Tester entered Zee’s and sidled up to the bar. He nodded in their direction and Tye’s eyebrows rose. Milly felt sick to her stomach. Wormtongue’s brother had arrived.
Old fields hoed, Peter pushed on to new business. “Tye, how did your trip go today?”
“Good. I went about half-way out into the maze. We were working on the waste pipes,” Tye said.
“Sounds smelly,” Milly said.
“It was,” Tye said. “Some dipshit had gone to work on a ceramic pipe with a sledgehammer. I thought Terry was going to kill the kid. Shoot him down right there.”
“Who’s shooting who? Where?” Tester said. He slid a stool alongside their table and looked back over his shoulder. “What be you busy little bees discussing? Escape, perhaps?” His long black hair was greasy and matted to his forehead.
Nobody spoke.
“Now, now. No worries.” He leaned in. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”
Milly looked to Tye whose eyes were wide.
“You think we’re stupid?” Milly said. “You’re Gerall’s man.”
“Am I now.”
A barman brought Tester his mulled wine and retreated. The man’s dark eyes watched her as he sampled his vino. When he was done, a slight smirk spread across his blank face.
“Yeah, you are,” she said. “What do you want?”
He sipped. “Nothing.”
Milly sighed and Tye coughed.
“Did you know turtles are great conservationists?” Tester said. “They can extract water and nutrients from even the most paltry of bites. Their hindgut system works like a double digestive tract, separating water from their waste. When water’s scarce, they hold water waste and excrete the urates, which look like white toothpaste.”
“Interesting,” Tye said. “Relevant how?”
“You know what toothpaste is?” Tester said.
Tye didn’t respond.
“This shit don’t mean shit,” Peter said.
Tester’s obsidian eyes flicked to Peter. “You want your axe back?”
Peter nodded.
“The rest of your weapons? Your watch?”
“We’ll get new ones, thank you,” Milly said.
The bar was twenty feet away but Milly felt everyone observing their verbal battle. Nobody directly watched, but they were under a constant barrage of eye flicks and peripheral vision stares. Half the bar was more interested in them than anything else. Zee’s had filled up, and the light rumble had been replaced with a roar, and people stood all around.
“Just get to it,” Peter said. “Why have you come? Why not send a lackey?”
“I want you to meet someone.” With a jerk of his arm he slammed the rest of the wine, pushed back his stool, and leaned forward onto the table. “Listen to what he says and find me when you’re ready.” He pulled back and looked around. In a much louder voice he said, “You will pay, or you will lose your jobs.” Tester stormed from the bar.
Milly watched him go, and when she turned her attention back to the table, a teenage boy sat beside her. Skin and bones, dirty and ragged, the boy looked more animal than human. His hair was a nest of dirt and debris, his blue eyes as cold as the ocean. Milly pulled back in surprise.
“Excuse me?” Tye said.
“You fart?” the boy said.
Nothing.
“Badoom boom,” the boy said.
“What’s your name and where the turtle did you come from?” Milly said.
Wide eyes told her this was Tester’s man.
“So? Spit it out,” Milly said. Peter contained a chuckle.
“I’m Ingo Swan.”
“And why did you sneak up on us like that? What do you want?” Milly said.
“Sneak? Want? Tester said you guys wanted information about the turtle. I can split,” Ingo said. He slid off his stool and headed for the exit.
Milly looked at Peter, then said, “This reeks of a trap, but what do we have to lose by listening?”
“It’s a set-up,” Robin said. “They want to lead us someplace where they can prove we’re trying to skip out on our bill. Then we’ll never get out of here.”
Tye shot to his feet and went after the boy. Half the bar noticed, and Milly had no doubts that Gerall would hear of their meeting with Ingo before it was completed.
“I don’t understand,” Jerome said. “Why would Tester have given that away? He asked us if we were trying to escape. Tester wouldn’t do that if they were trying to trap us into escaping. He would have tried to put our minds at ease, and he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“You’ve got a point,” Milly said.
Tye was talking to Ingo, and they were making their way back to the table.
“What about the ‘find me when you’re ready’ shit?” Robin said. She’d fully recovered, but scars covered her face from where the pox had been. The medic told them it was a new and nasty variant of chickenpox that killed one in ten who contracted it. The doc explained how Robin and all of them needed to take extra care because their immune systems hadn’t been tested much on Respite and thus would be weaker than Stadium citizens, making them more susceptible to disease.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Grady mentioned Tester was a turtle preacher.”
Tye and Ingo arrived and took seats around the table.
Silence.
“So…” Milly said.
“Your home is beautiful. Why did you come here?” Ingo said.
Milly started and looked at Tye, whose forehead was knitted.
“What game are you playing at?” Robin said.
“The Womb, with your little waterfall.” He looked at Milly. “The Perpetual Flame and the Fire Wood.” His gaze strayed to the ceiling. “Crystal clear water, palm trees, white sand.”
“Nice trick.
