Fiveday, 25 First Winter

2899 Tranquil Era

The basement lounge was full of secrets hiding in cigar smoke, wine glasses, and rolling laughter. Malou stepped inside with a welcoming smile, familiarity tickling her skin. As expected, this place hadn’t changed a bit since her father’s death. Under the amber glow of low-hanging chandeliers, tipsy professors slurred humor and hubris alike.

Gavriel gave a snort near her ear, but he had a dimple in his cheek all the same. “Nervous?” he asked, his tone holding a playful lilt. At times like these, he was all jokes. His gaze drifted around the darkened room.

As her eyes followed his, she remembered her father and his rasp of a voice joking his way through the crowd, slicked-back blond hair perfectly in place. Even with her heart in her throat, her smile didn’t falter.

“Never,” she said, letting the memory of her father fade from her mind and wishing it would stay away. She set her hand in the crook of Gavriel’s elbow and let the feeling of magic tingle in her fingers. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

She led her best friend into the standing crowd to exchange greetings, toasts, introductions, niceties, and small talk with practiced elegance. Her mother would’ve been so very proud.

The personal assistant programmed into her right earring whispered every professor’s name to her, even noted those who were also members of Vice-Premier Zeynel Casals’s secret society, the Onzena Nit. She didn’t need the reminders. Her secretary was just excessively helpful sometimes.

They mingled with her father’s former advisers, colleagues, and friends until they reached the bar, where a dull murmur of lies and taunts replaced the laughter and cheer. Professors sat around lion-footed tables, betting on their good fortune and their hands of cards in a game of Rojagat.

Near the fireplace, Professor Anka Haddou sat with her back to the false flames, her gold-ringed fingers waving Malou over. Sending her father’s former mentor a glowing smile in response to the invitation, Malou slipped along the games to Haddou’s group with Gavriel at her side.

Together, they dipped into a quick bow.

“Good evening,” Malou greeted, and the professors acknowledged her with gracious nods. They lounged with gin glistening in heavy lowball glasses next to their black-and-gold polymer cards. “And of course, congratulations on your retirement, Professor Haddou.”

Malou had delivered a message to Haddou a few nights ago.

“Sit, young Lamaire, sit.” She had an impressive stack of reals in front of her. The pot easily had more than double that. “Play with us. Both of you. Yes, you—you’re that scrawny thing who used to follow the older Lamaire around like a second child, right?” She flicked her hand, and space cleared for them.

“That would be me.” Gavriel flashed the professor a charming grin—the kind he used on the kitchen ladies when he wanted an extra slice of apple strudel—and bowed again. Malou took that moment to sit, and he followed in form. He always had been good at playing the part of a perfect gentleman. Too good, perhaps.

“I apologize for not introducing myself earlier,” he said. “My name is Gavriel Eng. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“None of your formalities.” Haddou scowled from across the table. She had the same rich umber skin as Malou’s grandmother, but none of her refinement.

Malou liked Haddou’s palm-rolled locs, and she liked Haddou even more. She wouldn’t have dared miss the opportunity to say goodbye to her, even if she hated goodbyes.

“Get the kids some cards,” Haddou said. “I’ll put in their ante. No arguing. I’m retired now, and I can do what I want. Do you two know how to play?”

“Dad taught us,” Malou said. She and Gavriel had watched her father play many times with Haddou from their perch on his knees. I let them think I’m not any good, he’d whispered to them once, and then I steal the game with a single hand. They think it’s luck. When you two are old enough, I’d like to see the look on her face when you do the same.

A smirk danced across Haddou’s face. “Too bad your father was a terrible Rojagat player. Didn’t know a good hand from bad. Let’s play, then. Good luck.”

From an ashtray on her left, Haddou fitted a Rielhan cigar between two fingers and added more reals to the small fortune in the middle of the table. Too many to count. All it took was some magic and some imagination, as her dad said.

Malou only knew two people who could use magic: her dad and Haddou. Something he said she had to keep secret, even from Gavriel. Her bedtime stories had always been about magic. Sometimes it was about working on the Teir. Sometimes it was about how almost all magic had disappeared from the world and all knowledge about it forgotten. Sometimes it was about the way magic worked, how he used it, how she could use it even though it felt like stroking a dying flame.

If Haddou was going to use it, then Malou would take that as an invitation to use it, too. Or use what she could at least.

The dealer slid a card toward Malou’s waiting hands, then one to Gavriel. They both folded, though Gavriel’s card could’ve been a win for all she knew. After all, that was the point. Her father used to fold until he had the perfect card. While he waited, he studied the other players, learned their tells, learned the difference between even the slightest of their facial expressions.

“Laure,” she whispered to the personal assistant programmed into her earring. Her father had given her the name while helping Malou modify the application. She had been Malou’s last birthday present from him. “Let me know if you think anyone’s cheating at this table.”

“Doesn’t everyone cheat at Rojagat?” Laure asked.

“Just keep a lookout,” she said under her breath as a new round started.

The dealer flipped a jack of crowns—regal in red and gold robes—for her own hand before dealing cards to everyone else who put up a new ante. Magic prickled in Malou’s fingertips when she touched the card that had been slid her way. She imagined a queen of thrones peering back at her in the dim light. A beautiful, winning card. The perfect card.

It was not luck that her father won. Just some magic and some imagination. Her father had explained magic almost as willfulness; he would imagine the perfect winning card at just the right moment in the game and then used magic to will that card into reality right under his hand.

The feeling of magic leaving her touch was like releasing a big breath of air. She pictured magic threading invisibly from her fingers and weaving around the card until it was covered entirely by her will to transform it. She kept the image of the queen of thrones in her mind, stretching her imagination to her second and third cards as well. So many details for only a moment.

Malou didn’t need to double-check her handiwork, but she lifted the corner for a peek just as everyone else did. Then she gave Gavriel a discreet sign under the table, and he folded without so much as a glance in her direction.

He untied his long hair and retied it into a bun at the crown of his head, fair skin disappearing into black tresses, as though he were aggravated by his poor luck. Chuckles circled the table as the game started, the smoke-thick air buzzing with the thrill of gambling.

Laure called her name. “I have bad news,” she said. As helpful as the program tried to be, sometimes she had no sense of timing.

One of the professors raised the bet and Haddou called without hesitating, but Laure had broken Malou’s concentration for that split second when she would’ve been able to read any tells, note if any of them could’ve possibly had a better card than her.

“Is it related to the game?” Malou whispered as the dealer dealt everyone a second card.

“I thought you’d like to know the feed just reported that—”

Malou tapped her earring, silencing her programmed secretary before she could finish. She didn’t want to know what unwelcome news was waiting for her, not when it’d distract her. She was here to win just like her father would’ve once he’d committed to it. Using magic like that was her committing.

Since it didn’t seem like anyone could have a better hand than hers—now with a jack of thrones—Malou dug into the pocket of her breeches for enough of her mother’s useless money to call again.

“Oh, that was a mistake,” Haddou said, the ashy butt of Haddou’s cigar burning orange. The woman wasn’t lying—she hadn’t blinked, hadn’t flinched, hadn’t pursed her lips, hadn’t even given a twitch of a smirk.

Malou should’ve folded. Haddou had done something while she wasn’t looking. Either changed one of her own cards or maybe even changed one of Malou’s.

The dealer placed Malou’s final card next to her new jack of thrones, then flipped their remaining cards—a nine of coins for the dealer, a king of castles for Haddou, a ten of crowns for Malou. That was not the king of thrones she’d imagined.

Just how much better was Haddou at using magic than her? Not only had Haddou changed Malou’s card last minute, but she’d also won with the royal flush Malou had wanted. That sent a particular wrench into Malou’s gut, but she had to be every bit the daughter of one of the most celebrated engineers of this era.

A clever, courteous, collected young woman. Which she was most of the time.

A confident young woman who didn’t care that she’d lost, perhaps even had a plan to lose. But of course, she cared and she would never lose on purpose.

“I see my ancestors have given me a win,” Haddou said over a murmur of otherwise growing dissatisfaction, “with a royal flush once again. And here I thought the young Lamaire would be like her father and find a way to play a single good hand after a seeming streak of bad ones.”

A smile moved onto Malou’s lips. “But it’s your retirement party. I wouldn’t—”

“Luck is all you need to win this game,” Vice-Premier Zeynel Casals said from somewhere behind Malou, his voice its usual gravel of cold indifference. He must’ve seen her lose. “Otherwise, my assistant would’ve effectively cheated you out of a nice sum of money by now.”

“What certainty you have in me.” Malou tried to read his face, but he wore his façade of unconcern as well as ever. “I would never cheat. Just because you can’t win a hand of Rojagat without bribing the dealer doesn’t mean I can’t win without doing the same.”

“I do no such thing.” He folded his arms over his chest. He was the last person she would’ve wanted to see her fail. His trust in her meant more to her than she cared to admit.

Since her father’s death, Zeynel had played a mostly convincing almost-father in his place. She figured he had a reason to be here. Either because whatever Laure had wanted to tell her was important enough to make him rush here the moment he’d heard the news or, more likely, he was here for another, more selfish reason.

What news was waiting for her once she turned Laure back on?

“Even if she did cheat,” Haddou said, “she wouldn’t have cheated me out of as much as you have.” She slipped her cigar between her lips as she reached for her riches. Her breath coiled gray tendrils into the hazy room, a tiny smirk playing at her lips. “Here, I’ll put that money back in the pot for you. Feel like I’m stealing from a baby, anyway, and from the older Lamaire’s no less. Now ante in.”

“She’ll have to refuse,” Zeynel said. “I need to borrow her for the rest of the night. Say your adieux, kid. You have five minutes. I’ll be waiting outside.”

Without a goodbye, he headed for the doors. If he’d intended to pluck her from the game so she could deliver a message for his secret society, he wouldn’t have allowed her time for a proper farewell. What could’ve possibly happened?

“Good riddance.” Haddou smoothed a loose emerald bead on her cassock with a palm, sitting back in her armchair as the rest of the professors at the table rummaged up their antes. “Didn’t invite that brute for a reason. He didn’t even congratulate me. You should stay, though. Whatever Vice-Premier Casals wants you for can wait. He’s a man who needs to learn patience, among a vast number of things. You’re only his work-study.”

That was what Malou was on paper, of course, and that was what Gavriel thought as well. If he knew the truth, he’d only worry more. Malou stood on shaky legs. “You know I’d love to stay if I could. Thank you so much for allowing me to play with you, Professor Haddou.”

She bowed to the professor. When she straightened, all the professors at the table had their heads lowered in return. A flush rose to her cheeks at the show of respect, even though they were bowing not to her but the daughter of the late Lavrras Lamaire.

“You better visit me,” Professor Haddou said. Though her voice had a rough edge, her eyes held a delicate fondness. She raised her drink to Malou. “Take care, Malou.”

“I’ll walk you to the door.” Gavriel stood, dipping his head to pardon himself from the table.

Haddou nodded back her permission. “You better come back though. Someone needs to help me blow through all this money, and you seem as capable of wasting it as the older Lamaire.”

He laughed at that, a low and genuine sound. “It’d be my pleasure.” Then his hand found Malou’s back as they moved through the growing crowd.

Although Malou wanted to wait until she was in private, she wanted to hear the news before Zeynel delivered it personally. She wanted to prepare herself—possibly for the worst—and so she tucked a spare curl behind her ear and awoke Laure with a tap of her finger.

“That was rude,” Laure said. “I was in the middle of a sentence. I assume you want the news now? The feed has reported that your grandfather died last night.”

Malou’s gaze lost focus and dropped to the wood floor as Laure continued reading the article, though Malou wished she wouldn’t. There wasn’t any preparation for this news.

Laure continued reading from the feed, not caring how unprepared Malou was for it. “Headline reads ‘Beloved Nuyeren Senator Dies at 91.’ The Revernais Senator and multimillionaire lawyer died at age 91 of natural causes on Fiveday, 25 First Winter 2899. He served on the parliament of patriciates for 42 years following his mother and grandmother...”

Such a dutiful secretary didn't deserve this, but Malou tapped her earring again and shut off Laure once more.

The last time Malou had seen her grandfather, her mother’s father, had been at one of her cousin’s birthday parties in Third Summer. Her grandfather had smiled, pinched her cheeks, told her how pretty she’d become as if she wasn't an adult and how much she looked like her mother and that she should visit more often. He’d been always welcoming, always doting, always caring. His belly-swaying chuckle echoed between her ears, full of vitality.

What had happened? How could he be dead? Her grandfather hadn’t seemed close to dying at the time, but then again, death didn’t wait with a pocket watch in hand. Her father hadn’t even been half her grandfather’s age when he’d died—he hadn’t even been forty.

Once again, she remembered her father asking if she wanted him to stay. She was a proud child who hadn’t wanted her daddy to think she was anything less than all grown up. That was when she’d told him he should leave, that she’d be fine on her own. He’d only smiled. A haunting, barely-there smile. If she’d told him the truth, he’d still be here.

Guilt held this memory close, inescapable, and choked her with a clawed grip. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place, hide away in some dark corner, forget she’d ever heard the news of her grandfather’s death. She wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, just like she wished she could for her father’s.

Gavriel must’ve known something was wrong, but he said nothing. Instead, he just rubbed small circles between her shoulder blades. When they reached the front, she handed the young boy playing porter tonight the ticket for her greatcoat with a tremor in her fingers. As he disappeared to find it, Gavriel leaned into her side, pinning her with his narrow near-black eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “And why’s the vice-premier here for you?”

Her tongue wrestled with the words as she tried to see past the flashes of her father’s half-smile that day and the twinkle in her grandfather’s eyes only four months ago. “My grandfather. He passed away last night. Laure just told me. Vice-Premier Casals is probably just checking on me. To see if I’m all right.”

“Well shit.” He pulled her into a hug, dropping his chin to her shoulder. He always hugged like this—nearly collapsing into her. Sometimes it gave her the impression that he needed her as much as she needed him. “Are you all right?”

No, but she’d at least pretend.

“Yes,” she said, and it wasn’t a lie. Her pulse jumped because she wasn’t exactly telling the truth, either, and if she wasn’t careful, Gavriel would see right through her. He worried too much as it was, and all because of a stupid promise he’d made with her father. “I could use a dinner date after you finish up here, though.”

“How could I refuse?” His gaze softened. The porter returned, handling Malou’s greatcoat with considerable care, and Gavriel thanked the boy. He helped her into it. “I’ll grab some food. We’ll meet at your flat in two hours? Wear something nice. I really like that footed sleepsuit of yours with the floral pattern.”

“You better bring dessert if you want to see that number. Preferably cake.”

“Pie it is. I’ll see you in two hours just a little richer.”

Two lies—he would bring her cake and he would be more than a little richer.

He headed back to the game while she opened the door to the wood-paneled corridor of Thein Library’s basement. Zeynel was waiting for her not even two steps away with a hard look on his stubbled face. His tan was the only thing warm about him.

As usual, the Vice-Premier of Tousieux University wore his gold-brocaded robes open to show dark slacks and a matching waistcoat. A soft blue light glowed in his palm—a rodona light. He offered her the glass orb as she met his side. Malou didn’t bother hiding the tremor in her hand when she took it from him.

“Come on, let’s walk.” He settled her under his strong arm, something like a paternal hug, and guided her down the hall to the stairs. “Your grandfather has died, Malou. I’m sorry.”

“...I heard.” Rather than watch concern crease his dark brow, she studied the dusty stairs as they climbed to the first floor. She remembered when he’d said those same words ten years ago, but it’d been her father’s name that’d tied his tongue.

Zeynel hugged her closer to his sturdy frame for a moment, but it was enough. These were the times he felt the most like a surrogate father. She closed her eyes and let him press her forward.

At the top of the stairs, he opened the creaking door to a rarely used faculty section of the library. The door was hidden behind a bookcase and nestled near a pair of stairs at the back of the first floor. After he pushed it shut, he took back the rodona light and pocketed it.

“His funeral is tomorrow.” He ferried her through the labyrinthine library to the front doors. “Your mother has decided you’ll both be leaving tonight to stay with your family until after his funeral. It’ll only be a few days. She’s packing now.”

That meant her mother was home for the first time in four months—since the beginning of the semester. “Fantastic.”

“Yes, very thrilling. I’ve even prepared a distraction for you.” As they met with the echoing footsteps and chatter at the front of the library, he slid two envelopes from within his robes and tucked them into her greatcoat.

A distraction indeed—he knew her too well—from her Rojagat loss and her grandfather’s death.

He leaned toward her ear to whisper, blue eyes fixed on her. Their deep ocean color reminded her of her father’s and her own. “Deliver these while you’re off-campus. You can manage that, right?”

“Don’t insult me, Zeynel. But thank you—for the distraction.” After all, he could’ve found someone else to deliver the letters. She didn’t believe she was his only messenger, but she did like to think she was his best. This was something she could do, an expectation she could meet. If he’d lost any confidence in her after seeing her lose the Rojagat game, certainly this would assure him that she was as capable as he’d always thought.

“Funny girl.” A dangerous kink lowered the corner of his mouth. One that said he didn’t quite appreciate her use of his name but wouldn’t correct her, either. “And you’re welcome.”

She didn’t expect any less from Zeynel and his secrets, and he could expect no less from her. As long as she played messenger for his Onzena Nit, she was granted unlimited access to the university’s secrets, though she was only truly interested in one of them: the Teir, the world’s greatest treasure and deadliest weapon.

Powered by ancient magic yet to be understood, the Teir was a tiny machine capable of predicting the future by processing patterns found in the world’s nearly ten thousand years of recorded human history by using algorithms her father had perfected. It was both proof that magic once existed in abundance and the legacy her father had left her. Professor Haddou had been one of the engineers protecting it before her retirement, as Malou’s father had been before his death, and as Malou wanted to be in the future.

The Teir wasn’t the only reason she delivered the messages, though. The other one wasn’t as noble.

Zeynel opened one side of the double doors at the front of the library and ushered her into the cold winter evening. The stone stairs of the entrance were wet from an earlier drizzle.

“Who are the messages for this time?” she asked.

Zeynel pulled her coat tight around her. “Don’t get yourself caught like a half-wit. I expect much better from you.” He gave her a rare shimmer of a soft smile.

Avoiding her questions was nothing new for him. She’d just check the letters later when she knew she wasn’t being watched. She had time. A bead of thrill trickled down her spine, but it met with a twinge of unease. After all, if she failed to deliver one of the letters, then she would’ve failed him. She couldn’t do that.

“I believe my record is flawless so far.”

“Yes, so far. I’ll see you when you return.”

He turned on his heel, velvet robes swaying around his ankles, and headed east toward his residence in Casals Hall, the administration building at the heart of campus. At the bottom of the stairs, his aide moved from the shadows to his side. They walked quickly, whispering. Under the lampposts, their breath turned an ash gray against the cloudy sky.

Peeling off toward the southeast outskirts of campus to Lussier Hall, where she lived with her mother, she tapped Laure awake again. “I need you to send Gavriel a quick message.”

“Oh, good evening to you, too,” Laure said. Unfortunately, her father had seemingly programmed her to give Malou a tough time, but Malou still didn’t have the heart to change her. She was a very dutiful secretary, after all, and one of a kind. “I thought I told you I don’t like it when you force me to sleep like that. Twice in a row!”

“The message. Tell him we’re going to my grandfather’s funeral.” She and Gavriel would have to arrange another day for their dinner date. He’d understand and, most likely, he’d be waiting at her door when she returned Firstday morning.

“Done. Do you want more information about your grandfather’s death? I’ve already pulled a few more stories. Headline Senator—”

“No, thank you. Keep pulling them, though. Maybe I’ll look at them later.” Or she won't. “You don’t need to tell me when you’re done, either. I’ll let you know if I need you.”

“Fine.”

Malou let out a long breath to straighten her mind. She had to shake off losing to Haddou first. Of course, Haddou would be better with magic than her. She was older, more well-practiced, and she’d probably had someone to properly teach her. No matter. Malou would get better on her own.

Her mother was another thing though. There was no getting better with her mother. No, the only way to get through the time she spent with her mother was to wear a courtly mask—straightening her back, squaring her shoulders, relaxing her brow, lifting the corners of her lips into a soft smile. One that revealed nothing about how she felt.

Nothing about losing at Rojagat. Nothing about losing her grandfather. Nothing about delivering these messages for Zeynel. Nothing about facing a mother who wanted nothing to do with her since Dad’s death.