It lurches closer...
When Aennin got back to his apartment, he was relieved to find that no one had yet discovered the tragedy which had recently happened there. Determinedly avoiding looking at his mother, he wrote a scribbled down a note of distress and loaded it into a tube, which he dropped into the mail chute behind the kitchen counter. He then went upstairs to wait until a city patrolman arrived in response to his message.
When she arrived, Aennin spent the next hour recounting the events leading to his distress call. He decided that the best thing he could do was tell a version of the truth, but with some of the events reordered. He told her that he had spent the morning in Trinity Square before returning to find his mother dead on the floor. He worried that someone might have seen him entering his apartment earlier, but Landah had advised him on his way out of the pub that that anyone who had seen anything would know better than to contradict him. It wasn't in the interest of Landah or his boss to mislead him at this point, so he decided to trust Katim's reputation to smooth over the holes in his story.
By the time the patrolman left, satisfied with the details he had given her, Aennin was close to cracking. He hadn't looked at Anera once the whole time, but he was tempted to in that moment. As he weighed the pros and cons at taking even the slightest peek, Kana threw open the door and rushed into the room. Aennin could tell it was her when she let out a wailing sob. He supposed his experience with their mother's death was vastly different. He was still mostly numb with shock, but Kana had probably come here knowing full what she would find. He wasn't thrilled with the prospect of talking to her, but he knew he had to do so.
When Aennin got downstairs, he found Kana sitting in Anera's favorite chair, her face flooded with tears.
"Hey," he mumbled carefully. "I talked to the patrolman already. We're just waiting for someone to come and... pick her up."
"I'll wait with her," Kana responded through gritted teeth. "I don't start work until tonight, but he wants you back as soon as possible."
"If you need to talk--"
"Just go!" Kana snapped. "There's a reason you're not supposed to fuck with Katim. You don't want to keep him waiting."
"He gave me until nightfall," Aennin said with a hard stare. "Also, he killed our mother.
He can damn well wait!"
Kana shook her head and sighed. "It's better if he doesn't. And none of that attitude when you get there! I don't want either of us to wind up like..."
Kana gestured sadly to Anera and squeezed out some fresh tears. Aennin shed a few of his own. But there was no time to cry. Kana had been very clear on the point that he should return to the pub with haste. So, he wiped his eyes and turned to leave.
"I'm going to get us out of this," Aennin said while standing in front of the door.
"The only way out is through."
Although Aennin had conceded the point that he should leave immediately, he didn't see the need to run this time. He trudged to Katim's in a moody silence, ignoring the murmurs of passerby who seemed to be commenting on the way he was carrying himself. Let them stare, he thought. He had only lost everything he thought he could lose. He faced an uncertain future which seemed to demand that he give up more. His morals, quite possibly. His freedom, certainly. All things considered, he was acting quite naturally.
When Aennin finally walked into the pub, he found Katim sitting at the bar next to Landah, joking and laughing about something. He managed to sidle up to them in silence and take the seat next to them. Katim jumped when he noticed and whooped gleefully.
"We should make you start wearing bells in here," he said while ruffling Aennin's hair. "How did it go?"
"They're never going to find out who killed her," Aennin replied stiffly.
"Even if they do, they won't do anything about it," Katim said with a roll of his eyes. "But if they find out you lied, you'll probably be in trouble. I hope for your sake that you're right."
Aennin didn't respond, and Katim would break the ensuing silence by saying, "Anyway, it's time to put you to work. We're going to start off with something nice and easy." He pulled a brass tube out of his pocket and set it down on the bar. "You are going to take this to Trinity Commerce down the street and deliver this to an employee there by the name of Anayel. You can look at it if you want, but if she doesn't get it, I think you understand that I will know."
Aennin took the tube in hand and nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Cut that 'sir' shit!" Katim said with a chuckle. "We're not fancy people here. Just get this document to Anayel. Hurry up!"
Aennin flitted out of the pub and onto the street. On his way to the pub, he had a thought. If Katim would explicitly give him his consent to read the document, then he probably expected him to. He slowed to a walk and twisted open the tube to pull out the paper within. He unfurled the document and read it with a knot in his stomach. He was holding a contract, signed by his father, that transferred ownership of Morrin and Son's Finest Clocks to Katim. If he delivered his message, the shop would be gone forever.
But there was no question as to what could be done. Not even he or Morrin would say the shop is worth his life now. With trembling hands, he replaced the contract in the tube, closed it, and sprinted for Trinity Commerce with the speed that Katim had so coveted. When he arrived and found Anayel, the man took the tube without a word and waved him off dismissively. It could have crushed him to see such a dismissive response to literally handing his dream over to a stranger, but after the day he had, he felt like nothing could possibly hurt him again.
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