chair to press against the door, blocking movement of the handle. “Sol is…”
“…my sister.”
“Your twin.”
“Yes, of course. Of course. Could you make another storm?”
“Could you?”
He laughed lightly. “You’re asking a Cilliac what he can do?”
I hated that so much of him forced out so much of my curiosity. What was the difference in a Roqueforte and a Cilliac? The Cilliac name must be Elven – what was the story there? Laclan might tell me, Gaspard might tell me, but I refused to admit my own defeat, to admit that despite his personality, I wanted to know about him. I was sure he must have asked Laclan about me, because he’d made a reference to me being a ‘bastard monk’ before, but I held too much pride to ask about him. Too much pride to want to know about the elf that had saved my life.
“What else could it be?” I demanded. “My avoidance of Laclan and Gaspard – what else?”
He looked at me, his eyes finally regaining their concentration after being lost in the lavender. Then he looked away, wordless, cold. Truly, I couldn’t understand why the word ‘rendez-vous’ had caused all this turmoil in him, because it was so obviously the cause for his increased hostility. He had been the one to avoid me after that incident, but now I was the accused? The villain? “I do not care enough about you to avoid you.” I hissed at him. “You only factor into my life as a provider of favours.”
Of course, we were fighting again. He still hadn’t even gotten to the main reason for his visit, but now we were pushing at each other, falling into the lavender, him gaining and then losing the upper hand whenever I’d poke, or elbow, or kick. “I saved you!” He yelled. “I saved your life! Laclan was the one that killed you, and yet I’m your enemy? Yet you hate me? You idiot! You bastard!”
I laughed.
Immediately, he stopped strangling me, sitting up in confusion. It was a sound he’d never heard before, clearly, a sound he’d never even thought was possible. He watched me laugh, he listened to my laugh, with the deepest puzzlement pulling his features down into a question mark. “Why…Why are you laughing?” He scratched his head, looking around as if Laclan and Gaspard had staged this as a lavender-based joke. “Are you laughing at me?”
I nodded. “Of course. You’re ridiculous.”
“What?”
“And emotional. It frustrates you, yes? That you’re my saviour yet I feel no gratitude? It causes you this much distress? I move you to this much emotion?”
He might have killed me. I might have killed him. There was no purpose to our emotions, only to hurt the other, only to win this fight that we might forever be locked in. He was consuming too many of my thoughts for me to be mindful of what this lavender might do. He had distracted me from what truly mattered, from what could truly happen, from the fact that him pushing me into the lavender as we both tried to choke each other out would make him slip. And fall. And tumble.
And land somewhere else.
It took us some moments to realise. We were still fighting. It was only when a bee buzzed by his ear, when he raised a hand to swipe it away, that we both froze.
Seconds passed.
“Wh…?” He was still on top of me, but his eyes had once again widened to plates, “We’re…Wh…You…”
“Get off me.” I pushed him off, and he moved obediently. I had been using my cane to get in some jabs, and fortunately it had tumbled through with us. “You figured this out, didn’t you? You said you knew where Brigela went.”
“I was fucking lying! I didn’t know a thing! How could I know this? How…? Mon Dieu, where are we!”
“Alluviale.” Slowly, I got up to my feet. “We’re walking to the stream.”
“What?”
“We’re walking to the stream. Keep my pace.”
“How do we get back!”
“I don’t know. It’s random. Are you coming?”
He didn’t have much of a choice. Still overwhelmed, he stood up and mindlessly followed after me. It was high noon, when the sun was brightest in the sky. The field boy was sleeping soundly, having slept through Wolfgang’s yelling and confusion.
We ambled forward.