He glanced up sharply at Sy. “Well enough to be bedridden for days after?”
Sy pulled his arm free and rolled his sleeve back down, buttoning it primly. “I’m doing the job she sent me. Nothing less, and nothing more.”
“You forget how persuasive she can be.” His eyes drifted to the open palm of Sy’s left hand; to the mark carved in the soft skin of his palm.
Turning his hand over, Sy plucked his gloves from his nightstand. Fingerless to the first knuckle, made of soft, pliable leather, he never left home without them. He pulled them on.
David still watched him. “Hasn’t Edgard called?”
“Not recently, no,” Sy said shortly, pulling his good pair of boots from under his bed. And thank the skies for that. “Anyway, his payment goes directly to my debt. You know that.”
David’s frown turned sardonic. “You’ve been doing charity again.”
“It isn’t charity if I’m being paid.”
“For the sum you demand, and the priceyoupay, yes, it is.”
Sy turned his eyes to the ceiling. This again. “My blood’s as good to a drunk as it is to a duchess, and coin is coin, whoever I earn it from.”
“And when you serve that crowd, you earn far less than you’re worth.” David put his coat over his arm and lifted his satchel from where he’d set it at the foot of Sy’s bed, and crossed the two steps to the door.
But, hand on the knob, he lingered. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight?”
“If dear Duchess Abigail elects to pay cash, then yes,” Sy said, tightening his boot laces.
“I can pay for you again if–”
“That won’t be necessary.” Clipped; perhaps, by the silence now skulking between them, too clipped. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he said, softer.
Once the door clicked shut, he opened his wardrobe, moved aside his spare boots, and pulled up the false bottom. Searching in vain for a miracle within its depths, he found his mosttreasured possessions: the official copy of his license declaring him a king’s wizard; a nearly empty bottle of expensive perfume, a soliflore of hyacinth which he donned only on special occasions; a disturbingly large spider; and a velvet purse containing…four copper bits.
He sighed.
From his vanity, he unearthed a blank piece of parchment and a fountain pen, swept a bevy of empty ink pots aside, and scrawled. Only the impression of letters appeared.
“Damn,” he murmured, grappling for another pen, then another. Even the cheap wood and steel-nibbed pen he used only for spell practice. All empty. He pulled open the top drawer of his vanity – full of ink wells, each one dry as bone dust.
He’d spent too much ink practicing for this job. Too much practice, perhaps, but the spell was intricate. Each client demanded nothing less than perfection; some clients demanded more. Duchess Abigail Skeylor, one of Edgard’s favorite cousins, was a client whose ire it was very unwise to risk.
Thankfully, he was accustomed to not wasting a drop.
He could not conjure ink from thin air, but he could repair a faulty device. Though he’d polished this pen’s nib only the week before, he checked it again, careful not to prick himself on the point, sharp enough to slice skin. No visible damage. He pulled out his scribing kit, a nondescript leather satchel kept stored under his bed. Automatically, he reached within and gripped the magnifying glass, then examined the tip of the nib. The tines were splayed.
Less a matter of practicing too much, then, but pressing too hard. A bad habit he’d worked hard to correct at the Sangfeder Academy of Inscription Arts, but which tended to reemerge in times of stress.
But that was excellent news – splayed tines, he could fix, and it meant he would not have to knock on every door in the vast apartment building to beg and barter for the use of a pen.
He pressed the tip carefully on the edge of the vanity and rolled it until the magnifying glass revealed the tines had realigned, then hurriedly penned his message, making the thinnest line of the end of his name,Cassirer, before the last of the dark ink, finally and irretrievably, ran out.
Outside, he didn’t need to search far to find a boy looking for work, but finding a boy whose appearance and accumulation of dirt would not offend the recipient proved a bit of a challenge. When he did, Sy placed the missive and two of his last pieces of copper into the boy’s hands and directed him to Äbender Heights. The boy was initially skeptical of Sy’s offered sum, but his eyes went wide as moons upon hearing his destination, surely anticipating the tip awaiting him on the other end of the endeavor. He scurried quickly away.
Back upstairs, Sy recovered his kit and cataloged his supplies. The pen itself, gold replacement nibs of various sizes – all aligned, he noted – tourniquet, cotton balls, bowls, vial of grain alcohol, drawing board. Though the pen’s barrel was spotless, he inspected it once more; one fleck of debris could ruin a spell.
He counted his needles. Only two left, and his bandages, threadbare from excessive washing and covered in faded dark brown stains, looked a bit tragic. Abigail wouldn’t like that. Perhaps he could use one of his handkerchiefs, instead. He pulled open a drawer in his vanity and considered a violet one, wondering if the dark color would hide the stain. He thought he had one in burgundy; he dug deeper.
Beneath the colorful mess of silk, he found a wrinkled, yellowed page of paper. He quickly reburied it. Then, stirred by thoughts of immortal flight and golden sunrises, pulled it back out.
In the early days, fresh from Sangfeder and buoyed by youthful excitement, he kept careful track of his debt, listing every job, accounting for every copper bit in his possession, chasing every cent. Between the cost of rent, and food, and fuel for heat in the winter, and inscription supplies, and dinners to maintain his connections, and clothes, and the trolley, and, seven skies forbid it, a night off once or twice, there was not much extra coin to pay toward his indenture.
