Íde

It’s been four days. Sean and Iseult left me with no method of contacting them, which I realised only about six hours after a goodbye hug from Sean and a thin-lipped nod from Iseult. With no further direction from my friends, and no immediate engagements at Saint Listless’, I decided to spend the remainder of my day with my family. A pair of drunkards were shoving each other in the street in front of my mother’s tenement. After waiting for them to lose interest, I made my way inside.

Fionn’s broken his nose, somehow. This doesn’t at all dent his enthusiasm, and both of the boys harried me for an hour until my mother returned, exhausted, from her manufactory shift. She’d almost had a heart attack when she saw my hands.

“Had a bit of a scare,” she mentioned, when the boys were sent to bed. “Some Aerganite boys in the dosshouse thought they had scarlet fever. Then Ailín started running a fever. Lymph nodes like little walnuts. Started as soon as you left, then went away when you came back.”

She hugged me tightly. “Don’t go anywhere soon, my heart.”

I visit them every day.

How in the world are Sean and Iseult planning to get in touch? Mister Tumble had mentioned speaking with Professor O’Tierney, who was at the Wine Party? Or Saint Listless’? I should’ve paid better attention during the conversation. I’ve never even heard of a ‘Professor O’Tierney’ at Saint Listless’. I stare up at the sculpted ceiling of my little cubicle, thinking.

This situation seems unusual. But everything seems unusual. Even my hands seem unusual. Our voyage back from Brixa Thalaam had done wonders for my shredded palms and fingers. No more half hours spent gingerly pulling off cloth bandages glued to raw, barely-healing flesh. By the time we entered Ildathach waters, I’d eschewed the task entirely, and the rippling, honey-stained scars had earned me a tiny measure of respect from the crew. They tingle, now. My mother hadn’t pressed the issue, when she saw them, but I could tell she was worried. My brothers thought the honey-furrows were incredible.

It’s been four days. Is this it? Am I just going to be cast aside, after those whirlwind weeks?

My bed is a comfort, and it is closer to midday than sunrise before I leave it. I sink gingerly into the creaking floorboards of my cubicle in the Lugrough Club. Miss O’Keefe is unlikely to be on the prowl for errant souls at this time of day, but it doesn’t make sense to attract attention. She had been uncharacteristically warm when I’d returned, plying me for information on my travels and doting over my scarred hands. Now, half a week later, she’s returned to her normal landlady self, and I am just as likely to attract her ire as any of the other girls lodging at the Club are.

What surprises me most is that all of my things were exactly where I’d left them. I’d secured my cubicle, of course, though the impressive-looking locks of the Club wouldn’t be an impenetrable deterrent to any particularly determined snooper. Still, upon my return, I had found that nothing had been moved, stolen, or otherwise mucked about with. Again, surprising. Miss O’Keefe’s wrath is terrible, but not always the perfect impediment she fancies it is.

My mouth has felt tender for weeks now, right as I wake up, as if I’ve been sipping boiling coffee. I creep on the outsides of my feet, and slowly extract a dress and underclothes from my dresser. Hopefully, the bells clanging in the nearby chapel of Saint Birdcage help hide the noise of my rummaging.

Catching her attention at this point would not be catastrophic, though it may herald certain condemnatory consequences. There are only so many lectures or patient sighs that I can take to heart. I’ve had time to develop a resistance to Miss O’Keefe’s judgement over the last three years in the Lugrough Club. Other than Miss Deirdre Gaw, who is a fellow student at Saint Listless’, I am the Club’s longest-reigning tenant.

It’s hard to believe that I was gone for over three weeks. But now that I’m back, and the rhythm of the city is syncopating me into another normal day, it’s like I was never gone at all. There are only two differences between my life now and my life then. The first is the exhausting and predictable reactions to the stories that I have to repeat to every one of my neighbours. The second is the bullet necklace that Iseult gave me. I have memorised the configurations completely, and have no doubt I could engrave it on a marble or a bullet entirely by memory. Three dimensional knotwork. Shapes and curves that don’t match any sigil I’ve ever seen. I spent so long begging for access to the College’s scrimshawed knotwork. Now an actual Bani Yathrib has fallen, almost literally, into my lap.

None of the other girls really understand why this gift is so important to me, though they are polite enough when I show it to them. Most seem much more excited about my hand scars and the Wraithwild and the company I kept, and are (in my opinion) shockingly uncurious about the ocean or the complexity of the knotworking that Iseult and I created in Brixa Thalaam. Even when I mentioned my work for Colt & Tumble, the only attentive response I got was from Blair Malloch, who said that she knew an acquaintance who had just sold a painting to Wynne Colt. No questions at all about the strange, fervent Mister Tumble. Or anything else interesting.

I am bored of their questions, bored of the food, and bored of how quickly the world has decided to move on from my adventure.

Three weeks abroad have made my life in Ildathach seem much smaller than it was before I left. When Iseult had given me the envelope with my share of the money, I had been ecstatic, and promised myself I would save it as much as possible. My room has become gently filling with the things I could not previously afford. Books, mostly.

Today, at my mother’s suggestion, I have decided to go to Saint Listless’ and discuss the situation with professor Finneces and professor Gallagher. I cannot spend another day doing nothing, just reading and sketching three-dimensional knots and waiting. There has to be more than sitting at my desk, patiently hoping, watching the street traffic and the occasional relocated house trundling slowly down the thoroughfare outside of the Lugrough Club. I have been patient with Sean and Iseult for half a week, so it is time to take matters into-

A knock on my door, with no words. I know Miss O’Keefe’s knock.

How is it that the floorboards in my cubicle are so squeaky, when the ones in the hallway are fitted to allow such stealthy footsteps? How can a sixty year old woman creep quietly down a hallway without me noticing? How does she even know I’m in my room?

“Íde! Íde Ceallaigh! I know you’re in there.” How?! “There’s a foreign lady asking for you outside! And a,” and here she spits out a single noun, muffled through the thin wood of my door, suffused with the disapproving judgement of a certain type of woman, “gentleman. I thought perhaps this morning you had some sort of visitor, given your whispers during the early hours. I of course believe that you would never invite a man into this house, and that if I were to open this door at this very second I would of course not find someone attempting to squirrel themselves out of a window, or under a bed, or into a wardrobe…”

“Miss O’Keefe! A moment, please!” I rush to fully dress myself. Her assessment that I have just gotten out of bed, combined with her contempt at this deduction, is well communicated in the yawning silence that follows. She didn’t even mention Iseult’s tattoos. Just Sean’s gender.

I pull my dress over my head, and wonder what precisely she meant about ‘whispers during the early hours’.

When I unlock my bedroom, I regard the squat, white-haired woman before me with a forced serenity that she dismisses instantly. “Up so late?” She inquires, totally in my head. “What were you up to last night that kept you in bed for so long?” She indignantly and imaginarily intones. Her eyes track behind me, settling with inaudible judgement on the books that have sprouted like mushrooms in my quarters.

“Will you keep them waiting?” That sentence she actually says out loud. Tardiness is a major sin for Miss O’Keefe. “I know you’ve been in foreign lands, Miss Ceallaigh, but there aren’t two versions of manners, one for the Wraithwild and one for here.”

My shoes aren’t on quite right, so I tarry with the heel of my left foot. This spurs another bout of silent judgement from my landlady. When I feel suitably prepared, I follow her down the narrow staircase of the Club, and make my way to the front door, where Iseult and Sean have presumably been asked to wait. We walk at her pace, which is somewhere between ladylike and glacial. On the way, I pass rows upon rows of painted wooden doors. Cubicles for the other women who rent a space from Miss O’Keefe.

The foyer is tidy, with an unlit, dusty chandelier at least twice my age and handsome, herringboned floors. It is by far the most attractive part of the Club- it and a similarly charming reception area, stuffed with chintz, wherein Miss O’Keefe meets and sympathises with working women who are looking to rent a space in the city. The meeting room lives a double life as a sales office as well, for behind several heavily locked cabinets lie vials of quinine, ether, anodyne, and digitalis, which Miss O’Keefe sells (legally, I’m repeatedly told, even when I don’t ask) to supplement what must be an already significant income from our rent. It’s not a bad place, the Lugrough Club. Just not where I thought I’d spend three years of my life.

Our footsteps synchronise as we make our way to the front door. It swings open to reveal a stern looking woman with a half-tattooed face and a large, friendly man in a shamrock-green coat.

I expected a bearhug from Sean, but he just smiles tightly and inclines his head respectfully. I’m glad- if there were any contact between us, the judgement from Miss O’Keefe, who is now behind me and doing her best to singe my ears with her disapproving stare, would be too great. Iseult raises her eyebrows fractionally. Sean speaks first, in an unfamiliarly stuffy baritone. “We request your assistance, Sigilist Ceallaigh. Our client has need of your particular expertise.”

The formality legitimately leaves me startled. It’s like he’s a different person.

His eyebrow waggle is immensely subtle, and likely unnoticed by my landlady. Oh, I see. I decide to play along. “Of course, Sir Whelan. If you would excuse me for a moment, I can gather my notes and join you.”

I do so, then return to the front door, then leave the Lugrough Club. Two minutes later, when we are a safe distance from Miss O’Keefe, Sean wraps one of his tree bough arms around my shoulder. I feel a thunderbolt of anxiety as I fear that Miss O’Keefe may still be watching us through echolocation or some other arcane means, then relax when I realise how absurd that would be. Sean releases me, then speaks. “Nice one. How have you been?”

He smells like orchids, and the weave of his coat is rough against my face. “Thank you for being subtle,” I reply.

Sean feigns offence. “Me? I am only ever the subtlest of men. A paragon of stealth. A master sneaker.”

We share a grin, which does not spread to Iseult. A sudden thought intrudes. “How… did you know where I live?”

He glances at her, and she at me, and she shrugs. Sean squints conspiratorially, then holds his hands up. “She does it to me as well. Bani Yahtrib magic. Don’t ask questions. I didn’t realise you lived in Rustmeat, though. I wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time in the area.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I snort. “Any longer and Miss O’Keefe might’ve invited you in for some anchovy toast.”

He looks pained. “I actually quite like anchovy toast.”

Of course he does. Also, that particular threat is a weak one, because I am not sure what precisely Miss O’Keefe would make of the pair of them, if she knew who they were. Sean looks skywards, wistfully, and trundles through another thought. “Seeing as we’re in Rustmeat, when was the last time you were at Scannell’s?”

I frown. “No, what is that?”

He gapes at me. “Scannell’s? You’ve never been! You’re three streets over!” This might actually be real, rather than feigned, astonishment. “Well it’s settled. We’re going. Have you never even seen the sign?”

It’s only been a few days, but I’ve already forgotten how quickly they both walk. We weave past a street florist, who is currently re-packing his cart. The smell hits me a moment later, and I realise a horse has relieved itself directly beside his wares. We skirt this unpleasantness and troop over the Rustmeat macadam. “I don’t know, I don’t get out much.”

“I’ll say. Saints. You two,” and here he wags a finger that alternates accusingly between Iseult and I, “are just like each other.”

Iseult makes that flat indifferent face she always does. She somehow looks smaller than before. With a start, I realise why: no gun.

*

Scannell’s, as it turns out, is a club. An actual club. And it’s four streets over, not three, squatting underneath half a dozen massive black sky bridges which link the granite-clad buildings on both sides of the street. The street doors are titanic, a story tall at least, and bound in thick strips of cast iron. We pass through a smaller wicket gate, cut directly into the huge wooden doors, and I am instantly reminded of when I met these two in the Tarnish Minister, in that I am out of my depth and underdressed.

We are brought to a dining room, which is gorgeous, and catch up over a lunch consisting of small plates of bacon and cheese. They’ve been busier than I have- Sean has slotted back into his normal job, which is still teaching people how to murder other people. Iseult has been chasing down an official contract for Evin’s request, which I’ve now been informed is now in formal, written form, and therefore actually legitimate work. She’s also been verifying the research required with her contacts. I realise, over about twenty minutes, that I’ve only been invited today because despite Mister Tumble’s insistence, and the address he wrote down for Iseult, Professor O’Tierney is not actually at the Wine Party. He is at Saint Listless’, and is not giving Iseult an audience.

The conversation pauses and I also learn that the bacon and cheese is not technically a meal, and is merely the first in an onslaught of dishes. Once again, Sean has commandeered the lunch, and orders our food with a militaristic organisation and certainty. I don’t actually know half of the things he is saying, though certain individual phrases such as “lamb, pudding, coffee” jut like icebergs from his flood of orders.

This ocean of food dampens our conversation somewhat, and gives me time to think. The first plate to arrive, which the waiter calls slake and Sean refers to as laverbread, is accompanied by a plate of sliced fried sausages as thick as my wrist. I have never even heard of it before, and poke tentatively at the salted green ooze on my plate. Iseult and I pick politely at the dishes as they arrive, and say very little as Sean ploughs through each course. Still on the cusp of gentlemanly, though I get the impression that he is consciously demonstrating as much restraint as he can.

As with before, I reach the point where I say I am full, then am actually full, then at a state of incredible discomfort. Perhaps Iseult has significant practice resisting Sean’s grandmotherly habit of extreme force-feeding, but I do not, and eventually the meal reaches a zenith where I start refusing dishes not out of politeness, but because I feel like I will actually die if I eat any more. Hot drinks are eventually served, and I ask Iseult if this is actually the last course when Sean is distracted by a passing acquaintance. It is, she assures me, and a spike of outrage boils inside me when I see a waiter approaching our table with some sort of chocolate dessert. He swerves at the last moment, to deliver it to a table two spots over, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Sean’s food habits are terrifying. He will consume seemingly everything, save the delicate cup of pale brown liquid that has been placed before him. “I do apologise, I simply don’t like it at all,” he complains.

I take a sip. “I think it’s quite good,” I retort, truthfully.

He frowns, peering down at the thin fluid in his cup. “I’ve had this once before, at Birch’s. It’s made from boiled leaves. They drink it in Cabochon.” Sean purses his lips in distaste.

I’m enjoying the feeling of wrapping both of my hands around the warmth of the cup, and unexpectedly find both the desire and the courage to argue with him. “Actually, I do rather like it! Though perhaps some sugar would cut the bitterness? Or milk?”

“Expensive tastes,” Iseult murmurs.

Sean makes a gagging noise, then looks sideways at Iseult, who says nothing more. She sips gently from her cup, then stares at both of us for a few seconds. She speaks again, drily and precisely. “It’s nice.”

He throws his hands up, leans back to seize the attention of a waiter, and orders a cup of hot cocoa (also from Cabochon, though apparently beans are less offensive to Sean than leaves are) for himself.

When the last of the plates are taken away, and all that remains on the dining table are a constellation of drained glasses, the serious talk returns. Iseult shows no signs of being damaged by the meal, which is remarkable. Sean is animated as well: he finishes his drink, then orders another. I am apparently alone in attempting to not fall unconscious from the quantity of calories I’ve just ingested.

“So,” Sean gesticulates, curling his other hand around a tiny coffee cup, “we were saying.”

As Mister Tumble mentioned in the warehouse, our contract has been extended to cover one more task. This isn’t abnormal, explains Sean, as Colt & Tumble is apparently in a time of some coarse political manoeuvring, wherein their resources are sporadically and unexpectedly tied up in various points of friction with other companies. They are operating with the blessing of the Chaplain’s Office, which is good, though they have apparently infuriated a whole host of major players in the Ildathach market, which is bad. The cannon is already being built, somewhere on an island up north called Inskoet. I’ve never heard of it.

Iseult has spent the better part of the week simultaneously verifying that our contract is bereft of snares (which it is), and checking if whatever web of contacts she has established can help in this task (they cannot). Hence, I have been pulled back into the fold. Sean arrives at this conclusion indirectly, and politely.

A thought bubbles up, in a lull in the conversation. They only want you because you can help them with one part of the job. They didn’t think about you otherwise. I force it back down, and feel guilty.

Eventually the full scheme emerges, almost entirely courtesy of Sean. Iseult speaks rarely, and is content to let him flesh out the plan. It goes something like this:

Meet Professor O’Tierney. Discuss the problem that Professor O’Tierney and the Wine Party is having with charming the cannon’s chamber and targeting apparatus. Figure out what a cannon’s chamber is, subtly, without embarrassing myself. Finish the required knotwork. Travel to Colt & Tumble’s gun, which is being assembled somewhere north, in the sea near the Torment. Attend the party where they shoot down the new moon.

They seem confident about this. At one point, Sean brings up that payment seems significantly more generous than expected, but Iseult interjects with a sharp tone which surprises both of us. I’ll of course be paid a third, Sean says, and I notice that he doesn’t look my way at all, despite addressing me.

There’s a pause, then Iseult nods curtly. “We’re going to Saint Listless’ today to meet the professor. That is,” she gestures at me with an open hand. “You and me. He’s in a place called the ‘Violet Manor’, if you’ve ever heard of it.”

I swallow as the responsibility suddenly shifts from an abstracted job that they are taking care of, to something that is now on my shoulders. I nod enthusiastically. Of course I’ve heard of it. There’s five hundred students at Saint Listless’, and every single one of us knows the stories about the Violet Manor. Deirdre Gaw swears that her professor spent an entire year dissecting a mummified Tecuani, down in the basement. I’ve personally walked by it late at night, and heard a minute of soot-whispers from one of the Manor’s many chimneys.

Sean pays for the meal several minutes later, scoffing and waving off our attempts at contributing. I snatch a glimpse at the bill when he’s not looking. The figure the waiter has written down is eye-watering.

*

Little iron chimes rustle at every corner of Saint Listless’ shrine. I bow to the Saint’s smiling bust, resisting the urge to recite the lewd rhyme that all students of the College know. Five yards beyond the statue looms the baroque entrance that splits the Violet Manor from the street. My companion, Saint-averse, is in the process of unlocking the gate’s tremendous iron lock with a similarly oversized key.

Iseult and I proceed inside of the grounds of inside Saint Listless’ College, staring at the modest façade of the Manor. Sean excused himself to some other appointment shortly after our lunch. On this north side of the College, we’re closer to the area where the Chaplain has decided to expand Ildathach’s sewer system on nearby Hackcloth Row, and crews have begun paving over one of the vile tributaries that cut through the centre of the city. The smell is shocking, wafted occasionally over in little staccato gusts. One sudden breeze whips through the plaza we’re in, reminding me that summer is turning. We were only gone about a month, and yet the weather has shifted so quickly.

It’s odd. I’ve been attending the College for three years, and have almost finished my studies, but have never actually been inside the Violet Manor. Nor has anyone I know. I know the rumours, of course, but I figured most of those were just the fevered imaginings of students with too much imagination or narcotics or spare time. There’s no chance at all that anything that devilish, or haunted, or dangerous, within College grounds.

Nonetheless, I am standing quite close to Iseult. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done my part of the work, by finding out how to actually get inside of the Manor’s fence. Because Iseult is Iseult, it hadn’t occurred to her that the simplest way of getting inside was asking an aide in the Chancellor’s office. It had taken me about a minute to explain our situation, and about ten seconds for him to produce a large iron key that would let us through those stern locked gates.

Iseult had actually proposed waiting outside for someone to either enter or exit the Manor’s grounds, but this method seemed quicker and less ridiculous.

Either way, we have made progress. The space inside the fencing is not nearly as foreboding as I imagined it would be, given its reputation. That said, on the very front of the gate there is a small sign which reads:

NO.

THE VIOLET MANOR IS OUT OF BOUNDS.

Otherwise, the Manor seems like another classic Ildathach building, likely purchased and utilised by the College over a century ago. It’s noticeably lower than the buildings around it- tactfully avoided by the crews that are busy raising the city, building by building.

We enter the small plaza, and are now flanked on three sides by identical purple double-doors that seem unusually weathered. There are no signs, either literal or metaphorical, that give us an indicator of where to go. Indeed, the only interesting characteristic of the entire courtyard is a bearded man in a brown suit, his age somewhere between Iseult’s and mine, who is currently perched on an uncomfortable looking stone bench. His dark red hair is drawn back in several braids, and is tamed with enough charms and bangles that he would blend in with some of the students I study with. He is eating a parchment-paper wrapped sandwich.

I approach him, ignoring the little disapproving noise behind me as Iseult exhales just a bit harder than normal. The man, his eyes a watery blue and bisected by a very freckled, very squashed nose, watches me approach. He doesn’t stop eating.

“Hello! Hello, sir. We,” I gesture backwards at Iseult without looking, “have been sent by Colt & Tumble to work with Professor O’Tierney. We’re here to help him with a project that we’ve been involved in for quite some time, and have been asked by our mutual employer to aid in any way we can.”

The bravery I cultivated in the Wraithwild starts to leave me, when he doesn’t immediately respond. Was this a mistake? He chews at me, thoughtfully. I feel like I need to speak again, but he holds up a hand, and I wait patiently for him to make his way through his mouthful. “He’s a she, by the by.” A thick Crowmere brogue.

I frown. “I beg your pardon?”

“Professor O’Tierney is a she. Moira O’Tierney. Also, I’m Arthur. Professor Arthur MacAomalain. Alchemical Engineer.”

He half-rises from his bench and offers a hand, and I shake it gratefully. I’ve actually heard of Professor MacAomalain before, from my friends. The professor stuffs the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth, then takes a moment to fold the parchment paper into a precise triangle. Satisfied, he pockets the paper, brushes the crumbs from his trousers, and unfolds himself from the bench, limb by limb.

He’s much taller than he first appeared. The professor focuses over my shoulder, and I hear Iseult’s light footsteps behind me. There’s a strange moment where his gaze flickers minutely down, then stays there, like he’s staring directly at her chin.

After tilting his head respectfully to Iseult, he speaks again. “Absolutely, I can take you to Professor O’Tierney. We’re working on the project together, you know. Her more so than me, because she doesn’t have to actually teach. But we do all share the same employer. And you, miss, have the look of a Saint Listless’ student.” That last sentence was directed at me. He takes a few seconds to crack his knuckles, repeatedly, working the same joints from multiple angles.

When he speaks again, he says a phrase that I don’t follow at all, until I realise he’s not speaking Irdcheol. Iseult says something in slow, cautious reply, to which he looses a longer, more rapid sentence. She, astonishingly, laughs, then says two words and steps in front of me. They shake hands, briefly, and then the professor leads us to the door closest to where he was eating his lunch.

Iseult and I share a glance- before I spoke with the professor, we had wagered on which of the identical doors we should knock on. Neither of us had settled on this one. I lean over to her, while the professor works the battered lock with a complex-looking key.

“What did he say?” I murmur.

“He’s Mutafasih.”

“He’s Bani Yathrib?”

“What? No, he’s from Crowmere. But he’s Mutafasih. He speaks Mutafasih well. Probably reads it, based on how long he stared at my face.”

“I thought that Mutafasih was the language?”

She steps forward, face drawn into the slightest irritation. “It is. Mutafasih is the name of the language. And speakers are called Mutafasih.”

“So does that mean that you’re Mutafasih?”

She rolls her eyes. “Mutafasiha. But yes.”

When the door unlocks, it does so with an audible chunk-pang noise. Our guide steps through, holding it open for us, beckoning us with the other hand. I sneak a look into the frame on the way in, and am taken aback at the complexity and quantity of unlocked bolts which secure the door. When the professor closes it behind us, it settles with a palpable weight. One twisted handle later, and the entire doorway secures itself, rivet-tight, against the walls.

I’m not sure what to expect, inside the Manor. Again- I’ve heard the stories, passed around by gossiping students. But they seem ridiculous. I expect there’s nothing outrageously dangerous, of course, but neither alchemy nor sigilry is entirely without risk. There are certain sinister accoutrements that I’m hoping for. Uprooted standing stones. Suits of armour. Bizarre taxonomy. Bitter, imperious portraits of Saint Listless’ staff, stretching back decades or even centuries.

But no. Our guide leads us through a long corridor, interspersed by neat little numbered doors. No foyer, no doorman, nothing. The floorboards are worn, and painted black, and have likely shifted and warped over time. Everything seems disappointingly normal. We follow the professor into the winding depths of the Manor, passing dozens of these simple white doors, unevenly and asymmetrically spaced around the corridor.

Iseult steps on a loose plank, and it squeals loudly in protest. She peer down, raising an eyebrow.

Occasionally, the rest of the building creaks or murmurs. Not, frustratingly, in a way that suggests some immense vat of rare chemicals or the presence of some domesticated beast. I catch a whiff of something migraine-inducing when we cross the threshold of an unmarked door. We descend, at some point, down a narrow white staircase.

The Manor spills over a tremendous amount of underground space. I imagined we would reach the end of the wing by now, but we keep walking, deeper into the oil-lit labyrinth, over a significantly larger space than I expected. At one point I hear the sound of shuffling paper from behind yet another unremarkable white door, but there are no portentous noises, no abrupt changes in temperature, no taste of static in the air. I nearly run into our guide when he stops by door 60, functionally identical to all the others, which he unlocks smoothly before holding it open and gesturing for us to enter.

We’re greeted, immediately, by an argument.

This room, which is long and narrow and could fit thirty or forty students if the need arose, is under-occupied. Mounds of academic trappings are stacked on three different wall-mounted desks, and a massive armoured box the size of a four-posted bed occupies a fraction of another. Echoing voices, courtesy of a couple arguing in the centre of the room, highlight its emptiness. Neither spare us a glance when we enter.

One, a woman, has shucked her coat so as not to powder it with the chalk that now coats the sleeves of her sensible blue blouse. A sigilist’s rose shines in the discarded blazer’s lapel. She has a mane of loosely contained grey hair, and is gesticulating forcefully with a stick of consecrated chalk. The other, a rotund man of roughly her height, is dark-haired and balding, and is dressed in the same style of suit as Professor MacAomalain. He’s using a massive ledger as a ward, holding it open with both hands, and has raised his voice to the same disagreeable octave that she has. The pair, brassy and venomous, are flanked by chalkboards, reams of paper, schematics, pots, and alembics. I recognise a shape beside the hulking iron box- one of the oleum-filled crates we acquired from Brixa Thalaam.

“The theory is sound, Hatim. It is your engineering that is wrong, because the configurations are designed perfectly based on the thresholds that you have presented.”

The woman refutes the man’s ledger with a contemptuous air-scribble of her chalk, the point a mere inch from the orderly Khazraj script written in his book. He bays a note of outrage, then slams the ledger shut and retreats back to a chalkboard several yards distant. He begins to angrily remove a dense section of calculations. Iseult leans in and seems like she’s about to say something to me, then thinks better of it.

Across from this pair, piled with various scholarly detritus and each occupying a third of the available wall space, sit three handsome desks. Each is uniquely unkempt. The one furthest from us is ringed in a shocking number of unshelved books, which combined form a knee-high wall, demarcating the desk from the rest of the room.

I recognise more unorthodox sun-sigil drafts on a chalkboard adjacent to one of the tables, and the blackboard closest to me is lousy with alchemical formulae.

Professor MacAomalain coughs. Neither of the seething two bothers to look at us.

“Moira, Hatim, you have some visitors.” No response. “May I introduce Miss Íde Ceallaigh,” again, nothing, “and Miss Iseult Morrin.”

That, at least, gets a quick glance up from both of them. The man, Mister Hatim, flicks his attention over Iseult’s face, then looks unabashedly down to the tattoos about her hands. Professor O’Tierney looks over at us warily, then returns to sketching a design into a notebook, having exchanged her chalk for a pen. “Yes?”

Iseult steps forward, and I gratefully stifle the respectful introduction I was a few seconds away from trying. “We’re here on behalf of Colt & Tumble,” she declares.

Professor O’Tierney regards my friend neutrally, staring not at her tattoos but at the glowing red charm that burns on Iseult’s lapel. “On behalf of Colt & Tumble for what purpose?”

“Doing your job, presumably.”

I draw my breath in through my teeth. Mister Hatim scowls. “Are you the Iseult Morrin?”

She focuses her frosty attention on him. “Yes.”

He snorts. “You don’t look like your portrait.”

“You don’t look like much of anything.”

He seems like he’s about to swallow his tongue. I wince. Why does she always do this?

Professor MacAomalain pipes up, smoothing ruffled feathers, “Colt & Tumble told us a week ago that we should expect contractor help. We’re not paying independently for this. And they’re here to help.”

“We are the ones who supplied the oleum,” Iseult adds.

Professor O’Tierney gives us a few moments more of neutral scrutiny. She seems not at all concerned with Mister Hatim, who is quietly bubbling, faced with not one but two consecutive insults. When she speaks, she does so with a deliberate certainty, like she’s weighing each word carefully.

“Do you know what we are trying to do, here?”

For the first time, Iseult looks at me. Not in confusion, or in contempt, but with a different expression that I don’t recognise. I keep my mouth shut, and let her talk.

“Broadly, to help shoot down the moon. As to what you’re attempting to accomplish with that,” she points to the ornate knotwork that has been sketched onto a nearby blackboard, “or that,” and here moves her hand to the armoured tank, lurking in the corner of the room, “we are not sure.”

That pronoun brings the attention of all three of them unto me. I keep composed, consciously imitating Iseult’s own neutral face. My palms have started sweating.

“And you, Miss Ceallaigh” the professor flicks her focus to me. “What is your background?”

“Sigilwork. Ma’am. I’m a, a student at Saint Listless’.” Both the professor and Mister Hatim ratchet their eyebrows very slightly.

Iseult folds her arms. “And she has been assisting me with my knotwork.”

There’s a pause.

“Well,” the professor says- after I beat down every piece of me that says to be speak up, and be polite or helpful or deferential- “perhaps we should go over the basics. And then the specifics. Hatim. I’m going to start the coffee. Would you mind clearing a space for us to chat?”

I expected Mister Hatim to be more quarrelsome. He instead accepts, with a shrug, like his anger has a five-second half life. When he begins clearing the table in the centre of the room, he asks Iseult a quiet question, in another language. She replies in turn, and I breathe out fully.

Professor MacAomalain speaks quietly, just to Iseult and me. “Colt & Tumble have made a rather interesting mess of things. But this should be rather fun. Do take a seat, Moira does brew an excellent coffee.”

*

She actually doesn’t, but I’m not about to disrupt this ice-thin peace by pointing that out. The coffee arrives with a polite selection of pastries, which are mostly stale. As Sean is not here, the food remains untouched.

Our conversation more than makes up for the refreshments. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. If this were a lecture, I would have my notebook out, and would not have taken my pencil off the page for the last hour. Nobody else is writing things down, so I refrain, though am agonisingly aware of the monstrous levels of detail I will inevitably forget. We are here to help them with the oleum, which I had imagined they’d use as some sort of explosive propellant. The actual idea they have, which is both insane and marvellous, is far more interesting. It is explained to us over stops-and-starts, little winding tangents and summaries, sometimes reinforced by hard data plucked from various journals and notebooks scattered about the room.

Burning all the oleum at once in order to fire the shell is, according to both alchemists, an insane idea, due to a number of reasons. The first is the difficulty in forging a cannon powerful enough to resist that hellish energy, which they assure me (after showing me some calculations which pleasingly match the ones I did in Brixa Thalaam) is unreasonably difficult. The second is building the explosive shell, which would also need to be strong enough to withstand those forces. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but Colt & Tumble and the Wine Party have demanded that the shell be inscribed or linked with a type of delicate targeting apparatus that will allow it to actually seek the “Heart of the Moon”. Whether or not this is a metaphor or a literal heart is beyond me, and I don’t want to reveal myself to be ignorant by asking. Iseult seems to find this task doable, and grunts understandingly as they explain the idea to her. I, attempting to maintain my disguise as her able colleague, mimic her nodding. She mentions that she should be able to help with the targeting array, though what that properly entails has yet to be fleshed out.

So, instead of using the oleum as some sort of immense explosive, the Violet Manor has a different proposal. Professor O’Tierney’s explanation, which is delivered with the pleasing rhythm of a practiced lecturer, is as follows.

Bleeding the energy into a sigil and then releasing that power in calculated doses, therefore accelerating the shell over stages, dramatically reduces the load on all parts of the system- so much so that it easily allows for the construction of a cannon using certain modern metallurgical methods. Releasing sigil energy is straightforward: it’s what Iseult did to drive away the d’hain in the Bloom. Releasing the energy at a steady rate is also possible, though tricky. I myself could probably figure out how to configure a charm sized to fit the gun. The problem lies in loading that knotwork with as much energy as possible. Enter our two alchemical engineers.

Mister Hatim’s tank, the heavy squat thing which takes up a fifth of the floorspace and lends the room an ominous atmosphere, contains a machine devoted to continuously detonating trace amounts of oleum within a controlled chamber. The force from that detonation is translated to a charmed apparatus which feeds the energy created directly into a death-charm, which in turn greedily sucks in that power and stores it, keyed for eventual release. Oleum fire, fed into stable sigilwork over a period of hours or even days, ready to be released in precise and hellish increments via various knotwork control mechanisms. Secondary machines, one inscribed with simple knotwork, deal with the inevitable physical waste products of this undertaking- mostly smoke and a minute quantity of undetonated oleum. Eventually, all of this effluent and vapour is fed through a colossal black pipe, which punctures the ceiling through a hole enveloped by rags and metal bracketing.

I would’ve assumed the engineering work was in a theoretical phase, until the alchemists levered one of the hinged panels of the cast-iron tank open, revealing a mess of pipes, tubes, and one immense wheel. Given the price and scarcity of oleum in the city, I’m shocked that the College would even allow them to build this prototype in the first place. Saint Listless’ hasn’t even built something as simple as a harquebus since the war, let alone an even hungrier device. Maybe that’s part of why the professors are happy with Iseult- it’s not like her jezail has to burn oleum to work.

The whole procedure takes a tremendous amount of oxygen, and a stable source of fire. Also, our oleum appears to not work at all with their current designs. When Iseult tells them what we did in Brixa Thalaam, the way we purified the chemicals by vaporising and separating them, then increased their volatility with oxygenates and purpose-made greydust, it caused such a frenzy of action from the engineers that I initially mistook their enthusiasm for anger.

Half an hour later, after the apparatus had roared to life, we were able to turn our attention to the true bulk of the work: sigilry. Completing this element of the job takes us another fortnight.

*

I’ve read the same page at least twice now, and both times the words have trickled out of my brain immediately. My retention has vanished, and for the last two minutes I have been quietly humming the first few measures of a Caronek melody that I heard weeks ago.

A break is good. When I partnered with Iseult back in Brixa Thalaam, I was mortified at the way that she drowned herself in the work. She never stopped. I remember orbiting her, in the Colt & Tumble warehouse, then occasionally stopping and drinking coffee or stretching or socialising. Iseult barely moved, or when she did it was with the sort of purpose that inevitably ended with her in the same spot, now armed with notes or a new pencil.

Luckily, the staff of the Violet Manor operate at my pace, so occasionally I find myself in the company of the others. Our breaks synchronise sporadically, and we have little chats while resting for a few minutes before returning to the knotwork.

Over the last few days, I’ve run into Professor MacAomalain, who has insisted I call him Arthur, the most. He’s genial, and has a love of coffee and art in small places. Most of his work is insulated from ours, as the labour that he and Mister Hatim are completing is less theoretical and more practical. It’s also outrageously loud, when they test the roaring machine they’ve built. Iseult and Professor O’Tierney don’t seem to mind at all, so I am forced to pretend that the deafening contraption doesn’t bother me.

Occasionally, one of them will disappear for an hour or a day and return with a tube of some sort, or a box containing a widget the size of my thumb. They find this work tremendously exciting, and on the days where the pair of them are stripped down to their undershirts and arms-deep in mechanical grime and oleum residue, they seem the happiest. Arthur has a great deal of knowledge on a great deal of subjects, and is generally happy to discuss any topic at hand whenever I run into him in the coffee room adjacent to our workspace. His explanations often result in trails of sooty black handprints that meander over our shared tables, chairs, and mugs.

The professor is from an almost identical background as I am, but a few years my elder- after his family migrated to Ildathach as workhouse labourers, he was enrolled in one of the Chaplain’s Ragged Schools, then ended up with a scholarship to Saint Listless’. He’s also spent time in the Wraithwild, on a merchant’s caravan that departed from Brixa Thalaam and travelled on to Cotton Castle and greater Khazraj. I ask him if that’s where he had met Mister Hatim, but he’d just laughed and said no. Our Al Khazraj engineer was hired at Professor O’Tierney’s behest, and is apparently specialist in both high pressure fluid control and clockmaking.

Mister Hatim is less gregarious, and has fortified himself with the aloofness that academics use when forced to interact with students. His actual relation to Saint Listless’ seems tenuous- I thought he was a particularly gifted student until I brought this up to Iseult. She’d dismissed this idea, and had answered with a hypothesis of her own: “Wine Party”.

At one point during the second day we’d worked together, he’d walked past me in the corridor holding an intricately-worked piece of metal.

“What is that?” I’d asked him.

“It’s an experimental oleum compression apparatus,” he’d replied, drily, barely looking up from the device or breaking stride.

“What does it do?”

“It is an experimental apparatus for compressing oleum.”

This leaves Professor O’Tierney, who I actually spend much of my time working with. She’s draped in the same authority that Iseult is, but wears it differently. She’s more patient, for one. And she’s actually happy to take a coffee break, every few hours.

After explaining the task at hand, Professor O’Tierney and I ended up synchronising quickly into a team of two. We spend days testing configurations that will best retain power generated by the machine that Arthur and Mister Hatim are building. It’s a lot of mathematics, followed by a fair amount of actual sigilwork, followed by hours upon hours of experimentation. I’ve stopped flinching whenever we turn the machine on, and have stopped calculating the number of spirals we spend every time we start incinerating oleum.

But it’s sensible. And elucidating. Iseult phases in, at odd times and with a tremendous enthusiasm, when she has not barricaded herself behind a wall of notes and esoterica in an attempt to hash out the targeting array for the cannon. This is not a metaphor- she has constructed a little fort out of a handful of paper screens, acquired by our hosts from somewhere else in the Violet Manor. If the professors or Mister Hatim are concerned by the shack that has sprouted in their workspace, they don’t say anything. It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway: Iseult tends to make non-negotiable requests.

I don’t ever enter her impromptu room, but I do note that she seems to bring in a great amount of chisels and ink, and leaves every night with her notes secured in her rucksack. I’d asked her the second day if she’d needed my help, but she’d shaken her head, and mentioned something about ‘narrative harnesses’.

So the days blur by. Halfway through the week, Arthur taps me on the shoulder and asks me a jargon-drenched sentence about the knotwork that Iseult and I performed on the oleum in Brixa Thalaam. He’s totally focused on the job, his face unfamiliarly solemn, and it takes me a moment to think about the parameters he’s enquiring about. I answer as best as I can, visualising the configurations we designed back in the warehouse. Satisfied with my response, his face flits back to its normal warmth.

His next comment takes me by surprise: “Impressive. Like a blind prostitute.”

I nearly fumble the pencil I’m sketching with. “I’m terribly sorry?”

“Like a blind prostitute. As in, I have to hand it to you.” He grins, lopsidedly.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to get that, and even then I only realised it was a joke after the normally humourless Mister Hatim started snickering.

On the fifth day, I am part of a minor miracle. Iseult and I had briefly argued about the nature of a specific piece of knotwork. I remember it perfectly. An innocuous variation on a La Rén configuration, a circle of knots around a knot, which we were experimenting with here to stabilise the energy flow from the oleum ignition. The reasoning was straightforward: by better stabilising the burn rate, we would be able to harness a greater variety in the sigils in the targeting array for longer, and thus enable greater precision for the shot. Iseult’s mistake was simple, because she had assumed that Professor O’Tierney has used a conventional sigil structure for the preceding work. Iseult had calculated five permutations within the La Rén ring, when there should in fact be eleven.

I had told her this, and she had frowned and explained, slowly like I was an idiot, why it should be five.

I had in turn pointed out that, mathematically, it would have to be eleven, and referred back to the work that Professor O’Tierney had done on her board. Iseult had looked down at her notes, then squinted at the chalkboard, then nodded curtly.

I had expected a celebration. I expected had an apology. I had expected the ceiling of the room to pull open, and for Saint Listless himself to float in on a cloud, sunlight-clad, and deliver unto me a chorus of praise and a blessing of silver.

I was clearly right, and Iseult was clearly wrong.

This had never happened before.

Instead, she had ignored the problem with a snort and had pressed on, after making a single modification in her notes. I was cheated of my prize, and had debated pressing the issue, before regaining my manners and burying my nose in my work again. Before we pack up at the end of the day, I catch her studying me- she looks away right when I glance over at her.

Every night, I either take a landau or walk to my mother’s flat- it’s late, but still light enough outside to be safe. Sometimes I’ll arrive late enough that Ailín and Fionn are both asleep already. Once, my mother woke me up from where I’d fallen asleep at her dining table, now room-temperature stew set out for the two of us. She’d seemed worried, and had asked me if I’d had bad dreams, why I was muttering in my sleep.

She hated it when I brought gifts, and fussed over me accordingly. They’ve all failed to notice that I’ve secreted two thirds of the spirals that Colt & Tumble paid us in a box under the boy’s bed.