Twenty-Nine
Considering how many healers leave the Blue City to work elsewhere, the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr is notable for still having a high number of mages per head of population.
This is entirely logical when one considers the mages of other specialties who move there in the hope of producing healer children.
It is a fundamental rule of our world: If you meet a mage anywhere whose specialty is not that of their current location, they must have attained their adulthood somewhere else.
None of the artificers, illusionists, or elementals who call Sieuxerr home grew up there. But their children, vitally, will.
—From Stone and Song: A History of the Blue City, J. de la Noe
‘The artificers’ workshop had been cleaned since the explosion two days ago, although Clement spotted a large residual smudge of char on the bench.
Without shouting, injuries, or broken glass, the workshop had a relaxing air of private concentration.
Everyone was paying attention to their own work.
Small clatters and fizzes and other noises of industry filled the air, but not much talking.
It was very unlike a hospital ward. Clement’s shoulders were relaxing in envy.
“I’m really feeling good as new,” said Artificer Anero, who had been pleased to meet the scholar who healed her concussion, and had immediately brought a spare stool over to her bench, apologising for the one uneven leg.
Now she played with her gold chain in a way that reminded Clement of Alys.
“You did a good job, Scholar. And it was kind of you to drop in and check on me. Floris said—” A sudden pall of grief, a halt in her Matorran-accented voice, and Clement held themself back from putting a hand on her shoulder.
Not everyone appreciated touch from strangers.
They certainly didn’t themself. But Clement could sympathise with a fresh loss; and Artificer Floris Decroy’s violent manner of death would have made for rapid gossip.
“He told me that you’d said to go to the Hospital clinic, but what with all the extra work we’ve got to get done by the end of the week, I really didn’t know how I’d have time.
It’s always a long wait if there’s nothing seriously wrong with you. ”
“Don’t push yourself too hard,” said Clement. The uneven stool made a comforting rhythmic click on the floor when they shifted their weight back and forth. “Any dizziness or headaches, or if light and sound get too much, go back home and rest.”
Anero nodded, but her eyes slid to her workbench. Given what Decroy had said about the artificers’ workload this week, and with Decroy himself now gone, Clement didn’t think anyone would be going home for anything short of a severed limb.
Every healer could relate to that. And every healer got used to having their advice ignored.
“I’m glad you’re doing well. But actually, this wasn’t the only reason I dropped by,” said Clement.
Jehan had been right about this, too. With Ysabel’s letter sitting unopened, talking again to Decroy’s fellow artificers was worth a try. Clement and Moyna had already come to them with questions about Ysabel once; there was no point in lying.
Clement briefly explained to Anero about their connection to Ysabel, their certainty that she’d been murdered, and the complication of Estiene’s framing for it.
They’d wondered about introducing Estiene’s name, but that gossip must have spread here too.
Anero simply frowned and said, “So you don’t think the Marcelle boy was responsible?
I must say, he’s never struck me as the type to risk his future with something so rash. ”
“We do think Artificer Decroy was the one who set up the meeting, either with Estiene or someone else,” said Clement. “He didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“I wasn’t here yesterday, when—it happened,” said Anero.
“But as you can imagine, it’s all we’ve been talking about today.
I can’t think what he’d have known about the dead girl, or why he’d have met with Scholar Marcelle.
Or anyone else. Floris was a great artificer, and a good coworker—we all liked him—but he wasn’t chatty. He kept himself to himself.”
“He said he left the Rondelle an hour after sundown,” said Clement. “Is it possible he was lying about that?”
Anero frowned at the ground. “He was the last of us in the building. And he hated all the corner-cutting we’ve been forced into this week. He could have been there until midnight if he wanted to check every spell from top to bottom, I suppose.”
And he’d have lied to Clement and Moyna once he realised that his knowledge, whatever it was, was worth keeping to himself and blackmailing someone over.
Once he knew that a healer would go to any lengths to hide their guilt and avoid being life-bonded.
In which case his death had been mostly to silence him, and only secondarily to shift the blame onto the Marcelles.
What had Alys said at the start of all this? Blackmailers make good murder victims. Clement’s breath stuttered as pieces shifted in their mind.
“I think my friend and your colleague were killed by the same person. And I don’t know who that is, yet,” said Clement, “but I am sure Dean Brodier is hiding something about Ysabel. I came here to ask if you would help me get into her office, without her knowing, so I can search it.”
Moyna and Jehan, when reporting on what had happened after Estiene’s arrest, had included the interesting fact that the artificers held keys to every room in the Academie. It was a risky request: Anero would be well within her rights to go to Brodier at once and tell her.
She didn’t. She considered, shrugged, and then pulled a red-ribboned key from a bunch at her belt.
“This opens all the North Wing doors. Though if you’re caught with this . . .”
“I didn’t get it from you,” said Clement. Excitement swirled in them. This was the kind of rule-bending adventure Ysabel had a tendency to drag them into; never before had they initiated one.
They imagined Ysabel at their side, half an hour later, as they went to the North Tower and walked quietly along the main corridor of faculty offices. For the first time the imagining was bittersweet instead of all bitter.
Finding out Brodier’s daily schedule had been simple.
The under-secretaries were used to frantic scholars at this time of year wanting to drop into the Dean of Assessment’s office and beg, plead, or argue about their marks, and Assessment was a busy job even when the faculty weren’t dealing with the aftermaths of murders.
Clement had endured some melting concerned looks and inquiries as to how they were holding up, and been treated to the consensus among the admin staff, which was that Estiene Marcelle had seemed like such a bright, serious scholar, and wasn’t it a pity that he’d been so greedy for that gilded name on the Dux Scolaris board in the entrance hall?
Clement, in the corridor, closed their hand around the key in their pocket.
They walked past the open door of old Dean Carbonnel, who’d been their own research advisor and who had been in charge of Practicum since the Academie’s founding several hundred years ago, one assumed.
Carbonnel was nearly as highborn as Alys, and certainly better connected; no matter how much funding the Academie lost, nobody was going to make him compete for his own job.
Currently, post-lunch, Carbonnel was snoring gently with his head on his desk.
Saige’s door was closed. A pair of second-years with hands full of papers passed Clement on their way back from the assessment box, which sat near the slender window throwing light only a few yards down the otherwise gloomy hallway.
Brodier’s office. Clement knocked on the closed door. No answer.
Chest tight, palms sweatier than they expected, they let themself in and left the door slightly ajar.
They could only remember being in Brodier’s office once before.
In second year they’d begun having nightmares after the tutorials on treating burns, and then keeping themself awake in order to avoid the dreams. It was the only time they’d failed an exam.
Ysabel had done most of the talking on Clement’s behalf, and Clement had tried not to see insects crawling at the edge of their vision or to throw up onto Brodier’s desk.
Ysabel had spent every spare moment helping them practice for their second attempt, and the dreams had settled grudgingly on their own.
It was the office of someone with a bent toward rigid organisation, who’d begun to lose control of their system through sheer volume.
Trays of papers held well-aligned but towering piles.
More piles of folders, tied up with twine.
Books stacked on the floor. Wooden cabinets with locks; bookshelves full of yet more folders labelled in a terse, neat hand.
The central desk was arranged so that Brodier would have her back to the window, which was at least a pleasantly large one that lit up the place nicely. It showed the dust.
Clement’s conviction about Brodier was eroding.
It had seemed so strong, so worth listening to, when they were face-to-face in the Hospital and Brodier’s tangled emotions were seeping through.
But Jehan and Alys were right—Konrad or even Dean Saige had clearer motives.
Clement had been turning their conviction from every angle today, forcing it to sit next to all the other information they had.
Things were muddled. Brodier would know about Head Healer Marcelle’s bribery of the Chancellor; she would know that either of them could reveal it as a reason Marcelle wouldn’t have needed to kill someone for his son’s graduation ranking.
But she might also know that they would keep that corruption secret, or deny it, until there was no other option.