Page 15 of Odder Still
“You and me both, laddie.” He wipes his palms on a rag and reaches across the counter. Like a small number of the other Maraheem selkies, his features resemble mine—broad nose and full lips, his unbraided, auburn version of my curls forming a cloud around his head—but beneath the freckles his skin barely holds a tan. “Name’s Ivor. Ivor Reid. I only got in ten minutes ago; you been hanging in the front there long?”
“Just stopped by for the announcement.” I tip my head toward the radio, where an upbeat tune now plays, and give his hand a firm shake. “Name’s Rubem.”
The song ends. MacNair hops back onto the mic with a shocked laugh. “You wee scunners aren’t gonna believe this.”
“Spit it out for us, MacNair.”
“Yeah, spit it out!” one of the cardplayers shouts.
A static-like whisper comes over the radio; then MacNair’s cohost curses. “You’re talking mince!” With a disbelieving grunt, the host’s voice evens out. “The word we got is the gates are closed because Alasdair Findlay is dead.Dead. The heir to Findlay Incorporated was found today at 13:09 with his throat slit. There’s no comment yet from the BA detectives, but by the heightened security throughout the upper districts and the complete closure of all gates, it seems they’ve no clue who did it yet.”
An eruption of chatter drowns out the radio hosts’ conversation. One of the cardplayers shouts above the talk, “See, they can’t step on us forever!”
Ivor whistles. “I’ll pour us both another.”
But I only half hear him. The shock on Tavish’s face seems whittled into me now, as if this news has opened a vein of empathy between us. His brother is dead. His brother, the heir to a company who lets these people live in the muck at his gilded feet. His brother, whose death the cardplayers now celebrate. His brother, a piece of the family who may carry the secrets to removing the parasite. Someone killed Alasdair Findlay. My heart twists.
If someone has reason to kill one Findlay, they could just as soon kill another.
CHAPTER SIX
Here or Nowhere
I am a current running backward,
an expanse that shrinks,
a bud withering before bloom.
A being lost to the chinks.
I SHOULDN’T WORRY FOR him. Looking around the bar, tattered and worn as the rest of the lower city, I should be doubting every good thing I saw in the youngest Findlay. Maybe I should even be toasting and cheering with the people Findlay Incorporated has driven into the dirt.
My feverish parasite tosses me a spattering of memories as though it’s rifling through them instead of truly trying to communicate. Images appear of my month as figurehead of a cartel, of the wealth and status I told Lilias I’d need if I were going to find her the ignits she so badly wanted. I’d filled one of the old cartel head’s courtyard planters with uncut rubies as a joke.
I tried to use that power to save the Murk, I retaliate. But I don’t need the parasite’s help to refute that. Its own existence in my neck is enough. I had a drop of influence, and I still caused more harm than good.
Tavish’s words from earlier resurface, and I don’t know which of us pulls them up, the parasite or me: I’m the youngest of my family and mostly ignored for my effortsandThey would rather I keep to my minor charities.It proves nothing, but still, it gives me hope.
I lift the last of my soup to my lips, gulping it down despite the fishy tang, and watch the line of scraggly selkies forming behind the cauldron. I can’t rightfully judge Tavish on what little I know of him, but whatever he has done, it clearly isn’t enough.
Ivor returns from handing out another full tray of beers to the quickly filling bar and sits beside me with one of his own. He lifts it. Unlike the wild hollers and fanatic conversations around the room, his smile is small and distant.
I click my glass to his and drink. The heavy, rich beer leaves a dark flavor almost like coffee in its wake. I take a second large gulp before setting it down. “Alasdair’s death won’t be as kind to the lower-district folks as they think, will it?”
“You aren’t wrong, laddie.” Ivor sips from his own glass. “It’s been too long since anyone made a real go at knocking the corps down. Most don’t remember how much more work’s to come if anything’s gonna change.”
“The corps?”
“The big seven. The corporations that own this city and the Mara Diplomatic Assembly, and through it, all of the Mara coast from the island village of Melfearn on the Tormid Sea to the most populous of our underwater sister cities in the Braenakirk Gulf. These days, they barely even bother to stay behind the scenes.” He gives me a hard look. “You’re real new, aren’t you?”
There’s no use denying it. I bob my head slowly, tapping my nails to the side of my glass. “I think I know what you’re talking about, though. I’ve seen the same brands all over the lower. All your food comes from the O’Cain Fishery.” I hold up one finger, then pop up a second. “And Sails and Co. runs the trolley system.”
“All other transport, engineering, and plumbing, too,” Ivor adds. “Got their own special tools we can’t replicate.”
“Callum and Callum must be some kind of tech producer.” That’s three fingers.
“Aye, but everything you’ll see of theirs around the lower’s rented.”
