Ten #3
“No argument now about who wrote it, I see,” murmured Jehan.
“I suppose we still can’t be certain,” said Clement.
Everyone looked at them. Clement took a tiny step back, as if in the face of a wind, but their expression firmed.
“I’m . . . I’m trying to think about it like Ysabel would.
And she would say that if we can’t be sure, we should keep an open mind.
” They gestured to the note. “Jehan, who else knows about your research topic, and your new technique?”
“It’s not a secret. Dean Saige, obviously, and anyone he told. Moyna.” His eyes flicked sideways. “Estiene.”
“Ysabel?” said Moyna.
“Yes. I told you, we talked about my research a lot. She asked me to show her how to do it.”
Something gave a quiet snap in Moyna’s mind. There were too many unanswered questions here. She might hate healing, but she hated those even more.
The messenger had headed back toward the quad. Moyna hauled her satchel’s strap over her shoulder and took off at a run.
“What are you doing?” Jehan yelled after her.
“Finding out who’s sending these!” she yelled back.
“Wait!” That was Alys. Moyna halted. “Clement’s right, we should find somewhere to talk. How about the knocking room? That should be empty.”
“I’ll meet you there,” said Moyna, and launched off again.
She raced up to the quad and across the gravel paths, hopping to avoid a yellow sash that some careless second-year had dropped.
Her nose filled with parfunda perfume. And then she was through the front arch and out.
Her only hope was to catch the messenger before he left the Academie grounds entirely.
Luckily, the wide paved path stretching down from the quad wasn’t crowded, and the messenger-house’s uniform stood out. Moyna was barely out of breath when she caught the man up and tapped his shoulder with a loud, “Stop!”
He turned. Barely older than Symon, with the faint markings of berry-rash around his nose.
“What?” he demanded.
“Your posthouse,” she said. “What’s the street address?”
The posthouse was only a few streets away, but Moyna kept up her run.
Some of the restlessness she’d burned out last night was building again.
Fuck—she should have grabbed the letter to bring with her, as an example.
She couldn’t say why this had seemed like the most urgent avenue of investigation, except that it was the one directly in front of her, ready to be grasped.
And if Clement was right and Ysabel had been murdered, then someone should be speaking up for the dead.
The posthouse of the messenger service—Berthelmi’s, the sign said—had a short queue of people dropping off parcels and letters.
The senior postmaestre behind the counter gave Moyna a long and, she felt, deliberately uncomprehending look when she explained what she wanted to know.
At least they’d touched their headband when she stepped up, even if it looked like a reflex.
“Can’t give out personal information about customers,” they said.
“I don’t need— Can you just confirm if I’m right?” said Moyna. “Five letters, maybe more, for delivery to Exam Chamber Two at the Academie, one by one across the Grand Exam week. One of them will be addressed to me. Moyna Apprice.”
“Why do you want to know?”
Truth? Lie? Oh, fuck it.
“Because I think the person who left them with you is a scholar called Ysabel Caudotte, and as of yesterday, she’s dead.” There must have been a new queue forming behind Moyna, because a child’s voice piped up “Dead!” with the satisfaction of a toddler wondering if they could cause a fuss.
The postmaestre looked startled. “Dead?”
“Maybe murdered. Are you sure you can’t tell me anything?”
“They’ll be delivered either way—”
“Then can I have the one for me, at least? Look.” Moyna dug in her satchel and pulled out the little leather purse, her name embossed on the front, that her parents had given her when she started at the Academie. The gilt had long since worn off, but the imprint was there.
“Can’t deliver anything before the appointed time, if the customer specified,” the postmaestre said stubbornly, but they relented enough to haul out a record ledger and confirm that the letters had been dropped off the previous week, and paid for by someone who’d at least signed themself Ysabel Caudotte.
“Thomasse!” the postmaestre called over their shoulder. A tall young woman appeared inquiringly in the half-open door into a back room. “That bunch of letters for delayed delivery to the Academie. You took payment, didn’t you? Was it from a scholar?”
“I think so?” said Thomasse. “Sorry. Last week was a busy one, with the feast week and the strike both coming up.”
“What did she look like?” Moyna asked. “Brown hair? Purple belt like mine?”
Thomasse made an apologetic face.
Moyna resisted the urge to growl. “Did she have an air like she was about to leap over the counter and do your job for you, because she was sure she could do it better?”
“Hah,” said Thomasse, and broke into a small grin. “Yes. Yes, that she did.”