Episodul 262 · Open for Them

The strands faded as Varren drew the pale blade back against his chest.

— That’s what you were pulling, he said.

Soles kept his eyes on the slit. Without the strands it looked almost small enough to close.

— Then help me stop it spreading.

— By cutting through them?

— By finding a way that doesn’t.

Varren wrapped the blade. His fingers missed the fold of the cloth, then caught it.

— Halloran had a business before this. Noct had work. You think they came here because I offered them a warm room?

— The surveyor wanted to go home, Soles said.

— And I gave him somewhere to sit when he couldn’t.

He set the wrapped blade beside his bag. The slit pulsed against the pillar behind him.

Krista closed her notebook.

— What happens when the count on the doors runs out?

Varren’s hand stopped on the cloth.

— They’ll have to move.

— Will they?

— I’ll get them out.

— Where to? Maxim asked.

Varren turned toward him.

— We can find somewhere.

— We’ve got a town full of people trying to do that. You heard the surveyor. What happens when he walks back here?

Soles could hear water moving above the ceiling. In the dark behind the pillar, the opening gave off another breath of heat.

Tesa rubbed the heel of her hand against her coat.

— I’d sit down here if you left me alone long enough, she said. It feels like that would fix something.

— They’re still people, Varren said. They know what they want.

— So do I. I’m telling you what this place does to wanting it.

Varren looked at the slit.

— When you pulled at it, they got worse. You saw those lines. You don’t get to decide they can do without them.

Soles remembered his hand dragging against the resistance, the voice urging him on. Tesa’s fist had closed on his collar. Even then he had pulled again.

— I should have stopped sooner, he said.

Varren waited.

— That was mine. It doesn’t make leaving this open safe.

Krista came beside the table.

— We could ask them what help they’d need somewhere else. Before anybody cuts anything. Halloran, Zora, the man we spoke to.

— Zora has work here.

— She can tell us that herself.

Varren tucked in a loose corner of the cloth.

— And if one of them gets worse on the road? Who goes back for them?

— We do, Soles said.

— You have a job to finish.

Soles knew that trap from the inside. Soles had an order inside his coat and people standing beside him whose safety had been made conditional on it.

— You could help them leave, Soles said.

— I’ve told you I will.

— If they decide to go before you’re ready.

Varren drew the bag closer.

— Noct needs someone with him at night. Halloran keeps hearing a man who isn’t there. I’m not sending them off because a date’s been written on a door.

— Then ask them what they want, Krista said.

— I know them.

— That isn’t asking.

His hand closed over the bag’s opening.

Soles watched him tuck the blade inside. Everything was being put away, the proof and the possibility of doing something about it, while they stood there talking.

— You’re not keeping it open for them, he said. You’re keeping it open so they’ll stay.

Varren went still.

For a moment Soles wanted to take the words back. Then Varren looked toward the stairs that led up to the landing, and Soles remembered waiting at the surveyor’s door for the man to let them in.

— Give me the pale one, he said.

Varren’s attention came back to him.

— So you can close it.

— So I can see what I’m doing. We’ve seen what happens when I can’t.

— Can you promise they’ll come through it?

Soles looked at the pillar. He could remember the thick line clearly. Around it the finer strands had crossed too closely to separate.

— No.

— Then no.

Varren fastened the bag.

The answer left Soles standing with his own blade in his hand. He could argue until the flashlight failed. Varren had heard the question he would refuse, and Soles had no better promise to put beside it.

He gathered the chain and sheathed the dark blade.

— We go back.

They followed their rope along the channel, past the step where the water fell, keeping to the wall end of every tread. Nobody spoke until Krista called up to Bram. He answered from the hatch, and Maxim went ahead to help him take in the line.

At the last step Varren turned and reached down for Soles.

It was the second time that night. This time it was such an ordinary offer that Soles took his hand before he thought about it. Varren pulled him up, then braced against the edge while Soles got his feet beneath him. His sleeve was still wet from the race.

Soles had his wrist.

The pale blade was in the bag on the floor. Maxim stood behind Varren with the rope in his hands, and Tesa was beside the door. Varren’s arm lay across the hatch edge, his attention on Soles’s footing.

Soles could turn that arm against the wood before Varren got it back. There would be help this time. His fingers tightened, and Varren raised his eyes.

For a moment neither moved. Soles felt the pulse beneath his thumb. The order in his coat had a name, and here was the man.

He opened his hand.

Varren drew his arm back slowly. Soles stepped clear of the hatch. Bram looked between them, then bent to unfasten the rope from his waist.

Varren picked up his bag. They walked out of the mill together. Beyond the yard, Varren moved clear of the group and opened his bag, keeping one hand inside. The river was dark except where the street lamps reached it.

— We’re clear, Soles said.

Varren adjusted the strap on his shoulder. He seemed about to speak, then turned toward the bridge.

Soles stayed with the others until the bag disappeared behind the wall.

Krista had taken out her notebook.

— What do we tell them? she asked.

Her pencil waited over a clean page. They could send everything they had learned about the breach and leave out the walk back.

— That we found him, Soles said. And let him go.