Chapter 49 – Closer

A few days later, Valentina sat next to Crispin in a lecture by Professor Veilford, trying to concentrate on his obscure explanations, even though her mind was still half on Johann’s idea regarding the boundary conditions, which she had been calculating late into the night the previous evening. The approach actually worked, at least for the outer two rings of the cascade, and the elegance of the solution made her cheer inwardly every time she thought about it.

At the end of the lecture, Valentina grabbed her notes and stood up.

“Val.” Crispin touched her arm. “Do you have a minute?”

Something in his tone made her prick up her ears. “Of course.”

They walked down the stairs together and stepped into the university courtyard. It was cold, a grey winter day, and the courtyard lay almost empty. Only a few students were hurrying across the wet cobblestones toward the dining hall with their shoulders hunched, and an old servant was hauling a basket of firewood toward the administration building.

Crispin stopped under the archway, between two stone columns, where they had a bit of privacy. He wore a simple wool coat that was almost a bit too thin for this time of year, and his closely cropped hair made him look even more ascetic than he already did in his winter pallor.

“How’s your master’s project going?” he asked.

“It’s going well, actually. Whitehall has provisionally approved it, and I’ve had an important breakthrough in stability modeling over the last few days.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He nodded. “You’re working closely with Von Agrippin, aren’t you? On the mathematical side?”

“He’s given me some very helpful suggestions, yes.”

Crispin crossed his arms and looked at her, and Valentina saw the suspicion in his eyes. “Val, how often do you meet with him?”

“I attend his lectures, Crispin. Just like a few dozen others.”

“I don’t mean the lectures.”

“Just spit it out and tell me exactly what you’re trying to ask me, Crispin.”

He took a deep breath. “I think there’s something going on between you and Von Agrippin. And I’m worried about it.”

“There we go,” said Vyxara in Valentina’s head.

Valentina felt a knot tighten inside her. This was the last conversation she wanted to have. “And what exactly is this assumption based on?”

“Val, please, I’m not blind.”

Valentina just shook her head. “Not good enough, Crispin.”

“Ignacio said… that he happened to see you going to von Agrippin’s quarters one evening.” Crispin was speaking faster now, as if he wanted to get it all out before he lost his nerve. “The man is twice your age, Valentina, and he’s a foreigner who’s leaving in a few months. No one really knows what kind of person he is, and his reputation on the continent isn’t exactly spotless, I’m sure you’ve heard that too. And you seem…” He searched for the right word. “You seem to lose your judgment when it comes to him.”

“My judgment,” Valentina repeated, her voice calmer than she felt. “Crispin, my private life is none of your business. I am a grown woman, and I am perfectly capable of judging a man’s character for myself.”

“I didn’t doubt that, I’m just saying-“

“You literally did!” She interrupted him, trying to keep her tone friendly but only half succeeding, “Why do you feel you have to judge my decisions? Or maybe it’s just your new penchant for religious conviction leading you to smell sin and danger everywhere. Not everything a woman does with her time requires moral scrutiny from a man who has decided to join the Illumination.”

The words hit him harder than she had intended. She saw it in his face, in the way pain flashed in his eyes, which he immediately tried to hide. But he didn’t let up.

“This has nothing to do with the Church or the Martyr,” he said forcefully. “Nor does it have anything to do with decency or morality. It’s about the fact that you’re my friend and I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you. He’s a famous scholar, brilliant and worldly, and I understand that can be…” He trailed off and tried again. “I just don’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“No, Crispin,” she said stubbornly. “I think you’re just jealous.”

The flush rose from his neck to his ears so quickly and so thoroughly that it would have been almost comical if the situation hadn’t been so tense. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course I’m jealous. Satisfied?” He looked her straight in the eye, and despite the burning flush on his face, he held her gaze. “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Jealousy and honest concern aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”

“I appreciate your concern, Crispin, I really do, but I don’t need a guardian.”

“I don’t want to be your guardian, I want to be your friend, and friends tell each other the truth and worry about each other.” He shook his head. “Just ask yourself what you really know about him, Val.”

He looked at her for another moment, and then, with his hands in the pockets of his thin coat, he walked across the courtyard toward the Burning Tower.

~

Even before Innogen arrived, Valentina had stoked the tiled stove and opened a carafe of fine Clairmontine wine. Now the fire crackled softly, giving off a cozy warmth, and the air was filled with the aroma of the stew she’d brought back from the food stall at the end of Pinfeather Lane.

When Innogen arrived, she hung her damp cloak by the door and then immediately stood by the stove.

“It’s miserably wet and cold out there,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I swear, this winter will never end.”

“Not much longer, Innogen.”

Valentina handed her a cup of wine, and Innogen took it with both hands, drank, and closed her eyes. “Oh, Madame’s good stuff?”

“Always for you.”

“I like her, even though I’ve never met her.”

They ate the stew, which was passable, and drank the wine, which was excellent, and talked about Veilford’s seminar and the dreadful assignments he’d saddled them with for the coming week, and Innogen let slip a string of thoroughly unrefined curses about the demanding professor.

Valentina laughed, and then, in the brief silence that followed, she said, “I have to tell you something.”

Innogen looked at her intently over the rim of her mug but didn’t seem alarmed.

“It’s about Von Agrippin,” said Valentina. “Johann. We… something happened. Between us.”

Innogen set her cup down. “Something happened.” A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “If you’re being that vague, it probably means that something happened pretty thoroughly.”

“Quite thoroughly, yes.”

“Tell me. I want to know everything.”

So Valentina told her, giving her all the details. The invitation to dinner, the manner in which he had ordered her to undress before they had even taken a bite of supper. What had happened in bed and the meal afterward, the candied pears with cream, the conversation about the scholarly art and medicine and academic gossip that had been so effortless and so stimulating that she had completely lost track of time and hadn’t gone home until late at night.

Innogen listened, her head tilted slightly to one side. “Is it serious?”

Valentina shook her head. “He’s brilliant and confident and interesting, and exceptionally good in bed.” She took a sip of wine. “But there’s nothing… emotional.”

Innogen nodded, and Valentina saw no jealousy in her gentle blue eyes, or at least none that Innogen didn’t have firmly under control. That was their agreement, and Innogen had made it of her own free will, with open eyes and a generosity that Valentina deeply admired and for which she was very grateful.

“Fine,” Innogen said simply. “Then go ahead and enjoy yourself. The world isn’t going to end just because you have a little fun every now and then, is it?”

Valentina could have kissed her right then and there, but instead she poured more wine, and the conversation moved on. There would be more than enough time for kissing later.

They talked about their master’s projects. Innogen had chosen a thesis on the use of Essence Weaving in textile finishing, a practical topic that fit well with the commercial interests of the family she was about to marry into, and which she spoke of with dry humor, as if it were beneath her, though Valentina knew Innogen enjoyed working on it.

But at some point, when the carafe was half empty and the fire crackled more softly, Innogen fell silent. She turned the cup in her hands, looking at the dark surface of the wine, and Valentina waited, because she had learned that Innogen’s silence often enough preceded something that was difficult for her to talk about.

“The wedding is getting closer,” Innogen finally said. “It feels like I’m getting three letters a week from my mother and the duchess now, telling me about all sorts of preparations.”

Valentina placed her hand on Innogen’s knee. “We knew that.”

“But knowing and feeling it down to your bones are two different things, Val.” Innogen smiled a crooked smile. “As long as it was abstract, I could treat it like a distant thunderstorm. You hear the thunder, but the rain is still far away. Now I can already feel the first drops on my skin.”

Over the past few weeks, the wedding preparations had solidified into a looming presence in Innogen’s life. Letters from the Duchess about guest lists and arrangements. Correspondence with her mother about the Ashbourne entourage’s itinerary.

Lorenzo wrote her friendly letters regularly about his work at the hospital, about a particularly difficult case he had treated, about books he had read, and Innogen wrote back, and between the lines something grew that resembled the beginning of a friendship.

“Lorenzo really is a good person,” Innogen said, as if speaking to herself. “His letters are honest and warm and intelligent, and I actually like him. As a person and as a potential friend, even as a future partner.” She swallowed. “As the future father of my children…”

“Innogen…”

Innogen finished her wine, set the cup down resolutely, and took a deep breath. “I need to ask you something, Val, and you have to promise to let me finish before you answer.”

“I promise.”

“On our wedding night,” she said, her voice softer now, “I want you to be there.”

Valentina waited.

“I don’t just mean in the house, but there, with us. In bed.” Innogen looked at Valentina, and in her eyes was something raw, vulnerable, awakening behind her carefully maintained pragmatism like a shy animal. “Lorenzo is kind, and I’m not afraid of him, that’s not it. But the thought of the… the duty expected of a wife, with a man, the physical aspect of it…”

She trailed off, searching for words.

“I can’t quite explain it, Val. It’s… I don’t panic at the thought of it, it’s more like… an unpleasant void, in the place where there should be something, that I just don’t feel. And that void fills with fear when I think about it too long.” She swallowed. “But when I know you’re there, that you’re close to me while it’s happening, and that this night isn’t just him and me, but that you’re part of it, then I think I can bear it. No, not just bear it, that’s too weak.” She shook her head. “Then I think it might even be good.”

Valentina cupped Innoge’s face in both hands.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course I’ll be there.”

She kissed Innogen, and Innogen closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the kiss, and the tension in her shoulders eased a little.

“If Lorenzo doesn’t mind,” Valentina added.

Innogen laughed a fragile but relieved laugh. “Val, I can’t imagine for the life of me that he’d have anything against it. If anything, I think he’ll be just as relieved as I am.”

Valentina pulled Innogen close and held her tight, and Innogen snuggled up against her and rested her head on Valentina’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Innogen whispered.

“You don’t have to thank me for that.”

“Yes, I do. Let’s go to bed.”

~

A few days later, Valentina was out early on her way to the university.

The market square was, of course, already bustling despite the early, cold hour. Valentina let her gaze wander over the crowd, as she now habitually did.

And there, on the opposite side of the square, between the candle seller’s stall and a stack of barrels, the figure was standing once again.

For just a split second, she saw the stooped posture, the hood pulled low over the face, and the worn cloak. Valentina knew the silhouette so well by now that she could have recognized it easily even from hundreds of paces away.

When she looked back, the figure was already gone.

Valentina’s pulse quickened, but she didn’t slow her pace or change direction, so as not to show that she had noticed anything.

“The same one,” Vyxara confirmed. “No doubt about it.”

Valentina activated Essence Listening, straining to hear conversations, to hear voices, but found only a single, great jumble of excited voices overlapping one another. Somewhere nearby, there was great commotion.

“…by all the flames of the Martyr, the poor…”

“Stay away, you shouldn’t…”

“… better get your children out of there, trust me, you don’t want them to see that…”

Something was going on.

Valentina followed the voices, and she didn’t have to go far. Just around the next corner, where the market square opened into the narrow alley between the two large wool merchants’ warehouses, she saw a crowd of people gathered there.

But not the way onlookers sometimes gathered around a spectacle or a quarrel to watch, no, the people here stood stock-still. A woman pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide open, and a man in a leather apron, presumably one of the market vendors, held a child by the shoulder and pushed it away from the alley with an ashen face.

City guards pushed their way through the crowd, shouting at the people to make way and step back.

“Back! Everyone step back! This is no spectacle!”

Valentina used her slender frame to squeeze her way through the onlookers, but a hand grabbed her arm. It was an older woman wearing a headscarf.

“Don’t go there, dear,” the woman said. “You don’t want to see that.”

Valentina gently pulled away from the grip and pushed her way further forward until she could see into the alley past the guards’ shoulders.

Vyxara said nothing.

The alley was narrow and dirty, the ground covered with old straw and rotting garbage. Stacked crates and empty barrels lined the walls and rats, startled by the crowd, scurried between people’s feet. And behind one of the crates lay a small body, half-hidden, in a jacket far too big for it.

Hoager.

A sharp pang of grief and nausea gripped Valentina.

He lay on his side, curled up, his knees drawn in, as if he had been trying to make himself as small as possible. And his little hands, which had so deftly slipped the copper coins into the depths of his much-too-large jacket, were horribly mangled. Every single finger had been brutally broken multiple times. Valentina, who had learned and practiced setting broken bones, realized with a heavy heart how painful that must have been.

She was unable to move or look away.

The younger of the two guards, a tall young man with a reddish beard who was perhaps a year older than she was, looked down, noticed the torn-out fingernails next to the body, and vomited against the warehouse wall. The sound was startlingly loud in the silence of the alley.

The older guard, a weather-beaten man with an expressionless face, crouched down beside the body, pulled his own cloak from his shoulders, and laid it carefully, almost tenderly, over the small body, as one would cover a sleeping child.

“Run and report this to the sheriff,” he said to his younger colleague, who was leaning against the wall and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “And then get reinforcements and make sure the people here clear out.”

Valentina stepped back, stumbling through the crowd more than walking, around the corner of the next building, into another side street that smelled of damp lime.

There she braced herself with one hand against the rough stone wall and breathed in and out slowly. The nausea came in waves, rising again and again, but she fought it down. Only the images refused to be subdued.

The toothless grin and the protruding, bony chest. “My name is Hoager. Remember that name.”

The way he’d shoved his copper coins into the depths of his jacket, as if he were the richest man in the world. “Actually, I’d rather have a kiss.”

“Valentina.” Vyxara’s voice was urgent. “Listen to me. Hoager was part of the courier network the black market uses to conduct its business.”

“Are you saying that’s why he was worthless?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, but please pull yourself together for a moment. You need a clear head right now. He handled messages in two deliveries to you. He knew your name, where you live, and the location of the dead drop under the Candleway Bridge.”

Valentina closed her eyes.

“And we saw the cloaked figure shortly before the body was found.”

Someone was looking for the Eye of Deceit, she knew that. Someone powerful enough to break into Violet Delights and overpower Madame Dolorosa. And someone she already knew was willing to break bones to get information.

Dolorosa had been a dead end, but the trail led from Dolorosa to Gladder, and Gladder was dead, but from Gladder it led to Faustus, and Faustus had vanished. But Faustus, too, had obtained his corrupted Essence from the black market, and those very black market dealers and their couriers were another thread worth pursuing.

And Hoager had been part of that thread of corruption.

Had Hoager died because of her? Had Hoager given away her name? Of course he had. He was a brave, cheeky, wonderful child, but what was he supposed to do when someone started breaking his fingers and ripping out his fingernails?

“He didn’t know what you bought,” said Vyxara. “He was just delivering messages. But he knew where the dead drop was and that your name is Valentina and you live on Pinfeather Lane.”

“That’s more than enough.”

Valentina sat up straight, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and forced herself to breathe steadily. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched them into fists until the trembling stopped.

“If this has anything to do with you, we have to assume that whoever did this might know your name and address.”

“What do we do now? I actually have to go to the university.”

 “For once, that’s not a priority right now. We need to figure out what to do.”

“I should talk to Hobkin. Maybe he knows more.”

“Good idea.”

Valentina smoothed out her coat, draped her braid over her shoulder, and set off, but she was still unable to tear her thoughts away from Hoager.

One thought was stuck in her head, and she couldn’t shake it, she couldn’t ignore it, and even Vyxara’s wise words couldn’t make it seem less significant than it felt.

“I should have given him that kiss.”