Solo Drip by Drop

[Caspian]

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56 Spring 522

Neither of them care very much for the rain.

Flying isn’t impossible for Taalviel, but the visibility’s low, she says, and everything’s too heavy. The lift she usually relies on is gone, shifted. She says it’s something like being smothered by a wool blanket in the dead of summer, one you can’t just slip from.

For Caspian, the rain is just distracting. He knows some people like it, say they can nod off to sleep better with the patter. And it’s not that he needs absolute silence to sleep – he likes the crush and press of cities, that there’s some sign of life out there in the streets – but it’s the constancy of rain, the icy nail-like endless splatter when it strikes tin roofs. The fact that he can’t do anything about it, except wait for it to stop. But what he really doesn’t like about it, aside from what it does to his hair, and how it ruins satin and silk (things he doesn’t wear anymore; things in distant memory) is that it leaves a mark.

He looks askance at the trail of footprints he and Taalviel have left behind them on the wooden floorboards. As they’d crossed the front yard they’d stepped right into the mud, the indents unmistakable. It’s no matter now, for they’re just in their stepfather Taaldros’ house. But leaving evidence of their presence is going to make what happens later all the more difficult.

It’s been showering on and off since yesterday. And if he has to climb anything –

“Hey. You paying attention?”

Caspian blinks, looks up at his father – stepfather – but does it really matter, the extra syllable? The bit of wall he might try and put between them?

At this point, what’s the use?

“Here,” Taaldros is saying, and he’s evidently fed up with Caspian already, for he’s pressing a scroll of parchment into Taalviel’s hand. The wax seal is unbroken. “That’s the location. That’s the time. And that’s the list of things you need to take, that and nothing more. Understood?”

There’s water pooled in the hair beyond his temples, above and tucked behind his ears. It trickles down the side of his earlobe. It isn’t pleasant; it’s worse than being tickled, to him. He resists the urge to swat at his ear. And quietly, on both sides, rain drips from his wet sleeves, plinks onto the floorboards.

“Can you handle this?” Taaldros is looking at him again.

Leaning insouciantly against the doorway behind Taaldros is Zhassel, sucking on her teeth. When she notices him looking, she snorts.

“I don’t think you’d bring me in if I couldn’t,” Caspian replies, looking his stepfather dead in the eye.

And it chills him, still. There’s something about Taaldros that does that to you, as if he’s constantly harboring a hurricane. Caspian’s seen him extract information from terrified strangers simply with his glowering silence.

“Be careful,” he says, and, surprisingly, it’s sort of to both of his children.

“Of course,” Taalviel replies, tucking the rolled up parchment into her pocket.

“I don’t know any more than you about this,” Taaldros adds as he turns away. “So don’t bother asking.”

Right.

Because they can’t just end it on a good note.

Word count: 536

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[Caspian]

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They make it all of three blocks before Caspian blurts out, “So what’s it say?”

“You held out a minute and a half longer than I thought you would,” Taalviel replies. She’s got her hood on, hands shoved in both pockets. Unless she’s dead set on being extra withholding, paranoid, or some combination of the two, he’s fairly certain the rolled-up note is in her right fist.

“Hard pressed and hard won,” he replies, picking up his pace to match hers. As if she’s trying to avoid him, which is ridiculous given that they’ve been sent on this mission together. “Seriously? What game are you playing at? I’m as much a part of this as you. Dad and I even made eye contact, that’s how I know.”

They’re heading south, passing swiftly through Daggerhand territory. It’s late afternoon, and the sun casts long shadows, some of them the kind that linger in doorways, behind cracked, grimy windowpanes, that watch them as they pass. They won’t be bothered; they’re walking too swiftly, with too much purpose for that. He wonders how many people know they’re Taaldros’ children, whether, by extension of him, they consider him and his sister Daggerhand-enough. If that’s the reason they’re allowed to pass so easily without being accosted.

But that can’t be the only reason. He’s glimpsed his reflection enough to know he’s got some of that old slink back, the grayness in gaze. Eyes kept low to avoid confrontation, but alert enough to dispel most strangers’ passing impulse to prey on him. It’s an exhausting way to live. Will his brow ever unfurrow, his back ever unknot? But with each passing day here it becomes harder to remember what he was like before, lazing back in Ravok’s grand canals. Lying with eyes shut, hands behind his head, beneath the suns on Zeltiva’s University lawns. It’s old muscles he’s finding now – and he’s not finding them unwelcome.

Without warning he lurches forward, grabs his sister by the wrist. But she’s ready for him, twisting out of his grasp. And by reflex he grabs again, this time for her left, because out of the corner of his eye he swears he sees a flash of movement, of her passing the note from her right hand to the left. She sidesteps; he follows, tries to trip her. Their legs tangle, and she shoves him in the chest, hard – but he grabs her by the right wrist, anticipating that – yes, that’s exactly where she’d passed the note back to, and he intercepts.

With his back to her he unfurls the note.

It’s not Taaldros’ handwriting, which is blocky and perfunctory and painfully carved and clear. The script on the parchment is a slanted cursive, uneven, written in a rush.

53 Alder Lane
half chime before midnight
red book – black box – yellow stone

“Well. That seems straightforward enough,” Caspian says, looking back to Taalviel. “Why bother playing keep-away?”

“Habit, I guess.” Maybe she’s getting reacquainted with old muscles of her own. Back in the old days they hardly told him a thing – just where to go and when and what to do, and even that was painfully limited. It was understandable. They hadn’t trusted him, both in his capabilities and the fact that he was liable to run off at any moment. The latter bit was more of a nuisance than anything. In the early days he’d felt guilty. Horrified, as any person in their right mind involved with criminals should be.

And then, with time, those feelings that had been holding him back –

They’d simply worn off.

And all that was left, transmogrified from all of his anxieties and scruples and fears, was simply a love for the thrill.

“I’m with you, okay?” he says. He’s stopped walking, and she pauses and turns. “I’m in this just as much as you. You can trust me to see this through.”

It needed to be said out loud; he hadn’t realized it until now. Surely she had been thinking of the old days, calculated how much of a liability he might prove to be tonight. And just as surely, Taaldros had done the same.

She blinks, her dark eyes boring into him. “If you say so.”


Word count: 704

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[Caspian]

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It’s raining again. He’s not much of a fan of how it changes the mood, how depending on the time of day, it can cast a different degree of sobriety. And when it’s dark and there’s rain it’s almost too much of a damper, as if the forces of nature are trying very hard to convey to him that he ought to be home. Maybe he’s read too many novels. Seen too many plays. He knows what metaphor and symbolism are and he’s letting the fanciful cloud him.

But there’s still the squelching, which is a real and material reason to scowl. The tracks they leave behind, not nearly as bad as snow but just as incriminating. There’s mud on their shoes; there will continue to be mud when they break into the house on Alder Lane. It’s frustrating that the rain is off and on, that no matter how he internally curses or bargains, it’ll just do what it’s going to do, and he’s just along for the ride.

They still have a few hours to midnight. Without consulting each other they head for Alder Lane anyway. Now that they know what their target is – it doesn’t hurt to scope out the surroundings. It’s them doing their job. But on top of that, it’s hard to think of anything else. He has to see the place, now that it’s been named, with his own two eyes.

They’ve been heading south through Daggerhand land; they veer slightly west and Caspian wonders, with no small amount of apprehension, whether this house is possibly in the Night Eyes’ neighborhood. Taaldros wouldn’t send them into enemy territory, would he? Not on their very first job?

But he would, and he could, growls the part of Caspian that had come with age and experience, the one that is suspicious and tired and knows his stepfather too well. Why wouldn’t Taaldros send them to a section of the city like that, clearly under control by a rival gang? It would save Taaldros, a Daggerhand, all the trouble. And Caspian, he’s made clear, can be categorized on any day by him as expendable.

The hypothetical immunity he’d hoped Taaldros had given them as a Daggerhand suddenly doesn’t seem so much of a blessing anymore.

But – no. They’re sticking to the Castle Commons. He knows this before Taalviel says so; she’s telegraphing her intent by the way she suddenly turns, taking them around a block. A grubby child kicks through the puddles collecting in the dips in the street, already turning gray. A woman tugs along a ratty dog on a rope. By the way the dog’s resisting, Caspian wonders if it’s really a pet, or tonight’s dinner.

“It’s that one, right?” Caspian nods towards the house on the corner. They’re strolling by at easy pace. He’d noticed her eyes flickering towards it. There’s not much to be said for it, just one of those structures built from old rubble. But it’s got an entire intact roof and all four walls standing, which is more than can be claimed of the homes on either side.

Taalviel hums in response.

They stop in an alley a bit down the block. Taalviel crosses her arms, leans back against the wall. Looks anywhere but at the house on Alder Lane.

Caspian packs his pipe. Lights it. Is this why he had started smoking? It’s a good cover. If anything, it’s something to do with his hands, keep him focused and steady and just the right amount of occupied while he waits.


Word count: 591

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[Caspian]

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When he eats it’s perfunctory, the result of realizing that he hasn’t taken the time to do so since yesterday. They knew they were going to meet with Taaldros that afternoon, and though he had held himself even-keeled, in retrospect he sees how the anticipation had killed his appetite. When his limbs start shaking, or his grip goes slacker around the handle of his dagger than it should, when everyday motions seem to require more from him – or, worst of all, when his judgment starts clouding and a touch of paranoia creeps in – that’s when he knows he’s pushed it too far, with hunger and exhaustion. It’s a disjointed way of living, as if he’s a houseplant he keeps forgetting to water.

It doesn’t really register, the thing he’s making himself eat. It’s a sort of pastry, folded over a mash of cod and grains and crimped at the edges. It fits in his fist and appeared to be cooked all the way through, which is more than good enough. Taalviel has the same, though she goes through all the motions of unfolding it and picking through the contents.

That kills approximately ten minutes.

And back they go, to smoking and waiting, as night falls around them.

There’s no movement in and out of the house. The possible presence of its inhabitants had given Caspian some amount of hesitation; the fact that Taaldros was unable to confirm or deny these possible hurdles to the mission were no small source of anxiety. Would that have been so hard for the author of the note to share? This must be some small piece of the puzzle, he thinks. They’re just one cog in someone else’s machine, and there’s a greater objective here at work, in which their only roles – one hopes – are to retrieve a red book, a black box, and a yellow stone.

A temple bell strikes eleven. There’s more activity out on the streets, some people already addled out of consciousness, stumbling through the crooked avenues.

As Caspian clicks on his internal metronome, Taalviel interrupts with, “You haven’t been out much.”

“We’re out now. Is that good enough?”

“No, I mean, like –“ A man stumbles past, rapidly sniffing and wiping at his nose with the back of his hand, with the frenetic energy of a rat. Clearly on a dose of uppers, and likely not his last for the night. “Like that.”

The past few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. Whenever Caspian comes and goes from their apartment, he’s accosted by two things – people high as kites, and dealers beckoning him to join the throng. Out of curiosity he’d entertained a conversation with one of the latter. Found that prices were cheaper for every substance he’s historically been interested in, and more besides, than they were when he was growing up. It would have been ridiculously easy to take anyone up on their many offers.

And yet he had gone about his business with his head down. Slipped into bed at mostly appropriate hours. Rose with the sun.

He shrugs. “Hey. Maybe after this is over, I’ll have a reason to celebrate. Do it up how I used to.” He can’t read her expression. This is normal; he’s spent a lifetime trying to find a way for it not to bother him. “This is weird. Is this a test? You want me to get high and screw around?”

“I just want you to be… you.”

He chews on this in silence for the rest of the half-hour. Precisely a minute before they move, the door to the house on Alder Lane opens, and a man carrying a leather bag exits. Locks the door behind him, hurries up the street. He’s wearing a long coat, white and buttoned up to the neck. Gloves up to his elbows. And the bag, a compact duffle, looks very much like something a physician might bear.

They’re robbing a doctor?

At exactly half a chime past 11, the man’s disappeared around the block. The siblings creep towards the house, slink into the alley beside it. All the windows on the first floor are locked. Taalviel looks up, and Caspian sees it too – a window on the second floor, left just slightly ajar. The side of the house they’re pressed up against isn’t smooth. There’s enough irregularities in the bricks, corners and whole stones jutting out. One could climb, if one was so inclined.

“You first,” Taalviel says.

Caspian cranes his neck up at the window, just as the sky above them darkens further, occluding the moon, and rain comes pattering down.



Word count: 770

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[Caspian]

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The rain right now – it itself is, one might say, manageable. Not enough to need an umbrella, though one might start considering it. But the problem is the bricks are already slick, from all the rain that’s come down over the last two days, and when he digs his fingertips into the grit he forgets about his toes, and when his left boot slips his heart goes with it. And he’s barely five feet off the ground.

“Hurry up,” Taalviel hisses below him.

“I’m trying.” Climbing is really just a mental game, more than anything. At least when it comes to this scale, which is standard fare for someone in their line of work. The impossibility of being able to predict handholds aside, generally speaking, one part of whatever one is climbing shouldn’t necessarily be any more difficult than the next. Of course one has to adapt, as he’s doing here, which is cramping the points of both his boots on one particular brick that happens to have a larger surface area to work with than the rest. He likes this ledge; it’s a good ledge, and if he leaves it –

“Come on.” That’s Taalviel again.

Grimacing, he scrambles up for the next handhold. It’s mossy and all the slime’s reactivated with the rain. But the brick itself is holding, so he holds too, and up go one foot, then the other, then the hand he hasn’t used yet. Inching forward he goes, until finally his hands find purchase on the wooden window ledge.

Unhelpfully comes the urge to look down. He almost does; sees the street they’d loitered on. Snaps his gaze back to the task at hand. If the window’s going to be difficult he’s not sure how he’ll have the leverage to pry it open. But – thank the gods – it slides open easily enough, him straining at it with his less dominant hand, because he’s decided he feels safer with his stronger limb attached to it brick.

Hauling himself over the ledge, he finds himself into a modest bedroom. Mud and moss track in with him, smearing onto the floorboards, the rug on which the bed rests.

Peeking his head out the window, he calls, “Well?”

“Open one of the windows on the bottom floor!”

“Why don’t you just fly in?”

“I don’t feel like taking my clothes off. And what about my dagger?”

Right. Yes. Sensible.

Though the doctor had left his home, there’s no guarantee it’s entirely empty. Though the note had been so specific about the time they should be here. As if whoever had written it knew exactly when the doctor had his next appointment.

He creeps across the bedroom, hating the soft squelching of his shoes. There’s no one on the dark landing; no one on the stairs as he creaks down.

When he finally opens the window, his sister rolls her eyes, all of a huff. “Took you long enough.” Her gaze roves across the kitchen, and already she’s moving, brushing past him and into a parlor. Embers softly glow in the fireplace, dying slowly. Half a cigar rests in a tray by a well-worn armchair.

She’s searching.

So is he.

Red book.

Black box.

Yellow stone.



Word count: 536

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[Caspian]

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If he were a book, where would he be?

That’s easy enough. The doctor’s parlor is lined with shelves. It’s quite a lot, for someone who lives in Sunberth, where the population’s literacy is at questionable standard. He needs to stop thinking about the past, but it’s hard not to compare – in Zeltiva the books had seemed endless, reaching from floor to ceiling and impeccably leather-bound. In Ravok even those who weren’t particularly interested in reading had a few novels lying about, academic treatises and almanacs and things to flip through at their leisure. Here the books are a bit tattered – but, he would hazard to guess, treasured all the more. Perhaps loved.

He finds the red one, feels the spine crack and crinkle as he slips it from its shelf. No longer the doctor’s, now his, by decree of his pilfering hand. The cover is canvas, and it’s a bit faded, but it’s the only crimson volume to be seen. There’s no title embossed on the front, and as he cracks it open out of curiosity, Taalviel’s hand appears, snapping it shut and tucking it under her own arm.

“Black box,” she whispers.

Scowling, he scans the parlor. The cigar had come from a box, where there are a few others just like it, but it’s not black. Definitely tobacco-brown. There’s nothing to match the scant description in the kitchen. Still nothing in the entryway, except for two more pairs of shoes. He makes his way up the stairs again, Taalviel close behind.

“How many bedrooms?” she asks under her breath, as concerned as he is that the house may have other occupants.

He holds up one finger, still visible despite the storm cloud that’s passed over the moon, and points towards the bedroom into which he’d first climbed. The other room down the hall, door ajar, is a bathroom. The window there must be open too, for he can hear the rain pattering louder, echoing towards them down the dark hallway. He heads that way; Taalviel makes for the bedroom.

Now that he’s in the last room of the house he hadn’t yet seen, he’s breathing a little easier. It seems they are entirely alone. There’s nothing much to say about the bathroom, except the number of vials and bundles of unknown powders tucked away on the shelves behind the mirror. A doctor would have plenty of those, he supposes. A brush for foaming his beard rests beside the sink, along with a straight razor. It’s a heavy, handsome contraption. He likes the weight of the handle in his hand. But the note had been very clear – take nothing but the three items that had been described.

Is there a black box anywhere in this room?

“Found it!”

He nearly jumps, clamps down on the exclamation that almost leaves him. Taalviel appears from the gloom, a slim black box in her hand. It’s shut, the padlock swinging freely. Conspicuously.

“What’s in there?” he asks.

“How am I supposed to know?”

Taking it from her, he shakes it experimentally. No noise, no movement. But there’s definitely something of some weight in there, not air.

Frowning, he looks around the bathroom again. “No yellow stone?” he prompts.

She shakes her head.

Word count: 541
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[Caspian]

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“And you looked? Really looked?”

She gives him a flat expression that signifies how pointless she finds the query.

“Fine. Yes, fine.”

How much longer do they have?

How long do house calls usually go?

They comb through the house again anyway. Taalviel’s gnashing her teeth, and he’s getting close to doing the same. Where the petch is this yellow stone? Is yellow the most accurate way of describing it? What about gold, or orange, or even brass? He begins questioning the term stone too; it’s too flexible, one might argue. For all they know they should be looking for smallish orange thing, and they’ve been passing by it all along.

Sighing, he sits on the edge of the bathtub. The rain’s stopped, so there’s at least that. But he can see the tracks of their shoes in the moonlight. The puddle he’d made when he linked against the sink. He grabs one of the rags folded in a basket by the tub, and while he’s mulling the missing yellow stone over, wipes his boots on it. Mops up the water they’d tracked. Taalviel’s on the same page, with a dishcloth likely pilfered from the kitchen.

“Did you get everything?” he asks.

“Sure, but I don’t know about the mud you got on his sheets.”

He hadn’t even noticed that. Maybe he’d splattered a bit when he’d first thrown himself over the ledge.

Back to sitting on the edge of the tub, elbows on his knees. He can feel the clock ticking against him.

There’s another trickle of water on the tiles before him. He leans forward, mops it up.

And the tile moves.

This, in many circumstances, would be of little import. Would be worth note if a house was in good shape in this city. But the way it shifts, so cleanly from grout. As if it had been pried open, and set back into place.

Impulsively he kneels on the bathroom floor, pries his fingers at the tile. It’s not enough. Slipping his dagger from his side, he uses the point to edge it open, flipping the tile out of the floor.

Before them is a dip in the flooring, clearly intentionally made. And in the dip is a cinched velvet bag.

He pulls open the drawstrings, tips its contents out into his palm. But it’s too much – too many? And too heavy, and one rolls right off and cracks against the tiles, the sound and the prospect of its breaking making both siblings wince.

In the moonlight –

No, there’s no denying it.

They’re stones, perfectly spherical globes, glossed and buffed to perfection. One green, one red, one onyx. And one yellow.

Taalviel takes the yellow stone. It’s the one that had rolled off and hit the ground. She turns it over pensively, but she seems satisfied. It’s still intact.

Caspian sits with the other three stones in his hands.

Are they gems? Actual bits of real value? Something that could feed an average family here for a month?

He means to tuck them into his pocket.

“Leave it,” Taalviel hisses.

“What?”

“You remember the note. We’re only supposed to take what was named, nothing else.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“The note was.”

“But –“

“Caspian.”

“This is ridiculous,” he sputters. “Look, they’re right here, ready and waiting. Do you think Dad’s going to pay us even a single petching percent of what these could bring us?”

“Rules are rules,” she says firmly.

Does she know something he doesn’t?

But –

There’s something to be said, he supposes. About doing this first job the way he’s meant to. And it’s not like they’re starving for gold.

“Fine,” he says, “but know that I very highly disagree with every-“

There’s a knock from down below, at the front door. A woman’s voice.

“Petch,” both siblings hiss.

Caspian shoves the other stones back into their pouch, cinches it shut. Clamps the tile over it all like he’s sealing a tomb.

They hustle for the bedroom and the open window.




Word count: 669

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[Caspian]

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Downstairs the knocking continues, the woman’s voice growing louder. From the other side of the wood and a floor above, it’s too muffled to make out the words, but as they approach the open window her unfiltered voice comes through.

The woman is calling for the doctor; someone at home, by the sounds of it a young woman, is desperately in need of medical attention. Had the prescheduled appointment the doctor ran off to been real? Or possibly a diversion set by whoever had hired them for this robbery? That’s a doubling down of the sin Caspian is party to tonight; not just the petty larceny, but from the sounds of it, putting someone’s life at risk.

“What are you doing?” Taalviel hisses, already halfway out the window.

“I – “

The knocking turns more desperate.

But what does he think he can do at this point to help her? They couldn’t let her in. And even if they did, what in the world would they say, two strangers roaming about a house that they clearly have no business in?

“On your head, then,” Taalviel growls, disappearing from view.

Why is he hesitating?

Does he feel –

Bad about this, despite being so many degrees removed from the issue at hand?

Ridiculous, isn’t it. He bites down a laugh. And that’s good, being able to poke fun at himself. Keeps him lucid, in the moment.

It’s a real shame about those stones. Is that green one a real emerald? It had felt real enough, the heft in his hand. He twitches, almost turns back towards the bathroom where they’re hidden. But Taalviel would know; she always does.

So he can settle for a consolation prize.

As he’d found in the bathroom, the doctor has more substances in jars and packets and vials here. He swipes one at random, slips it into his pocket. Then follows his sister out the window, into the rain and haze. Nerve-wracking, going backwards – but he clamps both hands on the wooden window ledge, digs the points of his boots in the general direction of where he’d last remembered a protruding brick. He finds it – and then it starts again, the shift and search for the next available hold. Letting go of the relative safety of the wooden ledge takes some convincing, but the woman at the front door still hasn’t given in. She’s crying now, and he hates that, has never been able to stomach the sound. It makes him feel like everything is his fault, even when it isn’t, like he ought to be doing more. He doesn’t dare look down – trusts his sister when she whispers just jump and lets go.

She wouldn’t lie to him, not now, not about this, and his landing is manageable, though he feels his heart rattle in his ribs.

With the woman still at the front, they scurry the opposite direction. He pitches himself over a fence; Taalviel slinks through a gap further down in the wood. Then they’re blocks away, whole streets away, the sound of the woman diffused by the rest of the city, where so many parts of it never sleep. North they head for Taaldros’ house. When Taalviel hands over the three items – as if she’d done all this alone – Caspian steels himself for a verbal backhand. Something, anything, the inevitable harsh criticism to knock him down.

But nothing comes. Taaldros only nods, takes the three objects, tucks them into a burlap sack.

“Come back next week,” he says gruffly. “I’ll have something new.”

Caspian doesn’t remember the stolen vial until they’re back in their apartment in the Sunset Quarters. He waits until Taalviel is busying herself in the mirror before the washbasin, then slips it into a sock in the back of a drawer.


Word count: 630

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