Page 84 of The Only Way Out Is Up

Part of me feels a desperate guilt at leaving my family to her, but it doesn’t last long. I’m the only one who can do this work, though it hardly feels like work at all. I’m like a starving rat set loose in a warehouse full of cheese. In addition to the sigils we got from Ekkeban—the precious green RESIST and stacks of yellows and oranges of every type I can get my hands on—I’ve got everything we looted off Rotwurm’s corpse. While the BLAST weapons destroyed the majority of the ancient Twisted’s innards, there was still a shocking amount left intact, MOVEs and RESISTs and stranger things the monster had found and incorporated into itself over the decades. I don’t know how it’s all going to fit into Star, but I’m dying to find out.

So that’s why I keep to my room. Kind of. Mostly. As the actual day approaches, though, I realize there’s a conversation I’ve been avoiding. Time’s running out, so I steel myself and march downstairs like I’m going to have a chat with the executioner.

Somi’s in his room, reading one of the new books I brought him. The Preparation of Sausages and Other Preserved Meats. Fascinating stuff, I’m sure. On Yesod there are bookshops, with more than a person could read in a lifetime. After all this is over…

“Finally decided to say hello?” Somi says, and I wince.

“I’ve been a little busy.”

“I bet. You’ve been working away.” He looks over at me. “There’s all kind of rumors in the market. Somebody told me you killed Rotwurm. I told her not even you would be that crazy. Right?”

I give a noncommittal shrug.

“If you’d killed Rotwurm, this wouldn’t be so empty,” he says, tapping the new jar that had replaced the one the Clawmarks had shattered. “Whatever score you’re working on, it hasn’t paid off yet.”

For a moment my stomach drops into my boots. What the fuck am I doing? We killed Rotwurm; even if I split the bounty with Ky, it’s still an unfathomable sum. I should be using it for my family, new clothes for Spike and books for Somi and whatever else they want, not betting it all to, what, win even more? I think of the fortune in sigils up in my room and feel a guilt so intense it makes me want to melt into a puddle.

And yet. When I think about using the cash like that, it feels wrong. Like a dream, something that would come apart under your fingers if you tried to grab it. I can’t quite put my finger on it…

Somi, that bastard, is smiling at me. He believes what he said. I cough awkwardly.

“Actually I have… a few bits to contribute.” I’d set some aside in spite of Ky’s objections; enough to keep the Clawmarks away until I get back. “But you’re right. It hasn’t paid off just yet.”

“So when are you leaving?” Somi says.

“Leaving—” I stare at him for a second, and he rolls his eyes.

“Come on, Taj, I’m not stupid. That girl is from Hod. You’re taking that thing you’ve been building in your room and going up there”—he jabs toward the ceiling—“to try something big. You don’t want to give me the details, fine, I’m not going to ask. I just want to know how long you’re going to be gone.”

“Tomorrow,” I say quietly. “And I’ll be… a while. Weeks, probably.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It… shouldn’t be.” It’s just a runic fight, after all. Except for the assassins. “But I’ll be careful anyway.”

“That’s good.” He sighs. “Spike worries about you, even if she won’t admit it.”

“And you?” I can’t help but ask.

“I’m trying not to.” His lip quirks. “Trust, right?”

“Right.”

I should leave. This went better than I deserved. But the sick weight of guilt still presses on me, and I can’t help picking at the scab.

“Can I ask you something?”

Somi raises his eyebrows.

“If you killed Rotwurm—”

He laughs out loud. “What, with my rolling pin?”

“Just hypothetically. Two hundred stripes. What would you do with it?”

“Buy more mash,” he says promptly. “Give the bread away, not just to the kids but to anyone who needs it. Turn that pile across the alley into another bakery, train up some new people, make more.”

“Even two hundred stripes wouldn’t last long when you’re giving it to everyone in sight.”