The Book Eaters(91)
“I really don’t care—”
“Listen,” Devon shouted, stepping in front of her. “Just let me finish, all right? Our childhood books always ended in marriage and children. Women are taught not to envision life beyond those bounds, and men are taught to enforce those bounds. We grow up in a cultivated darkness and don’t even realize we’re blind.”
Hester stood on that stretch of green, hands balled into fists and gaze averted. But she’d stopped trying to walk away, at least for now.
“I should have run sooner,” Devon said, voice cracking a little. “But I didn’t. Know what really stopped me? My lack of imagination, the same one that all ’eaters suffer from. I could not imagine a better or different future, Hes, and because I could not imagine it, I assumed it didn’t exist.” Her throat was lumping up. “I was wrong. Life can be different. You’re wrong, too. That’s why I think you should consider coming with me, to try something different.”
“I tried something different with Killock already, and look how that turned out,” Hester retorted. “Isn’t that what you were just lecturing me about? Our inability to be unlike other Families? What kind of bloody-minded arrogance makes you think you’d do any better than him?”
“Because I’m not a patriarch, and I don’t want to set up a manor,” Devon said. “Killock wanted the same things most ’eater men want: a household of his own to run. He didn’t understand that the whole system doesn’t work, that you have to leave it all behind and do things completely differently.”
The sleet began to beat down; the storm had arrived. Both of them ignored it, immune to the chill and indifferent to the damp.
“There is no different way of life,” Hester said sullenly. “The Families were right about mind eaters, anyway. We can’t live without them.”
“Bullshit,” Devon said. “You conquered your hunger. Cai did too. Neither of you ever went out feeding. Killock’s sins are his own—the hunger is just his scapegoat. He wants you to believe his lies so that you’ll excuse his behavior.”
“That’s—” Hester paused, face and clothes streaked by the half frozen rain. “Even if that’s true, you’re asking me to believe in a tomorrow that you tell me I can’t imagine. To work toward a future that I apparently cannot see, or afford the cost to earn. Please, just stop. I need space. I need you to go away.”
Devon sighed, and stepped aside. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry.”
“Everyone’s always sorry,” the other woman said again with renewed vehemence. She stalked toward the house, gun still cradled in her arms.
* * *
Devon waited a discreet amount of time for Hester to disappear into Traquair, allowing the thundering beat of her heart to calm down, then followed more slowly. She walked alone in the mid-afternoon sleet, minding neither the cold nor the wet. Forest at her back and manor growing larger in her field of vision. The white-painted exterior looked like glistening bone in this frozen rain.
Foolish, to talk to Hester as she’d done. Taking such a risk was highly unlike her usual self. Yet the alternative would have been to not involve Hester at all, to simply leave quietly with Cai. That in turn would mean leaving Hester to potentially get caught up in the knights’ crossfire.
Not acceptable.
The strength of that reaction surprised her. At some point, Hester’s survival had begun to factor in the continuous equations Devon ran inside her head for how to balance the needs of those around her.
Did that mean the connection between them was strong, or just an indictment of her loneliness? Grasping with wild desperation at the only semblance of friendship she’d encountered since Jarrow had left.
Too late to regret anything she’d said. The Ravenscar woman would either come with her, or not. In the meantime, more practical considerations weighed on her mind.
For a start, there was the question of Redemption, that Holy Grail for which she’d quested all these months and years. Gaining access to the actual recipe was likely off the table, given that the only person who’d apparently known it was now a specter inside of Killock’s brain, and Killock himself seemed unlikely to cough it up.
Devon had already learned from her months with Ramsey that the Ravenscars made their drug according to the delivery schedule of chemical shipments. Materials arrived in summer, early production took place in fall, then finishing and storage in winter. Spring was a rest season.
That meant they tended to have stores of Redemption at any given time. Since they were still producing it, then it was a given they’d have supplies stored somewhere. Besides, Hester and a couple of her brothers still needed the stuff, and Killock presumably took it between his “ceremonial” victims.
The difficulty was finding where it was stored and being able to take any before Ramsey arrived. Her brother had not given her much time.
She skirted the maze and climbed the steps up to Traquair’s north side, entering through the kitchen.
Mani, to her surprise, was waiting for her inside, seated alone at a cloth-draped dining table. He rose as she entered, bracing himself on chair and stick. “Afternoon, Ms. Fairweather. Good shooting session?”
“Turns out I’m a terrible shot,” Devon said. “Where’s my son?”