Chapter 26

The time I had with Efa Moreau was limited, but as days stretch into weeks, I find myself craving it more and more. My literacy tutor arrives daily at dawn, and stays until dusk at my request. I lock myself in my room to learn while she's here. When she's not, I explore Trost. I walk the streets till I'm familiar with them. Then I run. The summer surrenders to autumn, turning the air harsher, the temperatures colder. It bites my cheeks, stings, and makes me feel alive all in the same. I push myself and my limits. My stamina, my strength—all of it. If I do not get better, all of this is for nothing. If I do not get better, I'll have wasted my second chance.

I don't dare visit the market I stumbled into again, especially not after learning that it's where the trainees tasked with running menial errands go. The excuse I tell myself is that it would do no good if my father and Adelheid saw me cavorting around with future soldiers.

To their credit, Betham and his new wife do not treat me cruelly. It is as if they do not treat me at all. If I declare a need, it is addressed. Compliments, acknowledged. Complaints, resolved or duly noted. We are as civil as business partners, as familiar as roommates.

For such an expensive place to live, it has thin walls.

Most of the time, this is a disservice to my ears, but I quickly learn that Betham and Adelheid have loose lips when they're two cigars deep into their evenings. My father's husky, drawled out chastisements have utterly no effect on Adelheid's determination to chain smoke during the few evenings that they don't go out together. Eventually, he'll breathe in enough secondhand to grumble under his breath and grab a cigar of his own (often a half-smoked one from the night before), clip it beneath the ash line, and light it all in a single motion.

The first time I take note of this exchange, I'm sitting in the living room across from Adelheid trying to read through the book my tutor assigned to me. It's making my head hurt. Or is that the smoke? Just when I think I ought to turn in for the night and crack open a window, Betham glides into the room in a downy robe. I keep my eyes riveted on the pages, though I find myself reading and rereading the same four sentences over and over as their exchange filters up towards my ears.

"What did I tell you about smoking when Aliva's here?"

"She can handle it, Betham. Can't you, Aliva?"

"Yes."

"See?"

"That doesn't—just put the damn thing out, will you?" Betham growls, reaching for the cigar. Adelheid escapes the confines of her chair, dancing out of his reach.

"Now now, Betham. There's no use in playing parent after all these years, is there?"

My father goes still. I shove my nose into the book, pretending to read in earnest. That's what a good daughter would do, right? She would keep her head down and never cause any trouble? Never challenge her parents to be better people, better role models?

"You must be tired, darling. Let's head to bed." He retreats into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it quickly with water. This time, when he plucks the cigar from her hands, Adelheid lets him. The cherry goes out with an inaudible hiss the second he dunks it into the glass. "There. Let's go."

He does not say goodnight to me. It is as if I'm not even there.

I wait a few minutes, just until it's truly apparent that neither of them intend to leave their room for the remainder of the evening, and head to my room. I shut the door behind me, setting the book on the edge of the bed and making my way over to the closet. Inside are new dresses, soft shirts; articles of clothing that're far finer than anything I ever anticipated wearing. They scream wealth. They proclaim my place in this establishment. It's a badge of entry that says, I deserve to be here.

I press my ear against the closet wall and eavesdrop.

"…Seriously, Adelheid. You have a problem. We're supposed to sell the supplies, not get addicted to the damn product—"

"Oh, hush. Can you blame me? You're the one who told them to try rolling the papafer plant leaves into cigars instead of just sending them off to Elliot to be turned into those little pills!"

My father scoffs, the sound decently muffled through the wall our rooms share, but audible enough. "So now it's my fault? Now you're defending your ex husband?"

"You know that's not what I meant. Don't twist my words."

He laughs. The sound is sharp and condescending. "Next thing I know you'll tell me this marriage is all an elaborate scam to set the Marleen company up for success by exploiting your poor husband into signing off on that flashy contract."

This time, when Adelheid fires back, her voice is no less lethal than his. "So what if it is? At least I've done all this to ensure Carly has a decent future. What have you ever done for your daughter, hm? You're just using me, too. You always were—"

"That's a lie and you know it."

"No, I don't think it is," Adelheid shouts back. "Did you see Aliva's face when she first got here? It was like she couldn't process the fact that I even existed. You told me that the year you spent in Shiganshina was hell. And I believed you, because why wouldn't I? I trusted your word. I trusted that, sweet as I remember Efa being, of course it would be difficult to share a roof with a woman you no longer cared for."

Everything falls silent abruptly. I press my ear closer, wondering if they dropped their voices.

"…You didn't love her anymore. Right?"

My breath goes stale in my lungs. My heartbeat starts to pick up. I don't want to keep listening—I really don't—but I can't pull myself away from the wall.

"Betham."

"We…rekindled our love. The hardships made us grow closer. But—now, Adelheid, don't give me that look—that's exactly why it was so hard. After the fall of Shiganshina, I went to the papafer farms, waiting to see if Efa and Aliva would arrive. I thought them dead. That is why it is painful. That year of my life made me think, perhaps, we could rekindle our spark. But she died before we had that chance."

I bite down on my finger to prevent myself from screaming. All this time. Did he actually tell my mother to go to the farms he had? I don't remember that at all. And since when did he even have farm land to spare? If he had, and we'd followed his advice, then how many things would've been different? We could've brought Carla and Eren and Mikasa. Hell, even Armin and his grandfather could have joined us. None of us would have been refugees. We wouldn't have starved and toiled in the wastes. I never would've fallen sick. Never would've bribed Armin's grandfather out of the suicide mission only to land myself in it. Carla…Carla would still be…

"When did you find the time to ask Aliva if Efa passed away?"

Time stands still. My father—no, he never did.

He never asked.

"I just—I assumed, because she came here alone, and I didn't want to rush her to talk about it."

"You assumed the woman you fell back in love with, the mother of your child, was dead? Without bothering to check? And then you went and tracked down your divorce processor, wed and bed her, convinced her to put in a good word for you with her ex husband so that his company could sell drugs based off of the plants you harvest?" Adelheid bursts out laughing. "That's fucked up, even for you."

"No, you're the one that scammed me into signing exclusive purchasing rights off to that blasted company—"

Adelheid cackles, laughing like she can't even breathe through the fits of bitter amusement. "Right, right. Everyone's at fault but you, Betham."

I stumble backwards, staggering out of the closet. I rush towards my nightstand, pulling out the thin journal I keep there. Inside are the original pages of the textbook with that peculiar script I can only faintly recall how to read now, along with the transcriptions into the language of Paradis scrawled down in the journal in my atrociously poor handwriting. I flip through the pages, scanning for the section I fear finding.

Coderoin, Carly, and the Marleen Company:

Coderoin, drawn from the papafer plant and some other random chemistry stuff that I can't remember (chemistry was not my best subject in high school, okay?), is a highly addictive, highly illegal drug that starts to circulate around Stohess about two years after the fall of Shiganshina. Its creator, Carly Stratmann, is the daughter of Elliot Gurnberg Stratmann, president of the Marleen Company. Deceased mother. She starts making the drug for him so he can regain his fortune, with the promise that he won't circulate it outside of Stohess (I think). Anyways, he breaks his promise, she runs away, and Annie is the one who tracks her down. Ultimately she lets Carly go because Carly is somehow magically the only one who can make the drug, and I suppose outside of the fact that she makes drugs for fun, she's a decent person(?)

The section on coderoin stops there. There's no information about the papafer farms; nothing about the modes of transport of the places where it's processed. Somehow, everything is off: from the deceased mother (Adelheid is very clearly still alive in the next room) to the timing of all these things. While I can't attest to when coderoin first started production, it's undeniable that it started to grow in popularity only recently, what with the oleuropein farmland being bought up to be turned into papafer farms. If it's true that the Marleen company heads the production and distribution of coderoin, and if it's true that my father somehow had the foresight or luck to invest in papafer of all things, then it's highly likely that he's the biggest purchaser of the oleuropein land. Making my father the reason why my medicine is no longer in circulation.

He had to of known, right? What the main ingredient in his daughter's prescription was?

My head is swarming with the weight of everything it needs to process. But one thing is for sure: my father is truly knee-deep in the drug industry.

When Adelheid and Betham go out on the town for the evening, I steal into his study and transcribe as many documents as I can. Anything with mention of papafer, coderoin, Marleen, Stohess, or Elliot Stratmann gets pulled aside to be copied down into my other spare notebook. Since the night of that fight, I haven't seen even a single cigar between either Adelheid or Betham's lips. But the insignia on the box still exists in the notes I transcribed, and sure enough, it matches the wax seal stamped on a plethora of letters between my father and the Marleen Company's president.

I start running everyday, regardless of how tired I am or how lazy I feel. I run in the mornings and the afternoons. I take shameless advantage of my status as the daughter of a wealthy man to get quality food and ingredients in abundance, bulking where I can and exchanging fat and bones for true muscle.

Most importantly, though, are the exercises for my abdomen and my lungs. I measure my breathing daily, diligently attempting to expand my lungs' capabilities. Time is limited. I, who once thought I had an abundance of it, find my nerves high strung the closer to my deadline I crawl. The end of winter is when I need to present Pyxis with my evidence. Not a moment later.

As snow falls in Trost, I make a genuine attempt to know Adelheid better. I soon learn, though, that for all of her insistence on calling me pet names or being called mother, she fully intends to keep me at arm's length. No matter how I attempt to convince her to open up, she never really does: just anecdotes here and there about how kind my mother was, or how romantic my father had been back when they stumbled upon each other in Trost over two and a half years ago. As far as either of them know, I am clueless as to the nature of my father's income and Adelheid's past.

That is how I intend to keep it. After all, they are not the only ones capable of keeping secrets.

The day after I finish my transcriptions, a light flurry of snow has dusted the streets. I dress in an elegant midnight blue dress with a high neck, complimenting it with a long black coat. I style my hair back in the way that's most familiar to me: the single braid down my back, this time cast over my shoulder and underneath my sealed coat so I don't have to worry about catching my hair in the wind. I head down the streets towards the place that took me dozens of early morning runs to find. The meadery looks different in the winter, now that the plants have all been relocated indoors or morphed into their barren forms. Unsurprisingly, it's fairly vacant. The door swings open easily, and a lady with an easy smile greets me the second I step inside. "Hi, there. Table for one?"

"Two," I say on instinct, belatedly remembering the full of Pyxis's instructions. "And would it be possible to reserve that table for tomorrow?"

The lady looks down at a folder spread before her, tapping a finger against the wooden bar. "Absolutely. What time?"

"Noon, please."

The corner of her lip twitches. "Ah. We'll see you then."

"Thank you. Before I leave, though…" I slip my coat off, reaching for the inner pocket artfully stitched into the jacket. "I know it's a big ask, but could you hold this for me until my reservation tomorrow?"

I hold out a carefully wrapped package, which the woman inspects and keeps firmly in between the both of us. "I'll have to open it, you know. Safety protocols."

I nod. "I understand. I appreciate your help."

This time, I manage to pry a full smile out of her. "And we appreciate yours." Objective achieved, I wrap my coat around me once more and make a break for it. For a second, everything feels like it's falling into place. I'll get back into the 107th. This time, I'll be careful about who I get close to. When coderoin collapses, maybe the oleuropein farms will come back. My medicine will go back into circulation.

I'll pay Betham back for Efa's sake. Prove the girl with the headband—prove Shadis and the whole lot of those trainees—that what they saw of me last isn't the extent of what I can achieve. I'll walk back into camp with my head held high.

I push the door to the meadery open and manage only a half step forward until the visage of Adelheid appears right in front of me. "Hi, honey," she smiles. "I'm here to walk you home."

My heartbeat kicks up, doing a frantic gallop. But we're in public; what choice do I have? "You didn't have to," I say honestly, diluting my aggravation with daughterly gratitude.

Adelheid smiles, exposing her fine teeth. "Mmm, but I did."

We walk side by side, silent and steady. My chilled breath fogs when it strikes the air. Her exhales are sticky-sweet. "I'm glad you were leaving just as I arrived," she says cheerily. "Seeing as I only brought one cigar."

I'm too jittery, too caught off guard from seeing her waiting for me to think straight. "Why do you smoke so often?"

Adelheid blinks quickly, then laughs. "That's like asking what fucked up memory keeps you up at night." She shakes her head, miming lament. "It seems playing soldier did a number on your etiquette."

"I apologize," I say, though only insincerely. Adelheid snorts and takes a long drag.

"When I was younger, I faked my death. It was an orchestrated agreement between me and the man I once wed. In our prenuptial agreement, it stated that only in death–real or facetious–would our marriage be voided. And the survivor would be the one to retain property, possession, and custody."

Truthfully, I never expected her to open up to me. Admittedly her story isn't the kind of thing I would expect someone to share openly after only knowing them for a few short months, but still. She has a knack for catching me off guard. "It must have been a hard marriage."

"Eh." Adelheid draws again, this time turning her head away to exhale. She doesn't turn back for longer than necessary. When she does, though, her voice is hard and melodic again. Cut and polished, like a gem. "My only regret is the lost years with my daughter. I keep tabs on her as best as I'm able, but it's been harder since Shiganshina's fall."

I nod along, like I understand, but I truly don't. I've never done a good job of looking out for anyone other than myself. If I were an animal, I would be a stray, hissing in alleys and coveting old bones everyone else already forgot about. Flea-ridden and scrappy. The thought kind of makes me want to smile.

"I would do anything for her."

"Most mothers would."

"Most," she agrees, but she leaves it at that. Instead she clears her throat and changes the subject. "Since we're on the subject of intrusive questions, I would rather like to know why you paid a visit to that meadery."

I shrug. "I'm of that age."

Adelheid stops, free hand snaking its way up to my chin. She pinches it lightly between her thumb and pointer finger and tilts my head up to look into her eyes better. "Next time you want to lie and claim to be out drinking, at least return inebriated."

She releases my chin and resumes walking. I, with no choice but to follow, decide staying quiet is my best course of action. My brain whirrs to life, drafting and discarding dozens of lies and excuses to cover up my real reason for going out today. "Sorry, Adelheid."

She glares at me, waving the cigar for emphasis as she speaks. "Do you think I'm upset about it? I'm not. You're allowed to have secrets, you know," she trails off, sighing. "You really do take after your mother, though."

"I do?"

"Mhm. More so than your father. If Efa told me she birthed as a virgin, hell, I would've believed her after seeing you." I glance down at my hands, studying Efa's ring. It's hard to picture my mother being cruel and vicious like I have been. Adelheid knocks her hand against my shoulder. "I don't mean your looks, child. It's your guise, your tact, your mannerisms. That's why I can't fault you. I can see it coming, but I can't blame you at all."

We turn on the corner, reaching the street our place is on. I watch my father's wife try and fail to puff out a smoke ring. "Why did you come to get me?"

Adelheid looks kind of catlike, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. "Because I thought it was time for us to have this conversation."

I notice her footsteps slow down as we cross the street and pass into the house. If anything, mine are itching to speed up. "How did you know I would be at the meadery, though?"

"You like playing soldier a little too much, don't you, Aliva?" Mentally, I kick myself in the shins. Of course that place isn't covert enough. Pyxis, you idiot. Is there any chance to redeem myself? Any diversion I can possibly draft to dismantle her suspicions? Adelheid laughs as we reach the stairs. "This is exactly what I mean, Aliva. Your face right now is the spitting image of Efa's when she was stuck in a situation she didn't know how to weasel her way out of. It's a miracle your father hasn't caught wind of your schemes yet."

I grimace and look away. Fine. Damn it all to hell. All I need is to buy myself a little time. Just enough to last until tomorrow. Until noon. "I made a deal with the garrison. If your daughter truly is your everything–you should warn her to cut ties with the operation before soldiers show up on her doorstep."

Adelheid laughs again, harder this time, and climbs the steps with unfazed vigor. The way that she's so deeply unperturbed has me anxious in her place. Only the one who feels they have the upper hand can afford to act this way, so why…? "I'll take that into consideration," she finally replies, switching what's left of the cigar into her left hand to open the apartment door with her right. The shades have all been drawn, plunging the space beyond into darkness. "Admittedly, I didn't think you would be kind enough to at least warn me. So this is a pleasant surprise."

She disappears into the blackness, and I'm surprised by how deep my reluctance to follow her is. But I've left something precious in my room. The journal with my meticulously translated notes, with the entire record of who I once was and what this world will soon become, sits tucked into the drawer in my nightstand.

I step into the place I've been resting for the last few months, and she shuts and locks the door behind me before vanishing further into the gloom. "Where's my father?"

Light flicks into existence from all the way in the living room. It's a warbling flame, the size of which I've become overly familiar with since arriving here. Adelheid's lighter.

It smells…weird in here.

The cloying scent of the cigars weighs heavy on the air, but something else is rising up from the carpets. I follow my nose, carefully stepping closer and closer to where Adelheid stands.

"My father," I remind her, less civilly this time. "Where is he?"

She tilts her head. "He's probably in Stohess by now. No doubt having a lovely meal and chatting with Mr. Stratmann as we speak."

No–not like this. Not when I've already come so far, and waited so long–

"You really didn't think we wouldn't notice you snooping through the office? That your tutor wouldn't tell us exactly what subjects you were most interested in bolstering your literacy for? Come now, Aliva. Surely you aren't that self-absorbed."

The shadows whispering over her features dip and warble, making her look even more menacing. Warning bells go off like crazy in my head. Still, I creep closer to that little flame, farther from the door. The opening to the hallway spans just to my left. If I could just get my journal…

"Ask me how I did it."

Her words catch me off balance. No matter how hard I wrack my head, I can't fathom what she's referring to. That sharp, fuel-like scent only grows in intensity as I near the hallway. A few more steps and I can break into an open sprint. Adelheid is taller than me, but it shouldn't be that hard to body my way back out of my room and out of the building once I've grabbed the journal–

"How'd you do it?" I hardly pay attention to the words I say. All of my attention right now is focused on the hallway, the door to my room still ajar, exactly as I left it.

Just like Adelheid said, it's my own self-absorption that causes my downfall.

"I faked my death with fire," she announces. I only have just enough time to whirl my head back in her direction–only enough time to see her flash me one more dazzling smile–and then she drops the lighter.

The smell wasn't fuel-like.

It was fuel.

The living room flares to life, flames enveloping and eating away at the carpet, the drapes, the furniture. Adelheid must have utterly soaked everything in fuel beforehand. The fire spreads far quicker than I expected it to, quickly expanding into the dining room.

The front door bangs open, key suspended in the lock. Two burly men rush in–I recognize them as some of our downstairs neighbors–and one of them immediately beckons Adelheid over.

I pivot on my heel and sprint for the hallway.

The other guy lunges at me, gripping my wrist in a vice-like hold. "I can't let you do that, Aliva," Adelheid calls, her voice a calm contrast to the violent movements of my body as I try to free myself from the man's grip. "Every last shred of evidence in that office needs to burn."

No, I want to protest. It's my room I want to go into.

I can't even scream at him to let me go–can't even kick him in the knee or elbow him in the gut–before he pins both of my arms behind my back and yanks hard enough on my shoulder for me to shriek. Adelheid's own voice drowns out my cry of pain, as she suddenly puts on the performance of a lifetime. "Fire! Fire!" Tears spring to life in her eyes as she feigns surrender to the escort of the man I so foolishly assumed was truly our neighbor. They look like a pair of hired thugs. Just how blind was I? How little did I think of Betham and Adelheid?

Right before I can rouse enough strength for a counterattack, he clips me on the side of the head with his open palm, sending fuzzy shocks through my ear and thoroughly disorienting me.

The world careens sideways, bonfire-bright, hot and stuffy. The air reeks of fuel and papafer cigars and burning, curdling carpet.

I stay conscious long enough to watch the fire dart down into the hallway I tried so hard to get to, and then I can't hold out any more. The fire vanishes in a puff of smoke and the building surrounding me is replaced by the pitch black depths of my unconsciousness.

A/N: ...random Aliva side quest over?

ALSO, I blinked and suddenly this fanfiction was over 100k?! A HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS ALREADY DAMN? Hopefully no one is bored of the fic yet, because I fully intend to see this bad boy through all the way to the end, no matter how long it gets.

XOXO, until next time!