There are few things more irritating than discovering a dead man has given you homework.
Marduk had managed it beautifully.
I stood over Devil's Deceptions with a magnifying lens in one hand and a cup of tea growing cold in the other.
Elisabeth sat opposite me.
Neither of us had spoken for six minutes.
Rex lay beneath the cabin window, pretending to sleep.
Mira was actually asleep.
Outside, Catington's quarantine harbor woke beneath the Sierra. Chains rattled. Dockworkers shouted. Somewhere below, a man was explaining at considerable volume why another man had miscounted barrels.
Civilization.
Inside the cabin, Marduk continued being inconvenient despite the handicap of death.
Elisabeth touched the edge of the open book.
"Again."
"I heard you the first time."
"You didn't agree."
"Those are different activities."
She pointed.
"Page two hundred and fourteen."
"Yes."
"Then two hundred and nineteen."
"Yes."
"So?"
"Five pages missing."
"Wrong."
I looked at her.
She had the decency not to smile.
"Explain."
"Pages have two sides."
I stared at the book.
Then at her.
"Cruel."
"Four leaves."
"Eight possible numbered pages."
"Depending on how Marduk numbered inserts."
I put the lens down.
"You waited six minutes to correct me."
"I wanted to see how long you'd keep inspecting the wrong edge."
Rex opened one eye.
Traitor.
I pulled the book closer.
The missing sequence had bothered me since Elisabeth first identified the old Nexus catalog pattern.
Now that we knew what to look for, the gaps became louder.
Not merely page numbers.
References.
Arguments that jumped.
Names mentioned without introduction.
One paragraph ended with Marduk discussing a failed expedition.
The next surviving page began:
The second condition was worse than the first.
What first condition?
No explanation.
Elsewhere, an alchemical discussion referred casually to the revised preparation, while no original preparation existed in the preceding chapter.
It wasn't merely a damaged book.
It was a conversation from which someone had removed selected sentences.
I angled the lamp.
"Thread."
Elisabeth leaned closer.
The Tome had been rebound at least once.
The leather cover was older than the current spine stitching. Marduk had repaired it himself—badly by a professional binder's standards, perfectly by the standards of a man who believed beauty should never survive usefulness.
I traced the thread.
One gathering sat tighter than the others.
"There."
Elisabeth used a thin wooden probe.
"No."
"No?"
"You're looking at the repair."
"Yes."
"Which means it could be later."
"That was my point."
"You said it proves the pages were removed before rebinding."
I paused.
Had I?
Unfortunately.
"Yes."
"It doesn't."
She lifted the neighboring section.
"Look."
Same thread.
Different tension.
A repair could conceal removal.
Or merely reinforce damage.
Same observation.
Two explanations.
Professor Ambre would have been insufferably pleased.
I leaned back.
"Fine."
"Say it."
"No."
"Raymond."
"The binding does not prove when the pages were removed."
She smiled.
Very slightly.
I disliked competent people.
They complicated tyranny.
"So what does?"
I asked.
Elisabeth tapped the margin.
"Nothing yet."
That was worse.
We had physical absence.
Not provenance.
Not motive.
Not timing.
Exactly the sort of gap Chessmaster loved filling with plausible nonsense.
I opened my pocket notebook.
CONFIRMED:
— multiple discontinuities in pagination/content.
— later repair/rebinding exists.
— old Nexus-style catalog references occur near several discontinuities.
NOT CONFIRMED:
— Marduk personally removed every missing leaf.
— all missing leaves were removed at the same time.
— Nexus currently possesses them.
— Abraham caused removal.
Elisabeth read upside down.
"You've improved."
"Don't sound surprised."
"You used to put theories under facts and then become annoyed when reality disagreed."
"I still become annoyed."
"Yes."
"Growth should be measured realistically."
She turned three pages.
Beside a faded alchemical notation was the code we had already traced:
III–A / 118 / RED
Meridian Restoration Preparations.
Volume III.
The same missing volume the Quell family had attempted to acquire decades ago.
The same title appearing beside Marduk's easy cipher for the so-called Elixir of the Second Pulse.
"We have enough to know the code matters," Elisabeth said.
"Yes."
"Not enough to know why."
"Yes."
"And Balthazar?"
"Can reach old indexes."
"Can he reach the book?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"He said no before I had the opportunity to ask improperly."
"That must have been difficult."
"It was appalling."
She closed Devil's Deceptions.
I reached for it.
Her hand remained on the cover.
"No."
I looked at her.
"No?"
"You're not taking it into Nexus."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I considered it."
"You're under manual magical review, Abraham knows the book, someone already followed Marduk's seal, and you want to walk around the Academy carrying his journal."
"I said I wasn't."
"After considering it."
"Thought remains one of the few crimes Nexus cannot invoice."
Elisabeth wrapped the book in oilcloth.
"It stays here."
I let her.
Not because she was right.
Because she was irritatingly right.
"There are copied codes in my notebook."
"I know."
"You're becoming controlling."
She looked at my handwriting.
"Someone has to."
That almost deserved a response.
I couldn't find one.
Disturbing.
---
Professor Layton Ambre began class with a murder.
Not a real one.
Unfortunately.
He drew a rectangle on the board.
Inside it, a smaller rectangle.
Then wrote:
A DOCUMENT IS MISSING FROM A LOCKED ROOM.
He turned.
"What does this prove?"
Twenty-eight students avoided eye contact.
I stayed awake.
This worried him.
"Miss Halvern?"
A girl near the window answered.
"That someone removed it."
"No."
Layton crossed out nothing.
"Mr. Coss?"
"That the document existed."
"No."
He looked around.
Then found me.
His expression deteriorated.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"You appear conscious."
"A temporary affliction."
"What does the statement prove?"
I looked at the board.
"Almost nothing."
"Define almost."
"It proves somebody currently believes a document should be present."
A few students turned.
Layton's chalk paused.
"Continue."
"The room being locked doesn't prove nobody entered. Missing doesn't prove stolen. The inventory could be wrong. The document could have been moved under authorization. Destroyed. Misfiled. Never stored there at all."
"Then how would you prove removal?"
"First prove prior presence."
"With?"
"Independent inventory. Lending record. Witness. Catalog entry. Physical trace. Copy. Citation by another document."
Layton nodded.
Then ruined the moment.
"And if the catalog was altered?"
"Find an older catalog."
His eyes narrowed.
Coincidence.
Obviously.
"Older records can also be wrong."
"Yes."
"So?"
"Compare versions."
"Good."
He turned back toward the board.
"An absence becomes useful evidence only when you can demonstrate what occupied the space before it became empty."
I stopped breathing for perhaps half a second.
Not revelation.
Method.
Important difference.
Compare versions.
We had Marduk's codes.
Legacy catalogs.
Current catalogs.
Quell private records.
Potential archive transfer records.
Four histories of the same object.
The question was not:
Where did the missing pages go?
Too early.
The first question was:
When did the official record of them change?
Layton continued speaking.
I started writing.
He noticed.
Naturally.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"Are you taking notes?"
"I occasionally respect miracles."
The class laughed.
Layton didn't.
But the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
Just once.
I would remember that.
---
Balthazar was waiting in the fourth gallery after lunch.
He had three volumes on the table.
And his family ring on his finger.
That concerned me.
"You said no Quell authorization."
"I changed my mind."
"Why?"
He looked at me as though the question offended him.
"My grandfather accused a dead alchemist of stealing a family acquisition for forty years."
"Yes."
"You told me that same alchemist raised you."
"Yes."
"And his private journal contains the catalog number of the missing volume."
"Yes."
He tapped the table.
"That is now a Quell matter."
Ah.
Pride.
The oldest research grant.
"What exactly did you request?"
"Legacy provenance records for Meridian Restoration Preparations, Volume III."
"Restricted?"
"Provenance isn't restricted if a registered donor or prior claimant requests it."
"Convenient family."
"It has disadvantages."
"I've yet to observe one."
"You've never attended a Quell dinner."
"Fair."
He slid the first book toward me.
Current record.
MERIDIAN RESTORATION PREPARATIONS — VOL. I–II
Volume III absent.
No explanation beyond:
Historical citation unverified.
Second book.
Transitional concordance.
Volume III listed as:
Private holding — catalog copy only.
Third.
Older.
Heavy.
Handwritten.
There it was.
III–A / 118 / RED
Volume III.
Donor/source column:
Private appraisal deposit.
Not donation.
Appraisal.
Temporary custody.
I leaned closer.
"Date."
Balthazar gave it.
Forty-one years ago.
The date in his grandfather's auction notebook was four months later.
Same volume.
"So Nexus examined it before the Quell auction."
"Yes."
"Owner?"
"Sealed."
"Why?"
"I asked."
"And?"
"The archivist said claimant privilege allows me to verify the object, not the depositor."
Reasonable.
I hated it.
Balthazar turned the page.
"There is more."
A small symbol occupied the final column.
Two parallel strokes crossed by one horizontal line.
"What?"
"Document separation."
I looked at him.
"Meaning?"
"A bound object was received with loose or separately catalogued material."
My attention sharpened.
"How do you know?"
"Legend."
He pointed to the front of the volume.
There it was.
SEPARATE ENCLOSURE / SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
I read the record again.
Meridian Restoration Preparations, Volume III.
And attached:
4F
Four folios?
Perhaps.
Don't decide yet.
"What does F mean?"
"Could be folios."
"Could?"
"Could also be folded plates in botanical collections."
"Can we verify?"
Balthazar turned another page.
Supplementary listing.
My pulse slowed.
Not excitement.
Focus.
118-R / Supplement
4 manuscript folios
There.
Confirmed.
Four manuscript folios existed separately when the volume entered Nexus.
No title.
No author.
No summary.
Condition:
Restricted by depositor. No reproduction.
I sat back.
Marduk's journal had missing leaves.
Marduk referenced Volume III.
Volume III entered Nexus accompanied by four manuscript folios.
One fact did not prove they were the same four leaves.
But now we had something physical enough to chase.
Balthazar reached the same conclusion.
"Don't."
"I haven't said anything."
"Your face did."
"My face is expressive."
"You're thinking they're Marduk's missing pages."
"I'm thinking they could be."
"Good."
I looked at him.
"Good?"
"You said could."
Appalling.
Everyone had become my teacher.
"Where did the folios go?"
Balthazar pointed to the status column.
A transfer code.
FR–9 / DISPUTED
"Founder Reserve?"
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"I don't know that abbreviation."
"Can we request it?"
He looked at his ring.
Then shook his head.
"No."
"Family privilege ends?"
"At provenance."
"Could your grandfather—"
"No."
That came quickly.
I waited.
He explained.
"My family already spent decades turning that volume into an insult. I won't use my grandfather to pressure an Academy archive because you're curious."
"Because we're curious."
"Not enough."
Reasonable.
Again.
I leaned back.
"What would be enough?"
"Proof the folios were part of the Quell claim."
"They weren't."
"You don't know that."
"Your grandfather complained about the volume, not folios."
Balthazar looked at me.
Then smiled.
Very slightly.
"You learn quickly."
"I had an unpleasant teacher."
"I meant me."
"So did I."
He closed the registry.
"There's one legal person who can authorize Founder Reserve."
"Abraham."
"Yes."
I stared at the transfer code.
No reproduction.
Restricted by depositor.
Four manuscript folios.
Forty-one years ago.
Then Volume III appears in an auction.
Withdrawn before sale.
Marduk's name written in Quell records.
Questions multiplied.
That was good.
Answers make people careless.
---
Abraham Dubois was trimming a rose when I arrived.
I had begun to suspect he changed rooms specifically to annoy people.
Office.
Archive.
Greenhouse.
Perhaps next time we would discuss conspiracies in a bakery.
He cut a dead stem.
"Raymond."
"Abraham."
"Your magical classification remains unresolved."
"So does your taste in gardening."
"These roses are older than you."
"That is not an achievement."
He put down the shears.
"Why are you here?"
I placed a copied catalog entry on the table between us.
No dramatic flourish.
Those are expensive and rarely improve evidence.
Abraham read it.
No reaction to Meridian Restoration.
Small reaction to the supplementary folios.
There.
His scarred left hand stopped moving.
Barely.
"Founder Reserve Nine," I said.
"No."
I smiled.
"I haven't asked."
"You were going to."
"Everyone has developed this irritating talent."
Abraham picked up the paper.
"How did you access this?"
"Public legacy registry."
"This portion isn't public."
"Claimant provenance privilege."
His eyes lifted.
"Quell."
I said nothing.
"Balthazar?"
Still nothing.
"Do not drag the Quell family into Marduk's old disputes."
Interesting word.
Disputes.
Not research.
Not records.
Disputes.
"I didn't."
"You're holding a claimant copy."
"He made his own decision."
Abraham studied me.
That mattered too.
Perhaps he expected me to use Balthazar.
Perhaps he knew Marduk had.
"Are the four folios from Devil's Deceptions?"
I asked.
"No."
Immediate.
Too immediate?
Maybe.
"Certain?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Abraham said nothing.
There.
I smiled.
"Wonderful."
"Raymond."
"You answered a question and created a better one."
"They are not the pages you're looking for."
"Then what are they?"
"No."
"Who deposited them?"
"No."
"Why did Marduk's code point to the volume?"
"Ask Marduk."
"He's become unreliable in conversation."
Abraham's expression hardened.
For a second, the old grief showed through the bureaucracy.
Then vanished.
Good.
Dead people should occasionally cost the living something.
I softened my tone.
Barely.
"Did Marduk remove pages from the book himself?"
Abraham looked toward the roses.
Long pause.
"I saw him remove one."
My humor died.
One.
Not all.
"When?"
"Years before you were born."
"Which page?"
"I don't know its number."
"Content?"
"No."
"You saw him remove it but don't know what it contained?"
"I did not say that."
There it was.
"What did it contain?"
Abraham picked up the shears again.
"No."
I laughed once.
"You know, Abraham, there are men who lie because they're cowards, men who lie because they're greedy, and men who lie because the truth would expose them. You have somehow invented a fourth category."
"And what is that?"
"A man who tells just enough truth to make withholding the rest irritating."
He cut another dead stem.
"You're welcome."
I stared at him.
Then the record.
"The four folios."
"Not from your book."
"But connected."
He said nothing.
"Connected enough that Marduk referenced their host volume."
Nothing.
"Connected enough that you restricted them."
His eyes came back to mine.
"I did not create that restriction."
Important.
"Who did?"
"No."
Not Abraham.
Or he was parsing words.
Blacklist.
CONFIRMED:
Abraham states four folios are not the missing leaves from Devil's Deceptions.
Abraham saw Marduk personally remove at least one page from the book years before Raymond's birth.
Abraham states he did not create the four-folio restriction.
UNCONFIRMED:
Who deposited folios.
Who restricted them.
What page Marduk removed.
Whether other missing leaves were removed by Marduk.
I folded the copy.
"Founder Reserve."
"No access."
"Why?"
"Because admission to Nexus does not entitle you to forty years of sealed disputes."
"Then authorize supervised viewing."
"No."
"One minute."
"No."
"Thirty seconds."
"Raymond."
"An artist negotiates."
Abraham set down the shears.
"If you want the missing material, stop looking only inside Nexus."
That shut me up.
He rarely offered direction freely.
I waited.
"Explain."
"No."
Naturally.
"You just told me—"
"I told you where not to waste all your time."
"Private sale."
His eyes betrayed nothing.
But I already had the Quell auction record.
"Volume III left Nexus before appearing in an auction."
Abraham said nothing.
"The auction lot was withdrawn."
Nothing.
"Marduk's name appears in the Quell family note."
Still nothing.
I smiled.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"You stopped arguing."
"That is not evidence."
"No."
I folded the catalog sheet.
"But it's wonderfully motivating."
---
Eulalie found me outside the greenhouse.
She was sitting on the low wall with a medical text open across her knees.
I stopped.
"You've developed a troubling habit of appearing near my secrets."
"You came to the public botanical court."
"Details."
She closed the book.
"I found Meridian Restoration."
That changed my route immediately.
"Saint-Patrick?"
"One citation."
She handed me a copied reference.
Old medical dissertation.
The author had compared Revigor-style vitality restoration theories with alchemical meridian reconstruction.
One source:
Meridian Restoration Preparations, Vol. III.
And beneath it:
Supplemental folios, private circulation.
Private circulation.
Not archive-only.
Someone had copied or circulated the supplemental material.
"Date?"
"Thirty-nine years ago."
Two years after Nexus had received the volume.
I looked toward the greenhouse.
Abraham's advice.
Stop looking only inside Nexus.
Eulalie watched me.
"What?"
"Nothing certain."
She waited.
I appreciated that.
Two months ago I would have given her a controlled fragment designed to provoke a useful response.
Now I simply handed her Balthazar's copied entry.
She read.
"Four folios."
"Yes."
"You think they're the missing pages."
"No."
That surprised her.
"Abraham says they're not."
"You believe him?"
"I believe he knows enough to make the statement meaningful."
"Not the same."
"No."
She reread both references.
"Then why does Marduk point toward them?"
"That's the expensive question."
"And private circulation?"
I smiled.
"That may be the cheaper one."
She sighed.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"Do not steal an old nun's medical archive."
"I am offended that you assume—"
"You're smiling."
Everyone kept saying that.
Very unfair.
"I'll ask Saint-Patrick first," she said.
I looked at her.
"You?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I can."
Not because I owed her.
Not because she had sworn allegiance.
Not because Raymond needed a piece moved.
She could.
She chose to.
I nodded.
"Thank you."
Eulalie stared.
"What?"
"You said thank you."
"I have manners."
"Occasionally."
"Cruel."
She reopened her book.
Conversation over.
I left.
---
Balthazar was already in our room when I returned.
He had another piece of paper.
"You're becoming addictive."
"I regret helping you."
"You say that often."
"Because you provide frequent opportunities."
He pushed the sheet over.
Quell auction registry.
Not his grandfather's private notebook this time.
A certified family copy.
Lot 3041.
Meridian Restoration Preparations, Volume III.
Additional materials: none.
I read it twice.
"The folios were gone before auction."
"Yes."
"So Nexus received them with the volume."
"Yes."
"Then the volume left without them."
"Yes."
"Where did the volume go after withdrawal?"
"Unknown."
"And the folios?"
"Founder Reserve, supposedly."
"Yet Eulalie has a citation saying the folios circulated privately two years after the Nexus deposit."
Balthazar went very still.
I placed her copied citation beside his record.
Dates.
Forty-one years ago: Nexus receives volume + four folios.
Thirty-nine years ago: medical dissertation cites supplemental folios, private circulation.
Later: Quell auction receives volume without folios.
Lot withdrawn.
Marduk blamed.
Three records.
Different institutions.
A chronology finally emerging.
Balthazar tapped the medical citation.
"They were copied."
"Probably."
"Or removed temporarily."
"Possible."
"Or the dissertation author lied about seeing them."
"Possible."
He frowned.
"You enjoy uncertainty too much."
"Certainty is where people stop checking."
I opened my notebook.
PROBABLE:
At least one transcript/copy of the four supplementary folios existed outside Nexus custody.
Balthazar pointed.
"Probable?"
"Independent citation."
"One citation."
"Exactly."
I did not write confirmed.
He nodded.
We were learning each other's language.
Terrifying.
Then he turned the Quell auction page over.
Something had been written on the reverse.
Faint pencil.
His grandfather's hand.
Balthazar read silently.
His expression changed.
"What?"
He slid it toward me.
No grand revelation.
No forbidden name.
Just a merchant's note from decades ago:
Seller refused explanation. Four supplementary leaves offered separately through private intermediary. Ask at Vesper House.
I stared.
Balthazar said:
"I've never heard of Vesper House."
I had.
Not the business.
The district.
Vesper Row.
Old money.
Private galleries.
Auction rooms.
Exactly the kind of Catington neighborhood where people purchased things too embarrassing for public catalogs.
I closed the notebook.
The first day of looking for Marduk's missing pages had accomplished something useful.
We had found none.
Good.
But we had found their shadow.
A volume.
Four unrelated—or related—folios.
A private circulation.
A separated sale.
A name.
Vesper House.
Not an answer.
A door.
Those are better.
Answers end conversations.
Doors make people reveal who owns the keys.
Balthazar watched me put on my coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Dinner."
He stared.
I smiled.
"After dinner."
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"We have classes tomorrow."
"How tragic."
"You are not breaking into an auction house tonight."
"I don't even know if it still exists."
"That is not reassuring."
I reached the door.
Behind me, Marduk's old references covered half our desk.
Nexus had preserved one version.
The Quells another.
Saint-Patrick a third.
And somewhere in a private Catington ledger, a fourth version had survived forty years of people trying to forget it.
Marduk had removed at least one page from Devil's Deceptions with his own hands.
Why?
Unknown.
Where had he placed it?
Unknown.
Was it among the four folios?
Abraham said no.
For now, I believed only that he knew why.
And somebody had once tried to sell those folios separately.
That was enough.
I opened the door.
Balthazar sighed.
"Raymond."
I looked back.
"What?"
"If Vesper House still exists…"
"Yes?"
He pointed at the Quell family seal on the auction copy.
"My name gets us through the front door."
I studied him.
"You said you wouldn't participate blind."
"I did."
"And?"
"Now I can see enough to know my grandfather spent forty years being angry at the wrong part of the transaction."
A small smile.
Pragmatic.
Voluntary.
His choice.
Good.
I opened the door wider.
"After you, Mr. Quell."
He frowned.
"Why?"
"Your family name."
"And?"
"I'd hate to reduce you to a useful object."
Balthazar stared.
Then grabbed his coat.
"You are a terrible person."
"Yes."
We left for dinner.
Tomorrow we would go looking for a house that may not exist, for records of a sale that may never have happened, involving pages that Abraham insisted were not the pages I wanted.
A sane person might have found that discouraging.
Marduk had raised me better than that.