Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(81)

“So I’ll see you at the next party, right?” Tyger said, breaking his focus. “Maybe next time they’ll assign me earlier, so I get to hang for more than just the last day.”

The fact that Tyger was about as deep as the fountain out front was an irritation to Rowan. Funny, but he had never been bothered by Tyger’s shallow nature before. Perhaps because Rowan hadn’t been much different. Sure, he wasn’t the thrill-seeker Tyger was, but in his own way, Rowan glided on the surface of his life. Who could have known that the ice was so treacherously thin? Now he was in a place too deep for Tyger to ever understand.

“Sure, Tyger. Next time.”

Tyger left with the other professional party people, with whom he seemed to share much more in common now than with Rowan. Rowan wondered if there was anyone from his old life he could relate to anymore.

Scythe Goddard passed him standing by the entryway. “If you’re practicing to be a neoclassical statue, I should get you a pedestal,” he said. “Of course, we already have enough statuary around here without you.”

“Sorry, ?Your Honor; I was just thinking.”

“Too much of that could be dangerous.”

“I was just wondering why the High Blade jumped into the pool the way he did.”

“He fell accidentally. He said so himself.”

“No, I saw it,” insisted Rowan. “He jumped.”

“Well then, how should I know? You’ll have to ask him. Although I don’t think bringing up such an embarrassing moment to the High Blade will work in your favor.” Then he changed the subject. “You seemed to be awfully friendly with one of the party boys. Should I invite more of them for you next time?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” said Rowan, blushing in spite of himself. “He’s just a friend from home.”

“I see. And you invited him?”

Rowan shook his head. “He signed up without me even knowing. If it was up to me he wouldn’t have been here at all.”

“Why not?” said Goddard. “Your friends are my friends.”

Rowan didn’t respond to that. He never knew whether Goddard was serious, or just baiting him.

Rowan’s silence just made Goddard laugh. “Lighten up, boy! It was a party, not the inquisition.” He clapped Rowan on the shoulder and sauntered away. If Rowan had any sense he would have left it at that. But he didn’t.

“People are saying that Scythe Faraday was killed by another scythe.”

Goddard stopped in his tracks, and slowly turned back to Rowan. “Is that what people are saying?”

Rowan took a deep breath and shrugged, trying to make it seem like it was nothing, trying to backpedal. But it was too late for that. “It’s just a rumor.”

“And you think I might somehow be involved?”

“Are you?” asked Rowan.

Scythe Goddard stepped closer, seeming to look through Rowan’s facade to that dark, frigid place where he now dwelled. “What are you accusing me of, boy?”

“Nothing, Your Honor. It’s just a question. To clear the air.” He tried to return the gaze, looking into Goddard’s own cold place, but he found it opaque and unfathomable.

“Consider the air cleared,” Goddard said, with a sarcastic lightness to his voice. “Look around you, Rowan. Do you think, for one instant, that I would jeopardize all of this by breaking the seventh commandment to rid the world of a washed-up old-guard scythe? Faraday gleaned himself because deep down, he knew it would be the most meaningful act he’d have performed in more than a hundred years. The time for his kind is over, and he knew it. And if your little girlfriend is trying to make a case for foul play, she’d better think twice before accusing me, because I could glean her whole family the day their immunity expires.”

“That would constitute malice, your honor,” said Rowan with polite resolve. “You could be charged with breaking the second commandment.”

For a moment Goddard looked ready to carve up Rowan then and there, but the fire in his eyes was swallowed by that unfathomable depth. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”

“I do my best, Your Honor.”

Goddard stared at him for a moment more, then said, “Tomorrow you train with pistols against moving targets. You’ll render all but one of your subjects deadish with a single bullet, or I will personally—without bias or malice—glean that party-boy friend of yours.”

“What?”

“Was I in any way unclear?”

“No, Your Honor. I . . . I understand.”

“And the next time you make an accusation, you’d better be damn sure it’s true and not just insulting.”

Goddard stormed away, letting his robe swell behind him like a cape. But before he was out of earshot he said, “Of course, if I did kill Scythe Faraday, I wouldn’t be so stupid as to admit it to you.”

? ? ?

“He’s just messing with you.”

Scythe Volta hung out with Rowan that evening in the game room, shooting pool. “But I do think you insulted him. I mean, killing another scythe? That never happens.”

“I think maybe it did.” Rowan took a shot, and missed the balls completely. His head wasn’t in it. He couldn’t even remember if he was stripes or solids.