[Closed] Cadenza [M]

[Tom Cooke]

A Private Carriage • The Dives

23 o'clock on the 54th of Roalis, 2719

It was like the cabin of a ship. Wasn’t much light that crept through the drapes, off-and-on, watery pale yellow swelling and receding like the tide; there wasn’t much to see, anyway. A close, tight space, jostling with each lurch and turn, the folds of dark curtains shivering with the motion. An empty seat beside him. All Tom could hear was the rattle of wheels over the cobbles, the clatter of hooves, and the sound of his own pulse in his ears.

Occasionally, he brushed the drapes aside a pina, peeped through the crack. They’d gone from the broad, clean, well-paved lanes of Uptown to the winding labyrinth of the Dives, and before this was over, they’d be back Uptown again, back to the neat-trimmed shrubs and rows of townhouses and wrought-iron gates. And then –

Oes, then.

It’d been two days, and he was as ready as he could be. He'd practiced in the past, course, but it had never seemed like enough for Trevisani. He'd thought he'd have more time – he didn't know what he'd thought. But he reckoned that if he wasn’t the most Auntie he’d ever been at this thing, it’d all be for naught. That was the plan.

What else could he’ve done, now he’d caught the shark’s eye? So much riding on this little caoja – on his ability to perform at this caoja, oes – and not just for his own skin; so much hung on their ability to perform at this caoja, but he trusted Ava enough to know she wouldn’t be the weak link. Besides, she was playing a role she’d played before. The thought made him want to shrink back into his seat, but he kept sitting upright.

And sit upright he did. He kept his shoulders back, his knees slightly parted; he didn't think he'd slouched or crossed his legs in the last two days. The memory of Ava sitting on the couch across from him, playing Anatole for him in the lamplight, was seared into his mind. In the past two days, hed tried to feel it – in his squared shoulders, in the proud set of his weak jaw. He breathed and spoke from his diaphragm, and he used every centimeter of his voice, and he enunciated each syllable. In the past two days, he'd worn all of it like a mantle, awake, sleeping; he'd wrapped himself so tight in it that when he'd woken that morning, he'd forgot his own name.

He'd been to Anatole’s barber and, despite himself, had got his hair cut. It’d been cut and combed, the red curls wrangled into tidiness with great success. He was well-dressed, dark and neat, all waistcoat and silk shirt and well-tailored jacket, the fit too good for his comfort, too good to be Tom; all silver watch-fob and silk necktie, all – all laoso, he thought, trussed up in finery. The light flickered over the thin, freckled hands in his lap, and he felt a cold knot of disgust tighten in his stomach.

But there was no time for that, not now. He peered out the window. Settled back again. Shut his eyes. He hummed, deep in his throat; he practiced a soft, low laugh. He mouthed the words, An excellent mimic, drawling out each syllable, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

Then, almost without warning, the carriage rattled to a halt.

He sat very still. Knees slightly apart; shoulders back; jaw set. He felt like he was wearing a mask, and for a moment, he felt it was almost painful, the way it pulled at him. The door opened; someone was being helped into the cab. Light filtered round a shape.

All he saw was movement in the dark beside him; he couldn't quite turn his head to look. The door shut with a muffled thump. There was quiet, then, like a chasm, and the chirping of the crickets didn’t fill a sliver of it. The carriage roused itself like a sleepy beast and the wheels creaked to turn, and the box started jostling, jostling, again.

Like the cabin of a ship. What could he say? Hey, hey, he thought, junta, Ms. Weaver, far’ye; it was patronizing, and it would’ve been more for him than her. To remind him he still had his voice, when that was the last thing either of them needed. He wouldn’t make her do his godsdamn half of the job for him.

You all right? – empty; neither of them were, or both, or it didn’t matter – he respected her too much for that, and he wanted her to respect that he could do his job. That was the most important thing, now. There’d be time later, time to pick up the pieces and paste them back together.

After a moment, he said, “I was speaking with Incumbent Rousseau yesterday.” The sound of his voice surprised him; he cleared his throat, ignoring the sinking feeling in his guts. “He’s Pendulum, but he must not be –” He waved a hand. “He'd caught wind of this, and he was terribly curious. While I was dissuading him, he mentioned something – about an east library, not the big one, he said, close to the back of the house. He said he wandered in once and heard all manner of noises; he advised me to avoid the ghastly room.”

There was a hint of something in his voice; his lip twitched. Finally, he glanced over at Ava, pale eyes settling on her face. It was hard, for him at least, to make out much in the dark.

“Flooding clandestine, all this,” he murmured, bitter-dark, brushing the curtains with his fingertips. He said flooding like Anatole might have; it was bitter, too, in his mouth.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 54th Roalis, 2719
A Private Carriage, Heading Towards Uptown

I
t had been a warm day, and the heat had lingered into the evening, well past the setting of the sun. It was windy, but it was a warm sort of wind. Ava knew she couldn’t blame the weather for the cold chill that had settled over her, that seemed to cut through the light fabric of her summer cloak, and the rich cloth of the dress beneath.

She stood back from the street, against the wall, out of the pale circle of lamplight, and waited. With the click of passing footsteps, she lowered her gaze to the ground; once there was a burst of rough laughter, rowdy voices, and Ava pulled back tighter against the wall, and drew her hood heavier over her eyes. The distant rattle of carriage wheels against the uneven stones sent shivers down her spine - and then, finally, they were not distant anymore, and she could count the heavy clomping of horse’s hooves.

Ava moved forward, slowly; she couldn’t quite seem to think, but her body remembered, and her steps seemed to her the same as usual. She murmured a quiet thank you to the coachmen as he opened the door and helped her climb the steps. She eased inside and sat in the empty seat next to him.

The silence pressed on her like a heavy weight. Ava tried to think of what to say. ‘Good evening, Mr. Cooke,’ felt outright foolish; the reminder would do neither of them any favors, not tonight. Her face was a smooth, blank mask, but all the same she was glad he could not see it. She knew what she would have to call him tonight, but she did not see any worth in practicing; she would be able to do it when the time came, whether she began now or not. 

‘Are you ready?’ wasn’t any better, if only because there wasn’t point to knowing the answer. Whether he was or he wasn’t - whether she was or she wasn’t - they were here now. There was no choice left to them but to be ready; she couldn’t think about the consequences if they failed. 

Once, she turned her head slightly to try and look at him. A sliver of light through the carriage windows caught those thin hands, the freckles and delicate hairs across the back. She did not look longer, turning her head forward once again.

When he spoke, it sent shivers down her spine. It was not a surprise to hear him this way; she knew how he would have to sound. She knew that he did not like this, not any better than she did; she knew that he had not meant for this to come to pass. And yet it had, and she sat here in the carriage with him, and when it came to a stop -

Flooding clandestine, he said, and Ava wanted to cry, and then she wanted to laugh, and she did not think she could do either.

Ava closed her eyes for a moment, gathered herself, and when she spoke her voice was  smooth, without so much as a ripple. “I suppose ghastly is where we belong tonight,” she turned then, slowly, and made herself look at him, as if doing it in the darkness might help her become accustomed. We, she had said, and she meant it. She thought he was looking at her as well, and those pale gray eyes gleamed in the darkness of the cabin.

Ava wished, suddenly, that she could reach out and take his hand; she wished that she could squeeze it, just once, and that they would both know she did it for their sakes. For her sake, and not for the sake of the hideous marionettes they would make of themselves. She did not so much as twitch towards it; her hands stayed softly in her lap, one gently atop the other.

Ava wished, too, that she could find the words to tell him she had lost her anger with him. She almost wished she hadn’t; it had been easier to be brave when she was still furious. She had lost the heat that had burned inside her when he had first told her; some time in the last days it had burnt itself out. There was plenty of anger still left in her, a hot fury at the heart of her, and it had warmed her as she dressed, as she painted her face, as she crept, cloak-clad from the side door of Woven Delights, and hurried away in the dark. But her hands felt cold, and her face too, and she could not summon the strength to warm them, to light the words in her chest.

In the dark he was little more than a familiar shape, a half-visible profile of shadows overlapping. She thought his hair was shorter, but she couldn’t tell, and she was a little sorry for it, somewhere deep inside, sorry and oddly grateful. No, she thought; not tonight. Better not.

But -

“It’s not your fault,” Ava said, quietly, and turned away again. Perhaps it was a mistake; perhaps she should not have spoken at all. Perhaps it would have been best to begin now, even if he had not. She focused her gaze on the wall before her again, rocking shadows sliding across it, and she couldn’t regret what he had said. What they had to face tonight was hard enough; she didn’t think it would be possible alone. They had to do this together, or they wouldn’t be able to do it at all.

And, slowly, without looking at him, Ava reached out and set her hand on his. She squeezed, once, and then drew her hand away, and let the chill silence of the carriage settle over her once more.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum House • Uptown

Close to 24 o'clock on the 54th of Roalis, 2719

It isn’t your fault, she said, and he knew who she was talking to, even though she didn’t say his name. Her voice was soft, but it reached through the rumble of the wheels and the clatter of hooves. He shut his eyes, and he took a deep breath in through his nose. He didn't know if that was true; if it wasn't his fault, he didn't know whose fault it was. It wasn’t her fault, either, that he hadn't known what to look for, that he hadn't been ready enough, that they hadn’t gotten to whatever lesson would teach him how he was supposed to behave around Madame Trevisani. It wasn't either of their faults that he’d’ve never heard the phrase “little bird” and thought of Ava, and he didn't know whether to be grateful for that.

You could blame Anatole, maybe, for being the man he was, but it was Tom took his face, and it was Tom should’ve known what his words in Anatole’s mouth would mean. You couldn't blame Trevisani, because she was like the wind or weather; they all were, these gollies. What purpose would blaming them serve? That was the way the world worked. Genevria Trevisani had been like a flood he’d had no warning of, a flood he hadn’t prepared for, and now, whoever’s fault it was, they were the ones sustaining the damage.

They were the collateral damage. Tom knew that lesson well: he had the scars to show for it. Or he’d had them once.

He felt Ava’s hand settle on his, and he felt it squeeze. It was just a feeling in the dark, and then it was gone, leaving a faint imprint like the kind a soul’d leave.

Thank you, he wanted to say, but he didn’t think he ought to – not now, maybe, not yet. She knew, anyway. He touched the back of his hand where she’d touched it, trying to fix that feeling in his mind. He reckoned it wouldn’t be the last time, tonight, and he thought she was right: he wanted to etch that we onto his heart, so when his shoulder brushed hers, when their hands touched in full light, they’d both know who it was they were near.

So he just nodded once, and took a deep breath.

The carriage rattled to a halt slow-like, but it was still faster than he was prepared for. He opened his eyes. The gauzy black drapes stirred in a strong breeze. A pale, warm light cast itself through – warm in tone, leastways, but ghostly. He didn’t think he could stand to look at Ava in that light. Instead, he sat up in his seat, brushed the curtains aside so he could look out into the night. It was hushed but audible underneath the chatter of the crickets: his breath caught in his throat.

The Pendulum House was more a shape than a building. It looked as if it’d been careful-cut out of the shadows and pasted against the backdrop of the stars. Lanternlight cast the leaves of the trees into stark contrast; they were all motion, aflame, crackling orange swaying in the breeze, disappearing upwards into shadow. The more he looked at it, the more he could pick out the shape of the dome, vaulting up high over the silhouetted treetops. A few windows were lit, and they looked cut out, too, looked like holes in the ink-blackened paper where something shined through.

They were round back, Tom noticed; he’d seen the front from the street before. They’d pulled up some long, twisty driveway, it looked like, flanked with shrubs, spotted with benches and twisting little trees. There was a light at the ground floor, bobbing, and Tom forced himself to focus on it: a man, he thought, standing close-by the house, at the bottom of a small flight of stairs up to a set of double-doors. He couldn’t make anything out about his features, but he looked tall, natt-tall.

Boots scuffed on the pavement. Coachman was coming round. Tom didn’t even try to marshall himself, and he didn’t reckon there was much he could do for Ava at this point, either. He opened the door and, with a grunt of irritation – a twinge in his hip, stiff knees – he let the kov help him out. He tried not to look at the coachman’s face. Already watched, he thought bitterly: if he’d wanted to say something, do something, the time’d passed.

The breeze should’ve made him feel better about the whole affair, but it didn’t. He stood outside the cab a moment, feeling his ramrod-straight posture, clasping his hands behind his back. Thick with blooming things, this time in Roalis, and the lingering heat of the sun on white stones. No salt sea breeze to temper it.

He turned round, back toward the still-open door; he looked at the shape of Ava in the dark. Held out a thin, pale hand. There was a trace of a frown on his face.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 54th Roalis, 2719
The Pendulum House, Uptown

T
he carriage door opened, and Ava watched as Tom climbed out into the dimly lit world beyond. The faint echoes of torchlight limned the short cut curly red hair on his hair, caught the silver in it. Ava watched his thin pale hand grasp at the door, listened to the ungainly grunt in his low voice as he did his best to maneuver stiff legs.

In the dark of the carriage, in her last moments to herself, Ava stripped away the cloak; she lowered the hood, and undid the ties that had held it closed, and left behind the last layer of protection between herself and the world beyond. She closed her eyes, for a long moment - but there were no more moments left, not for either of them.

Ava left the cloak behind her on the seat, and eased forward. She reached out through the door and settled her hand into Anatole’s without the faintest hesitation. She smiled at him, warm and something that could well have been mistaken for loving. She did not rest much of her weight on him, but there was enough pressure there for him to feel it, to feel as if he were helping her from the carriage; a delicate balance, and one that still felt familiar.

Ava wore silk; layers and layers of silk, tonight, and she glittered in the lamplight. The dress was a rich, deep garnet red, and her lipstick a perfect match for it, with glittering gold dusted on her eyelids, her eyes luminously amidst black eyeliner. The dress had a high neck, pricked out with delicate embroidery in the latest style, and the outermost layers of the silk were folded back into a mock corset, asymmetric, with mock laces sewn together on the left. Her hair was lifted up in a pile of rich black curls on her head, and garnets glittered in her ears, dangling down towards silk clad shoulders. The dress was tight at the waist, perfectly fitted, and hung straight down to the ground, flat hem just skimming the toes of delicate, flat slippers, covered in the same silk as the rest of it. Asymmetric ripples of the outermost silk washed over the tight skirt, echoing the lines of the mock corset. The sleeves were slender along the upper arm and flared wide at the elbow, with a faint rutching and just a prick of embroidery to compliment the neck.

Matching the garnet silk and remaking the dress to the latest style had been an almost impossible effort with only a few days in which to complet eit, but Ava had known that to do less would be to give herself (and Tom) away. She hadn’t done it alone, either, but she thought Tom would not ask; this, too, was not her secret to tell. 

On the ground, Ava slid her hand from Anatole’s, smiled a little wider as if sharing a secret with him, and tucked her hand into the curl of his elbow. They walked past the last of the shrubs and the twisted trees, past the warm white stone benches, and up the little stairs. The doorman bowed as they approached, and climbed the stairs ahead of them, unlocking and opening the heavy double doors, holding them wide, doubled forward at the waist as they passed.

The hallway just inside was nearly dark, with half-shaded phosphor lamps tucked along the walls, shedding shadows over a coat stand, a side table, a pendulum hanging against the wall. A small doorway was just open at the end of the hall, a faint trickle of light and color and noise echoing back from it, pulling them onwards.

Ava’s steps were steady; her hand remained lightly tucked into the crook of Anatole’s arm, and she kept a warm smile on her face as they approached the door. Her heart seemed to grow a little heavier in her chest with each step; ludicrous, Ava thought. There was no more time for doubt; she would bear this burden, as she had borne the rest, and never would she let the weight of it bow her.

And then the soft darkness of the hallway came to an end, and there was truly no hiding left; it was time not just to perform their puppet show, but to bring it to an audience. She was not ready, Ava thought, and she wondered if Tom could see the jumping of the pulse in her neck, her heart fluttering wildly beneath all that lovely silk; she wondered if he could feel it in the palm of her hand. She knew, at least, that he could not see it in her face.

But it was Anatole who pushed the door open, and Ava stepped into the room on his arm. It was rich, sumptuously apportioned room; faintly sweet cigar smoke hung in the air, drifting over velvet-upholstered armchairs, mingling with the rich scent of expensive cologne and hair oil, the soft hint of Twemlaugh and other, stranger things. The walls were decorated with paintings in gilded frames; the floor was covered with thick, heavy rugs. A slender human girl with her back ramrod straight sat in the corner, plucking at a harp, with a soft, hazy smile on her face; every so often it slid away into nothing, then leapt back, looking as if it might tear the corners of her mouth.

She was not the only one.

There were no more than four or five men in the room; all galdori, each of them, dressed as well as Anatole – one sitting on a chair with a girl half in his lap, another standing at glass-covered counter, smiling as a girl with shaking hands poured him a drink. Another, just stepping away into the edge of a dark hallway, one hand resting on a slender back.

Ava saw them all; she couldn’t keep from seeing them. She turned her gaze to Anatole, and she smiled at him, soft and warm and grateful. And she was grateful – not to him, not precisely, but there was enough of the emotion there to use, and she let herself shiver, ever so slightly, and lean against him – just a little, not enough to be unseemly. Just a little. Her rescuer, it said, somewhere about the set of her lips and the faint crinkle at the edges of her eyes. She let it be written across her face, as loud and clear as she could make it, because Ava knew better than to think Genevria was ever not watching.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum House • Uptown

Close to 24 o'clock on the 54th of Roalis, 2719

Tom didn’t know why, but he kept thinking of the dressing room at Greene’s.

Meggie’d made him up once, after he’d whined and pestered her a week and more; she’d said why not, and they’d sat round while she’d painted his face, the air full of cigarette smoke and the smells of perfume and cheap liquor. Peeling wallpaper with black mold streaks, leaning dressers and tottering chairs draped in knickers. They’d talked and laughed, Deirdre with her deep, rasping voice, threading her big fingers through his hair as she braided it, deft as a weaver. (She’d told him he had the thickest, prettiest dark hair she’d ever seen on a lad; she’d told him he’d best never cut it.)

He’d thought Meggie Cooke was the prettiest woman in the world, then, and the best hand at painting her face, and the best at everything. She’d told him once that to work, you had to have a good Rooks face; he’d kept on asking her why, and she’d kept on hushing him up. Told him keeping your head shut was part of the job, too.

Maybe that was why. Or ’cause it’d been a calm, quiet place in a house full of noise, four walls like a ward, except when Greene came in yelling. Or maybe it was how different it all was: how Tom thought he knew what the world was like, thought he knew this business inside-out, but he’d never been to a place like this, and it was only now he realized just how different this kind of laoso was from the kind of laoso he’d grown up with.

Ava’s eyeliner was perfect, he noticed, soon as the light fell across her face. The lantern caught on a scattering of gold dust; it played in the deep red silk; it sparkled in her earrings. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head; he had never seen it up before. Tom hadn’t known she’d had a dress like this, and he wondered where it came from. It looked like something Diana would wear, with the high collar round her throat – they were both collared in silk, he thought with his frayed nerves, both strangled by clocking silk – and the asymmetric cut. Like Diana, but with a bolder color. Maybe more like –

He hadn’t known, either, why in hell he’d offered her his little golly hand to help her out of the cab; it’d seemed like the right thing to do, but he didn’t foresee it ending in anything other than him in a heap on the pavement. To his surprise, she was light as a feather. He felt a little weight, a little twinge in his hip; then her feet were on the stones, soundless, and she was smiling at him, and then –

Tom swallowed a lump underneath his silk necktie, hoping none of it showed on his face. He didn’t think it did; he smiled blandly. He was knife-sharp conscious of the curl of fingers at his elbow, the brush of silk at his shoulder. Together they went in, climbing the marble stairs (how his hip ached!), moving down the dark, hushed hall, past the great brass pendulum.

He wasn’t ready, he thought.

Ne. You give me a job. He had to be ready; it wasn’t just for him. Once, along the way, he’d snuck a sideways glance at Ava’s profile. He couldn’t read her face; he felt nothing in her hand, in the brush of her shoulder. It was her, still her, he thought – he tried to remember how it’d felt when she’d squeezed his hand – it was still Ava. Still her. They were still there for a reason.

How did she do it? He kept his back ramrod, more out of habit now than intent. He walked with steady, confident strides, heel-to-toe, kept his jaw set and his head up. There was a door at the end of the hall, a light. His chest ached badly. He wondered if she could feel it; he was thankful it didn’t bleed through his field.

He pushed through the door.

A lungful of that cocktail – all that cologne, his own mixing with it; the soft, sweet, cloying brandy, brandy-breath, cigar-smoke that clung, clammy, without staining the wood paneling – and his stomach gave a heave, flipped over onto its back like a dead possum. He paused, sweeping the room with his eyes and not seeing much. Nattle, he thought blandly, some part of him going dead and cold. Dressed like golly ladies. The plucking of a harp drifted through the air.

It was like a painting in the abstract; there was too much to process. It wasn’t much like any party he’d ever been to, any party he’d ever even bodyguarded, though the sight of a kov with a woman in his lap wasn’t unfamiliar. This, though – this was King’s Court rich. This was laoso dressed like – Tom didn’t know. Across from them, on the opposite wall, a painting hung: the gleaming Arova, dotted with boats. Tom stared at it. In the corner of his eye, a well-dressed man with grey in his red hair was leading a slip of a lass –

A familiar shape drew his eye to a glass counter not far away. A balding man was turning away with a snifter of brandy, and as he raised his head, the sight of his long, thin face – with its one bloodshot eye – sent a jolt of recognition through Tom. He caught sight of them and turned hastily back; he murmured something to the chip, who fumbled, smiling, for another glass.

Ava was leaning into his shoulder. Subtle, but he could feel it. She’d turned her head, and she was looking at him; he didn’t think he could look at her. He pushed a fine, thin twist of a smile onto his face as the other galdor approached, pulsing his static field and caprising Tom’s curiously.

“Incumbent Vauquelin, what a pleasant surprise,” he said after a cursory bow, handing him a snifter.

He was good at covering it up, damn good, but, Tom thought – he sounded drunk. Something about the way his words came too fast, and too careful-like, like somebody who was worried he wasn’t pronouncing them right. He looked tired, too; he didn’t know Azmus’ dog very well, but the bags underneath his eyes were fair deep. Ava was fair close, and Tom shifted the arm she was holding, just a pina – not quite a nudge.

“A surprise for us both, Mr. Megiro,” Anatole replied, thin smile broadening.

His bloodshot glance moved to Ava and then back, raising a dark red eyebrow. “Genevria said you’d be here, but I have to admit, I didn’t think…” He took another drink of twemlaugh, drank deeply. His collar was a little rumpled.

And so Anatole laughed, a deep hum, and replied, “What can I say? But I haven’t seen you out and about since, ah – that business in Loshis, was it? He must have you working overtime.”

Megiro’s lip twisted, bitter, and he took another drink. “These past months have been for the hatchers. I deserve a rest, don’t I?” he replied. His voice lowered to a hushed growl. “After the riots and the equinox, Circle clocking knows why he needs my men sniffing out some –” But he broke off, eyes narrowing for a moment. “Never mind.”

Anatole laughed, and after a moment, Megiro smiled.

“So this is her?” he asked, indicating Ava with a twitch of his hand – a jump of the brandy, though he didn’t spill any. “What’s her name, anyway? I must admit, I’m curious,” he added with the edge of a sneer. “Genevria says you don’t like to share.”

Tom felt a funny tingling in his right hand, all the way up through the muscles of his arm, and he thought maybe if he wasn’t holding his brandy – but he was, and he smoothed himself out in no time. Gently removing his arm from Ava’s hand, he reached up as if to touch her back; his hand hovered a half-centimeter above the silk. “This is Ava,” he said, and he kept smiling until his face hurt.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 54th Roalis, 2719
The Pendulum House, Uptown

Sniffing out some what, Ava wondered. She couldn’t think about it, not just now. She couldn’t think about much of anything but the smooth, easy smile on her face, the soft tilt of her head, anything but keeping her back straight, and the line of her body turned just a little towards Anatole.

You don’t like to share, Megiro said, and Ava smiled a little, prettily, and lowered her gaze. She could feel the girl at the bar looking at her, just a moment too long, her eyes wide over a too-tight neckline and a bright red mouth. Ava didn’t look at her; she couldn’t, but she felt the warmth of anger kindle the fire inside her.

“Sir,” Ava murmured, her voice low and soft, her smile pleasant. She lifted her gaze the slightest fraction, not quite meeting Megiro’s eyes – Mr. Megiro, Ava told herself. That business in Loshis. She had learned long ago to hold onto these sorts of snatches; to write them in her mind and hold them to sift through later. A long, thin face, with one bloodshot eye. The sort of woobly that meant static conversation, Ava was almost sure. She knew it was not living or perceptive, and physical had a heavier feel to it. It was hard to be sure, but she stood bathed in it, washed in it, drowning, and she thought she could tell, and then she couldn’t think about it, not anymore.

Ava made a deep curtsy – not too slowly, because it wouldn’t do to take too long, but flawlessly smooth, without the slightest crinkling sound from the dark red silk, lowering herself down and raising herself back up again, the lamplight glittering in the jewels at her ears and the darkness of the hair piled on her head. She did not look at Megiro again when she rose, and she turned back towards Anatole, ever so slightly, as if to leave no doubt to whom she belonged. Her smile warmed, just a little more.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Genevria’s field washed over them all; her voice was smooth and warm and silky, and there was a faint swishing sound that Ava thought must be her dress, echoing over the soft plucking of the harp.

Not still, Ava thought. Not still, no. Don’t tense. She leaned a little more into Anatole instead, though the smooth, straight line of her back never changed; she just turned, just a little, and leaned ever so slightly closer to him. It was no trick to find that fear; it thrummed through her, a sour, seabrine wave that threatened to douse that little flame. The trick was to balance it – not to let too much of it show, not to let it drown her. Look down, but not too far; not further than she had before. She could not let her chin drop – not too much. She could not let her shoulders hunch; she needed to keep them soft and still. A third field, pressing in against her, and Ava could not think of anything but her breathing. Even, she told herself. Smooth.

Genevria was smiling; even with her gaze lowered, Ava could see it. She wore amethyst, a rich dark purple satin, high at the neck, with a bodice pricked out in small flecks of citrine, glittering through the faint haze of cigar smoke. Her hair was styled long and straight, and citrine earrings glittered beneath the sleek red sheaf of it. She did not look at Ava; she bowed, delicately, a gentle crease at her waist, first to Megiro, then to Anatole.

“Julian, always a pleasure,” Genevria said to Megiro, smiling. “Please, enjoy yourself; you deserve some relaxation,” her gaze flicked lightly to the girl behind him.

The girl jerked, and stepped forward; one hand curled around his arm, a little less shaky than it had been before. Ava could not watch. Julian, she thought. Julian Megiro. She fixed it and let it drift away, somewhere beyond words.

Genevria turned to Anatole next. “Anatole,” she said, smiling a little wider. “Twemlaugh, is it?” Her eyes flickered down to the glass in his hand, and then lifted to Ava, slowly, settling on her. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to try something new?”

Ava did not meet her eyes; she knew better than to make the make of responding; she knew better than to behave as if Genevria was talking to her, rather than about her. But she did turn her head, ever so slightly, and she let her eyes lift, just a little, up to Anatole. Please, she thought. Please, Tom.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum House • Uptown

Late Evening on the 54th of Roalis, 2719

That voice. Godsdamn, but Tom didn’t think he’d ever forget that voice. He didn’t move, ’course – a tallyboy from Old Rose Harbor knew how not to show fear – but maybe Ava felt it slither through him, a ripple of shivers, like a cat; maybe where her shoulder pressed against him, maybe even there she could feel the flicker-flutter of his heart. He doubted it. He kept his back Anatole-straight, his head up. This was it, he thought, feeling the caprise of perceptive mona, sleek but strong.

The urge to turn his head was hard to ignore, but he ignored it. He smiled a secretive little smile at Megiro, the kind of smile he thought two men’d give each other around a woman like Genevria Trevisani. When she came round his periphery, he saw a graceful shape in swathes of deep purple, her straight red hair looking just as silky as Ava’s dress, shivering. Nestled in it, earrings that caught the light and glittered with it like stars.

She bent at the middle with not a crease of silk; Tom knew now what it reminded him of, but he couldn’t think of it. Instead, he bent in a polite bow of his own, and the level of the brandy in his snifter remained even.

He spared Megiro one last glance, one more smile. The burning wasn’t in his fluttering heart; it was in his belly, where his stomach churned and boiled. It wasn’t a knot of anxiety, but he didn’t know what it was. It felt like his innards’d all been gathered into a fist, when she said you deserve some relaxation. He couldn’t look at the arm that wound its way round the galdor’s, and he couldn’t look at Megiro more than a handful of seconds. He couldn’t think of them in the corner of his eye, moving away.

(The dressing room at Greene’s in his head. Vivid. Curled up. Didn’t want to work for Marleigh; no place to go. Couldn’t find Meggie. All the noises upstairs, through the rot-thin wood. A voice he thought he recognized; no words. Face buried between his knees. Rough voice, hush hush, hands weaving through his hair.)

Anatole’s hand didn’t tighten on the snifter, and he turned his thin-lipped almost-sneer on Genevria, his chilly grey eyes flicking over her. She was looking at Ava, now.

Try something new. Something. The knot tightened.

“Mrs. Trevisani,” he said, enunciating every syllable, “I do appreciate the offer.” He felt Ava’s eyes on him; despite that, because of that, he took a long sip of twemlaugh, and then smiled again at the madam. “I find that… as a man grows older – after a period of illness, especially – he grows only firmer in his convictions. A man stands by the choices he has made.”

He raised his hand to the level of Ava’s shoulder and set it down there, gentle but firm, fingers curling round her upper arm. It didn’t feel good, that, but it hadn’t felt good when she’d leaned up against him, neither. But he reminded himself of the way it’d felt when she squeezed his hand; he reminded himself who she was, and who he was. They were in this together.

And what if worse came to worst? If she tried to pluck whatever it was she wanted out of them by force? They’d just – oes, he’d just have to. It’d been staring them in the face, Tom thought, unmentionable, for months. He didn’t know if he could, even. But the first syllable of poetry dropped from the madam’s lips, he’d claw his way out of Anatole’s skin and try his luck.

Standing there with his hand on Ava’s shoulder, he tilted his head a little. “Do you not agree?” A thin, fox’s smile, crinkling in his crow’s feet, in the sneering line on his cheek.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 54th Roalis, 2719
The Pendulum House, Uptown

H
e spoke; he lifted the glass of Twemlaugh to his lips and took a long, slow drink, and Ava felt a fear she hardly dared to breathe through. She didn’t let it show; the soft, waiting smile on her face never flickered. Fear, yes, but not a lack of trust; she could not let Genevria see a crack between them.

Anatole continued, and the rush of relief that swamped Ava was even more dangerous than the fear had been, threatening to weaken her knees, threatening to bring glittering tears to her eyes. Ava held it back, the relief and the fear both, and her smile never changed. She leaned into Anatole’s hand on her shoulder, ever so slightly, as if she had enjoyed his touch; as if she had longed for it.

It was, Ava thought, not as hard as she had thought it would be; it was not as hard as it had been, once, because she knew Tom did not believe her. She had never known, and she thought - she thought that that was for the best. Whatever Anatole had believed, whatever he had thought, deep down inside -

She couldn’t drift away, Ava knew, and so instead she focused instead on the smells. There it was, that sickly sweet cologne, familiar, churning in her stomach. Like pinching the inside of her arm to stay awake; it jolted down her spine and hurt, somewhere she could not think of too deeply. Don’t think, Ava told herself. Don’t remember. Not now.

“Naturally,” Genevria said, smiling, nonplussed. “Although some men do grow tired of the rut. How lovely to see you still so content.”

Sharp eyes turned to Ava, then, and did not linger on the hand on her shoulder, the fingers wrapped around her arm.

“Ava,” Genevria said, and her smile broadened, just a little, though something seemed to have gone cold and flat in her eyes. “You look well-kept.”

Ava had planned for this moment; she had planned for little else. There was so little she could do; she could look at Anatole, she could smile, she could fawn. She could not give them away, but it was hardly the same -

And so between the frantic searching for silk and the hours of work, between the modeling and the decisions and the sketching and the tears, and sometimes during - she had thought, and she had planned. And she had practiced too, in the long lean hours of the night when still she could not sleep, when even the little gray cat had given up and curled up on her bed to rest. She had sat in front of the mirror, with just enough light to see, and she had practiced.

Ava curtsied, low and smooth and deep. She had not known what words she would need, but she had not needed to know. As she rose, she lifted her head, and she looked Genevria in the eyes. And she smiled - not the smooth, warm smile, not the faintly loving one, but something that edged ever so slightly towards smug. “Yes, Madam,” Ava said, and her tone was nothing but respectful, but that smug note in her smile deepened, ever so slightly. “Very well.”

A faint discordant note jangled from the harp; there was a sense of pressure in the air around her, just a faint sort of tension. Ava smiled a little more, and then lowered her eyes again, and turned ever so slightly back towards Anatole.

A faint line had appeared between Genevria’s eyes, the memory of a frown around her mouth. They smoothed away as quickly as they had appeared, and she turned back to Anatole, smiling as smoothly as if there had never been any interruption; the sense of tension in the air was gone, too, replaced with the mix of slippery and sharp that was Genevria’s field.

“I’m curious,” Genevria said, smiling, her eyebrows lifting gently. “Do other things change for a man? After a period of... illness.” There was a sense of pressure in the air again, flickering and brief.

Ava held, still, only half-understanding; Tom had not told her their conversation, not word for word, but there was something here - something she was missing. Her heart was pounding in her chest again, and more than anything Ava wished she could run for the door - could fling it open, sprint down the hall, and vanish into the darkness of the night. Her smile never wavered.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum House • Uptown

Late Evening on the 54th of Roalis, 2719

Although some men do grow tired of the rut.

Tom blinked, but nothing else showed on his face; thank the gods, nothing else showed on his face. He was too busy keeping track of everything – he adjusted his stance, just a pina, when Ava leaned into his hand; he supported her and he didn’t, all at once, and she made it easy – too busy, and maybe that made it easier to keep that bland, placid smile on his face. Bland, mung little sneer of a smile, like somebody who thought he was smart, but somebody who wasn’t very.

Leastways, he hoped so. He didn’t think Genevria’d be too interested in a stupid man, and he didn’t think she’d ever thought too highly of Anatole. If he’d had the upper hand, it was because of something he’d known, not because of something he’d been.

But he was afraid. He was fair afraid. The silk underneath his fingers was cool and still, and he couldn’t tell if Ava was as afraid as he was. It was mixing with the anger that knotted in his stomach; he could almost taste the bile in his mouth. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes on anything except Trevisani’s smooth, even face, and the red river of her hair – the whole room around them was a gilded dream, too bright and soft-edged. Tom felt drunk.

When Ava dipped in a curtsy, he kept his fingertips poised, always just brushing her shoulder. Kept his eyes on Genevria. She said well-kept, and he let the flame-tongue of anger he felt at the word flicker across his face: defensive, as if it were the kept by whom that’d pissed him, not the kept at all. He didn’t look at Ava’s face; Anatole was too confident to do that. It was never Anatole looking to Ava. But Tom thought he heard something smug-like in her voice, so he made himself hold her a little closer, shifted his posture straighter against her.

Godsdamn, he kept thinking, drunk on the slithering perceptive mona. Gods damn this; gods help us. Gods forgive me. Gentle, he ran a thumb over her shoulder.

And so it was real, the twitching wince that hopped across his features when the harp stammered – it was a wrinkle of his nose, a twist of his lip. He’d mastered himself by the time the warp went through the madam’s field.

He couldn’t help tensing against Ava, still, when he felt those slippery-sharp perceptive mona reach out and tangle with his own. He felt the caprise most strongly in his scattering of clairvoyant mona, and he felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness. He felt like he wanted to corral them in, to draw them close to his skin and away from her. It was a new sensation, and for a moment, it blindsided him.

He didn’t know what to say. His chest hurt again. Now, the notes that drifted over on the smoke, too perfect, rang in his ears like bells; he thought he’d be sick. And she was looking at him –

The road-map of Ava’s posture didn’t tell him anything, this time. “Some things change,” he conceded, quirking a red eyebrow. He drew out the moment, taking a contemplative sip of twemlaugh. “Many, naturally, remain the same.”

His eyes drifted toward the lass in the corner, settled on her fingers, weaving through the strings. Drawing out a little more of that disgust, he let his lip twitch. Glancing back, his face evened out into another neat smile.

“You must forgive me, Mrs. Trevisani; the air in here does not suit me tonight,” he murmured. With another little flicker of a wince, he raised his hand – the one holding the brandy; he kept his other firmly on Ava – to his forehead, bowing his head, brushing his knuckles to his temple. Then he blinked back up at Genevria, recovering himself. “I’m afraid – some privacy may be in order. Perhaps we might retire to a quieter place,” he added lightly, turning that bland smile briefly on Ava.

[Ava Weaver]

Evening, 54th Roalis, 2719
The Pendulum House, Uptown

T
om gave a generic answer - too generic? Ava was not sure, and a little pulse of fear went through her. She had thought he would know what Genevria meant; she could not tell if he had. What had passed between them, before? Why had Genevria invited them?

Ava knew - Tom did not - but Ava knew how angry Genevria had been. She would never forget it; it was etched somewhere deep inside her, the memory of the anger. The lashing sting of it - the heavy, sharp words of monite. A pain spell; Ava had learned to name them. She had seen them written, even if she could not read the words.

Anatole had known about the anger; he had not known about the spells. He had been proud of the anger, and Ava had not dared prick the bubble of that pride; she had not dared to go to him and say -

Ava focused again on the smell of cologne and cigars mingled in the air; the feeling of Anatole’s hand stroking her shoulder. Her insides were a knot, and she was smiling, and there were no wrinkles in the silk of her dress. She let a little trace of color rise on her cheeks at the suggestion they find some privacy; her lips parted, ever so slightly, then curled in a smile.

Genevria’s eyes were firmly on Anatole’s face, and something faint went through her expression at the little twitch of his face. “Of course. I would not wish to strain you. Take all the quiet you need,” she murmured, and there was something like victory in her voice, subtle and soft, the faintest trace of it. There was a pause, a beat - the faintest edge of a raised eyebrow, as if to leave a space for Anatole to object.

And then Genevria smiled again, and she was gone, drifting away, and the soft ripple of her laughter echoed from a nearby conversation, twining with the music of the harp.

Anatole had to lead her; east, Ava thought, turning herself slightly, nudging Tom east. She could not - his hand was on her shoulder, and she let him guide her out, his red hair threaded through with gray and the heavy weight of her dark updo, side by side in the lamplight. She thought she could feel Genevria’s eyes on the back of her neck and every second she waited to hear her speak - every second -

And then they were through the door and into a dark little hallway beyond, and it closed behind them, and the little shadow of light on the ground slid slowly away. The air was cleaner here, though there was a faint lingering memory of cigar smoke still. The notes of the harp were muffled, half a memory. Ava glanced up at the dim dark hallway, and then up at Tom and -

Not yet, she thought dizzily. They had done so well; not yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.

They could not know who was behind these doors; they could not know who was listening. Who was watching? Who might be watching when - when -

Ava knew she was trembling; it had started somewhere in her hands, and it was rippling through her whole body. Her breath caught somewhere in her throat, hitched. There was no light, nothing that might catch her, but Tom’s hand was on her shoulder, and she knew he would be able to feel it. She took the deepest breath she could silently, and the tension eased out of her, pulled back somewhere deep inside.

It was all remembered, Ava promised herself. This pain was only a ghost, haunting her; she named it and she exorcised it. This was not her life, and she would not let what had come before stop her now. There; there, burning in her heart like a light in the darkness, that little flicker of anger.

“Where shall we go?” Ava asked Anatole, softly, and her voice was a low, husky murmur, without the faintest trace of that tension. There was a sound like a little laugh that seemed to echo in it, a sort of excitement.