Eagles and Swans
Chapter 35: Falling in Place
The air of Wednesday, the Eleventh of October, was that sort of cold that made hair stand on end. The cold reminded Ruthenia that the world was boundless, even though it had never before seemed so small.
She paused at the window, where a thousand droplets of rain rolled down the glass. Beyond the glittery drops, she could still see Helika: its light had somehow crossed the twenty-mile distance between their windows and hers, and it was all she had left of Astra beyond these walls, where life and its myriad inky mysteries continued to seep through the fibres of time.
The evening grew deep, and the purpling of the sky turned her hands cold. The incursion began tomorrow. It was time to set the machine into motion.
At eight o'clock, she crossed the bridge for dinner, as she always did. When she stepped out into the balmy twilight, she found herself trembling, but forced herself to meet the guards' eyes. She had, for the past two days, done her best to establish a pattern of early departure. She spent no more than five minutes in the bathroom, and ate hastily, but not suspiciously so. Tanio watched from across the dining table, blond mop dishevelled. He met her eye, and must have seen the glint in it, for she caught a twitch at his mouth that could have been a smile.
She spared some minutes after dinner listening to Tanio's radio. The navy's plans were right on track.
So were hers.
Thereafter came reports on an upsurge of defiance and vandalism inside the capital itself, of upstarts sitting in lines across Palace Street. In the Candle District a protest had been staged against their convictions. It no longer alarmed her, hearing their names. Nothing alarmed her, now that her end loomed over everything.
By then, Tanio had moved to the kitchen to commence on the dishes. She peeked through the door, haltingly—stopped beside him and waited for the words to come. But instead of words, she sank against him with a vice-tight hug.
“Thank you,” she croaked, “for giving me a life I never knew I could have. But now I'm going—”
He returned the hug with one soapy arm, and whispered, “I know. I know, Ruth.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Eldon bought you a lot of time. At his own expense.” He closed his eyes, and when they opened again, they were glistening with tears. “And I know better than to try and stop you. Just…do me proud, alright?”
“I'll do it for you,” she answered, and then they parted ways.
*
Door shut, winds dead about her, Ruthenia began her very last preparations. She tugged both windows open, east and west both, so that a cool breeze billowed through, rustling her papers, flinging them across the floor. It was the sort of wind that seemed to change whatever it touched.
She opened her wardrobe and yanked her only coat from the hanger: a deep brown one, with black lapels and cuffs. She ran her hand quietly through the other shirts and trousers hanging inside.
At her desk, she reached into her drawer and withdrew the golden eagle pendant, clasping it around her neck and touching it, slipping it inside her shirt. Nothing seemed more important than having it upon her when she died.
Then she pulled her coat on, and snatched up a pair of socks at the door, wearing those with jittery hands, and her shoes over them.
Her watch read eight forty-five. She turned off the light.
Breathing out—breathing in—so she'd always remember the precious scent of home—wood, smoke, rust, wheat—Ruthenia dropped to her knees beside her trapdoor.
She stared down at the steel bolt for a while—the one she kept kicking by accident, an inconvenience at best. Then she slid the bolt out soundlessly, and lifted the trapdoor with the most drawn-out of creaks.
A stinging gale slapped her. She studied the darkness. There it was: a telltale splash stirring the water a hundred feet below, where the lights of Tanio’s house glittered on the currents: a trail of crests, ploughing through the surface, and an irregular rippling, as if a large but invisible fish were breaching.
Beside her, Ruthenia’s messenger flared bright blue. We're here.
All she could hear was her heart.
I'm coming down, she wrote.
She swung her legs through the hole so she sat at the very edge, legs swaying in the battering wind. From the floor, she picked up her umbrella, and hugged it close.
This would be a quick escape. The less time she spent in the open air, the better.
Moments before the drop, a shiver swept her, from her feet to the hairs on her scalp. “I trust you,” Ruthenia said, squeezing her eyes shut.
Then she launched forward, and tipped towards the darkness, every nerve screaming—and then there was nothing beneath her, only blackness and wind.
“Ruthenia!” The gasp reached through the whistling wind and the throes of her terror. Almost at once, her sense of gravity snatched her bodily as her fall began to decelerate.
While she slowed to a head-spinning standstill, three feet above what she now saw was a tiny rowboat, an uncanny warmth came to enwrap her.
Ms. Decanda's Thread nets had felt like this, silken cocoons ensnaring her as she fell and tangled in them—yet not really, for this one crackled upon her skin, like electricity across hands. Standing on the deck beneath her, Hyder’s hands were spread. He began to Weave with careful tugs, and she felt herself sink through the fragrant night air, Threads shifting around her, just perceptibly.
“Flawless timing,” she said as she came within earshot of them.
“No trouble.” Tante quirked an eyebrow. “I have to salute you, this plan of yours sounds much bigger than anything we have ever dreamt up.”
With a last pull, Hyder lowered her into the boat, her knees meeting the floor in the space between the stern and the thwart. The boat bobbed and rocked on impact. Hyder scrambled to her side at once, offering her a hand.
While the oars splashed quietly and Gordo began to steer it in a full turn, Ruthenia groaned and twisted, rising to sit on the damp deck floor with one hand in Hyder's. She sat herself on the thwart, and her shoulders sagged as the excitement greyed to exhaustion.
“So I heard you joined Derron,” she said while the oars pounded in the water.
Tante tilted his head to a side. “He has big plans, and we like the sound of them,” he replied. “And those plans are due to commence very soon.”
“His and mine both.”
For a while, Ruthenia watched the dark wheat stalks drift silently by on either side. She closed her eyes and rubbed her right temple with a finger, trying to come to terms with the mission she had just begun. But when she opened them, Hyder was still there, with a fathomless grief in his eyes. A lump of regret sat in her throat.
“Hyder,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”
A pause. “No, you have to do what feels right,” he replied, although she heard his breaths growing irregular.
She had known for years that he felt something towards her that she did not reciprocate. And he was looking at her perhaps knowing, even though she hadn't said anything, that whatever was coming may end her life.
Ruthenia could not find the words to reply. Instead, she shifted across the planks until they were side by side. “You'll be alright,” she murmured. “You have a whole future. You can mask, you can go invisible, and now you can make nets! The gang is lucky to have you.”
Hyder slipped his arms about her, squeezing her close. “But I’m—” a sob broke his sentence in two— “I’m just so scared to lose you.”
She closed her eyes as her own tears came. “I’m scared, too.”
He shivered with his sobs. She felt her hair grow damp. “What will I do without you?”
“What you've been doing these last two years. Carry on without me. All of you. Promise you will.”
“Of course,” Hyder whispered.
The ride proceeded in silence, oars swishing through the current as the lights of the New Town blossomed into view. The wheat rustled again, the Bollard District saying goodbye. The rhythm of oars around them was joined by the murmur of reeds outside the boat.
Her eyelids drooped shut in the warmth of Hyder's embrace. “Wake me up when we arrive,” she whispered. The last thing she heard was his breath convulsing into sobs.
A sharp jab at her shoulder came through her dreams, followed by the damp scent of mist, and the soft roar of what must be water.
Her eyes opened a crack, but no light flooded through. A few blinks cleared her vision. She was not in her shed.
The bare sky was deep black overhead, and the place about her was dim enough that the glowing points of the stars were visible from here, winding chains of light across the sky.
The world was bobbing up and down. At once, it all descended upon her—the memory of escape, falling, the boat. And then her muscles were pounded by aches.
“Ruth, we've arrived,” said a different voice from the one that had been there before she’d fallen asleep. Ruthenia rubbed her shoulder as she righted herself. The dark silhouette of Den looked upon her from the bench, one hand shaking her shoulder.
She sighed, though it came out as more of an exhausted groan. Peeking over the edge of the boat, she was surprised to find the ground no more than a foot away.
Another glance about made Ruthenia realise that the rest were staring at her from the river bank.
Her quest came pummeling its way into her thoughts. She struggled to a squat, and eventually managed to stand, almost tripping over a bench in the process. With a bound, she landed on the riverbank, feet crunching on wet gravel, dizzied by the sudden steadiness of earth.
She looked up to meet the eyes of her gang. “So, guys. This is it. This is where I must leave you,” she said. “It’s been a real pleasure, so—please… Please do good things with your lives, after I’m gone. Throw a funeral in my honour.”
“What do you mean?” Gordo retorted. “You're not going to die. You won't. Please promise you won't."
Her face fell. “I wish I could. But unless I am extremely lucky, this is—effectively—a suicide mission.”
She watched as her friends, these faces she had known for six years, cast stricken glances at each other. The dim streetlight glowed across their faces, from a road passing just some yards behind. She saw worlds in their fearfully glistening eyes: there were too many things to be said, too many to be contained in this short time that remained between now and when she had to go. Hyder covered his face, every sob piercing her like a spear.
“Well—you have well and truly showed us up,” Tante muttered, looking away. “What a way to go out. You really were more than we ever knew. And I’m proud to call you an ally.”
“We're honoured,” Den added, touching his hand to his heart, “that you have spent these six years with us.”
“Stay safe, Ruth,” Gordo said with a wavering voice. “I think you can last it out. I believe it!”
Her friends’ gazes met hers, each in turn, and they nodded at each other as if this were another prank, and she was about to run off down back alleys on a harmless caper.
Not many minutes later, a lone carriage came chugging up towards them, sputtering to a stop near the riverbank. Its driver, the lamplight revealed, was Derron, in a top hat and a surprisingly well-made black coat.
All at once, her heart began to quail, and her legs begged her to flee—but it was a fleeting idea, and she abandoned it with a grin.
Kicking the door open, the man leapt off the carriage, lifting a hand to greet her. “Are you well, Miss Cendina?”
“As well as I could be, and thanks for coming,” she replied. She turned to nod to Hyder, who followed her towards the car.
“Ihir bless your cause!” called Gordo, the rest chorusing well wishes, as Derron opened the passenger door and gestured for the pair to board.
It was summer throughout the country. Ruthenia felt the humid air soak into her skin, as the night grew deep, and the scent of old soot was joined by the smell of flowers opening their buds to the sky. In that heady air, the wheels rattled away. Hyder whirled his hands over their heads and pulled the Threads into a mask around them, and the three bright faces of Tante, Gordo and Den melted into the darkness behind.