Chapter Twenty #2
Isolde folded the scarf carefully and placed it over the back of the desk chair rather than putting it away. She wanted to see it.
At four, Taddeo appeared in the library doorway while Isolde was discovering exactly how insulting the security restrictions on her laptop could become.
The museum’s collection database worked normally.
Her professional journals loaded. Her personal Gmail account produced a security screen explaining that access had been restricted by the network administrator.
She was considering whether throwing the computer through a window would make a useful political statement when Taddeo spoke.
“You have twenty minutes with Linnea.”
Isolde looked up immediately. “Video?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Your laptop. Marco sets the connection, verifies it, and leaves.”
“And content?”
“Not monitored.”
She stared.
Taddeo’s expression became mildly defensive. “Metadata only.”
“No recording?”
“No.”
“You?”
“Outside.”
The answer came quickly enough that suspicion became difficult to maintain.
Isolde leaned back in the chair. “You’re applying the same rules as Corwin.”
“Yes.”
“Twice.”
“I understand basic pattern recognition.”
“That sounds dangerously close to growth.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
Her smile appeared before she could stop it.
Taddeo’s gaze lingered on her face for a second, then moved toward the laptop.
“You still can’t tell Linnea where you are,” he said. “No Northglass, no Bellandi names, no museum attack, no details about Corwin’s contact.”
The warmth disappeared. “So I get privacy as long as the conversation stays inside a script.”
“I didn’t say script.”
“You just listed half my life as prohibited.”
“Because telling her those things could put her inside the same problem.”
“She already knows something is wrong.”
“I know.”
“She is going to see me after I vanished for days and know the family-emergency story is bullshit.”
“Then don’t tell her everything is fine.”
Isolde looked at him.
Taddeo continued more quietly. “Tell her what is true without giving her information that makes her a target. You’re physically safe. You’re dealing with something involving Corwin. You can’t explain the rest yet.”
“That leaves out being kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“And being shot at.”
“Yes.”
“And the fact that I cannot walk out the front door and go home.”
His expression tightened.
“Yes.”
Isolde looked back at the computer.
“I’m not asking you to tell her you chose any of that,” Taddeo said.
The words landed harder than the restrictions.
She nodded once. “Fine.”
At four precisely, Linnea appeared on the screen.
For the first second, neither of them spoke.
Linnea looked exactly as she had the last time Isolde saw her: blond hair in a collapsing knot, oversized black glasses sliding down her nose, textile-conservation shelves visible behind one shoulder. Then her expression broke so completely that Isolde’s throat closed.
“Oh my God.”
“Hi.”
“Do not hi me.” Linnea leaned toward the camera as though closer inspection might reveal whether Isolde was intact. “Are you okay? You look mostly okay, which is somehow making me angrier.”
Isolde laughed and immediately started crying.
Linnea swore and wiped at her own eyes. “Fuck you. I had a speech prepared.”
“I missed you.”
“That is not enough to avoid the speech.”
“Fair.”
They wasted several minutes crying and insulting each other, which Isolde needed more than any serious conversation she had imagined. Then the questions started.
Where was she?
She couldn’t say.
Was Corwin alive?
“I have reason to believe he is.”
Linnea went still. “That was a very careful answer.”
“It’s the answer I can give you.”
“Are you in danger?”
Isolde hesitated.
“Right now, I’m physically safe.”
Linnea’s expression changed.
“Is someone there?”
“No one is in the room.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Isolde looked toward the closed library door.
Taddeo was somewhere outside it.
She believed he was not listening.
That fact complicated everything.
“I can’t explain all of this yet.”
“Do you need me to call the police?”
“No.”
“Do you need me to come get you?”
The question hit harder.
Isolde looked away from the screen for a moment before answering. “No.”
Linnea stared at her. “Isolde.”
“I know how that sounded.”
“It sounded like you don’t believe yourself.”
“I do.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t.”
Linnea’s eyes filled again. “I trust you. That is exactly why I’m terrified. You don’t disappear. You don’t take mysterious family leave. You don’t tell me not to look for you unless there is a reason looking would be dangerous.”
“There is a reason.”
“Are you being forced to say that?”
“No one is forcing this conversation.”
“That is a different answer.”
Isolde swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Is somebody hurting you?”
The question pulled Taddeo into her mind immediately.
Mercer Street.
The locked gate.
His hand opening when she told him to let go.
The museum.
His body covering hers while bullets struck the worktable.
His mouth on hers only after she said yes.
The contradictions refused to become one clean answer simply because Linnea deserved one.
“No one is hurting me right now.”
Linnea heard everything inside the qualification.
She closed her eyes briefly but did not push again.
Instead, she spent what remained of the call telling Isolde things that mattered precisely because they did not matter at all.
Marcus had become intolerable because he considered himself temporary guardian of the conservation lab.
Paul had taken three archival folders and denied it despite leaving his initials on one.
The holiday committee had selected gold tablecloths, which Linnea described as an act of institutional violence.
Isolde’s potted plant had visibly improved under someone else's care.
“Traitor,” Isolde said.
“The plant or me?”
“Both.”
The timer showed less than two minutes.
The sight of it made Isolde’s chest ache.
Linnea saw her looking. “You’re calling again.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I know.”
“Two days.”
“I’ll try.”
“No. Two days, Isolde.”
Despite herself, Isolde smiled. “Fine.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The screen went dark.
Isolde remained in front of it for several minutes.
Eventually she opened the library door and found Taddeo across the corridor near a window, speaking quietly on his phone. The moment he saw her, he ended the call.
“You didn’t listen,” she said.
“No.”
“You could have.”
“Yes.”
“Marco could have recorded it.”
“He didn’t.”
Isolde leaned against the frame. “She thinks I’m in trouble.”
“You are.”
“That answer is profoundly unhelpful.”
“It is also accurate.”
She studied him. “She asked if somebody was hurting me.”
Something changed in his face. “What did you say?”
“That no one is hurting me right now.”
His jaw tightened.
Isolde watched him hear every part of the sentence.
“I didn’t tell her about you.”
“Good.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“I know.”
She almost smiled again.
Taddeo glanced toward the laptop. “You can call her again in two days. Same setup.”
This time the surprise did show.
“You’re scheduling recurring privacy now?”
“Preventing you from speaking to her no longer gives us enough security benefit to justify it.”
Isolde stared at him. “You have started saying disturbingly reasonable things.”
“I’ll correct that when I have time.”
He walked away before she could decide whether to thank him.
Dinner became irrelevant sometime after nine, when Isolde followed the smell of garlic into the kitchen and found Taddeo standing at the stove.
She stopped in the doorway.
He had changed into dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled above his forearms, one hand wrapped around a wooden spoon while a heavy pot simmered in front of him.
“What are you doing?”
Taddeo glanced over his shoulder. “Cooking.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because you have staff.”
“They’re done for the night.”
“Elettra would wake from a dead sleep just to object to you phrasing it like that.”
“She probably would.”
Isolde came closer. “What is it?”
“Pasta e ceci.”
“You’re making chickpea pasta at nine-thirty at night.”
“Yes.”
“Is this some deeply criminal tradition I haven’t learned yet?”
“No.”
She leaned against the counter while he crushed garlic with the side of a knife.
“You are violent with ingredients.”
“They still become dinner.”
“That is an alarmingly broad philosophy.”
Taddeo dropped the garlic into the pan. “Elettra taught me this.”
“Really?”
“My mother taught her.”
Isolde’s teasing disappeared.
“Lucia?”
His hand paused for only a second. “Yes.”
“You never talk about her.”
“You’ve never asked.”
There was no accusation in the answer.
Isolde stayed where she was. “Was this hers?”
“Mostly.”
“What did you change?”
“More garlic.”
“That sounds like an improvement.”
“She disagreed.”
“So your resistance to authority began with seasoning.”
“My resistance to authority has always been selective.”
“Cesare would be relieved.”
Something shifted immediately in Taddeo’s posture.
Small.
Enough.
“You went to see him today,” Isolde said.
“Yes.”
“Bad meeting?”
“Complicated.”
“That word is carrying an unreasonable amount of weight lately.”
“It’s useful.”
She could have pushed.
Instead, she watched him stir the pot for another moment before asking, “What was your mother like?”
Taddeo was quiet long enough that she expected the question to remain unanswered.
“She was practical,” he said eventually. “More patient than my father. She worked in a bakery when I was young. Hated waste. She could turn whatever was left in the kitchen into dinner and act as though that had been the plan all along.”
“Did she know what your father did?”
“Yes.”
“Did she approve?”
“No.”
That surprised her.