Invisible

by Dawn Metcalf

  “Step lively, Miss Malone,” Graus Claude advised as the scale under his hand popped inward with a push and the entirety of the wall slid sideways, revealing a luxurious elevator with velvet benches and brass fixings. The walls were sheets of smoked glass and a small, crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Joy stepped inside, and the door slid closed behind her.

  “Are we going upstairs?” she asked.

  “To my private apartments?” he said, quirking his browridge. “I think not.” He grasped the brass lever in the corner and wrenched it four notches to the left. The opposite wall slid away. “But I do trust that you can appreciate the significance of these rooms. There are few I would trust access, beyond the mere knowledge that they existed at all.” He handed her a Japanese-style robe of pale pink silk with embroidered cherry blossoms. “Here. Wear this.” He slipped on a smoking jacket of red silk with black lapels while two hands tied his belt. He opened a side door in the antechamber. “This way.”

  Joy hung her jacket on a hook and slipped the cool silk over her goose-pimpled skin. The hidden room was colder and draftier than the foyer with high, vaulted ceilings and white-on-white walls. The clean lines were accented here and there with glass bowls of river stones or small bonsai trees. An upright slab of slate propped with green copper wires trickled water over its surface. The tables were glass and the couches were white and a woman sat with a book of Ansel Adams photography open on her lap. There was a familiar squiggle along her jawline and a score of angry welts at her throat. Joy could see a signatura glowing through the bumpy scar tissue.

  “I believe I foretold a short respite before a solution presented itself,” Graus Claude said as the woman closed her book. “I trust you have been comfortable during the interim?”

  “Yes,” the woman said, glancing furtively to Joy. “Thank you.”

  The Bailiwick nodded and threaded his four arms behind him. “Excellent. May I present my associate, Miss Malone? Miss Malone, this is Mademoiselle Ysabel Lacombe.” Graus Claude turned to Joy. “Mademoiselle Lacombe came to me with a conundrum that, I confess, exceeded my abilities to address, but one which may be well suited to your unique talents.” Both women exchanged glances. The injured woman spoke first.

  “You can free me of Henri?”

  Joy glanced at Graus Claude, who said simply, “Perhaps.” He settled himself onto the white chaise, which barely gave under his weight as he poured green tea into three delicate handleless cups. “Why don’t you enlighten Miss Malone as to your predicament?”

  Joy was about to ask Graus Claude how any of this was supposed to help her, but the dark-haired Ysabel was quick to comply, her amber-golden eyes hungry and wide.

  “I was chosen by Henri Dubois, alpha of the Ridge Pack, and marked as his own when I was fourteen.” Her voice had a strange, nasal accent, almost French but not quite. “I don’t remember much before then, honestly. It’s mostly a blur of tiny bubbles and noise.” She glanced sideways at Joy. “My people are from the Saint Lawrence River,” she explained. “We are defenseless River Folk, and human encroachment has meant that we must barter for protections.” She calmly placed the coffee table book beside her on the couch, one hand lingering upon it. “I was offered as tithe to the Northern Ridge Pack in exchange for my peoples’ continued safety. I obeyed without a thought.” She placed thin fingers against her scar-riddled throat. “I knew nothing but obedience and cruelty under Henri, but I considered it my duty to be loyal to ma famille.” Her eyes burned along the edges, turning the irises a shocking coppery red. Joy felt an unsettling squeeze of sympathy and fear. “But then I met Lucius. He was a packless loner from All-Snow and...” Ysabel did not finish, but she didn’t have to. Her story was written all over her face: she fell in love with her savior and wished to leave with him. Ysabel raised her chin and dropped her hand. “I came to appeal to the Bailiwick to help me escape, but with Henri’s mark upon me, he said I had a very short lead, one which could be reclaimed at any time, should Henri choose to drag me back. I have made it this far but do not know how much longer my freedom will last.”

  Graus Claude glanced meaningfully at Joy, who shifted her purse, almost hearing the scalpel rattling in its side pocket. She remembered how the Bailiwick had once told her that while signaturae must be given voluntarily, they were not always received that way. Part of her understood Ysabel all too well—Joy had been branded with Briarhook’s mark, burned into the flesh of her arm, and it had carried the illicit addition of Aniseed’s signatura secreted beneath her skin. Both had been forced upon her, neither one wanted. That feeling of helpless horror still haunted her dreams.

  “Signaturae are sacrosanct,” Graus Claude said gravely, his words reverberating like a gong in the room. “Designed as a matter of safety and precaution for all the Folk. The removal of a mark could breach our world order as well as the Council’s decree and, as such, should be considered a nigh impossible feat and, perhaps, an act of treason within the Twixt.” Joy watched the cords in Ysabel’s neck flicker, her face tight. Her hand trembled against the book cover, a sort of miserable bravery. “And yet,” he said magnanimously, “here is Miss Malone.” Ysabel shifted to look at Joy, who wasn’t sure whether to smile or bow. Graus Claude’s eyes fixed hers with enviable confidence. “She might be willing to make the attempt on your behalf.”

  Joy froze. What? She had no idea if she could do such a thing! The only marks she’d removed from other people had been Ink’s—signaturae hidden in the scars or birthmarks that some of the Folk required for earning their favor; wounds and experiences that were etched permanently on their skin. Okay, she’d erased Aniseed’s signatura (in the air) and Inq’s (by accident) and Briarhook’s (on purpose), but she had only removed that which had been drawn by the Twixt onto humans. She had never tried it on Folk who marked one another! She hadn’t even realized that could happen until recently. The glimpse of a serrated crescent moon sliced through her memory. She hadn’t offered to remove Grimson’s mark, because she’d known Ink would refuse...but what about this river woman who had never asked to be sold into slavery as a girl? She wouldn’t ask—and wouldn’t refuse—because she didn’t know that it was possible. Ysabel looked at her with hope-filled eyes.

  “What do you say, Miss Malone?” Graus Claude purred. “Are you willing to try?”

  Joy called the Bailiwick several bad names in her head as she opened her purse and set it on the table. She took up the scalpel in her hand.

  “Show me,” Joy said.

  Ysabel loosened the neck of her robe, baring her long scarred throat. She shed her thin covering, exposing her chest as a patchwork of claw marks, rents and gouges over uneven skin; layers of red and purple shone darkly against scores gone white with age. She’d been torn repeatedly, her breasts and belly systematically mutilated over the years, and yet there was a strength in her spine that shone on her face. Ysabel lifted her chin in a submissive gesture, one Joy could only imagine she’d grown accustomed to since she was fourteen.

  Beneath it all, the signatura burned.

  Joy tried to ignore the sickening landscape of scars, trying to see the beginning of the mark buried there. Beneath the bulb of Ysabel’s chin, a long, thin shape like a zipper of teeth etched down the length of her throat and ended in a teardrop between her breasts. This was the dreaded Henri’s signatura, shining like quicksilver drawn with a serrated knife. Just looking at it gave Joy a glimpse of his true self: severe, brutal, vicious, absolute. If she’d had any reservations about removing it before, she had none now.

  “I see it,” Joy said and lifted the scalpel. “Can you lie still?”

  Ysabel nodded and willingly offered her neck to Joy and the blade.

  Joy glanced back at Graus Claude, who observed without comment, his four arms tucked behind his massive back in polite interest. Joy wasn’t certain if she was really about to commit treason or if it was merely another one of Grau
s Claude’s grandiose statements, but in any case, he was making her nervous. A tremor shuddered along her limbs. Joy was about to attempt something she would have never dared—and in front of the Bailiwick!—in order to free a stranger.

  Smug toad, she thought and touched the scalpel to Ysabel’s skin.

  She felt it working, the familiar sluice as the tip of the instrument nudged itself under the mark. She worked at the tiny space between the signatura’s teeth, tracing the phantom image, following the elegant sweep of Ysabel’s throat. Joy moved the scalpel slowly over the ridges of breastbone and sinew, slipping past scar tissue and bloodless wounds to curl into the final droplet shape in the center of her...

  Graus Claude said, “Wait.”

  Lumbering forward, he opened one of his clawed hands. Joy hesitated, her pulse jumping thick in her throat.

  “I believe you may have missed something,” he said, blue eyes flashing. “May I, Joy Malone?”

  Ysabel, eyes closed, did not move a muscle. Her face had turned toward the paper screen, her bared torso stretched across the couch. Joy knew she should not give the Bailiwick the scalpel but couldn’t think of a way to refuse. He waited patiently, like a parent for the stolen cookie or the keys, and Joy felt her hand move out of some instinct or obligation. Graus Claude did not touch the scalpel until she’d set it in his palm.

  He withdrew his set of gold-rimmed spectacles from an inside pocket and set the blade against Ysabel’s white throat. Joy twisted her fingers, feeling her hands go numb, wondering what would happen next.

  The Bailiwick pressed the tip of the scalpel into the exposed breastbone. A sharp inhale from Ysabel did not sound like pain, but mild surprise. Below the signatura, a bead of blood welled to the surface. Graus Claude lifted the tainted blade and withdrew.

  “My apologies,” Graus Claude said, handing it back. “Please continue.”

  Shaking, Joy accepted the scalpel under the great toad’s icy glare. She tried to ignore his searing gaze as she continued where she’d left off, sweeping to close the last curve of the droplet, completing its design.

  The line of teeth and tears flared once and disappeared.

  “Splendid,” the Bailiwick said, making Joy jump. “Miss Ysabel?” He offered her a thin tissue and a circular magnifying mirror for her inspection. The woman wiped away the spot of blood and ran disbelieving fingers over her throat and down her chest.

  “It’s gone?” she said in a disbelieving whisper. “It’s really gone?”

  “It is,” Graus Claude said gently, pocketing his glasses. “As is your confinement.” He ambled forward, the palsied shake of his head returning as he bent nearer. “You are free to leave the premises and are encouraged to do so, although you understand I must advocate that you not return to Île d’Orléans. I trust you can find residence elsewhere.” Another hand produced a sealed envelope. “In this, I have listed a number of locales, including contacts, should you find yourself at a loss. Each comes highly recommended. Once you have found yourself situated, I expect that you will inform me of your relocation and we can settle accounts.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Ysabel said, taking the envelope. The smile on her face wobbled between disbelief and radiance. Her shining eyes sought Joy’s. “Thank you! Words cannot express...” Her fingers clutched the robe’s hem closed. “Merci. A ma coeur. Thank you!” She touched Joy’s hands, the scalpel all but forgotten, and pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks, first one then the other. Tears of happiness ran shining trails down the river sprite’s face, wetting her skin, almost—thought Joy—like the missing mark of quicksilver that was no longer at her throat.

  Ysabel traded two kisses with Graus Claude and collected her things out of the white-and-glass cabinet. After pulling on a sundress, she pressed the envelope to her chest and threw her cloak around her shoulders as she gave a last, burbling whisper in her liquid language. Thank you! Hugging the envelope again, she quickly withdrew.

  Joy sat on the couch, thoughts whirling.

  “I would say that was an unparalleled success,” Graus Claude said. “I had previously mourned my lost opportunity to observe your work with Master Ink’s trademark instruments during our last adventure, being somewhat preoccupied with battle at the time, but I am pleased to have the lapse rectified at last.” He finished his tea and set the cup on the table with a delicate ting. Joy felt the note shiver down her spine with dread. “I must say I am duly impressed, Miss Malone.” He paced the room, tucking two of his four hands into their pockets. “What you have just now demonstrated is both the ability to undermine our world’s most sacred precepts while simultaneously proving that you have been cloaking your actions in such a manner that has kept you anonymous and alive.” He nodded. “Very impressive, although it is now evident to me that the power to erase signaturae resides within you and not in the scalpel, as the Council and I had previously been led to believe.” He smacked his lips. “Brava.”

  There was no use trying to deny it. Joy blew the blade clean, just like Ink, watching the tiny droplets of red lift and disappear under her breath. She placed the scalpel on the glass table. It settled with a click.

  “Ink thought it best,” she said.

  “He was quite right.”

  “So,” she said. “What happens now?”

  The Bailiwick puffed up his chest as if about to croak. “I have already given my counsel on what I believe you should do, Miss Malone. I do not appreciate repeating myself as it implies that the recipient of my sage advice is not doing their part by heeding it and therefore not worth the bother of repetition,” he admonished. “My answer has not wavered in the slightest—give back the scalpel, accept a signatura or remove yourself completely from the Twixt.” Graus Claude loomed over her, his head dipping down, somehow stilled of its palsied quiver with the severity of his words. “Now more so than ever I would urge you to make a decision and take action quickly...before someone gets hurt.”

  “I have a signatura,” she grumbled.

  “You have something. That is certain,” he said. “But you would be hard-pressed to convince the Council of its authenticity without one of the Folk willing to come forward to claim you.” Graus Claude rumbled deep in his chest. “Without a claimant, I doubt that you would have sufficient proof that you have fulfilled that requirement. And after seeing your display with Mademoiselle Lacombe, I would have to consider the possibility that you somehow created a clever forgery.”

  Joy glared. “That’s ridiculous! Even if I knew how to do that, you said yourself that signaturae couldn’t be forged or counterfeited.”

  “I also said that signaturae were permanent and could not be removed,” Graus Claude said. “There are many once-sacred facts that are currently suffering revision under your hand, and if I could surmise the possibility of forgery, certainly anyone on the Council could do so, as well. Especially Sol Leander. He would be eager for the chance to prove that humans remain a significant threat, especially those with the Sight or power, considering his auspice.” He placed the mirror upon a shelf and adjusted its glass to a more pleasing angle. “I am finding myself in the distasteful position of beginning to see the wisdom in some of the Old Ways.”

  Joy cringed. She didn’t like the sound of that. She knew that once the Folk and humans had shared their world with one another, but something had happened that had forced the nonhumans into hiding, preserving the last bits of magic in places and people—the secret remnants now known as the Twixt. They also advocated plucking out the eyes of any human with the Sight. Joy was not a fan of the Old Ways.

  “I can’t give back the scalpel—you know that,” Joy said, rubbing her eyes. “Ink gave it to me and now it’s mine, like it or not.”

  “You could refuse to use it,” he suggested.

  Joy ground her teeth, feeling heat flush her face. “Yes, well, that seems a little hypocritical since you basi
cally ordered me to use it just now.”

  “I did no such thing, and I resent the implication,” the Bailiwick said mildly. “As a human, you purport to value free will. If I put you in a strategically uncomfortable position, then that is the nature of war, Miss Malone, a state that currently exists disguised in these modern times in civilized pursuits such as etiquette, polite society and chess. You simply allowed yourself to be put into check.” He gestured with his lower two hands. “You wanted to test your abilities, and I gave you the opportunity to do so, or not, as you desired. It was your hand, not mine, that did the deed.” Graus Claude shifted his ice-blue eyes to the door through which Ysabel had gone. “If it gives you comfort, I think you did a kind service to a lady who has endured much unkindness, which is no small thing to weigh against my discovery of your hidden talent.”

  Joy nodded and felt a bit better. “Are you going to tell the Council?”

  “Certainly not,” he said, affronted. “Why implicate both of us as well as poor Mademoiselle Lacombe?”

  Joy flumped back on the couch. It was stiff, cold and unyielding. “So I can’t prove this thing is a signatura, I can’t give back the scalpel or promise not to use it and I’m not giving up Ink.” She reached behind her shoulder as if she could touch the spot where the ghostly symbol stained her own skin. “I even asked Ink to mark me and he said it was more important for me to stay free, but it feels more like I’m trapped, like I’m running out of options.” She checked for the Bailiwick’s reaction, but she was no good at reading the face of a toad. She sighed. “I don’t feel very free.”

  “We rarely value freedom until it’s lost,” said Graus Claude.

  She picked up the scalpel and tucked it back into her purse, maneuvering around the uncomfortable silence. “Were you telling the truth that removing marks was a treasonous offense?”