In Nuremport's Great Harbor District, the Mercurie estate sprawled behind wrought-iron gates and rococo hedges, all pale stone and lace-curtained windows.
In an upstairs study, Annelise Mercurie pressed a palm to her chest and exhaled, willing the flutter behind her ribs to settle. She picked up the quill, dipped, hovered. Set down a single word. Crossed it out. Dipped again.
Beside her sat a leather-bound volume — A Compleat Anthology of Love Verses — its silk ribbon trailing across an illuminated page. She had cracked it open at four different sonnets, copied phrases, abandoned them, started over.
Half an hour of agonized scratching and the letter had managed to progress as far as:
Dearest Thea —
That was it. That was the whole letter.
By late afternoon a brisk knock rattled the door.
"Miss? May I come in? The mistress asked me to tell you that Superintendent Field has invited the master to dine tonight at Karalle's. She wants to know if you'll be joining them."
Annelise nearly upended the inkwell. In one panicked sweep she shoveled the love anthology, the discarded drafts, and her half-blotted page into the bookshelf behind her, slammed a volume of regional geography over the lot, and darted to the cheval mirror. Skirts smoothed. Curls patted. Cheeks pinched.
She slid into the chair by the writing desk, folded her hands sweetly in her lap, and called in her softest voice, "Come in, Evelyn."
The door opened. Evelyn — chief lady's maid, tall, immaculate, a faint smile at the corners of her mouth — dipped a small bow.
"You look as bright and well as ever today, miss."
"Thank you, Evelyn!" Annelise's voice ran up the scale like a music box winding. "But I think I'll stay in tonight. I do love Uncle Hoff's cooking so much — it would be terribly rude to miss it!"
As she spoke, her fingers crept behind her back and closed around the unfinished letter, slipping it up her sleeve like a stage magician palming a card.
She absolutely could not go to the Superintendent's house tonight. The letter wasn't finished.
Evelyn inclined her head. "Mr. Hoff will be delighted to hear it, miss. Please come along — the mistress is waiting."
"Lead the way, Evelyn dear!"
Annelise tucked the letter deeper into her sleeve, beamed, and trailed her maid down the long carpeted corridor.
The Mercurie estate was enormous. From Annelise's chambers, the route to the dining hall wound through one gallery and another, around three different staircases, past a music room, past the conservatory, before finally opening into the bright high-ceilinged room where Lady Mercurie was already seated.
Silver trays steamed on the long oak table. Pastries glazed gold. A roast hen surrounded by candied pears. Pale soup in fluted bowls. Every dish was Iris Kingdom cuisine — without exception.
Avengarde was a poor island nation by nature; its native fare ran hearty, plain, sometimes downright rough. The nobility, predictably, refused to eat any of it. Almost every aristocratic kitchen in the kingdom employed an Iris-born chef, and the Mercurie household was no exception.
"My Annelise! Come sit by me!"
Lady Mercurie waved her daughter over, gestured to the chair at her elbow, and asked in the same soft warm voice she always used, "How are things at school these days, darling? Your driver tells me you've been visiting a friend after lessons quite often."
"School is wonderful! Everyone is so kind!" Annelise chirped — and then, on the second question, felt her cheeks go pink.
She thought, immediately and vividly, of her "arrangements" with Thea over the last several months.
Thank the Saints she always dismissed the driver first. Thank the Saints she always locked the carriage door tight.
Lady Mercurie noticed the pause and tilted her head. "Hmm? What's wrong, dearest? Did you and your friend quarrel?"
"No! No, nothing like that! It's just — Thea is a very good person!"
"Oh? Her name is Thea? What a sweet name. Why have you never told us about her?"
Annelise lowered her lashes. "Because — Thea goes to the district school in the North Harbor. I was worried Papa might not let me see her if he knew. But Mama would understand, wouldn't she?"
She tucked herself against her mother's side and looked up with wide, pleading eyes.
Lady Mercurie laughed softly and stroked her daughter's golden curls. "Of course I do. Your father and I have no objection to you befriending anyone, whatever their station. So long as she's kind and honest and decent, and so long as she never hurts you — that's all we ask."
"Thank you, Mama! Thea would never hurt me!"
That part, at least, was true. As for kind, honest, and decent — well. Thea was extremely kind when she was accepting payment. Extremely honest in walking off with the money once paid. And extremely decent about indulging any reasonable request, provided the gold pounds were on the table first.
Thea was a paragon of virtue, really.
Lady Mercurie smiled into her daughter's hair, eyes soft as candlelight. "Eat, my little angel."
Dinner lasted half an hour. As soon as Annelise judged the moment ripe she set down her spoon, pressed a hand to her stomach, declared herself wonderfully full, and announced her intention to retire upstairs to study her history.
Study, of course, was secondary. The letter was primary.
She had done her reconnaissance — two months ago, Thea had been corresponding regularly with a "pen friend." If Annelise simply wrote enough beautiful letters, surely she too could become Thea's pen friend. Then the friendship would grow closer and warmer, and when they both went up to Silverkeep for university, they could spend the whole four years together —
If they were at the same school, she could see Thea every single day.
The thought made her so dizzy with joy that she began to hum, very softly, a phrase from her favorite opera as she made her way back along the colonnade that bordered the front garden.
Then she heard voices.
Two men, near the side door by the rose arbor. She slowed.
One was her father — Earl Pelric Mercurie, unmistakable.
The other identified himself within seconds: Superintendent Field of the Great Harbor District Constabulary.
"Field, you've landed yourself in serious trouble. This is something that could have been put to bed early."
"My lord, there were simply no men to spare — the Jubilee preparations stripped Silverkeep dry, and we had to send our own officers and our Transcendent up to assist. The plan was always to close out these cases once the festivities ended. I never imagined —"
"Enough. Done is done. Get back to the matter at hand — the grimoire stolen from the Cathedral. How is the search?"
"No leads at all, my lord. The alchemist — Canaan — is confirmed dead as of yesterday. An elephant revolver round straight through the skull. Explosion residue all around the body. Our preliminary theory is that one of his own sacrificial servants turned on him — acquired smuggled firearms and explosives, ambushed his master to seize the spoils. The alternative is a third party intervened."
"Damn it all. I said years ago these firearms wanted stricter regulation. And the grimoire? Surely a common cutthroat wouldn't have walked off with a tome written in a Hidden Tongue?"
"...The grimoire is gone too, my lord."
"Gone? What use would a common man have for it?"
"My lord — more precisely, he stripped the scene of nearly everything of value. When we arrived, apart from a few mundane tinctures, there wasn't a single Transcendent artifact left. Which is to say —"
"Which is to say either he has a Transcendent backing him, or he is one himself. And he knew enough about the Hand of Transmutation to clean out their cell."
A pause. Annelise pressed herself flat against the wall and heard her father's breath quicken, the heavy stamp of his boot against the flagstones.
"He could read a Hidden Tongue. He knew about the Hand of Transmutation. What in God's name is he — some high-Sequence Transcendent of a rival sect? Damn it. I've barely set foot in Nuremport and this is what I walk into?"
Annelise crouched among the rose canes, breath caught somewhere under her collarbone.
She did not, technically, understand what any of it meant.
But.
Elephant revolver. Large-caliber ammunition. Explosives. Yesterday. The fact that a few weeks ago a certain pale-skinned, black-haired girl had asked her — sweetly, casually — for a noble's attestation that would let her legally purchase explosives and an elephant revolver. The fact that the very same girl had been absent from school for two days running.
This — surely it couldn't —
Surely Thea wasn't the Transcendent of some hidden cult?
Morning. North Harbor District Secondary School.
The classroom smelled of chalk and damp wool. At the front, a white-haired master in a worn grey coat was sketching the cross-section of a steam engine onto the blackboard, working his way through each valve and piston with patient precision.
Understanding steam engine architecture meant a real chance at a factory engineer's post, or at least a maintenance position — so most students were taking diligent notes.
Most students. Not Thea Sorelle.
Thea had unrolled a thick historical treatise on her desk in plain view of everyone and was systematically combing it for any reference to alchemy, the Arcane, or Transcendents.
Unfortunately, the contents were either mythologized to the point of uselessness — the White Dragon vanquished the Red Dragon, the Founding Hero drank from the Fountain of Eternity, King Charles brought down the airship of the Iris with a single thrown stone — or so vague and gestural as to convey nothing.
The Arcane content was, frankly, less informative than the herbalism lecture she'd half-listened to yesterday.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and slid the book aside.
Better to think about the advancement rituals she'd lifted off the dead alchemist.
For two days now, since returning from St. Vincent's Chapel, she had been studying both the scroll-rituals and The Book of the Furnace.
The Book of the Furnace was nearly impenetrable. It was thick with alchemical jargon and the secret cant of the trade — and alchemists, it turned out, kept their own coded vocabulary on top of the Hidden Tongue. To an outsider it was a wall of metaphor.
The advancement rituals were comparatively friendly. Pictograms, plain text, step-by-step diagrams: how to lay the circle, how to conduct the ceremony, and what to expect afterward — improvements to physique, sensory acuity, mental quickness, sleep quality.
The gains depended on the practitioner's starting condition. The text quoted a range of anywhere from five to a hundred and fifty percent.
The two scrolls she had — one from the Alchemical Guild of the Kingdom of the Iris, one from the Eastern temple-order — differed wildly in their materials lists and ritual layouts. They might as well have been describing two entirely unrelated practices.
Which fit what Vera had said: alchemy had split into two paths.
Thea had tentatively settled on the Eastern version — the Great Philosopher. The Iris-Kingdom Transmutation Scholar version required, among other things, an iron nail used to pierce the palm of an innocent man. There was no Christ in this world; sourcing the requisite crucifixion ironwork would be more trouble than it was worth.
Her quill moved down the materials list.
A mirror catching daylight. A live serpent. A whetstone. A nestling pigeon struggling for first flight —
A bell rang. The master at the front declared the lesson concluded.
Just as Thea was setting down her quill, an elderly man in a dignified grey coat stopped beside her desk, schoolbooks tucked under one arm. Daniel — the senior master.
"Miss Sorelle. A word in my office, if you please."
Thea's hand paused mid-stroke. Without expression, she covered the list of ritual materials with one palm, shut the notebook, slid it into her satchel, and rose.
She followed him out into the corridor.
Daniel walked with a cane and wore wire spectacles. From the skin and the set of his eyes she'd put him near seventy. Snow-white whiskers, sober grey coat — the very image of a stern, kindly old schoolmaster.
"I noticed you missed two days," he said gently as they walked. "What kept you?"
"I went up to Silverkeep to see my sister. I did file leave."
"You filed for one day. You missed two." He paused, then went on, with the mild concern of a man who had said this same thing to many young girls. "The Queen's Jubilee is almost upon us. Silverkeep is awash in foreigners — Avengardians, Iris folk, Imperials. Townsmen and country folk. Pilgrims, smugglers, the licensed and the unlicensed. Be careful. Especially given that — the day before yesterday I heard there was a bombing along the road to Silverkeep. At that ruined chapel, the old one. St. Vincent's, I think."
Thea's boots stopped in the corridor. She turned, followed him through the office doorway, and — face perfectly composed — asked with mild curiosity, "A bombing?"
"Yes." Daniel sat behind his desk and pulled an envelope from a drawer. He spoke as if continuing an old conversation. "Thea, you and your sister are both children of considerable promise. Barring misfortune, I can write you a recommendation to St. Roland's College in Silverkeep next year. Professor Horner of the Department of Steam and Mechanical Power there is an old friend of mine —
"Whether you follow your sister Aveline's path and stay on to teach, or whether you take a post with the Cathedral or a factory firm, the way will not be hard for you..."
"I understand, master." Thea inclined her head, and asked without inflection, "So what happened with the bombing? I came back along that road and saw nothing."
"That, I'm afraid, is the limit of what I know. Only that the Grand Constabulary from Silverkeep itself has come down to investigate. Apparently they're hunting a wanted fugitive. Get home early these next few days. Don't go out after dark..."
The Grand Constabulary. Thea hadn't expected that.
Avengarde's police were nominally split into two tiers — the Crown's own Grand Constabulary in Silverkeep, and the local constabularies in the provincial cities, the two of which were in theory independent. In practice, the Grand Constabulary's writ ran wherever the Crown willed it; their badge was a crowned shield, and that crown was not decorative.
If they had come to Nuremport, then the Crown itself had turned its eye toward this matter.
Was the dead alchemist that important?
It was, Thea thought drily, somewhat akin to dispatching the FBI to apprehend a flasher.
While she considered this, Daniel pressed the envelope into her hand. "From your sister, Miss Aveline. It arrived from Silverkeep yesterday. Put it inside your coat, please. Don't lose it."
Thea took the envelope. It was thick. Heavy.
She opened it once she was back in the corridor: a single sheet of letter paper folded around a sheaf of crisp banknotes. She counted under her breath.
A full forty gold pounds.
"Hh."
Thea exhaled a long slow breath as she stepped through the school gates, the envelope tucked inside her coat against her ribs. She wasn't quite sure how to feel.
She and Aveline had been each other's only family from childhood. But three years ago, when Aveline graduated and went to Silverkeep, the sisters had effectively stopped seeing each other. Letters came every two or three months — a few gold pounds folded into them, a few firm injunctions: keep warm now that autumn's coming, don't try to save money by going without the hearth fire, do not skip meals.
The Avengarde university system was structured much the same as the one in Thea's previous life — a four-year course. Aveline, in her postgraduate years, was working as a teaching assistant; a monthly salary of perhaps thirty or forty pounds, half of it spent on food and lodging in the capital. Silverkeep was not a cheap city.
To squeeze forty gold pounds out of that life and put them in the post would not have been an easy thing for her sister.
My situation here is starting to even out, Thea thought. I haven't spent through the gold I already have, and once the ritual materials are in hand, there won't be any large outlays for a while. If I can find a plausible excuse, I could send some money up to her.
She couldn't simply mail it. A middle-schooler suddenly sending her postgraduate sister a windfall — Aveline would drop her teaching post and come straight back to Nuremport to interrogate her.
Set that aside for the moment.
On the way home she detoured through the market on White Oak Street, ticking items off her list.
The actual advancement ceremony, viewed dispassionately, didn't seem to require much. Just the right materials, then the Diving Ritual first, the Advancement Ritual second. Both scrolls agreed on the Diving Ritual as the prerequisite; its instructions were brief and consistent across versions.
The Advancement Ritual proper called for: a mirror catching daylight, a live serpent, a whetstone, a nestling pigeon struggling to take wing, a copper-shod walking staff inlaid with a cat's-eye stone, a dried wolf's head, a rust-pitted dagger, an hourglass, and a glass of wine aged twenty years.
To set the array, a fresh mammalian heart and a silver-plated knife.
The mirror, serpent, whetstone, and pigeon were trivial. The staff, the wolf's head, and the aged wine were going to be a problem.
A copper-shod cat's-eye staff she could probably commission from an antiques dealer or — if she had the time — fashion herself. The wolf's head and a bottle of twenty-year vintage were not the sort of thing one stumbled across in the North Harbor District; she'd have to try the bazaars and black markets up in the Great Harbor or the Clocktower District.
Even half-stocked, the day's haul was conspicuous. Coils of bound vipers in a canvas bag, a pigeon cooing in a cage, a whetstone, a small mirror wrapped in cloth — paired with the slim, pale, dark-haired girl carrying them, she drew a fair number of stares the whole walk home.
She crossed White Oak Street, turned in at Number 405, and was about to start hauling the parcels up to her rooms when she stopped at the foot of the stair.
A familiar carriage stood at the curb. Black-lacquered. Polished. On its side door, picked out in pale gilt: the noble crest of two serpents twined around a broken staff.
"...Annelise?"