Mist, Metal, and Ash

by Gwendolyn Clare

  Mamma set down her drafting pencil and folded her hands. Only Porzia, who knew her well, could have seen the pain in the way she interlaced her fingers, or caught the faint quaver to her voice as she said, “We did everything we could to make a home for him here. There is nothing more for us to do. He’s the Order’s problem now, along with his father and brother.”

  Porzia nodded, mute. She had never truly believed that she and Leo were meant for each other. There was no love there—no romantic love, at least. It had seemed like a practical solution, was all. And when she started catching the signs of his affection for Elsa, she thought, If he has to give his heart to someone, I’m glad it’s her. To lose him to Elsa—who was brilliant, and brave, and fast becoming a dear friend—would not have been a loss at all.

  But this. This. He must have calculated how to leave behind the largest possible crater of damage. A smoking hole in all their lives.

  Porzia tried her damnedest to forget him, as if such a thing were possible. There was a hot little flame of anger inside her, bright as the sun, so bright she dared to glimpse it only out of the corner of her eye. She was afraid if she looked straight at it, the image would burn onto her eyes, and for the rest of her days that fury would be the only thing she’d see.

  * * *

  Porzia had scoured the walk-in closets of the sewing parlor for a dress that would look appropriately schoolmarmish. Certainly her own closet didn’t contain anything this drab: medium gray linen with a high neck and no frills or adornments. Fashion was a small sacrifice, though, when one needed to exchange it for an air of authority.

  “Sante, do try to focus on your work,” Porzia said, tilting her head down to give the boy a severe look.

  They were in the classroom in Casa della Pazzia, along with seven of the other school-age children. Everyone was seated at the long tables that could serve as desks or laboratory benches, depending on the needs of that day’s lessons. Everyone except Porzia, of course, who stood at the front by the blackboard.

  Sante slouched lower in his chair and gave her a rebellious look, to which she said, “Unless you’ve finished the proof already?”

  “Math is stupid,” he grumbled, but picked up his chalk and returned his attention to his own slate.

  Casa was home to two dozen children under the age of twenty. Aside from Porzia and her younger siblings—Sante, Olivia, and Aldo—they were all orphans of deceased pazzerellones. The Pisanos were responsible for their care and education, the latter of which had fallen by the wayside in all the recent excitement. Porzia had taken it upon herself to rectify the situation.

  Sante heaved a melodramatic sigh and scowled up at his elder sister. “How come Burak doesn’t have to be here?”

  “Burak is still assisting Mamma with the repairs,” Porzia said. “Which you, too, would be welcome to help with, if you’d learn to focus on anything for more than five minutes.”

  At the next table over, a ghost of a smile moved across Olivia’s lips, the only sign that her attention wasn’t entirely focused on her own slate. Olivia was the quiet one in the family. Porzia wondered, though, if her sister wasn’t hiding a keen talent for observation behind that meek temperament. Now and again, Porzia would see flashes of understanding in those wide, dark eyes that seemed out of proportion with the girl’s twelve years and timid demeanor.

  Porzia let out a breath, careful not to sigh audibly, though that would have been more satisfying. She wished her father would hurry home from Firenze. She could handle the children well enough, but Pappa was a better tutor, and he always knew the right thing to say to Olivia. But the Order of Archimedes needed him at their headquarters, and the Pisanos were Order members first and everything else second.

  Porzia made her rounds, checking each student’s slate for the answer, then returned to the blackboard and wrote a new problem. While the children worked, she brushed the chalk dust from her fingers and wandered over to the windows. The classroom was on the main floor of the house, with the windows facing into the cloister garden, and the abundance of leafy greenery dappled the afternoon sunlight.

  The cloister garden was another place she could not go without thinking of Leo. His bedroom had a balcony overlooking the garden.

  Porzia’s temper had cooled somewhat since yesterday, leaving in its wake a gnawing sense of guilt. It had been her plan Elsa was following when Leo defected. Perhaps if they’d gone through with the exchange as Garibaldi intended—simply traded the editbook for Jumi, without trying to double-cross him—things would have gone differently. Or if she’d only noticed Leo’s distress, listened to his reluctance, and had the wisdom to leave him behind that day. Did not some of the blame belong to her?

  Porzia pressed her eyelids closed and pinched her nose between two fingers. She had to stop doing this, letting her mind go round and round. Suddenly, the renewed classes seemed a poor attempt at normalcy, a terribly insufficient distraction, and she felt foolish standing at the front of the room pretending to be her father.

  Aloud, she said, “I know this is an adjustment getting back to your usual lessons, so we’ll finish early today,” and she dismissed them.

  Sante let out a whoop of joy, abandoned his slate and chalk, and dashed from the room, followed quickly by the other children. Except for slight, quiet Olivia, who hung back.

  “Are you all right?” Olivia asked, her dark brows drawn together in worry.

  “I will be, darling,” Porzia replied, forcing herself to smile. “I will be.”

  There was still some time left before supper—plenty of time in which to sit alone and brood over her own shortcomings—so Porzia found herself climbing the stairs toward her chambers. Not that her sitting room was much of an improvement over anywhere else in the house. The bedroom, maybe; she could lie on the bed. Yes, that would work. She could not recall any memories of Leo ever entering her bedroom.

  Porzia turned the corner and discovered Elsa asleep in the hallway beside her door. She must have been waiting and dozed off, leaning against the wall with her head lolling at an uncomfortable angle. The poor girl looked to be wearing the same trousers and linen shirt as yesterday, now with a tunic-length waistcoat thrown over it.

  Porzia cleared her throat noisily, and Elsa jerked awake.

  “Up all night?” Porzia said.

  Elsa blinked, bleary-eyed, and put a hand out behind her to push away from the wall. “Yes, but I slept most of the morning.”

  Porzia raised an eyebrow. “Not here, I hope.”

  “What? Oh, no. I just nodded off again. Casa said you were busy and not to be interrupted, so I thought I’d wait.” She stood but made no effort to straighten her rumpled clothes or messy black hair, as if she were entirely unaware of her disheveled state.

  “I was tutoring,” Porzia said unapologetically.

  “Oh,” the other girl said, carefully neutral, though Porzia could imagine what Elsa must be thinking: Whatever for? or perhaps, At a time like this?

  After an uncomfortable pause, Porzia sighed. “I presume this is the part where I’m supposed to ask you how the search is going.”

  “We have a location,” said Elsa, those startlingly green eyes of hers widening in an earnest plea. “But I need your help with this.” She held up the doorbook.

  Porzia arched an eyebrow. “The incomparable polymath can’t get the job done and needs my help? Seems an unlikely story, if you ask me.”

  “I’m not perfect,” Elsa said, a note of exasperation creeping into her voice. “And anyway, I need help with the library.”

  Porzia pursed her lips. She wanted to forget about Leo’s betrayal, not investigate it, and she wished Elsa would respect that. “Faraz knows how to use a library.”

  Elsa snorted. “You know what I mean. I need another scriptologist.” She paused, swallowed as if it were her pride going down. “I need my partner.”

  The truth was, Porzia missed their collaboration. Working with Elsa had opened up new possibilities for her, had challenged her a
ssumptions and made her a more versatile scriptologist. And the loss of their partnership was something she could blame on no one but herself.

  She heaved an enormous sigh. “Fine, I’ll help.”

  Elsa blinked. “Truly? You’re serious?”

  “Of course I am.” Porzia offered her a rueful smile. “Haven’t you learned by now? I’m terrible at saying no.”

  * * *

  Porzia was marauding through history and architecture.

  Up on the third level of the library, she pulled volume after volume from the shelves, not bothering to return the books she rejected to their proper places. At first Casa had put up a fuss and threatened to report her to Gia for generating such disarray, but Porzia had ignored those protestations and the house had fallen silent.

  In order to open a portal to a specific location on Earth, Elsa needed to accurately describe that location in an entry in the doorbook. Since none of them had ever been to Trento, that meant they needed a photograph or at least a decent sketch of some landmark unique to the city.

  Three heavy volumes clutched in her arms, Porzia went over to the wrought-iron balcony rail. She looked down at the main floor of the library, where Elsa was seated at one of the tables. The doorbook was open in front of her, but it didn’t hold her attention. Instead, she was staring at the glass-lidded display case where the Veldana worldbook was safely locked away, along with a half dozen of the most valuable books in the library’s collection.

  Porzia wondered what the other girl was thinking. Was she homesick? Porzia had lived her whole life at Casa della Pazzia and found it difficult to imagine what it must be like to literally leave one’s entire world behind.

  After a moment she shook herself, mustered her usual tone of confidence, and called down to Elsa, “I think I have it!”

  Elsa startled out of her reverie and glanced up. “What did you find?”

  Porzia clattered down the stairs to the main floor of the library, dropped her armload of books on Elsa’s table, and began sharing the fruits of her labor. “A few possibilities, actually. There’s quite a good sketch of the Fountain of Neptune here…” She flipped open the first book.

  They sorted through the images together, and Porzia was surprised to find that Elsa truly was leaning on her for insights about European architecture. Brilliant as she was, Elsa’s education apparently had not included the history of art, and she had no idea what qualities made a landmark unique.

  Elsa rubbed her forehead as if the architecture lesson were giving her a headache. “Can we combine a couple of descriptions to eliminate some of the uncertainty?”

  “These three are all right next to each other, so that should help,” Porzia said. “I mean, I’m sure there are many towns with a cathedral, a fountain, and a clock tower in the same piazza, but not in this orientation with these exact details.” She leaned close to one of the books, examining the clock tower’s distinctive crenellations. “Yes, this should get you there.”

  Without looking up from the page, Elsa said, “It’s not for me, it’s for you.”

  “What!” She couldn’t be saying what Porzia thought she was saying. “I agreed to help you scribe the location, not go to Trento myself!”

  “Oh, I’m going too—but I’ll approach them through the Carbonari, pretending to be a defector from the Order. I need you to take the doorbook to Trento and hide it there, so I have an exit route in place that nobody knows about except us.” Elsa delivered this news with infuriating calm, as if it were the most sensible plan in the world.

  Porzia couldn’t believe she’d let herself get drawn back into their insane plan for rescuing Leo. Joining the Carbonari? Hiding the doorbook in a strange city? She shuddered to think what else her friends would willingly risk, all to save a liar who didn’t want saving in the first place.

  She folded her arms tight against her ribs and said, “Absolutely not!”

  * * *

  Alek de Vries scratched at the back of his neck, damp with sweat despite the shade provided by the wide brim of his Panama hat. The Veldanese sun was much too hot for his Dutch blood. In his youth he’d been tolerably comfortable in the Tuscan climate, but Veldana was even hotter, and he was not a young man anymore. The fresh air seemed to have a restorative effect for Jumi, though, so Alek held his tongue.

  They had strolled as far as the creek that ran through the center of the village and were now seated on the moss-covered bank beside the burbling water. Jumi was acting even more pensive and close-lipped than usual.

  Eventually Alek had to ask, “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Jumi shrugged. “Nothing’s bothering me.”

  “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that.” Try as she might to conceal all emotion, Alek had known her for almost twenty years, and she was no longer as opaque as she liked to believe. Not to him, anyway.

  She gave him a sidelong glance beneath raised eyebrows, considering, then relented. “It’s just that I never considered Veldana a prison until my own daughter banished me here.”

  Alek stalwartly resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “No one’s banished you here. But you need time to convalesce before you’ll be any use to anyone.”

  “Then my ‘convalescence’ feels as if it has walls even when we’re out in the open air,” Jumi retorted. “I do hate feeling useless.”

  “And entrusting Elsa with matters of importance?” Alek said wryly. “Certainly you must hate that.”

  “She’s still so young, Alek.”

  He patted the back of his neck dry with a handkerchief. “You weren’t much older than her when you first came to me.”

  Jumi stared off into the middle distance, as if looking at something that was no longer there. “I was never her age. I was never a child.”

  “All the Veldanese were like children back then, in the early days.” Half the time the Veldanese still seemed children to Alek, though he had the sense not to say that to Jumi, who took herself and her people so seriously.

  “We may have been naive once, but we learned hard lessons every time Montaigne altered our world.”

  Charles Montaigne had thought he knew what was best for the Veldanese and had imposed his will upon them, altering their worldbook without bothering to ask for their consent. He’d meant well, and so Alek had found it difficult to condemn his friend, but in retrospect Alek wondered if he’d mishandled the situation. Mishandled Charles. Perhaps if he’d succeeded in persuading Charles to voluntarily relinquish control of Veldana, then Jumi would not have needed to create the editbook, and none of this would have happened.

  There was one thing Alek could not bring himself to regret, though, and that was his mentorship of young Jumi. That, at least, he could be proud of.

  “If all we’re going to do is mope about, we might as well mope about indoors,” Alek declared, as he stood and stretched his stiff hip. “Let’s get you back to your prison, before I start suffering from heatstroke.”

  “I’m not moping,” Jumi said with a show of dignity, though it was clear his slight was already forgiven. Alek helped her up, and they leaned on each other as they climbed the hill back to the cottage.

  Jumi’s cottage was blessedly cool inside, and so dim compared to the glaring sunlight that Alek’s eyes struggled to adjust. As he blinked and peered around, his gaze fell on the shelf where Jumi stored her scriptological supplies. A single portal device sat upon the wood, and beside it an empty space.

  “Jumi…,” he said, staring at the shelf, “where is the other portal device?”

  5

  ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL QUALITIES OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS TO UNDERSTAND AND TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

  —Lucius Annaeus Seneca

  Explaining the plan to Porzia was not going as well as Elsa had hoped. They sat on opposite sides of a library reading table, but it might as well have been a chessboard; their cooperation had devolved to verbal sparring.

  “If we tell the Order Aris’s location, we give up all con
trol over the situation,” Elsa argued. “And Rosalinda has already agreed to assist.”

  Porzia countered, “Rosalinda’s only concern is Leo; the Order’s only concern is the editbook. Of course she doesn’t want you going to us for help. As far as she’s concerned, we’re almost as bad as Garibaldi.”

  Elsa blinked at her. To Elsa the Order of Archimedes was some distant, nebulous organization, pulling strings from the shadows, and it was easy to forget that to Porzia they were family friends. The Pisanos were an old and influential lineage, so like it or not, Porzia was a legacy member. Someday she might even take on a leadership role within the Order. Strange to think about.

  Elsa said, “I just need a way in, and I can use the fact that I’ve never actually declared loyalty to the Order or anyone else.”

  The other girl leaned forward and rested her elbows on the tabletop. “Tell me this, once and for all,” she said, spreading her fingers in one of those very Italian gestures. “Are you trying to retrieve the editbook, or trying to retrieve Leo?”

  Elsa didn’t answer. It should have been an easy question. In the wrong hands, the editbook had the power to tear apart the real world. As the daughter of the scriptologist who wrote the damned book in the first place, Elsa felt responsible for it—felt responsible for all the damage Garibaldi could do now that he had it.

  Leo, on the other hand, was very much not her responsibility. He had made his own choices, and in so doing had left her heart shredded. But at the same time, Faraz was so devoutly certain of Leo’s true loyalties … and if she was honest, there was a small, traitorous part of her that desperately wanted Faraz to be right.