The Old City

0.16: Angelica's Secret

The Mermaid's Wing...three o'clock in the morning.

Four hours later, Angelica stepped silently out of Marcus's room. The inn was still and silent and the dark shadows lurking around every corner embraced Angelica like an old friend. This was her favorite time, when the world slept and she was free, and every hidden corner of the First Ring opened itself to her.

But tonight, she was not the only one in search of twilight secrets.

"You're up late," came a soft voice from the bar as she descended the stairs to the ground floor. "Your friends left hours ago. I wondered when you would creep down here."

Angelica's heart sank, her unseen escape foiled. "Anya, I don't have time. If you want to talk, you know where to find me. But you should get some sleep. You look like these long nights are catchin' up to you."

"Sit down, girl. You have time if I say you have time."

Angelica gave Anya a curt stare before relenting. She sauntered to the bar and the innkeeper slid her a whiskey. In the corner of the tavern slept a drunkard, whose garbled snores echoed, the only other sound on that calm night.

"You're not children anymore," Anya continued, "no matter how much you wish you were. These things Marcus and Seneca did, they will cause problems for many people."

Angelica groaned. "I know you are mad, but I don't need a lecture tonight."

"Fine. Then let me just ask, how are my boys?"

"Not nearly scared enough."

"I had noticed. They are stupid and young, impervious – they think – to danger and to death."

"No, Anya...they know war. But I fear it taught them the wrong things. Seneca is broken, too afraid of his own shadow to live. Marcus treats death like drunk he can cheat at cards all night, but he doesn't see that he will lose with the next hand."

"Seneca seems better at least. I had worried the boy might never come out of his shock."

"He has only been like this since Marcus returned. Who knows how long it lasts?"

"Didn't you want this, for Seneca to be his old self?" Angelica bit her cheek. "Didn't you?"

"Of course I wanted him to be better! And I swear, I am happy for him. I truly am. But it just seems too...sudden, too fragile. What if he slips? What if he's only better because Marcus is back? What if, when Marcus gets himself killed, Seneca goes back to that catatonic state?"

"Then you will be there and you will help him until he can stand upon his own two feet once more. It is not fair and you will not like it, but you will do it nonetheless, won't you? I may have a better solution though: just keep those boys out of trouble."

"I am not a magician. Marcus wants a fight and after today I cannot see any path but violence. It will come for them eventually. All I can do is find someplace safe.

"There are few places like that nowadays. Fewer than there used to be. Where will you go?"

Angelica swirled the lone ice cube in her drink and watched the woman across the bar. The lamplight cast warm shadows across Anya's face as she twisted the last glasses of the night between the cloth in her hands, almost intimately. She had done it every night for decades, knew every crevice of her cup ware as she knew every person who stepped into her inn. This was her domain and despite her protests, Angelica could not leave until she answered her questions.

"There are still a few safe places in Soran. I just need to remember them."

"Memories can be a tricky thing, Angelica. It does not do to dwell upon them. I cannot tell you how many have come through that door chasin' a memory that has already evaporated like mist when the sunlight breaks through."

"This memory is real enough. That place is real. A man once showed it to me, but I just can't remember where it is. It's perfect. It's high up and hidden, protected from unwelcome eyes. It's big enough for all of us and then some. The wood that crafted each wall is sturdy, like it's grown and reinforced itself over hundreds of years. And best of all, nobody knows about it. I have asked so many people if they know of such a place but they all say no."

Anya smiled and placed her final glass down with the tender care of someone who hurt when anything broke. Each item had a history, and any threat upon that history would be a violent sin in her eyes.

"I knew a place like that too. Funny enough, I look for it sometimes but can never find it. I only used it for one summer..." she laughed quietly to herself, enjoying a moment she'd neglected to recall of late. "But it was the best summer of my life.

"A man showed it to me too, many years ago. Said, 'Return here if ever you need to hide, for the world is gripped by chaos and everyone deserves a place to be safe from it.' I never saw him again and after many years, that place faded from my memory like so many others."

Angelica motioned for another glass and was surprised when Anya again brought the top shelf. One heavy pour later, she asked, "What did he look like?"

"This was decades ago, Angelica. I hardly remember."

"I remember mine..."