The Otherwhere Post

Chapter 12

Nan didn’t return to their room after dinner. Blissfully alone, Maeve sorted the contents of her saddlebag into her desk, then stuffed the flyer for the Scriptomantic Exhibition in a back drawer so she wouldn’t have the reminder of her father sitting out. Her fingers were too restless for sleep, and she found herself paging through her Scriptomancer’s Companion , taking copious notes in her journal.

According to the text, the traveling scribing would only work with your full name, but there was no clarity on how loud you had to speak it.

If she got it to work, she could figure out a way to get inside the station when it wasn’t busy, then whisper her name quietly. The scribing might take her to Barrow, but there were no guarantees.

Then there was the issue of performing a traveling scribing in the first place. It didn’t sound too complicated, which likely meant it was near impossible. And she would also have to write her name—a name she hadn’t spoken aloud in seven years.

Maeve put the book aside and crawled into bed, pretending to snore when Nan stumbled in and fell asleep fully clothed atop her coverlet. Fortunately, her roommate was still asleep when Maeve woke, and she was able to dress and make it outside without having to converse.

She stuffed a breakfast of dry biscuits from the mess hall into her pocket and found her way to Steward Tallowmeade’s scribing pigment laboratory, arriving before anyone else.

The room smelled like the acidic solvents that clung to her fingers after a long day at the inksmithy. Scribing glasses sat in a heap against one wall. Hanging pots filled with milk thistle and winter violets dangled over glass beakers and burners. Dozens of small sepiagraphs were pinned to a cork wall below them.

Maeve wandered over to the pictures. Most were portraits of a much younger Tallowmeade in an upper school uniform she didn’t recognize. One picture stopped her. It was taken beneath the same stone archway she’d walked under, with “College of Scriptomantic Arts” engraved across the top. Tallowmeade stood beside a younger version of her father—one that wasn’t scribbled on.

Her father .

Her chest squeezed so tightly that she had to remind herself to breathe.

She hadn’t seen her father’s face in seven years, and there he was, with Tallowmeade on his left and…Tristan on his right. How?

Maeve leaned closer. It wasn’t Tristan; his features were sharper, and he didn’t wear spectacles. It was Postmaster Byrne. A few women she didn’t recognize stood with them. Everyone had their arms tangled around one another. Tallowmeade carried a jug, her father a picnic basket. Postmaster Byrne was smiling .

“We all apprenticed together,” Steward Tallowmeade said from a few paces behind her. Maeve shrank away as he came forward and wiped dust from the sepiagraph. “Well, not all were apprentices. Byrne was one year older. He was Abenthy’s mentor.”

Maeve took another step back. She didn’t want Tallowmeade to read the shock on her face. “The Postmaster mentored Jonathan?” she asked, gritting her teeth at the sound of her father’s name on her tongue.

“Yes. But after that year, we all grew apart.” He gestured to the seats, which were now mostly full. “Would you like to sit, Apprentice Hill, or teach the lecture yourself?”

Maeve barely managed to walk to her desk and sit. She leaned heavily on her elbows, her mind spinning.

Postmaster Onrich Byrne had mentored her father. According to that memory scribing, he was the last to leave Inverly. Then afterward, he lit the flame that burned down the Written Doors before the Aldervine could get through. Onrich Byrne became a hero on the same day her father became a monster.

If anyone had something to gain by framing her father, it was him. He was promoted to Postmaster as soon as the Post was founded, right in the wake of Inverly. The position would have given him enough power to sweep evidence under a rug. To plant new evidence in its place. As her father’s mentor, he probably knew her father well and had access to his room, his things.

Then was it the Postmaster who slipped that letter into her bag? Maeve thought back to that moment with Tristan in Postmaster Byrne’s office. He didn’t seem to recognize her, but then someone with the skill to pull off a crime as massive as Inverly probably excelled at keeping their composure.

Maeve didn’t dare take out her journal in the middle of a class, but she made a mental note to write Onrich Byrne directly on the top of a list of suspects.

She jolted as Nan dropped into the seat beside hers.

Her roommate massaged her temples. “Remind me to never stay at the Groggery for more than an hour,” she said. Nan’s tongue darted out, swiping at her upper lip. The scent of stale wine lingered on her breath. “Someone bought a bottle of wine to wash down a stale fruitcake from the mess hall. Its disgusting gelatin decorations are still stuck to my teeth.” She dug at a canine then winced and grabbed her side. “And I think I pulled a muscle from laughing at Shea’s stories.”

Maeve felt an absurd twinge of longing. It had to be nice to eat cake and laugh without wanting to crawl beneath the nearest table. “I’m devastated I missed it,” she said dryly.

“Just wait. You’ll be begging me to go soon enough.”

Maeve sighed. “I absolutely will not.”

“You remind me of my father, you know?” Nan leaned against her desk and looked Maeve up and down, her mouth quirking. “You two are the only people in the worlds who won’t cave to my whims.”

“I think I may like this father of yours.”

“You would hate him.”

A bright shaft of light hit their eyes.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Nan grumbled, squinting.

Tallowmeade finished drawing the curtains. “Good morning, and welcome to my scribing pigment laboratory.”

Maeve tried her best to tune out Nan’s grumbling as Tallowmeade waved a beaker of silver liquid. She might not have come here intending to actually learn scriptomancy, but if she was going to find her footing and uncover who wrote her that letter, she’d have to pay attention to the lessons.

“This is a pre-mixed scribing pigment base. In this room, you’ll learn how to mix it, then add various ingredients tailored to whatever scribing you hope to accomplish. The right scribing pigment works like a magnet for magic, making Arcane Infusion easier.” Tallowmeade held up a large book embossed with bundles of herbs. “The Pigment Almanac . You’ll find a copy in your worktables. This book is divided into hundreds of recipes for each of the five types of scribings. You’ll all use the recipes for your entire career unless you’re one of those rare individuals who wishes to modify your own recipes.”

“Like Molly Blackcaster?” someone in the front row asked.

“No, not like Molly Blackcaster.” Amusement flickered in the steward’s eyes. “Molly wrote half of the recipes in this almanac herself during the year she served as an apprentice. You might write a handful if you’re lucky. I wrote six myself. But your Postmaster bested me. Old Byrne created a total of eighteen. All formulated for form scribings—Onrich’s specialty.”

Form scribings.

Maeve pictured the rivulets of ink dripping like blood from that letter. She hadn’t read much about form scribings in her Scriptomancer’s Companion yet, but the bleeding words did constitute a change of form.

Tallowmeade moved between rows of desks, lecturing about various herbs used in pigments. Maeve wrote everything down to have something to do with her hands, but her eyes kept darting to that sepiagraph of the Postmaster. The slow rumble of a storm sounded outside the windows. She wrapped her chilled arms across her body, unable to escape the sense that she’d stumbled into dangerous territory.

A bell rang out. Apprentices shot up.

Tallowmeade raised his large hands, halting everyone. “If you want, you can find your worktable in the Scriptorium this evening and try some of the basic scribings in your guidebooks. I doubt any of you will get them to work, but if one of you turns out to be adept, find Steward Mordraig and let him know immediately.”

Maeve had never heard the term. Everyone appeared equally confused.

“Mordraig didn’t explain what it means to be adept?” Tallowmeade asked, then sighed when nobody answered. “?‘Adept’ is the term we use to describe a scriptomancer who can produce Arcane Infusion on their first couple of attempts without practice. We get a small handful with each apprentice class, but they tend to be uncovered during our writing tests.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There were people walking around Leyland now with the ability to scribe on their first try? What was the point of the apprenticeship? The House of Ministers was desperate to deliver letters, and people were even more desperate to get to their families. Why would they hide this knowledge? You would think they would simply have everyone in Leyland attempt a scribing and recruit all those who could. Or at least tell people. People deserved to know about this.

Others seemed to be wondering the same thing because someone asked, “Why go through all the trouble to set up this school if anyone might be adept?”

“I’ve misspoken. Anyone isn’t,” Tallowmeade said.

There were confused murmurs, but Tallowmeade put up his hands, shushing everyone.

“The ability only comes to those with an advanced understanding of language honed from years upon years in a writing program, along with an adept in their direct lineage. Some believe the abilities began when the scriptomancers of Molly’s day practiced skin scribings that changed their physiology, then passed those changes down to their children, but there’s nothing concrete written about it. And adepts only seem to ever perform one type of scribing instantly, which doesn’t help with deliveries. The other four types will take them as much time to learn as the rest of you.”

As the apprentices began whispering excitedly about what-ifs, Maeve’s chest tightened with anger. But it shouldn’t surprise her that wealth and breeding were requirements for this quicker way to scribing—to reuniting with missing family. Privilege seemed to be the only way to get anywhere these days. Unless you falsified your name and risked your life.

If one of the protesters got wind of this, it would be all anyone talked about.

Maeve waited for someone to bring up that point, but no one did. They were too busy asking Tallowmeade questions that only concerned themselves and their odds of being adept.

Tallowmeade answered a few, then splayed his spindly fingers against an empty table. “Also know this: an instant ability to perform advanced scriptomancy doesn’t mean you should. It’s the same as letting a toddler play with poisons. You can get yourself killed. And there are only so many of us with the desire to babysit.”

Maeve glanced down at her hands and wondered if her father had been adept. He’d been skilled, she knew—she’d often heard him refer to scriptomancy as his “gift.” What if he was adept at the traveling scribing? If he was and she’d inherited the ability to do it instantly, she could try whispering her name at the black stone wall, then sneak into Barrow and speak with someone in the tracking office this evening. Maybe find her old friend first thing in the morning and get answers. Then she could take those answers straight to the Leyland Constabulary, to the House of Ministers.

Tallowmeade dismissed the class, but Maeve didn’t bother with the Scriptorium.

She ran to the ink fountain and scooped a thimbleful of lampblack and made her way to a stone bench tucked behind a building. A pair of crows shook loose from a nearby tree, beating black wings against the faded morning mist. The cool air kissed her skin as she tugged off her glove and slipped her sleeve above her elbow, exposing the swath of pale skin on the inside of her wrist. Her quill trembled in her fingers.

Maeve Abenthy.

It was all she had to write, but it felt as if a blade dug against her knuckles, threatening to carve her flesh if she attempted it.

Headmistress Castlemaine’s shrill voice came to her. She tried to shut out the woman’s words, but they only grew louder. Don’t ever give anyone your name. Someone will lock you away. They’ll hunt you and string you up because of him. They’ll hurt you.

It turned out to be true.

Six months after Maeve had arrived at the orphanage, she made a mistake. She whispered her name to another girl called Margery, her best friend. Margery took it upon herself to give Maeve’s name to someone else, and that girl told someone else. On it went. Within hours, Maeve’s secret had spread throughout the halls of the Sacrifict Orphanage like a bead of ink falling into water.

The three weeks that followed were a living nightmare. Several girls were orphaned because of the Aldervine, and everyone knew her father’s name. They spit at her. They crushed milk bottles and scattered the larger pieces of glass beneath her pillow, saving the smaller ones for her only pair of shoes. They twined dead lengths of ivy though her bedpost to look like the vine and poured garden dirt inside her dresser drawers. They slashed her underwear—slowly. One or two cuts each day, until Maeve thought she was losing her mind. Until she snapped and ran to Margery’s room and clawed it apart, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Headmistress Castlemaine had pulled her away by her scalp, but not to her attic room. The woman dragged her to the dilapidated barn behind the building and locked her inside. There were three old horses there that slammed their hooves and screamed into the freezing night. Rain swept through the gaps in the rotten boards, dripping onto her shoulders, but nobody came to unlock the door that night, nor the next day. Maeve shivered there, starving for three whole days, her knees tucked against her chin. She couldn’t remember who finally unlocked the barn, but the moment a sliver of daylight hit her eyes, she ran outside, then away from the orphanage for good.

She spent a day wandering the freezing streets of Gloam before she slipped inside a warm hall in the university’s College of Bookkeeping and curled up and fell fast asleep. An elderly professor woke her the next morning. Maeve was only twelve, but she told the professor she had nowhere to go and begged the woman for a job. When the woman asked her name, Maeve didn’t hesitate to give a false one.

That night, seated in a new room in the quiet attic of a university office building, Maeve vowed to herself that she would never speak her name to anyone again. Never think it. Never write it down.

She dipped her quill then pressed the tip to the inside of her wrist.

Write your name . If you’re adept at the traveling scribing, you can leave for Barrow right now.

It was only two little words, but her fingers juddered and turned to ice. The nib scratched her skin, drawing blood. The letter M came out looking like a misshapen N. The tip snapped in a splatter of ink.

She couldn’t do it.

She abandoned the broken quill to the damp ground.

Maeve spent the evening seated on rocks overlooking the ocean, writing in her journal about the happier times—with her aunt in Inverly at first. Then she decided it might do good to write about her father, so she allowed herself for once, jotting down little memories like how horrible he was at cooking anything besides fried eggs, but she would always ask for seconds of whatever he made. More good memories of her father flowed from her nib—things she never allowed herself to dwell on. Eventually, stars pricked the sky, and her breathing evened out.

Her fingers were stiff as boards by the time she returned to her room. Nan was gone again, of course. This time, she’d left a note on Maeve’s desk explaining how she was heading to Old Town with the other apprentices. That Eilidh should join them to “uncork a bottle and powder a bit of her hair.”

Maeve crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastebin.

Her braid was tangled from the salty wind, but she could ignore it until tomorrow. Stripping off her skirt and blouse, she changed into her nightgown and pulled out the letter from her old friend , her fingers stretching the wrinkled page. If she wasn’t brave enough to write her own name, then she would simply find another path to answers. Maybe the tracking office in Barrow wouldn’t be of any help anyhow.

She put her letter away and crawled into bed, vowing to come up with a new plan the next morning. But when she tried to close her eyes, sleep evaded her. Then a chorus of piano music drifted to her ears from somewhere outside her room. Strange that someone would play music after Tristan told her it was forbidden.

Maeve stuffed her pillow over her head and tossed. Maybe the Postmaster was right. It should be a high crime to play piano so late when everyone should be sleeping. But when the music didn’t let up, she lit a chamber-stick, hissing when a flame caught her fingertip. Cold seeped into the soles of her feet as she padded down the darkened hall, the music growing louder. It poured from a room at the very end, the door cracked.

Maeve nudged it open, then froze.

Tristan sat at an upright piano. Candlelight guttered from a number of lit taper candles along the piano top, while his fingers moved deftly across the keys.

Her feet rooted themselves as the music built, turning haunting. Moonlight poured in from the window, seeming to dance along with the melody.

It gave the same feeling as his whistled song in the woods, but the piano music added a new dimension. Maeve could almost imagine she was back in Inverly.

But Tristan’s music felt different than the songs she remembered from her childhood. His notes grew melancholy, slowing, until a single, hollow note rang out that seemed to catch in her throat. She brought her hand to her face and was surprised to find tears on her cheeks.

“I hope that was an improvement over suicidal sheep,” Tristan said without turning around.

“A vast improvement,” Maeve shot back, swallowing. “You told me your father doesn’t allow music here.”

“He doesn’t.”

He lifted a wine bottle beside his foot and took a long swig, then turned to her, his mouth stained a deep red. His usual vest was gone, and his buttoned undershirt hung open to his collarbone, where a crematory ash satchel rested in the dip of his throat.

In the dim room, Maeve couldn’t see Tristan’s eyes behind his spectacles, but she felt them like fingers dragging from the top of her head down her nightgown until they brushed against her feet. His throat bobbed.

It startled her out of her stupor. “Has anyone ever told you that it’s wildly improper to stare at a woman’s bare feet?”

He swung his legs over the bench to face her fully, elbows resting against his knees. “Not that I’m complaining, but I believe that you’re the one standing in my bedchamber, in your nightclothes no less.”

That she was.

She backed away, prepared to bolt.

“Don’t go yet,” he said. He stood and dug through a chest beside the piano, pulling out more men’s silk scarves than she’d seen in her life, tossing them to the floor like rags. He came toward her holding a long box. “I have something for you.”

She eyed it warily. “I don’t need anything.”

He gave her an admonishing look. “Yes, you do. Besides, I owe you a great deal for warning me earlier about the glass of milk that narrowly missed my head. Here.”

He opened the box and pulled out a swan’s molted right-wing feather. A left-handed quill. A drip of pure silver ran down one edge of the creamy fletching, ending in a teardrop shape with a red ruby encased in its center.

It was beautiful and must have cost a small fortune.

Maeve blinked at it, both horrified and deeply touched that he wanted to give it to her. It took a long moment to rein in her emotions. And when she spoke, her voice was rougher than she would have liked. “There’s no way I can accept that.”

“Why? It’s bad manners to refuse a gift.”

“A gift would have been a turkey quill. That, sir, is the equivalent of a dowry where I come from.”

“Well, where I come from, it’s the equivalent of one of my used shoes. I bought it on a whim last month, and now it collects dust in the bottom of my trunk. I think we can both agree that’s a terrible fate for such a feather.”

He spun it between his fingers.

It really was the loveliest she had ever seen—ever heard of. The silver edge caught moonlight as he placed it back inside the box then shut the lid. Before she could protest, he pushed the box into her hand. She flinched and almost gave it back, but hesitated. It would sell for more coins than the purse she had given away to Eilidh Hill. Enough coins to escape Gloam if it came down to it.

As long as she never carved it.

“Thank you,” Maeve said, but Tristan wasn’t looking at the box.

His brow creased, and his hand slid to her wrist. He ran a finger over the rough scab with the misshapen M. “What’s this?”

“It’s nothing.” She ripped her hand away. Thank goodness the M was botched enough to be unreadable.

“This scab is from an inked nib.” His eyes flicked to hers, his mouth drawing flat. “I’ve never seen anyone accidentally stab themselves while attempting the traveling scribing. It’s impressive.”

“I wasn’t attempting anything.”

“Your wrist says otherwise.”

This conversation was over.

“Thank you for the quill,” she said, taking a few steps down the hall.

“Wait just a moment,” he called out.

Maeve spun to find him leaning a shoulder against his doorframe. He ruffled his hair. “I’m going to play piano for another hour at least.”

“Good for you?”

“No one here appreciates music.” He fiddled with a silver button on his cuff. “You could stay for a while if you want. Listen while I play.”

The offer was more than tempting. She could listen to his sad piano songs for hours. And wanted to. But then he stepped aside to let her back inside his room, and she froze at the implication. She had never dared spend any time in someone else’s bedchamber, let alone a boy’s, but she considered it for a blistering moment.

Except there was nowhere to sit. He had a settee against one wall, but it was stacked with unopened packages. And she certainly would never dare to sprawl out on his bed.

Although—Maeve didn’t see a bed in the room. Only the settee beside his piano. She didn’t understand it, but it seemed that Tristan Byrne had a bedchamber with no bed.

A bedchamber that she had no business setting foot in ever again.

“So do you want to stay?” he asked, crossing his arms. “It’s not a difficult decision to make.”

It wasn’t. Luckily, she came to her senses and fled, stammering out an excuse about an early lecture as she went.

Tristan called for her, but she was already skidding inside her room, slamming the door before she could draw a breath. She fell against it, clutching the box with the swan feather to her chest while trying to understand what in the worlds she was feeling, and why on earth she had almost said yes.