Chapter 1.4 - In which Percy goes "down to the station"

Percy

Month 9, Day 27, Sunday 1:15 p.m.

The shame of accidentally incapacitating the copper in such an embarrassing way brought Percy back to his senses, and with some flailing—on Percy’s part from incompetence, and on the copper’s part from debilitating pain—they managed to make it to the surface. With help from one of the small boats traversing the canal and people on the sidewalk above, they were hauled to safety.

Percy’s glasses had been lost in the water, which was too murky to see into the depths, and surely lost forever.

The copper who had first talked to Percy, the one with the dark skin and confident stride, was apparently the partner of the one Percy had taken a dunk with. He turned to Percy with a hard stare that had probably puckered the buttholes of criminals everywhere. “You’re coming down to the station with us.”

The carriage ride was silent and awkward, and by the time they arrived, Percy was shivering miserably. The man escorted him to a small interrogation room with a simple table, bright lights, and for some strange reason a large mirror that covered most of one of the walls. It seemed quite out of place, in such an otherwise utilitarian room.

The man gestured to the single chair on the far side of the table, then left Percy alone without another word.

Percy retrieved his backup pair of glasses from his backpack, slipped them carefully onto his face, and looked at himself in the mirror. The bridge of his nose was red, and he could tell that by tomorrow, the bruising would spread to the area under his eyes, but it was nothing serious. He had a red, scraped bump on his chin, and a tear on the right knee of his pants. He ran his fingers through his curls, which were starting to dry and springing up again with their typical defiance. Bored and anxious, Percy made a few funny faces at himself in the mirror, bouncing his legs around to try and generate some warmth.

After only a couple minutes, a woman with a wide smile entered with a thick blanket in one hand and a steaming cup in the other.

Percy perked up, sighing with pleasure as he sank his fingers into the blanket. He quickly stood, took off his wet jacket and scarf, then settled the blanket around his shoulders like a cocoon, with only the single layer of his damp shirt to chill him. “Thank you.”

The woman eyed him as he settled back down and reached for the cup, which held black tea mixed with a generous amount of sugar and milk. “I’m Copper Alma.” She was about the same height as Percy, and just a little stocky, with a thin layer of fat softening the look of muscle underneath.

“Percival Irving, but you can call me Percy,” he replied.

“You look like you got pretty banged up there, Percy. Do you need to see a healer?”

Percy blew on the tea cradled between his hands. “Oh, no, it’s fine. My nose isn’t broken. A little bit of bruise balm will fix me right up. At most I got a little banged up, as much from falling and getting hit with that tentacles spell as anything.”

Her expression didn’t change, but she tilted her head slightly to the side. “What about here?” she said, gesturing to her neck.

Percy tried to look down, but ended up looking into the mirror again to see what she was talking about. He pulled the damp fabric of his shirt away from his collarbone to reveal a scabbed-over laceration and the week-old bruise that bloomed from the area. “Oh, that? It’s fine. It isn’t even from today.”

“What happened? It looks quite painful.”

“Oh, I fell into the pointy side of a wrought-iron fence. Got distracted by a bird trying to poop on me and tripped.” He chuckled with embarrassment. “I’m quite accident-prone. I try to pay attention, but whenever I get distracted it’s an opportunity for me to somehow injure myself.”

Copper Alma smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sometimes, you can be injured and not even realize it until later, because of the adrenaline. A full examination might be a good idea, just in case you received further injuries today that you’re not aware of, or that could lead to complications later. We have a healer on staff—no charge.”

Percy hesitated. “I’m sure I’m just a little roughed up. I know what you’re talking about, with underestimating injuries, but I’m pretty confident I don’t have anything to worry about. Oh! But I would appreciate an immune booster, because some of the canal water got in my eyes and mouth, and I’m pretty sure I swallowed some of it, and I really don’t want to come down with some horrible infection or illness. So, yeah, a potion or two would be welcome. If it’s free.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Alma agreed, turning to face the door as it opened to admit the same copper from earlier.

The man introduced himself as Lieutenant Robards, accepted Percy’s offered handshake with an amused twitch of his lips and a firm grip, and then sat down across from Percy. “Would you mind sitting in, Alma? Shelleck has been sent to the infirmary for possible…soft tissue trauma.” He glanced at Percy for a moment after the last words.

Percy shrank in on himself, because he could guess what that meant. “Is Shelleck the one who fell into the water with me? Umm, can you tell him I’m really sorry? I really didn’t mean to grab him…there. Is he going to be okay?”

“We have competent healers,” Lieutenant Robards replied.

Copper Alma took the chair next to Robards, smiling at Percy. “I’d be happy to sit in. And don’t worry about Shelleck. I’m sure he’ll be fine, and wouldn’t blame you for a little mistake. Right, Lieutenant Robards?” she asked, turning to the man with her smile somehow growing even wider, but more stiff.

Robards didn’t seem to notice, frowning down at the papers on his clipboard. “It is an expected danger of the job to sometimes receive injuries in the course of carrying out our duty.” He looked up at Percy, mouth downturned at the edges and gaze hard. “Are you aware of all the ways in which you not only endangered yourself, but made our job more difficult today?”

Percy straightened, an ingrained response to receiving scolding from his mother. “Y—I mean, no, sir…?” He trailed off in embarrassed confusion, trying to think of what he had done wrong. “Are you talking about how I didn’t run away when Mr. Shelleck—I mean Copper Shelleck—told me to? I wanted to, but I was still trying to find a safe route when that woman did the sand spell. And then it was too late. I know Shelleck probably had to put himself in more danger than necessary to protect me, but I…” he trailed off again, helplessly. “Tell him I’m really sorry,” he repeated. “I’m not very good in high-stress situations.”

If anything, Robards’s gaze grew even more severe. “That is not, in fact, what I was referring to. At the point that Copper Shelleck attempted to save you, you were already deeply entangled in the altercation, and even if, as you say, you came to your senses at that point, it was much too late.”

Percy stared at the man, feeling very clearly that he was missing something, but unsure of what it was.

Perhaps Lieutenant Robards saw the lack of comprehension on his face, because he explained, “The woman we were chasing today is a dangerous criminal, raised by other criminals. She stole something extremely valuable and was willing to do anything necessary to get away with it. Above all that, we have just received word from the Thirteen Crowns that she is a blood magic practitioner. If she had wanted to, do you know what horrible things she could have done to you?”

Percy paled, clutching the blanket tighter around himself. “I don’t know, but I can imagine,” he murmured. “Really bad things.”

“In addition to that, placing yourself anywhere near her put you in danger of friendly fire from our side, as we could not simply cease attempts to apprehend her based on her surroundings. In essence, everyone around her was a civilian hostage. If not for that, we might have been able to take more lethal measures and stop her from escaping.”

Percy swallowed. “She escaped?” he asked in a small voice.

“Yes. Do you understand now, why you should have avoided trying to capture her yourself? You are a child. You are not trained for such a thing. And if not for your involvement—tracking her down and the subsequent attacks and attempts to capture her—we might have been able to capture her ourselves.” Robards slapped the side of the clipboard down on the table, the sharp sound making Percy jump. “The proper response would have been to tell me or one of my colleagues any information you might have had on her and then recused yourself from the situation.”

As Percy realized that the man was not just sharing information about the horrible fate he had narrowly avoided, but in fact accusing Percy of interference in copper business, his stomach seemed to boil. He swallowed hard and took a gulp of the tea to suppress his sudden nausea, then had to cough up the liquid that got accidentally inhaled. Voice hoarse, he said, “I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding! I didn’t go after her, and I didn’t attack her or try to capture her!”

“I am told you threw a container of pastries at the back of her head,” Robards said flatly.

Percy shook his head frantically. “No, no! I tripped. The pastries flew out of my hand. That was a total accident. The whole thing was. Me, trying to catch some criminal? That’s totally crazy! I’m not a complete idiot. I would never— Why would—” He broke off as his words began to fail him, took a deep breath, and concluded, “Definitely not!”

Robards and Alma shared a look. Alma reached across the table and patted Percy’s clenched fist. “Why don’t you explain to us what happened from your perspective. Don’t leave anything out.”

Percy rubbed his face, then winced as the motion sent a spike of pain through his nose and behind his eyes. “Okay. So it all started because I got lost, and this hag selling trinkets on the side of the road waved me over.”