“Well, well…” Dr. Maddeson said peevishly. “Would that were so. I anticipated your employer’s visit yesterday, I even came into the office abominably early, but he did not appear. Did he tell you why?”
I swiftly added this to my mental logbook of events. “No, I had several days off and have not seen the detective.”
“Well,” Dr. Maddeson said again, his discontent deepening towards self-pity. “This is all very disappointing. It is one of the Landsdown Relics, you understand, and its examples of Old Sarren are impeccably preserved—both on the box and, likely, the object within. We have little of the language, so it has yet to be translated. That is my goal, Miss Fleet, my dream. To unlock Old Sarren.”
His eyes drifted to the shelves of his office, and, following his gaze, I noted an extensive series of worn notebooks and bound sheaves of typewritten material. His research, I surmised.
“You are referring to the language on the box,” I clarified. I intended to press more about Mr. Stoke, but the more information I could gather on the artifact, the higher my chances were of finding it—with or without my employer. “The wheel-like symbols?”
Maddeson’s eyes lit. “You saw them?”
“Yes.”
“But you do not know where the artifact is?”
“No, sir.”
“Then… Is there any possibility you could transcribe the symbols, so that I might, at least, have a sense of them?” The hope in his voice was thin, as if he already accepted the futility of his request.
“I can,” I admitted. “My memory is rather good, and I have a fair hand at drawing.” One did not grow up with a sister as domineering as Madge without gleaning some of her skills.
Maddeson burst into movement, riffling together paper and pen and clearing off a chair for me to sit in at his desk. “Did you see the object within also?”
“No,” I said, watching him flutter about. “What is it?”
“Would that I knew, that I knew! Though I suspect it to be made of Incarnate, whatever it may be, but of course, I cannot state with any certainty.” He launched off into a ramble about his continued hopes of seeing the box, his expectations and minutiae of linguistics as I took the materials and went to work, pulling up my memories of the box and the warehouse.
I drew slowly but steadily. Dr. Maddeson finally slackened his rambling and hovered just behind me, close enough for his breath to rustle the strands of hair escaping my chignon.
“Sir,” I said. “Might I have a cup of tea?”
“Pardon? Oh. Oh, of course,” the man fumbled. The gusting of his breath withdrew and I relaxed as he left the room.
I glanced at the shelf with the manuscripts and notebooks, already halfway out of my seat, but footsteps in the hallway plunked me directly back in my chair. I attended to my sketching until they passed by, then finally rose and pulled out the first manuscript.
The Arasi of Old Sarre: The Vanished Peoples and the Proposed Origins of the Entwined.
I reread the typewritten title. What did The Sarre have to do with the origins of the Entwined? No one knew where the Entwined had come from, but it was widely accepted that we had developed, as a people, far distant from humanity.
Footsteps sounded again, this time two sets in concert. I darted back to my chair and was dutifully sketching when a young man appeared with tea. Dr. Maddeson came in behind him and shooed him back out the door as soon as the tea service was placed.
“Oh,” Dr. Maddeson crooned as he saw the symbols I had completed so far. “This is superb, Miss Fleet. You are doing an incredible service to me and the university, though I do still need to see the artifact itself, as I said.”
“Many times,” I murmured.
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, I was simply agreeing.”
“When is Mr. Stoke back in his office?”
“Next week,” I said, still sketching and grateful for theexcuse not to look at the professor. I pushed the sketches I had finished closer to him. “Have you any idea what these mean?”
“Let me see… All this waiting has been very frustrating, you know. I have been waiting on this for some time.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
He continued with an anxious, preening demeanor, “There is a fire under my feet, you see. My research is funded by Grand General Baffin himself.”
