11:47 AM, Saturday, November 9
Perhaps one of the greatest shocks when coming to the city was just how much there was of everything. In my village, the same three taverns had existed for hundreds of years, family-owned, serving concoctions that could be found nowhere else in the world. What wasn’t provided by oneself could be bought or bartered from the market, and it was only in the past decade that the modern convenience of a general store had appeared.
Now, with more options than I could count—at least on both hands—I tried to keep my shopping route small and predictable. Any deviation was an adventure, but as the very act of moving to and living in the city was an adventure, I simply didn’t have the energy for it, most days. If I charted my route on a map, it likely would have encompassed an area of similar size to my village. Owing to Langstaff’s density, the sheer amount of sensory information I had to process was much greater than I was used to. I had never seen so many images in my life. I wondered how anyone managed to take in so much at once, or how they determined what was and was not worth logging in their memory. There was so much noise that it was hard to tell what actually meant something, and what was just a distraction. As such, it was important to have landmarks. For me, that had originally been my flat, university, and the grocery store. As long as I had those places committed to memory, I could begin to venture out and explore more of this new world. In the past few weeks, four additional locations had been added: Mahnoor’s flat, a fancier grocery store where Evette liked to have her shopping done, the Indian market where I had been asked to go a few times, and of course, Evette’s residence. I had only been to Mahnoor’s flat once, but these other locations were finally starting to feel familiar, like a natural part of my world.
Today, I had received a curt text message from “KINGSTONE” asking me to come directly to Evette’s residence, not specifying any stops. As I had done my shopping for her the previous day, I hadn’t expected to hear anything from her—or whoever it was that sent messages on her behalf. My first reaction was annoyance, as I had planned to spend the day catching up on my studies. Then a feeling of dread began to grow, like a parasite, in the pit of my stomach.
Had something happened to Mahnoor?
All I knew was that she had gone into a potentially dangerous situation, and while I knew all too well how capable she was of defending herself, the thought that something had gone wrong made me feel sick.
I didn’t have her number, so I couldn’t ask her if she was all right.
The idea occurred to me several times throughout my walk from my flat to Evette’s townhouse that I was overthinking. There was absolutely nothing in the message to suggest that Mahnoor was even remotely concerned in this appointment, and was in all likelihood completely fine. That didn’t stop the anxious gnawing at my insides, which only varied in intensity from block to block, sometimes so strong that I felt my hands shaking, and receding into the background when more rational thoughts were able to drown out the irrational ones.
Mr. Grey was stationed outside as usual, his expression as blank as ever, with only the movement of his eyes indicating that he knew I was there. It struck me that he resembled a beefeater at Buckingham Palace in his mannerisms, and I wondered if he could be as dangerous as one if the situation called for it, and his lady was threatened. Hopefully, I would never have to see for myself.
Inside, I was greeted by an unusual sound—that is to say, while any sound at all would be unusual, I could at least have anticipated the creaking of footsteps from the illusive Joanne, or the soft whir of the heating. No, this was something far more unexpected: music. The warm, slightly muffled, crackling tones of vinyl droned from upstairs, playing a melody from the distant past. I didn’t know much about the vast, labyrinthine world of music, but it sounded like it was the kind of music one would dance to with a partner. It was slow, carefree, and somehow a little melancholy, although that may have been an added effect of the building’s acoustics.
Peeking into the sitting room, I saw no one there. Evette’s usual armchair was vacant, which was kind of like seeing a pair of shoes with no one in them. I had only seen Evette out of that chair a few times, to the point where I had come to see her and it as a package deal. But there it was, lonely and empty, in a darkened room.
I was now faced with a conundrum. With no one to greet me, was I expected to go upstairs and look for Evette? Something about it felt very much like I was being tested. For all I knew I was being observed to see how trustworthy I was. In fact, that seemed very likely, now knowing what I did. The question was, what did they want me to do? Was I supposed to wait for someone to escort me to where I was supposed to go? Was I supposed to follow the music?
An elaborate scenario started playing out in my head. I was expected to go upstairs to where the music was playing, and upon finding Evette, it would be seen whether or not I could be trusted. Any false moves… Well, there was probably someone waiting in the wings to restrain me—or worse.
At this thought, anxiety began to mix with annoyance.
Whose idea was this, anyway? I can get them not trusting me, but this goes beyond employee vetting.
Having waited long enough, I sealed my fate and began climbing the stairs. The old wood squeaked with each step. Under my hand, the banister was smooth and strangely pleasant to the touch. Even in the low light, I could see it was darkened by years of people doing the same as me.
The music grew louder and clearer as I ascended, finally reaching the second floor. Perpendicular to the stairs was a long hallway, lit only by the cold, diffused daylight that streamed through a window at the far end. Along one wall hung portraits, light fixtures beneath them switched off. On the opposite side were doors, one of which was open just a crack, a warmer light falling across the wood floor and old carpet that ran the length of the hall. That was where the music was coming from. The carpet softened my footsteps as I made my way down the hall. When I reached the door, I hesitated. I could hear another sound from inside: footsteps, short and regular. Rhythmical. I leaned my head over the crack and peered inside.
“—!”
It was hard to process what I was seeing at first, not because I didn’t understand the physical reality of it, but because it was so far outside my expectations that I couldn’t have mentally prepared myself for it.
In this room were Evette and Mahnoor, and they were dancing.
Mahnoor was clearly leading, her steps precise yet exuberant, and full of energy despite the slow tempo of the song. While I knew even less about dancing than music, these were the movements of someone with years of experience, and suddenly her gracefulness in battle made much more sense. Shed of her jacket and hat, she appeared less androgynous than usual, now a little more clearly feminine—though this made her no less striking. The curve of her back, now emphasized by her vest, showed both excellent posture and flexibility.
Evette’s movements were elegant as well, but in the same understated way as everything else about her. Contrasting Mahnoor, each dainty step appeared calculated and rehearsed, not so much following the music as enacting a formula of which the music was one part, and Mahnoor’s movements were a variable to be solved. Nevertheless, I had never seen her move like this before, to the point I had almost doubted she could move, at least to such an extent.
Usually, when I had seen them in the same room, Mahnoor was the only one who spoke to me. Evette usually stayed silent and had only engaged me in anything approaching conversation when there was no one else to speak on her behalf. On occasion, however, I had heard them conversing when I wasn’t in the room, and they seemed to be on much more even footing, their dialogue going back and forth like a ricocheting ball. This was apparently also the case in other activities, with each bringing their own particular style which resonated in a synergy unlike anything I had seen before. They made a truly unique pair.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to be so frivolous. I was now in a potentially even more volatile situation than I had been downstairs. Evette had an uncanny ability to know when I was there, even if I hadn’t announced my presence. Realistically, it was because I was already expected, and she’d heard me come in through the front door. Still, wasn’t I also expected now?
Torn between walking away as quietly and quickly as possible, and staying a little longer to watch this strange spectacle, my body entered an argument with my mind, neither able to fully break away or commit to what was increasingly starting to feel like voyeurism. Their movements were hypnotic. Within a small space in the shadowy room, surrounded by bookcases and lit by a floor lamp in the corner, their feet glided effortlessly over the old-yet-ornate rug, where countless others had stepped before them.
“Isn’t this so much more fun with a partner?”
A jolt shot through me at the sound of Mahnoor’s voice, but she wasn’t addressing me.
“I’m not doing this for fun, I only asked you to help me practice.”
Evette’s reply was characteristically joyless, but carried a tone I had never heard from her before. It sounded something like embarrassment.
“Mmhmm, and I suppose you’ll have your fun at the gala?”
“That’s not about fun, either.”
“What’s the point, then?”
“Business. I thought that would have occurred to you.”
“Everything is a transaction in your world, isn’t it?”
“Everything is built on exchange, that’s just physics—in both our worlds.”
As if to help illustrate this point, Mahnoor spun Evette, who expertly maneuvered by pulling away from her partner, then allowing herself to be pulled back. Mahnoor led her in a short stroll to the edge of the rug, then swung her back around before her foot touched the dark wood of the floor.
“That’s true on a very basic level, but life is about more than interactions between fundamental forces. Quantum mechanics gives the sky its color, but it’s beautiful because we decide it is.”
“You could have used an example that I can relate to, or are we just going to drag out the old ‘how do you describe the concept of red to someone who’s never seen color’ debate?”
“My point is, everyone in your world likes to boil the sum of human experience down to its constituents. It turns every human interaction into a mathematical equation.”
“At the most basic level, that’s all anything is.”
“Yet, when I was walking here this morning, the pastry shop at the corner of Brisby and Tullycraft had just opened, and the meat pies smelled delicious. I can describe the chemical reactions in my olfactory nerve, how they influenced certain parts of my brain, and how that triggered the involuntary salivation. What math can’t do is convey how that felt to me and me alone. It may all be math in the end, but there’s no equation that could quantize my individual experience.”
“Your point being…?”
“Live a little! You don’t have to be all business all the time.”
“I fail to see how that relates to anything you just said.”
“And maybe that’s why we’ll never understand each other.”
It was such a final, almost cruel thing to say, but Mahnoor said it with the same pleasant, impish smile that seemed to be her default.
In the corner of the room, where an antique record player stood innocuously, looking more like an art piece than an appliance, the song reached its end; the record remained spinning, but the stylus raised from the vinyl, signifying the end of the dance. With the combined punctuality and ceremony of two nobles, Mahnoor and Evette parted, Mahnoor bowing and Evette curtsying. Then Mahnoor went over to the record player to remove the disk.
“Shall we go for another?”
“No, my feet hurt. I still haven’t broken in these shoes.”
“Take them off, then!”
“You are full of uncouth ideas.”
“Better than torturing yourself. Oh, Jarren, you can come in. The door isn’t even closed!”
It would have been interesting to see the next moment through Mahnoor’s eyes and be able to see both how I, and Evette, reacted to her words. I can assume my reaction was to jump slightly, and fumble as I opened the door with combined hesitation and an urge to “just get this over with,” all the while blushing furiously. However, I was too focused on Evette to pay much attention to what I was doing, as this was the first time I was seeing her express something besides mild annoyance. She straightened her posture so quickly that I pitied her spine, and moved fixed her hair as if on impulse which left it looking no better or worse than it had been a moment ago. A look of pure—yet still somehow restrained—panic was painted on her face, and showed itself in her rigid, rushed body language.
“Ah—! Um, M-Mr. Pierce, we were expecting you later. You’re early.”
“Oh, did say 12:00 in that text? I meant 12:30. My bad!”
Devilishly, Mahnoor mimed clonking herself in the head. Somehow, I got the feeling she hadn’t made a mistake at all, and my instinct that this had been a test set up by Evette had been completely wrong.
Also, the fact that Mahnoor had been the one sending those texts was a surprise, to say the least.
“I’m—uh—very sorry. I can come back later.”
“No, please come in. Um, everything’s prepared.”
I stepped fully into the room and saw that it was far more than just a private study. On one end were tall windows covered by thick curtains which blocked most of the sunlight. On the other, in a small alcove framed by bookcases, was what appeared to be a small laboratory. Monitors rested atop computer towers, all of which had cables running to something resembling a dentist’s chair at the center of the setup.
“What is this?” I asked.
Mahnoor was quietly putting the record back in its sleeve. She stowed it in a cabinet with a decently-sized record collection on its shelves. As Evette went over to the odd assortment of appliances, Mahnoor took me by the arm and, as if taking me on a college tour, gestured to the room around us in a grand manner.
“A sanctum. Where a magiscist can find solitude to study the nature of magic without interference from the outside world. You should consider yourself lucky! Most people never get to see this—including other magiscists. Then again, you’re not exactly ‘mundane,’ are you?”
That term, “mundane,” came up a lot in our conversations. That was anything not of the magical world. I didn’t particularly like it, but it wasn’t overtly offensive. It was certainly better than the language of exclusion that was quietly spoken in my village whenever an outsider passed through. Given that magicians were outsiders by nature, something about it sounded slightly self-deprecating, as if to say, “We know we’re the weird ones.”
Of course, if I wasn’t mundane, what exactly was I? To them, that is. To me, I was just that: me.
“I still don’t get it. Why did you ask me to come here?”
Mahnoor ushered me to the strange chair, gesturing for me to sit down in it while Evette fussed over one of the computer monitors.
“Comfortable? All right, we’ve established that what you’re doing isn’t magic because it doesn’t use the taze particle as a mediator between intention and effect. Nevertheless, every effect has a cause, we just don’t know what the cause is in this case.”
“I thought I explained it pretty well.” Admittedly, I was a little annoyed. On the night we met, Mahnoor and I had talked extensively about our respective abilities. At the time, it seemed like she’d understood what I was saying.
“For your part, you did! It’s just that abstract concepts can’t be quantified. Physical results demand physical processes. What Evette wants is to identify these processes. You say time is like a fluid, space is the forward motion of this fluid, and what you’re doing is converting the force of that motion into usable energy to fuel rationality suspensions. If we can actually see what that looks like, or at least detect traces of it… Well, that will require some experiments.”
An uneasy feeling washed over me. “Wait, am I the experiment?”
Evette spoke without hesitation. “Yes. I want to determine if your abilities are detectable by my instruments.”
“What for?”
Sometimes, my common sense was at odds with itself. With most people, there would be no harm in asking. With Evette, I felt as if I’d stepped on a land mine in a moment of thoughtlessness.
Even without turning to face me, it felt as if she was glaring. “Because, you are an anomaly, and I can’t abide anomalies. Furthermore, we have reason to believe you and the New Moon Abductor share a great deal in common.”
Mahnoor interjected before I could respond. “Let’s just say I had a little encounter last night. I thought I could be dealing with a magician, but I couldn’t detect any trace of taze interaction. With the golems, I can accept how that might be possible, but this was an active, prolonged directed intention resulting in a magic-like effect, and you’re the only other person I’ve met who can accomplish something like that without taze interaction.”
“You keep using all these words that that mean absolutely nothing to me.”
“She’s saying you and the abductor may have the same abilities,” Evette said impatiently.
“Some coincidence, huh?” Mahnoor said, looking practically elated.
Just the idea was almost too absurd to consider. “That’s… No, that can’t be right.”
“It would seem your opinion has no bearing on the facts,” Evette said, disinterestedly.
“I’m not disputing that, it’s just… It’s too much of a coincidence.” It was easier to say that than my real argument, namely that anyone who had been brought up as I had would never abuse the power of the Greater Soul in such a way. It was inconceivable. We were taught that to harm another living being—let alone take a human life—was the gravest, most consequential act possible, whether for good or ill. It left a permanent mark on the Greater Soul.
Of course, if someone meant to do you harm, it was permitted that one act in defense. But unless there was some grand conspiracy of seemingly unrelated people to do harm to the so-called Abductor, their actions were unjustifiable, by the laws of England, and by the laws of my people.
Mahnoor tutted. “That may be so, but we need to be sure. If it makes you feel better, you’d be interesting regardless of any potential connections to a serial kidnapper.”
“Thanks, I guess…” That didn’t make me feel any better.
“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it.” Mahnoor took her coat from the rack by the door and put it on. “I’m meeting someone for lunch.”
A small rush of panic shot through my body. “You’re leaving?”
“Business calls! Inspector Matsumoto had some updates for me after what happened last night.”
After everything else, I’d forgotten all about asking Mahnoor what had happened, but it looked like I’d have to wait some more. And now I was faced with the intimidating prospect of being alone with Evette for longer than I’d ever been before. Frantically, I stalled for a little extra time.
“Don’t you want to see oversee the experiment?”
“Of course I do, I’m a scientist too! But the next New Moon isn’t getting any farther away. I’d like to try preventing more abductions if at all possible.”
With that bold proclamation, Mahnoor turned, gave her characteristic backhanded wave, and strolled out the door, closing it behind her. I was left alone in the icy, silent presence of Evette. The clicking of her slender fingers on computer keys became the only sound in the room.
To me, in the presence of others, stillness and silence felt inappropriate. For Evette, stillness and silence seemed to be her natural state of being. I had seen her without her armor, and she knew it. I had heard her stumble over words. To someone like Evette, that was probably an equal offense to having seen her naked. It was a thought that didn’t sit well with me, especially now I was alone with her. More than I had since the encounter with the two assassins on the train, I felt as if my life was truly in danger. I knew the phrase “if looks could kill,” but Evette’s mere presence felt like it could kill given the right motivation. I fidgeted in the chair, trying and failing to quell the anxiety in me. Overthinking and underthinking both seemed like good ways to turn a volatile situation into an actual crisis, so I settled for something in the middle and asked a simple question.
“Is there anything you want me to do?”
Evette answered almost immediately. “Yes, please take off your shirt.”
I wanted this to be over already.
