Book 2 | Chapter 14 - Stab Stab?

Lillia paced back and forth close to the doorway, staring at the stone beneath her feet as she ranted, her hands near flailing as she spoke with them as much as her yapping mouth.
The stones were worn smooth through the middle of the entrance, their edges still rough where they met the frame. Each time she turned, her foot caught the same shallow groove. She stepped over it in one direction and kept tripping over it in the other.
“So now she’s just upstairs waiting for me, and I don’t know what to do about it,” she said. “I don’t even know my skills, but if I rest, then she’s not going to have emergency knighting on her anymore. She’s going to kill me again, or at least we’re back where we started, and I didn’t like it there.”
She made an…interesting noise out of frustration and then, with a sharp exhale, turned to face her current victim. “Right?”
Rickshaw was leaning against his counter, with his skull propped up on his palm. At some point, he’d pulled out a scroll at some point and, though his eye sockets were pointed right at Lillia, it was clear the orbs within the eyes were looking at the scroll. The loose end curled over the edge of the counter. Whenever he let it slip, the parchment scraped against the wood, quietly adding to the list of things Lillia found irritating.
Lillia cleared her throat, but he kept reading.
“Rickshaw!”
“Oh, hey, what?” he said, bringing his attention back to her. “Yeah, yeah, I got most of that. Just missed the last question. What was it again?”
“Ugh!” Lillia flopped down in the doorway to his shop, sitting cross-legged on the floor and, after a moment, tapping her head against the frame at a rhythm only she understood. “You’re not even listening.”
There was a narrow ridge in the wood just behind her ear. She shifted until she found a flatter patch, which was marginally more comfortable to knock her skull against. From down here, she could see a pale scuff along the bottom of the counter, the only obvious mark on anything Rickshaw owned.
“Didn’t you hear me? Of course, I was listening. I just, uhhhhhhhh…” He pushed himself up off the counter, two of his ribs clicking against the wood as they hit the side. “Look, I’m usually better at this. Married after all but—I mean you know the answer. I’ve said it three times.”
Rather than outlining it again, Rickshaw mocked a stabbing motion and mimicked the sound…somehow. It was never clear how he spoke without a tongue at all.
“I know I could,” she said. “With the potion of weak mind, she just listens to whatever I say, which—”
“Yeah, that Eisel guy had it, creepy. Move on.”
“But I don’t know if I want to kill her, right? What if whatever replaces her is worse?”
“You think it’s gonna be worse than her.”
“Well…No,” Lillia drummed her fingers on the cold stone. “But she has daughters, and what happens to the daughters if it’s her room and she dies outside of it? Plus if I kill her now, she’s just going to appear again at the Hearth, but not be part of my party and—”
“Would she?” Rickshaw asked.
“Yeah. She’s an adventurer right now and—”
“And she is an adventurer who has never been to a Hearth. Unless she’s resting up there right now, you could make her dead dead.”
“Ugh.” Lillia pulled her knees in close to her chest. This shouldn’t have been so hard. Less than an hour ago Nennia had been chasing her across the dungeon, trying to capture her so she could torture her. Wasn’t that enough? Didn’t that mean she should have been fine with just ending it?
That was the easy way out. As Rickshaw put it. Stab, stab.
Behind Rickshaw, the glass doors of the shelves were still mostly opaque, only barely translucent enough to reveal the suggestions of an item behind. Originally, when Lillia had walked in, they had been near-clear, but as she’d gotten further and further away from intending to shop, they had darkened.
A tall shape remained visible in one cabinet, flanked by several smaller ones that might have been bottles. She tried to make out a stopper, a label, anything, but her own dim reflection kept getting in the way. Even leaning sideways only moved her face across whatever she was trying to look at.
Even window shopping wasn’t free with Rickshaw.
“Yeah, just kill her,” Rickshaw said.
“But—”
“In a profit-to-time-spent ratio, you are my worst customer, Darling,” Rickshaw said.
“You don’t need to listen—”
“No, no, no! I will, because I like you, Darling. You’re a charmer. Got that cute face that even someone without one could love,” he said. “Just, at some point, throw me a bone here. Liking people is bad for business.”
Lillia just sighed.
“I don’t want to kill her,” she said. “She helped me.”
“Okay. Then don’t.”
“Then what do I do?!” Lillia asked.
“Kid, I gave you my number one idea and number two idea, which were ‘stab’ and ‘stab, stab,’ respectively,” he said. “While I’m all for you not wanting to kill that creepy spider, I can’t say I have another phenomenal suggestion.”
Lillia opened her mouth to protest Rickshaw’s point, but eventually just settled into her nook at the side of the door with a weak, “I know.”
Outside the doorway, a little dust lay gathered in the joins between the stones, undisturbed except for the marks she’d made while pacing. Had it not gotten wet during her battle with the sea? Or had it all just been quietly slotted back into place like she wouldn’t notice.
At this point, she was essentially out of options. She’d been awake for so long that she was starting to feel dizzy when she stayed still for too long. She was sore. All of her abilities were awaiting the next rest.
Everything told her that the safest thing to do was just to kill Nennia and move on with her life, even celebrate with a nap. But despite all arrows pointing to it being the right option, she didn’t know if she wanted that to be how she left this place. Nennia had helped her, and sure, she certainly wasn’t at the moment but—
“Darling, it might seem callous, but I kind of do need you to vacate my doorway. I have customers on the other side walking around with some serious bartering and I don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Lillia scooted a little further out of the door, but not quite far enough to let Rickshaw free. “I know. Sorry. I’ll bring all the items next time. I promise.”
Rickshaw pressed his palm against what would have been his nose and drew his bone fingers across his skull. “Darling, you have said that every time and…” He sighed. “And because I am a sucker for you, I will choose to continue to believe you.” He let his hands fall to the counter, and then drummed them when Lillia didn’t immediately stand.
His fingertips made a remarkably sharp sound against the wood. There wasn’t much else to compete with. Just the steady clack of a shopkeeper who had apparently decided she needed musical accompaniment.
“I’ll hunt for a dress for you, ask if anyone has something.”
“Really?!” Lillia perked up.
“Absolutely, Darling.” Rickshaw said in a tone that somehow explained he couldn’t believe swinging Lillia’s mood had been that easy. “Just make sure you actually bring something to sell.”
“I will.”
“Good, Darling. Now shoo,” he waved for Lillia to get further out of the way.
Rather than scooting, which was rather uncourtly, Lillia stood up, dusted herself off and took a single step backward.
The door to Rickshaw’s shop slammed so quickly it almost took off her nose.
The rush of air lifted the loose hairs around her face. She blinked at the wood. Behind it, the small sounds of the shop had stopped completely.
“Hey!” Lillia said even though she knew he was already gone. “That was—Whatever.” She rested her palm on the door instead of knocking on it, and then slowly let it slide down until it fell off.
Thump.
She rested her head on the door and sighed.
Havoc would know what to do, but he was dead.
Cathria would know what to do, but she was gone for the day—including the statues on the second floor.
Throne hadn’t been in the Hunting Lodge or anywhere close to the entrance of the grounds when Lillia checked.
The only person she’d been able to talk to was Rickshaw, and that had gone…middling. Middling in the way that he’d given what was probably the right answer, but it wasn’t what Lillia wanted to hear.
There had to be some third solution, some way she didn’t need to bet on sudden forgiveness while also not just killing Nennia and accepting all the consequences, from the new room to the potentially vanished daughters.
There had to be a way—
Lillia straightened, pulling her head off the door and shaking her hair out of her eyes. There was one person that she hadn’t talked to in this whole mess. One person who might be able to solve all of this for her.
There was one spider that Lillia hadn’t squished this life.
She needed to talk to Pilla.