Chapter 8: Aoife (part 2 of 3)

  Rushing toward the front of the church and the walkway beside the River Lea, Aoife turned to her companion and whispered, though there was no one within earshot. "Erm, so where do we go now?"

  "We need to go to your house," the reply was quick and confident, with no attempt to lower the volume. "Collect your family. I suspect they won't be safe there for long."

  Aoife's heart leapt to her throat again. Had her antics tonight put her family in danger? Or had she implicitly put them at risk the moment she signed on to the fighting racket? She knew full well she had participated in something illegal, and her boss had always been strange and unsettling, but she had also assumed that her family wouldn't be in harm's way as long as they stayed out of it. That was the main reason she had always kept the details vague—both at home and at work. But guilt and worry washed over her now, and for a second, she found it difficult to breathe.

  "But," she choked out as they crossed the bridge over the River Lea, heading toward the blocks of apartments on her side of Enfield. "I never told him where I live. How would they even find us?"

  "Oh, he'll have ways of finding that out, if he hasn't already," Lucy asserted. "This man you were working for... I think there's more to him than you realize."

  "You mean he's got someone big backing him?" Aoife wondered aloud, thinking about the mysterious source of Mr Carmichael's funds that no one seemed to know anything about. "The Navy... or the EIC, maybe?"

  "Perhaps that too," Lucy said slowly then paused, pondering her next words. "But beside all that, I believe he... isn't fully human."

  "What?"

  "I can't confirm it. He's not like anything I've encountered, even in my line of work. But my—let's call it a hunch—tells me there's something else hiding underneath that pale skin of his. I'm afraid you may have—what's that Anglish saying?—bitten off more than you can swallow."

  Aoife was overcome with an absurd urge to burst out laughing, despite her current state of agitation or perhaps because of it. She fought it down and coughed instead, and led them down the familiar maze of alleyways, feeling slightly more relaxed now that the darkness and the convoluted path would keep them safe from any pursuers for the time being. Lucy kept pace beside her, somehow maintaining her usual grace despite the obvious limp. After they turned a few more corners and she started to regain some measure of calm, Aoife turned to her great-aunt again. "What is your line of work? You never mentioned it the last time you came to us."

  "I was an adventurer," Lucy explained, and Aoife found that she wasn't at all surprised by the answer; in fact, she had almost expected it, "or more precisely a Field Medic. What you saw me do back there, it wasn't something I'm accustomed to, but as long as I have some Ignis source on me, I can improvise."

  "That man you... pushed? To the floor? Is he going to be okay?"

  Lucy appeared to turn her head toward Aoife, though in the darkness, her expression was unreadable. However, there was a hint of a smile in her voice as she spoke. "You spend your weeknights beating up on drunks and you're worried that I pushed someone to the floor? He'll live, if that's what you're asking. Although he'll probably end up with a nasty scar on his back. I didn't enjoy it, but I did what was necessary. Family first."

  Aoife then felt her own expression darken. Her great-aunt had just espoused the main motivation—and justification—behind most of her own day-to-day endeavours. Yet in light of the predicament Aoife had apparently placed her own family in, it felt like an indictment. Overcome with guilt again, she found herself lashing out. "Apparently, you didn't care enough to come find us again. You left Ma in a screaming fit, disappeared for a whole week, then suddenly show up where no one's supposed to know I'm at. Why didn't you come to us earlier? Do you know how bad Ma's been all week?"

  "I do know," Lucy replied mildly. The smile in her voice hadn't left completely. "I kept an eye on the vial all week and know your mother is stable, at least physically. Not well by any stretch of the imagination, but she is still stronger than she was last week—before that spike I told you about. As for her mental state... well, that's partly why I kept myself away for a whole week. I suppose this is as good a time as any for your ten thousand questions, Aoife. Fire away."

  Then slowly, sometimes painstakingly so as Aoife dwelt too long on specifics, the details of Lucy Tao's week were elucidated.

  At first, she wanted to maintain her distance to avoid a repeat of Asha's panic attack. She would watch from a distance as the family went about their days, alert to any signs that Asha might have recovered well enough to revisit their conversation. To her consternation, no such signs materialized.

  In between her observations, Lucy also took the opportunity to satisfy a curiosity about what Aoife had been up to on the night of her visit, having gathered that it hadn't been something entirely innocuous. So, with apologies, she followed her great-niece whenever she was out of the house. As such, she was aware of Aoife's trysts with a handsome tow-headed boy in an abandoned dormitory as well as a peculiar out-of-hours visit to a smithy late on a drizzly evening. Sensing that she hadn't yet hit upon the nocturnal enterprise Aoife had been so coy about, Lucy persisted in her detective work until it eventually led her to the basement of St Marcus—none too soon as the tumult of the night's events had proven.

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  Though Aoife wasn't happy to learn about being tailed unawares, she could readily admit to the timeliness of her great-aunt's presence at St Marcus. In her beleaguered state, she would have stood no chance of contending with Carmichael's men on her own. This train of thought reminded her of that strange intervention during her fight with the Dragoon, and she turned to Lucy with a fresh query. "That goblet. Was that you?"

  "No," Lucy replied, then paused to consider the mystery. "I should have been the one to step in but I hadn't acted quickly enough. Whomever it was, we must thank him. That could have gone very badly for you, my child."

  Aoife took a moment to mull it over. Perhaps it had been merely a drunken reckless act that had landed fortuitously in her favour. Yet even the Dragoon seemed convinced that someone had deliberately assisted her in battle. If not Lucy, then whom? Who had anything to gain from her staying in the fight for longer? Those among the mob who had bet on her, she supposed, but were any of them skilled and alert enough to land that well-timed hit?

  "I think I have a guess," Lucy said, and despite the darkness, Aoife could feel her great-aunt's eyes. "That boy you train with. He's awfully fond of you, is he not? Also seems to have the instincts to pull off something like that."

  Aoife suppressed a groan. Under normal circumstances, Marlowe would have been the first guess her mind would have gone to. But that look he had given her outside Carmichael's office... had been anything but normal. She was glad of the darkness for hiding the blush that inexplicably paired with her glum face, especially as her great-aunt seemed oddly interested in her reaction. After allowing for a few more moments of angsty reflection, Lucy spoke again, and dumped a pile of kindling to Aoife's already inflamed mind. "I appreciate that this isn't the best time to spring this on you but tonight's events have accelerated my plans—for better or for worse. You should know that I intend to bring you and your family to Temasek."

  Aoife froze in her tracks, causing her great-aunt to limp to a stop a few steps ahead.

  "What?" she exclaimed. Then, alarmed by her own loudness, continued in a frantic whisper. "But that's... on the other side of the world. What about Ma? She can't even get out of bed right now!"

  "Yes, that is an issue we must start to solve, and quickly," Lucy conceded, and Aoife felt a stab of annoyance at her great-aunt's calm and measured tone. "I've already sent out communications to my older brother Michael and Bateer, our Tsusuzekh companion. Assuming everything falls into place, Michael will meet us in Gallia where we can plan the rest of the journey. I initially thought we could take our time to get there but now, I rather think we're not safe staying in Enfield—or perhaps Thameside for that matter. I'll have to think about arrangements to get us out of the city much sooner than I anticipated. As for your mother, both Michael and Bateer are capable of looking after her until we can get her long-term professional care in Temasek. I do believe even a lengthy trip with adequate support is preferable to her... current situation."

  It didn't escape Aoife that Lucy had not included herself in this support team. As odd as that was, it was trumped by much more pressing concerns for the time being. "But... what about Clodagh? She's in her last year of school. What's she going to do in Temasek? Do you even speak Anglish there? What about Niall and Liam and Fiona? They have nothing to do with this! They've spent half their lives getting hauled around and they've no idea why. What about Aunt Cara and her shop? What about... what..."

  What about Marlowe? He shared his dream with me and asked me to chase it with him. What about... me? Where do I belong?

  Before Aoife knew it, her unspoken words turned into shaking sobs. Ever since the family left her childhood home behind, her whole life had been one endless search for a safe haven. She had lost Da, she had lost Meadbh and Rian, and she had lost her sense of direction. She had survived days and weeks without proper meals, she had looked after a mother who was lost to the world, and she had literally fought tooth and nail to provide for her family when no one else could. And for what? Whether by some divine curse or by her own failures, the Griffins were about to lose another home, such as it was. When would it end? What would it take for her to look to the heavens and be able to say to Da that she hadn't let him down?

  "Oh, my child."

  The stranger from a faraway land murmured in her ungainly accent and limped toward her. Overly familiar arms wrapped around her and she felt her face wetting a foreign dress. Aoife felt only numb resentment toward the woman from Temasek who had so spectacularly disrupted her life, but she couldn't muster the strength to push away from the embrace. Then, at the woman's next words, she felt the numbness melt away.

  "You're not alone, Aoife."

  Lies. How could that be? She had been alone when she watched her mother wail beside her father's body, rigid and cold. She had been alone when she reached for the knife on that creaky ship, only meaning to scare away the man who was about to harm Ma, when she herself had been deathly afraid. She had been alone when she stepped into the ring tonight to face an opponent she had no hope of beating. Yet she found herself sobbing harder, digging her hot eyes into the stranger's bosom, and clinging onto the sleeves of the foreign dress.

  "You were never alone, my child. I'm so sorry that you felt that way. I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner. Come to Temasek. You have a whole family waiting for you there. It won't be easy. Long months on the road and at sea. A new city to get used to. But it will be worth it. For all of you. I promise."

  It was too soon to make up her mind, but for now, Aoife let herself believe that her great-aunt genuinely cared about her—about her family—and wanted what was best for them. A whole family waiting for you. She thought of the rowdy communal dinners on their farm by Galway, of the cheer and warmth of a cavalcade of grownups doting on and scolding the children, regardless of parentage. She allowed herself to think—to hope—that it might be nice to have that again, if not for herself then for her brothers and sisters. Then at last, her thoughts returned to the immediate, to what they must do next, and to the family's precarious place in Enfield. With that, she murmured her final doubt to Lucy. "What will we do about Ma? What if she... gets that way again?"

  Lucy took a few moments to consider—to relish the acceptance weaved into her great-niece's ten-thousandth question—before answering with the conviction of a much older, far more battle-tested woman. "I have a few things in mind I could try. I wouldn't normally advocate for such rushed methods, but we're unfortunately pressed for time. Get me in the room with her, stay by her side, and leave the rest to me."