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“Again,” Ravus said.
Val took a few steps back, straightened her shoulders and raised her broomstick, preparing to do the exercise again. This had to be the hundredth time she’d done it, but she wasn’t about to complain. She’d watched enough movies where the protagonist spent half the movie complaining about not wanting to do the repetitive work necessary to learn a skill to know she did not want to be that person. That would just be embarrassing.
“Any pointers?” she asked.
“You’re still thinking too hard,” Ravus was perched on the edge of his desk, watching her. “You’ve done this exercise hundreds of times already; you don’t need to think about it anymore.”
He’d been saying stuff like that for days and the repetitiveness of that advice was making Val start to worry that she was managing to be the entitled training kid trope without meaning to be. She resolved to focus more on not thinking, but of course that was the kind of thing that you couldn’t actually focus on without making the problem worse. She tried not to think about how much easier this would be under the influence of Never. Everything was easier with Never.
“Perhaps we should try a different tactic,” Ravus mused. “How about you tell me about your week?”
That was distracting. She couldn’t very well tell him that she and her friends had been getting high on the medicine he was making for the faeries of New York, but it wasn’t like they’d been doing much else these days. She wracked her mind for something to say that wouldn’t give them away.
“There, that was already better,” Ravus said. “Imagine how much better it will be when you’re not just thinking about something else.”
“There really hasn’t been much happening,” Val said carefully, stepping back into position to begin the exercise again. “I guess you could say that we’ve fallen into a routine. Dave, Lolli and I scavenge for things,”--not technically a lie even though they were using Never to take things from people’s houses--“and Luis spends most of his time questioning all our life choices and worrying that you’re going to frame us for the murders.”
Ravus’s face tightened. “Do you fear that I am going to frame you?”
“No,” Val said. “I trust you. Luis is the one who thinks you’re out to get us.”
“I’m not,” Ravus said, “‘out to get you.’” He said the phrase in a way that suggested it wasn’t a turn of phrase he knew. Apparently faeries used other idioms.
“I know you’re not,” Val said, then went on, “Have you gotten any closer to figuring out who’s actually responsible?”
“No,” Ravus sighed. “I have gone through all my ingredients multiple times and nothing has been tampered with. That means that something must happen to the bottles after I package them. The question is what.”
Val’s stomach tightened. She and the others had been skimming from the bottles for months; if Ravus started looking into the bottles being tampered with the evidence would lead him right to them. Would he believe them if they tried to explain that they were just thieves and not murderers? Val hoped she never had to find out.
“Perhaps I should test all my bottles to see if their composition has been tampered with,” Ravus continued, completely oblivious to Val’s nervousness. He sighed. “As is obvious, I am lost. I feel as though I am overlooking something, but I’m not sure what.”
“That makes sense,” Val said, trying to keep her voice even. “If you weren’t overlooking something, you’d know who the murderer is already.”
“I suppose that is true,” Ravus agreed. “The trouble, of course, is figuring out how to find out what I’m overlooking.”
“Are you absolutely sure that the poison came from the medicine?” Val asked. She already knew the answer, but she felt like she needed to say something and anything that might take attention away from them would be helpful. She wondered if there was a version of this situation where she and the others wouldn’t end up looking guilty. Perhaps if they’d listened to Luis and not stolen the Never, but even if they hadn’t been tampering with the bottles they’d still be the untrustworthy mortals who handled all Ravus’s deliveries. Luis was probably right when he said they were lucky they hadn’t been accused already.
“I am certain,” Ravus said, answering her question. “It’s the only thing all the victims have in common.” He shook himself as he came out of his thoughts. “You’ve stopped your exercise,” he said.
Val hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped moving. “Oh, I guess I just got too distracted,” she said.
“There is a fine balance between not thinking about your movements and thinking too hard about something else,” Ravus said. “Also, your grip on the stick has shifted.” He got up off the desk and crossed the room. “Here,” he started to move her hands back into position.
Val froze, startled by the touch his skin, and he stopped too. They didn’t touch very often; Ravus tended to just demonstrate what he wanted her to do and leave it at that. They stared at each other for what felt like a long time, but was probably only a couple seconds, then Ravus pulled away and took several steps back.
“You know the hand position,” He said. He was visibly flustered in a way that probably would have been endearing if Val hadn’t been just as flustered. He took another step back. “You should begin again.”
“Okay,” Val said. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, then raised the stick and went back to trying not to think too hard.