Marduk had been dead long enough for his room to stop smelling like him.
I disliked that more than I expected.
The old cabin stood beneath the trees exactly where we had left it, crooked roof sinking toward the western wall, moss eating the foundation stones one green mouthful at a time. Someone had repaired the front shutter while I was recovering. Badly.
Delo, probably.
He had the architectural instincts of a drunk goat.
Rex pushed past me and entered first.
"Of course."
The manticore sniffed the floorboards, then the old table, then the empty corner where Marduk used to leave his boots.
He sneezed.
Dust exploded.
"Insightful."
Rex ignored me.
Xavier entered behind us carrying two empty crates.
Elisabeth came last.
Not walking.
Delo had built her a narrow chair with larger wheels for rough ground, and Xavier had pulled it along the forest path despite her repeated insistence that she could manage herself.
She had managed thirty-seven steps that morning.
Thirty-seven was excellent progress.
Thirty-eight would apparently have killed her pride.
"This is it?" she asked.
"This is it."
She looked around.
Marduk's home had never impressed anyone.
One scarred oak table. Two chairs that disagreed about leg length. Shelves containing dried herbs, alchemical tools, animal bones, three cracked bottles, and enough handwritten paper to start a respectable fire.
A stone hearth occupied the rear wall.
My old pallet remained beneath the window.
Marduk's bed was gone.
I had burned it after his death.
Some objects deserved ceremony.
Others deserved flame.
Xavier put down the crates.
"What are we looking for?"
"Anything useful."
"That narrows it down beautifully."
"You're learning."
Elisabeth wheeled herself toward the nearest shelf.
"Medicine first."
"No."
She stopped.
I pointed toward the workbench.
"Anything medicinal that you don't recognize goes into the gray crate. Anything you do recognize goes into the green one."
"We don't have a green crate."
"Then imagine one."
She stared.
Xavier sighed and went outside.
He returned with another crate.
"Happy?"
"Immensely."
I moved toward Marduk's desk.
Rex followed.
The desk had been ours once.
Mostly mine, if memory was allowed to testify honestly. Marduk had stood over me during its construction while coughing blood into a rag and explaining why every angle I cut offended three generations of craftsmen.
Then he had used it for years.
He left knife marks in the right corner.
Acid scars near the center.
One black ring from the evening he confused volcanic cayenne with sweet paprika and nearly killed us both with dinner.
I ran my thumb across it.
Xavier noticed.
He wisely said nothing.
I opened the first drawer.
Empty.
Second.
Old receipts.
Third.
A collection of broken metal nibs, two keys, and one dried beetle.
"Your mentor kept rubbish," Elisabeth said.
"He called it material."
"The beetle?"
"Especially the beetle."
I opened the bottom drawer.
Nothing important.
Of course.
Marduk had spent years teaching me never to leave valuable things where furniture manufacturers expected them.
I crouched.
My ribs immediately reminded me that this body remained under repair.
Xavier moved.
"Don't."
"I wasn't doing anything."
"You were about to help."
"Yes."
"Disgusting habit."
I lowered myself carefully and examined the underside of the desk.
No false panel.
No keyhole.
No runes.
Chessmaster stirred at the edge of thought.
I permitted it a glance.
Lines appeared.
Wood grain.
Joinery.
Wear patterns.
Possible cavities.
The skill highlighted three discrepancies.
One was termite damage.
One was an old repair I remembered making myself.
The third—
I touched the rear support.
Hollow.
I smiled.
Xavier saw it.
"That expression usually costs us money."
"Sometimes other people."
"What did you find?"
"Maybe something."
I knocked twice against the support.
Solid near the bottom.
Hollow higher up.
Elisabeth rolled closer.
"There's a compartment."
"Yes."
"Open it."
"No lock."
"Break it."
"No."
She raised an eyebrow.
"You?"
"I know. Growth."
I looked at the grain.
Marduk knew me.
Which meant if he had hidden something here, he knew I would find the cavity.
He also knew my first instinct would be to cut through it.
And Marduk loved punishing first instincts.
I withdrew my knife anyway.
Xavier caught my wrist.
"You just said no."
"I was testing you."
"That's becoming your excuse for everything."
I put the knife away.
"Fine."
We searched the desk for twenty minutes.
Nothing.
I grew irritated.
That was probably part of the mechanism.
Marduk had weaponized irritation with professional skill.
Elisabeth sorted papers while we worked.
Most were useless.
Ingredient ratios.
Mana observations.
Fragments of anatomy.
A page containing nothing but insults directed at an alchemist named Vorren.
Then Elisabeth stopped.
"Raymond."
I turned.
She held a small piece of paper.
"What?"
"This handwriting is different."
I took it.
Not different.
Older.
Marduk's letters had been steadier when he wrote this, before illness made every line look like it had survived an earthquake.
Only six words.
Movement is a fall properly interrupted.
I stared.
Xavier leaned over my shoulder.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the old bastard is still annoying me."
I knew the phrase.
Not those exact words.
Marduk used to say something close whenever he shifted my center of gravity during training.
Movement is just a fall you're too stubborn to finish.
I looked at the desk.
Four legs.
One slightly shorter.
It had always irritated me.
I used to wedge wood beneath it.
Marduk always removed the wedge.
I stared at the left rear leg.
"Move."
Xavier stepped back.
I placed one hand against the desk and pushed gravity.
Not much.
My damaged channels burned immediately.
I ignored them.
The desk grew lighter on one side.
Then heavier on the other.
Its weight shifted.
The shorter leg lifted.
Click.
Something released inside the rear support.
Xavier smiled.
"That's ridiculous."
"No."
Elisabeth looked at the desk.
"It is a little ridiculous."
"Both of you lack culture."
A narrow panel slid open.
Inside sat a cylinder of blackened brass.
No treasure.
No weapon.
No miraculous inheritance.
A document tube.
Of course.
I took it out.
The brass felt cold.
One symbol had been etched into the cap.
A seven-pointed star broken through its center by a vertical line.
I did not recognize it.
But something about it bothered me.
Rex did.
His ears flattened.
A growl vibrated in his chest.
"What?" Xavier asked.
Rex sniffed the cylinder.
Then recoiled.
Elisabeth's poisoned hand twitched beneath its leather covering.
She looked down.
"Mine reacted."
That got my attention.
"To the tube?"
"I don't know."
"Don't touch it."
"I wasn't planning to."
I placed the tube on the table.
Chessmaster.
The world sharpened.
Object.
Material.
Wear.
Residue.
The skill identified old alchemical treatment and traces of degraded mana.
Nothing more.
The symbol remained meaningless.
I released the skill before the pressure behind my eyes became pain.
"Anything?" Xavier asked.
"No."
His eyebrows rose.
"You admitted that quickly."
"Enjoy the moment."
I twisted the cap.
Locked.
There were no visible grooves.
Elisabeth pointed.
"The star."
"What about it?"
"One point is darker."
She was right.
I pressed it.
Nothing.
Xavier pressed another.
Nothing.
Rex shoved his nose against my elbow.
"Stop."
He pushed harder.
My hand slipped across the symbol.
The cap clicked.
I stared at Rex.
He stared back.
Xavier began laughing.
"I will throw both of you into the ocean."
I opened the tube.
Three objects slid onto the desk.
A sealed envelope.
A strip of map.
And a small black card.
No name on the card.
Only handwriting.
Marduk's.
I reached for it first.
Of course I did.
The message was short.
I have debts. Others owe me as well.
Below that:
White Sage will tell you the truth.
Nothing else.
I read it twice.
Xavier waited.
"Well?"
"Marduk has discovered brevity after death."
"Who is White Sage?"
"No idea."
Elisabeth took the card when I handed it over.
"You believe him?"
"I believe Marduk believed I would read this."
"That wasn't my question."
"No."
I picked up the envelope.
The paper was thick and yellow with age.
The front carried a name.
ABRAHAM DUBOIS
Below it:
Founder — Nexus Academy, Catington
Xavier whistled.
"That Nexus?"
"There are many academies named Nexus?"
"No."
"Then probably that Nexus."
Elisabeth leaned closer.
"The seal."
Dark red wax covered the flap.
Marduk's mark sat in the center.
But beside it was another impression.
Smaller.
A circle divided into four uneven quarters.
I had seen it before.
Not here.
In one of Marduk's old textbooks.
A marginal mark beside advanced alchemical formulae.
I reached for the edge of the envelope.
Xavier slapped my hand.
I looked at him.
"You are becoming tiresome."
"You're going to open it."
"Yes."
"It's addressed to Abraham Dubois."
"He's not here."
"That generally strengthens the idea of not opening someone's mail."
I turned the envelope over.
Information sat inside.
Information was leverage.
Leverage kept people alive.
Every instinct I possessed told me to break the wax.
Elisabeth watched my face.
"You want to know what Marduk said about you."
I looked at her.
"No."
"Yes."
"That is an emotional interpretation."
"That is a painfully obvious interpretation."
Xavier folded his arms.
"She's right."
"This alliance between siblings is intolerable."
I held the envelope toward the lamp.
The paper was too thick to see through.
Of course Marduk anticipated that.
Steam might loosen the wax.
But Abraham would know.
A repaired seal was never quite the original.
And the storyboard in my head—the one no divine System had provided, only years of surviving criminals—shifted.
Sealed letter from a dead man.
To the founder of one of the most powerful academies in Catington.
Marduk's untouched seal.
That was not correspondence.
That was political currency.
Break it, and I gained information.
Preserve it, and I gained access.
I hated when patience was profitable.
I placed the envelope down.
Xavier smiled.
"Growth."
"Say that again and I open it."
He stopped smiling.
Elisabeth pointed toward the lower edge.
"There's writing beneath the seal."
Tiny symbols.
Not words.
A formula.
Five groups separated by dots.
Numbers mixed with alchemical notation.
Salt.
Mercury.
Ash.
A gravitational sign.
Then a fraction that made no chemical sense.
Xavier frowned.
"Can you read it?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
"Nothing."
Elisabeth leaned forward.
"That's helpful."
"It's an impossible formula. If you mixed those quantities, you'd get toxic sludge and a ruined crucible."
"Perhaps Marduk made a mistake."
All three of us went quiet.
Then Xavier shook his head.
"No."
"Agreed."
Whatever the formula meant, it was deliberate.
And according to the way Marduk had hidden it—small enough that only someone inspecting the seal would notice—it was not meant to teach chemistry.
Recognition.
A password.
Something Abraham Dubois would see and understand.
I copied it into my notebook without altering the envelope.
Then I reached for the map fragment.
It showed coastline.
Not our island.
At least not any coast I recognized.
Three coordinates had been written along the margin.
The first was complete.
The second ended halfway through.
The third had been burned away.
Xavier looked over my shoulder.
"Where is that?"
"No idea."
"Catington?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"The coastline is wrong."
Elisabeth wheeled closer.
"Give me that."
I did.
She studied the markings longer than either of us.
"Those aren't all geographic."
"What?"
"The first one might be latitude. The second uses a celestial mark."
Xavier looked offended.
"You know navigation too?"
"I attended my lessons."
She stared at him.
Xavier looked away.
"I was busy."
"Yes. We've heard about your educational priorities."
"Can we not?"
I smiled.
"Never."
Elisabeth traced the incomplete coordinate.
"This could mean elevation."
"Or date," I said.
"Or phase."
"Moon?"
"Possibly."
A small notation appeared beside the missing third coordinate.
Three letters.
P — N —
The final one had been scraped away.
Not burned.
Scraped.
Deliberately.
That bothered me more.
Marduk had not merely failed to finish the coordinates.
He had chosen to remove part of them.
"Why leave half a location?" Xavier asked.
"To make us find the rest."
"Where?"
I looked at the sealed envelope.
"Nexus."
Elisabeth looked at the card.
"Or White Sage."
"Maybe."
Two different doors.
One destination.
Typical Marduk.
I turned the map over.
There was another symbol.
The same seven-pointed mark from the brass tube.
Vertical line through its center.
This time someone had drawn a circle around it in black ink.
Beside it, Marduk had written only:
Not theirs. Older.
My skin prickled.
I remembered the pendant recovered after the Abomination.
The strange mark.
Not identical.
Close enough to make coincidence uncomfortable.
Rex growled again.
Xavier noticed.
"That thing from the creature."
"Yes."
"You think they're connected?"
"I think two marks look similar."
"You always tell me coincidences are lies."
"No. I tell you coincidences are invitations to become paranoid."
"And this?"
"I accepted the invitation years ago."
Elisabeth held out her hand.
"Let me see."
I showed her without allowing the parchment near her poisoned palm.
Her expression tightened.
"The hand reacts more to this than it did to the tube."
"How?"
"Warm."
"Pain?"
"No."
"Venom?"
She looked into the stone collector beneath her wrist.
A single violet drop had formed.
"Yes."
Xavier's expression darkened.
"Then we burn it."
"No."
"Raymond."
"Absolutely not."
"It's affecting her."
"It's producing a reaction. Those are different things."
"That sounds exactly like something you say before an experiment goes wrong."
Elisabeth spoke before the argument could start.
"I decide."
Xavier stopped.
She studied the symbol again.
"Put it away."
I did.
"No more testing until I'm stronger."
"Agreed."
Xavier looked at me.
"That easy?"
"She gave me usable information and a clear condition."
"So when I say something—"
"You usually shout."
"I do not."
Rex sneezed.
Elisabeth laughed.
I put everything back on the table.
One sealed letter.
One broken map.
One cryptic message.
One symbol that made a poisoned hand react.
Marduk had somehow turned death into administrative cruelty.
I searched the compartment again.
Nothing.
Then Rex began scratching near the hearth.
Once.
Twice.
"Leave it."
He scratched harder.
Stone grated.
Xavier crouched.
"There's something loose."
We removed the front hearthstone.
Behind it lay a narrow cavity.
Inside was a book.
For one ridiculous second, I thought Marduk had made the entire problem easy.
Then I pulled it out.
Blank leather cover.
No title.
I opened it.
Empty.
Every page.
Xavier stared.
"You're joking."
I turned another page.
Blank.
Another.
Blank.
Until page thirteen.
One line.
You found the wrong book.
I closed my eyes.
Elisabeth began laughing.
Not politely.
Actually laughing.
Xavier joined her.
Even my ribs hurt from listening to them.
I stared at the sentence.
There are men who teach through wisdom.
There are men who teach through kindness.
Marduk had built an educational philosophy around spite.
Below the first line, faint enough that I almost missed it, was another.
If you want Les Manigances du Diable, earn the right to read it.
The laughter stopped.
I touched the words.
So.
The journal existed.
Not rumor.
Not an idea.
A real book.
Marduk had written it.
And Abraham Dubois knew something about it.
I turned the remaining pages.
Nothing.
At the back, tucked into the binding, I found a final strip of paper.
Three words.
Don't trust Abraham.
Underneath:
Trust what he regrets.
Xavier read over my shoulder.
"That's useful."
"It is."
"You don't know what he regrets."
"No."
"You don't know White Sage."
"No."
"You don't know where the coordinates lead."
"No."
"You don't know what the symbol means."
"No."
"And you refuse to open the letter."
"Yes."
He stared at me.
"Marduk left you nothing."
I looked around the cabin.
At the desk.
At the burned scars.
At my first terrible attempts at carving runes still hidden beneath the windowsill.
At the place where an old man had spent years teaching a dead criminal how to survive a second life.
"No," I said.
"He left me exactly what he always did."
Xavier waited.
"A problem."
I gathered the envelope, map, message, and false journal.
The blank book stayed.
Elisabeth noticed.
"You're leaving it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked at the sentence on page thirteen.
Because some insults deserved preservation.
But I did not say that.
"It belongs here."
Outside, evening had begun eating the forest.
The Sierra's mast could just be seen beyond the trees.
Two days.
Then Catington.
Then Abraham Dubois.
Nexus Academy.
White Sage.
A journal that apparently required permission from the dead.
Rex stepped through the doorway and looked back at me.
Xavier lifted the crates.
Elisabeth rolled toward the path.
I remained inside for one moment longer.
Marduk had once told me that the worst teachers give answers because answers expire.
Questions rot more slowly.
I had hated him for saying it.
I still did.
I touched the edge of the old desk.
"You could have written a normal letter, you miserable bastard."
The cabin answered with silence.
I almost heard him laugh anyway.
Then I left.
And this time, I locked the door behind me.