Day 5

The heavy rain pelted the irregular cobbled streets of the lower Harbour District as Sham, renewed from a couple days of slumber, trudged to one of the city’s oldest tea rooms. The establishment ahead of him was lit by oil lanterns, flickering as the rain slipped in through the gaps in its metal flame, illuminating a young man smoking an inevitably cheap cigar as he leant against the thick wooden door. It wasn’t this man that Sham had come to meet, though.

When Sham had reached out, he’d suggested this meeting place for two reasons. One: it was about the only establishment open at this late hour that didn’t serve alcohol, and after his close call with Ariel’s stashed whiskey, Sham didn’t fancy his chances of resisting temptation. And two: he knew the tea room had no shortage of nooks and crannies, of tables at which two people might meet unseen, and without risk of anyone eavesdropping.

Sham had made the trip alone, considering for a moment bringing Riot, but her lack of delicacy might well have made this meeting go worse than it needed to. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d given him much choice; she’d made the trip to resistance headquarters only once in the past few days, and it had been while Sham had been resting. He’d been doing that a lot, of course. It didn't make any odds in the end; there was a matter to attend to that Sham really would need Riot's help with, and he'd left a message at headquarters demanding it.

The man smoking outside the tea room nodded once to Sham as he passed. It wasn’t that they knew each other; just that at this late hour, a nod of acknowledgement was the done thing. Sham slipped inside, out of the rain, and ducked under a low-hanging wooden support beam.

The tea room was strangely cosy despite the building being so old. It had been an inn, once. A stop outside of town, closer to the harbour than the city’s centre, where sailors might rest after a long journey before making their way into Haven proper. But as the population had grown, so too had the city, and once separate urban areas had merged into one.

As such, the building could well have been cold instead of comfortable, if not for the unpainted wood and great stone breaks being covered by rugs and curtains and no end of paintings created by the most talented artists that the Harbours had to offer.

Sham nodded to the employee behind the counter, signalling that he’ll be ordering from her soon, and received the same greeting in response. Already craving a strong, hearty tea, Sham then turned and ducked his head under an arch on his left, scouring the area for the person he was meeting. But in the chamber beyond the arch, sat at the end of a table long enough for eight, was only a glamorous older woman, adjusting her crimson lipwax in a small pocket mirror. Sham flashed her an apologetic smile, then ducked back out into the foyer.

Sham repeated the process, scouring every dark corner of this ancient establishment for the woman he sought, stopping only when he was content that she hadn’t yet arrived. That was to be expected, he supposed. He was early, after all.

He drifted back to the counter, the strangeness of the hour combined with the low number of windows giving the establishment a dreamlike quality, like none of this was quite real. More so than the past few months, even.

‘A pot,’ he said to the man behind the counter. ‘Two cups.’

The man nodded just as he had before. Though this building was a tea room, the peculiar opening hours lent it to shady dealings and customers who would prefer to be left unseen. As a result, the employees tended towards discretion, and discretion did not go hand in hand with lively conversation.

The employee filled the tea pot with loose dried leaves, pouring on top of them hot water from the gas stove, and then handed it—along with two cups, a bowl of sugar and a jug of milk—to Sham on a tray. After silently placing the payment on the counter, Sham took the tray off to a dark, empty corner of the Vermillion Cup that he’d spotted earlier. There, he sat in a corner where he could see the entrance and where nobody could sneak up on him, the cushions below his arse particularly faded and suggesting that many before him had done the same.

‘And now… we wait…’ Recollection’s internal voice was soft, quiet, as though resigned to the fact that there was nothing else to do. It was a point of view shared by Sham as well.

He’d pondered on many matters over the past few days. There was nought to do about Warren until the start of the next Loop, which had given Sham a chance to get his ducks in a row. His main priority had been the absent Riot, but in her… well, absence, he’d been able to make little progress on that particular matter. But Asa had given him another subject to obsess over—the power grab that would take place after they enacted their plan, and brought about the Final Loop.

The resistance would need friends in the government. They would need Members of Parliament to rally to their side, if their coup was to remain permanent. This was a matter that Sham knew absolutely nothing about, and, of course, was matter than he’d need Riot’s help with, member of high society as she was. If only she was about, and not off doing…

‘What? What is she doing?’

That was the question indeed.

But there were other matters that Sham needed to keep a lid on, too. Kryl’s dealings with these very same MPs could not be ignored. There was also that Tripe—and Mona, though less so—was seemingly struggling with the memories that Recollection was digging up. There were three others members of Legion that they hadn’t yet worked out how to deal with even if their fight against Warren did go well. There was that peculiar tram incident. And, finally, there was the matter of the cause of the Loop itself—the woman who had just walked through the door.

‘Hi,’ Sham said, without making any attempt to rise from his seat.

‘Hi.’ Julya’s words and tone echoed his own, but her body language was more tense, and her brow screwed like she was fighting a headache.

Sham poured liquid from the pot into the second cup. ‘I got you a tea,’ he said.

Julya nodded, taking a seat opposite him, and reached, slowly, for the cup. ‘Round these parts, even a cup of tea ain’t enough of an apology for killing someone.’

Sham raised an eyebrow. ‘Let’s not get into that one. Cos, let’s face it, the maths work out in my favour.’

Julya swallowed an unspoken rebuttal, staring intensely at the cup before her.

‘It ain’t…’ Sham started. ‘It’s fine to drink.’ He topped up his own cup from the pot and took a sip, to prove the point.

Finally the woman before him relented, taking a sip of her own. ‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘Knew about this place, but… Didn’t think they’d made good tea.’

‘Dunno if it’d be as successful as it is if they didn’t.’

Silence fell between them, interrupted only by the occasional crackling of the oil lantern next to their table.

‘We didn’t come here to talk about tea,’ Julya said.

‘No.’

‘The Loop?’

Sham responded first with a solemn nod. ‘It’s got to end at some point.’

‘It will when I kill Enoch Chambers.’

‘Then we want the same thing. Work with us.’

‘I…’ Julya started, then trailed off, her eyes glazing over for a moment or two. ‘I can’t trust you.’

‘Then why’d you come?’

Julya shrugged. ‘You killed me. You ended the Loop. Guess I had to know what it was that un-did that.’

Sham’s stomach twisted at the memory. ‘The Prime Minister had an ace up his sleeve. We’re working on it.’

The Loop’s genesis surveyed Sham as she took her first hearty sip of tea, a great slurp accompanying the movement. It was nice to drink tea with someone who wasn’t Riot, who responded to slurping with a scowl—even if that someone was a woman that Sham had once considered his enemy.

‘What’s the plan, then? You say we want the same thing. How? How do you plan to do it?’

Sham looked the woman up and down, his eyes lingering on the woman’s temple. He knew what dwelled within. ‘Is it safe to tell you? What with…’

‘The Fringe? It wants the same as us.’

‘Err…’

‘No, Julya, it doesn’t,’ Sham said. ‘Do you not see? Do you not see, after all this time? Enoch Chambers is the reward the Fringe dangles in front of you. If it wanted you to kill him, you would have done. A long time ago.’

‘It—’

‘All the Fringe wants,’ Sham continued, ‘is to survive. To spread. To ride the waves of Haven’s destruction and grow stronger.’

Julya furrowed her brow. ‘How could you know that?’

‘Because it bloody well told me!’ Sham couldn’t help but let his voice grow strained.

The woman in front of him placed her teacup pointedly down on top of the table. ‘It speaks to you too?’

‘It…’ Sham started. ‘Do you not remember? Back in the Tower, the Loop that you… that I…’

‘Killed me.’

‘Yes. You put your hands on me. The Fringe reached for me, brought me into you. Do you not… remember that?’

‘She must do,’ Recollection said. ‘She has my cousin in her. She can’t forget—’

Julya shook her head. ‘No, I… No. I don’t.’

‘Well, it happened. And I dunno what possible reason I could have for lying about that, before your mind goes there. The Fringe spoke to me, and it told me what it wanted. It wants you trapped, Julya. Back in there, in your mind, I saw the real you. I saw you as a young girl—the last moment you were yourself, before the Fringe took hold of you, back on that fishing boat.’

The woman’s eye twitched, her gaze drifting down to the surface of her remaining tea.

‘You’re a victim in all this, as much as anyone,’ Sham said. ‘Don’t let the Fringe control you. Be your own person. Resist its temptation.’

Julya put her head in her hands. If Sham had wanted to kill her, this would have been an ideal opportunity. A revolver raised from under the table, pointed at her skull… ‘I… I’m trying!’

‘Don’t. Not now. Save your energy, OK? We’re only going to have one shot at our plan, Julya. And we need for you to not be at the Tower when we do it.’

‘I can’t promise—’

‘You have to.’

‘I can’t!’ Julya insisted. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what… what… compulsions it feeds into me! If Enoch Chambers is alive, I won’t be able to resist him.’

‘He won’t be. Resist, Julya. I know you can.’

The woman pulled her face from her hands, and Sham could only now see the tears that he should have noticed in her strained voice. She sniffed them back, forcing herself into composure. ‘I’ll… try,’ she said, though her cracking voice did not give Sham—or her, surely—the confidence that they needed. ‘I’ll try not to be there. To resist the Fringe. But if I am… If I am there, you’ll have to kill me.’

Sham had crossed the line before. He’d done it many times since the Loop started, and he’d regretted it near enough every time. But he wouldn’t do it here. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t do that.’

‘You have to. Please. Free me from it, one way or another.’

‘No!’ the resistance leader snapped, then calmed himself, repeating the word once more. ‘No. I won’t. I saw that little girl in there, yeah? I’m not lying when I say I consider you a victim. So I won’t kill you, and I won’t let anyone kill you. I’ll find another way. I’ll… I’ll figure out how to free you from it.’

A light blossomed in Julya’s eyes unlike any Sham had seen in them before. This wasn’t the bright yellow light of power soon to be unleashed. This was the gentle glimmer of hope. ‘You will?’ she asked.

‘I’ll damn well try.’