[Closed] Where Do People like Us Float

[Tom Cooke]

The Study • Uptown

Afternoon on the 29th of Dentis, 2719

H
e eased himself up onto the desk, the tip of one shoe braced against the floor, the other leg dangling easy. He crossed his arms – looked away, toward the fire. No. He shifted; wincing at his hip, he eased himself back off the desk, made to move toward the window, and paused. Behind the desk, then? More official, more businesslike; more authoritative. All the same, standing at the window meant standing with his back to the door, and there seemed something almost petulant in it. Disrespectful.

He didn’t think there was much chance, anywhere he stood, of feeling good about this.

Snow whirled down outside, for the second day in a row. Even at midday, a thin blanket lay over the streets, lined the crooked gestures of the bare-branched trees in white.

Dentis had struck Vienda hard and brittle. The window-panes were a frost-framed glimpse into misty white. The light that crept through the misted glass was weak and filtering; the heavy green drapes were half-drawn to keep the chill from crawling in. The study was aglow with soft gold phosphor, a fire crackling in the grate, but he could feel it in all the familiar-unfamiliar aches.

He had meditated all morning. The floorboards had been cold, then, underneath his bare feet and hands; the books had been cold.

The warmth had leached in, slow but sure, from his etheric field, from the gathered clairvoyant mona. He had come to the mona with no doubt, the same as he’d sent her the message with no doubt. He had drawn the lines slowly, incanted slowly as he’d sat in their midst. He hadn’t looked toward the door, he hadn’t thought of anything but the binding; if she had walked through the door in that moment, he’d’ve been ready.

Now, he was tired. He had promised himself he wouldn’t collect the grimoires from the window seat or the desk and tuck them away, like a shameful secret. The faint smell of sage still clung to the study; there was the scent of books old and new, the woodsmoke from the hearth, and always ink.

He looked around now at the shelves packed with books, at his reading nook with the cushions that had been Anatole’s, at the sprawling Hessean carpet that had also been Anatole’s. But this place was the closest to him; he’d just that morning folded up the blankets and tucked away the pillows from where he’d slept by the fire.

It was the closest, and the most private.

Ava was back, at least, though they’d not had a chance to convene since either of their trips. He’d meant to, as soon as possible; there was more than just the Shrike to discuss – but the Shrike, thanks to the madame, had made the meeting more emergent.

Emergent. That was the word he had told Rosmilda to write. Yes, yes, he was quite certain; emergent. Did he wish to be the laughingstock of the Biannual Reformist National Convention, with all their Bull Elephant visitors watching? He needed to compare the black and the dark brown wool to the dark red satin for the lining; he was second-guessing his previous order – if he hadn’t, in fact, made a previous order, then surely Ms. Weaver would understand, on account of the hectic season and…

Now he stood, numbly watching the doors to the study, knowing that nowhere he stood, nowhere he sat, nothing he did or did not wear, would lighten the weight of the news. The clock ticked; it tolled, finally, a quarter after the twentieth hour. A short melody sang through the boards, echoed.

Heavy steps on the stairs. He was on his feet right away as the study doors opened.

It wasn’t her, first; he might’ve known it wouldn’t be. “Mr. Morris, Mr. Douglas –”

Morris had propped one door open and held the other, straight-backed and slick-haired as always, expressionless except for the faint amused twitch about his lips. Douglas entered next, hefting a great oblong case without much effort. He was a big man, with kind-set eyes in a broad human face; his chestnut hair was starting to grey at the temples, and most of his expressions disappeared under a bristling beard.

“Sir,” he grunted, “madam,” to someone Tom couldn’t see, behind on the stair. “Where shall I put it?”

He half-gestured, uselessly, to take the case himself. He was standing looking toward the hearth, toward the low table and the chairs, when she finally stepped into the room.

He was almost too occupied to notice. The heavy mahogany desk was stacked with books and papers, and the table by the fire had a pitcher of water and his brazier, his slim black case of chalks. Morris was still holding the door, so he moved to clear the table himself – he tucked the case under one arm; he took the burner and the pitcher to the desk, water sloshing delicately against the glass.

Douglas was moving. “Will this be suitable, Ms. – Weaver?” he asked, reflexively. When he searched for the name, and found Weaver, a spark of something went through him.

He went still, the case still under his arm, one hand gesturing toward the table. He looked up and found the quiet presence by the door, lit warm gold by phosphor.

[Ava Weaver]

Afternoon, 29 Dentis, 2719
The Study, The Vauquelin House, Uptown

I
t had snowed, again; it was late enough into Dentis now that it was time for wool, sturdy browns and grays, woven thick enough to stand up through the damp. Some customers wanted them smooth and even; others did not mind a lumpier weave. Others wanted a faint pop of winter color, a vivid red or green or blue to wear, now that the world could not provide.

Each one came into the shop, stamping snow from their boots, and Ava met them with a warm, and friendly smile, even as the footprints trailed over one another, and the room filled with the sound of laughing voices during the lunch hour, and then emptied out again.

“Ought I to sweep up, Ms. Weaver?” Grais asked. The young woman’s hands were chapped from the cold; she rubbed them together as she came back inside from her errand, her cheeks pink and her long blonde hair tied up in neat braids. “Hard to believe how messy these floors’ve gotten – you had them so clean when I came in!”

“Just wait until the rainy season! But we’ll do it together,” Ava said, smiling, one hand resting lightly on the message slip on her counter. The message boy pushed past Grais, a coin held tight in one hand, and the door tinkled shut behind her. “Then I’ve an order to fulfill, before the rush starts back up. And then," Ava smiled, warm and encouraging, "it'll be your chance to watch the shop alone."

"Ma'am!" Grais gasped. "I won't let you down - I promise!"

In the late afternoon, Ava left Grais behind the counter, and went outside into the snow, carrying with her a heavy oblong case of black and dark brown wool.

Ava wore a thick, warm winter cloak with a heavy lining. She had remade the cloak, and made it again; the lining was a creamy brown, and there was a lining of Anaxi mink fur tucked inside the edge of the hood. The sunlight had faded the fur from a rich dark brown to a paler shade long before Ava had ever bought the it, but she had searched through the lengths of fur, and found it – still soft, smooth and voluminous, with a richness to the pale brown that matched the cloak’s fabric well.

Beneath it, she wore a charcoal gray wool dress; the bodice and upper half of the dress were cable-stitched, an elaborate pattern which wove over her up to the soft open neck, and stretched down the arms to end, cuffed, neatly at her wrist. The dress nipped in at the waist, sewn neatly to her, and flowed out in a skirt with a loosely pointed hem, just high enough on each side to show the gleaming buckles of her black boots. Her lips were painted a pale pink, and kohl winged her eyes out long; her hair was loose, tumbling curled down her back and over her shoulders, when not tucked beneath the hood.

The city looked different, brushed with snow. Ava eased the curtain of the coach back with one gloved hand, and watched it, conscious of the dullness of her reflection in the hazy glass, and, beyond, gray dusted with pure, bright white. The door opened and shut, and opened again, passengers climbing in and out of the shared coach. They rattled on over bridges and roads, past factories and onto the broader, better-kept streets of Uptown, where the snow dusted neat hedges, and had already been swept off the road.

The conductor helped Ava out with her case at the last stop. She smiled up at him, took the heavy case in both hands, and began to make her way through the streets.

She did not walk like a woman who knew where she was going; she walked, wide-eyed and deferential. She walked knowing she did not belong, and knowing, too, that everyone else knew it. She walked with a certain gratitude to the set of her shoulders, easing out of the way to any passer-by.

“Can I help with your case, ma’am?” It was a young man who stopped, human, a bit wide-eyed. He smiled, touching his cap; a half-threadbare coat covered his livery, but he looked, despite the pink tip of his nose, as if the cold couldn’t touch him.

Ava smiled, sudden and bright; he blushed. “Hadn’t you ought to get home?” She asked.

“Yes ma’am,” the young man grinned, “but as long as you’re not going too far – my mama won’t mind me doing a kindness for a stranger.”

“Thank you,” Ava said, and smiled a little wider. “I would be grateful.”

Ava took the case from him at the entrance to the Vauquelin House. He touched his cap again, grinned red-cheeked at her, and vanished off down the street, moving quickly into the growing, snow-washed dark. Ava breathed in, deep, and turned herself to the entrance.

The house was not familiar to her; it never had been. She knew what she had seen of it, before, in snatches; she knew what she recognized, and what she understood. She followed Mr. Morris and Douglas up the stairs. The maid who had taken her cloak had smiled at her, sharp and bright like something shared, and Ava, after a quick glance at Morris, had smiled back, and finished stamping the last of the snow from her boots on the hard rug at the door; none of them needed to say it was not to be tracked inside.

Ava held in the doorway, behind Douglas as he carried the case in, Morris tucked just to the side with his hand holding the wood. She curtsied, deeply, when he turned to look at her. “Good afternoon, sir. Very suitable, thank you.” Ava rose up from the curtsy without so much as a wobble, and came a little further into the room.

Douglas set the case down on the table; he went out, and Morris, too.

Ava crossed to the table, her eyes on the case. It was two and a half steps from him, at the edge of the Hessean carpet, that she froze, abruptly, looking up wide-eyed; she stepped back, her breath catching in her throat. Something moved on her face; her forehead twitched in the tiniest of frowns, and then smoothed out. She caught her breath almost as quickly as she had lost it, her eyes searching his face for a moment; her gaze dropped, then, politely, and she held.

[Tom Cooke]

The Study • Uptown

Afternoon on the 29th of Dentis, 2719

T
he carpet was a swirl of burgundy and red and deep, plant-matter green, a sweep of vines radiating outward from the center. The border around the outside – the pattern of elaborate, interlocking shapes, dizzying – was distinctly Hessean. He had laid it back out less than an hour ago; it was big enough to hide, almost perfectly, the old stains left by chalk lines drawn over and over in the same patterns. He’d thought to leave the floor bare, but he’d made the decision, in the end.

She was in dark grey, today, like snow in shadow. It looked lovely and warm. Cable-knit, like a scarf he’d had once – benniest thing he’d owned; he’d never got any blood on it – a careful human cut.

He had never noticed such things, before. The scoop neck, the delicate point between her black boots, the way the skirt flared instead of narrowing. The line wasn’t so bold in the Rose, not in ways you could see with your eyes – or was it? He had been a man, a natt, and he had given no thought to the dresses chips wore, or how they picked them. Other than the flurry of auburn in the fall, the bloom of pale yellows and greens in the spring, appearing as if from nowhere.

He had questions he might’ve asked her, any other time, any other place – any other life – why the high collars, why the open necks, why the point or the straight line? Do they tell you, or do you learn slowly, over time, as he learned to tie a cravat or soften the roll of his Rs into nothing? Did you ever–?

It seemed he noticed more and more things each time he saw her, more and more things he had never had to think about, before.

He smiled neatly at her good afternoon, and bowed smoothly himself. “Thank you, Mr. Morris,” he said, “Mr. Douglas,” as the two humans went out. Morris silently removed the doorstop and pulled the study doors shut behind Ms. Weaver.

Strange, to see her in this place. She was moving toward the case; he looked away, at it, the light from the hearth glinting in the burnished metal clamps.

The soft intake of breath dragged his eyes right back to her face. Now, he could see it – the faintest shadow of a crease at her brow. Her wide dark eyes were looking over his face. He looked down, at the border of the carpet between them, then back up at her face. She was looking down now, silent. It was a polite, pleasant look.

He swallowed tightly, blinked. Somewhere, he’d lost his smile; he wasn’t sure what was on his face. His lip twitched. His brow furrowed briefly before he could smooth it out.

What did you expect? He tried to push down the sudden rush of defensiveness. You agreed with me that it was necessary, if not ideal, if not – if not – and what if it is what I wanted, what if it is –

His mind flicked back through the conversation, and then emptied. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember, exactly, what she had said, or what he had said, or whether he had ever really told her.

He took a deep breath through his diaphragm, steadied himself.

I am sorry, he thought to say. For what? Not for a decision he would stand by; not for the actions – Shrikeweed’s, Trevisani’s – of others. Not for bringing her here, to the only safe place he could think of. None of those things he could apologize for without lying. At the same time, he was terribly, deeply sorry, for all of it.

“Thank you for coming in person,” he said carefully, intently, inclining his head “and alone.” He glanced behind her, at the door, frowning; he looked back at her. He didn’t take a step back, but he didn’t come any closer, either.

Instead, he gestured. “Please, sit anywhere you like, or stand, whatever is – comfortable,” he offered. “I would’ve sent word ahead, but the news I have is pressing. We're in no danger, not now, but I’m afraid it’s going to take some explaining. Can I get you anything? Water?”

[Ava Weaver]

Afternoon, 29 Dentis, 2719
The Study, The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Ava smoothed it from her face, and replaced it with a faint, even smile, well shy of the welcoming shopkeeper; she held herself straight and still and just over the edge of the rug, on the other side of the swirl of bright Hessean colors and shapes. She did not quite meet his eyes, but she did not look away, either; there was something like deference, once more, in the careful set of her shoulders.

He swallowed, once.

Ava couldn’t help but feel it, but she could keep it from showing. It was fear; it was bone-numbing fear, as cold as ice in her veins, as if she had opened herself up and all the snow shuddering through the streets had filled in to replace it. It was terror; it was a waking nightmare, and she had lived through it for a long time.

She knew it; she smiled through it. She tucked it away, and waited, and let her gaze lift a little more. Her hands were folded one in front of the other, settled neatly together against her front, nails lacquered black. They did not tremble.

He didn’t say her name; Ava wasn’t sure what she would have done if he did.

“Thank you,” Ava said, quietly. “No,” she shook her head, lightly, dark curls shuddering in the lamplight. “Nothing.” A little flicker of warmth up in the smile, a careful tilt of her head before it straightened out. She glanced at the thin, gesturing hand – the scatter of pale freckles, the soft dusting of red hair, the familiar and unfamiliar lines. She held, a moment longer, at the edge of the carpet; she stepped through, forward, carefully this time, across the border.

Ava’s breathing did not change in the slightest, this time, as the feeling of the field washed over her. There was one field she had known better than any other; this was not it. Neither was it the field that Tom had brought to her, dripping wet and as afraid as she was, when they had first met. It wasn’t the field that had accompanied them both down, down, down into the depths of the tunnels beneath the Pendulum Club, and followed behind her as, slowly, she climbed back out.

She understood, now, what he had done with all those books. Unless –

It did not matter, she knew, where she sat or stood; it did not matter if she were close to the door. There were things distance could not save you from; there were things all the distance in the world could not keep you safe from.

There were things she could not think; terror burned so hot in her chest that there was little room to feel anything else, little she could do but keep the careful veneer of her smile in place. Ava settled down onto the edge of one of the chairs, and sat very straight, her feet together on the floor beneath the hem of her skirt. Her hands tucked into her lap, one over the other, and there was not a crease in the folds of her gray skirt.

There were things she could not think; to think them would be to come undone, to unravel entirely. There were things she had to think; there were things she could not look away from, because to do so would be to blind herself in the very moment when most she needed to see.

So Ava looked.

She shifted, slightly, in the chair; she watched him, short-cut curly red hair shot through with gray; thin, freckled hands; and a frown etched deep into the lines of his face, where time had made it familiar. There was a soft, easy smile on her lips; she coaxed it up to her eyes with an enormous force of will. She thought of the eager, nervous look on Grais’s face as Ava bid her farewell; she thought of the boy, on the street, and the smile he had worn as he walked away; she thought of a man crying on a chair next to her, and her hands wrapped around his, and the sharp, urgent offer of hope. Her eyes softened; they crinkled, ever so slightly, at the corners, and Ava found her mask, once again, comfortable to wear.

Some explaining. Ava could not look forward; neither could she look away. She waited; she knew how to wait. She knew how to sit amidst the uncertainty, back straight, a small, soft smile on the whole of her face; she knew how to not know.

[Tom Cooke]

The Study • Uptown

Afternoon on the 29th of Dentis, 2719

S
omething was wrong.

He smiled – a little – uncertainly – at her thanks, as she moved into the range of his field. The full, laoso woobly, he might’ve called it once. He tried not to look too hard at her face; he looked away, toward the fire, down at the carpet, anywhere else. There was nothing to see there, anyway, except a shopkeeper’s smile. There was a lick of warmth, just about the edges, as if waiting to spring into her eyes.

She knew he knew, he thought. He’d learned it from her, after all. If this was anger, it was stranger and crueler than he knew to read it on Ava Weaver. There was no tell-tale hardness about the eyes or the smile, no reprimand about the thanks.

A little shift of blue shivered through his field. He felt it, swimming through the air; he saw it in some place beyond sight. He watched her move through it. He didn’t think she felt it. He’d never been able to, before.

She sat on the edge of one of the seats, straight-backed and comfortable. She was watching him. He hesitated, looking back at the desk with the pitcher, then nodded slowly. “Of course,” he offered, and couldn’t muster up a smile of his own. He stepped to the seat opposite her, across the mant case, and grunted with effort as he lowered himself into it.

It wasn’t out of caprising range. He knew that a galdor sitting on the edge of the chair opposite, even a weak-fielded galdor like Incumbent Proulx, would be able to feel it. He realized with a sharp, bitter taste and a tightening in his chest that he didn’t know if a human could.

The smile on her face was warm, oes. Her eyes met his, squinting in the way smiling eyes do. He saw her shift in the seat, though the upholstery made no sound.

The smile on her face was warm – he looked up, first at the ceiling, then aside, toward the bookshelves with rows of books, then toward the desk, then back toward her warm smile. Ava Weaver, sitting in the study, smiling warmly.

What is it? he wanted to ask. That was it, in the end: what would he ask? I don’t understand, she might say, with a smile of faint confusion; he could picture it. There was nothing out of place, not really; it was a perfectly warm, friendly smile. It was hers, even, as much as the beautiful cable-knit dress, the straightness of her posture, and all the fabric in the long case between them.

Only, it didn’t make sense here, and now. And with him. Nothing is wrong, said everything about her, when the whole study screamed that there should have been.

The ache in his chest grew tighter. “I won’t –” The words stuck in his throat. He realized he was sitting very straight, very stiff. He tried – and failed – to relax. Another deep breath in; another out.

He smoothed himself, carefully, smoothed himself as she had taught him. The most important thing, the thing he had asked her here for, was this: to warn her. If she no longer deemed him worthy of trust, then – so it was. But he had asked her here to warn her.

“I owe it to you not to beat around the bush. There’s a long of it, but the short of it is, my chief of staff,” he cut through the words like a tangle of vines, “a Mr. Basil Shrikeweed, may come looking for you.”

He realized he was sitting very straight, very stiff. He tried – and failed – to relax. Another deep breath in; another out.

“He was assigned to the office in Intas of last year, and I’ve done digging on the people he works for,” he added. “He’s no friend of hers; he knows what she is, and he detests her. All he knows, beyond that, is what she told him. She told him, in passing, to give her regards to my little bird.”

There was no hesitation, no pause. He’d prepared for this. He had known what he would have to tell her.

“He confronted me about this yesterday evening. I told him nothing about you, but he feels he needs to speak with you, for some... leverage against her, or to protect me. He claims he only wants to talk. I told him to leave it, but I don’t believe he will.” He paused, forcing himself to ungrit his teeth, soften the hard line of his mouth.

He looked at her again; he tried to read her. “Has he already paid you a visit?” Found her, somehow? Was that the reason for – this? Did she know something? Were they being watched? “I did all I could to hold him off, but he’s a shrewd man. I believe we can – I believe we can deal with this. Together.”

[Ava Weaver]

Afternoon, 29 Dentis, 2719
The Study, The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Ava had looked around the study, as she entered; but he was the focus of her attention. She didn’t look at the books; she didn’t look at the Hessean rug, other than to notice the elaborate patterns, and to think what an odd, lovely dress they might make – panels, she thought, absently, not a full skirt. She wasn’t a dressmaker, of course; she didn’t have the skill. But she knew fabrics, and she could imagine this one in the hands of a man or woman who would know what to make of it; she could imagine them making something beautiful.

The books were harder; the books she could not look at, in the end. Not the ones on the window seat or the desk, and especially not the ones which lined all the shelves. There were so many. Ava thought of the summer before, of carrying a few books across the city on a basket dangling over her arm, of taking them up to her private little room and tucking them carefully away, adding to her tiny little collection.

It would not, she understood without looking, fill one of these shelves. Something burned inside of her, a little tiny core of warmth at the heart of her; something always had. There was no fear cold enough to douse this fire, and no doubt either. She welcomed it, that warmth; she took this ache, too, and she fed it to her anger, and let it burn.

She looked at him. He was sitting, stiff and straight and awkward; his face was pinched.

My little bird, he said, as easily as he’d said my chief of staff.

Ava’s eyes fluttered shut for a long moment. She had heard those words in this voice many times; most recently in Roalis, offered with an edge of guilt on the edge of a silk couch. Before that? Not in this study, but in rooms not so dissimilar. And, too, long, long ago in a very different place.

She opened them again, and looked at the gray eyes of the man sitting across from her. No; there was no seeing the soul in his eyes, nor anything else. All she could see was him watching her, and the edge of the reflection of the firelight, glinting off of him. She did not flinch, as she had in Roalis; she did not smile, either, warmly, as she had so many times before.

“I see,” Ava said, carefully. She was quiet; she lowered her gaze, and shook her head, lightly. The firelight glinted off of her hair. She was not quite smiling anymore, but it was a soft, careful sort of worry. “There were no galdori in the shop today. It will, I think, take a little while for him to…”

Her voice trailed off; Ava quieted again, the faintest little frown on her face, careful. She glanced back up at him, and smoothed it back out. “How much does he know?” She asked.

This man could find her; of that, Ava had very little doubt. She had been as careful as it was possible to be, but that, surely, was not careful enough. A clever man with a string to tug – a clever man with Anatole Vauquelin’s name – could unravel her. It would not be the apartment; Ava had washed herself clean of that, scrubbed it from her skin until she was raw and bloody. The name Weaver had never so much as been whispered there; no one but Resistance could connect her to it, at least not easily.

But, Ava thought, there were jewels, and dresses too. Most had been taken apart; there were those in the Resistance who would do such things, and who kept no records which could be found. But some of the jewelry she had had to sell whole, and she doubted very much that he had not used his own name; she doubted very much that he had not made the purchases openly. It was not an if, Ava thought, but a when, because there would be no need to worry, if Shrikeweed was not a clever man.

[Tom Cooke]

The Study • Uptown

Afternoon on the 29th of Dentis, 2719

O
f course,” he murmured, nodding. He felt deflated. The Shrike was no perceptive; of course he hadn’t gone rightaway to Woven Delights, out of some intuition, as if the Circle had given him a token with which he might read a man’s mind – or pluck knowledge from the very air. He felt silly, silly and mung. Ava was looking down; there was a faint frown on her face, a look of concentration in the set of her brows.

His posture didn’t sag, but he shut his eyes for just a moment. The heat coming from the grate was faint, but he could feel it against one cheek.

All the same, there were little chills all up and down him. The hair on the backs of his arms and the back of his neck prickled. The air felt cold in his lungs.

He had expected her to flinch, though he supposed he shouldn’t’ve. He’d said it once before, in Roalis. He’d got through saying it now without an edge, without hesitation; he hadn’t flinched, and neither had she. So it was.

How much does he know?

A point to cut through the fog. Not to clear it, but to cut through it. A practical question, in response to a practical warning. He opened his eyes and found her looking at him again, the faintest edge of hope in her smile. It was almost what he’d hoped for, when he’d said, Together. It was like seeing the word reflected back at him on her face, in her soft dark eyes.

He hesitated. He smiled back – he tried to smile warmly.

It lasted longer, this time, but not so long. He sucked at a tooth, shifted in his seat to prop one elbow on the arm. “Not your name,” he said first, eyes wandering toward the fire with thought. “Nothing about you, nothing other than those three words. For all he knows, you might not even be in Vienda. All he has is what she said to him; I told him nothing.”

He paused abruptly. For a few seconds, there was only the popping of breaking twigs in the fire. The wind picked up outside; he could hear it shaking the pane on the far wall, behind him, behind the seat stacked up with books and cushions. He could imagine the snow whirling past, spiraling sideways through the grey.

But he was looking at her, and now he was frowning. He sat up, folding his hands in his lap again.

“Not about me, either.” He’d thought that was given. Mr. Shrikeweed’s face swam from the dark in his mind, his hazel eyes red-rimmed, his lips twisted with pain. I, he, I, he. “At least,” he said slowly, “I don’t think he could…”

Could he? He remembered that first day in the Incumbent’s office, Mr. Shrikeweed stepping in neatly with his case, with all his fine and fancy words – words he hadn’t known, then. There had been other words, too, he hadn’t known, back then.

Tom blinked, looking at Ava. “I’ll admit, I – I’ve leaned on him. I wouldn’t know the first thing about politics without him. But he thinks it was a stroke; he thinks my memory is gone.” He thought of those shrewd, pained eyes. “He’s a clever man, but I don’t think him the sort of man to believe in ghosts.”

Strange to think of it. Ava Weaver on one hand, Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed on the other. Maybe that’s it, he remembered Drezda saying, not too long ago. A friend is someone who knows enough about you to destroy you.

He breathed in deep. “He’ll look for you first, but I believe he thinks he can wake up the old incumbent’s memories – wish him luck with it,” he added, finding a wry edge somewhere. “I can keep him busy, but he’s on a warpath. I don’t know how well I can cover up whatever trail – he – left. Unless you have other suggestions.”

He raised one red eyebrow. He half wanted to come out and say it; his lass’ name, if nothing else. If anybody can cott a kov.

[Ava Weaver]

Afternoon, 29 Dentis, 2719
The Study, The Vauquelin House, Uptown

She had taught him well, Ava thought, with a sharp wry ache of relief which showed not one whit on the smooth, hopeful smile of her face. Perhaps too well for comfort, although she knew it had been necessary. He knows what she is had not done it, not quite; together had not done it either, not quite; and even in I told him nothing, she could not – she knew, with a creeping cold ache – but sure.

Not about me, either, he said, serious and thoughtful. And then, working through it, carefully, thinking about it again; doubling back on himself, cautious, like a man who life has taught to watch his back. The old incumbent, he called him, and Ava kept her lips from twitching. Her eyebrows lifted lightly at his wry tone, and at the space he left for a name they could both think of.

“No,” Ava said, carefully. She did not relax the tension in her posture; to come out of it too suddenly would be to give herself entirely away. She had come too far for that; there was no need for it now. “I don’t think her prudent.”

Ava breathed in deeply and out again, thinking it over. She sat, still and straight; she kept her gaze firmly on Tom. He detests her, he had said, firmly; she understood he had meant it to be reassuring. She could feel it, still, at this distance, the field arranged around him; a woobly, she would have called it, as a girl. Then, she would not have known to call his prior mess a porven. And now?

“My suggestion,” Ava said, glancing away for a moment at the dancing firelight, watching it play over the logs – logs, multiple, enough that he’d have to douse the fire when he went to bed – unless, Ava thought, turning it over, he didn’t intend to leave for the night. She looked back at him; something she hadn’t known was hard softened at the edges of her gaze, “is to let him find me.”

Ava rose, carefully; she turned away from him, and went to the bookshelves. She did not let the raw hunger – the ache – show on her face; she kept herself even and smooth, and let Tom think what he would of the gesture. She let herself look at the book titles, all of them; she let herself think of the pages inside, all those words she would never read. She ached, and she let herself feel that too; she breathed in the faint smell of the paper, and, though she badly wanted to, she didn’t reach out to touch them. Her hands stayed, instead, gently folded in front of her.

Ava turned back to look at him, out of range; the light behind him caught his hair, and glowed bright red against the edges of it. She judged it enough time for the idea to have sunk in.

“If he’s clever,” Ava said, still with the same, even smile on her face, “anything you do now will do more to reveal than to hide. It is better to let him have a mystery he can solve. He has a little more leverage against you for meeting me,” she came evenly through it, unblinking, her face set, “but I will do what I can to offset that.” Something at the edges of her smile softened, briefly, and her gaze too, although only for a moment. Ava came forward again, back into the range of Tom’s field, and sat straight-backed on the edge of the chair once more, her hands in her lap.

“If he wants leverage against her,” Ava said, meeting gray eyes beneath a frowning brow, leaning forward straight backed, with no trace of a wrinkle, “I see little reason not to give it to him.” Silence again, then, but for the crackling fire. She sat back upright; the smooth, even smile she had worn since the stumble was back solidly in place, with not the least hint of a crack.

[Tom Cooke]

The Study • Uptown

Afternoon on the 29th of Dentis, 2719

N
o, he might’ve protested sharply – might’ve, with somebody that wasn’t Ava. He pursed his lips thin and sat up a little in his seat, watching her narrowly, listening close. She said nothing more, but she stood up, smooth as silk. She moved to the shelves.

There’d been a different kind of warmth to her eyes, then, or maybe not a warmth; he couldn’t’ve said. It was that made him want to say it. No. There are other options – what were they? – options other than playing with fire.

He is an angry man, he wanted to say, slow and deliberate.

Ava’s face was half in shadow; he could see the delicate curve of her nose, the set of her jaw, but he couldn’t tell much about her expression. She was looking over the spines, her back straight. The pointed tip of her dress whispered silent above the floorboards.

Those were the histories. Hessean, mostly, many of the war; names like Tlalith and Matignon both haunted the spines, and some of the oldest bore only faded numbers: I, II, III. Another step, he knew – he didn’t have to squint or shift – and she was looking at the start of the poetry, first the Hessean epics, then warm, familiar names, Tsadi and Adopu, then Anaxi names like the Lord Underwood and Henri de la Croix.

Her hands were clasped in front of her. He watched her, looking at them. He remembered. There were no grimoires there; still, he watched her, and as she turned, he met her eye.

He did not look away.

Not as she came back into the range of his field; he swallowed thickly, but he wouldn’t’ve suppressed it if he could’ve. Not as she sat, silk-smooth smile on her face.

The crease between his brows deepened at I will do what I can. Still, he didn’t protest.

He couldn’t. “No, you’re right,” he murmured. “Anything I did – best not give the shrike a thorn.” His lips twisted sourly; he looked at the case, breathing in deep.

He looked back up at Ava, leaning forward, large dark eyes as sharp as any shrike’s.

She settled back, very straight. He thought to ask how they might play it; he thought already he knew the answer, and he’d catch on well enough, when the time came. He studied her face and thought what else he might offer.

“Shrikeweed is hard to miss. He wears sideburns, and he has a penchant for waistcoats embroidered with florals.” He sat forward in his own seat. “He may come to you with a black eye, but he’s no fighting man; he’s a pugilist, from what I can tell. I don’t know how good of one, but it’s something to keep in mind.”

He raised his eyebrows; a crooked smile twitched on his face, for just a moment.

It was gone. “He’s a quantitative conversationalist.” He put weight on the words; he searched her face, thinking of all the wall hangings, all the secret compartments, all the spaces where spaces oughtn’t be. “He’s an abacus of a man. I don’t know the extent of… I’ve never cast with him –”

There, then, the elepha crouched but hulking in the corner. Or maybe the case between them, oblong and unwieldy, shut with metal clasps.

A risha is only useful with strings to play, he wanted to protest, looking down at his hands in his lap. Then back up at her.

“I’m not so concerned about his leverage against me,” he said carefully. “You – we – may keep him occupied for months, but I’m afraid his inquisitive mind won’t stop at a mystery solved. He has a habit, this man, of digging himself deep holes, and asking questions that lead to more questions. I’m concerned about his leverage against you, and against – us.”

Strange to say us. He’d never set foot in the How; he’d passed along what he could, through her, but he’d never dared show his face. Or his field.

What, then? It was on the tip of his tongue – there were such wards you could lay, to obfuscate – there were other ways to obfuscate – all of what’d lay heavy on his mind for months.

[Ava Weaver]

Afternoon, 29 Dentis, 2719
The Study, The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Ava’s smile didn’t change, for all that she nodded, lightly at the description of Shrikeweed. Hard to miss, Tom had called him; a pugilist, too, with a little crooked smile that twitched on his face. A quantitative conversationalist, he added.

Ava nodded, slowly, and held still through the rest of it. I’ve never cast with him, Tom said, thoughtful, and Ava was newly, sharply aware of his field around them both. She had thought it unpleasant, before, odd and scratching; she had understood, although only too late, why the feeling of it would make the little gray cat hiss and spit and flee. She had walked herself into it, more than once, careful and deliberate, to show him she could sit in the discomfort.

Ava had never thought she would miss it.

She understood; she remembered the look of horror on Tom’s face when the cat fled. She didn’t look at the books again, but, there, too – she would read them, she knew. Did she think he should cast this house into the flames? Did she think he should turn his back on Tlailth and Adopu and Underwood and all these other names Ava had never even heard of, just out of pure spite? They were not questions worth asking. She had given him grimoires; she had known, Ava understood, what he would do with them. Had she known what he would lose?

A pugilist, Tom had said, with a little flicker of a smile. She wondered; if she had said yes, her knife is the answer, how much would the doing have hurt him? It is not wise, Ava wanted to tell him, to become attached to them; it is not wise in the least. They have fed us like kindling into the flame – us, Tom, she wanted to say, sudden and sharp; she wanted to lean forward, deeper into the field around them, and look him in the eye, and say it: us. If it burns you, to throw this man, then you are not who I thought you were; then you are not as I named you.

“My papers are in order,” Ava said; there was a faint sharpness to her tone, a subtle rebuke in the careful lifting of her eyebrows. How easy was it to forget, she wondered. She did not move; she knew better than to go that far with it. “You know the man,” Ava softened, gentled, “I do not. What is it you’re afraid he’ll do to me?” There was a faint little twist to her smile, something wry in the careful press. It was not a question she expected him to answer.

She did not, Ava knew, understand the contours of quantitative conversation very well. Perceptive and living she understood best, if she understood them at all. For a moment she thought, uneasily, of galdori able to speak her name to the mona and know everything about her. If it was that easy – if that could be done – then there would be no resistance at all. Such fears were superstition, Ava thought; they had to be.

“If he likes to dig,” Ava said, quietly, “then our best chance is to let the answers to his questions be a deep hole. She,” there, she did not bother to hide the little flutter of emotion in her voice – it was something between hatred and fear, and it rippled gently through her; she held Tom’s gaze firmly as she said it, as if they could both hear the name, “is full enough of dirt for a lifetime.”

If he is not useful, she wanted to say; if he cannot be guided – then, yes. She glanced again at the heavy logs on the fire, at the bright popping sparks, at the heavy metal pokers which hung to the side of the fireplace. She looked back to Tom, smooth and even, still settled in place. “Unless you want him out of the way,” Ava added; her smile never changed, but she watched him very steadily indeed.