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The chaos of the day draws to a close eventually, and downstairs in Hal’s home, Thimble and Occtis are finally left alone. Well, not quite alone—the familiar sound of Teor and Kattigan snoring in one of Hal’s spare bedrooms rumbles through the building—but realistically, it’s the best that they’re going to get.
Thimble has flown up in front of Occtis’ face, close enough to touch, examining every detail carefully—the way his skin seems to have gone tight around his skull, the poison-sharp gleam of his eyes, the bloodless grey of his lips. He bears her observation unflinchingly, but unsmilingly, until at last she’s satisfied—(she’ll only be satisfied once she’s made his family pay)—and flies back so she can see the whole of him.
“Who killed you?” she asks. Who do I need to kill?
“Ethrand.” Then, like she doesn’t remember the shitty little kid she scared off all those years ago in the Orchard (fuck, the Orchard), he adds, “my brother.”
Thimble thinks of Twig—Twig, who is alive—and tries to imagine what would have to happen for a sibling to want to kill another. Her hands on a needle stabbing through Twig’s stomach; her hands stained with his blood. Tears prickle at her eyes, hot with anger, and she wipes them away before they can fall.
“Good,” she says, instead of any of that. “He’s already scared of me.”
Occtis laughs. Not the laugh she knows: there’s not enough air in his lungs to make the sound cleanly. It comes out as the creak of a rusted hinge being forced. The smile on his face is soft, and sad, and a little wry, like it was on the night of Thaz’s funeral.
“You’re very scary,” he agrees. Silence, for a moment, then: “My father was there too, apparently, but it was Ethrand who… did it.”
“How?” Maybe it’s cruel to ask, maybe she should take it back. But if she knows what happened, maybe she can stop it from happening again.
Occtis’ gaze darts away, his expression going very still. He used to be an open book—truly open, not like Thaz, who was a story written in a language that only she could read (even if now it seems as though half of the words were blotted out with ink). Every flicker of nervousness, annoyance, or joy was plain to see. She always liked that, how honest Occtis was. Now he is like Thaz: like Thaz’s dead face, glassy-eyed, never to smile again. Motionless. Empty of anything like a soul.
Suddenly, she doesn’t want to know at all—but Occtis inhales to speak, and it’s too late.
“He cut me open—” one of his gloved hands comes to rest on the flat of his stomach, tracing a line upwards as he speaks, “—and he took my heart out so he could put the Stone of Nightsong in its place.” He says it like it’s nothing, like it’s a fact he’s read in a book. Tears rise to Thimble’s eyes again; she has to bury her head in her hands before she can regain her composure. When she looks back at Occtis, he meets her gaze, still with that blank, empty look on his face.
“I sent you off with Julien and—and Vaelus,” she says, hating how her voice shakes, with anger as much as grief. “Why didn’t any of them stop him?”
“They didn’t know until it was too late.”
“How could they not know?”
Finally, Occtis’ face shifts, his mouth twisting downwards unhappily. His hand rises up in an abortive motion towards his neck, then falls limply into his lap.
“You’ve fought my family before. They brought reinforcements. By the time anyone could get upstairs… I don’t know. I was dead. A lot of people were dead.”
Thimble’s anger pops like a bubble; she feels her expression crumble. It’s just all just so unfair. If she could have someone to blame—someone within reach—then things would be easier. But no one is to blame except Occtis’ fucking family, and they’re hidden away in the shadows where she can’t get to them. Not yet.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she manages. “I should have been there.”
Occtis’ eyes widen, until the whites of his eyes are disconcertingly visible. He swallows—swallows what?—and shakes his head, looking almost afraid. When he speaks, his voice is a little more unsteady, a little less flat.
“You couldn’t have stopped it. They would have killed you. Or at least tried.”
“I could have at least said goodbye.” Because even though Occtis is back, he’s different now. No point pretending he’s not.
“I know.” He pauses, inhales. “I… I wanted to say goodbye to you too.”
That’s it, it’s all too much. The tears come without stopping, like blood from a wound. It’s all Thimble can do to keep herself aloft as her wings shake with the force of her sobs. Occtis died, and she wasn’t there, and even though he’s back, he still went towards that finality scared and alone, thinking he would never see her again.
Occtis just… watches, a faintly helpless look on his face. He raises a hand, as though to brush against her in comfort, then stops a few inches away, like he can’t bridge the distance.
“I’m sorry,” he says, a faintly helpless tone to his voice.
A horrid, ugly laugh tears out of Thimble’s chest, half a sob.
“You’re the one who’s fucking dead!”
“I’m still here.”
There’s nothing she can say to that, nothing that can encapsulate everything she’s feeling—grief and guilt, mingled with a relief that does nothing to help. Like hearing that Thaz was dead; like hearing that maybe she could talk to him; like his soul being somewhere out of reach. Gone, but still here, but unable to be touched. Anyway, Occtis knows. He’s mourning himself, she could see it as soon as she laid eyes on him again.
“Does it hurt?” Thimble asks for a second time, sniffing away her tears.
“Sometimes.” Occtis’ eyes close as he presses his hand against his stomach. “It’s not… it’s different. I haven’t figured out how to describe it yet.”
“You will.” He’s clever enough—was a book-smart kid even before he went off to the Penteveral. If anyone can put it into words, it’s him.
Occtis smiles, a thin and unhappy smile. “Yeah. I will.”
They’re quiet for a little while as Thimble composes herself, steadying her breathing in a way that makes her all the more conscious that Occtis isn’t. As his smile fades, he goes still, watching her unblinkingly. He looks like a portrait of himself, one of those stuffy noble’s ones, cold and lifeless.
“Can I…” Thimble pauses. She’s already regretted asking him things once tonight. But her gaze flickers down to the hand still resting on his stomach, drawn to it like a moth to a flame—like a fairy to cold iron. “Can I see?”
Occtis makes eye contact with her. Surprised, maybe? His eyes don’t widen, but he blinks, slow and intentional—everything’s intentional.
“Are you sure? It’s… ugly.”
Thimble nods, shakes her head, nods again. She has to see it, just like she had to see the bruising around Thaz’s neck from where the rope pulled taut. She settles on the table in front of Occtis, unable to take her eyes off him as he strips off slowly, hesitatingly, giving her plenty of time to tell him to stop. He places his coat and vest aside, then unbuttons his shirt. The white fabric peels away like skin parting beneath a knife.
Stark against the pallid olive of his stomach, there’s a twisted line of flesh stitched shut by thread the deep crimson of old blood. From a distance, it looks like scarring, like a wound that hasn’t quite healed cleanly. Thimble alights from the table with a flick of her wings, darting in closer to get a better look. Within arm’s reach, it’s worse—the skin beneath the stitching has melted together, gleaming with the shine of burns, of cauterised wounds. The forerunner to infection and rot and an unhappy death long after a battle’s end.
(Is Occtis going to decay? Thimble has seen plenty of corpses—the undead and the truly dead alike—and she knows what happens to them. He’s been dead a week and, okay, he doesn’t look good, but he’d be worse off if he was rotting like that, surely?)
There’s a gleam of metal in his navel, a shine that makes some covetous magpie instinct in Thimble raise its head. She flies down, hovering in place to get a better look: it’s a silver spike, tinted a tarnished green by the light from her wings. Before she realises what she’s doing, Thimble reaches out to touch it. Cold. Not unbearably so; Hal keeps his home warm and welcoming, and it’s seeped into the metal. But it’s not like jewellery from a living body either, made warm by the flush of life.
“Thaisha,” Occtis offers as an explanation, something complicated in his tone. When she glances up, though, his face is blank and inscrutable.
She’d been so reluctant to touch him, but now that she’s started, it’s hard to stop. If she’s touching him, she knows he’s here—if she flies away, he might disappear entirely. Her hand goes from the metal to the warped flesh above it, fingers brushing against the strange red stitching. It feels like a burn (Thjazi had enough of them, from all his arcanism), but without any heat to it. Cold corpse skin, a little dry. No movement. This is real: he’s here, but he’s dead. He’s dead, but he’s here. This is real.
“Are you…” Occtis trails off, leaving the question uncertain—but when she looks up, his eyes are very wide.
This is the first time they’ve touched since… Since. The realisation jars her back into herself, into the warmth and movement of her own living body. She finds herself beginning to draw back, some fey instinct remembering what it is she’s touching, and she forces herself to stay firm.
Thimble runs her hand sideways across the plane of his stomach until she reaches unmarred skin. His chest falls as he hums softly, then rises again—then goes still, air held in reserve. Slowly, like he doesn’t quite remember how to move, he reaches down and places a hand below her so she can stand and lean her forehead against him.
“Does it hurt?” she asks, one more time.
“No,” Occtis replies, very quiet. “Not right now.”