We put in a bit more time, fitting the odd pieces of wood onto the frame of the giant bird, leaving a large hatch in the belly.
Gerda appears, surveying our progress, and clicks her tongue. “Interesting. I won’t ask.”
“I won’t tell,” I retort.
She snorts. “Everyone is here. Are you ready to do this?”
I don’t know, but there’s no time to think about that.
Kiki and Gerda breeze ahead of us, talking in low tones. I’ve never seen my aunt be remotely nice to anyone.
“Maybe things have changed,” I mutter as we follow the narrow hall back to the main part of the tavern.
“You’ve changed, my boy,” Trotter says, patting me proudly on the back. “She has her own reasons for being tough on you, but never doubt that she cares for you.”
I spit a laugh.
With a sharp glance at me, Gerda says, “The people have changed as well. The desire for freedom has been bubbling below the surface for a long time. Don’t muck it up.”
Apparently, she heard us.
When we enter the tavern room, Kiki stands by my side and Trotter whistles loudly, drawing the attention of a ragtag assembly seated at the tables and standing where there’s room. They have sagging shoulders, crooked spines, and sharp, suspicious eyes. As usual, everyone is either broken or the ones who did the breaking.
The room slowly quiets, leaving nothing but the pattering of the icy rain against the smudged windowpanes and tin roof.
I look to Gerda, but she doesn’t tear her eyes from me. They’re hard, penetrating, challenging. Her words echo. Don’t muck it up.
Kiki nods at me.
I clear my throat. “For too long we’ve allowed our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children, families, the young and old, and fae among us to be beaten. No more. We will not obediently accept stains on our skin.” My voice rises. “We will not sit by idly and allow the theft of shadows. We will not watch helplessly as our people are cast into the ashpit.”
Like a shift in the tide, the people in the room lean ever so slightly closer to me as if the truth in my words is the shore they seek.
“We will rise against the silver king,” I finish.
The cheering, clapping, and foot-stomping threatens to blow off the roof.
A guy with a soft jaw named Krebs, who I remember from around the pier, pushes through the crowd. “Yeah, that sounds great, but how?” His stained teeth reveal the beginnings of a new stijl habit.
“Some of you will alert our neighbors and allies. Some of you gather supplies. Some of you will fight.”
“Oh really, it’s that simple? Just defy the silver king. If it’s that easy, then why haven’t we done this before?” Krebs asks, his lips turned down and his bony chest a surly camber.
“Because you haven’t wanted it enough,” Gerda hisses.
“We are going to free ourselves and if you don’t want freedom then look forward to death at his hand.”
“And what if he doesn’t let you?” Krebs asks defiantly.
I step forward, my nose inches from his. “We don’t leave him with a choice.”
“Just as he hasn’t left you with choices,” Gerda adds.
In the relative silence that follows, once more, the rain is audible over whispers and murmurs.
Trotter whistles shrilly. “Everything spoken in this room today and onward remains within these walls if you ever want back in. If any of you utter a word to a guard on the street, Grunk will see to it you neither eat nor drink again in the tavern, or anywhere else for that matter. And don’t be mistaken. I’m talking teeth and tongues.”
Grunk, the doorman leers, looming and intimidating by the bar—a bearman by blood. I happened to be in the alley one night when he added a few teeth to his collection. Odd fellow, but he keeps his word true and his fists sure.
A little boy scampers out from behind his mother and whispers something in Kiki’s ear. She smiles at him with glittering eyes.
An older woman with gray hair stands up, places her left hand on her right shoulder over her heart, folds her right hand on her left shoulder, bowing slightly forward, and lowers her hands a few degrees. “May the sun and moon lead us and the stars be our guides.”
A couple of people toward the back echo the old sentiment from the time even before the golden king. Their arms cross in front of their chests and bow to each other. Then a few more and still more until most of the people in attendance perform the old salutation.
I repeat the gesture, and slowly the crowd disperses.
Trotter, Kiki, and I return to our work on the wooden raven. When the rising moon signals sleep, I step back. To my surprise, the mismatched pieces of wood, fitted and nailed together, finally resembles a brown bird.
“We still need paint,” I say.
“Gerda said she’d try to get ahold of some.” Trotter wipes his brow and brushes off his hands.
“Not bad for a day’s work.” I pick the prickling straw from my shirt. Chilled, I put my jacket on.
He claps me on the shoulder. “No, I’d say this has been one of the better days this tavern has seen in a long time. Freedom, Soren. I want my freedom. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. When you were more concerned with winning at the tables or scraping together some kind of convoluted swindle I was ready to lace up and fight. Glad you finally came around. Give me my freedom and I will be a happy man.”
Gerda’s comment about waiting for me braids together with what Vespertine said about taking the throne. I’m not a king—just a poor bastard kid born in Battersea—, but I will do what
