Chapter 38 – A Figure in the Shadows

On Thursday evening, she became Lily again.

In the dressing room at Violet Delights, Valentina put on her illusion artifact, the necklace with the violet stones, and placed a strand of golden-blonde hair, that Madame Dolorosa handed her into the designated compartment.

Valentina activated the pattern in the largest of the violet stones, and the familiar warm tingling ran over her skin as the illusion enveloped her. In the mirror, she saw another woman, with golden, curly hair, full lips, and blue eyes, and a face that was pretty in a pleasing but unthreatening way.

Lily.

The customer that evening was a traveling merchant from Trissbrook, a plump, nervous man with sweaty palms who was passing the time in Bridgewater while waiting for a delivery. He didn’t want anything out of the ordinary, just company and warmth, and the illusion of being desired by a very specific woman, whose lock of hair he had brought with him, and Valentina gave him all of that. By now, she could play roles like that in her sleep.

But while the client was exhausting himself between her legs and she whispered sweet words in his ear, at least half of her thoughts were on geometric symmetries.

Afterward, she sat with Madame Dolorosa in the back parlor and drank a cup of the excellent red wine that Madame Dolorosa had in seemingly inexhaustible quantities and generously shared with her girls.

“Any news from the university, Lily?”

“Hmmm… there’s a visiting scholar from Othal at the university,” said Valentina. “Johann Georg Bombastian von Agrippin is his name. His introductory lecture was quite exciting.”

Madame Dolorosa raised an eyebrow. “Johann Georg Bombastian? I think I’ve come across that name before.” She sipped her wine with a knowing smile. “Should I send him an invitation? Scholars from abroad are among the most grateful customers. Lonely, in a foreign city, with no one who knows them…”

Something tightened in Valentina’s chest, a strange, contradictory feeling she couldn’t immediately place.

“Perhaps not,” she said, hearing even herself that her answer had come too quickly.

Madame Dolorosa eyed her with an amused look. “Ah,” she said simply.

“That’s interesting,” Vyxara commented in Valentina’s head, and the tone didn’t bode well. “You don’t want him to come here. But not because you don’t want to sleep with him, but because you want him to want to sleep with you, not with Lily.”

Caught off guard, Valentina drank her wine and answered neither the demon nor Madame Dolorosa.

~

Von Agrippin’s lectures continued to draw a large audience, even if the ranks had thinned somewhat after the spectacle of the inaugural lecture. The Dowager Baroness Milreaux and most of the gawking nobles had disappeared, but in their place came more serious scholars from the city, drawn by reports of the transformation demonstration, and they filled some of the empty seats.

Von Agrippin taught with a certain rigor but retained his theatrical style, which reminded Valentina of a skilled street performer. He knew exactly when to pause to let a punchline land, when to raise his voice to sharpen the audience’s attention, and when to lighten a technical argument with a casual anecdote. In his second lecture, he quoted Gerwin Sapolder’s work on Essence resonance, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to mention the name of a man who had once led a demonic cult at this university.

“He has no idea,” said Vyxara. “Like most people here, I suppose.”

After the lectures, brief conversations would sometimes ensue. Von Agrippin had a habit of lingering at the podium for a few minutes after a session to hold court for questions and conversation, and Valentina noticed that his gaze would invariably find her whenever she was nearby.

“My Lady,” he used the Sommerland form of address with a half-smile. “Have you tried the transformation sequence yourself yet? I’d bet on it.”

“I’ve managed to get the Leb-Viur transformation as far as the intermediate state,” she said, and her knees went weak again as his eyes lit up.

“Up to the intermediate stage? After just a week?” He tilted his head. “Some of my students in Othal took months to get there.”

“I, um… just tried really hard,” said Valentina.

These encounters were brief and public, surrounded by other students who also had questions or simply wanted to stand near the famous guest. Ignacio Flintside had gotten into the habit of loitering near Von Agrippin after every lecture and asking questions he obviously seemed to have memorized beforehand.

But even in this public setting, every sentence Valentina exchanged with Von Agrippin carried an undertone that wasn’t purely academic and felt more like the slow, cautious probing of two minds recognizing each other as equals, overlaid with some attraction that neither of them voiced.

“It’s truly delightful to see,” Vyxara remarked one evening, “how much discipline it takes you not to visit him too often.”

“I’m a serious student.”

“Of course you are. And the fact that you spent twenty minutes braiding your hair this morning before going to his lecture is, of course, for purely academic reasons.”

“Obviously not.”

“You know, little Weaver, I really wouldn’t mind at all if we-“

“Patience.”

“You know how much I hate that.”

Valentina couldn’t help but grin, and she could sense warm amusement radiating from the demon as well.

~

“I don’t mean to deny his brilliance,” Crispin said as the three of them sat in Valentina’s study after Von Agrippin’s third lecture. “What he does with the transformations is undoubtedly a tremendous achievement. But don’t you see where his theory ultimately leads when taken to its logical conclusion?”

Innogen, who was sitting next to Valentina in the second chair with her legs drawn up, looked at him questioningly. “And where does it lead?”

“If all Essences have the same origin and are merely different aspects of the same power, then that would mean there is no natural boundary between what is permitted and what is forbidden.” Crispin leaned forward. “But the Church teaches that certain applications of Essence Weaving are dangerous by their very nature and are close to the demonic sphere, and not merely because they could be misused. If everything were the same power, separated only by a breaking of geometric symmetry, then this distinction is just a dogma. And that is precisely the argument anyone seeking to justify the most dangerous practices would use.”

Valentina listened to him but said nothing. She could have replied with many things. That the church did not try to forbid blacksmiths from making swords or arrowheads, even though they could be used to kill people and were made of the same material as plows or shovels. That understanding the true nature of a thing and the question of what one should do with that understanding were two different things. Or that knowledge in itself was neither good nor evil.

But she said none of that. What good would it have done?

“I understand your concern,” she said calmly instead. “But the university invited him, and if we want to pass the Master Weaver exams, we have to understand his theories.”

“And truth and faith don’t have to be a contradiction, Crispin,” Innogen said diplomatically. “We can explore the nature of the Essences and still respect that there are boundaries we would be better off not crossing.”

“Can, yes.” Crispin stared into his cold tea. “But will everyone? Perhaps not everyone has as firm an ethical foundation as you two, and I fear that Von Agrippin, with his talk, will lead many a soul astray toward evil, whether he intends to or not.”

Crispin slumped slightly and then smiled a weary smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin the evening. It’s just… I think a lot about what happened last year. Gladder was certainly brilliant once, wasn’t he? And surely his curiosity was purely academic at one time, before it ceased to be so and became something more sinister.”

Valentina felt a twinge in her chest.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “How’s your work with Veilford going? Do you have any idea what your master’s project will be?”

Crispin let himself be distracted, and the conversation drifted into safer waters. But when he left an hour later and Valentina watched him from the front door as he walked down dark Pinfeather Lane, his shoulders pulled slightly forward against the cool autumn air, an unpleasant feeling lingered that didn’t want to go away as fast as she would have liked it to.

Innogen stepped up beside her and rested her head on her shoulder.

“He’s not wrong about everything he says,” she said.

“No,” said Valentina. “But he’s not right either.”

~

Valentina was on her way home from the university, and her thoughts wandered from today’s lecture, in which Von Agrippin had formalized the mathematical foundations of the transformation sequence, to the experiments she was planning with the Eye of Deceit.

“The first session with the Eye should be brief,” said Vyxara. “First comes observation. You need a good understanding of how it works before we even think about actively using it.”

“I need Distilled Essence in sufficient quantity and quality then. Probably of such high quality that it might raise questions.”

“You should ask Hobkin. I’m sure he has contacts with dealers who don’t go through the regular market.”

“I wouldn’t mind meeting up with him anyway,” Valentina muttered as she turned onto Mill Gate Road, where the crowd had thinned out a bit.

“Excellent idea. Why not combine business with pleasure?”

Valentina reached Pinfeather Lane and nearly jumped out of her skin.

At the entrance to the narrow alley across from her house stood a figure. Tall, slender, wrapped in a worn coat, with the hood pulled low over the face. The figure wasn’t obviously begging, didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone, and paid her no attention either.

Valentina slowed her pace without stopping completely and let her gaze drift casually across the street, as if she were merely checking the weather. In the brief moment the figure turned its head slightly, she saw a shaggy full beard, sunken cheeks, and stained, frayed clothing.

Valentina walked on, pulled the key from her pocket, and approached her front door. She inserted the key into the lock, turned it, and then glanced over her shoulder once more.

The alley was empty, and the figure had vanished, as if swallowed up by the earth.

Valentina let her gaze wander down Pinfeather Lane. The bookbinder was just closing his shutters and a ginger cat crept along the garden wall, meowing softly, and disappeared behind the old professor’s house.

Her heart pounding, she stepped inside and locked the door behind her.

“Did you see that?” Hopefully Vyxara could answer her, hopefully it wasn’t something demonic that Vyxara couldn’t talk about, hopefully it wasn’t-

“Yes.” Vyxara’s voice was calm. “I saw someone standing in an alley who then slipped away when the young lady suddenly became a little uneasy. That could mean a lot of things, and most of them are harmless. Bridgewater has plenty of vagrants, beggars, and good-for-nothings who loiter in doorways and don’t know where they’re actually going.”

“But he wasn’t just standing in a doorway. He was positioned so he could overlook Pinfeather Lane.”

“Which is exactly what a thief looking for a worthwhile target would do, or a debt collector lying in wait for a debtor, or simply a man waiting for someone else. You’re overreacting.”

Valentina nodded slowly, but then activated the Sight.

Her view of the world shifted, and the protective patterns in the walls shimmered with the faint demonic glow of the configurations Vyxara had shown her. And deep beneath the floorboards, the unsettling dissonance of the Eye of Deceit in its iron case.

Nothing else.

“Just take different routes home over the next few days,” said Vyxara. “And keep an eye out to see if he comes back.”

“I will.” She dropped the Sight and rubbed her eyes. She should lay down an hour or two, since she was a bit short on sleep. Later, Innogen would be coming over for dinner and then for… dessert. And tomorrow at Violet Delights, her most eccentric regular customer would be waiting for her. With every visit the guy added another chapter to his meticulously planned fantasy kingdom he was acting out with her help.

But before she went upstairs, she checked the lock on the front door one more time.