The Last Lies of Ardor Benn by Tyler Whitesides

Author:Tyler Whitesides [Whitesides, Tyler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

The moment we stop regretting our past mistakes, we lose a portion of our humanity and find one more thing in common with the beasts of Pekal.

CHAPTER

20

It was windy on the campus green of Beripent’s Southern College. Quarrah sat on a wooden bench, silently observing the flow of students as the bell tolled the midday hour.

The academic setting was strange to her. As a little girl, Quarrah remembered climbing a stout tree in the Porter District of Leigh. Perched on one of the lower limbs, she’d had a perfect view through a classroom window. Her “school tree” had taught her the letters of the alphabet, but the streets had taught her to read.

Ah, there was San Green moving toward her, clutching a book satchel as though he were a regular student. The young man didn’t move like the others, though. There was a furtiveness to his gait and an uneasiness in the way he turned his head. The look of a person who felt like death was always closing in.

San reached her, but didn’t sit down. “Where’s Raekon?” he asked.

“He only saw me as far as the college gate,” Quarrah answered. “Said he had some personal business south of the city.”

“What do you think he’s doing?”

Quarrah shrugged. “He’s got some demons, San.” Raek was probably meeting a contact to purchase some Heg. Ard would have tried to stop him, but Quarrah wasn’t one to meddle. She had talked to Raek about it once. With his condition, she honestly didn’t know if he could survive without the Compounded Health Grit in his chest.

“Did you do it?” she asked.

San seated himself on the bench beside Quarrah, flipping open his satchel. “It took longer than I thought because Professor Baruss kept hanging around. You’re not going to like what I discovered anyway.” San pulled the thin glass vial from his satchel. “Sugar water.” He held it out for her examination.

“What?” She rolled it between her fingers, utterly confused.

“Raekon was right,” San said. “There’s no source material at all. It’s not even technically a Grit solution. Just plain sugar water.”

“He must have switched them back,” Quarrah muttered.

“Hedge Marsool?”

“No, Ard,” said Quarrah. “He stole a vial from Hedge and we were examining it in the Be’Igoth. I was too afraid Ard was going to try to use it without understanding it, so I stole the vial and replaced it with one filled with plain sugar water.”

“You think he realized it?” San asked. “When would he have switched them back?”

“He couldn’t have,” Quarrah said, mind racing over the last few weeks. “I’ve had this vial locked in a safe box in an apartment that Ard doesn’t even know about.”

“Huh…” San scratched his head. “Maybe you made a mistake and never actually switched them. That’s a possibility if they looked identical, right?”

“A small possibility,” said Quarrah. “Very small.” But if the vials had been switched back, then that meant Ard really had shattered their only sample on the deck of the Shiverswift. Quarrah had seen the sparks, but there had been no detonation.

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