Chapter Twenty-Eight The Nova
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Nova
My body still felt as if it had been trampled by horses, the big ones with hooves the size of my head. The only surfaces I’d be sitting on for the next week would be cushioned.
The bruising around my hips was felt with every step.
I found myself brushing my skirt down, fixing my hair, the embarrassment showing in the color of my cheeks, even if there was no way of anyone knowing.
The deafening clarity aside, the weather was uncharacteristically perfect.
Usually the asphalt and pavement made the air between buildings unbearable and sweltering.
It magnified the already cruel sun. The haze always settled above the skyline, the tops rarely seen as they appeared to tower endlessly above the smog.
The worst was the end of the week, when the garbage was put out, since the fog captured the smells like a brine.
But today, an easy breeze carried through, keeping the sweat off my skin, and there was not one cloud in the sky. The humidity hadn’t even allowed for the infamous smog to collect. Days like this were few and far between. A lucky occurrence to witness.
On this rare occasion, I wore an indigo dress.
Normally, I might have been worried about the grime of the air dulling the fabric.
It had the most brilliant violet shine when the sun hit it.
Not often did the weather present such an opportunity.
I fastened the heirloom stone around my throat over the collar, above Dorian’s scarf.
I pinned my hair mostly up, leaving a couple of pieces free.
I had neglected to pluck the white hairs that peppered through the locks where my vitiligo touched my scalp, although I had brought a parasol to shield my skin from any burns.
As I stepped into the café, the bread was baking and the pastries were already being placed in the display.
I watched the bakers stack the shelves. Small cakes, cookies, croissants, and fresh semolina bread.
The steam breathed against the window, fogging and clearing as the goods settled.
They were disappearing almost as fast as they were being put out.
Golden light shone through the display window and the passing shadows of buzzing customers.
“See something you like?” a voice beside me asked.
I straightened my posture when I saw Calum smiling sweetly, like he had been observing me for a moment before speaking up.
“No,” I laughed, but it was more of an embarrassed exhale.
“Imagining eating something doesn’t satisfy the same as actually eating it,” he joked, then held up a paper bag. “I always get extra for the office, but I may find it in me to let you steal one.”
“Are you headed there now?”
He nodded, then tipped his head to the door with his arm out.
I felt I had to survey the room before accepting, but all the busybodies were more focused on getting into the line as it began to grow out the door.
We stepped out together, and something frightening settled upon me.
It was stressful enough being seen with Altair, but another escorting man?
At least I had the excuse of my brother; I could simply say Calum had been sent in place of him, especially if my mother-in-law pestered me from some birds who’d filled her ear.
In the grand scheme of things, I felt selfish for even wondering about reputation.
Calum handed me a croissant; I handed him my gloves to hold as I picked at it.
“Any fantastical research underway today?” he asked.
“More of a spiritual acquisition,” I said. “Old texts just have that charm to them.”
“If you allow me to help, you’ll get me out of clerical duty,” he teased. Then, his expression turned serious. “I mean it. If I have to refile a revised application one more time, I may quit altogether.”
“Well, it only seems right to preserve your career.” I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t want to further burden your workload. I may ask Maxim—”
“He took the day,” Calum said, “which is why I’m in early. He asked me to cover him.”
“Oh.” It seemed I didn’t have any other excuses to deny the help. “All right then, maybe you can do a title pull for me. Keep you busy.”
“Anything beats the desk work,” he said with a wink.
My arms were becoming sore from the books piled higher and higher. The main Treasury floor lacked tables because of the bats and for ease of cleaning, so patrons had to hold everything if they wanted a book.
The book pile weighed my arms again as Calum added a few more.
“Do you want me to hold that?”
“No,” I said quickly, my fingers breezing over the spines, looking for absolutely anything that might be in the realm of where my answers lay.
“You may want to narrow your search,” he said. “General ancient Astrium seems to be a broad topic.”
I handed him the pile of books so I could stretch my arms. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for, if I am to be honest.” I ground my teeth, staring at the wall of books as if the volume I sought would jump out at me like a magical spell.
“Well, is it instructional? Cultural?” He stared along with me. “Ritual?”
I chewed the inside of my lip, unsure if I should tell him anything at all. Maxim already thought I was mad. But he wouldn’t dare say it out loud, even if he had helped me dispose of my husband’s remains correctly.
“In the hymns, there are references to rituals that people no longer possess the ability to perform,” I explained. “I am interested in more accounts of those, not in verse or poem or other vague reference.”
“There are some. They aren’t easy to understand.” He began to walk along the wall. “Context is lost for many of them. Whether by war or by ignorance, sometimes both, it’s hard to know exactly how,” he said, placing the pile on the ground before pulling something else off the wall.
“But they say how?” I prodded, staring at the book in his hand.
He shrugged, opening the book. “It’s like recipes, but either they’re a bunch of magical nonsense, or we simply do not have the skills to perform them.”
“What about summoning?” I asked. “Like speaking to the dead?”
After the question had left my throat, an inkling of a dreadful, unrepeatable thought . . .
What if I didn’t want to bring him back anymore?
I loved him, I did, but I had not cried in a while. Would he feel betrayed if I didn’t try? Even if what I was trying to do was unnatural, why did it feel wrong to not want to try anymore?
My conscience was cleared when I remembered that what had happened to Dorian wasn’t natural at all; it was a consequence of my own mistake. So I had a duty to try.
He flipped through the pages, then turned the book toward me. “Sentience of the Soul,” he said, reading the title, “but see? We are missing parts of it. There’s the name of the departed, personal item, the intention, and the infamous incantation—but it says you need a tome.”
“A tome?”
“It’s a folktale,” he laughed, “a sentient book that guides you. Technically, it’s a creature that’s shaped like a book, because that is the only way it can be made sense of by the human mind.” He tapped his temple. “Maybe you should read more mythology. It’s quite interesting.”
A tome . . .
The grimoire.
“What does it say?” I grabbed the book, looking at the list.
Names. Belongings. Intention. Florescentia.
“Do you want me to add it to the ledger?” he asked.
“No,” I said, and handed it back to him, “I have another errand to run, I just remembered.” I laughed, tapping my head as I backed away. “Thank you for your help!” I called as I rushed to the exit.
Through the door, then up the stairs to the main floor. Out from behind the desk, I picked up my skirts to walk faster across the skywalk. As I passed the front desk, out the door, I knocked shoulders with someone.
“Watch it,” Maxim hissed, then faltered. “Lucia?”
I raised a brow, but I didn’t have time to question him about his presence here on his supposed day off.
There was no need to wave for a coach, which were plentiful outside the Treasury, as it was a stately government building, after all.
Though, judging by the crowd, it may have been faster to walk.
The carriage ride was stop and go, jolt and swerve.
My stomach wasn’t built for such travel.
I could already feel myself becoming green.
Soon the buildings shrank and turned to flatter land, more commercial buildings, and the company of the largest cemetery in the city, which had become my least favorite frequent as of late.
The coach pulled up to the opening of the cemetery. Wrought iron gates guarded the dead, attached to a solid wall of stone encapsulating the entire burial ground. On such a cheery day, no one wanted to spend their time with the deceased. Never mind an ill-maintained city yard.
The dirt path wound and wove through the headstones and statues, the subtle hills watched over by the towers in the distance. Most of the grass by this time was hay-like and burnt, not even the goosegrass and purslane able to withstand the beating sun.
Before I could bring myself to wander, I owed someone a visit.
Well into the center of the cemetery, near the lone tree and past the old crypts, my first stop.
“Hello, my love.” I knelt before Dorian’s grave.
Obviously, there was no reply. Talking to the dead was unnecessarily embarrassing. It was more tolerable with a veil; that way, no one could see that you were talking to yourself, to a rock. He wasn’t even buried. So I was, indeed, speaking to a simple stone.
“I suppose I should talk the old-fashioned way,” I whispered. “I believe the doctors say it is good for healing the soul.”
When I was young, I used to talk to my Peculiars. It could be as little as a good cry, or sharing something vulnerable, being vulnerable. Perhaps it was time to start from scratch.
“Maybe this is why people feel better when they talk to graves. Peculiars like graveyards,” I said.
The more the silence went on, the more my heart ached. I shifted, the rocks digging into my knees.