That sight filled me with a troubled kind of relief.
Mr. Stoke would never have fled without such a treasure. He had not abandoned me.
But that left only much, much darker options. I sank onto a chair between his desk and the window and stared across the room, letting the quiet seep into me.
My solitude was overwhelming. I thought of Mr. Wake, waiting for me this evening, of Pretoria and her offer, and Lewis, still so far away. I resented his absence and let myself molder in that for a time.
When I took hold of myself once more, I returned to the kitchen. I made myself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table, setting out my notebooks and taking up a pen.
A rustling snared my attention. I instantly dropped out of the chair, knocking my hat askew and crouching in a position that Pretoria would, no doubt, have described as toadish.
I caught a shush of paper against metal, a clack, then quiet.
Belatedly, I remembered the revolver and slipped it off the tabletop, secreted six bullets inside, and slowly rose to my feet.
The hallway was quiet and the front door closed. But there on the mat lay Mr. Stoke’s mail.
I snatched the letters up and hastened back to the table, shuffling through the stack as I went. I recognized nearly every name, marking Mr. Stoke’s usual correspondences. A cousin in the countryside. A lady friend who Mr. Stoke insisted was not a lover, but whose letters always put color in his cheeks. And so forth.
One letter was out of place. A Dr. Maddeson, Professor of Philology at Harrow University.
I opened it with no little trepidation, conscious of just how critical this missive could be.
I was not disappointed. There, in typewritten text, this Dr. Maddeson addressed several questions about the symbols on a certain box. Familiar, wheeled symbols which Maddeson had sketched across the bottom of the page by hand and identified as Old Sarren.
Clearly, Mr. Stoke had an interest in the box beyond retrieving it for Lord Stillwell.
I needed to speak with this Dr. Maddeson. Perhaps he had seen Mr. Stoke after his supposed disappearance.
But it was far too late to go to the university, and I did not want to learn the repercussions of failing to meet Mr. Wake. The day was fading, and my threads would soon twine.
I finished my tea and dozed on Mr. Stoke’s sofa until the nearby church sounded nine bells. Full darkness had settled over the city—the dangers of the dark were lesser, I believed, than those of active threads.
The night was cold enough to threaten frost and the streets deserted save for a retiring lamplighter with his stilts resting on one shoulder. His shadow stretched long over the street as I set off at a brisk pace, burying my chin in my collar and keeping watch for a hackney.
None appeared, but my body warmed with the exertion and my overburdened mind calmed. An influx of courage came with it, and I found my shoulders relaxing, my steps slowing as I passed over Pointer’s Bridge and into Old Harrow.
Soon, I passed the intersection of Old Harrow’s canals. On an island in the center sat a statue of the Entwined Lady Honoria Grey. Robed, with her hood cast back and a modest gown visible beneath, she stood with her arms around two children—one human, the other Entwined with golden threads. Despite being a mage, her reputation as a mediator between Entwined and humanity had kept her likeness standing, even now.
I moved on, into the narrow, cobblestoned intersection of Glassmaker’s Square. There was nothing square about the space, wrapped around the belly of an ancient watch tower that had been overrun by the rebuilding efforts after the revolution. Foundations of red stone were swallowed bythe Almany Cathedral with its lording belltower and a face of moons and stars.
A sensation of being watched crept up the back of my neck. Careful not to look behind me, I crossed the square, passing through the shadow of the clocktower, and glanced in the window of a nearby shop.
I blinked in momentary distraction. Instead of seeing my shadowed reflection once in the glass, I saw myself a dozen times, in every size and at every angle. Some reflections were stable, while others spun lazily—suspended on long chains from the ceiling.
The reason why was quickly clear. Over my head, the shop’s sign stretched.
Mundey and Mayfair, Mirror Makers.
The footsteps continued, but more slowly. There, in the window and a dozen refractions, I saw a new figure enter the square. Wearing a long coat and a fitted cap, he did not look left or right, but straight towards me.
Feigning calm, I set off up the steep street beyond the mirror maker’s shop.
Footsteps drifted after me, echoing faintly against the close-packed buildings. It was not immediately clear whether they followed me directly, but I was not about to take the chance.
As soon as the road turned, cutting me off from sight, I diverted into an alleyway and broke into a run. Another turn, a low archway—more pre-imperial ruins, swallowed by new buildings—and I found myself in a tiny courtyard.
A courtyard with no exit. I spun, staring up at row upon row of windows and criss-crossing laundry lines towards a circle of open sky. The moon had slipped from behind the clouds, bathing me in silvered light and banded shadows.
