[Closed] Lacuna

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 28th of Vortas, 2719

G
odsdamn me.”

A clatter of porcelain; he hissed between his teeth. There was already a streak of tea on his waistcoat, a patch of darker on dark. He sat still in the armchair with the saucer in his lap, a little chilly tea pooling round the base of the cup, his trembling fingers perched on the rim.

He took a deep breath, like he knew how to do, and shut his eyes. There. He listened: the crackle of fire in the grate; the even tick-tock of the grandfather clock, even now, where he’d had the natt with a shop in the Painted Ladies come look at it and fix the lurch of its rhythm, the fifteen-minutes-fast. It was even, now. All the clocks in the house were even, now, all three floors. Everything slid into the pattern.

The scratch and rustle of bare branches together, out the dark glass doors to the atrium. He thought he could hear – if not hear, then imagine – the dry husky voices of leaves skittering across the stone path.

His old copy of Brellos pez Hirtka sat on the arm of the chair. He’d’ve been happy enough, tonight, to whisk it back off upstairs, to forget this whole damned affair. He took off his glasses, rubbing at his dry, burning eyes. Swallowing thickly, porcelain a-clatter in his shaky hands, he set the teacup on the end table. The silk at his throat, feather-soft, nagged and pressed painfully on the bruises as the muscles moved.

Funny enough, Tom couldn’t say he’d ever been choked out before.

If all this vodundun was about experiences – about having a unique perspective, as Ezre might’ve said – then he’d had a new experience, at least. Rather hard to put a man like Tom, the Tom he’d been in life, in a sleeper hold; hard to keep him there long enough.

He’d looked at them that morning, shaving. The color of old wine. Dark prints at his throat, strangely-shaped, broken up with lines following the folds and wrinkles of a collar. He’d probed them with careful fingertips, then looked at himself, a little tireder, a little more sallow, with the scuff at his right cheekbone where he’d woken up with it pressed to the cobbles.

And a familiar weight gone from his waistcoat pocket. Ezre, he thought, with a guilty ache. Oes, he’d’ve been happy enough to crawl upstairs with his love poetry, to break out the Gioran whisky, to lose himself in more tender memories. Happy enough, if it’d been anything else stolen. There was no amount of ging, no amount of jinga, could’ve convinced him to file a report otherwise. Flooding brigk’d never been worth much.

Especially not with where he’d been, when it’d happened. Not with what he’d been doing.

He still didn’t know if he should’ve. He still couldn’t see through the mist. He didn’t know Constable Inspector Louis-Armand Truart, but he knew the man’s reputation – a blunt instrument. He couldn’t imagine a man like Truart taking a case like this with an eye to detail, or a careful hand. On the one hand, one of Vienda’s Incumbents was not someone to be ignored, especially not the friend of a certain co-captain’s; on the other, Tom knew, as well as anybody, the whispers. He wouldn’t’ve been surprised if Truart wanted to wash his hands of this quick as possible.

And yet he’d still gone to the brigk. There was no doing otherwise. He swallowed thickly, again, and the raw, irritating pain of it sent a thrill of anger through him, brought him down to Vita; he shut his eyes for a few precious moments. He felt it ripple through the clairvoyant mona around him, still tender and strange. There was no asking them what would come of this, but he was achingly glad of them.

He heard voices, boots on carpeting, low underneath the crackle of the fire. Steadying his breath, he opened his eyes.

“Constable – Inspector,” he said haltingly, wincing as he pushed himself up out of his chair.

There was a trick to using Anatole’s voice; in theory, he’d’ve traded it for his old one any ten of the week, but on the whole, it was useful. He’d got used to living in the range of a man who’d spent forty years taking damn good care of his vocal cords, practicing and testing their edges.

It wasn’t any less deep, but it was labored, with a scratchy waver that made him sound, he thought with chagrin, like an old man.

But he pulled himself to his straightest, as if shrugging off the pain in his shoulders, as if shrugging off all of it: he found the shape, in the upright line of his spine and the set of his jaw. He thought he was beginning to understand the strength Anatole must’ve drawn from posture; he thought he was beginning to understand a little of all of it.

He fit a neat, thin smile to his face, and he found he could draw strength from that, too.

And he looked at the first uniform, deep green, heavy winter wool, that Morris brought through to the parlor. “Please, come in,” he said, and bowed deeply himself. The motion rattled something in his head, and he resisted the urge to hold onto the arm of the chair.

When he rose up, there was somebody else in the room, too. He raised his brows and blinked, hesitant, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to parse what he saw where he was seeing it. “Anatole,” he said after a moment, “Vauquelin,” and bowed deeply again. "It’s a pleasure to meet – the both of you."

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 28 Vortas, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Constable Inspector Luix’erman True’art took very long steps. He did not, Nkemi had noticed, have especially long legs, and so he looked a bit silly doing so, like a spider. They were fast, long strides, as if the faster he walked through the streets of Vienda, the faster he would find all of his lower race criminals. Nkemi did not mind, even though she had to walk very quickly to keep up; after a few minutes of the Constable Inspector’s walking Nkemi was very nearly warm.

But only nearly.

The first weeks she had been in Vienda, Nkemi had admired all the trees with their lovely green leaves. Then they had turned; there had been a riot of color, of oranges and reds and yellows. They had settled into those colors, mostly yellow and fading to brown, and now they were falling, strangely brittle, swept into massive piles on the road, with fewer and fewer left on the trees each day. It seemed, Nkemi thought, almost cruel of the wind to tug at them – and her – so, but it was very beautiful. There was, of course, no time to stop and admire such things with Constable Inspector Luix’erman, but Nkemi did her best.

“The best thing the government ever did for the Seventen,” Luix’erman was saying, crisply. He spoke quickly, too, although not as fast as he walked, “was the creation of the residence writ. You wouldn’t’ve liked to know what Vienda was like before then; it was a caoja on every street corner.”

“We have wicks in Thul Ka,” Nkemi said, politely, a little breathless.

Luix’erman went along as if he had not heard her. Nkemi wondered if perhaps he was slightly hard of hearing; he seemed, very often, to have had trouble hearing her, in the last few days in which she had joined him on his rounds. Naturally, though Nkemi was sorry that the Constable Inspector’s partner had come down with a flu, she was glad to experience partnerships with many different sort of Seventen. It was, Nkemi felt, very important to see a range. She could think already of many things she had learned from Constable Inspector Luix’erman True’art.

“312 Willow Avenue,” Luix’erman said. He was checking a notebook as he walked; Nkemi was impressed he could manage it without stumbling. She wondered if he had practiced. He snapped the hard cover shut and tucked it into the breast pocket of his deep green wool coat. He turned, as sharply as he did everything else, and made his way to the front door. He knocked; they waited. There was a little conversation with the human with slicked back dark hair who had opened the door.

“The incumbent,” he had said, “will receive you in the parlor.”

Nkemi had followed Luix’erman following the footman into the large house, down a carpeted hallway.

“This way, sir, madam,” The man bowed them into an open door. Nkemi bowed back with her head, and smiled at him; he did not smile back. Nkemi was not very surprised, by now, after so long in Anaxas.

It was not so cold in the house as it had been outside. Nkemi saw that there was a little fire in the room, which was very pleasing; she had been surprised, at first, by the habit of the Anaxi of keeping so many fires lit, at first. Now she understood; it was very cold in Vienda, all the time. She thought that having a fire was very reasonable, and she was very glad that this Incumbent Vakelin was the sort of reasonable man who had a fire going on such a cold, dark evening.

Nkemi had not enjoyed very much the cold. She was very cold; she wore the big brown coat which had cost so many of her coins, and beneath it, a very thick wool sweater in a pleasing dark red color. She had one scarf for her neck, made of orange wool, for one’s neck grew very cold in the wind even with a sweater and a coat; she had wrapped it around many times, so that there would not be any cold wind against her skin. She had a second scarf for her head, this one a very bright yellow, which kept it from getting cold as well, but she had found it best to tuck it behind her ears, so that she could still hear well. That meant that they – and her nose – grew very cold sometimes, walking outside. Nkemi had not yet figured out how to solve this dilemma. She had had to buy boots as well, and at the advice of some of the Seventen, had bought a very sturdy pair because – soon – she would need to walk in ice and snow, and she did not wish for her feet to get wet. They were very nice; her trousers tucked into the top of them, and they laced up almost like sandals.

“Good evening, Incumbent Vauquelin,” Luix’erman bowed. “Constable-Inspector Louis-Armand Truart, sir. A pleasure to meet you as well; would that it were under better circumstances.” He smiled beneath the curling of his thin red moustache.

“Good evening,” Nkemi said politely. The incumbent had a lot of curly red hair, which Nkemi thought was nice; it was a little longer than most of the Seventen kept theirs. He looked very tired, Nkemi thought; there was a scuff on his cheekbone, and a darkness like a shadow on his throat, beneath the fold of his cravat. She bowed as well, very deeply, and rose. “I am grateful to meet you, Incumbent Vakelin,” she said, her pronunciation very careful. “I am Junior Subprefect Nkemi pezre Nkese, of the Windward Market District in Thul Ka, currently on assignment with the Seventen of Vienda.” It was a long mouthful; Nkemi delivered every word with solemn importance. She thought perhaps Luix’erman did not like to wait for it, but it was not her fault his title was not as long as hers.

“Subprefect Nkese is here as a partnership with the Prefects of Thul Ka,” Luix’erman said. He turned his focus to the incumbent, his eyes sharp. “I understand you had an unsettling experience last night, Incumbent?” Luix’erman asked. He stood upright, very straight; his hands settled behind his back. Nkemi shifted a little closer to the fire, but stood very straight too, and watched the incumbent curiously.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 28th of Vortas, 2719

C
onstable Inspector Truart looked exactly as Tom had imagined him, somehow. Down to the thin, neat-kept mustache above his lip, a coppery curl catching the light from the hearth all comely. Down to the brusque clip of his voice, cantering through pleasantries straight-backed, knuckles white on the reins. Down to the smooth caprise of perceptive mona, the faint, almost-amused twitch of that mustache as they withdrew.

For a dizzy-headed moment after he rose, he wondered if he’d hallucinated the inspector’s companion. The first thing he saw was a flash of yellow; the only lights in the parlor were the hearth and a low phosphor light by the door, and her skin was very dark, and she was very small, and Tom was at eye-level with a swath of bright wool. He blinked.

Swaths. Over top of her heavy brown coat, tucked underneath her chin, was another pile of wool – deep orange, complementing the warm, wavering light. Tom looked up and met her large dark eyes. She had on a fair serious expression. She wasn’t Seventen, not without a green coat, and he doubted she was his assailant –

Junior Subprefect Nkemi pezre Nkese, of the Windward Market District in Thul Ka, currently on assignment with the Seventen in Vienda. A prefect. What did he know about prefects? He glanced from Nkemi to Truart, but all that color drew his eye back.

Brigk’s a brigk. He shifted his weight, took a deep breath, then dipped low in another bow, ignoring the rattling in his head. “I am grateful to have a prefect on my case, ada’na Nkemi,” he said as he rose back up, a little breathless. For what it’s worth.

He hadn’t been sure if there was something else he was supposed to say, for a subprefect of such-and-such-so-and-so. But he caught a flicker of white teeth from Nkemi, a grin as brief as it looked genuine. The sour twist in his chest loosened, just by a fraction. His thin smile went a little crooked, just for a moment. He felt sorry, for just a moment, that he’d made her sound out a lie so careful-like.

A curious ripple ran through his field; he reached out, delicate-like, just enough to brush hers, to test the waters with his tired nerves. He blinked. Belike – the mona knew each other, rightaway; he knew – but something else, too. Static? Warm. Colorful, almost. When he withdrew, he wasn’t sure what to think.

Brigk’s a brigk, he reminded himself.

The constable inspector was speaking again. Tom looked at him. Straight-backed as ever; his arms at his side, his hands – behind his back. Hidden.

An unsettling experience. A wince – and something else, something like anger – spasmed across his face. He felt the nerves flutter; the eyelid twitched, like it hadn’t in some time, and he pressed his fingertips to it. As he lowered his hand, he resisted the urge to pluck at his cravat, as if – in vain – to cover every inch of the bruise.

Last night? Had it only been last night?

He found the smile again; he found it, and he fit it to his face, and it was watery-thin as fresh paint in a rainstorm. He glanced toward the fire, then back toward Truart. “On a walk,” he went on, “late last night, yes. I was… attacked – I was rendered unconscious, briefly. By someone – I didn’t see.” His voice was sharper than he’d meant it to be, sharp and stiff.

It was right, he thought, to play the shaken old man; it was what he had to do. It was what he’d planned on doing. Putting on an act. His throat ached.

He set his jaw and tried not to grind his teeth. “Something important was stolen from me. My pocket-watch.”

He stopped short, hesitating. He felt pinned by Truart’s eyes. He glanced aside at a flicker of movement; the subprefect was shifting her weight underneath all that wool, edging – Tom thought – closer to the hearth.

The parlor was not, in Tom’s opinion, as comfortable as the study. Being honest, that was the point. But it was golly enough, and warmer by far; the servants kept the fire stoked and dancing and humming away, casting thick flickering shadows above the troubled brow of the mantle.

Tom had had the portrait of Anatole’s mother replaced. The light now glinted firefly-orange in a forest of black-lacquered antlers; Naulas perched there on thin, graceful legs, head bowed.

The hearth was far enough from the doors to the atrium, and huddled around it were a handful of Uptown-soft chairs. Tom’d just risen from one. “How rude of me. Please,” and he gestured toward the chairs opposite the end table, “have a seat. Will you take something to drink?”

He glanced over Truart’s shoulder. Morris met his eye and moved out quietly, without so much as a nod. Tom already felt like his head was stuffed with so much cotton, so, without waiting, he levered himself back down into his seat, wincing.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 28 Vortas, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Ada’na Nkemi startled a smile from her; Nkemi felt it flicker across her face like the warmth of the flames. She had worked hard to tame such smiles, and mostly it was not too difficult to feel them in her chest only, and to keep them a secret from her face.

Vakelin had said it well, too; not too hard in the consonants, but softer, easier, as they were said at home. It was an honor to be the daughter of Nkese; Nkemi carried the name with pride and love, fierce and unreserved. To argue with it every day felt as if she were rejecting the name; this, she did not wish to do. It was only that Nkemi wished to bear her mother’s name as it was meant to be born; she wished to hold it beneath her own, beneath and behind, supporting and guiding.

It was a pleasure, this unexpected greeting, and too the soft brush of a belike field, a gentle curious caprise. The incumbent had a soft field, strangely disordered, but there was a pleasant scattering of clairvoyant mona through it, and they rippled through her own - not unpleasant, only strange. Nkemi caprised him in response, gentle and polite, respectful. She thought she had seen a flicker of something on his face, in response to her smile, something behind the tired strain creasing thin lips.

Luix’erman was watching Vakelin from behind pale golden eyes. Nkemi’s gaze flickered to him, briefly, and then back to Vakelin.

“It must have been quite an ordeal,” Luix’erman said. His mustache did not change its shape, even as he spoke. Nkemi did not think he had looked away, even for a moment. “A terrible thing,” he said, quietly, “to happen to one of Vienda’s incumbents.”

Nkemi felt the shiver of the words down her spine. She did not look at Luix’erman again, but only at Vakelin, at the tight set of his face, the faint trembling of his hands.

Mental breakdown, Luix’erman had said, crisply, a long cold walk ago. About a year ago - vanished for some time. A thoroughly disordered field, he had said, with a tinge of something like shame or embarrassment; Nkemi had not quite been able to place it between the clipped, proper tones.

“Nothing for me, thank you,” Luix’erman said, crisply. He inclined his head to Nkemi, gesturing her past him.

Nkemi inclined her head back towards Luix’erman. She went past him, and sat in the chair closest to the fire. ”If it is not too much trouble,” Nkemi said, politely, with a little smile for Vakelin, “I would be grateful for some tea.” Her nose was still very cold; Nkemi felt it would be nice to drink something warm.

Luix’erman sat as well, stiff-backed and upright, his lips pressed together in a faint, disapproving line. It evened out, and he studied Vakelin once more. Nkemi wondered if he thought it was a smile on his face; she would not have called it such.

Was there something he saw that she did not? Luix’erman had been in the Seventen a long time; he had earned three of the snaps they used to measure such things. Nkemi studied Vakelin’s face, curious. A tired old man; ashamed and angry; perhaps afraid. A shadow against the skin of his neck; Did it not make sense? Nkemi watched, then, to make up her own mind; it was as much of a mistake to disagree with him out of stubbornness as it would be to agree.

“... very difficult crimes to solve,” Luix’erman said, his eyes sharp and his tone soft, soothing. “Any detail you can recall would be most helpful.” He reached into the small pocket on the front of the coat, and eased out the slim notebook with the crisp cover. He licked one fingertip, lightly, and flipped it open; he settled it against the arm of the chair, a small pencil in his fingers, the tip resting against the page.

“Where were you?” Luix’erman asked, his gaze settled solidly on Vakelin. “When the attack happened?”

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 28th of Vortas, 2719

N
o trouble,” he’d said with another small, genuine smile, as he’d watched the prefect settle in the chair closest the fire.

Constable Inspector Truart was speaking. If his soft, careful voice reminded Tom of the way a man might talk to a frightened boch, he let the anger, the shame, feed the mask he wore; he wore it well. His lip twitched at difficult crimes to solve. The hearth limned Truart’s face, caught the sharpness of his cheekbone, made one iris a riot of gold. Tom looked into that eye steadily.

Tom sat across the small table and Listened. He listened as he knew how; he listened as he’d learned to.

His hands trembled in his lap, and he didn’t try to stop them. Occasionally, he pressed one with the other; they were cold, and the joints ached, and the shaking made them hurt worse. He kept his back straight, an aching line. He didn’t try to suppress the faint tug of his lip, the tightening of the lines in his face, at each twinge or spasm in his lower back. He kept his jaw set, proud, brittle.

The question didn’t catch him by surprise, any more than the sharpness of Truart’s eyes. He had planned for one and for the other; the only thing he hadn’t planned for, here, was a prefect of Thul Ka.

There was no telling what that unexpected would bring, and so he didn’t try to read the future. Nor, he thought — ada’na in the corner of his eye, the warm light picking out the serious expression on her young face — nor had he planned on lying. He knew, at least, that this question would come first, and he knew there was no way around it, not if he expected the brigk to be any help at all.

He nodded, but frowned deeply, his brow furrowed. He did not look at the hand that held the pencil, or the pad. “I appreciate the Seventen’s discretion,” he began carefully. Discretion, he said, with the weight of you and I both know. Of, with my recent troubles. “As I am sure you read in the report, I was, at the time of the attack, in the Dives—”

He broke off. At that moment, the door to the hall opened, and in wafted the bitter smell of black tea, with a tinge of fragrant lavender. A tall, tired-looking nattle — one of the maids; Margaret, Tom had learned her name, with a wistful sort of fondness — came in carrying a silver tray, rattling heavy-laden and giving off plumes of steam. Morris, silent as ever, took up a position by the door.

She set the tray down on the small table between them, glancing curiously at the prefect, then nervously at Truart’s green uniform, at the monite scrawled on his sash. Tom smiled at her, but he didn’t think it did much. He remembered what that sash had looked like to him, Before. He didn’t think too hard on it; he didn’t look at Margaret.

Morris knew the man living in his master’s house well enough, these days. Tom hadn’t said a word, but along with the tea, there was a small decanter of Gioran whisky. After Margaret poured a steaming cup for ada’na Nkemi, she curtsied neatly to each galdor and left; and Tom, flashing a sheepish twitch of a smile between the brigk, poured himself a glass of whisky neat.

Same as he hadn’t tried to suppress the shaking, he didn’t try to keep the neck of the decanter from rattling against the lip of the tumbler. Didn’t try — couldn’t. He didn’t know which. “I hope you don’t mind,” he rasped, “but I am not on duty, and it has been… a somewhat nerve-wracking day.”

He took a drink right away, swallowing it with a wince; the alcohol burned his chapped lips.

But the burn all along his throat steadied his nerves, and the familiar botanical bitterness of the apah was achingly welcome. He cleared his throat, his eyes shut, his brow furrowed.

He opened his eyes. This smile wasn’t thin or polite; it was a twist, a curl of his lip. “I can’t remember exactly where,” he said, honestly. He sat back with his glass; the amber liquid rippled, nearly jumped over the rim. The light from the hearth caught the cut glass. “Near the Painted Ladies, on the side closest to the Soot District.” Near Soliloquy Lane, he didn’t say. “I got — turned around. I don’t remember the immediate before, and after…”

Ice-cold, wet stone. Something broken digging into his cheekbone; a sharp pain in his head, Vita tilting as he’d tried to move it, his fingers numb, scrabbling at the mud. A tangle of wet coat underneath him. The street smeared in his bleary eyes, his weight unsteady on his feet. A wince spasmed across his face.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, looking into the hearth. “I remember walking, and the first sign I could read was the corner of Barton and Caldwell. That’s all I can tell you.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 28 Vortas, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

The thin, pale hands in Incumbent Vakelin’s lap were still shaking, even now as they sat. Nkemi watched them, wide-eyed. Luix’erman had settled the pencil against the page with a tiny little scratch of sound; the logs in the fire cracked and popped. Nkemi did not say anything; she had settled into place in the chair, and she did not even shift, not even to make the faint soft sounds of wool against upholstery.

The Dives, Incumbent Vakelin said, carefully, seriously, with a heaviness to the first letter, a solemn Anaxi emphasis. There was a faint twitch of the expression around Luix’erman’s lips, a slight furrowing of his brow; he leaned forward, only a very tiny bit.

The door opened.

Luix’erman sat back. Nkemi looked up at the maid, slightly wide-eyed. She let out the tiniest of sighs as the hot tea steamed into the cup. "Thank you," Nkemi breathed, solemn gaze washing from the maid over to the incumbent. She picked the cup up, eagerly, cuddling it between her hands. She lifted it to her face, and breathed in the steam. It tingled through the end of her nose, and washed, warm, over her face.

The smell was very strong, the way the Anaxi liked it. Nkemi, like any good Mugrobi, took her kofi without any milk or sugar. Tea, of course, did not have the nice rich flavor of kofi; it was very bitter, without the same depth to balance it. Nkemi took a tiny sip from the cup, tasting it, for she had not quite yet learned to predict how bitter the tea would be from the smell alone. Across the small set of chairs, Incumbent Vakelin’s hand was rattling a glass decanter against the lip of his glass. Luix’erman’s lip curled and smoothed out.

Nkemi set her cup of tea back down, and reached for the tongs. She dropped one small lump of sugar into her tea, very carefully; she took a little wedge of lemon in her fingers, and squeezed it in. She stirred it, with a light, delicate touch; the spoon did not come close to the edges of the cup, circling through the middle of the dark liquid instead. Incumbent Vakelin’s throat sounded very sore; he closed his eyes. Nkemi thought perhaps he did not want to watch Luix’erman watching him take a drink.

“Of course,” Luix’erman had murmured, generous. His lip had curled again. This one looked more like a smile, but Nkemi did not think it was one meant to be shared with Incumbent Vakelin.

Nkemi eased back, and cradled the cup close. She took a quiet little sip from the edge of it, with only the faintest tiny slurping sound; it was very hard to drink from the broad Anaxi cups without slurping the littlest bit.

After, Incumbent Vakelin said, as he continued. It went over his face. Nkemi knew something of afters; she saw it written across him. After. He was looking away, into the fire; the light caught the thin panes of his sharp features, and wrote its own story across them.

“Barton and Caldwell,” Luix’erman said. There was a quiet scratch of pen on paper, the Constable Inspector making his first notes on the case, carefully writing down the intersection.

Nkemi liked maps. She had studied one of Vienda; she had wanted to know all the places. It was funny to look at the map – she had thought it would be bigger. One could set down a map of Vienda next to Thul Ka, and almost – almost! – think the cities were of a size. Almost. The reality had been very much smaller than she had imagined. If she thought of the map, she could nestle in the Painted Ladies with its pretty colorful houses next to the Soot District, damp and gray with many factories and their smoke. Barton and Caldwell; Nkemi fixed the names in her mind, looking curiously at Vakelin.

“Quite a dangerous area,” Luix’erman said, glancing back up at Vakelin. Nkemi did not think he fooled Vakelin any more than he fooled her, but she watched all the same. “What was it you said you were doing there, Incumbent? I believe it was,” he flipped back a single page, crisply, “somewhere in the ninth house?” Delicate red eyebrows raised, slowly.

Nkemi looked back at the trembling old man on the chair opposite them, with the thin field of clairvoyant mona hugging him close. She tried to see him as Luix’erman did; she tried to find what it was he thought he saw. A man could walk for many reasons, even on a moonless night.

“It must have been very cold,” Nkemi offered, her eyes lingering on the scrape on the incumbent’s cheek, the flames licking it into sight. She thought of how he might have gotten it; if he had been hit, there would have been a bruise. She thought of Incumbent Vakelin lying face down on the cold ground. After, he had said; he remembered walking. She took another tiny sip of her tea, just barely slurping at the edge of it.

Luix’erman’s face twitched; he smiled, grimly, through it. “Yes,” he said. “I should think - an unpleasant night, to be out so late."

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 28th of Vortas, 2719

T
om did not much like it, the taking of notes. He could see Truart in the corner of his eye, scratching that pencil against that godsdamn pad; he heard the parrot murmur, Barton and Caldwell, and he didn’t try to hide the irritated flinch. His lips pressed thinner at the hiss of Truart’s fingertips on the paper, the crisp crackle of a page back.

It was well enough to let that much show. Nobody liked it when a brigk took notes. Nobody liked the pressure, the not-knowing. Tom didn’t think there was a man or wick or golly who, in his place, wouldn’t’ve wanted to snatch that pad out of Truart’s hands and at least look at the pages. Tom didn’t think there was a man or wick or golly who felt completely safe in the presence of a brigk with a pencil.

But he felt the same way, often enough, when Shrikeweed — or one of his staff — took the minutes of a meeting. There was something laoso frightening about knowing your words were being set in ink. Words weren’t meant to be trapped, so; a trapped word could be stripped of its time and place and bent to another purpose, later, in different hands.

Nothing like a pencil and a pad to remind a man to be careful what came out of his mouth.

He was chewing on Truart’s question when, finally, the prefect’s voice drew his eye away from the fire. He watched her take a first sip quietly through a drift of fragrant steam. A small furrow in his brow deepened.

He didn’t look at Truart, when the inspector spoke again, on the line of patronizing and suspicious. He looked down at the tea tray. His eyes came to rest on a squeezed slice of lemon, glistening yellow, curled on its side like a pill bug around its mangled pulp. The small delicate tongs, left neatly beside the bowl of sugar.

He felt a flare of anger. I’ve seen worse, ada’na, he got the urge to snap. I’ve spent nights in the cold before. Something about the way her eyes lingered on the scuff on his cheek pried into him; it hurt.

It just meant she was falling for it, even if Truart wasn’t. He looked back up at ada’na Nkemi, cradling her steaming cup close, as if to absorb all its warmth. He met her large dark eyes, speckled with warm reflected light.

He offered her a sad, grateful smile. “And wet,” he added softly, glancing over at Truart’s grim, paper-thin one. Frowning, he took another drink and a deep breath, then rested the tumbler between his knees.

His fingertips trembled on the rim. “The ninth house, yes. The last time I checked the time, it was half past the twenty-third hour,” he rasped. Just before the rendezvous at Bartleby’s. “The… attack — must’ve been an hour later, maybe two. It was well into the morning when I found my way back Uptown, but I don’t think I was out for more than a few minutes.”

He licked his lips and looked back toward the fire. He watched the flames lick over the logs, breaking twigs, shedding glowing flecks of ash. A stick snapped, and he jumped involuntarily. He took a long drink.

He pictured Truart’s notebook in the fire, one page at a time. He imagined how the fire’d turn them black and make them crumple in on themselves, curled round their pulp like pill bugs.

“I take walks in the Dives, Constable Inspector. At night,” he added, looking back at Truart, meeting the spark of a gold eye. “I frequent a number of public houses there. It’s not easy for one of Vienda’s councilmen to have a quiet drink Uptown, or a quiet walk, or a quiet anything. Especially these days.”

He looked between the brigk, jaw set, as if daring either of them to argue.

“I was at a place called Bartleby’s, between the Painted Ladies and the Soot District. When I left, my path took me through a few neighborhoods, and eventually through — Soliloquy. It must’ve been around there I was attacked.”

He took another long drink of whisky, draining the glass. “My walks sometimes take me on strange paths, of late,” he added apologetically, clearing his throat.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 28 Vortas, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Vakelin had looked down when Nkemi spoke to him. He had not tried to say anything about it before Luix’erman, only looked at the tea tray with its things – or perhaps, Nkemi thought, maybe, at the small decanter which still had some alcohol in it. Nkemi was watching him; she did not know what to make of the look on his face.

When he looked back up it was at her. And wet, he said, softly, a little sadly, a little smile on his lips, the light catching tired gray eyes. Nkemi nodded, very slightly, meeting his gaze. Yes, she thought, feeling a faint prickle of unease. She was sure it must have been wet as well.

Luix’erman was watching Vakelin as well. Somewhere in the twenty fourth or fifth hour, Nkemi thought. It was very dark in Vienda by such times; Vakelin must have been very far from home. A stick snapped in the fire, and he jumped; Nkemi’s hands tightened a little on the cup, and then relaxed. Luix’erman did not move, except for the faintest curling twitch at the edge of his mustache.

“Bartleby’s,” Luix’erman murmured, low, half-voiced, beneath Vakelin’s voice. It was a little stronger than it had been, after the drink, a little less wavering, even if his throat still had a rough, hoarse sound. The quiet scratch of pen against paper drifted beneath the conversation. He paused mid-word, and looked up, eyebrows raised, at the mention of Soliloquy.

Nkemi looked too. Soliloquy she could place on the map; she remembered the shape of it, the small square in the center. A park, someone had told her, amused by the thought of it; she could picture a pale finger tapping lightly against the yellowed paper.

Vakelin had finished his glass, all the pale liquid which had glinted in the firelight now gone. His jaw had been very tight, again, squaring his face, but it had loosened a little now. Nkemi took another tiny sip of her tea; it did not taste so bad, with the sugar and the lemon, and it warmed her from the inside too, this way. It was nice by the fire; she felt like a glass of cold sherbet with small beads running down the side of it at the brush of the heat outside.

“We do our best to keep Vienda safe,” Luix’erman said, firmly, just a little sharply, “but with resources being what they are, incumbent – you understand. We cannot keep a pair of constables on every street corner even in Uptown, much less in Soliloquy.” There was a beat of silence; the pencil scratched lightly through the end of the word, the b and the y with its long tail glinting on the page.

“Unfortunately,” Luix’erman continued, “there are too many in this city with no respect for decency.” The firelight glinted in his eyes. “Naturally, we will try to find your watch, but I must warn you that these criminals have a low cunning to them, an animal sort of instinct. An ounce of prevention,” he said, firmly, “is worth a pound of cure.”

Nkemi took another tiny sip of her tea. She watched Vakelin, curiously, still; she did not need to look at Luix’erman to picture how his face would be. She could hear him drawing himself up, taking a deep breath to continue. She wondered what he would suggest – an escort, perhaps? A carriage? A quiet drink with a bodyguard sat nearby, and a large carriage waiting outside on the streets of the Dives, wheels sitting on uneven cobblestones.

“What is the watch like?” Nkemi asked, instead. She set the cup down, slowly, with a reluctant little clatter; she curled her hands together into her lap. It must be very important to you, she thought. I think you are ashamed, as much as afraid, as much as angry. I think you do not want us here, not really. I don’t know why you wanted me to feel sorry for you, just now.

Luix’erman grimaced, faintly, but he adjusted the tip of his pencil, watching Vakelin. It is not a game, Nkemi wished to say. What is it you want, here, Constable Inspector?

“Yes,” Luix’erman said, crisply, accepting the change in subject. “Any inscriptions? Initials or the like?”

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 28th of Vortas, 2719

T
om watched Truart's face intently.

If you could keep a pair of constables on the corner of Soliloquy, he thought, we’d have to meet in an even worse shithole.

It was well to let some of that anger through; an incumbent was not to be spoken to like an errant boch, or an old fool. An ounce of prevention, pronounced the inspector, and Tom ran his thumb round the rim of his glass. A muscle jumped in his cheek, and he let his teeth grind for just a moment, before he caught himself – and looked away, toward the fire.

He could still see the vague shape of Truart’s face, the long pane of his pale cheek, the coppery hairs above his lip. A low cunning; an animal sort of instinct.

Something about it, he couldn’t’ve said what, reminded him of Captain Giordanetto, pouring out stories over cold cuts and cheese – stories about the natives in the Gioran mountains. Up round Dolosgonne, when a malfunction had forced him to land on the far side, where galdori never went. Like animals, Tom remembered, hazily. Affectionate one moment, violent the next. Not too bright, but sometimes, their cunning takes a man by surprise –

You suspect something, but what? he wondered. What’s in this for you? Tom didn’t have to look to imagine the way his lip twitched underneath that neat mustache.

His mouth was dry, and the empty glass in his hand ached like it was a part of him. It was too soon to pour another glass; he might get away with it in a few minutes, three, two, a minute – it wouldn’t hurt his case, a shaken politician eager to settle his nerves, but the incumbent drank with restraint.

This was a delicate balance, he thought: play the role too well, and there was no reason for either of them to be invested. Some pina manna suspicion might find him his scrystone.

A delicate slurp. Ada’na Nkemi took another sip of her tea. He found he couldn’t read her face in the corner of his eye. He felt her eyes on him, quiet and watchful.

Tom heard the creak of a leather chair. Truart was shifting in his ramrod posture; he was about to speak again. Tom shut his eyes, and to his surprise, it was the prefect’s voice he heard, soft under the crackle of the fire. When he heard the click of porcelain, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

He didn’t look at Truart when he spoke, not rightaway. “It’s silver. Small. No inscriptions, I’m afraid,” he said, “but it’s embossed with a stag’s skull.” Glancing from the prefect to the Seventen, he shifted in his seat, then raised a shaky hand to indicate the figure on the mantle. “The antlers match the constellation of Naulas,” he rasped, lowering his hand.

The wavering light cast spider’s-leg shadows of them across the wall behind, stretched disproportionate and strange.

He smiled at the prefect; it was the same tired, grateful smile he’d given hear earlier. Thank you, ada’na. It’s good to know somebody cares. Being honest, he was relieved; he’d expected to have to cajole Truart into even asking about the watch.

Clearing his throat and wincing, he reached into his jacket, finding the inside pocket. He took out a delicate length of chain; the silver caught the light from the fire as he extended it toward ada’na Nkemi. The clasp nestled in his palm was in the shape of an antler. “Whoever stole it left the fob. And my wallet, too,” he added, with a wry twist of a smile.

As he leaned forward, he felt the brush of clairvoyant mona again at the edges of his field. He looked at her curiously; he couldn’t keep all of it off his face. Why, he wanted to ask, sharply, did you ask? I don’t think the Constable Inspector was going to. What's in this for you?

Looking into that young, thoughtful face, all nestled in bright-colored wool, he wondered, for the first time – what do you want?

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 28 Vortas, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Vakelin had closed his eyes. Nkemi did not think he had much cared for Luix’erman speaking to him as if he was a silly child, or a foolish elder. Or a man, Nkemi thought, facing it directly, who has lost his wits, and wanders in the canyons of his minds rather than the streets of the world, a man who needs to be taken by the hand and led to safety, for he can no longer judge it for himself. Whatever Luix’erman thought of Vakelin’s field, Nkemi could read it well.

Vakelin met her eye when her spoke. A small, silver watch, without inscriptions. Nkemi listened, intently, fixing the details in her mind. It sounded as if it would be possible to trace; she was no guardsman, but she knew something of where one would go to buy or sell such things in Thul Ka, at least some of the markets. Any prefect who worked in Windward Market knew something of such things. Her eyes widened only very slightly at the mention of a stag’s skull; she looked up to the black-lacquered antlers on the mantle, glistening colorful in the firelight. She looked back at Vakelin.

Vakelin smiled at her, then; Nkemi smiled back.

He extended the watch fob in his hand; it trembled slightly in his grasp, jumping just a little, just enough to make the firelight over the silver. Nkemi leaned forward as well; she felt his field jangle softly at the edges of hers, belike clairvoyant mona meeting belike clairvoyant mona. She took the silver chain in small fingers, carefully, and settled it over her other hand, studying it. It was elegant, finely wrought.

It looked, Nkemi thought with the tiniest of frowns on her forehead, rather new. She was not an expert in watches; perhaps it would look the same if it was old and simply very well-kept. But she would have expected some differences between the delicate little links, some wear in the places where it would have bent and rubbed against itself. She examined the little clasp as well, the delicate antler.

Why leave the fob? Nkemi wondered. She traced her fingertips over the antler, carefully; she could imagine the same shape embossed on the outside of a silver watch fob. She checked, too, the last chain on the link, to see whether it had been unhooked or ripped cruelly away, to see if she could tell. Why leave the wallet? A hurried thief, quick in the night, who searches a man’s pocket for his watch but does not bother to find his wallet? Vakelin was watching her; Nkemi looked up, and smiled at him again. There was something else in his face, she thought, alongside the tiredness, and the aches. Was it only the fondness of an old man for a young girl? In Mugroba, Nkemi might have said perhaps so; she did not know, here in Anaxas, how such things were.

“The thief left your wallet?” Luix’erman asked, his eyebrows lifting. He was sitting stiffly on the seat of his chair; a muscle jumped in his jaw, before he relaxed it. He was looking at Vakelin, and looking at Nkemi too. Nkemi smiled at him as well, for good measure. He did not smile back, but then, she had not expected him to; Luix’erman did not give many of the sort of smiles that Nkemi liked. She did not think, really, that she wanted to be on the receiving end of the smiles that he seemed to be able to offer; she preferred a solemn face.

“That might be significant,” Luix’erman said, inclining his head. “You said you had last checked the time an hour, perhaps two before.” He shifted in the chair, wool rasping on upholstery. “Where were you then? Perhaps the thief saw you. It is, naturally, uncomfortable to think too much about, but such deviants will often follow a man with something that attracts their attention, waiting for a more suitable time.”

Nkemi leaned forward again, and tucked the long silver chain back into Vakelin’s hand with a little smile. She thought he would want to keep it close, if the watch had meant so much to him. She wondered.