The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

As you can see from the edit to my last, Headless Over Heels is caught up across both sites where it posts, and it continues to keep pace today!

Seth squeezed a wedge of lemon into his coffee del tiempe and stirred it with a clatter of ice. Here was a luxury he’d actually tasted, a coffee with ice in it. Rohan had served it to him once. When your fancy stuff had a shelf life, you were more likely to break it out for your lessers, he supposed.

“The artery is lovely, of course.” Marston scraped butter across his coca bread, navigating around the dried apricots. “You can’t say they’ve given us nothing, can you. Not when those trains roar through.”

Seth mirrored his gesture—perhaps the coca would be made less grainy with a hearty smear. “Surely the artery takes away more than it gives.”

Marson shrugged. “In pure tonnage, perhaps, but what you learn as an importer is the things of true value are often quite light. One simply requires a discerning eye and a sense of…”

He paused. His knife froze halfway back down to his plate. His wife rolled her eyes.

“Timing,” he cried, and Lisa jumped, hand on her chest, letting out a perfectly vacant titter.

Vividly Alive

Seth managed one himself as he scanned the drawing room. The conversation pit in which this farce unfolded was cornered into a picture window out to the garden. What light made it through the smothering wall of begonias landed on a hodgepodge of fine wood-carved furnishings and antique decor that screamed old money at a volume only new money would ever reach for.

A pair of crossed black-powder pistols, a portrait of Luka with a stripy felis on her lap, a slug of pitted metal like magma runoff which Marston had smugly introduced as the work of a sarkani artist from Sektorbrav—one of the dragon people, he’d said. Melted it into shape with his breath. Gimcrack displays like this would normally tickle the larcenist-in-residence within Seth’s brainstem. But he wasn’t here for this stuff.

He’d been charged with something beyond the swinging saloon door and up the marble stairs that lay beyond it. And as his vision returned to the beautiful woman who needed his talents, an encouraging bump of her threaded brow told him he’d given these hosts long enough for the lulling.

He scooted his chair out from the sea of lacy tablecloth. “Which way to the bathroom, may I ask?”

Marston pointed past the half-mummified butler in repose by the exit. “Across the vestibule, round the left corner and it’s your first left.”

“Seth, your cravat.” Lisa affected a look of disapproval. “Come, come. Before you go.” She gestured him in. “Try to leave it as you found it,” she whispered, as she undid his peach-colored cravat. “I want them in the dark so they don’t skip town when we roll in again. Saints speed you, my brilliant little thief.”

She tied the knot again and cinched it snug to Seth’s neck. Like she’s putting a collar on you, an unwelcome voice whispered. She eased back and gave him a light tap on the cheek. He climbed from the conversation pit and slipped out of the room. Another fluting Lisa laugh sounded behind him, at whatever inane thing their host was saying. He did not like how real that laugh sounded. He didn’t want to wonder which of the ones she’d gifted him were so poorly earned.

Out from the light and laughter, he excused himself past the il Molacqs’ other servant, a broad-shouldered gentleman’s gentleman with a head as bald and lumpen as a potato and eyes almost as small. Mr. Potato was standing at the base of the steps. Well, that was fine. Seth was a second-story guy.

He headed for the bathroom and—while he was there—took a quick leak to soothe some of the pre-lift tension. Always helped.

His cheek tingled where Lisa had touched it as he washed up. He wondered if that was some sort of side effect, if the soul drawn close to the surface by its proximity to an unlit lent the nerves some sort of frisson. He splashed some water on his face, as if there were some stain on him that needed washing. As if he wasn’t pining to feel that palm again. He looked at himself in the mirror. He leaned in, close enough to see his pores. He’d miss the color in his cheeks, but the eyes. The white on black. He might look handsome with eyes like that.

It was tragedy. Unlit was unclean and undead. But Annalise was so vividly alive. Tiago and Ofelia had chosen it, had snuffed their own lights to stay close to her. Was it so mad to consider? Would he take the fear and hatred of the entire continent for the love and friendship of the al Ydrises? Would he truly miss the touch of the Rumia al Morinas of the world, if every night could be like those few minutes in the hotel room, drowsy and sheltered in the Verdugo’s big warm arms? What would his Darkness be? What miracle would rush in to replace the spot his soul would vacate?

He’d been with them a bare week. He was putting the spooky black carriage before the horse. And he had a job to do. He splashed another bracing handful of water onto his face and got back to work.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...idly-alive
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2409245/