Adeline and I gave Quinn a hand with cleanup after closing.
Besides being the courteous thing to do, it gave me the chance to sober up, otherwise it could have been a hazardous trip back to the base. We were also hoping to pick Quinn’s brain a bit more, but that plan was foiled when Tanis came around to help and spend time with her three favourite bartenders.
When we were done tidying up, Quinn went straight to bed, but Adeline and I still had work to do.
Before Tanis retired for the night, I asked her for a big envelope and a few dishrags. Whatever for, you ask? Well, we didn’t want there to be any reason for the secret mailman to open the message himself, or for him to bypass Councilwoman Blanchett and take it straight to whoever ran the show for the reserves. If he felt the ID bracelets in there, that might trigger a process we were unfamiliar with.
Also, Adeline brought up a fine point. By sending Blanchett the proof of Tag and Quinn’s deaths, we were not only revealing that we were alive and had killed them, but that there was a chance we were able to question them, and had learned something about the reserves in the process. On top of her mission getting two of their members killed, would she really want to be responsible for an information leak?
So, aye—we ultimately decided to rush it. I’d done enough by alerting Faust, hadn’t I? Because that’s what she asked me to do, wasn’t it? Her instructions were to let her know if anything we did was going to involve the other Councilwomen or Palisade, but she hadn't said let her know and then wait for permission, had she? Well, even if she had—
To put the finishing touches on our plan, we sat around a two-person table in the lounge, lit by a single candle. “You wanna write the note?” I asked Adeline.
She smiled deviously. “Truly? I would love nothing more than to ruffle my mother’s feathers. Pass me the quill, Agent Finlay.”
“Right you are, Successor Blanchett.” I passed her the quill.
She wrinkled her nose and dipped the nib in the well, then tapping it once, twice, three times carefully against the lip.
I grinned and watched her from across the table.
Adelaide,
You’ll have to do much better than that if you hope to be an effective Councilwoman.
Love,
Adeline
“She would say that to me all the time—about everything. ‘Adeline, you mustn’t walk so loudly if you hope to be an effective Councilwoman. Adeline, you really shouldn’t get your hands so dirty if you hope to be an effective Councilwoman.’ Adeline rolled her eyes and let her tongue hang out.
“Is she like that with your brother and sister, too?”
“Adair may as well not exist at all, and Alice, well—for now she’s still an adorable accessory. We’ll see what happens when she learns to form full sentences.”
“Why? Was she always like this?"
Adeline nodded. “There are certain people you simply can’t reason into reason, and believe me, I’ve spent hours upon hours trying.”
“What about your grandmother? What was she like?”
Adeline flapped the paper around gently, drying the ink. “Well, I barely knew her. She died when I was only little. But I’ve heard she was no better. And if that’s the cause for my mother’s behaviour, I don’t accept it. She chose—every day—to be awful when she could have chosen instead to be different.”
“Like you?”
“Yes, exactly.” Adeline caught my eye across the table and nodded once.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re amazing,” I said, and then I immediately gestured to the big, blank envelope on the table. “You or me?”
“Definitely you,” Adeline said. “I’d like her to be surprised.”
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I had a knack for masking my own handwriting, which is what set me on the path to becoming an excellent forger. So, I used the most neutral script I could muster out of my imagination, addressed to Councilwoman Adelaide Blanchett. And then, while Adeline folded the letter, I wrapped the bracelets up in the dirty dishrags, making sure they were adequately padded before packing them. So far so good, only, we didn’t have glue on hand, and the puffiness of the envelope was working against us.
Adeline flashed a smile across, swiftly standing and taking my hand as well as the candle on the table. I grabbed the envelope before she yanked me away.
We made our way to the kitchen where Adeline showed me how to make glue out of flour and water. It wasn’t exactly a quick process, because we had to wait for it to cool down before applying it to the envelope, and then we had to wait another hour for it to dry well enough for safe transportation. But that gave us the chance to raid Vera’s pantry, and we passed the rest of the time playing Hidden Six at the bar. We were evenly matched, but it was almost morning, so the tie-breaker would have to wait. We were cutting it close, weren’t we? For that reason, there wasn’t time to return to the base, and I asked Adeline if she wouldn’t mind staying at the Gander while I did what had to be done.
I could run a lot faster without her on my back—literally.
She didn’t mind.
I really wish I had a better story for you, mates, but actually: I got to the secret drop spot just before dawn, which was located northwest of Verena, in a decrepit hunting outhouse. Quinn’s fake letter from Tag was waiting under the creaky bench. I wasn’t excited about putting that in my bag near all my snacks, and otherwise I might have stuffed it in my trousers, but that didn’t seem like a good idea, either, and I wasn’t even wearing any underpants.
So, I decided I’d just hold on to it, and I slipped the puffy envelope under the creaky bench in its place.
Now, there was one thing I didn’t know, and that day might have been our only chance to find out. Instead of leaving the area immediately, I found a tall tree a fair distance away, just close enough to keep the outhouse in sight, but far enough to get a wide view of the area.
It was a long, boring morning waiting in the tree, when three hours and twenty four minutes later, I saw a cloaked figure running in from the south. He dropped in at the outhouse, picked up the envelope, which he barely looked at, and darted back in that same direction.
But my aim wasn’t to follow the mailman. I just wanted to see which direction he was coming from, so I could narrow down viable pickup/drop off points. They’d have to have a Nav and an embark, right? Well, I was pretty sure they’d have one, and now I was pretty sure they used the same spot as Rhydian’s crew. To be fair, it was a great spot. Obvious, but the cavern system leading to the grotto was defensible if needed.
I’d done everything that needed doing, and seen everything that needed seeing, so I returned to the Gander to pick up Adeline. When I couldn’t find her in the kitchen or the lounge, I checked the bunks and the washrooms, but she wasn’t there either. Where else? Well, I ruled out the private rooms and the peepshows—employees weren’t allowed to use them after hours and it seemed a strange rule for her to break. So that left me with the cellar, or—
I opened the door to my office and found her asleep on the floor between the step ladder and the crooked shelf. It was a good job I kept a blanket and a pillow in there. But why was she even there? She could have bunked with one of the lasses—even backstage was a better option than the broom closet. I rubbed my beard, closed the door quietly, and tiptoed forward.
“Addie,” I whispered.
No answer.
“Addie,” I tried again, more loudly.
She stirred, but no answer.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I spotted the problem straightaway. Next to her hand, there was an open bottle of whiskey. I don’t know how much was in the bottle before she got her hands on it, but judging by the sound of the liquid inside, it was just over half full now.
I chuckled to myself, and after one more attempt to wake her up by poking her in the shoulder, I bent over, picked her up, and hoisted her over mine.
On the way out, I made sure to grab her jacket, gloves, and hat from the closet.
It was awkward, but I managed to get it all on her.
I walked for the first half hour before Adeline woke up only long enough to tell me to move my adorable little behind—she wanted to go home. Mates, I was a bit worried that the speed might cause an upchuck, but if it happened, it happened.
She clung to my back the rest of the way, and nobody puked.
It was mid-late afternoon when we finally got home, and by then, Adeline was awake enough to stomp on the ground above the hatch along with me.
Ten, twelve, twenty-two seconds and the hatch opened. Strauss, still in his jammies, stood at the bottom of the stairs. We announced ourselves verbally and made our way down.
The hatch closed behind us.
Finally—sleep. I don’t remember much about what was going on when I got home. Maybe I waved to Evelyn, maybe it was Teeth, maybe it was no one. Who knows, mates, I was practically delirious at that point. I do remember Adeline decided to stay back, though, so I made my way down the hall alone.
In the bunk room, I put Quinn’s fake letter in the drawer, got undressed, put on some underpants, kissed my fingers and touched them to V’s basket, and finally, I climbed under the covers and curled up into a ball. When I was comfortable enough, I closed my eyes and began to count, drifting off at around eighty-nine.
But whatever sleep I got (less than two hours, actually) was interrupted when I woke up to a cold, skinny finger poking me in the forehead.
I curled up inside the blanket. “I’m so tired Everleigh, so unless someone’s dying, I don’t think I want to hear it.”
“There’s somewhere we need to be,” she said.
“Why,” I asked—monotone like her, like her.
“Because you’re you, and I’m me,” she answered. “Let’s go.”
I groaned and rolled out of bed, blanket and all.
Who needs sleep, anyhow?