Chapter 31.1: Mantra of Absolution

Maybe half an hour passed before anything changed; Penny couldn’t tell how long it was. She didn’t care enough to tell. She’d sat back down in her nook between chairs and fallen silent, her stomach tight and face slack as she stared out into the rest of the room. Her eyes occasionally rose to study the pair of asura girls alternately talking and embracing across the room, and she played Alena’s words over in her mind. This is all she has now. It’s all your travel-mate left her. All this girl had to work with now was whatever her dead father had left her and whatever scraps the world would slough off in her direction.

Under her breath, Penny repeated what had become her mantra of absolution. “I didn’t do this,” she whispered.

She hadn’t. She really hadn’t. Skixx had. Her actions, her choice to preserve her shop, her livelihood, her life, that was an independent issue. It had happened leagues and days from what Skixx had done here. The responsibility for what he’d done to the librarian and his daughter fell squarely on the shoulders of that little shit. She knew it. She did. Still, each time Penny lifted her eyes to the girl, she had to repeat the phrase again.

At some point, Alena and Ippi were summoned by the inspector. Another nameless peacemaker came back and took them away toward the interrogation room, and Alena flashed one sidelong glance at Penny on their way out. There was no malice in the look and no judgement, only a cool acknowledgement of Penny’s silent acquiescence; she’d stayed away, as requested. Alena’s attention returned to the child at her side, and the two stepped out into the hall.

Penny watched the empty doorway a minute longer, not paying attention to it really, but lost in it, falling into the void where the asura girl had moved out of Penny’s sight—the girl who was now an orphan.

She mouthed again, “I didn’t do—”

“Penny? Are you OK?” Minkus’ voice jarred her.

With effort, Penny refocused from the doorway to the large, round face just a foot away from her. How had he gotten so close? She shook her head.

“Penny?”

She knew that telling Minkus she was anything other than OK would lead to an endless chain of questions. And though she searched the muddled corners of her mind for anything else to say, the words that popped out were the same as they had been for some time. “I didn’t do this,” she said. “This is not my fault.”

Her eyes popped wide open as she heard herself. Gods, that was the one thing she hadn’t wanted to say.

Minkus squinted, puzzling out her meaning. “What’s not your fault?” he asked. “I don’t know what you mean, Penny.”

“It doesn’t matter. I just…” Penny trailed off, unable to find the words that followed. 

She couldn’t talk about it; she didn’t want to talk about it—gods knew she didn’t—but even as she considered that, the words came, spilling out of her mouth in clumsy, emotional succession. “What happened to that asura kid— it wasn’t my fault. It was Skixx. This was Skixx, not me. It wasn’t me, Biggie.” She leaned forward, needing him to know she didn’t do it, though she herself had no idea why.

Frowning, Minkus scratched his head. He knelt to the floor in front of her and searched her eyes.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It was Skixx, or at least Alena thinks it was. I— I do too, I guess.” His eyes fell for a moment. “It’s all very sad. For Ippi, for Alena. Even for Skixx and Wepp. So very sad. But—” He scratched his head again. “But why would that have anything to do with you?”

“It doesn’t,” she growled. “You said it yourself. It was Skixx, not me.”

Minkus sat back, plopping to the floor, his face contorted in thought. He looked back and forth between her face and the squared patterns of the stonework floor. For once, his confusion was a relief to her, slightly easing the tension she was working so hard to keep contained. The last thing she needed now was that sappy look he gave to people he pitied.

After a moment, though, understanding seemed to dawn on him. “Penny,” he asked cautiously, “you don’t think— no— do you think you’re the reason this happened to the curator?”

“The curator?” she retorted, choking back the guilt. She just had to keep it together for a minute longer. If she could do that, he would leave her alone; she knew it. “No, I don’t think anything like that,” she muttered, even then feeling her facade slipping. Her eyes wandered to the point in the room now vacated by the asura females. “That wouldn’t even make any— I didn’t—”

Minkus’ looked back over his shoulder and slowly pondered something.

When he turned back to Penny, his eyes were wide. He lunged, pressing big, soft hands against her knees. “The progeny?” Minkus whispered. “You do think you did this, don’t you? To the curator, to Ippi. You were watching her this whole time.”

Then he stopped, his hand moving reflexively to his ear. “But why— why would you think that? I don’t understand.”

She winced and looked away. The ruse was broken, and she didn’t have the strength to wrestle it back together.

“Penny,” Minkus said, still fidgeting with that big, bat-ear of his, “this was a very bad thing that Skixx did. You were with me the whole time. You weren’t even near Skixx, not since...” His words fell off, and slowly his eyes traveled about, as though he were drawing lines between disparate points on an invisible schematic, piecing a puzzle together that he only now saw. Penny watched him as he raised a hand to his mouth. “The night on the cliffs.”

Penny hung her head. That was it. He knew, and there would be no coming back from that. She couldn’t have said why she cared, but she knew he would never look at her the same way again—as if he’d had any reason to look at her favorably before.

She clenched her eyes shut to keep him out, she clenched them shut to push the thought of the orphaned asura as far away as possible, and—gods help her—she clenched them in hopes of avoiding any memory of that raven-haired little girl left alone on the cold cobbles of Divinity’s Reach so many years ago.

All her efforts failed, though, and fleeing it all, she opened her eyes once more, something she instantly regretted.

Right in front of her, tears welled in the corners of Minkus’ eyes, and before she could look away, she felt her own tears rising to mirror them. She fought it, tightening everything in her she could, but she wasn’t strong enough.

“No,” she argued, “I didn’t. I told you— that’s not what—”

His frown softened, leaving an even deeper sadness in its wake. He thought only a moment before speaking.

“If you made different choices,” Minkus said tentatively, tugging at his ear, “well, maybe something would be different. Maybe quite a bit would be different.  I don’t know. We— well, we can’t ever really know, I suppose. At least I don’t think so. You’ve done wrong things—we’ve done wrong things—but you didn’t take away Ippi’s father. That really was Skixx.”

You’ve done wrong things. It was the only thing she consciously heard.

He was right, of course, but, gods, was it an understatement. By his standards, she’d almost certainly done Adelbern’s share of wrongs in her life, but she’d never felt a weight like this before. Whether Skixx had driven the knife or she had, the ramifications of her choices, her actions, were more than she could bear, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Wrong didn’t cut it. Why the hell couldn't she stop thinking about it?

But she played through the words again as she sat staring blankly at her friend: you’ve done wrong things. It was something Minkus had said before, wasn’t it? Yes, just before they’d left the inn, he’d said it. Both he and she had “done wrong,” but he told the innkeeper he would make it right after he’d ensured the safety of their friends—his friends. He would make it right.

She came to herself, focusing her eyes on Minkus: his big, wet eyes and that subtle upturn of hope at the edge of his full lips giving. For the first time Penny now believed he’d meant it, all of it. The little man really felt the weight of wronging Wepp—not something she was personally ready to admit—and the innkeeper, and Minkus aimed to do something about it. Gods, he was in earnest. And stranger still, she suddenly believed he might have had the right of it, in his naively virtuous sort of way. She was guilty, but maybe something could be done to rectify it.

“Minkus. Penny Arkayd,” a voice broke in. They turned in surprise to see a nameless guard standing once more in the doorway. “Your assistance in this investigation has been sufficient, and you are free to leave.” Without further address or instruction, he spun and gestured their way out the door.

Minkus blinked, glancing quickly at Penny and then back at the officer. “Do you think we could have another minute, Officer?”

Sourly the guard shook his head. “You’re dismissed from the investigation.”

“But, if we could just have—”

“You are dismissed,” the guard repeated, gesturing once more out the open doorway and into the hall. “This space is for witnesses and investigation participants only.”

Wiping her nose, Penny rose to her feet. “Gods, fine. Whatever you want.” Standing half again as tall as the little officer, she reached for her things. A brief smirk touched her lips—there were some asura it was satisfying to physically look down on.

They passed the guard, who nodded at them curtly and pointed them down the hall, refusing even to lead them back to the foyer.

Penny and Minkus walked out, tracing their path back to where they’d originally come into the facility. Though she was able to point the way at junctures Minkus couldn’t remember, Penny walked otherwise absently through the fluorescent hallways. There were other things on her mind, things she couldn’t shake, like every puzzle she’d ever tried to solve. Except, this puzzle wasn’t mechanical—not at all. However she counted the parts or ran the permutations, this problem only seemed to have a single viable solution, and it was one Penny didn’t entirely like, though it was the only one that even came close to assuaging her guilt. She longed to go back to her shop, to return to a system that operated smoothly, safely, consistently, and under her control. The thought made her grimace; she’d seen more than she wanted of what came with her “control.”

“Penny?” Minkus asked beside her. “Did you hear me, Penny?”

She hadn’t heard anything to that point, but his inquiry drew her back into the world around them. They were now outside the doors of the peacemaker headquarters, stepping out into the plaza, where Minkus stood still, looking up at her.

“Huh? What?” Penny shook her head clear.

Minkus scratched awkwardly at his ear. “I— well, I was just reminding you that the asura gate to Lion’s Arch is up at the top floor, where we came in.” He pointed across the waves of passing pedestrians, toward the ramp to the upper city. “I think it’s the one on the— right?” he said cautiously. “But I might be wrong. The operators can help you.”

She nodded, only barely hearing what he said. She had to make this right.

“I—” Minkus stammered, tugging even more fiercely at his ear and looking at the ground. “Well, I am glad to have met you, Penny Arkayd. I’m sorry for all— for everything that has happened, but I am still glad to have met you, and I’ll come visit you in Lion’s Arch when—”

Finally snapping back to reality somewhere in the midst of her friend’s farewell, Penny sighed. There was only one solution to her problem, only one course of action, and it wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d done wrong, and if this strange, little friend of hers had taught her anything, it was that something had to be done about it. There was just one piece of information she was missing.  Without it, Penny couldn’t do anything useful for the girl.

“Biggie,” she said with a sigh, “I’m not going to Lion’s Arch—the place smells like a fish’s ass. I’ll help you find your sister and Carrot-Stick. But first, we need to have another chat with Wepp.”