ItCP36

## Chapter 36

**Chapter 36** of **Into the Crooked Place** stars **Tavia**.

## **Full Version**

CLOVERYE WAS WHAT ALL the swells in Creije drank and Wesley had enough bottles to kill a small army. Tavia wondered whether they might actually be able to use it against the Kingpin.

She wasn’t sure why he prioritized packing so many bottles, and who he’d tasked with bringing them aboard. Looking around at the collection Wesley had amassed, she half-suspected he planned on opening a new Crook aboard the train.

“Is this an underboss thing?” Tavia asked, with raised eyebrows. “Collect a bottle of Cloverye for every dead body?”

Wesley’s laugh was monotone. “I see Saxony has been teaching you how to make jokes.”

Tavia withheld a snort.

He and Saxony were caught halfway between mortal enemies and petty rivalry, and as entertaining as it was to watch, it wasn’t going to help them win this war.

Wesley made to hand Tavia a glass and she shook her head, snatching the bottle instead. “If we’re about to die, you can be a little less tight with the drinks.”

She swallowed a bitter mouthful and then quickly remembered why she rarely drank. Specifically, why she rarely drank Cloverye. The rich and the ruthless may have loved the prestige, but that shit was *nasty*.

Tavia made a face and basically threw the bottle back into Wesley’s hands.

“Many Gods,” she said with a wince, at the same time as Wesley said, “Always so refined.”

He poured himself a glass, smiling in a way that made it hard for Tavia to glare.

She took a seat opposite him and stared out at the ocean beyond the glass, endless and so impossibly blue.

They were racing through the waters, but when Tavia pulled down the window and took in a long breath of salted air, she felt peace and calm, and she could almost imagine that they were meandering along with nothing to do and nowhere yet to go. Just a couple of almost weary travelers seeking to find where the world ended.

Tavia didn’t know how much time faded after that. The bottle passed between them, Wesley savoring each sip and she wincing as it burned at her throat, and soon the realms grew hazy and Tavia felt her bones relax. All the tension seeped from her and into the air, carrying away with the wind that bellowed outside the train.

Somewhere along the way, Tavia moved to sit beside Wesley, kicking her feet up on the chair opposite, and he had done the same, and now they were slouched parallel with their heads tilted back and the song of war too far in the distance to hear.

“One more?” Wesley asked.

He brought the bottle to Tavia’s glass, but the train hitched over a wave and the Cloverye splashed onto his shoes.

“I forgot you could be a clumsy drunk,” Tavia said.

Wesley scowled. “You forget that I’m your—”

“Underboss,” Tavia said. “Yes, but you’re also an idiot. Congratulations on multitasking so brilliantly.”

The fact that Wesley seemed to take this as a compliment made Tavia shake her head.

“Give me that.” She snatched the bottle back from him. “You’re going to spill it again.”

Wesley’s frown was like a scar across his brows. “You’re always saying something awful to me,” he said. He tilted his chin up. “I’m awful to everyone except you. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Tavia blinked.

The completely indignant look on his face caught her halfway between a laugh and the need to smack him.

“You don’t get a gold star for treating people with basic respect, Wesley. That’s how you’re *supposed* to act.”

Wesley gave her a childish sneer. “Because you’re so pleasant to everyone.”

Tavia snorted. “Should we delay the war so you can mourn properly for your ego?”

He straightened. “I can assure you, my ego is perfectly intact.”

“Infallible,” Tavia said with grunt. “Ever since we were kids. Do you remember that time when you first got to head the magic markets? You were the youngest busker ever to get a spot and that kid, Many Gods, what was his *name*?” She shook her head, like it didn’t matter. “He was one of the older buskers and he came to your show and tried to pick holes at your performance in front of the crowd. You just shook it off like rainwater and carried on. Like he wasn’t even there. Like he wasn’t worth considering.”

“I thought we were in Ejm Voten, not memory lane,” Wesley said.

Tavia rolled her eyes and chose to ignore him. “You poisoned the kid’s rations so he was sick for two weeks.”

“Actually,” Wesley said, “*you* poisoned his rations.”

“He called you and all of your friends phonies with trash magic,” Tavia said. “*I* was your friend. That bastard brought me into it for no good reason. The least he deserved was a stomach bug.”

Wesley touched a hand to his chest. “That’s so sweet,” he said.

Tavia took another sip of Cloverye.

“Do you think the Kingpin saw this coming?” she asked, looking out the train window with a sigh. “You of all people turning against him.”

Wesley shook his head, which would have looked fiercely adamant if it hadn’t thrown him a little off balance. Instead, he just looked endearing. Delicate, even, which was not a Wesley thing to be, and very much his age, which was also not a Wesley thing to be.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Wesley said. “He trusts me. The worst man in the realms, not even a man at all, really, and he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to family.”

*Sometimes you get to choose*, Tavia thought.

“Will it be hard?” she asked. “When the time comes.”

“To officially betray the man who gave me everything?”

Wesley made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sigh.

“No,” he said.

He took another drink and Tavia didn’t know whether this was to hide the lie, or drown in the bitter truth of it.

“The funny thing is that he won’t see it as a betrayal. He’ll be proud of me,” Wesley said. “For coming so far.”

“What about the girl?”

The Crafter child from his regret.

Tavia still couldn’t fathom how so much time had passed without her knowing. Not that Wesley had befriended a Crafter, not that she could get inside his mind, and definitely not that her ghost still lingered there.

Tavia had been thinking about it nonstop and a thousand different questions whirled through her, but she was barely sure Wesley would answer one, and so she chose the most important, just in case.

“Do you hear her now?”

Wesley touched a hand to his wrist and, at first, Tavia thought he was going for his scars, absentmindedly pressing a hand to old injuries, hidden beyond the lines of his tattoos. Or searching, perhaps, for a piece of his skin not overtaken by Creije and the city lines. A small part of himself, untouched, unwritten.

Then she saw the crease in his eyebrows that followed as soon as his fingers touched skin and Tavia quickly realized that he’d actually been going for his cuff links, seeking to adjust the small pieces of metal, make them perfect, smudge-free and straight. Give himself some comfort in the chaos.

As it was, there was no comfort to find. Wesley’s blazer was folded neatly onto the back of a nearby chair and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, leaving his wrists bare and exposed. This was the haphazard Wesley, hair no longer clean-cut and his jawline rough with shadow, tattoos acting as a map of the city he had made whole, covering the length of his arms and back, reaching even for his throat until they nicked his jaw like a razor. His eyes were wild and deep brown, tie pulled gruffly loose. There was no order or comfort to find in this chaos.

Wesley bit the edge of his lip as his frown deepened and Tavia nearly came undone right there, watching as he untethered from the underboss and became the boy she knew.

“The dead can’t talk,” Wesley said. “She’s nothing but an echo making sure I remember my place.”

“Your place?”

“As the worst bastard in Creije.”

His smirk was so hollow that Tavia took another gulp of Cloverye.

“Not that I’m one to turn down a drink,” Wesley said, regaining himself somewhat. “But don’t you think a reverie charm would be better in this situation?” His voice was raw, smile lazy and off-kilter. “We could fall into the stars and escape the world for a night.”

Tavia bit the corner of her lip.

The last time they’d taken a charm together the curtain of friendship between them was featherlight, barely even there at all, ready to slip away and be replaced by something else if they dared. These days that curtain barely existed and so what was to stop them, with the feeling of infinity in their veins and the hopeless prospect of war on the horizon?

*I could kiss you instead*, Wesley had said, regret still fresh in his eyes. Close enough that Tavia could smell the salt and peppermint on his skin.

Wesley shuffled beside her now. His eyes were dewy with alcohol.

*Dangerous.*It felt so dangerous.

He moved closer and placed his hand on top of hers and Tavia’s heart stuttered.

No matter how awful Wesley was, even when he was being the coldest bastard in Creije, he always *felt* warm.

He always felt a little like home.

After Wesley became underboss and left the busker dormitories, Tavia moved out as soon as she could, because all the fun and the memories they made seemed like cruel jokes after he’d left her behind. She wasn’t part of his plans for realm domination and though she didn’t want to be a career criminal like Wesley did, she hated that her friend didn’t want her by his side.

The dormitories never felt like home after that.

It was strange then, that here, on this train, with magic on her belt loop and Wesley smiling like time was just an illusion they had created, endless oceans between them and the rest of the realms, Tavia felt at peace.

She felt at home.

And she knew why. She knew then that home could be anywhere, because it wasn’t a place, but a feeling. It was made up of people, not bricks, and it was something you could create for yourself, just like family.

*Sometimes you get to choose*, Wesley had said.

He squeezed her hand.

“Tavia.”

Her name, but not her name. More like a plea than anything else.

Tavia stood so abruptly that she nearly lost her balance.

She ripped her hand from Wesley’s and the warmth evaporated from her fingers the moment their touch broke apart.

Tavia tried not to be nostalgic for it.

“I’m going to find Saxony,” she said.

But she didn’t move and her voice was too delicate and *why was she not moving?*

Wesley swallowed, and though he said nothing more, his eyes burned into her, screaming a thousand things.

*Stay*, they said. *Please stay*.

And that was the problem: Tavia wanted to.

Not just here, in this moment, but in Creije. So much of her wanted to run and be free, but an equal part of her, or perhaps even a larger part, wanted to stay. With Wesley and Saxony and the magic they could make together.

With every stilted breath Wesley took, Tavia’s resolve wavered until she could almost feel herself inching closer to him, picture his hands tangled in her and every horrible, awful thing turning beautiful.

Tavia snatched the bottle from the space between them and damn near bolted for the door, ignoring the thump of her heart. She didn’t look back to see if Wesley had moved. Didn’t listen in case he tried to call for her.

She couldn’t be the person he wanted her to be.

Wesley would pull her close and keep her there if she let him, in Creije and the clutches of the Crook. In a world that reminded her so much of the awful truth of her muma’s death and of all the things she had done since.

Wesley would give her the world, even though Tavia hadn’t earned it, and he’d give her power, even though she didn’t want it. And among it all was the scariest thought: the fear that she might like it, might just grow to ignore all the bad things and the good people they happened to.

And so Tavia left Wesley and the wonderful, awful part of her that wanted so desperately to stay.