The Otherwhere Post

Chapter 11

Maeve peered through the dense fog outside the Scriptorium, half expecting to see a flash of eyes catching hers through the branches. Her bare fingers were stained red and trembling badly. She rubbed them together and tucked them beneath her cloak before a courier could stop to ask her what was wrong. What would she even say? Someone left me a letter that bled all over me, and now I’m a shaking mess because of it.

But why leave her the letter? If someone knew who she was, why not turn her in instead? It would be easier than watching her—whatever that meant.

If this had been any other situation, she would rush back to her room, pack her suitcase, and run. She wanted to run, to be honest, but she had already given away all her money and risked everything to come here. And the letter wasn’t threatening to turn her in. She couldn’t let it scare her away.

She was here to investigate, after all. Now she simply had a second mystery to solve. Somebody here knew her real name, and she had to determine who.

Maeve instantly thought of Steward Tallowmeade sneaking up on her during her trip to the Hall of Routes earlier that morning. He could have suspected who she was and made the effort to speak with her. He would have known her father, of course—but then so did every other steward and courier her father’s age. Still, she should take extra precautions around him until she could rule him out as this mysterious watcher. She should be extra cautious around everyone.

When a large group of couriers filled the pathway, Maeve wanted to be anywhere but near them. She wandered down a narrow stone footpath that led into a heavily wooded section of the grounds, until she found herself surrounded by nothing but bare oak trees. Then she noticed that many of the tree trunks were covered in small carvings. Initials.

She had heard of this place from her father. Scriptomancers used to carve their initials into the hardened wood after performing their thousandth scribing.

Stepping off the path, she picked her way around trees, searching. Some carvings were as faint as lace against thick bark, others were carved deep and dripping with hardened sap. Then she noticed one set of initials in the foot of an oak tree that dripped with ink.

She knelt and ran her fingers over the initials J.O.A. Jonathan Owen Abenthy. Above the initials, the word “monster” was penned beside the words “world killer.”

“I want to believe you’re innocent, but it’s still so hard,” Maeve whispered.

Just yesterday, seeing his scribbled-out sepiagraph had felt as though something was eating away at her soul, and she still felt that desolation with every inhale.

How could she live here feeling like this? Would she even make it another week?

The feelings threatened to overwhelm her. This time, she shoved them down. If she planned to remain here, she would need to push past the persistent fear that had ruled her life and learn to fight.

She dug her fingernails beneath a corner of the black ink, picking it off, scraping until she was peeling bark from the tree like an animal. A new determination burst to life inside of her, filling that desperate hole that had been slowly widening from the moment she stepped foot on these grounds. If someone thought they might scare her with a letter, they were wrong.

When the wretched words were gone and only her father’s initials remained, she took a step back, breathing hard. Feeling much better. She tried to find the footpath she had taken into the woods but must have gotten turned around, because she didn’t see it anywhere.

“The impostor is still here, I see.”

Maeve spun. Tristan sat sprawled along a large oak branch that jutted out waist-high over a patch of bracken, reading his soiled book. One of his feet was propped on the branch and only clad in a stocking.

“What happened to your shoe?”

He pointed to where it sat toe-down in mud ten paces away. “I was rash and kicked it off a little too eagerly,” he said, never taking his eyes from the book. “You probably think I’m a catastrophe.”

She absolutely did, but she sensed there was a reason for how he acted that bothered him deeply. “I don’t believe in forming firm opinions of people I haven’t spent much time with. You could have used the shoe to chase away a bear, for all I know.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. “I threw the shoe because I was angered, and throwing a shoe into mud is far less painful than punching a tree.” He flipped a page.

This had to be about what happened in the mess hall, and now he was wallowing. Maeve had wasted enough of her life doing the same and had little patience for it anymore. “It must be nice to have such a disregard for expensive things,” she said.

“It was just a shoe.”

Her eyebrows rose. Heavens, he could stand to be reminded of his privilege a little more often. “A shoe costly enough to pay for a month of my rent.”

She expected a grimace. Instead, his mouth curved. “You’re refreshing, you know?”

For goodness’ sake.

She turned westward, where the Post’s stone buildings stood out through the bare oak branches. She should leave Tristan and get back, but a niggling idea came to her.

“Is there a reason you’re still standing there like a pigeon begging for a breadcrumb?” he asked.

Maeve took a deep inhale. “Someone told me the tracking office could help me find the sender of my letter.”

He tore his eyes from the book and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “In Barrow?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose it could be worth a visit.”

Her fingers twisted together. “Is there any way you could speak to someone in the office for me—to see if it’s even possible?”

He considered it. “It wouldn’t do any good. They would need to inspect your letter or ask you questions at least. If memory serves, haven’t you misplaced the letter somewhere?”

“I have,” Maeve said instantly. “It’s very much still misplaced.”

He looked back down at his book, chewing at a smile. “You could just give it to me, you know. Even though I’m highly tempted, I promise you that I won’t read it. I’ll take it straight there.”

She could never believe that. “I can’t do that, but,” she started, and swallowed, “I have another thought.”

He shut his book and pivoted, facing her while still balancing his stocking foot on the branch. At least he was curious. “Does it involve soap?”

She sent him an exasperated look. “I know that it takes a traveling scribing to cross worlds. What if you taught me how to do one quickly? Then I could go to Barrow myself.”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t have to show me any other scriptomancy, I swear it.”

“No.”

“It could help get me out of your hair sooner.”

“Very tempting, but it doesn’t change my answer.”

“But I thought your father wanted you to help me with scriptomancy?”

It was the wrong thing to say. All amusement leached from his features. “My father has misguided intentions. I’m not helping anyone with scriptomancy ever again. End of discussion.”

Again .

Something terrible must have happened to make him this opposed to doing his job.

Was this the reason for the wallowing? If that look on his face in the mess hall was connected to his reluctance to teach her scribing, then it was cruel to press the matter.

“Forget I asked,” she said, wishing she could take everything back. Not knowing what to say to make amends, she picked her way over to where his shoe lay in mud. It made a sucking sound as she tugged it free. She wiped the mud off with her cloak and placed it beside him on the branch, sensing his gaze on her the entire time.

She turned to leave.

“Wait,” he said, staring intently at his freed shoe. “No, I’m not teaching you scriptomancy ever, so please get it out of your head. But I can show you something else today that I think you’ll find helpful.” He met her eyes. “So long as you don’t mind me bending a few rules.”

Tristan’s spirits had vastly improved when they met up an hour later. He wouldn’t tell her where they were going, merely led the way southeast through the damp woods, whistling a tune that Maeve recognized.

“?‘Sheep in the Fields of Brin,’?” she said. Students at the College of Song in Inverly would busk for money in the summertime, belting out the quick-paced stanzas.

“You know how to sing it?”

“I don’t know the words.” She knew them by heart, but she would sound like a beached porpoise if she attempted such a thing.

Tristan started singing the lyrics. He had a pleasant voice, and she let herself get lost inside of it, then held her breath when he came to the verse she loved the most—about the shepherdess sleeping beside her sheep through a long winter. But his lyrics weren’t the same as she remembered. In his version, the sheep ran themselves off a cliff.

“Those poor sheep don’t die,” Maeve said. “They spend the winter with their mistress, then lead her to her true love.”

Tristan raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bold statement from someone who doesn’t know the words.”

“Fine. You’ve caught me.”

His mouth curved. “Then will you sing it?”

“Absolutely not.” She grabbed a broken branch from the ground and tossed it at him. “I think you would be tempted to jab your ear with that if I attempted it.”

“Surely you’re not that bad.”

He had no idea.

“I like listening to music only, so long as the music is not about suicidal sheep. I love listening, actually,” she said, almost to herself. She turned to find Tristan stopped a few steps behind, watching her with his brow furrowed in a frown. “Is something the matter?”

“There’s an old book in one of the libraries that the stewards believe was written by a very early scriptomancer. It says that partaking in other arts takes focus away from scribing. Aside from me, you’ll be hard-pressed to find music at the Post. Nothing is official, but my father generally forbids it.”

“But that’s ridiculous. If anything, songs help you remember things.”

He nodded. “I don’t think I could live without music. It would feel like locking a part of my soul inside a box and tossing it into the ocean.”

Maeve agreed with every word. “Don’t you think that’s a touch dramatic?”

“It’s the truth.” He continued past her and swatted a tree with the stick, then turned suddenly. “So? What do the Brin sheep help you remember?”

Only the spring sunlight on her face and taste of paint in the air and her great-aunt’s fingers weaving through her unruly curls. “Nothing much.”

“That’s it,” he said. “You’ve exceeded your caginess limit for the day. Now that I’m officially hiding you, I think I should know a little more about you.”

“That’s not part of our bargain, I—”

“Do your parents live in Leyland?” he asked pointedly.

She wanted to lock her lips together, but she knew from experience that if she didn’t give any information, it would only make him more persistent in digging up the truth. “My parents are both dead.”

“Siblings?”

“I’m an only child.”

“Me too, if you’re curious.”

“I wasn’t.”

He laughed. “Very well. Then I won’t tell you about what happened to my mother…”

He let his words dangle. He was insufferable! “All right. Out with it. What happened?”

“Absolutely nothing that makes for a good story,” he said with a flicker of a smirk—teasing her. Maeve’s mouth pinched, but before she could think of a witty retort, he said, “If you must know, my mother died.”

Oh. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was long ago, and I’ve survived well enough. And if my mother were still alive today, she’d be married to my father, and I wouldn’t wish that particular suffering upon anyone.” He swatted another trunk with his stick.

“Your father does seem like a rather dogmatic sort,” Maeve said, then bit her lip. She wanted to understand their relationship, and how easy it might be for Tristan to run to the Postmaster the next time she angered him.

“He can be.”

“And you hate him?”

“Hate is a strong word. My father and I disagree on a few things. But frankly I’d rather talk about anything else. We could sing about sheep again, or talk of the weather, or how terribly these cloaks are cut, for that matter.”

“Our courier cloaks?” Maeve ran her fingers over the thick material that covered her from shoulder to foot. “They’re wonderful.”

He halted, gaping.

“What? They’re far more sensible than whatever it is you’re wearing under there.” She poked her finger at his chest.

“This vest is made from finely woven silk brocade. It has hand-hammered buttons.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to be impressed.”

“You’re not?”

Was he serious? Oh dear; he was. If he expected the type of girl who fawned over cloth, he was in for a disappointment. “Fine. It’s a handsome bluish vest with a nice spotty pattern and shiny round buttons. Are you happy now?”

For some odd reason, that made him grin at her with a disturbingly handsome smile.

Her gaze lingered on it, then she realized she was staring and flipped around, her cheeks blazing. “I think it’s about time you told me where in god’s name we’re going.”

They had to be near to the ocean by now or going in circles.

Tristan brushed past her, to where the Otherwhere Post’s perimeter fence cut through the foliage. He led her along it, then stopped where two bars were bent wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

“It’s a secret way out of the Post,” Maeve said.

“Or in. I found this spot a couple of years ago and use it when I don’t feel like mincing words with any of the Post’s gate guards, which is more often than not these days.” He pointed south through the foliage, where Maeve could make out Blackcaster Square. “We’re going there.”

Maeve turned to him. “You’re taking me to Blackcaster Square?”

“I’m taking you inside the station.”

Her pulse skittered. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell me what it is you want to show me?”

“Am I to believe the criminal who lied her way inside the Otherwhere Post is nervous about going inside a little station?”

“I’m not.” She was terrified of bursting into tears before she ever got that far.

But she wanted whatever information he had.

Tristan didn’t give her a chance to consider anything. He slipped through the fence, and she was forced to follow. A moment later, they came to a steep embankment that led out of the trees, to the road along the north side of the square. Tristan took her hand and helped her down to the cobblestones, then wouldn’t let go of her. He turned her hand over, inspecting her palm. “Left-handed,” he said, running a finger up her calluses. “You don’t use a proper left-handed quill, do you?”

“I left mine in Alewick, along with my chest of brocade vests and diamond-studded ballgowns.” She jerked her hand away, ashamed of what it must feel like. “Let’s just go.”

He took her elbow as they wove through the protesters, then got behind another group of couriers heading into Blackcaster Square through the north side gate.

“Keep your cloak hood up, and don’t look suspicious,” he whispered. “Apprentices are only allowed to come here once they’re crossing worlds, so I’d rather not get stopped.”

Maeve felt an officer’s eyes on her, and her pulse ratcheted. Tristan took her hand again and squeezed it, then pulled her briskly alongside him through the gate, until they stood in the line of couriers waiting to enter the station.

The sight of her feet planted inside the square shook her to her core. She caught the two chained turnstiles from the corner of her eye, but kept her gaze down for fear she wouldn’t be able to go through with this.

When they reached the front of the line, she sucked in a breath, holding it as she stepped through the narrow employee entrance to a dim, gas-lit space. Inside. Memories slammed into her—a stranger’s arm around her shoulders, the screaming. This very room had smelled of blood and paper smoke and the thick cologne that man had worn.

Tristan wove her around iron benches beside the old ticket counter. The station looked like any other train station, but instead of platforms along a train track, there was only a black stone wall that ran the entire length—a wall ancient scriptomancers erected centuries before Molly commissioned this station to be built around it. It marked the spot that worked best for scriptomantic travel.

Maeve’s eyes wandered along the wall, stopping at the charred remains of the two Written Doors. Each was the size and shape of a large, peaked church door.

One for Barrow. One for Inverly.

The frames were made from hundreds of layers of paper filled with original text, all finished with thousands of individual scribings done by Molly Blackcaster herself. The doors were said to sing with magic, once. For nine hundred years, they were never closed, always propped open. You could see inside to Barrow and to the lushly painted streets of Inverly if you stood where Maeve was and simply looked.

Now, however, scaffolding surrounded one door. A group of government workers stood beside it in long coats and gloves. One worker held a vial, flaking off pieces of the charred frames with surgical tweezers. Tables were strewn with tools that looked straight from an archaeological dig: tiny brushes, magnifying glasses, canisters of sloshing liquids.

As soon as Barrow and Leyland were deemed free of the Aldervine, the House of Ministers ordered a team of scriptomancers to repair the Written Door between the two remaining worlds. They worked for weeks, until three of them were killed trying to recreate Molly’s layered scribings. There was nobody alive with Molly’s abilities, and the task was deemed too dangerous and abandoned. Leylish scientists now tried to understand the doors, but it seemed a fool’s errand. Scientists weren’t likely to understand anything made from centuries-old scriptomancy.

Tristan wove Maeve past a flurry of couriers emptying their saddlebags into bins labeled by neighborhoods in Gloam, then down a long hall where a plaque was lit by two burning torches, its corners chewed away by time.

The inscription read:

If thou findeth thyself not in Leyland, Barrow, or Inverly, but in another world, thou shalt surrender thyself to the Aldervine. Scribe true and step swiftly, courageous one.

— Molly Maeve Blackcaster

Maeve stared at the middle name. It hadn’t been fashionable to name girls after Molly for years, but her father had insisted.

“That plaque was hung sometime during the two decades that Molly spent scribing the Written Doors, when scriptomancers knew the extent of the Aldervine’s corruption but were still forced to use the traveling scribing to cross worlds,” Tristan said, then brought Maeve down the hall, to a room where couriers milled about beside more mail bins. They ducked behind one, standing near the black stone wall. Tristan put a finger to his lips and pointed.

A door materialized against the wall and flashed open. A courier glided into the room, cursing, his shoulders drenched from rain as he clutched an overflowing sack of mail between wiry fingers.

“We empty letterboxes as we deliver and bring everything back here to be sorted,” Tristan whispered, nudging her arm. “Now watch that woman over there.”

The courier he pointed to stepped to the wall and adjusted her saddlebag.

“All the letters in her saddlebag are scribed with tracking scribings. Each letter will physically tug her to its recipient, so long as the courier is standing within a small radius of them. The traveling scribing, on the other hand, is how she gets to that radius.”

The courier poked the black stones with the sharp tip of her umbrella, then unbuttoned her sleeve, sliding it up. A dark scribble of ink shone against the inside of her wrist.

“To enact any scribing, you read it,” Tristan whispered. “But when you use a traveling scribing, you must read it aloud, which makes the scribing trigger more powerfully. Otherwise, there’s a chance you’ll wind up somewhere that you don’t want to go.”

The courier said, “Alana Donall,” in a clear voice.

The words written on her wrist.

A dark door materialized. The courier opened it and stepped through. The door disappeared as soon as it shut behind her.

Tristan’s fingers moved to his wrist. He rolled his cuff to expose a lean forearm, then made a fist. Along the inside of his wrist were the handwritten words: Tristan Byrne .

His name.

He took her hand and turned it over, drawing his thumb along the inside of her own wrist, sending a current of nerves up her arm.

“Courier doors are specific to the person that creates them. It’s made for you, and you alone. The traveling scribing requires you to write your full name in ink right here, then scribe after it with a sentence dictating exactly wherever it is you’d like to go.” He spoke gently, meeting her eyes. “Then you step to that stone wall and read your full name aloud.”

Which she could never do.