And then he gives me an asking, like he’s only curious.
“What is her name, Todd?”
I blink, surprised. “What?”
“What is her name?” he repeats.
Surely he must know her name. Surely it must be in my Noise–
“You know her name,” I say.
“I want you to tell me.”
I look from him to Mr. Collins, standing there with his arms crossed, his silence doing nothing to hide a look on his face that would happily pound me into the ground.
“One more time, Todd,” says the Mayor lightly, “and I would very much like for you to answer. What is her name? This girl from across the worlds.”
“If you know she’s from across the worlds,” I say, “then you must know her name.”
And then the Mayor smiles, actually smiles.
And I feel more afraid than ever.
“That’s not how this works, Todd. How this works is that I ask and you answer. Now. What is her name?”
“Where is she?”
“What’s her name?”
“Tell me where she is and I’ll tell you her name.”
He sighs, as if I’ve let him down. He nods once to Mr. Collins, who steps forward and punches me again in the stomach.
“This is a simple transaction, Todd,” the Mayor says, as I gag onto the carpet. “All you have to do is tell me what I want to know and this ends. The choice is yours. Genuinely, I have no wish to harm you further.”
I’m breathing heavy, bent forward, the ache in my gut making it difficult to get enough air in me. I can feel my weight pulling at the bonds on my wrists and I can feel the blood on my face, sticky and drying, and I look out bleary-eyed from my little prison of light in the middle of this room, this room with no exits–
This room where I’m gonna die–
This room–
This room where she ain’t.
And something in me chooses.
If this is it, then something in me decides.
Decides not to say.
“You know her name,” I say. “Kill me if you want but you know her name already.”
And the Mayor just watches me.
The longest minute of my life passes with him watching me, reading me, seeing that I mean it.
And then he steps to the little wooden table.
I look to see but his back’s hiding what he’s doing. I hear him fiddling with things on top of it, a thunk of metal scraping against wood.
“I’ll do anything you want,” he says and I reckernize he’s aping my own words back at me. “Just save her and I’ll do anything you want.”
“I ain’t afraid of you,” I say, tho my Noise says otherwise, thinking of all the things that could be on that table. “I ain’t afraid to die.”
And I wonder if I mean it.
He turns to me, keeping his hands behind his back so I can’t see what he’s picked up. “Because you’re a man, Todd? Because a man isn’t afraid to die?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Cuz I’m a man.”
“If I’m correct, your birthday is not for another fourteen days.”
“That’s just a number.” I’m breathing heavy, my stomach flip-flopping from talking like this. “It don’t mean nothing. If I was on Old World, I’d be–”
“You ain’t on Old World, boy,” Mr. Collins says.
“I don’t believe that’s what he means, Mr. Collins,” the Mayor says, still looking at me. “Is it, Todd?”
I look back and forth twixt the two of ’em. “I’ve killed,” I say. “I’ve killed.”
“Yes, I believe you’ve killed,” says the Mayor. “I can see the shame of it all over you. But the asking is who? Who did you kill?” He steps into the darkness outside the circle of light, whatever he picked up from the table still hidden as he walks behind me. “Or should I say what?”
“I killed Aaron,” I say, trying to follow him, failing.
“Did you, now?” His lack of Noise is an awful thing, especially when you can’t see him. It’s not like the silence of a girl, a girl’s silence is still active, still a living thing that makes a shape in all the Noise that clatters round it.
(I think of her, I think of her silence, the ache of it)
(I don’t think of her name)
But with the Mayor, however he’s done it, however he’s made it so he and Mr. Collins don’t got Noise, it’s like it’s nothing, like a dead thing, no more shape nor Noise nor life in the world than a stone or a wall, a fortress you ain’t never gonna conquer. I’m guessing he’s reading my Noise but how can you tell with a man who’s made himself of stone?
I show him what he wants anyway. I put the church under the waterfall at the front of my Noise. I put up all the truthful fight with Aaron, all the struggle and the blood, I put me fighting him and beating him and knocking him to the ground, I put me taking out my knife.
I put me stabbing Aaron in the neck.
“There’s truth there,” says the Mayor. “But is it the whole truth?”
“It is,” I say, raising my Noise loud and high to block out anything else he might hear. “It’s the truth.”
His voice is still amused. “I think you’re lying to me, Todd.”
“I ain’t!” I practically shout. “I done what Aaron wanted! I murdered him! I became a man by yer own laws and you can have me in yer army and I’ll do whatever you want, just tell me what you’ve done with her!”
I see Mr. Collins notice a sign from behind me and he steps forward again, fist back and–
(I can’t help it)
I jerk away from him so hard I drag the chair a few inches to the side–
(shut up)
And the punch never falls.
“Good,” says the Mayor, sounding quietly pleased. “Good.” He begins to move again in the darkness. “Let me explain a few things to you, Todd,” he says. “You are in the main office of what was formerly the Cathedral of Haven and what yesterday became the Presidential Palace. I have brought you into my home in the hope of helping you. Helping you see that you are mistaken in this hopeless fight you put up against me, against us.”
His voice moves behind Mr. Collins–
His voice–
For a second it feels like he’s not talking out loud–