Feargus

  Days Until Rhian Returns: 5

  Crew and Company Placement:

  The estate ? Peter

  The base ? Adeline, Michael, Strauss, Evelyn, Alex, Teeth, Everleigh, Jakob

  The lair ? Rhian, Rhydian, Riz, Bells, Sebastian(?)

  Lawing ? Zack

  Gander ? Quinn

  Jakob may have been a rebellious adolescent at heart, but he was a trustworthy rebellious adolescent. Without prompting him in any way, he pretended not to know me, and I reckoned I had Zack to thank for that, too. Naturally, the crew had loads of questions for him, and you might remember some of them from The Second One. After a time, Strauss corralled everybody into a more organized form, and eventually, Jakob decided we were ready to hear his story.

  As you really ought to remember by now, it wasn’t pretty.

  “For all those years, you were just sitting there in the dark?” Michael asked.

  “In the dark, yes, but like my father, I slept for many centuries,” Jakob answered.

  Alexander shifted uneasily on his barstool. Next to me on the couch, Adeline barely squeaked.

  “And that’s where you’ve been since returning to Amalia, love?” Evelyn asked. “With your father?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  It was only a matter of time before the crew realized Jakob’s mother was the Artist. I’d give it a day or two before finding a way to let them know. Besides, I reckoned they’d need some time to cool down after hearing Jake’s story. If we were to help Avis for her family and the rest of the Trio, and ultimately secure everybody's allegiance against the Six, then we couldn’t have them raring for an attack. Not to mention, we really needed Sebastian on board, and he was, unfortunately, still out of the picture.

  “Well, your father’s quite the elusive one, isn’t he?” Adeline commented. She knew Zack—sort of—and she knew the story already. She'd been doing a stand-up job keeping our secrets so far, but there was nothing wrong in her asking careful questions on behalf of the crew. In fact, if this were a class on pretending how to look like you know less than you actually do, I'd encourage careful questions. “Why didn’t he come with you tonight?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t know I left.”

  Evelyn and Alexander shared a loaded glance.

  “Will he be upset with you, Jakob?” Evelyn asked.

  That was a two-part question, with half of it left unspoken. On top of concern for Jakob, I reckoned Evelyn wanted to know if he’d be upset with us for harbouring his son.

  “No,” Jakob said. “My father wouldn’t hurt me, and I can get away with almost anything when he’s feeling guilty.”

  Poor Zack. If he’d already returned to the theatre to find Jakob gone, I knew for a fact he wouldn’t be angry. Worried, aye. Scared, aye. And underneath everything, definitely hurt. I also knew for a fact he wouldn’t take it out on us.

  Between the story and all the questions, it was a long, heavy conversation, and everyone—Jakob especially—seemed to be getting tired. Strauss offered to take him on a tour of the base, and Adeline wanted to tag along so she could ask him about the strange metal contraption in the workroom. We all know that ended up being a power box: meant to deliver what Jakob referred to as electricity to things like lights and machines. He didn’t know much more than that about how they functioned, but why would he?

  I needed to go back to bed, but even more than that, I needed to go find Zack. I didn’t want Jakob to think I was snitching on him, though. He’d know where I was going the minute I left. It was tricky, but I managed to get him alone for a second.

  “You can tell him,” Jakob said, well before I’d had the chance to bring it up myself. “But I want to stay.”

  “Haven't you been having a nice time with Zack?”

  “He’s fine, but busy, busy. And I missed Asa.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Fine and busy, busy. Sounded familiar. “Aye, well—Strauss is a good egg. Say, will you open the hatch for me?”

  Jakob rolled his head into a shrug, but he opened the hatch for me.

  “Try not to die,” he said.

  I chuckled. “I’ll do my best, mate.”

  Zack’s man-cave was closer than the theatre, so I travelled in that direction first. Along the way, I thought about religion. Not something I typically concerned myself with, but after that odd interaction with Quinn, I had a few pieces of loose thread I was hoping to connect.

  So, all our lives, we grew up thinking there were six gods and their namesake territories. But now we know those ‘gods’ were really mixed-bred Partisans (before the term existed) who also became Anima. Now, if the Six were controlling the underground, positioning themselves as gods may not have the desired effect. Gods are meant to be abstract—not things mere mortals should have access to, or be able to interact with, on the regular. So, maybe the Six positioned the Vonsinfonie Brothers as gods in their place—everything trickling upward.

  Anyhow, it was a half-baked thought, and I wasn’t sure what it all meant. Especially because from my understanding of events, the Six didn’t care much for the Vonsinfonie Brothers. Then again, maybe they did. Or maybe they really, really feared them.

  Whatever the case, I blew the whistle above Zack’s music note.

  Twenty, twenty-two, twenty-seven seconds before he answered the call. I stepped down the stairs, and he closed the hatch behind us.

  “Jake’s with the crew,” I said.

  Zack nodded. “I saw them leave the theatre together.”

  “He wanted me to tell you so you wouldn’t worry, but he missed Strauss.”

  Zack breathed in through his nose, straightening his posture with a nod. “Yes, well—it’s only natural he’d want to be around others closer to his age.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “How old do you think we all are?”

  “Well, not one thousand and thirty-nine, obviously.”

  I grinned, and we made our way down the corridor before turning into Zack’s room.

  Everything was the same as the last time I’d been there: work table, typewriter, piano, knick-knacks, paintings, chair, bed, couch, and… Derek?

  Derek stood tentatively from the couch, and I looked from him to Zack.

  “He knows everything,” Zack said.

  “Everything?” I echoed.

  “Everything,” Zack confirmed, and before leaving the man-cave, he gave me a quick hug and three pats on the back. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  And that was that. I met Derek in front of the couch for a hug, and then we sat.

  “This is a surprise,” I said.

  Derek chuckled, laying his arm along the back of the couch. “Let’s talk about surprises when I answered the door to find Zacharias Vonsinfonie standing on the other side of it. Again.”

  “No joke,” I answered. “So, what’s this about?”

  “He’s worried about you, and frankly, after everything I’ve heard, I am, too.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “I think that came out wrong,” Derek said. “I just meant with everything you’ve been going through, and so much of it by yourself, Zack wanted you to have someone you could talk to that isn’t involved. Or at the very least, someone uninvolved who knows what’s going on, even if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mates, for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I was speechless. I didn’t really want to talk about anything either, so that was fine. But Zack was right—just having someone there who knew everything, with nothing on fire, no stakes, no pressure to sort out logistics, or next steps, or strategy, or whatever else, felt like someone had poked a needle into the inflated paper bag I’d become.

  “I’ve really missed you,” I said. “I miss V, too. So much. Actually, it feels like I’m dying all the time, and I don’t even know what dying feels like, but I imagine it’s this.”

  “You probably don’t need me to tell you how much you meant to her,” Derek said. “But I’d known V casually for over three hundred years, and to say Della and I were surprised to see her show up at our party that night would be a severe understatement.”

  “But that’s the rub of it, isn’t it? How she felt about me is why she’s dead. How am I meant to take comfort in that?”

  “I guess by understanding that V was already dead, and, actually, your love didn’t kill her. Your love gave her life. That’s all Ivana Novak ever wanted—to live normally again, to find peace from everything that still haunted her. You gave her that—time where she was just a woman, and you were just a man, even if just for a little while.”

  “Why couldn’t it have been longer? Mate, it should have been longer.”

  Derek pulled me in for a cuddle, and I laid my head against his chest.

  “We never know, do we? That’s why every day with Della is a miracle, and why love is the most powerful function in the world.”

  I hesitated a moment before teasing, “Says one half of the Lovers.”

  Derek gave me a squeeze and kissed the top of my head. “If we end our night together with you understanding only one thing, Gus, I hope it’s that you know your love isn’t dangerous. The way you love is one of the most beautiful and honest things in the world, so don’t let your fear and what happened to V shrink you, let it embolden you.”

  What could I say? There wasn’t anything, because he was right, and I wasn’t ready to say that yet. No, I wasn’t ready to say it. So, I looked up at him instead, and with a playful smile I asked, “Derek, would you like to make out in Zacharias Vonsinfonie’s bed?”

  “Fuck,” he answered, “I thought you’d never ask.”