The hummingbird killer, p.7
The Hummingbird Killer, page 7
As long as Isabel wasn’t on the list, she doesn’t care what intel was stolen. She probably should, but it’s not like she has friends to protect inside Comma. ‘How long have you been here?’
He grimaces, calculating. ‘About three years. Sam’s newer to the hiding game.’
They hear running footsteps, and then a small figure with a cloud of ginger hair skids to a halt in front of them. The hair parts to reveal a pre-teen girl, who grins up at the astonished Isabel. ‘I heard voices,’ she says. ‘You’re new! Are you here to see me?’
‘Sam, this is Isabel,’ says Leo. ‘Isabel, this is Samantha. The library’s, uh, youngest employee.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Isabel murmurs. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twelve.’ Sam sounds delighted with herself.
Isabel’s impressed, despite her misgivings about the entire situation. ‘And you hacked guild files?’
‘It wasn’t that hard. But now I’ve got to stay down here all the time. I get it,’ she adds belligerently to her guardians. ‘You’re keeping me safe; I can’t go out because Comma will send the Moth after me or something, blah-di-blah. Doesn’t mean I like it. It’s like being permanently grounded.’
Isabel can’t stop herself from asking, ‘Why the Moth in particular?’
In the tone of somebody explaining the obvious, Sam says, ‘Because most guild agents don’t kill children.’
Isabel’s known since day one that the library staff have access to La Revuo, so of course they pay attention to guild pseudonyms. Of course they know about her kills. All of them.
Including Oliver Roe.
It’s funny how she still remembers his name. His face. Sixteen and terrified as he begged for a second chance, promised to stay quiet. She doesn’t know why somebody wanted him dead – she’ll never know, wouldn’t ask even if she thought Ronan would tell her, because that would only make it harder. But she knows what she did, and she remembers his name.
Most of the time, she forgets them. Where possible, she tries not to learn them at all.
She swallows an ill-advised defence of her actions and changes the subject. ‘So why did you hack the guilds?’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘You hacked into Comma’s and Hummingbird’s super-secret personnel files by accident,’ says Isabel, without a hint of mockery.
‘Well, okay, I did mean to, but I wasn’t going to do anything with the information. I just wanted to know if I could.’ Sam spins on the spot, gesturing to the basement around her. ‘Now I’m stuck here for ever and ever, and Ant won’t let me hack anything interesting.’
‘I figured two death sentences was enough,’ says Ant, ruffling her hair. ‘Sorry, kid, you’ll have to keep chattering me to death instead.’
It’s a small, underground, dysfunctional family, and Isabel shouldn’t know about them. She looks at Leo. ‘Show me around the shelves?’ she asks, hoping that there’s a safe place to talk somewhere amidst the labyrinth of illegal materials.
He takes the hint, getting to his feet. ‘Sure. Back in a few, you two.’
‘Can I come?’ says Sam immediately. ‘I know where everything is. I memorised the catalogue when I got bored reprogramming it.’
‘Actually, I…’ Leo glances at Ant for help.
‘I need you here, little menace,’ says Ant, picking up the signal. ‘We got a message from the Heslerton team, but they’ve changed their code and I can’t make head or tail of it. Will you help me?’
So they have teams in other boroughs, too.
Isabel shouldn’t be collecting that information, either. She wishes she could turn off the part of her brain that homes in on useful intel, and erase everything she’s seen here from her mind.
Leo keeps up the pretence of a tour as he leads her through the shelves, telling her about the books as they pass. In every sentence, there are hundreds of stories and hundreds of crimes – smugglers and abolitionists and furtive bookbinders and revolutionary writers – and it’s yet more information she doesn’t need. If she were to tell Ronan about this, they’d die. Sam would die. Maybe Isabel would even have to do the job.
But she’s loyal to Comma. She owes them.
Right?
‘That’s probably far enough,’ says Leo, when they reach one of the darkest corners of the basement. He keeps his voice low. ‘So. Now you know why I think you don’t belong at the library.’
‘You shouldn’t have shown me any of this,’ says Isabel, just as quietly. ‘You shouldn’t – you’ve – why would you show me this?’
‘Because you need to understand what you’re putting at risk.’
‘You could have done that without giving me all the information I need to get you executed!’
There’s a pause. Then he says, ‘Will you?’
Isabel closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the shelf next to her, the metal cool against her skin. She stays there for several seconds, steadying her breathing. Quietly overlooking her friends reading the Bulletin was one thing, but if Comma found out she was keeping something like this from them, she’d be dead before Ronan’s signature was dry on the memo approving it.
She opens her eyes. ‘A child, Leo,’ she says.
‘I know.’
He’s counting on her to have limits. He’s banking on the fact that even if she’d put Jem or Beth at risk, she wouldn’t do the same to Sam. And he’s not wrong, is he? She hates the thought of anything happening to her friends upstairs, but if faced with a choice between their lives and hers, she knows exactly which option she’d take. But Sam’s a child.
How much, exactly, is her own life worth to her?
‘Mortimer knows about this?’ she asks.
Leo nods. ‘He used to be more involved. I think he pulled back from the Bulletin because of you.’
Because he knew Isabel was watching him, and he thought her attempts at protection might put his friends at risk. She feels the sting of betrayal that he kept this from her, but she wishes Leo had done the same. Secrets were better than this. Lies were better than this.
‘And all the library staff…’ she begins.
‘Are part of it. You’re the only one who wasn’t.’
‘Why bring me into it? Why hire an outsider?’
Leo shrugs. ‘We told Jem it was a risk, but if the library closes and nobody can get supplies into this place, then we’re done for. There’d be nobody to supply food to Ant and Sam, nowhere for the Free Press to go. When Jem told you we’re short-staffed, she meant it.’
‘And it’s everybody’s shitty luck that they picked me, of all people.’ Isabel bites her lip. ‘Leo, this is – you’ve put me in an impossible situation.’
‘Have I?’ he says. ‘I think that if you were the person you think you are, you would already have called this in. But you haven’t. Because you’re not, and you never have been.’
So this is a test. A chance for Isabel to prove him right by pretending to be a good person; a chance to prove him wrong by getting them all killed. His optimism is going to prove fatal one day. ‘If Comma find out I kept this from them, I’m dead.’
‘So are we,’ he points out.
‘I know.’ Miserably, she adds, ‘They’ll probably make me do it.’
‘You think? I’d imagine they’d send the Moth.’
Because even now he doesn’t realise exactly how much danger he’s put them in. Even now he’s underestimating her, and she needs him to understand the risk he’s taken. To see her as the threat she is.
Isabel meets his eyes for the first time. ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘they would.’
The penny drops. ‘You’re—’ he begins.
‘Why would you trust me with this, Leo?’ she demands, suddenly furious with him. She feels like she’s been handed a knife by the blade and now has to carry it without cutting herself or anyone around her. ‘You know I’m Comma. But you told me anyway. Why?’
He’s silent for a moment, considering. Still processing the idea that she’s the Moth, probably. Finally, he says, ‘Because Mortimer doesn’t make excuses for people who are inexcusable.’
‘I’m living proof that’s not true.’ If Leo’s letting Mortimer’s unjustified friendship influence his decisions, he’s got even less sense than she realised.
‘He doesn’t make excuses,’ says Leo again, ignoring her interruption. ‘But he does give second chances to those who aren’t getting them anywhere else.’
Isabel’s words momentarily desert her.
‘Nobody else would have recruited me to write for the Free Press when I was an angry teenager on the verge of getting myself or my friends killed,’ he says. ‘But Mortimer did. He gave me a place I could belong, and an outlet for my rage. If he didn’t see something in you worth nurturing, he wouldn’t be your friend. I told you because I trust him to see the truth of you. It’s down to you what you do with that.’
Isabel sinks to the floor, curling up in the corner of the shelves and hugging her knees to her chest. She didn’t ask for trust. She didn’t ask for second chances. And whatever Mortimer’s seen in her, it’s long gone, left behind with the scared schoolgirl he rescued. Maybe Isabel Ryans was worth it, but the Moth certainly isn’t.
It’s Isabel Ryans that Jem hired as a library assistant, though.
It’s Isabel Ryans that Leo brought down here, and into the abolitionists’ world.
Of course she doesn’t want to hurt them. She wants to be the person Leo believes she is – the one who’ll make the sacrifice play and keep a secret no matter the risks. But if that was who she is, they wouldn’t be in this situation, because she would never have let Comma drag her back in, and she wouldn’t have spent two years killing like it was only ever her own safety that mattered. She gave them everything, and stopped fighting to be anything else.
Until now. Until the library gave her a civilian life and the illusion of friends, normality, being more than a killer. Isn’t that worth protecting? The promise that while Comma might own her, they don’t own all of her? They may have her nights, but her days, her heart, her choices are her own. And she chose this.
‘Fine,’ she says at last. ‘This never happened. You never showed me this. If anyone comes looking for the Free Press, they can keep looking, because they won’t find it through me.’
‘You’re not going to turn us in,’ says Leo, as though confirming.
‘No, I’m not going to turn you in.’ Not if she has an ounce of choice in the matter. ‘I can’t promise to keep you safe, I can’t give Sam a life that’s more than hiding, but I can tell you this: your friends have nothing to fear from the Moth.’
Leo’s crooked smile reminds her strongly, painfully, of his sister. ‘You know what, Isabel Ryans?’ he says. ‘I think you and I are going to be friends after all.’
10 ZORGI (TO CARE)
Sunday is quiet. It’s a relief after the revelations of the day before; Isabel could use a day without having her world rocked on its axis. She texts Mortimer.
thanks for the heads-up about leo. not.
Then, a few hours later, she follows up with:
i’m not going to turn them in. but you knew that anyway. you should have told me.
He doesn’t reply to that one, either. She should probably head over to Lutton to talk about it properly, but something stops her. Maybe because talking about it with Mortimer will make it feel real, and then she’ll have to decide what, exactly, it means to have allied herself with abolitionists and fugitives, despite being basically their worst enemy.
She’s walking a knife-edge, and it can only end in blood.
On Monday, she arrives for her shift to find Jem and Leo arguing in the store cupboard about whether he should have told her. Jem’s pissed, and no number of promises from Isabel not to tell anyone will dull the edge of her anger. The argument ends with Leo losing his basement keys until he earns back Jem’s trust, and she sticks him on storytime duty, much to his distress and Beth’s delight. But despite the rift, Isabel thinks, possibly, that it’s a weight off Jem’s shoulders not to be keeping secrets from Isabel any more.
On Tuesday, in an attempt to build bridges, she invites Leo over for dinner. Laura sticks around long enough to introduce herself and then heads out to work, leaving them alone. It’s awkward at first, but then Isabel asks him about Emma, about her art, and slowly he softens.
‘I don’t understand art,’ Isabel admits. ‘But I want to.’
‘I don’t get it the way Emma got it,’ he says. ‘I’m a stories person, not a pictures person. But I think the art in Espera is the city’s way of insisting it’s alive, despite everything. Refusing to fall into the shadows, even when the guilds would make it so easy.’
Isabel ponders this for a moment, then tugs up her T-shirt so he can see some of her tattoos. ‘Guess I’m making the same point,’ she says. ‘Took my scars, made them colourful.’
‘ “Fuck you, I’m alive”,’ says Leo, as though quoting.
‘Something like that.’
He rolls up his sleeve to show her the startling white tattoo on his forearm, striking against his skin. ‘Mine’s not colourful,’ he says, ‘because Emma was the colourful one. But it’s still art. And it’s still part of taking myself back from the city.’
He smiles. Isabel smiles back, and pours them both another drink.
On Thursday afternoon, their next shift together, she’s sorting a bunch of returns for the romance section, and she can’t help asking, ‘Did Emma actually enjoy these, or was she reading them to punish herself for something?’
Leo looks over at the books. ‘Some of them are good, I’m told,’ he says. ‘The others she collected mainly for entertainment value.’ He smiles. ‘I’m surprised you remember that.’
Isabel shrugs. ‘I remember most things Emma told me. She was the first friend I ever had.’ This isn’t meant to sound as pathetic as it does, but once it’s out there, she can’t take it back. ‘I think I’m missing something, about these stories.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s much to miss.’ Leo takes one from the trolley and holds it up so she can see yet another lurid, anatomically unlikely cover. ‘What’s throwing you off? Personally, I’m wondering why every single one of these men is allergic to shirts.’
Isabel laughs, taking the book back and slotting it into its place on the trolley. ‘I don’t get what the characters see in each other. I mean, sure, they’re hot, whatever. But I see hot people and it never makes me want to throw away all my finer judgement so I can elope with them. It’s none of my business whether they’re hot or not.’
‘You know, most people think it is their business if somebody else is hot,’ says Leo. ‘I believe it’s the difference between aesthetic appreciation and sexual attraction.’
Isabel frowns, processing this. ‘And love?’ she asks. ‘Where does that factor into it?’
He shrugs. ‘Sometimes they go together, sometimes they don’t. These books will tell you lust and love are universally intertwined, but my experience suggests they aren’t. Some people feel one and not the other. Some feel both. Some feel neither.’
These books paint romance as a desirable end goal, like everybody ultimately wants someone to spend their life with, but Isabel finds the idea more claustrophobic than comforting. ‘I think that’s me,’ she says unsteadily. ‘Feeling neither, I mean. I don’t think I’m wired to feel those things.’
‘Nor me,’ says Leo, and where Isabel’s words had the tone of a confession, his are given casually, like it doesn’t mean anything. ‘I thought that might change once I transitioned and got more comfortable in my own skin, but it turns out I just got more comfortable being alone in it. I mean, I’m keeping an open mind. I’m not ruling out the possibility of future feelings. But so far, it’s not for me.’
Like it’s as simple as that. ‘You don’t think we’re broken?’
‘Because we’re not interested in limiting ourselves to a particular kind of affection?’ He tips the first book on the half-filled shelf so that they all fall over, like dominoes. ‘I still feel things. I loved my sisters more than anyone else in the world. I loved my mum too, no matter how much she lied to me. I love my friends, and I’d do anything for them, but I’ve never been particularly interested in kissing them. I don’t see anything broken about that.’
Isabel feels relieved of a burden she hadn’t realised she was carrying. It’s not that Laura had implied there was anything wrong with her disinterest – her flatmate’s acceptance was immediate and undemanding. But it was the first time Isabel had realised her lack of interest was unusual, and reading Holly Emerald’s books only intensified the uncomfortable feeling of being the odd one out.
‘You don’t have to be ashamed of the things you feel,’ says Leo, watching her carefully. ‘Or the things you don’t.’
But it’s easy for someone like Leo to say that, isn’t it? ‘I’m not good at emotions,’ Isabel confesses. ‘The way I was brought up, the life I’ve lived… It’s easier not to feel things.’
‘I can imagine.’ His expression is patient, and she wonders if this is how he talked to people who phoned his helpline. If she needed advice and phoned a stranger to get it, she thinks she’d be glad to find someone like Leo on the other end of the line. ‘You’re worried it’s broken you?’
She shrugs. ‘I’m fucked up six ways from Sunday. How am I meant to know what’s a fundamental part of me and what’s just more trauma?’
Leo considers that for a moment. ‘I don’t think it matters,’ he says in the end. ‘This is who you are, no matter what led you to this point, and no matter what shaped you along the way. There’s no way to know what you’d be like if you’d lived a different life, because then you wouldn’t be you. You are who you are, Isabel.’
And who is that? Isabel’s been lying for so long, she’s not sure she even knows the truth of herself. ‘So you think even if I am broken, it doesn’t matter.’
