5

Jack Finley orated with the voice of thunder and the zeal of a goldfish. To his left sat the three Eds, dozing off. To his right sat Robert, expressionless; a thirty-ish man whose jowls dangled like a Finley; and a woman with hair coloured like rusted steel. She had emptied her wine glass and filled it with loose tinder, which she then lit up with a match. The others ignored her as she gazed into the fire cup, a dazed smile on her face.

“…and my father, the eminent Jackson Finley, second of his name, gave me my first contract, and he said to me…”

No one was listening, but they all looked like they were. That was the trick. Supplicants and sycophants were not expected to retain information, but to display devotion. Behind their fixed stares and empty smiles there were gears turning, schemes brewing – or perhaps not. Maybe they really were just staring into the void, letting Jack’s voice wash over them like a cleansing wave.

Sam struggled to keep awake. Her mind wandered to the rolling green hills and the white walls of the City of Twenty. The air, so cold and pristine. The sunlight. The tall grass. If she could spend the rest of her life here…

“…my great-great-grandfather sends his apologies. The man is two hundred and fifty years old, give him a break!”

The crowd laughed. The apprentices at her table smiled uncertainly, following social cues they did not follow. They would like to live here too, Sam imagined. Who wouldn’t? It was the most mundane dream in the world.

A side door opened. Sam turned her head at the sound of a steel cane, and she saw the Madam, dressed in a flowing robe of emerald and gold. Bant, looking like he just fell off a cliff, kept pace behind her.

“…and I said to him, I said to-to him…” Jack faltered as he spotted his new guests. He gestured at Robert, who stood up without a word. “…and I said to him, “Pops, I don’t need you to micro-manage me anymore, I am my own man now…”’

The Madam made her slow way through the hundred-mile hall, turning every head. Soon enough, no one was pretending to listen anymore. A hundred separate gossips broke out, drowning out Jack’s ongoing spiel about being a self-made man in a competitive environment. The affront only made him louder.

“…now, a toast!” He grabbed his cup like a weapon. “To my great-great-grandfather, Jackson Finley, the First of His Name, the founder and architect of our House of Solutions, the pioneer of the necromantic arts, the pinnacle of a man’s aspirations. May he live long, live with satisfaction, and lead us all to bountiful harvest!”

A thousand chairs scraped against the floor as the room found their feet. They put wine to their lips, and in the brief silence, all one could hear was the steel cane, striking sparks on the floor.

Jack clapped his hands, and hundreds of servers poured out from the kitchens, carrying trays upon trays of steak and gravy. The apprentice tables roared with delight, startling Edwin Finley from his nap. Apparently, his cousin’s booming voice had no effect, but the ruckus of young people enjoying themselves was intolerable.

Sam stared at her plate of steak in gravy and contemplated its presence for about a quarter-second before attempting to shove the whole thing into her mouth at once. Around the table, all semblance of civility was forgotten as the brilliant apprentices dove into the meat that was worth more than a year’s worth of their salaries.

Dim thoughts of protests flittered through Sam’s head: this is Finley food, they can’t make me eat it, this is how they control people, etcetera, but – will you look at that, her plate was already empty, and her moral contemplations were out of date.

The mood grew festive and the hall grew loud. A mechanical piano began blasting out tunes through a series of tubular amps, drowning out every voice, and the voices rose in retaliation, drowning out the music. Old alks from the Upper Guilds, having thoroughly inebriated themselves at alarming speed, stood up in threes and fours and began wriggling out what might be described as dance.

At the host’s table, Jack Finley was deep in conversation with a woman bedecked in jewels. Ingel was slapping the table before the Eds, who looked like they were watching a clown and not a man losing his shit. The woman with red hair was now inhaling the smoke from her smouldering cup. The Finley apprentice, Eric, was attempting to take it away from her but met heavy resistance.

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Robert was lost in the crowd somewhere. So was James. Everywhere swam faces strange and familiar at once. Half her table was empty, having moved on to better pastures. The pyro was still trying to talk to her. Sam could not hear him over the din, but that was probably for the better.

Beneath it all, the steel cane grated at the edge of her hearing. Sam looked around, her eyes drawn to the wall of glass. The night was stars and lightning. An airship flew close to the balcony, searchlights sweeping. A red light blinked on its bow, short-long-short-long. A hand, withered and old, rested tenderly upon the glass. The light made it seem like there was a hand on the other side, reaching out.

Before she knew it, Sam found herself beside Madam Pierre. The old woman’s cane leaned against the glass, vibrating perceptibly, powered by some inner contraption. Her chaperone was nowhere to be seen, but she seemed not to care. Sam wondered if her eyes saw anything at all.

“Can I get you anything, Maestro?” Sam asked. “Water? Wine? Do you drink?”

The old woman looked at her. The Green shone through her thick cataracts like stars in the mist. Sam marvelled at them. “Or should I look for Bant? I don’t know where he went.”

A spill of light distracted her. Another airship had joined the first in sweeping the balcony. Another red light blinked on its bow, silent and somehow urgent.

“They must be looking for something,” said Sam. “I don’t imagine someone has fallen over…I don’t even see a way to get out there. I’m sorry I – I’m talking to myself.” She laughed awkwardly, feeling foolish. “I’m usually more professional than this. Today has been…sorry.”

“Nothing matters, Samantha.”

Sam started. The old woman’s voice made ripples in her retina, almost forming letters. A streak of lightning lit up the thunderheads, and Sam glimpsed millions upon millions of strands of Green, radiating from the woman’s skin like rays of sunlight. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“If today was your last, what would you do?”

James’ sneering face surfaced in her mind, vivid and annoying. A hypothetical for teenagers and astrologists, the image said. Sam shook her head to make it go away. “I don’t know,” she said, “but…nothing special, I think. It’s not like I’m a different person suddenly, just because it’s the end.”

“You are kind.”

“Am I?” Sam blinked. “What would you do, Maestro?”

“Do anything I can to stay alive.”

Sam thought about it. The sound of the cane vibrating against glass was hypnotizing. “I wouldn’t.” The stars seemed to be falling, pulled in by the Green like a wrinkled canvas. “I don’t know why but…I think I might lay down in the grass and feel the wind on my face, and…let it be.”

“You are still young.”

Sam shrugged. “You were young once too, Maestro. What would you have said?”

“The same.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

“But you are not, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Always so polite. Teach Cowen that.”

“I admire the Maestro for how he speaks,” said Sam, not knowing why she was talking at all. “I wish I could do what he does.”

“Would you not rather do nothing?”

“What? No. Oh I see. But it’s not a contradiction. I just admire him. I don’t want to be him.”

“Why not?”

“He is…” Sam swallowed, suddenly terrified of this conversation. “He is angry,” she whispered. “Always angry. He hides it with humour, but he is not that funny. Every day, he gets angrier, and sadder, which makes him angrier, and his jokes get worse. I don’t want to be like that. I just want to be rich without all the…bitterness. I’m sorry, what am I saying, please forget all of that –”

“You don’t need to be polite.”

“But I do,” said Sam. “It’s how I survive.”

“Why? Why survive?” The old woman peered into her soul. No such thing as souls, James had said. How full of shit he was.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you enjoy it? ‘Surviving’?”

“Well…no. No I don’t.”

“Then why?”

“Because I have to! I have nothing, no one, no money, nowhere to go.”

“Then why not lay down in the grass and feel the wind?”

“It’s not – it’s not my last day, Maestro!”

“Why isn’t it?”

Sam could not speak. A third airship has joined in now, and a small crowd was gathering before the glass wall, drawn by curiosity and the glare of the searchlights. They were all looking for something. From the corner of her eye she spotted Robert Finley, who had drawn closer seemingly by coincidence.

“Why…why isn’t it?” Sam blurted. The question made her dizzy. “I still want to live, Maestro!”

“Why?”

“Why??” Sam laughed incredulously. What a bizarre word, why. “I haven’t done all I can yet! I’m not a necromancer, I don’t have ten thousand amblers under my name, I don’t have a house on Twenty, I don’t have anyone, anyone, no family, no lover, thank the Lords Above. I don’t even have a dog! I can’t just lay down and die not having even tried!”

The old woman turned her eyes to the horizon, a sad smile on her lips. “But how could you know?”

“Know what?”

“That you still have time to pretend.”

A hand grabbed the balustrade from below. Then another. Then ten more. The shadows writhed as the giants climbed up one after another.