[Closed] For Every Shadow a Source of Light

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
his work was familiar enough, even if the place, and the company, were beyond strange. For a long time it was quiet; there was nothing but the work. The whisk, whisk, whisk of the coarse broom ada’na had found against the rough floorboards. The cool, wet rag in his hand, wiping away the dust and muck in one bowl at a time, making the smooth wood gleam dark. The sounds and smells that drifted in from the kitchen and elsewhere.

Tom knew what it was he was about to do. It wasn’t a porven anymore, but he knew his field; he knew its tenuous, feather-light wildness, like the first full breaths after sobbing. He knew Nkemi understood some of what she might be getting herself into, and the steadfast warmth of her caprise was reassuring. Whatever she thought It was, it hung between them unspoken.

And Tom was content. He grew steadier with each moment, cleaning up and preparing together in the quiet, dark, cluttered storage room. He was used to this ritual being solitary; he’d only ever cast with Ezre, and never like this.

It was a comfortable unfamiliarity, and one to which he found himself acclimating quickly and warmly.

Tom might’ve liked to wash the floors, but not with this water, and there wasn’t enough time. As he turned and surveyed the floor, he thought it’d have to do. Detta’d given them half a house, which was barely enough time to cast, much less learn a whole spell.

Nkemi must’ve known, too, what she was asking of him; he hoped he was up to it. They crouched together in the dark, and every chalk mark ada’na made was luminous against it. Sucking at a tooth and frowning, one fist braced against the floor, he studied her map. He let the words sink in. When he looked back up, ada’na Nkemi was grinning at him again, and there was a spot of white chalk on the tip of her nose.

He grinned back. In spite of his aching hip, he got to his feet at the same time, in the same motion, as she did. He held onto the composure he’d earned with the quiet synchronicity of their cleaning; he held the chalk the prefect had given him in a steady hand.

But that was only the first step.

Drawing a plot was like speaking monite – like fighting a kov – there was a whole hell of a lot to keep track of, and second-guessing yourself would lead to broken, shaky lines. There was more to keep track of, now. He let himself feel the uncertainty as he stood with Nkemi, washing through him like cold water.

The outermost strokes were broad. He watched her move among the hanging herbs, stirring them with her passage. The oil lamp cast her shadow long and thin on the walls, on the floor, and played in the shifting folds of her sweater. It glanced over her her face, set with concentration. It glinted in her eyes, there and then gone, echoed more warm colors than he could name in her dark skin.

The shape and expression on her face changed with each motion; all the shadows played. He shadowed her, never more than a few seconds after she drew a line.

Broad, wide-armed strokes; curves like the necks of the birds that used to settle over the Drought. She pushed, he pushed; she pulled, and tilted, and he followed. The motions got more complex: a swirl here, an intersecting line there. They folded over, began detailing the pale white draft they’d made on either side.

Tom couldn’t’ve known how to fight with this body. The weight, the reach, was all wrong; the momentum would’ve carried him too far, not far enough. He would’ve pushed back against unfamiliar pains.

But he trusted these hands, this thin, aching body, for this qalqa. The flick of his wrist, of his long-fingered, lined hand, looked - felt - at home; he knew the way his shoulder would ache as he leaned to draw a line.

Unthinking, he felt graceful.

The rough floor proved hard for some of the more intricate linework. He didn’t think whether the lines opposite ada’na’s were exact. He looked at her more than he looked at the lines; it was her he followed. It was her he’d cast with.

It wasn’t just her motions he echoed. While they drew, she coached him best she could without invoking. Tom knew one half of the spell well enough; ley channels weren’t, on the whole, too different to make, once you had your witness.

But Nkemi had to explain to him how to offer his bruises to the mona as a thing which’d been made by the witness’ hands, and the pitfalls of diction and syntax and interpretation that a sorcerer could fall into.

All the other sounds melted away. They creaked on the floorboards; the chalk scraped quietly. Two soft voices, one high, the other very deep, laced with pauses.

Then, silence, as they took their places opposite each other in the middle of the sprawling oval of symmetrical patterns. Tom kept the line of the water even as he set the bowl on the floor; his hands were fair steady, and it barely rippled, much less sloshed or spilt.

By now, he took deep, even breaths. He sat very straight, despite the faint pain in his lower back, and set his jaw. He loosened his necktie, then, and took it off, and opened his collar, carefully undoing the first two buttons. The chill air stung the bruises, but he didn’t wince; a muscle twitched in his cheek, but he showed nothing else of the pain.

He let himself feel it, because he would bring that to the mona, too, when he asked them. It was no small part of what the witness had made.

Across from him, ada’na sat with her back to the lamp. Her face was in shadow, but the light streamed in around her, stippling the edges of her hair.

He readied himself. Their fields had mingled deeply, comfortably, since the start of the drafting. He shut his eyes, but he reached out with his hand, laying it palm-up on the floor beside the bowls, midway between.

He smiled softly into the dark.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Storeroom in a Tsat Hole-in-the-Wall, Soot District

Nkemi knelt into the circle, the bowl of water cradled in her hands. She eased it carefully onto the floor and sat cross-legged behind it. The lamplight pooled from behind her; it cast the impression of her shadow forward and licked along the smooth white lines of chalk so carefully traced into the floor. She felt Vakelin’s field mingling warm with hers; she thought she could feel him, and perhaps the room, shudder with a deep breath.

He set his hand onto the floor between them and closed his eyes. Nkemi looked down at it, at the veins and the freckles and the little tufts of dark hair. She mirrored him, folding over the center line as she had before. Her hand crept forward too, and small dark fingers tangled with his, both of them dusted white with chalk. Nkemi breathed deeply as well, and it was she who shivered, this time, her eyes fluttering shut. Vakelin’s hand was warm and dry against hers, and easy to hold.

They began, then, to cast. Their voices twined together, Nkemi’s high and Vakelin’s low, proceeding through the invocation. Nkemi felt the clairvoyant mona all around them shift, slowly, softening etheric. She relaxed into the spell, continuing the cast; they announced, together, their intention to open the ley channel. Vakelin’s voice went with hers, steady and deep; not every word matched, and sometimes he was faster than her, and other times slower. But they both went on, deeper into the spell, and their fields twined together, flowing through the room.

The spell shifted, then, describing the witness to the mona. Nkemi let the rightness of the search fill her voice and her heart; she came to the mona, intent and eager, and told them of the bruises on Vakelin’s throat, and asked them to find the hands which had made them, and show them that mind. Vakelin’s voice followed hers through the words, steady, more sure than she might have expected. They sank deeper, together, into the spell; Nkemi did not let go of Vakelin’s hand.

Back to the ley channel, then, the espial. Nkemi opened herself, waiting, her mind empty of all thoughts but the words on her lips; she felt it, that feeling like a tug in her mind, that told her she had connected. The mona all around them pressed down on her, laying heavy over her and Vakelin like a blanket; Nkemi felt the weight of it all through her. For a moment – for just a moment – she did not know if she could bear it.

She did not brail.

Nkemi pushed through the spell; if her voice trembled, it was clear enough. Her eyes opened to see Vakelin gazing at her, his lips moving steadily. She looked down at the bowl, holding in the silence before the amandation, and waited. The mona were carrying her now; Nkemi could scarcely feel the hard wood beneath her. Only the touch of Vakelin’s fingers remained, wound tight within her own.

She saw.

Images spilled out into the bowl before her, blooming bright color. There were tousled red curls, shot through with silver, and beneath them a familiar face, with large gray eyes. Nkemi watched Vakelin’s lips move in the water before her; the water shifted, and blurred, and there was a book – a grimoire, Nkemi knew without knowing how – on a wooden counter before her. It drifted away into smoke, trailing off into the air. Two faces, then, not one; the second was not Vakelin’s, but some other man, younger, with bright red brows and a crooked sneer twisting large, soft lips.

They were moving, then; she was high above, watching Vakelin’s bright hair emerge from a door, and ease out onto the street. A dark shadow moved behind him, all dark, a shadow wrapped in a shadow that trickled down the street behind him. Nkemi watched them like a map, tracing them from Soliloquy into the alleys, deeper and deeper. Her breath caught in her throat; she did not speak. To speak would be to break the spell, but she wanted to cry out – to warn him –

She knew the alley before he reached it. The small red-headed figure paused; the larger was on him, then. One strong arm wrapped around his neck; muscles flexed against the jaw and throat. A big, blunt-fingered hand, traced with scars, was clenched tight in a fist at the end of it. Nkemi saw him, then, clear – long dark hair pulled back in a braid, with a few loose strands dangling free, and a thick dark beard that wrapped from his ears down. His jaw was clenched, and his dark eyes gleamed in the shadow.

Vakelin’s face was clenched too. He struggled; he fought. Next to the other man, the human, he was very small; thin pale fingers scratched at the heavy arm wrapped around his neck, but they were helpless to shift it. He jerked; his eyes fluttered. Nkemi felt her throat closing; she felt the pressure, tight, against her skin. Her hand tightened against Vakelin’s; she did not cry out.

The man let him fall, let him drop to the filthy, wet floor of the alley, his cheek scraping against it. He stood over Vakelin; he knelt, and rifled through his coat, and came away with a silver watch. He rose and took a step away; he glanced back. Light caught his face; it shimmered over silvery scars etched into his skin, carving lines through even his lip. He turned again, and he left.

There was a distant flicker of movement at the other end of the alley, nestled in the dark; Nkemi watched, not understanding. There was a shimmer of dark curls, like someone turning around; she caught the faintest glimpse of a face like a mask, unyielding, and then it was gone.

Nkemi croaked through the amandation; there was a pause when she began, but she heard, then, Vakelin’s low, deep voice joining hers. Her eyes shut again, tightly; there were tears trickling down her cheeks. Her head throbbed, as if she, too, had slumped to the cobblestones.

Nkemi felt the spell end; she shuddered. She drew her hand back from Vakelin’s, hunched forward; she unwound the scarf from her throat with shaking hands, slow and careful, dropping it into her lap. She touched her fingers to the bruises beneath; she understood, without needing to see them, what the mona had offered her for all her mirroring.

Nkemi shuddered a little more, a stifled whimper aching through her throat. She wiped at the dampness on her cheeks; she sniffled, and, slowly, she opened her eyes.

Rolls

Nkemi's cast: SidekickBOTToday at 6:59 AM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4
Tom's cast: SidekickBOTToday at 6:58 AM
@Graf: 1d6 = (1) = 1

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

S
he took his hand and held it steady.

He couldn’t’ve said why that made it easier. It was like the last piece slid into a puzzle, or the last, the smallest – but not the least significant – line in a plot; the one that connected one end to the other, made whole what was broken. Perhaps he was still enough of a human to need something more than the mingling of fields.

When Nkemi’s soft voice rose to offer up the invocation, he was expecting it.

The Monite spilled out of him naturally on the heels of hers. Most of the invocation he knew by rote. Her pronunciation was softer than his, more fluid; sometimes the Monite rose and fell like Mugrobi Estuan. Underneath it, he dropped words one by one into the water, sinking on the weight of their consonants.

Sometimes, the drawl of a vowel lined up in a sort of strange harmony. He caught the updraft of her voice and held his aloft.

As they moved into the request, the rhythm was not so even. Once or twice, he paused to listen and then borrow her choice of words; sometimes, he paused to defer. She used many words he didn’t know, and he followed only some of them, pronouncing each carefully, turning over the context and trying to write them on his heart. He hoped it was enough.

Now they were in the meat of the spell, she used many words he didn’t know and couldn’t follow, and empty pronunciation would not have been enough. Her hand was warm in his, warmer than it’d been when he took it. He held onto it tightly even as their casting diverged, even as the feeling of reaching in the dark grew stronger and stronger.

There was no connection. It was as if the mona were waiting for something more, something specific, something he couldn’t give them. The antecedent was too vague to identify the proform.

He could feel the clairvoyant mona all around them, warm and etheric. The air felt lighter and thinner and heavier, somehow, all at once. Not full of air; full of something different, something stronger and stranger, pressing in.

You couldn’t breathe this. He was afraid he’d run out of breath for the words. His throat throbbed, the bruises on fire. His voice came out thinner and raspier, but he didn’t brail. His voice quickened, got louder, tumbling out over hers. He gave his pain to the mona; no living conversationalist, he identified it in the only terms he could. He asked the question again, and again, repeating the clause.

All the hairs on his arms stood up, tickling. There was a confusion of sensations, but he knew at once a connection had been made; he just didn’t think it was two-way. A weight settled gently on his mind. But he hadn’t cleared a vestibule –

There was no time, and to tell her would be to brail. He kept chanting, but he opened his eyes. Through the glass, the light from the oil lamp was stretched and watery on the walls and the floor. The thinner air made it brighter, like the sun in winter. His eyes pricked with tears. He felt as if they were underwater.

It was hard to see Nkemi’s expression in the shadows; she looked solemn. Her eyes were in shadow, and he couldn’t tell what she was looking at. He glanced down at the dark, chalk-stained fingertips interlocked with his.

He glanced down at her bowl, seeing flickers of movement and color. The vision wasn’t for him, he knew. He looked abruptly away, down at his own bowl, and hoped.

Nkemi’s shadow spilled over the water, turning it dark and opaque. The lamplight washed over his face, and the reflection in the water was crisp and bright. It sparked copper-red in a halo of curls. He glanced from one pale grey eye to the other. The lips were moving, and Anatole was asking a question of the mona; Tom could hear his voice.

He was asking who had done this to him.

Tom thought he could see something stirring in the shadows behind him. A blurry hint of a soft, pale face. He was curious rather than afraid.

There was a streak of dark running from his nose to his mouth, and he tasted something sweet. Then: tap, and a cloud of something dispersed in the water like smoke.

And the pressure on his mind was gone, and he realized he’d made no ley channel himself. The blood rushing in his ears was almost too loud to hear; he felt, rather than heard, the rumble of his voice. But slowly, he became aware of Nkemi sliding into the amandation, and he followed suit, though he kept his eyes on the face in the bowl.

When the spell curled, Tom had to shut his eyes. Nkemi’s hand slipped out of his, but he couldn’t know why. He wasn’t aware of anything except the sound of a man’s breath, ragged and shuddering. He cupped his face with his hands, and the shape of it under his fingertips made a lump rise up in his throat. There was no swallowing it, this time. His breath hitched, and a few tears spilled out. He wiped blood from his nose, smearing it.

Finally, after a few moments, he looked up. Worry flooded through him. Nkemi’s scarf was in her lap, and her hands were at her throat. He thought he could see a darker shape underneath her fingertips. “That’s not,” he whispered, swallowing thickly, touching his own bruises. “That’s not – possible…”

She was wiping away tears. He made no effort to wipe away his; he couldn’t. His stomach churned and flipped.

“Ada’na,” he said hoarsely. “I am sorry.” It was my failure, he couldn’t bring himself to say. He unfolded his legs and tried to push himself up on a shaky hand, but he couldn’t. “I saw nothing,” he whispered, and his breath hitched again.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Storeroom in a Tsat Hole-in-the-Wall, Soot District

Vakelin’s hand lifted to his throat, touching the bruises there. Nkemi lowered her hand; his slid away too. She took another deep breath, careful, shaking.

It was hard to breathe; it was so hard to breathe. Nkemi stared across the room at Vakelin, and she could not put aside what she had seen, the tightening of his face – the way the skin of his cheeks had reddened even in the pale light, the bulging of his large gray eyes. She had wiped her eyes clean but the tears welled up again, and Nkemi sniffled once more, trembling.

There was a dark bloody smear along Vakelin’s upper lip; his hands were shaking, worse than before. He looked dazed and strange; there was wetness smeared down his cheeks, the both of them, and Nkemi could not bring herself to look away as more tears trickled from his eyes. She wiped her eyes again, shaking. The past is a river, she told herself.

Vakelin apologized to her, then. Nkemi looked up at him, wide-eyed, and shook her head. “No, sir,” she said, quietly, bowing her head. “I am sorry. It was too much to ask you to cast an unfamiliar spell.” Nkemi took a deep breath; her head still ached, pounded and throbbed. All the lovely food she had eaten had not sat heavy in her belly before, but it did not. She wiped a few more tears from her eyes; she had missed a few, and there were dark circles splattered against the legs of her pants.

“I saw something,” Nkemi said, with a little frown. She looked down at the bowl of water before her; there was nothing, now, only the distant impression of line and the grain of the wood beneath. Nkemi closed her eyes; she sat back, straightening up. It was the job of a prefect who cast clairvoyant spells to be able to remember, and report back, accurately; there was enough uncertainty in the vision without adding more to it in the recital.

“It was strange,” Nkemi said, firmly, confident, through the aching rasp of her voice. She did not yield to it; she pushed on through. “It was not any view that a person has; I have never seen any aquamancy like it. It was like a vision of your night, sir. I saw you – at a bar,” she paused, and cracked her eyes open. Her eyebrows lifted. “With a red-haired man who smirked, and a grimoire.” Nkemi said. She left it there, but she thought they had perhaps gone beyond Vakelin keeping this secret from her. It was not her brief to punish him for whatever he had not wished to tell Truart; it was not her brief even to tell Truart what she had learned. That it was a secret did not surprise her, not really; there were many reasons a man might wish to walk at night. Nkemi did not ask, not yet; she wished to leave the choice to him, for now.

The prefect closed her eyes again; she breathed deep. They were a little red at the edges, and the bruises on her neck were darkening, but the soft trickle had slowed to a stop.

“I saw you leave the bar,” Nkemi said. “A shadow went with you, through the darkness. I followed you through the streets like a map – in the alley, I saw a man, a human.” Nkemi took another deep breath. “He had long dark hair, very thick, braided. He was tall – more than a foot taller than you, I would estimate. He had a beard, and dark eyes. He had scars, too, like this,” Nkemi traced the shape of them on her face, one then the next, with a fingertip.

“He – ” Nkemi touched her fingertips to her throat again, and opened her eyes. It was aquamancy, she thought. I should not have felt anything, and yet I did. I am sorry, she knew. You must have been so afraid. “He took the watch," Nkemi said, instead, opening her eyes and looking at Vakelin again. She did not mention the woman, the sheath of dark hair; she did not know why. It was some fresh darkness on Vakelin’s face, she thought, or else just the play of the shadows from the lamp behind her.

“Can you stand, sir?” Nkemi asked. She rose, herself, setting the scarf aside for now; her head still ached. She went to Vakelin, and offered him both her hands, bracing herself with the easy grace of training. “I think some fresh air,” Nkemi paused, and offered him a tiny sliver of a grin, “some Dives air may do us good.”

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
oo much to ask, she said. There were no more smiles, then, just the look of solemn concentration on her small face, still faintly damp from the tears she’d wiped away. And the new shadows clustered underneath her chin, blooming up just to the edge of her jaw, where a man’s arm might’ve yanked her head back. Just like his; just like looking in a mirror.

There was no looking away, no matter how much he wanted to. He kept his face carefully blank through her recollections, even when she looked at him with raised brows.

He didn’t look away. Not as ada’na’s fingertip swept over one place on her forehead, then another, just above her brow. Not when she traced over her lip, and up toward her cheek.

Like a map, he thought, to nowhere. He swallowed bitterly. He didn’t think he kept all of it out of his face. He saw in Nkemi’s face, as if her eyes were a mirror, that he did not. He shut his own as she fell silent, though he felt the air and the mona stirring as she got to her feet.

Against the backs of his eyelids, the world tilted. His arm was still shaking against the floor. His stomach flipped over one more time, and Tom tasted sweet-spicy bile. He grit his teeth hard and pressed his lips tight. He still tasted blood on them, and there was a smear of it on his hand.

Nkemi spoke. When he opened his eyes, he saw two dark hands, two thin arms reaching down for him. He saw a baton hanging at her belt, the handle nestled in a fold of wool. A man, he heard her say, again – a human.

But she couldn’t lie about the air in the Dives. He looked up, a smile cracking his own face. Trembling violently, he reached up and took one arm and then the other, letting her lever him – with surprising strength – to his feet.

The room tilted. No, ada’na, he did not have to say. He held onto her as she brought him to a nearby crate, the one he’d left the bucket on. He patted her back gently as he sank onto it, sagging. “Thank you, ada’na. Are you all right?”

He wanted to help clean up; a man cleaned up his messes. But it was a while before he could, before he knew he wouldn’t be sick all over the floor. He sat looking at the hands in his lap while Nkemi moved around in the lamplight, and when his head no longer spun so much, he took the rag in a shaky hand and went to crouch on the floor.

“The man you saw.” His voice was like the scratch of wind through bare branches. “I know him. It –”

Something bubbled up in him. He was hopeless to know what; he just knew that it tore at him inside. He couldn’t speak.

He paused to catch his breath, scrubbing chalk out of the crack between two boards. “It can’t be him,” he said even quieter, his voice wavering. “It can’t.” It was all he could manage. He shut his eyes against a building, burning wetness.

His mind threatened him with picturing it, and he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear that he’d already pictured it, else Nkemi wouldn’t’ve seen it. He knew the feel of the forearm underneath his scrabbling fingertips, thick as a tree trunk and corded, as they fumbled and went weak.

When he mastered himself, all he could do was keep scrubbing the floor quietly. He didn’t make much headway; he cleaned a patch of it, but he suspected ada’na’d done most of the work, by the end. His hands were shaking something laoso, and she had to help him up again.

He wasn’t sure how the coat had come to be around his shoulders, but it wasn’t hard to put his arms through the sleeves and wrap it tighter around him. Sitting on a crate by the door, he did up the buttons of his collar again, though he couldn’t manage the tie. He folded it and tucked it into his pocket.

Outside, the sun was higher overhead, and more light came down through the grey. The smells were stronger, too. He coughed once as they stepped out into the quiet alleyway, and he looked over at Nkemi with an echo of her little smile. “Fresh from the factories, at least,” he offered, and coughed again.

He owed something to her. He owed plenty to her, and had done for some time. He thought of her raised brows.

“The grim is approved,” he murmured hoarsely, looking down at the stones. “It was published – originally – by Thul’Amat, actually,” he went on, glancing over at her with another smile. “I wouldn’t’ve been breaking the law by owning it; it’s just hard to come by. Wasn’t re-printed much. I’ve heard there’s one in the West Hall of Idisúfi, but the pages are falling apart, and it has to be kept in a special room…”

There was another, he knew, in Hox, in even worse condition. A few pages in Serkaih, carefully-kept by people who had no use for them. And fewer and fewer re-printings after 2100, he thought, and more lacunae in each. A soul might keep taking bodies over centuries; it would lose something every time, until eventually there was nothing left to lose.

“The book is They Are Heard, by Eres pezre Umitu, the – the nineteenth-century ib’vúqem scholar,” he said cautiously. Death-understanding. “It’s a collection of annotated clairvoyant spells to help in the study of the dead.”

Something like shame crept into his voice. You see, now, he thought bitterly. What must you think? Those bruises on your neck; they were caused by an incumbent chasing a niche fancy.

“I was in Soliloquy because I’d heard a book dealer in the Dives had it,” he said. “That was the other man you saw. I’m deeply sorry, ada’na. Not for going after the book – it’s important to me –” His voice grew deeper with feeling. “But I’m sorry for withholding so much, when you’ve done everything to help me.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Storeroom in a Tsat Hole-in-the-Wall, Soot District

Nkemi answered the smile on Vakelin’s face with one of her own, blooming brighter. He was shaking almost too hard even to take hold of her hands, but only almost. Together, they found his feet. He was not steady; Nkemi held on to him still, guiding him to the crate nearby, and settling him down against it. He sagged but stayed upright. Nkemi knew she did not keep the concern from her face; she could feel it tight in all the skin around her eyes.

Vakelin patted her back and thanked her.

“I think so,” Nkemi said; there was a little uncertainty in her voice, but only a little. She could not bring herself to say it any more strongly than that, for all that she did not wish to add to Vakelin’s burden. She felt a surge of tenderness, and she did not know whether it was misplaced; increasingly, she did not think it was.

Nkemi let him rest instead of asking further of him. She went and got the broom, first; she swept up the chalk into piles, diligent, moving around the room. It did not help with her headache, nor the tiredness at her heart, but it steadied her in other ways. There were pits and rough spots on the floor where the chalk clung, cracks between the boards where it nestled, gleaming white-gray. These she tackled knelt, kneeling and diligently scrubbing at them.

She heard Vakelin shifting, and then he was crouching as well, scrubbing at the floor with a damp rag. Nkemi bit back any instinct to send him away, to refuse him; she liked him too well to believe such cruelty kindness. When he spoke, she stopped, settling the rag she held against the floor and watched. There was pain twisting through him, Nkemi knew; she could see it in the set of his jaw and hear it in the rasp of his voice. It can’t be him, Vakelin said.

Nkemi nodded; she did not speak. Vakelin closed his eyes against a faint glisten of wetness; she did not know if he saw her, or if he needed to. She knew him well enough by now to think him careful in his speech, and his honesty. He was still an Anaxi; if a Mugrobi had said such a thing, she would have known between how to understand whether it was the truth, or the truth of his heart. She had known he recognized the description; she had seen it on his face.

They finished the floor, between them, and if Vakelin had scrubbed only a small corner, he had done it diligently. Nkemi helped him to his feet again, carefully, and settled him on the crate once more, draping his coat over his shoulders. He was shaking; it was not cold in the small room, really, but she thought the warmth would help. She moved the last of the crates and a barrel back into place on the clean floor, to leave the room as they had left it; she emptied the bowls into the bucket and set them out to dry.

Nkemi put her coat back on as Vakelin did up his buttons with shaky hands, slowly, one-by-one. She did not think to intervene. She wrapped her scarf around her neck as well; she was not ashamed of the bruises or the seeing of them, but she did not wish to be cold.

Nkemi went past him and opened the door; she held it from the outside, carefully, so that she led him down the stairs. She carried the bucket with her, and she made it her excuse to go slow and careful, so that she was never more than a step ahead of him, one hand holding the bucket and the other bracing her against the wall. She could not think further in terms of preparations than that; she did not ask herself to watch him descend.

They were outside, then. Nkemi dashed out the water against the stones, and set the bucket down back inside at the foot of the stairs. Only then did she take a deep breath, letting it wash through her. It was not so pleasant, really, the acrid smoke; she much preferred the scent of frying mingled with herbs in the storeroom, or even the chalk. All the same, it was good to feel the sun and the wind against her face; even the cold was not so bad. Her field had warmed and softened both as they left the room; there had been nothing of backlash about the spell, but the mona had long memories, and the heaviness of it had hung in the room, unpleasant and hard to navigate. It was easier, outside, to breathe.

Nkemi grinned back at Vakelin, relieved by the little return of her joke.

He came to it, then – the grimoire, the secret meeting that he had so resisted the telling of to Truart. He had not lied, Nkemi knew; he had been careful and deliberate only in what he said. She was grateful, all the same, for his confidence.

They are Heard, Vakelin said, and Nkemi’s eyes widened faintly in surprise. She knew the name. It brought back memories of clear bright light at the edge of heavy velvet curtains, the smell of mothballs and mildew mingled together, the feeling of tile floor cool beneath her knees. They are Heard, she had read on a plaque, silently sounding out the words. A dozen curled, yellowed pages, maybe more, kept sealed inside a sealed glass case; she had squinted at them, but not known, then, what to make of the words. She had not thought of the Culture Center in Serkaih for many years.

“I know of it,” Nkemi said, politely. She knew, too; it was not only the memories of a place where a small girl had found ways to play; it was, too, remembered facts from classes, the mention of the fashion in the 2000s for the study of the dead among clairvoyant casters, an odd bit of history mentioned with an amused, forgiving smile.

Vakelin did not sound amused. He sounded, Nkemi thought, looking at him, ashamed. As if the knowing would make her think less of him. Nkemi frowned, slightly, but he had continued, and so she did not speak, but let him finish instead. It’s important to me, Vakelin said, and Nkemi nodded a little more. I’m sorry, he said, again, for withholding so much.

Nkemi nodded; she was grateful for the truth he had shared with her, and for the apology as well. She accepted it, whether she thought it was necessary or not.

“Thank you,” Nkemi said, solemnly, her voice still hoarse. She frowned again, looking down at the damp ground of the alley, and then back at Vakelin. “Even if it had been a forbidden text,” Nkemi said, firmly, “it would not change the wrongness of what occurred.” She came a little closer to him, and stopped, just at arm’s length; she held there. “If it had been nothing more than a desire for quiet,” Nkemi said, looking at him, “even so – ”

Her voice broke off; she was trembling. Nkemi took a deep breath. She unwound the scarf; she could not bear the pressure of it. Even the cold was better. She blinked away faint glimmers of tears, swallowing painfully through a too-tight throat, and looked down, doing what she could to master herself. The waters of the now, she told herself - but there were too many currents to wade through; they washed over her from all different directions, and left her battered and helpless in the midst of it all.

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

H
e looked up a little sharply at I know of it, but he looked down and away shortly. He reckoned it was more of a surprise that she remembered it than that she knew of it; he’d never been to Thul’Amat, but he’d sat in on history classes at Brunnhold, and there was a mant manna chroveshit that ended up in those lectures. He supposed ib’vúqem had been enough to occupy a footnote, or even a chapter, in some musty old history book.

Even so, he’d half-expected her to laugh. The kov in Soliloquy had. Your… eccentric interest, he remembered the scrap saying; he remembered a snort from one of the natt, a low murmur, moony old man.

More, he’d expected her to lash out – or, more likely, turn away with disappointment. At her thanks, he looked up at her again underneath his brows, cautious.

Her voice was hoarse, like his. Worse; hoarse like his’d been yesterday morning. There was a dark blotch of a bruise peeping up over her scarf. As she went on, the set of his jaw got tighter; he had to look away again. He had the urge to protest.

If it’d been a forbidden text, brigk, you’d’ve arrested me. No, that was wrong; he’d already seen enough of subprefect Nkemi of the Windward Market to know that her qalqa and her job weren’t always the same.

But he wanted to say it, anyway. No, he wanted to say: it wasn’t “wrong.” It happens. Do you know how many times I got my erse beat as a lad on the streets? Do you know many kov I shook down, how many I’ve choked out? It’s only fair.

One of his eyelids twitched as she got closer, slowly, the warm softness of her field hanging around them. But then she broke off, and in the corner of his eye, he saw her reach for the scarf.

“Ada’na,” he said quietly, at a loss. He looked at her hand first, trembling against the soft tan wool.

He hadn’t realized. She’d cleaned most of the floor, to his shame; she’d helped him up, to his shame; she’d carried out the bucket, to his shame, though it’d been fair slow, and he’d put it down to the heavy unwieldiness of it. He’d been ashamed, and he hadn’t thought, or noticed.

He hadn’t meant to look at the bruises. When the thick wool came away, the fullness of the light drew his eye. Her dark skin brought out the reds and the sickly, mottled green, the faint edges of yellow.

A little more and she could’ve lost consciousness, he realized. She must’ve been lightheaded; it must’ve been laoso splitting, at the very least. It was just as if a strong arm had got her by the throat. It wasn’t just an illusion, like a bruise painted on for the sake of symmetry. He could imagine the press of it on her throat like a vice, sitting there in the spell circle.

He shivered, swallowing more bile. There was a glisten in her eyes. He thought to look away. Kov didn’t like it, being seen crying. She wasn’t a kov, but she was a brigk, no matter how fresh-faced and pina. He couldn’t make sense of what she’d done earlier, in the alleyway, or of her warm gentle caprise.

The past is a river, he remembered. He thought of the man she’d chased into the Turga. It was not my brief, he remembered.

He saw her throat bob underneath the bruises. He knew how sore it must’ve felt, how the scarf must’ve chafed.

Cautious, fair cautious, he moved closer. “No, I suppose not,” he forced himself to admit, and then – slowly; if she didn’t make to move away – laid a hand on her shoulder, and rested his arm around it. “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve risked, ada’na, or the blows I’ve taken.” He paused; his field pulsed gently against hers.

“I don’t know what netche doctor would recommend this air. Briggs isn’t far, and it’s easy to catch a cab back up.” He spoke with deliberation through the rasp, swallowing painfully. “Hot kofi’ll do the sore throat good,” he added, his lip twitching. The smile faded. "You all right?"

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Unnamed Alley not far from Briggs Street, Soot District

Nkemi took a deep breath. She knew something of the wading through these currents; she knew sometimes there was nothing to do but wait. All of it rushed through her, and she could not have said whether it was one piece or another which was so hard to manage. She did not know if she could have born one pressure if the other had been less; she did not know whether any one piece of it might, still, have overwhelmed her.

All she knew was that it was like being beneath the surface of the water; it was like holding her breath, and swimming up towards the greenish light streaming through, kicking and sweeping her arms, and not knowing whether, really, she was growing any closer to it.

Nkemi saw and felt Vakelin come towards her. Even looking down, even through a watery haze, she could see the sense of his movement. He came closer; his field wrapped around her, once more, his clairvoyant mona floating through hers. She looked up at him, although she did not quite smile; a few more tears tracked down her cheeks.

Vakelin’s hand rested on her shoulder; through the coat and the sweater, it was no much more than a weight, though it was comforting. Slowly – his arm wrapped around her. Nkemi closed her eyes, wiping her fingers through the tear trails on her cheeks. She leaned a little more against him; he held her a little closer. Not ashamed of what I’ve risked, Vakelin had said. Nkemi’s lips twitched; a few more tears trailed down her cheeks. He was still holding her; she felt ashamed, now, of the comfort she took in it, and sorry for that too.

He pulsed his field against hers; Nkemi sniffled. It helped, that reminder; she could feel it, she thought, that he had cast successfully. Even a more experienced clairvoyant caster might have had trouble with the spell upstairs; she did not know what to make of it.

Nkemi closed her eyes, and all she could see was the light spilling beneath a study door, washing over thin, faded green carpet, at an hour when there was no other light to be found. Even from the hallway, she knew, she would be able to hear the scratching of the pen, or in the spaces when it paused, to hear the frantic turning of pages. If she went and came back, it would be the same; sometimes her mother would be there as well, eyes damp, wrapped in a thin robe. Go bed, love, she might have said. Nkemi could remember looking up at her, and not understanding; Nkemi could remember looking her in the eyes and understanding very well indeed.

Sometimes he would be gone in the morning, or in the afternoon – whenever he awoke. Sometimes he would take long walks through the plains in the day or the night, alone; he would come back with bloodied feet, sometimes, where he had not noticed them cut. Nkemi remembered walking swiftly into town with her mother, too small to keep up well but trying her best, stumbling a little as they went, her hand tightly held. Books, she thought, her mother had said, staring across the counter at Mweko. He ordered books?

It’s important to me, Vakelin had said, his deep voice still faintly hoarse, but more than that – deeper, Nkemi thought, with the weight of that importance.

“I am well,” Nkemi said, quietly, into Vakelin’s shoulder. She took a deep breath; she eased away from him. Her small hand found his, and squeezed gently, and she smiled at him, and let go. “It is cold,” she remembered what he had said of his own currents; deep and cold. “I would be grateful to share some kofi.” Nkemi accepted.

Nkemi took a deep breath; she lifted the scarf, and wrapped it around her neck once more, covering the skin without pulling it tight. She wiped her eyes one last time with her fingers. She had been a prefect too long to rush to judgment; she had not seen it, so far, whatever it was Truart and all the rest saw. This nagged at her, but she knew to separate her own feelings, and to put them aside; she could still feel the warm brush of his field all around her.

“Thank you,” Nkemi said, smiling at Vakelin again.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
hank you,” he said warmly, returning her smile. It was genuine, if troubled; he meant it, even if he couldn’t know all of what lay behind it. Dangerous, something in him whispered. So much unknown. There was a quirk to his lip as he met her eye for the last time, a small dark crease between his eyebrows.

She’d leaned into his arm, and he’d leaned closer to her, feeling the breath swell and hitch in his chest. It’d been instinctive, the warm mingling of belike mona. The unfamiliarity of it ached.

He had let it ache, dull-throbbing like his throat. I am well, had come a breath at his shoulder, and he wasn’t sure why he had expected the voice to be different; he wasn’t sure whose voice he had expected it to be.

The motion of her tracing lines over her face stuck to his mind; he saw it, streaks of light and shadow when he closed his eyes. A shadow went with you, through the darkness. He could smell the acrid dank tang of the alley, tinged with fish. In the alley. He –

Ada’na Nkemi had eased away, and squeezed his hand.

He had meant to say more, in the close dark of the cab – he wasn’t sure what – but it didn’t matter, because quick enough he was resting his head back against the paneling and shutting his eyes.

He slept most of the way back up. Sometimes the cab jolted against the uneven stones of the Dives, and his hip gave a laoso tweak; sometimes he startled awake at the chafe of his collar, thinking of the mona pressing on his throat. This time his windpipe, instead of his jugular.

He had vague dreams of brailing and lunging across the chalk lines, smearing the imperfect symmetry, to find the prefect slumped on the ground. And how to explain that to the Seventen? Wake up – his lips moved, silent – I didn’t know they could… I didn’t…

There was a prickle of red on the edge of his knife; the street-lamps cast long shadows. The little kov struggled in his grip. You’re drunk, spat a familiar voice. She slumped in the midst of the lines.

As they rolled over into the golly heart of the city, the smooth stones lulled him. The scratch and feather-rustle of the moa was even, and he half-forgot where he was. When the cab lurched to a halt, he woke to find the mona thick and heavy round him, stirring to life, mingled with newly-familiar static and clairvoyant.

Clearing the frog from his throat, he looked over at the prefect. He straightened in his seat, raising his eyebrows, faintly embarrassed.

It was the back drive; it wouldn’t do for the Incumbent to be seen in a ragged coat on Willow, and he didn’t want to bring that sort of attention to ada’na Nkemi, either. He knew this qalqa well enough, by now.

It was cold, as Nkemi had said, and the brisk chill threw the lingering warmth of sleep right out of him. He remembered to tip the cabbie fair well for discretion; he remembered to lead the prefect up the quiet, leaf-strewn path up to the side door, framed thickly with bare tangled branches.

There were servants there, still, to take their coats, though Tom was sorry to be rid of his. He shivered even in his thick jacket and waistcoat. Morris averted his eyes in a way that was almost more conspicuous than a stare.

“Upstairs, ada’na, if you’d like,” he’d murmured, soft and hoarse. “The study.” He said it like a man might say, the oasis, or the cloister, or home.

The fire was low in the hearth, but Margaret was stoking it. She rose and curtsied when Tom came in with the prefect, but she was less adept at averting her eyes. He smiled. “Cold out, Miss Wheelwright,” he said brightly. “Thank you for keeping her burning.”

“Of course, sir,” and Margaret curtsied again to each of the galdori and bustled out. Tom watched her wistfully, for a moment.

The study was quiet. Uptown, the sky was crisp blue, vivid in the way skies are when the heavy clouds of rain’ve broken. Pale, late morning light, shifting through the half-open drapes of the big window; making the heavy carpet, with its delicate-stitched swirl of vines and roses, glow. Up on the third floor, you could hear the wind whistling in fits.

The room was full of light. It caught gold lettering on rows of spines, even in the shadows on the far side of the room. It lay on the polished mahogany of the desk, clean except for a decanter and one empty tumbler. It caught the cut glass.

Tom smiled at Nkemi, half-bowing politely and gesturing toward the chairs by the fire. “Please, ada’na, sit,” he murmured. He’d given the word to Morris earlier, and he reckoned they’d both see Margaret back soon enough with the kofi. “I can’t welcome you properly,” he added, “with the ceremony, but it’ll be warm and fresh enough, in the Anaxi style.”

He paused, then went to the desk, getting out two tumblers and another decanter. It was strange, to turn and see the prefect standing in his study. He had guests all the time – officers of the Seventen, even; men like d’Arthe had sat in those chairs, often enough. Nothing in this room was illegal, and he’d’ve told her that freely, as it was the truth. But the back of his neck still prickled, and he wondered.

He poured one glass and then the other of water and brought them over, offering the prefect one. His hands were still shaking, but less; there were only small ripples in the surface of the water.

He had to sit, though, then, as if he could not stand any more. The warmth from the hearth leached into his bones, and he felt hollow and limp, like the skin a snake left behind.

He’d been sitting with his head in one trembling hand for a moment when he looked up. “Hell of a morning,” he said, and without knowing why, let out a frayed laugh. He ran a hand through his hair, huffing a deep breath.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Third Floor Study, Vauquelin House

Tiredness swept over Nkemi in great crashing waves as she settled into the seat of the carriage. She tucked her cheek against the threadbare cushion and closed her eyes. The jolts of the wheels against the road were echoed through her head by the headache, pounding painfully through her. She could not surrender to the deep waters of sleep which had claimed Vakelin so quickly; it was not the sort of tiredness for which rest was a cure.

Nkemi opened her eyes. She watched the Incumbent as he slept. It was not so peaceful as she would have wished for him; he twitched and jerked, and some strong emotions flitted over his face, making lips twist and his eyes dance behind closed lids. Nkemi watched, only, and did not try to understand.

In time the road beneath the wheels smoothed, though Nkemi's head still ached. She could sift through it a little better now; she could unclench her fist a little and let some of the heavy grains of sand trickle slowly out. It felt as if she stood with her hands wrapped around a dune, and the thin stream which the wind carried away made no dent in the great gleaming curve of it.

She was a prefect; this was not her brief, and she served no purpose here but that of her own will. And yet, Nkemi knew, her training was with her still. She let herself think through all of it which had happened in this last day – of meeting Vakelin last night, with True’art, and the careful truths he had offered them in pursuit of his watch. She thought of the slow, steady stream of revelations since. She did not feel she had overturned these stones; it was as if she had walked through them, and they had come loose before her eyes, revealing strange greenish moss and deep, sucking mud beneath.

Nkemi was filled with the sudden sense that there was no riverbed at all – that there was nothing but stones, and she was balanced atop them, all unknowing. If she shifted too far, she thought, there was no telling what would turn over, and what might be revealed. If she held still – the ground beneath her feet was slippery and treacherous but refusing to move forward was no way to live. She could not grope her way blindly through them; she did not know what lay on the bank she had come from, nor the one she strove towards.

She had slept, in the end. She did not know for how long; she only noticed that it was startling when the carriage jerked to a stop, startling when the ache in her head resumed. She was left with a vague impression of sand – or stone – of a heavy arm wrapped around her neck, and a scarred hand clenched into a fist at the end of it, and her own, small, dark fingers tugging feebly at it.

Vakelin looked at her and raised his eyebrows. Nkemi smiled back at him. He led her to a side door through a small tangle of bare branches, and inside; she followed unthinking, shivering a little in her sweater once her coat was removed. She kept the scarf wrapped high and thick around her neck; she kept after Vakelin, climbing the stairs behind him slowly. Miss Wealrite, Nkemi noticed, today.

She tucked herself into one of the big chairs, the one closest to the glowing fire, at Vakelin’s suggestion. The room was lovely; the carpet was like a garden on the floor, all greens and reds. The books glittered gold across the deeper color of their bindings, a cacophony of half-faded reds and blues and greens and browns. Nkemi’s eyes were half-lidded, soft, and she thought she could have gone to sleep there, now, slowly warming through by the fire.

“Thank you,” Nkemi’s voice emerged in a hoarse croak when she spoke, her hands settling around the water glass. She cleared her throat, with a painful little grimace, and took a slow, small sip, and then another. She knew better than to gulp a mouthful of water and try to force it through; she let the sips drizzle through slowly, but drank until the cup was nearly gone, and then set it down.

Nkemi knew better than to put her heavy boots on Vakelin’s seat; all the same, her toes barely reached the floor if she sat back, and it was not terribly comfortable. She looked down at the big, heavy, boots solemnly, and then back up at Vakelin. He was curled in the other chair, his face propped against his hand.

Nkemi reached down, carefully, and undid the laces of her boots. She eased her feet out of them, clad in thick wool socks, a rich warm purple. She tucked her feet up beneath her knees, sitting cross-legged back, and sighed contently.

“Yes,” Nkemi agreed, softly, although she did not laugh with Vakelin. She watched him tousle his red curls further with one shaking hand; he was only half-looking at her. She nuzzled her chin into her scarf, quiet, and tried to piece through the thoughts which had seemed so clear on the edge of sleep in the carriage.

“I am not ashamed of what I have risked either,” Nkemi said, quietly, “nor regretful.” Her voice was a little clearer now, although it still scratched in her throat. One small hand tugged at the folds of wool, but she left the scarf wrapped around. She had seen, in the alley, how Vakelin’s eyes lingered on it; she thought she had understood the look on his face.

“If we have any leads,” Nkemi said, carefully, looking up at Vakelin, “from what I saw, which I believe to be someone’s interpretation of events, it is that whoever it was that took your watch followed you from the bar.” Her voice rasped at the end of the sentence. The little Mugrobi sighed; she rose, and took her cup, and padded across the carpet to pour herself another glass of water.

She came back, and she curled herself up in the seat again, and wet her throat with another little sip. “You have lifted your light to show me the depths of some shadows,” Nkemi said, looking at Vakelin. “They are yours to reveal, and yours alone, even now. If there are any others you wish to reveal, I would be grateful for the seeing,” She left it there; she did not ask a specific question or press for any particular truth. She took another little sip of water, and set the glass down again, and curled her cheek sleepily against the comfortable wing of Vakelin’s chair. Her eyes were open, still, and it was Vakelin she looked at, and Vakelin alone. But there was a little smile on her face, once more; it gleamed too, on her lips and through her eyes.