Twenty-Nine #2
Hares for Firstnight. Pearl-pox scars. Some diagnoses weren’t clear until you had the vital missing piece of information. You had to keep digging until you found it.
Clement sat down on the spare chair as if Brodier were there and they were having a meeting. The urge was enormous to jump up and simply begin rummaging, but there were so many places to check. Loud in their mind was Ysabel’s voice: You can save a lot of time doing if you spend more time thinking.
The locked cabinets would hold the master copies of exam papers, past and present and future.
At least one scholar in Clement’s time at the Academie had been caught trying to steal them, and had an extra year added to their bond and their summers swallowed by mandatory clinic service.
If Brodier had the notebook and had simply thrown it in there, the artificer’s key wouldn’t help Clement.
If she’d taken it home with her, or destroyed it, then this whole endeavour was useless.
Organisation. The same uneasy instinct that told Clement Brodier was involved was telling them that they could solve this.
Footsteps were approaching in the corridor. Clement froze in the chair, feet glued to the floor. Closer. Nearly there.
And walking past, without pausing, on their way to somewhere else.
Clement gripped the chair arms and thought furiously. They had to start somewhere. All right.
A shelf was helpfully labelled STUDENT RESEARCH; it held bound copies of completed theses, some printed journals, and a few folders with names that Clement recognised as current scholars in lower years.
There was no folder with Ysabel’s name. Odd.
And certainly no yellow notebook, even in any of the other folders.
Clement then looked through the textbook shelves, and pulled out two texts on echo symptoms to make sure nothing had been tucked between them.
If it were Clement, they’d want to keep it close.
They couldn’t bring themself to sit in Brodier’s own chair, where the leather seat was cracked and worn into a depression, but they quickly tested the desk drawers.
The desk was old and not exactly of top-quality workmanship; the drawers weren’t solidly fitted but had loose, thin bases, and the deep lowest drawer—the only one which was locked, even though they all had locks—rattled in a way that suggested said lock could be forced.
Clement tried the room key, already knowing it wouldn’t fit the more delicate desk-lock. Forcing it really would be giving themself away.
Instead they quickly inspected the other drawers, an obscure pile of guilt building in their chest at the small pieces of a life that they were turning up.
Old tickets to the Theatre Splendid; handwritten shopping lists; flattened paper bags with smudges of food grease; quite a few earrings, tarnished or bent or simply missing their fellows.
The second-lowest drawer held only several pencils, which rolled merrily as Clement opened it. One of them rolled all the way to the back of the drawer and—vanished. There was a faint, papery noise.
Clement steadied the other pencils and tugged the drawer out as far as it would come.
The loose base was unevenly fitted and had shifted enough that there was a gap, wide enough to admit a finger.
As Clement slid the drawer back and forth it created a slender, dim window into the locked drawer beneath.
Enough to see that whatever sat near the top of that drawer was yellow.
Clement’s throat clenched. They tried to pull the drawer all the way out of the desk, but it wasn’t possible; some sort of catch prevented it. No doubt also able to be forced. Which would be even more obvious.
They were on their knees between desk and window. Every few seconds they peeked around the side, even though the corridor was quiet. Occasionally they heard voices, soft through the cracked-open window, obviously drifting down from another room.
Carefully, Clement took stock. There were only a few inches of range within which they could move the drawer and still admit enough light to see what lay in the lower drawer.
I could do with a candle, Clement thought, and swallowed a metallic snort of laughter.
Yellow. The right size to be Ysabel’s notebook. And—
And there, quite clear, a large swooping Y, the beginning of a handwritten name.
Tiredness swept through Clement. In its wake came grief, which wanted to go everywhere with everything these days. No jubilation at being proven right. Only a probable, horrible truth that was still missing several pieces.
Their fingers fit down through the gap, though their hand stuck at the knuckles and their thumb had no hope at all.
The rough edge of cheap wood dug painfully into their skin.
They strained by touch for the notebook and managed to pinch it between two fingers, only by the cover, which had enough space to open fully when Clement shook and tugged; and then stayed fallen open when Clement’s trembling grasp slipped off.
Clement leaned down to get their face closer—no, that blocked the sunlight entirely—and finally, at an odd angle, managed to glimpse some handwriting. It was only three lines, centred on the first page. They couldn’t make out the words.
Footsteps, again, and these ones brisk. Clement quickly reached again. They shoved their hand down until their bones ached, but still couldn’t grab more than the edge of that top page between their fingers. They lifted, gently. Gently.
The paper began to tear as the weight of the book acted on it. Clement let go. The footsteps were slowing. The notebook lay down there with the cover open.
Clement’s heart tried to squeeze itself into their throat.
With a final surge of effort, ignoring the pain with the ease of childhood practice, they managed to change angles and grab the lower edge of the cover and flip it shut again.
Then they closed the upper drawer and scrambled back around the desk and into the chair.
The footsteps came right into the office and halted in the doorway.
Dean Brodier looked at the door, and at Clement, and then back at the door. Clement had caught the edge of the desk to balance themself when sitting. Their half-twisted posture, holding on, was surely awkward and unnatural. They had no idea what expression was on their face.
“Scholar Savoye,” said the Dean.
“Dean Brodier,” said Clement. Their fingers had long, raw scrapes, one of which bled. They covered the damage with their other hand. Healing it would take concentration they couldn’t afford to spare. “I hoped you’d just ducked out, so I thought I’d wait . . .”
Clement was watching for it, and so they caught the flick of Brodier’s gaze to the desk. Brodier looked about as tired as Clement felt. After a moment she mustered a fractional smile and came to sit down at the desk.
“How can I help you, Savoye?”
“It’s about our Grand Exam.”
“I don’t have to tell you this isn’t exactly appropriate, do I? Your fourth case is in—just over an hour,” with a glance at the clock. “And seeking contact with your examiners at all reflects very poorly on your professionalism.”
“I know,” Clement said. “It’s not about the exam cases. Although we have been discussing them a lot as a group,” they added, finding some of their daring. “They seem . . . odd.”
“You know I won’t comment on that, Savoye.” Another glance, this one down at the drawer. “Rest assured that everything will make sense at the end of the week.”
Clement’s awareness of Ysabel’s notebook was like the presence of a fresh wound in a body in which they were trying to diagnose a subtler illness. They thought of Brodier, three days ago, talking about Ysabel’s research in those sorrowful and appreciative tones. Major, groundbreaking work.
Everything would make sense at the end of the week.
Clement’s throat and skull seemed made of fragile glass. If they moved too fast the idea would shatter.
“Mostly I wanted to talk about Alys,” they said. “I’m concerned about her. She’s all right now, but she so easily might not have been, and if we lost anyone else . . .”
If I lost anyone else. A lie might have been easier, but this truth fell like a pebble from the Duke’s Bridge, bearing a wish into the water. And it took Brodier’s sternness with it—she leaned forward and put a hand over Clement’s.
Clement’s breath stopped. The hand beneath that one was freshly scraped. And if Brodier shifted her finger even a little, she wouldn’t need magic to feel how Clement’s pulse was racing.
I think you killed her. Then killed someone else to hide it. How much, exactly, would you be prepared to up the stakes on this bet you’ve made?
“It speaks well of you that you care this much about your fellow scholar,” said Brodier. “Assuming that’s what this concern is, and not worry for your own exam results.”
“Perhaps a bit of both,” Clement managed, glass-throat now jagged with hate.
“Has Tixerrant herself expressed a desire to withdraw from today’s exam? Has she said she’s too unwell for it?”
“No, but—”
“Then she continues, as do the rest of you,” said Brodier. “Healing is healing, whether we’re tired, or sore, or—grieving. We do the work. We do what is necessary, Savoye. We don’t have any other choice.”