TBOS: Round 2, Part 8

"All right, then?"

Reinald swallowed hard and willed his breathing to return to normal before he risked a response. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that? You're the one who got possessed by a piece of enchanted jewelry."

The shaky laugh he got in response sounded almost alien coming from Anna, but it was the most welcome sound he'd heard all day. "Too slow, old man. You didn't answer my question. Besides, aren't you the one who got shot?"

"As I recall," he said, hating how his voice wavered slightly, "you were the one who shot me."

"I'd rather not argue about that," she said, and her expression turned serious for a moment. "But answer me honestly, Todorov, if you're even capable of such a thing. Are you going to slow me down?"

He took a deep breath. "I'll be fine. You only hit my shoulder."

Her eyes narrowed, and she took a step forward. "You'd better let me have a look at that. It's a wonder you're not dead or unconscious already."

What was that unease flickering up again? "Your concern is touching but entirely unfounded. It hurts, of course, but the bleeding's slowed by now, and I can still move my arm--"

"Don't be stupid," said Anna, at the same time Reinald said, "Oh."

"Nerves," said Anna, unceremoniously prying his fingers away from the wound. "Nerves, and major blood vessels, and something very insignificant known as a joint in the potential path of that bullet, and you're telling me you're fine."

"Mostly," he said, carefully shrugging out of his jacket and allowing her to unbutton his shirt. "Well, I'm going to have to find a new suit."

"You will at that," she allowed, smiling grudgingly. "It's a good thing you were shot in Archetype. Your clothes haven't got holes in them, but I guess the blood will leave a bit of a stain. There's an exit wound, too, and it's absurdly neat--no, don't move your arm--"

"Archetype?" he said, holding his arm still. "Is that what they're called?"

One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "The one in my head talked to me for a moment. That's all I'm saying for now--do you realize that this injury is technically impossible?"

"How do you mean?"

"I can't fucking explain it. I'm not a doctor. But I mean the bullet must have gone all the way to the bone without nicking any arteries--that's unlikely but possible--but then it's skipped the bone entirely and gone straight out the other side. Like..." She hesitated. "This is stupid."

Reinald snorted. "I've heard plenty of absurd things today. One more won't hurt."

"It's like a shoulder injury in the movies," she said at last. "A shoulder injury described by someone who's never been shot before and doesn't know what it's like. Someone who thinks a bullet to the shoulder is just a flesh wound, something to inconvenience the hero for a few hours but shows he's really properly hurt."

He was quiet for a moment, mulling it over. Then he said, "Maybe it is."

She blinked at him.

"We're in a Book, after all," he said, taking his shirt collar in his teeth and tearing a sleeve off. Anna got the hint and took the sleeve from him, binding the injury securely. "And we know it's falling apart. Maybe the author of the Book is an incompetent idiot who ought to stick to his day job."

"It's possible," she allowed carefully.

"Then it's settled. More importantly, how are you feeling?"

"Fine. Well." Her mouth twisted for a moment. "My head's kind of heavy. Like there's a block in it where there hadn't been one before, keeping something at bay. It's not a bad feeling, just a strange one."

Ah. "That would have been Hazel," he said slowly, deliberately looking anywhere but at the corpse beside them. "She had some abilities along those lines, or so she said."

"So that was her name." Anna looked almost thoughtful. "I didn't think to ask."

"You were, as I recall, distracted at the time."

"Yeah." She looked down at the necklace. "But it's better if we leave this thing here."

He frowned a little at the suggestion. "You're certain? What is it?"

She nudged it carefully with a boot. It lay there innocuously, glinting faintly in the last rays of the sun. "Some kind of essence. She talked to me, pushed out the Archetype...and then she wanted to stay. It's a good job you pulled it out of my hand when you did. I didn't think..." She trailed off, looking uncertain for the first time

"Then leave it," he said.

"Right. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about that." Again that odd twist of her mouth. "No pun intended."

He nodded, offering a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. But if Hazel had been correct about her abilities--if she had done as Reinald suspected, and sealed whatever it was away in Anna's head for the time being, then perhaps they could continue the conversation he had meant to have with this her this morning with no further interruption.

"Anna," he said. She lifted her head to meet his gaze, and he stopped short at the sudden, tight anger in her eyes. No. Not again.

It was a few tense seconds before he realized the anger wasn't directed at him--though who the target was, he had no idea.  Slowly, her posture gradually lost its aggressive stance. When she finally spoke, her voice was as close to resigned as he'd ever heard her get. "You were saying that this changing business has been going on for a while."

"It's just a theory, but yes." Reinald's eyebrows drew together as he thought back. "Most likely even before we arrived here. Lady Ink said something of the sort--that our world had grown stale and uninteresting. If what both she and Mudd were saying is true..."

"...then our own world is just as fucked up," finished Anna, and for some reason, she sounded rather less surprised as Reinald thought she would be. She thrust her hands into her pockets and sighed. "Guess it explains how the two of them arrived in Keis in the first place."

That was a worrying line of thought, and with it came the unsettling notion that they were being drawn into this business whether they liked it or not. Reinald tilted his head slightly, observing her through half-closed eyes. "Are you reconsidering Mudd's job offer?"

She shrugged, her expression unreadable for once. "There's plenty of other people out there who'd do a better job of fixing this place than us. But I don't want to go back to my usual haunts only to find that the drinks all taste the same."

Reinald exhaled, unsure whether the emotion bubbling up was fear or relief. "You want to stay here."

She tilted her head, half-smiling. "That's one way of putting it. Yes. For now."

And around them the wind kicked up again, and the cliffs began to crumble into dust, and above them the twilight sky turned the color of smudged charcoal. The rocks underneath him shifted, and he looked at Anna and read his own thoughts in her eyes.

"See you on the other side," he said, and her smile widened a little.

Something seized his legs and pulled, and he permitted it.  Everything had gone grey by now. Hopefully this transition would be smoother than the last.

"Todorov."

"Smith," he returned, raising a blurred eyebrow.

"You came back for me."

"I assure you," he said dryly, "that was not my intention."

She stared for a moment. Then, as the world folded up around them in a rush of paper, she began to laugh. "The Book again? Well, good. Because I really would have shot you if you had done it on purpose."

---

The Book was nothing like Alec Hardings had expected it to be: a whirl of colors and chaos, somehow simultaneously different and the same. In another world, he would have found it inspiring. Now he only found it a distraction.

He needed to find her.

He thought he'd seen her, a glimpse in a busy town, a familiar face in the midst of a crowd. But she had vanished before he could look again, and he'd been left staring, unsure whether he'd really seen the woman he loved.

Loved was the right word, wasn't it? It hadn't been, for three years. But those had been complicated years, full of blinding rage, of bitterness and uncomprehending anger, and every now again, stolen moments of hard-won lucidity. And now...

The sound of his horse's hooves pounded in his ears as he tore through the desert.  The town hostler had seen an odd girl in the stables not three hours ago.  She had had short hair and a necklace--had been traveling with a tall man with iron-grey hair and a dark suit--had purchased two horses and set off for Stettler, which he was given to understand was the next town over. The close-cropped hair hadn't sounded like Hazel, but the necklace--that was unmistakable.

She couldn't be far away. There were so many things he needed to tell her--so much he had to make up for--he wasn't sure what had brought him back from the brink, and he didn't know if it would even last, but he couldn't waste the time he'd been given. And the landscape around him was beginning to fade. He didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but it was becoming abundantly clear that if he didn't find Hazel soon, either the Archetype or the Book would catch up with him. Either way, he didn't have much time left.

He was so occupied with his thoughts that he almost missed the crumpled body lying by the road. And then, when he finally reined his horse in, dismounted, and approached, he suddenly found he couldn't think anything at all.

It was very nearly funny, he reflected as he crouched beside Hazel's still form, taking in the blank eyes, the neat hole in her chest. All those years as a brilliant writer and successful artist, and his words had waited until now to fail him. There was something deeply ironic about the whole thing.

He took a deep breath, and it seemed a betrayal somehow when the air rushed in dry and steady. Distantly, he noticed his hands were shaking.

Already the lines of her body had started to become jagged and rough, crumbling into the ground beneath, and he pulled her into his arms instinctively, as if he thought he might be able to keep both of them from turning into dust like the desert around them. The growing wind started to howl in earnest, and he freed one arm and scrabbled for purchase as the world began to fall apart.

Then, for just a moment, he paused. There was something in the sand--

His fingers closed around the necklace, and everything went black.

fin