Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

among the curious silver fish that followed the boat. There was none of the forbidding atmosphere that Adam had expected. The forests were indeed thick, and the mountains he could see in the distance were indeed rocky, and every now and then he was assailed by a light drizzling rain, but there were finches and starlings singing in the trees, and bluebells and snowdrops clinging to the shores, and every now and then the sun would break through the clouds and warm his weary arms.

They landed in a knell, and there stepped out into the land that would one day be called Scotland. Eve was tired from the journey, and spent the first few days there wandering not very far; simply recovering. To help cheer her, Adam made her a crown. He went among the frosty bluebells and snowdrops, which were wilting with the end of winter, and picked a great many, and carefully wound them into a rich blue and white and green crown, and shyly presented it to her. She kissed him, he remembers, and wore her crown of flowers until it disintegrated, coming apart while she bathed in a stream.

Adam blinks, emerging from the memory. Before him are the automatic doors. He thinks he will make Eve a new crown of flowers, when he sees her next.

At last, he steps out into Scotland.

* * *

It’s a grey day in Edinburgh. From Waverley Bridge, where Adam’s bus stops, there’s a nice view of Edinburgh Castle. Adam pauses there a while and remembers the configuration of the rocks around its base as it was – the way the moss clung to them, long ago. Running his thumb across the tips of his fingers, he recalls the sensation of gripping hold of that moss, made slippery by the morning mist. Adam used to live in this city, he knows; whole lifetimes ago.

He’s not sure where to start looking for Magpie, so he lets his feet take him through streets simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. The curve of the pathways and the feel of the cobbles that line them is the same, and sometimes he stops and presses his hands against patches of brickwork. There is memory in the stones of the city. The rest is strange to him, though; the shops, and the people, and the vehicles now rumbling up the hills. There were horses, the last time he was here. He remembers their breathing and soft noises, and the movements of their muscles and tails. Driven onwards by his recollections, he heads south through the city.

When he reaches the veterinary school, it is much the same as it was. It rises before him, a towering design at the head of the autumnal Meadows, and the stone steps leading up to the entrance are worn but at familiar heights. For a little while, Adam sits on those steps. He used to work here; one of the few men in the city capable of hauling an entire horse through the long halls. Most of those horses were dead, he remembers; specimens for students to dismantle, but there were a fair share of live horses, along with cattle and the occasional dog. He worked here so that they would all have an ally close at hand. Someone to offer comfort to the sick, and someone to offer respect to the dead. Those were good years, he thinks – kind years, recovering from the bloodshed of a war he barely remembers fighting in.

The veterinary school is no longer a veterinary school, however. When he heads inside, he finds its halls filled with art instead of medicine. The place is now called Summerhall, and where students once learned the art of healing there is now dancing, and painting, and small libraries. At the back of the place, the stables are now microbreweries, lined with massive vats. Adam goes to the central courtyard, which is now a pub, and sits at one of the benches, watching the patch of grey sky above and trying to find something in it to help him anchor his memories.

Time passes, in contemplation.

“Adam.”

The voice startles him from his thoughts. The source is a woman he does not recognise, newly arrived to the courtyard. She is wearing a revealing white dress, and she seems to fall out of it at odd angles, shifting within it as if she is uncomfortable wearing any clothes at all. Upon her head is a thick crown of flowers, and draped loosely over her shoulders is a fur shawl that draws Adam’s eyes irresistibly across it. As she comes closer, Adam notices that she is wearing heavy amounts of make-up, and has dyed her hair a rich spun gold. There is a look in her eyes that might be hunger.

“Adam,” she says again, with a smile that cracks her powder.

“Do I know you?”

She sits down opposite him on the bench, spilling from her dress. “Not yet. But I hope we’ll be friends. Maybe more.” She licks her lips. “We have a mutual acquaintance. If my information is correct, then you’ve been sent by Corvid & Corvid to find one of its errant partners. Magnus Corvid.”

It takes Adam a few moments to realise that she’s talking about Magpie. Magnus Corvid must be his current alias. “That’s right,” he says.

The woman leans forward, offering her hand, and she smells like an entire orchard. “Ada Sinclair. It is such a pleasure to meet you.”

Adam doesn’t take the hand, but this does nothing to deter her. She leans back, eyes travelling over every scar of him. “My husband and I also have a vested interest in locating Magnus, which is why I’m here. We would be interested in offering what little information we have on his current whereabouts, along with a proposal. I suppose that we’re offering a kind of partnership, if you like. Would you be interested in coming to meet my husband? I have a car waiting out front, and the trip isn’t too far. I promise that it