Chapter 41: Dex

Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Dex

Dex was waiting in the lobby of Merridan General when Elias finally came back.

He was slouched in one of the hard plastic chairs by the gift shop, a paper cup of coffee going cold in his hands, and from the dark circles under his eyes, he’d been there a while. When the sliding doors opened and Elias walked in, Dex stood up so fast he nearly spilled it.

"You," he said, "are a very hard man to find."

Elias stopped. "Dex. What are you—"

"Mira called me." Dex’s voice was low and tight. "Yesterday. She got my number off your old emergency contact form. She said you hadn’t come in for two days. You didn’t answer her texts. You didn’t answer my texts." He jabbed a finger toward the elevators. "Do you know what that does to her, Eli? Two days. She thought something had happened to you in a gate. She thought you were dead."

Elias felt it land somewhere under his ribs, next to the weight he’d been carrying since the foundry.

"I needed some time," he said.

"Then tell her that. Tell me that. Send one word." Dex ran a hand over his face. Then, more quietly: "I know what it’s like to think you’re never going to see somebody again. I watched you disappear behind a wall once already. I’m not doing it twice."

They stood there for a moment in the middle of the lobby while people flowed around them.

"Go see her," Dex said. "I’ll wait. Then we need to talk. Somewhere private."

Elias went upstairs. Mira took one look at him and threw a pillow at his head, then grabbed his sleeve and held on so tightly her knuckles went white, and didn’t say anything for a long time. He sat in the cracked chair and let her hold on. He told her he’d been sick. It was almost true.

When he came back down an hour later, Dex was still in the plastic chair. He’d bought a second coffee and held it out.

"There’s something I should have said weeks ago," Dex said, as they walked out into the grey afternoon. "In the cathedral, when Garrick put the wall up. I didn’t get to you."

"You tried. I saw you."

"I tried." Dex stopped on the sidewalk and turned to face him. "Vance grabbed my collar, and I swung at him, and he hit me, and I let him drag me out. I could’ve fought harder. I could’ve climbed that wall. I’ve been thinking about it every night for five weeks." His voice cracked. "I’m sorry, Eli. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you."

Elias looked at his friend. At the coffee cup shaking slightly in Dex’s hand. At the yellow ghost of the bruise still on his jaw.

"You were the only one who tried at all," he said. "That’s the part I remember."

Dex looked away quickly and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"Okay," he said thickly. "Okay. Your place. I’ve got something to show you."

Elias’s kitchen was barely big enough for two people, so they sat at the little table by the window with their knees almost touching. Dex pulled out his phone, then hesitated, as if it might bite.

"You remember the guild photo in Garrick’s office?" he said. "From three years ago?"

Elias remembered. Six hunters in front. Two porters at the back, faces he didn’t know.

"Toby Tolliver," Dex said quietly. "And Corey Bask. Toby was nineteen. Corey was twenty-four, and he had a kid. They carried for Ironfang before you did. Before me, mostly." He swallowed. "Toby died in a B-rank gate two years ago. Corey died last spring. Both in boss rooms. Both times, the official report said the boss was irregular, the team retreated, and the porter didn’t make it out in time."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"Didn’t make it out in time," Elias repeated.

"That’s what it said." Dex unlocked his phone and turned it around. "Here’s what Appraiser said."

On the screen was a long list of entries, each one stamped with a date, a time, and a location. Elias had never seen the inside of Dex’s skill before. He hadn’t known it kept records.

"Every time I use it, it logs what I see," Dex said. "I can’t turn that off. I forgot it even did it, until the cathedral. Then I went back and looked."

He scrolled to an entry two years old and tapped it.

[Appraisal: Boss chamber, Sunken Mill gate. Grade: C → B+. Status: IRREGULAR.]

The timestamp was 21:42. Underneath, in Dex’s own notes from that night: Told Garrick. He said go in anyway.

He scrolled to last spring.

[Appraisal: Boss chamber, Briar Hollow gate. Grade: B → A-. Status: IRREGULAR.]

21:15. Told Garrick. He said it was a glitch.

And then, five weeks ago:

[Appraisal: Boss chamber, Drowned Cathedral. Grade: C → A-. Status: IRREGULAR.]

Told Garrick. He said irregulars are overrated.

Elias read all three twice. His hands had gone cold.

"He knew," he said. "Every time. He knew before anyone went in."

"He knew, and he went in anyway, because irregular cores sell for a fortune. And every time it went wrong, somebody holding the door didn’t come back." Dex’s voice shook. "I should have said something after Toby. I should definitely have said something after Corey. But Garrick’s a B-rank guild master, and I’m an F-grade appraiser who reads price tags. Who was going to listen to me?"

Elias didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Dex put the phone down on the table between them.

"There’s something else," he said. "Rhett Kessler. You know the name?"

Elias went very still.

"He runs a crew. Ran." Dex was watching his face. "Kid named Wick quit two nights ago. Walked into Kelly’s, drank until closing, and told anyone who’d listen that Kessler took a job from Garrick to kill a porter in a gate. Said Kessler went into the Rusted Foundry after him and never came out. Said the porter had a knight."

The refrigerator hummed.

"I don’t know what happened in that foundry," Dex said softly. "I’m not even sure I want to. But you look like somebody who’s been through something, Eli. And I’m sick of being the guy who watches from the other side of a wall."

Elias thought about Marcus’s chalkboard. Rule four. Nobody knows.

Then he thought about a wall going up brick by brick, and through the shrinking gap at the top, Dex’s face, the only face that had turned back.

"Dex," he said. "I’m going to show you something. I need you to promise me you won’t scream."

Dex blinked. "Why would I scream?"

"Promise."

"Fine. I promise. I won’t—"

"Aveline," Elias said. "Marcus. Tobin."

The kitchen exploded with light.

Three folds of white and gold tore open in a space barely big enough for two, and three people stepped out of them, and suddenly there was no room for anything at all. Aveline came out with her shield on her arm, and the rim of it struck the refrigerator door with a clang that rattled every jar inside. Marcus came out with his rifle at a careful angle, and the barrel still knocked the cheap glass lampshade above the table, which swung back and forth, throwing light wildly across the walls. Tobin came out last, wedged himself between the stove and the counter, and immediately turned to examine the stovetop with an expression of profound professional pain.

"Two burners," he said, appalled. "Two. And one of them’s bent."

Dex didn’t scream.

He made a small sound, like a kettle starting to boil. Then he slid slowly off his chair, sat down on the kitchen floor with his back against the cabinets, and stared up at the three of them.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Aveline looked down at him from what must have been a very great height. Marcus nodded once, a soldier’s greeting. Tobin was opening Elias’s cupboards one after another, sighing at each.

"Dex," Elias said. "This is Aveline Rosier, from Carrow. She’s a knight. She’s the one who took the knife in the foundry. That’s Marcus Sinclair. He’s a sergeant. He’s the reason nobody’s ever been able to sneak up on me. And that’s Tobin Ashgrove. He’s a cook."

"A cook," Dex repeated faintly.

"A monster cook," Tobin corrected without turning around. "There’s a difference."

"They died," Elias said quietly. "In their own worlds. And I called them here. That’s what I am. That’s what happened in the cathedral, and on Fifth Street, and in the foundry." He looked at his friend sitting on the floor. "You wanted to know. Now you know."

Dex sat there for another long moment, looking from the knight to the soldier to the cook.

Then he swallowed, raised one hand halfway, and said, in a small voice:

"Does the cook take requests?"

Tobin turned around slowly, a dented saucepan in his hand. He looked Dex up and down, taking in the thin wrists, the dark circles, the coffee-stained shirt of a man who’d been living on vending machines in hospital lobbies.

"Depends," Tobin said. "What are you requesting?"

"Anything," Dex said. "Honestly. Anything that isn’t instant noodles."

Tobin’s face split into a slow, delighted grin. He set the saucepan on the bent burner.

"Lad," he said, "you’ve come to the right kitchen."

Marcus finally lowered his rifle and pulled out Elias’s second chair. He sat down, folded his hands on the table, and looked at the phone still lying there with its three red appraisals.

"While he cooks," Marcus said, "show me those logs again. Slowly. From the beginning."

Aveline settled into the doorway, shield resting against her leg, and watched over all of them.

And for the first time since the cathedral, Elias felt the weight on his chest shift. It wasn’t gone. But it was shared.