Feargus

Strauss sort of solved the riddle, barely.

As you know, I gave him a hint, and when that didn't go anywhere, I explained the intricacies of tavern name diminutives, and that seemed to do the trick. Upstairs at the Widow's Peak—he was on board with staking the place out, and we were making progress.

But if you think about it, there were two avenues he could have used to solve the riddle: he could have connected peak with the Peak and followed the portrait, or he could have connected peak with the only mountain range in Amalia, which was Leberecht and the surrounding area. I couldn't blame him for struggling, mind you.

Strauss was a smart fellow, but his stress levels were high. He didn't show it, and he probably didn't even feel it, but I could tell by the state of his fingernails.

While I was interviewing him for this very book, he confessed to me that in those early days, he wished he could go back to solitaire, and that he felt guilty feeling that way, because all he'd ever wanted while he was in solitaire was to be out of solitaire.

He also didn't sleep well. And I know that not only because of the bags under his eyes, but because when I came back from the Peak the night afore, he was tossing, turning, and talking incoherently. That went on for so long, I began to wonder if I should hop in bed and give him a cuddle. But then I worried I might spook him, and if there was one rule to live by around then: don't spook Strauss if you like your eyebrows.

Look, I'm not just here to gossip about and rib my mates—though they've given me full permission to do so, and there will be plenty of that. I'm here to tell it how I saw it, and I love my mates, but my mates had issues.

Who among us, right?

Even though I was having fun doing it, I was already feeling guilty about lying to Strauss. Seeing him that confused and that tired only made it worse. But we were operating under the chance of a lifetime. Loads of Partisans defected, rebelled, whatever else—but you've gotta understand, most didn't do it with half the Assembly in their corner. I couldn't risk messing up.

We made plans to scope out the Widow's Peak later that evening.

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The fox and his friend, dinner for two. Always near, never with.

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For Operation Dress Like a Hobo, I dressed like myself with a cloak I found in a closet in one of the church bedrooms. Strauss had no idea who it belonged to, didn't care to ask Father Belaia, and what did it matter, anyhow? It was much too big for me, so it was perfect. We didn't really have a plan per se, and in the spirit of Rhian, not having a plan was my plan. I needed to see what Strauss would do, how long it'd take him to get upstairs, what he'd do once he found the portrait—if he did. And if he'd question Ivana. So, aye, apart from telling him not to act suspicious, the rest was on him.

Ivana recognized me straightaway, but other than a quick eye-roll, she didn't let on and Strauss was none the wiser. I gave her a little wink from the shadows of my hood, hunched over even more, and coughed into my arm like I was dying. Amazingly, Strauss took the cue: I was just a poor, sick kid, and I was hungry and thirsty. Got us some free dinner, which I can't be sure wouldn't have happened anyway, but aye, he did a thing, mates.

All right, so we all know what went on next. The survivors of Oskari would go on to tell this story to their kids, and their kids to their kids, because it was so unbelievably hilarious. I mean, maybe you had to be there, but, let me tell you:

First there was the five or six ways he put his foot in his mouth, then the arm-wrestle, and then he accidentally broke that man's wrist and turned the Peak into a free-for-all arena, and then the whirlwind. The man summoned a small tornado. In the tavern. The forks were flying, and I booked it into Ivana's office.

Ivana rushed in after me, locked the office door, and huffed when I dropped to the floor in a fit of laughter. Ivana was not laughing. But she was standing over me, smiling at least a wee bit. "Look the other way if he does anything strange, you said?"

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I needed a minute to compose myself. The screams were finally dying down—and, just so you know, nobody other than the man with the broken wrist was seriously injured that day. The one who went through the window came out surprisingly intact.

"To my credit, I didn't mean that—I just meant, you know, if he started asking awkward questions or looking around suspiciously."

Ivana pulled a chair over from the corner and we had a sit at the desk.

"So what now?" she asked.

"The locals are going to need some time to cool off after this." I paused for another laugh, and Ivana was with me for that one. "So I need to get Strauss out of Oskari for a while, and we need to move things along anyway. Also, can I borrow the painting of Zacharias Vonsinfonie you have upstairs?"

"What, why?"

"I need him to see it, and I can't be sure he'll be coming back here any time soon."

Ivana shrugged. "Actually, when you're done with it, could you bring it to Alexander? I told him he could have it decades ago, and I keep forgetting to give it to him."

I could do that. "Did you know him?"

"Zack? Yeah, he made me."

"No kidding," I said. "Is he still alive?"

"Yeah, he's having a nap."

"So, a nap in Anima terms, is that like—"

"It's been over four hundred years."

"That's a long time, mate. Sometimes I go down for a nap thinking, maybe an hour or two, and then I sleep for five and feel worse for wear when I wake up. Four hundred years, though—that seems almost unreasonable."

Ivana shrugged. "None of the Anima want to wake him."

"Does he know it's been four hundred years?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. We're not comatose when we sleep, but Zacharias has a complicated relationship with time. It's possible he thinks it's been five minutes."

"And why doesn't anybody want to wake him?"

"Because he's such a… daddy."

"What?"

"He meddles. He… I don't know, he helped me, and I'm grateful for it. I can't say his methods aren't effective, they're just… slow. He has this idea that the Anima can be repaired, for lack of a better word. But the other Anima don't want to be repaired. They just want to follow their hearts, and their hearts are generally telling them to murder people."

Ivana seemed to like Zacharias, and I didn't need to ask why she didn't wake him up. I did anyway, though, just to see what she'd say.

"You seem to like him," I said. "Why not wake him up?"

"Things were better when he was awake and the Anima answered to The Law, but I'm not going to put myself in that position. I'm already outcast."

The Law, by the by, was Zacharias's formal post-Divide name.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because like Alexander, I try to live a normal life, and it's been nearly two hundred years since I've killed anyone."

"Been about a year myself."

Ivana chuckled. "Yeah, well, word of warning: if Zack suddenly wakes up, I'll know it was you, and I'm willing to break my streak."

"So I can't wake him up, not even for a minute, not even just to ask him a couple of questions? Two, maybe three—four tops."

Ivana shook her head. "Besides, you'd have to find him first."

Challenge accepted. By then, the commotion in the common room had settled. We gave it enough time to be completely sure before Ivana went out to check the damages. There were many, and Strauss was already gone. We had a bit of a giggle over him running for the hills instead of sticking around to tidy up, but—I still had faith in the man.

"There's a good chance he'll come by to apologize," I said. "If he does, tell him a very important but extremely vague painting of yours has gone missing."

"Strange, but sure."

"Also, do you need anything picked up from Jaska?"

Ivana had a look around. "Other than everything? He's lucky I have money."

"Strauss is a lot of things, but lucky isn't one of them," I said. "Anyhow, if you could find a way to point him toward the city."

"Anything else, boss?"

"I'd ask for a Piglet but…"

We were standing in the ingredients for about a hundred Piglets spilled all over the floor. Ivana chewed the inside of her lip and nodded.

"Odd day," she said. "It's always so boring around here, it's kind of a turn on."

Aye, she said that. And then we, you know, did that.

Good times, good times.

I miss you, V.

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The fox and the widow, dinner for two. Always near, never with.

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