She loved her mother and she loved Veldana, and now they were both beyond her reach, possibly both destroyed. She had never felt pain like this before, so acute it made her breath catch in her lungs. Her mother had been right—it was those you loved who could hurt you the most.
At the same time, she had to wonder: Was it simply the losses that hurt? Or did it also hurt to have nothing at all left to love?
* * *
Leo needed the help of five of Casa’s cleaning bots just to haul the damaged training bot back to his laboratory, and a trail of hydraulic fluid leaked along the floor in his wake. He hoped Casa could get that mopped up before Gia stepped out of her office again—there was only so much mess the poor woman could take. He didn’t mean to be such a source of trouble, but things always seemed to spiral out of hand.
In Venezia, Aris had been the troublemaker, the ringleader whom the younger boys would follow anywhere. Rosalinda used to say that if Aris jumped in the Grand Canal, Leo would jump in two seconds after—she’d meant it as a criticism, though Leo had chosen to take it as a compliment.
Now, like it or not, Leo managed to make his own trouble. He wondered if his brother would be proud. He wondered what Aris’s grin would look like now—still magnetic as ever, but in a grown man’s face?
Leo shook his head to clear those futile musings. It was just the broken mask that had him thinking of his childhood, and all he’d lost. He perched himself on his favorite tall stool at the high worktable and resolved to focus on the repairs.
“I love what you’ve done with the place.”
He glanced up; it was Porzia, stepping through the gaping hole in the wall where the door had been. When Leo had activated the training bot, it had plowed its way out of the laboratory, taking the door and part of the walls with it. Now there was nothing to deter visitors.
Porzia lifted her skirts to pick her way through the rubble and entered uninvited.
Leo frowned at her. “What do you want?”
“Why do you always think I want something? Isn’t it enough that I came to say hello?” Porzia said, but she motioned with her eyes, casting a significant look at the worktable. With feigned casualness, Leo reached over and flipped a switch on the top of a device shaped like a cube.
“The scrambler’s on,” he said. “It’s safe to talk.”
Porzia glanced at the ceiling. “Casa? You’re a dusty old junker with grinding gears. I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.” She paused, waiting for a response. “I guess it works.”
Leo tapped a finger on the top of the box. “Like I said—instant blind spot. Casa can’t monitor us when it’s on. So what’s happening?”
Porzia settled herself primly atop a packing crate, as if it were a fine-upholstered settee. “Papa’s friend Alek de Vries brought us a new girl today.”
“I know, we met in the foyer,” Leo said, omitting the part about battling the runaway bot.
“Yes, well. There’s something odd about her. Do you know which rooms Casa prepared for her? Uncle Massimo’s old rooms—with the scriptology study opposite the bedroom.”
Leo frowned. “Perhaps Gia…”
Porzia tilted her chin down and gave him a scathing look. “Mamma would not instruct Casa to prepare those rooms for a guest. Really, her deceased brother-in-law’s rooms?”
“Right.” He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the workbench. “That means Casa is taking initiative, and the house only makes independent decisions when something significant is going on. Do we know for certain the girl’s a scriptologist?”
A lock of hair had come loose from Porzia’s elaborate updo, and she wrapped it around her finger thoughtfully. “Mamma didn’t give us much of an introduction, but why else would Casa choose those rooms? She’s a scriptologist, I’ll bet, and Casa thinks she’s here to stay.”
“Mm,” Leo agreed noncommittally. He hadn’t missed the way Elsa had stared—like a woman possessed—at the cleaner bots, or the way she’d neatly targeted the one system that would cripple the training bot.
Could she be a scriptologist … and a mechanist? A polymath in hiding? Better to keep what he’d seen to himself for now, at least until he knew what it meant.
The thought of polymaths called up the image of Aris’s face as he leaned over Leo’s shoulder to watch Leo struggling at a scriptological problem. What’s wrong, little brother? It’s so simple I bet Pasca could do it, and he’s hardly out of swaddling clothes. The memory had edges as sharp as broken glass, and Leo shook his head to dispel it. What was the point in thinking about his brothers when they were dead?
4
IF YOU ARE ALONE YOU BELONG ENTIRELY TO YOURSELF. IF YOU ARE ACCOMPANIED BY EVEN ONE COMPANION YOU BELONG ONLY HALF TO YOURSELF OR EVEN LESS…, AND IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE COMPANION YOU WILL FALL MORE DEEPLY INTO THE SAME PLIGHT.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Elsa tried to keep herself busy for the rest of the afternoon. She took the singed books into the study attached to her sitting room and laid them out on the ample writing desk. She set the Pascaline on a side table beneath a window, where she’d have excellent light by which to examine it in the morning. But no matter how she tried to distract herself, it was impossible not to dwell on the unknown fate of her homeland.
Perhaps Jumi’s abductors had taken the Veldana worldbook with them when they fled the house. But no—she was certain it had been inside Montaigne’s study when she’d arrived. A portal returning to the real world from a scribed one would always open near the location of the worldbook. So had the Veldana worldbook been safely locked away in the wall chamber, or had it been somewhere else in the room?
Her own possessions unpacked, Elsa set about exploring every drawer and cabinet in the study to take inventory of what supplies the previous occupant had left behind that she might make use of. At the same time, she composed in her mind a gruesome narrative of Montaigne the collaborator.
The abductors would have needed someone who could open the wall chamber, or at least someone who knew the coordinates to Veldana by heart. Jumi hadn’t given him access to the chamber, but he would’ve had ample opportunity to study its weaknesses, if so inclined. Or perhaps the abductors had forced him to open a portal, but then why did he die facedown with a book in his hand? It was as if he were at ease in their presence, and felled by a surprise attack from behind. No, they must have gained his confidence, betrayed him, set fire to his library … and the Veldana worldbook lay unprotected somewhere in the room as everything burned.
Veldana was gone—gone from her reach at the very least, and probably destroyed. The cottage where she’d lived her whole life, the lands she knew so well she could walk them with her eyes closed, the people. All the people. Oh, Revan—the last words she’d spoken to Revan were a cold rebuke. What if her admonishment was the last thing he heard before he ceased to exist? And now she must live with the knowledge that they would never heal the rift in their broken friendship.
Stop, she had to stop. The sense of panic tightening her chest was not helping anything. If Veldana was truly gone, there was nothing she could do for Revan now, but Jumi might yet be saved. Yes. She had to focus on finding and rescuing her mother.
They must have set fire to the library for a reason. Montaigne had known too much and for that he had to die, but why burn the library? Perhaps to destroy the evidence of Montaigne’s collaboration, to destroy whatever clues he’d left in his worldbooks. As far back as Elsa could remember, he’d always been the secretive type, preferring to conduct his studies from inside scribed worlds instead of using his desk in Paris. Probably because he didn’t want to leave any important papers out where Jumi could see them.
There was a good chance Montaigne had hidden something important inside one of the worldbooks she’d rescued. These remnants of the library were now her connection to Jumi’s abductors. She needed to repair the books and search the worlds for clues; it was the only way she could think of to find her mother.
Elsa
had just lit the gaslamp in her study to compensate for the dwindling daylight when a knock came at her door. Her heart leapt with hope—perhaps it was de Vries again, perhaps he’d reconsidered and decided to take her with him. She set down the matchbox and rushed to answer the door.
Porzia Pisano, still in her fine French dress, stood on the other side.
“Oh,” Elsa said, crestfallen.
Porzia’s eyebrow twitched, but she only said, “It’s suppertime. I thought I’d come collect you. I’m told this place can seem a maze until you learn your way around.”
Elsa wasn’t sure precisely what she was expected to say to that, so she responded with “Very well” and followed Porzia down the stairs to the dining hall.
Porzia seemed welcoming enough. But something about her felt off—a penetrating edge of curiosity revealed in the arch of her dark eyebrows and the quirk of her small lips.
“Your Italian’s quite excellent,” Porzia said as they walked. A compliment, yes, but was she actually fishing for information?
Elsa smiled thinly. “De Vries taught me,” she replied, which was not entirely untrue.
“Really,” she replied. “I’ve always had the impression he felt a little uncomfortable outside his native tongue.”
Elsa wanted to retort And what business is that of yours? but instead she said, “Perhaps. But I’ve a mind for languages.”
The corridor opened up into a high-ceilinged dining hall with a row of tall, arching windows along the far wall. There were a startling number of rowdy children in the room. Elsa swept her gaze over them and counted nineteen, plus Porzia and herself. They ranged in age from sixteen or seventeen all the way down to toddlers.
“Where did they all come from?” Elsa said, taken aback. Signora Pisano was the only adult she’d seen since arriving, and they couldn’t possibly all belong to one woman.
“Three of them are my siblings; the rest are mostly from Toscana, a few from farther away. Pazzerellones tend to die young—in laboratory accidents, or simply from neglecting their health—so there are always a fair number of orphaned children. Casa della Pazzia is one of the places the orphans end up.” The whole explanation was accompanied by more of those superfluous Italian gestures.
“Pazzerellones?” Elsa asked, but worked out the etymology before Porzia could respond. “Ah, meaning ‘mad people.’ A slang term?” For whatever reason, her skills worked faster with formal language than with vernacular.
The other girl gave her a look. “Like I said: you do have a superior grasp of Italian.”
Porzia steered her toward a couple of boys who were talking together. One of them was the brass-haired boy she’d met in the lobby, Leo. The other boy was brown-skinned and black-haired, and could almost pass for Veldanese if he weren’t so very tall. Elsa was surprised at her own feeling of relief—there was something tiresome about being constantly surrounded by people who looked different—and she had to remind herself that, regardless of appearances, he was still one of them. Still from Earth.
“Elsa, this is Faraz Hannachi, and this is Leo Trovatelli.”
Elsa was unsure of the local customs, so she did not offer either of them her hand, but she gave a polite nod to Faraz. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he replied.
Leo gave Porzia a look, some subtle communication flashing between them, but then he turned on a winning smile and swept right past the moment. “Actually, Elsa and I are old friends. We go way back—all of four hours or so.”
Porzia rolled her eyes skyward. “Lord spare us from Venetians who aren’t nearly as clever as they think they are.”
“Did you hear that?” Leo said to Faraz in a mock whisper. “She thinks I’m clever.”
“I think you have a problem with selective hearing,” Porzia harrumphed.
Casa’s voice interrupted, booming over the noise. “Sit, you mewling progeny! Sit, sit!”
The children all began to seat themselves. Elsa looked around anxiously, hoping to spot Signora Pisano, but she didn’t appear to be attending supper, and Porzia was already dragging Elsa with her to one end of the long table. They sat opposite Faraz and Leo, the younger children arrayed down the rest of the table’s length. There was no chair or place setting at the head, Elsa noticed, but perhaps that was simply the custom in Toscana. She glanced around, wondering how they were supposed to acquire food to fill their empty plates.
“No servants here, unless you count Casa. Everything’s automated,” Porzia explained.
“Automated…?” Elsa started to ask, but she was interrupted by a ratcheting click-click-click noise. A set of metal rails like miniature train tracks swung down from the wall and attached to the head of the table, while a section of the wall slid open to reveal a dark compartment. Elsa craned her neck to see inside but couldn’t make out anything.
Leo leaned across the table, his eyes alight. “You’re going to like this part, I think.”
A soft mechanical whirring began to emanate from the hole in the wall. The sound grew louder, and a tiny clockwork locomotive emerged from the wall as if from a tunnel, each flatbed train car behind it carrying a serving tray laden with food. The locomotive chugged down the length of the table, and when it reached the foot, it huffed to a halt, and the children descended on the serving plates like a pack of wolves.
“Manners!” Porzia shouted. “Sante, Olivia, and Burak are serving. Everyone else, I want to see hands off the table.” Then she stood from her own seat and began serving their end of the table.
Elsa found it somewhat disconcerting to have someone else shoveling food onto her plate, but the wonderful train provided enough of a distraction that she didn’t protest. Her fingers twitched against the corner of the table, wanting to disassemble the clockwork locomotive much more than her stomach wanted to eat the food it bore.
Once everyone was served and Porzia was seated again, Leo seemed eager to restart the conversation. “So … you’re not from Pisa, I take it?” he asked Elsa.
Faraz leaned over to mutter to him, but Elsa still caught the words: “It’s cheating if you ask her.”
Leo elbowed him but kept his gaze on Elsa, inviting a response.
“No,” she said slowly. “I’m not from Pisa. I was in Paris and Amsterdam, most recently.” She hoped that would be enough of an answer to put his questions to rest.
“Oh!” Porzia exclaimed. “Terribly rude of me, I should have mentioned it with the introductions: Leo’s a mechanist, Faraz is an alchemist, and I”—she pressed a hand to her chest—“am a scriptologist. So if you need help with anything, you know who to ask.”
“Right.” First de Vries and now Porzia—why did everyone think she wanted help?
Porzia blinked innocently at Elsa. “And which field is yours?”
Elsa stared back at her for a second, wishing for a way to smoothly escape such a direct question. She settled on saying, “Scriptology,” which was more than she wanted to admit but significantly less than the whole truth.
After that, Elsa picked up her fork and tried to look intent on her food, which turned out not to be a difficult thing at all to fake since the food was curious indeed. The first course was white rice prepared with cream and some kind of meat that—believe it or not—looked as if it might have come from the inside of a mollusk. The bits of seafood tasted pungent and a little fishy, but not entirely unpleasant.
“Finish your risotto, Aldo. There are people starving in Napoli,” Porzia admonished one of the younger children. Elsa’s cheeks warmed, and she stopped poking at her food and forked it into her mouth instead.
The idea of not having enough food was foreign to her; Jumi had never allowed the Veldanese to go hungry, not when new croplands could be scribed into the world to meet their needs. When Elsa finished chewing, she said, “Do people really starve in Napoli?”
Porzia raised her eyebrows in surprise at the question, but it was Leo who answered. “It’s a French dynasty that rules the Two Sicilies. They haven�
�t invested in industry and infrastructure the way we have here in the Kingdom of Sardinia. The common people are overtaxed, and with no industry in the cities there are no jobs, so yes—people starve.”
Porzia shot him a warning look, but her tone was light when she said, “I think that’s quite enough politics for the dinner table. Terribly dull business.”
Elsa didn’t understand why the other girl wanted the subject dropped, but she let it go anyway. She already felt like enough of an outsider, and the last thing she needed was to blunder into forbidden conversational territory.
When everyone had worked their way through the rice, Porzia lifted the next serving dish and doled out portions of fowl roasted with mushrooms and herbs, with salad on the side. This, at least, resembled something she might have eaten at home. Jumi had never shown much aptitude or interest in cooking beyond the strict necessities of nourishment, but Revan’s mother, Baninu, could work wonders with the wild herbs and fungi Elsa collected on her forays around Veldana.
Baninu bending over the hearth fire … little Elsa and Revan kneeling on the bench because the table was too high for them otherwise, ripping the juicy green tubes of wild onions into pieces with their fingers. Baninu never wasted her one steel knife—an Earth import—on anything that could be cut another way.
Elsa felt her throat tighten with grief, and she pushed the memory aside. Best not linger on those thoughts, not while she was trapped at the table surrounded by strangers.
Dessert involved tangy yellow fruit and some kind of sweetened, white fluffy substance, and Elsa wondered if she would ever be allowed to leave. Finally, when all the food was gone, they were permitted to stack their plates on the train’s empty serving trays. As the younger children rose from their seats, Porzia shouted orders. “Sante, take the little ones to the nursery, please. Aldo, bedtime in one hour, and I’ll be up to check so you better not still be reading.…”
Ink, Iron, and Glass Page 5
