Chapter 9

When Song suggested they go to the Emerald Vaults for breakfast and conversation, it was not really a suggestion.

She had that look on her face, the one Maryam had learned meant the decision was already made and arguing was at your peril. Not that any of them were inclined to argue, the Izvorica least of all: she was still recovering from the inside of that coffeehouse. Feeling out such a strange shop with her nav had been habit, barely even a conscious decision, but what she’d felt… It had been like standing in the middle of rapids, the currents in the aether strong and wild. Lucky her there had not been rocks, else her spirit-effigy might well have been wounded.

The inside of the Chimerical had not been the overly cluttered study of a widowed trader it looked like, but something carefully arranged to stir the aether within. Maryam had known such a thing was possible, of course, at least in principle. She was no Umuthi tinker, but she understood the basics of how aether machinery functioned – through conceptual symmetry movement was induced simultaneously in both aether and the material, creating motion or some other expression of energy.

The devil of the Chimerical, this ‘Hage’, he’d accomplished what would take the finest mechanical minds of Vesper years of research and a fortune in material with a stuffed alligator and potted plants.

A sense of awed dread carried her most of the way to the Emerald Vaults in silence, which Tristan took notice of. He slowed his stride as they approached the hostel that was their destination, as if waiting to enter together.

“What’s wrong?” he quietly asked.

Maryam licked her lips.

“That coffeehouse was arranged to confuse signifiers,” she said. “I got too curious for my own good.”

It was impolite, she knew, but Maryam still sent out her nav to feel him out. Tristan always felt the same to her sense: like fire hidden away in a dark bottle, known only through heat and glint. Always warm to the touch. The thief’s eyes were narrowed when she found them.

“How bad?”

She shook her head, heading that off at the pass.

“That the devil can do this at all means he could have done much worse,” she said. “This was slapping a child to teach them manners, not an attack.”

Not harshly, but firmly enough the lesson would be committed to memory. Tristan slowly nodded.

“Wen already knew Hage,” the thief said. “And he said earlier that the Chimerical ‘opened here’, as if it has existed in places other than Tolomontera. There is more to that devil than we know.”

“This island has more secrets than the sky has stars,” Maryam complained. “Come on, let us catch up to the others before Song declares martial law in the name of breakfast.”

The woman in question was waiting impatiently in the entrance hall of the Emerald Vaults, which was opulent enough Maryam understood why Song had so wanted them to stay there. When they were escorted into the garden, she noted it was not a blackcloak but a man in servants’ clothes that led the way. They were settled on the edge of a large terrasse overlooking a field of purple and silver flowers sown with lanterns of wrought iron.

Everything about this place was irritatingly pretty, even the elegant wooden table they shared covered by an intricate gray tablecloth.

A servant was there in a matter of moments, asking their favored drink and preference in breakfast: freshly baked honeybread, a plate of fruits with buttered white bread or fresh fish on eggs with Sarayan spices. Song seized on the honeybread with her equivalent of unseemly haste – waiting for a long, pointed moment then immediately speaking – while Maryam went for the fruits and the other two for the fish.

“I shall soon return with the drinks,” the woman smiled, bowing low.

Maryam stiffened, though not because of the words.

It was difficult to explain the sense to someone who had not forged their nav – not unlike telling a blind man of colors, she suspected. Mother had described it as terazije-vid, the scales-sight. To be able to feel weight and worth with the mind’s eye, like the fox in the story of the Weeping King. Disloyal as the thought was, Maryam preferred the way Captain Totec had told it. We are as fish in the river, he’d taught her,sensing the current by being one with it.

And what she sensed in the current was someone trying to mark Angharad Tredegar with their nav.

She sent out her own spirit-effigy, slapping away the attempt, and the intruder immediately gave ground. Tredegar flinched, batting away from her ear a fly that did not exist, and Maryam’s gaze swept the terrasse. The garden overlook was hardly crowded, but neither was it empty: six other tables were occupied. Two singles and four shared, and though she looked for the guilty party no one revealed themselves by expression.

“Maryam,” Song prompted.

“Tredegar has the attention of a signifier,” she replied. “I drove them away.”

The Malani stiffened.

“Have I been cursed?” she worriedly asked.

The Izvorica almost rolled her eyes. As if it were so easy to curse someone with Gloam. Even the most bare bone of curses, those that were essentially Ancipital Signs – concentration and manipulation of raw Gloam – simply sliding a bubble of Gloam somewhere important in a body and hoping it got sick, took at least a few minutes of concentration and refinement if you did not want to be terribly obvious about having done it.

“No,” Maryam said. “At a guess, they were trying to get an impression of your soul so you would be easy to pick out of a crowd.”

“And you prevented this,” Tredegar slowly said. “Acting in my defense?”

It was easier to take offense to the surprise than read into it, so that was Maryam did.

“My name’s on the same cabal list, Tredegar,” she coldly replied. “Triglau can keep their word too.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Tristan wince. The noble’s lips thinned.

“I did not mean to impugn your honor,” she carefully said, “but to thank you for your efforts on my behalf.”

Song was staring at her hard enough it was going to bore a hole into the side of her skull, so Maryam held back and simply grunted in acknowledgement of Tredegar’s words.

“Well,” Tristan said. “That seems as good a segue as any into the first meat we must carve up, ou-”

Whatever he had been about to say, it was not to be. Not because of the return of someone’s impudent nav or even the servant from earlier but by a tall and neatly dressed young man in a formal Watch uniform. Lierganen, Maryam assessed. Mustachioed as was so often their way, fit and dark-haired. He bowed and offered a charming smile.

A glance around the table told Maryam none of them had any idea who he was.

“My apologies for the boldness of the approach,” he said, “but I could not help introducing myself.”

“Could you not?” Song pleasantly replied. “Your life must be very difficult.”

She even smiled politely at the end, like she’d not just told him to fuck off, and Maryam swallowed a grin. Song was most enjoyable when someone had just stepped on her toes, as this one had. The man’s smile grew a little strained.

“I am Captain Tristan Ballester of the Forty-Fourth Brigade,” he bravely continued, then entirely dismissed Song and turned his smile onto Tredegar.

Song looked like she was seriously considering strangling him, Maryam noticed, and the grin slipped out.

“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Lady Angharad Tredegar?”

The Malani’s face was like a bland wooden mask.

“I am she,” Tredegar replied. “Can I help you, Captain Ballaster?”

“Please,” he easily said. “Call me Tristan.”

Their own Tristan was eyeing the stranger with the faintest of frowns, trying to figure out the angle at work and more than willing to be forgotten about until he had.

“I come to congratulate you on your stunning victory last evening, my lady,” Captain Ballaster continued.

His eyes flicked up and down Tredegar’s uniform, quickly but visibly, and Maryam almost had to shove her fist into her mouth not to start laughing when she realized what was happening.

That dog was not just barking at the wrong tree, it wasn’t even the right forest.

“Alas,” Captain Ballaster gallantly said, “I must inform you that you prevailed twice over for your grace and beauty have triumphed over my-”

“No,” Song flatly said.

The man paused, turning his gaze back to her.

“I don’t follow,” he said.

“No,” Song repeated. “You do not get to interrupt my morning meal for your attempt to talk my cabalist into dallying beneath her.”

“Excuse me?” Ballaster bit back, straightening his back.

“Ah, at last we are of a mind,” their captain replied. “You are, indeed, excused.”

The man’s cheeks reddened but when he glared angrily there was not so much as a hint of give in Song Ren. She stared him down, letting the weight of her words and the ensuing silence wilt him before the eyes of the entire room – because this entire debacle had, naturally, drawn the attention of every last soul on the terrasse.

If Tristan felt like fire in a bottle to her nav, then Song was a millstone: heavy, plodding on with a deceptive slowness. It was all too easy to forget its nature was to grind anything it caught to dust.

Captain Ballaster further reddened at the continuing silence, looking at Tredegar and finding only an unsmiling, expressionless face. He cleared his throat, now unpleasantly aware of the eyes on him. Any longer standing there and he would be a figure of fun among Scholomance students by the day’s end.

“Some other time,” Ballaster said, then offered Tredegar a nod. “Lady Tredegar.”

The Malani’s lips quirked into something falling short of a smile and she did not answer, letting him retreat with his tail between his legs without once glancing his way.

“Double Death Brigade indeed,” Tristan noted. “What with the way Song just murdered him twice.”

Maryam choked and Song tried to send him a disapproving look but it was difficult for her to manage one while flattered. Tredegar was the one frowning.

“How lacking in manners, to approach a lady in such an unsuitable setting,” she deplored. “I wish we had not been quite so rude in return, but he did seem likely to linger otherwise.”

“If we are to look for allies,” Song firmly said, “we can do that better than that.”

The man was now back at his table – he was one of those eating alone – and was carefully not looking their way. Some of the other students were whispering as they shot unsubtle glances his way. The drinks arrived mere moments later, Maryam soon sipping happily at her xocolatl. The cool, spicy brew lingered against the roof of her mouth and washed away the last dregs of unease from their visit of the Chimerical.

“Something about meat on the table,” she prompted Tristan.

He nodded, setting down his cup of pressed oranges.

“Enemies,” he said. “I found out several things last night and I expect Tredegar did as well. Shall we take stock?”

“Let us,” Song approved. “Though we must discuss classes after, as Captain Wen requested we make haste in choosing electives.”

Tredegar was invited to begin, which was how Maryam learned she had not simply gone around picking honor duels for the pleasure of it. If the man from the Ninth Brigade had been stabbed while taking a swing at old acquaintances from the Dominion then the Izvorica was inclined to forgive the trouble brought to their doorstep. She liked Ferranda, always had, and Song had once implied to her that Zenzele’s contract was a very useful one.

Between that and Shalini Goel’s deadliness with pistols, even if their fourth cabalist was a bag of onions they would still make fine allies.

“Captain Nenetl was markedly friendlier afterwards, and intimated the possibility of deeper acquaintance between our cabals,” Tredegar continued. “The other significant approach was Captain Imani Langa.”

“Eleventh Brigade, the one who honed in on you early,” Tristan said, leaning forward. “What was she after?”

Tredegar hesitated for a moment.

“To recruit me,” she said. “You say she captains the Eleventh? She did not mention this.”

He nodded.

“Then it appears Lord Thando extended me an offer on her behalf earlier in the night that I ignored,” Tredegar noted, then embarrassedly cleared her throat. “I also believe some of her interest in me might be of a personal nature.”

Maryam sought out Tristan’s eye. He discretely mimed a low-cut dress and a shapely figure. Oh dear, the Izvorica grinned. She gleefully caught Song’s attention, cocking an eyebrow at the captain. On the Dominion the Tianxi had more than once bemoaned Tredegar’s infatuation with the brightly colored snake going by Isabel Ruesta and it now appeared that Angharad Tredegar was to have enduringly terrible taste.

It was the most likable Maryam had ever found her.

Song, predictably, grimaced unhappily at the Tredegar’s obvious interest.

“If that woman is not Krypteia, I will eat my hat,” Tristan shared. “She has had training in tradecraft.”

“It would be unwise to deepen that acquaintance,” Song stated, eyeing Tredegar.

The Tianxi did not, however, outright forbid it. Going easy on Tredegar again, or worried about giving orders that would not be obeyed? Hard to tell. With Tredegar’s part of the tale out of the way, they got to Tristan’s and there matters grew convoluted.

“So Tupoc Xical is spying on us,” Tredegar coldly said. “I should have expected it. He means to be a foe on Tolomontera as well, then.”

“Or he is assessing how dangerous we would be should we come after him,” Song said.

“He had Ferranda tracked as well,” Tristan pointed out. “And more thoroughly than you. That has me leaning Song’s way.”

The same was true of Maryam.

“Xical goads others so he can get a read on them,” she said. “Only then does he risk fights, when he has the lay of the land. I do not think this is any different, only that the nature of Scholomance means he can no longer rely on insults and provocations to learn what he wants.”

Song nodded her way in approval.

“Either way,” the Tianxi said, “there is no gain in going after him unless we have good reason to believe he will come after us. A reconnaissance of our own might be in order, but no more than that. It is the other threads you’ve picked out that concern me, Tristan – that a member of the Nineteenth Brigade, this ‘Lady Cressida’, helped him bring in his spy.”

“An ally of his?” Maryam guessed, then shrugged. “Hard to believe, I know, but…”

“To some souls strength is preferred to character,” Tredegar agreed. “That part I do not doubt. It is that Tupoc Xical would make bargains unless there was a great need I find dubious.”

Maryam conceded the point with a nod. At least on the Dominion, Xical had only allowed himself to dally with accords when he was a leading force within them. The moment he no longer had his hand on the steering wheel, come the Trial of Weeds, he had walked out.

“It could be the Nineteenth has another stake in this,” Song said, sneaking a look at Tristan.

The thief hummed, not denying the possibility.

“Help Tupoc’s cabal and ours get into a fight, then swoop in when losses are taken to collect on my bounty?” he said. “It’s not a bad plan, if that is what they intend.”

The Tianxi sipped at her tea, thoughtful.

“The meetings you mentioned Captain Ferranda has been arranging might be an avenue to learn information on the Nineteenth,” Song decided. “Gossip between captains is certain to be informative, if not necessarily accurate. I will attend the next one and see what I can learn.”

Maryam cleared her throat.

“The Nineteenth could be trouble down the line, but the Forty-Ninth is a threat in the present,” she pointed out. “We need to deal with them.”

“I am most impressed you were able to escape them, Tristan,” Tredegar said. “Some sort of grenade was involved, I understand?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The thief licked his lips.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he admitted. “The roof broke when I blinded their Skiritai, and then I fell into what I thought was a basement but proved to be something else.”

“The ‘accidental crossing’ they detained you for,” Song said, silver eyes narrowing.

Maryam breathed in sharply.

“That they what now?” she said, seeking Tristan’s face for fresh bruises.

He always got bruised, it was like the man was made of peaches.

“You were in jail?” she demanded.

“I was in detainment, Maryam,” he replied without batting an eye. “That is completely different.”

She met his gaze, distinctly unimpressed.

“Did they lock the door?”

If they locked the door, it was a jail.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” he haughtily replied.

Tredegar cleared her throat.

“If I may ask,” she said. “Where did you cross into, Tristan?”

“The watchmen called it a layer,” he said. “It is some sort of… place in the aether, an impression made by a particular time, and supposedly there are several here. The one I visited is called the ‘Witching Hour’, a dream of the night the Watch invaded Tolomontera.”

Eyes went towards her at his words, even Tristan’s, as save for Song she suspected none of them knew much of anything about metaphysics. Maryam herself only knew so much, having come to Akelarre teachings later than most. Besides, she must acknowledge that the Navigators were not as concerned with the academics as the Peiling Society.

Signifiers taught mostly in practicals, but that practical knowledge was admittedly still be more than anyone else at the table would. Maryam bit her lip, worrying it as she chose her words. An impression was one of those concepts that could not easily be explained without drawing on several other concepts.

“Do you know what an aether well is?” she finally asked.

Hesitant nods all around. Song was the one who volunteered a concrete answer.

“It is a naturally occurring phenomenon where aether flows into reality in great quantities,” she said. “Tolomontera is one such place.”

The Izvorica nodded. A simplification, but essentially correct.

“Aether is both a realm and an element,” Maryam told them. “The word is used to refer to both interchangeably, which can be confusing, but the simplest way to put it is that the material world has an immaterial mirror, which we understand as the ‘realm of aether’.”

She licked her lips.

“The realm is called that way because it is made up a single element, aether, and that element leaks into the material world through places we call aether wells.”

Maryam found the attentive gazes a little unsettling. Even Tredegar looked heedful. Particularly Tredegar, honesty compelled her to admit.

“You will have heard from all sorts that your emotions taint the aether, which might have you wondering how anger at stubbing a toe can reach such an immaterial realm,” she said. “The simplified answer is that your soul straddles the line between material and immaterial, reaching into both.”

Awakening her blind soul into a nav, a soul-effigy, had been the first step on Maryam’s path to being able to wield the powers of the world. To weave Gloam without first doing this was possible, but it would condemn one to petty tricks and ugly death.

“We do no matter much,” Maryam told them. “A single soul’s emanation is nothing, a drop of water in a sea. It would take thousands of deaths either all at once or in the same small place for an impression to be made on the aether and something like a god come into existence in the immaterial.”

She grimaced.

“Only the rules are different near an aether well,” Maryam said. “There is physical aether here, the element leaked into the material, and that is much more susceptible to impression. Enough a sufficiently bloody battle – like the invasion of Tolomontera – would do the trick.”

“So Tristan did not journey through time,” Tredegar slowly said. “Only tread the grounds of this… dream of the past?”

“There is no such thing as going back in time,” Maryam firmly said. “Only forward, and aether cannot even do that. Besides, there have long been arguments about whether what Gloam does is actually-”

She paused, breathed in. Prune the irrelevant, Maryam reminded herself. It was frustrating, like having to explain the intricacies of cliff-climbing to someone who had never so much as seen a hill. She had not realized until now how much of what she took for granted relied on knowledge uncommon, how deep the teachings of the Akelarre Guild truly ran.

“No, he did not journey through time,” she repeated. “The impression, the layer, it is real in the same way that your soul is real. But it is like a memory, a remembrance of what was. The complication here is the physicality of it all.”

She mulled the explanation, sliced off the unnecessary like peeling an apple.

“A layer is real like a soul is real,” she finally said, “because it also straddles the line between the material and the immaterial.”

“But my body was there,” Tristan slowly said. “Wasn’t it?”

She wiggled her hand.

“When you walk around this terrasse, does your soul also move?” she said.