CHAPTER ONE #2
“I must once more insist you stop snooping through my mail.”
Before his words had died, David grabbed his wrist. With practiced fluidity, he unbuttoned Sy’s cuff and rolled up his sleeve, exposing the puncture mark, a perpetual wound on his inner elbow, never healed long enough to scar.
A wound David shared. As of late, Sy’s seemed to heal a bit slower each time.
Frowning, David ran a thumb over the yellow and violet bruise, still mottled from his last job.
He glanced up sharply at Sy. “Well enough to be bedridden for days after?”
Sy pulled his arm free and rolled his sleeve back down, buttoning it primly. “I’m doing the job she sent me. Nothing less, and nothing more.”
“You forget how persuasive she can be.” His eyes drifted to the open palm of Sy’s left hand; to the mark carved in the soft skin of his palm.
Turning his hand over, Sy plucked his gloves from his nightstand. Fingerless to the first knuckle, made of soft, pliable leather, he never left home without them. He pulled them on.
David still watched him. “Hasn’t Edgard called?”
“Not recently, no,” Sy said shortly, pulling his good pair of boots from under his bed. And thank the skies for that. “Anyway, his payment goes directly to my debt. You know that.”
David’s frown turned sardonic. “You’ve been doing charity again.”
“It isn’t charity if I’m being paid.”
“For the sum you demand, and the price you pay, yes, it is.”
Sy turned his eyes to the ceiling. This again. “My blood’s as good to a drunk as it is to a duchess, and coin is coin, whoever I earn it from.”
“And when you serve that crowd, you earn far less than you’re worth.” David put his coat over his arm and lifted his satchel from where he’d set it at the foot of Sy’s bed, and crossed the two steps to the door.
But, hand on the knob, he lingered. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight?”
“If dear Duchess Abigail elects to pay cash, then yes,” Sy said, tightening his boot laces.
“I can pay for you again if–”
“That won’t be necessary.” Clipped; perhaps, by the silence now skulking between them, too clipped. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he said, softer.
Once the door clicked shut, he opened his wardrobe, moved aside his spare boots, and pulled up the false bottom.
Searching in vain for a miracle within its depths, he found his most treasured possessions: the official copy of his license declaring him a king’s wizard; a nearly empty bottle of expensive perfume, a soliflore of hyacinth which he donned only on special occasions; a disturbingly large spider; and a velvet purse containing… four copper bits.
He sighed.
From his vanity, he unearthed a blank piece of parchment and a fountain pen, swept a bevy of empty ink pots aside, and scrawled. Only the impression of letters appeared.
“Damn,” he murmured, grappling for another pen, then another. Even the cheap wood and steel-nibbed pen he used only for spell practice. All empty. He pulled open the top drawer of his vanity – full of ink wells, each one dry as bone dust.
He’d spent too much ink practicing for this job. Too much practice, perhaps, but the spell was intricate. Each client demanded nothing less than perfection; some clients demanded more. Duchess Abigail Skeylor, one of Edgard’s favorite cousins, was a client whose ire it was very unwise to risk.
Thankfully, he was accustomed to not wasting a drop.
He could not conjure ink from thin air, but he could repair a faulty device.
Though he’d polished this pen’s nib only the week before, he checked it again, careful not to prick himself on the point, sharp enough to slice skin.
No visible damage. He pulled out his scribing kit, a nondescript leather satchel kept stored under his bed.
Automatically, he reached within and gripped the magnifying glass, then examined the tip of the nib. The tines were splayed.
Less a matter of practicing too much, then, but pressing too hard. A bad habit he’d worked hard to correct at the Sangfeder Academy of Inscription Arts, but which tended to reemerge in times of stress.
But that was excellent news – splayed tines, he could fix, and it meant he would not have to knock on every door in the vast apartment building to beg and barter for the use of a pen.
He pressed the tip carefully on the edge of the vanity and rolled it until the magnifying glass revealed the tines had realigned, then hurriedly penned his message, making the thinnest line of the end of his name, Cassirer, before the last of the dark ink, finally and irretrievably, ran out.
Outside, he didn’t need to search far to find a boy looking for work, but finding a boy whose appearance and accumulation of dirt would not offend the recipient proved a bit of a challenge.
When he did, Sy placed the missive and two of his last pieces of copper into the boy’s hands and directed him to ?bender Heights.
The boy was initially skeptical of Sy’s offered sum, but his eyes went wide as moons upon hearing his destination, surely anticipating the tip awaiting him on the other end of the endeavor. He scurried quickly away.
Back upstairs, Sy recovered his kit and cataloged his supplies.
The pen itself, gold replacement nibs of various sizes – all aligned, he noted – tourniquet, cotton balls, bowls, vial of grain alcohol, drawing board.
Though the pen’s barrel was spotless, he inspected it once more; one fleck of debris could ruin a spell.
He counted his needles. Only two left, and his bandages, threadbare from excessive washing and covered in faded dark brown stains, looked a bit tragic.
Abigail wouldn’t like that. Perhaps he could use one of his handkerchiefs, instead.
He pulled open a drawer in his vanity and considered a violet one, wondering if the dark color would hide the stain.
He thought he had one in burgundy; he dug deeper.
Beneath the colorful mess of silk, he found a wrinkled, yellowed page of paper. He quickly reburied it. Then, stirred by thoughts of immortal flight and golden sunrises, pulled it back out.
In the early days, fresh from Sangfeder and buoyed by youthful excitement, he kept careful track of his debt, listing every job, accounting for every copper bit in his possession, chasing every cent.
Between the cost of rent, and food, and fuel for heat in the winter, and inscription supplies, and dinners to maintain his connections, and clothes, and the trolley, and, seven skies forbid it, a night off once or twice, there was not much extra coin to pay toward his indenture.
Still, he kept careful count, cut costs where he could, put every spare cent toward the number that determined where he could live, what he could eat, how he could speak and dress and act.
It shadowed every facet of his life, coloring his conduct, his company, even his personality in ways he had never dreamed.
Only its elimination would set him free, and, as a younger man, that had been all he wanted. To be set free.
It was why he took it on in the first place.
But as the years went by, and the number did not grow very much smaller at all, no matter which way he tortured his budget, he resigned himself to what was to be the rest of his life and started spending his spare earnings on things that brought him pleasure, improved his demeanor, his appearance.
This gained him wealthier clients, clients who had not been impressed by his talent until they were also impressed by his looks and his charm.
Clients who paid enough to keep a roof over his head, and a little extra – enough to buy things that brought beauty into his life.
Tickets to the symphony, a bottle of perfume, fresh cut flowers.
To pay for his own dinner and drinks. To buy his own silk robe.
To spend time in another’s company, by sun or by stars, and imagine the number between them did not matter quite so much.
And he stopped keeping track altogether.
But fifty thousand sovereigns. That would just about cover it.
Unfortunately, David was right about one thing. He couldn’t exactly manage it alone.
Half an idea flitting about his skull, he pulled the last two copper bits from his purse in the wardrobe and shoved them into his pocket.
Within the hour, the duchess’s personal messenger arrived with a note. Dearest Sylas, I would be delighted to host you. Please do come at once.
With a sigh that lifted a strand of blond hair from his forehead, and a longing glance at his abandoned cigarette, Sy straightened his shirt collar, adjusted his cuffs and his earring, strapped his satchel across his shoulder, and set forth for ?bender Heights.