Saint-Patrick had bars on the windows.
I considered this an unfortunate choice for an orphanage.
Eulalie did not appreciate the observation.
"They're decorative."
"They're iron."
"They hold flower boxes."
"So could chains."
She stopped walking.
We stood across the street from a long gray building surrounded by an old stone wall. A chapel rose from the eastern end. The western side looked newer and broader, with three floors of narrow windows and a covered passage connecting it to what appeared to be a medical ward.
Children crossed the courtyard behind the gate.
Two chased each other around a fountain.
Another sat under a tree with a book larger than his chest.
Nothing sinister.
No screaming.
No suspicious priests dragging anyone into basements.
Disappointingly respectable.
Eulalie looked at me.
"You promised."
"I promised not to use your name or your order without permission."
"And?"
"I haven't."
"You've criticized the architecture twice."
"Not contractually prohibited."
She closed her eyes.
I smiled.
Then stopped.
Her hand had tightened around the letter she carried.
Not much.
Enough.
Saint-Patrick was different for her.
Nexus was ambition.
The Sierra was becoming something close to home.
Saint-Patrick was memory.
I knew better than to price those too quickly.
"You can go alone," I said.
Her eyes opened.
"What?"
"I can wait."
Suspicion immediately replaced tension.
"Why?"
"I'm occasionally capable of recognizing when my presence makes something more difficult."
"You?"
"Yes."
"That sounded painful."
"Excruciating."
She looked back toward the gate.
Then at the letter.
"No."
"No?"
"Come."
"Are you certain?"
"No."
Good answer.
She crossed the street.
I followed.
The gatekeeper knew her.
Not as Sister Brome.
"Eulalie?"
The old man stood so fast his chair nearly fell backward.
Eulalie stopped.
For half a second, every piece of her careful Academy posture disappeared.
"Mr. Halden."
He came around the desk.
Looked at her.
Not touched.
Just looked.
"You got taller."
"No, I didn't."
"You did."
"I left three years ago."
"And grew."
"I was already this height."
"Nonsense."
He turned toward me.
His warmth evaporated with admirable efficiency.
"And this?"
"A Nexus student."
"Name?"
"Raymond."
The old man waited.
I sighed.
"Just Raymond."
He looked at Eulalie.
She said:
"He's irritating."
The gatekeeper relaxed.
Apparently this qualified as identification.
"Archive business?"
"Yes."
"Bismelda knows?"
"She replied to my letter."
That mattered.
He opened the gate.
"West medical building. She'll be in the herb room."
Then, as we passed:
"Eulalie."
She turned.
His expression softened.
"Good to see you."
Something small moved in her throat.
"You too."
We entered.
I said nothing.
She noticed.
"Don't."
"I didn't."
"You're thinking."
"A habit."
"Keep it there."
I did.
Saint-Patrick smelled of boiled linen, herbs and soup.
Less impressive than Nexus.
More useful.
No marble halls.
No statues of founders.
The walls were covered instead with children's drawings, old religious carvings and notices written in three different hands.
A nurse hurried past carrying folded cloth.
Two novices argued quietly over dosage measurements.
A little boy ran around a corner, nearly struck Eulalie, recognized her and froze.
"Sister Eulalie?"
She stared.
Then smiled.
Not the narrow almost-smiles I had extracted after considerable labor.
A real one.
"Jonas."
He had lost two front teeth since she had last seen him, judging from her expression.
"You came back."
"Briefly."
He looked at me.
"Who is he?"
"A problem."
I placed one hand over my heart.
The child accepted this immediately.
Children have excellent instincts.
He ran away.
Eulalie continued walking.
"You know everyone?"
"No."
"Enough."
"I lived here."
"I remember."
Her step changed.
Barely.
We passed an open dormitory.
Small beds.
Wooden chests.
Sunlight across scrubbed floorboards.
Eulalie didn't look inside.
That told me more than if she had.
We reached the western building.
Medical work replaced childhood noise.
The air sharpened with alcohol and dried leaves.
An elderly woman stood behind a long table separating herbs into shallow bowls.
She wore plain gray.
No elaborate clerical ornament.
White hair pulled beneath a dark veil.
Her hands were narrow and steady.
Eulalie stopped at the doorway.
The old woman continued sorting.
"You took too long."
Eulalie blinked.
"You knew when I arrived?"
"Halden walks like a man announcing a parade."
Only then did the woman look up.
Her eyes landed on Eulalie.
The room changed.
Not magically.
Some people have the irritating ability to make silence feel occupied.
"Sister Bismelda."
"Child."
Eulalie's face tightened.
"I am not a child."
"You remain younger than me."
"That is not how the word works."
"It is today."
Bismelda came around the table.
She touched Eulalie's cheek once.
Brief.
Then examined her the way Elisabeth examined an injury.
Shoulders.
Eyes.
Hands.
Posture.
"You're thinner."
"No."
"You're tired."
"No."
"Your mana reservoir?"
Eulalie's expression hardened.
"Unchanged."
Bismelda sighed.
Not surprise.
Old disappointment.
Not with Eulalie.
With the fact.
"So the Academy physicians found nothing new."
"They found new terminology."
"Academies adore giving longer names to old limitations."
I liked her immediately.
Then she looked at me.
"You."
A less encouraging beginning.
"Yes?"
"Raymond."
I looked at Eulalie.
She raised both hands.
"I only wrote the name."
"Traitor."
Bismelda ignored us.
"You are Marduk's student."
My smile disappeared.
Not entirely.
Enough.
"Interesting."
Eulalie turned.
"I didn't tell her that."
"I know."
Bismelda returned to her herbs.
"Then ask how I know rather than staring at the girl."
Good.
I approached the table.
"How?"
"No."
I stared.
She continued sorting.
Eulalie covered a smile.
"That seems to be an institutional disease."
Bismelda selected one dry leaf and discarded it.
"You came for the archive."
"Yes."
"Then we discuss the archive."
"And Marduk?"
"If the archive requires it."
A familiar style.
Older people around Marduk had apparently formed a guild dedicated to irritating me.
Bismelda washed her hands.
"Come."
The Saint-Patrick archive was underground.
Of course it was.
Humanity appears unable to preserve an old secret above ground.
The stairs were narrow but dry.
No guards.
No magical doors.
Just two locks and a humidity ward that made my skin prickle as we crossed the threshold.
Bismelda unlocked the second door.
Eulalie waited.
I noticed.
"You don't have access?"
"Not anymore."
"Why?"
"I don't work here."
Simple.
No special privilege just because childhood had occurred in the building.
Good institution.
Inside were shelves of boxes rather than books.
Patient histories.
Medical dissertations.
Copies of correspondence.
Herbal formularies.
Old magical treatment records.
Bismelda stopped before a desk.
"Your letter asked for a thirty-nine-year-old commentary concerning meridian collapse after environmental mana exposure."
"Yes," Eulalie said.
"And a licensed transcript associated with the commentary."
"Yes."
Bismelda looked at her.
"Why?"
Eulalie glanced toward me.
My instinct said answer for her.
I didn't.
She said:
"We're following references left by a dead alchemist."
"Which one?"
"Marduk."
Bismelda looked at me.
No surprise.
That was interesting.
Eulalie noticed too.
"You knew him."
"Once."
There.
Dangerous sentence.
A hidden relationship?
No.
Bismelda was part of Saint-Patrick, which historically possessed related medical copies. A connection was plausible now because the archive chain established it.
Still.
One meeting did not equal friendship.
"Once where?" I asked.
Bismelda ignored me.
Naturally.
"He was rude," she said.
Eulalie looked at me.
I objected.
"Character assassination."
"He smelled of smoke and refused treatment."
"More believable."
"He insulted three physicians."
"Extremely believable."
Bismelda's mouth moved.
Barely.
Then she became serious.
"He came here asking about the same papers you want."
"When?"
"Before you were born."
"How long before?"
"I don't remember the exact year."
Good.
No convenient date.
"Did he see them?"
"One."
"The licensed transcript?"
"One licensed copy."
"Why only one?"
"Because that is what Saint-Patrick possessed."
Important.
Singular.
Not an archive containing every circulating reproduction.
"What happened to it?"
Bismelda looked toward the shelves.
"Nothing."
I frowned.
"Still here?"
"Yes."
That was almost disappointing.
No theft.
No mysterious fire.
No cult attack.
Just paperwork surviving forty years.
I began to understand why librarians frightened governments.
Bismelda continued.
"You may examine the medical commentary."
"And the transcript?"
"No."
Of course.
Eulalie frowned.
"Why?"
"Restricted patient-linked material."
"It predates everyone currently treated here."
"Privacy does not expire because curiosity arrives late."
I respected that.
I also hated it.
"Can we examine a redacted copy?" I asked.
Bismelda studied me.
"No."
"Can Eulalie?"
"No."
"Can you?"
"Yes."
"Can you answer questions about its non-patient contents?"
Bismelda paused.
There.
A smaller request.
Chapter Fifty-One's lesson surviving contact with reality.
"Some."
Eulalie looked at me.
I didn't gloat.
Much.
Bismelda retrieved a box.
Placed it on the desk.
The label:
SP-MED / 39-7
Inside lay the original medical commentary Eulalie had only received copies from.
A second folder remained sealed with a gray ribbon.
Transcript.
I did not touch it.
Promises.
Annoying things.
Bismelda opened the commentary.
"The physician was Brother Alaric Venn."
I wrote the name.
"Dead?"
"For twenty-seven years."
No convenient witness.
Fine.
"What did he study?"
"Restoration magic."
"Revigor?"
Eulalie asked.
Bismelda nodded.
"Among other traditions."
Eulalie leaned closer.
Bismelda's finger found one paragraph.
"Alaric examined people whose normal restorative response had failed after exposure to abnormal mana environments. He wanted to understand why vitality could be replenished without restoring the body's ability to regulate itself."
That interested Eulalie differently than it interested me.
Revigor.
Her small reservoir.
Not a solution.
But theory adjacent to her power.
"Did he cure them?" she asked.
"No."
Good.
No legendary miracle waiting conveniently underground.
"He improved stabilization in some."
"What about mana capacity?"
"No."
Bismelda looked directly at Eulalie.
"No formula in this archive enlarges what you were born able to hold."
The words were gentle.
Eulalie took them like a slap anyway.
Her face barely changed.
Her hand did.
Fingers curled against the table.
I remembered our combat.
Her discipline.
Her small reservoir.
The order that had surrounded her with mages, physicians and elixirs looking for a way to expand it.
Years of people treating her limitation like a locked door.
I said nothing.
Bismelda continued.
"Capacity and recovery are not the same."
"I know."
"I know you know."
That stopped Eulalie.
Old argument.
Not mine.
Do not enter.
I turned to the commentary.
"C-17 / 42."
Bismelda found the citations.
Page 63.
"Did Alaric possess the expedition record?"
"No."
"How did he cite exact pages?"
"The transcript."
I looked at the sealed folder.
"The four-sheet transcript contains excerpts from C-17?"
"No."
Interesting.
"Then?"
Bismelda opened the medical paper farther.
"He used marginal references included on the transcript."
A bridge.
The four folios themselves apparently cited the expedition record.
Not the doctor inventing the link.
"Can you tell us which parts?"
"Some."
She opened the sealed folder.
I leaned forward.
She looked at me.
I leaned back.
She removed four sheets.
Not ancient folios.
Copies.
Handwritten reproductions.
Different paper.
Different ink.
Forty years old, perhaps.
But copies.
Exactly what Vesper had recorded.
Provenance intact.
Bismelda placed a blank board upright between us and the pages.
We could not read them.
Cruel.
She read.
"First sheet: notes on meridian collapse."
Elisabeth would want every word.
Not possible.
"Second: restoration intervals."
"Third?"
"Comparative response to environmental saturation."
"And fourth?"
Bismelda stopped.
That interested me.
"What?"
She read again.
"The fourth is mostly references."
My pulse slowed.
"Catalog references?"
"Some."
"C-17?"
"Yes."
"Page numbers?"
"Yes."
"63, 71, 88?"
"Yes."
Expected.
"What else?"
She looked at the page.
A pause.
"Symbols."
"What symbols?"
"Medical notation."
Eulalie leaned closer.
"Which tradition?"
"I don't recognize it."
There.
Bismelda did not say ancient.
Forbidden.
Divine.
Just unfamiliar.
Good.
"Can you copy the symbols?" I asked.
"No."
"Describe them?"
"Yes."
Better.
She took a blank sheet.
Drew.
Seven short strokes.
Around an empty center.
The same symbol from Alaric's commentary.
Then beneath it:
three vertical marks.
A slash.
Two circles.
Another slash.
A short angular character.
I stared.
Recognition did not arrive.
Good.
Chessmaster offered comparisons.
Marduk's handwriting.
Alchemical notation.
Navigation.
Numerical cipher.
No confidence.
Leave them.
Bismelda added another line.
Letters.
M / D / IV
"Roman sequence?" Eulalie asked.
"Maybe," I said.
Bismelda looked at me.
"You don't know?"
"I enjoy keeping some mysteries alive."
"You usually pretend."
"Rumors."
She continued describing.
One more notation:
17-42-88 // DD-I
My hand stopped.
DD-I.
Devil's Deceptions I?
Possible.
Not confirmed.
But—
"Again."
Bismelda repeated it.
I wrote exactly.
17-42-88 // DD-I
Eulalie saw my expression.
"What?"
I answered carefully.
"DD-I could refer to the book."
"Could?"
"Yes."
Good habits hurt.
"Do you have the book here?" Bismelda asked.
"No."
"Where?"
"Safe."
She nodded.
No insistence.
I asked:
"Did Marduk see that notation?"
Bismelda looked at the hidden transcript.
"Yes."
"What did he do?"
"Laughed."
Of course.
"Anything useful?"
"He asked for paper."
"What did he write?"
"I don't know."
"You watched him write?"
"Yes."
"Then?"
"He tore the page in half."
My attention sharpened.
"Where are the halves?"
"He kept one."
"And the other?"
Bismelda looked at me.
For the first time since we entered the archive, I saw satisfaction.
Not cruelty.
Preparation.
"Alaric kept it."
I almost stood.
My ribs reminded me why that remained a poor idea.
"Here?"
"Possibly."
"Possibly?"
"This archive has existed longer than I have."
Finally.
A real search.
It took forty-three minutes.
Not because Chessmaster failed.
Because forty years of charitable medicine had apparently never discovered alphabetical consistency.
Boxes had been moved.
Labels renamed.
Old physician files merged.
Eulalie searched one cabinet.
Bismelda another.
I was given correspondence with no patient data.
A very controlled freedom.
I found nothing useful for thirty minutes.
Then:
Venn, Alaric — Professional Correspondence
Inside:
letters.
Receipts.
Three arguments about herb supply.
One note complaining about Nexus terminology.
A man after my own heart.
And a folded half-sheet.
Wrong age?
Paper matched.
Ink faded brown.
Torn edge irregular.
My breathing changed.
"Bismelda."
She came over.
Looked.
"Yes."
No dramatic music.
No divine light.
Just paper.
She placed it flat.
Marduk's handwriting.
I knew it immediately.
Sharp.
Crowded.
Aggressively uninterested in beauty.
The half-page contained five lines.
Only five.
I read.
First:
Not location. Order.
Second:
17 → 42 → 88
Third:
a mathematical arrangement.
Fourth:
D.D. I — 266 / 271 / 274
And fifth:
If you read the place before the time, you will go early and die.
I stared.
Eulalie read over my shoulder.
"Marduk?"
"Yes."
"He wrote like you speak."
"Insulting."
Bismelda said:
"He was worse."
Fair.
The page numbers.
Devil's Deceptions.
Pages we still possessed?
I closed my eyes and reconstructed the book.
Not reliable enough.
"Elisabeth has it."
Eulalie nodded.
"What does 'not location, order' mean?"
"I don't know."
Chessmaster activated.
17 → 42 → 88
Could mean catalog 17, item 42, page 88.
Then DD-I pages 266, 271, 274.
Sequence.
Take something from C-17/42 page 88.
Apply to three pages in Devil's Deceptions.
What?
Words?
Lines?
Characters?
Columns?
Unknown.
The symbol on the transcript perhaps specified the operation.
Not location.
Order.
Maybe a reading order.
Bismelda looked at me.
"You're smiling."
"Am I?"
"Yes."
"This week has been difficult."
Eulalie folded her arms.
"We are not done."
"No."
"That's why you're smiling."
"Exactly."
Bismelda held out her hand.
The half-sheet.
I did not move.
"You're keeping it here."
My smile faded.
"It's Marduk's handwriting."
"It is in Alaric's correspondence."
"He gave Alaric half."
"Which makes it Alaric's archive."
"Legally debatable."
"Not here."
Eulalie watched me.
Our agreement sat between us without being spoken.
No using her institution.
No twisting the rules because I wanted something.
I exhaled.
"Can I copy it?"
Bismelda considered.
"Yes."
Victory.
Small.
Legitimate.
Disgusting.
I copied every mark manually.
Then copied it again.
Two independent copies.
I compared them.
Eulalie compared them.
Bismelda corrected one angle on the symbol.
Good.
Evidence.
The original returned to the box.
I hated watching it disappear.
Growth is dreadful.
On the way upstairs, Bismelda stopped Eulalie.
"Stay."
Eulalie looked at me.
"I'll wait outside."
She frowned.
I smiled.
"No architecture criticism."
"Go."
I did.
The courtyard had changed with afternoon.
Children finished lessons.
A novice hung sheets.
The same boy from earlier was losing an argument with a goose.
I sat beneath the covered passage.
Pain in my ribs dull now.
Manageable.
I examined the copied code.
No revelation.
Good.
Marduk's half-note proved several things.
He had visited Saint-Patrick.
He had seen the transcript.
He had created a sequence linking C-17/42/88 to specific pages in Devil's Deceptions.
He had explicitly warned that place and time were both encoded somehow.
That was important.
But no place name.
No date.
Not yet.
I wrote:
CONFIRMED: Marduk saw SP-MED licensed transcript.
CONFIRMED: Marduk left half-note with Alaric Venn.
CONFIRMED: note links C-17/42/page 88 to Devil's Deceptions I pages 266, 271, 274.
CONFIRMED: wording distinguishes "place" from "time."
Then:
OPEN: decoding method.
No theory under confirmed.
Chessmaster protested with possibilities.
I let it list them separately.
Line extraction.
Word extraction.
Index substitution.
Symbolic reading order.
Cross-document cipher.
Coordinates.
Calendar transformation.
One page from expedition record required?
Possibly unavailable.
That was the problem.
We did not possess C-17/42 page 88.
Only medical citations to it.
Unless the fourth transcript sheet reproduced enough of page 88 to function as key.
Bismelda had not allowed us to copy the transcript.
Could she describe more?
Maybe.
But before I began negotiating a second time, Eulalie emerged.
Her face looked normal.
Too normal.
Bismelda followed.
"You're leaving," she said.
A dismissal.
"Yes."
I folded my notes.
"Thank you."
She looked mildly surprised.
Apparently my reputation was spreading.
"Marduk never thanked me."
"I'm significantly more charming."
"He said that too."
Damn him.
I started toward the gate.
"Raymond."
I stopped.
Bismelda stood beside Eulalie.
"If you decode it…"
"Yes?"
"Do not assume knowledge makes you responsible for acting immediately."
That was unusually specific.
"Did Marduk?"
She looked at the courtyard.
"Frequently."
Not an answer.
Enough.
I nodded.
We left.
Eulalie remained quiet for six streets.
That was a personal record.
I eventually said:
"Bismelda?"
"Yes."
"What did she want?"
"Private."
"Understood."
She looked at me.
"You're not asking?"
"No."
"You want to."
"Desperately."
That almost made her laugh.
Then:
"She asked whether Nexus was my choice."
I waited.
"And?"
"I said yes."
No more.
Good.
We walked another half block.
Then she added:
"She asked whether becoming a Saint still was."
There.
Not a question for me.
I kept walking.
"What did you say?"
Eulalie looked ahead.
"I didn't answer."
That was the first real crack I had seen between Eulalie and the future everyone else had constructed for her.
I did not touch it.
She noticed.
"You're improving."
"I dislike the tone."
"Good."
Elisabeth had Devil's Deceptions open before I finished explaining.
Balthazar arrived ten minutes later.
Not because I summoned him.
Eulalie had.
An important distinction.
Xavier was training with Zack and would return after evening bell.
Again: his life had not stopped because mine contained a cipher.
Healthy.
Annoying.
The four of us crowded around the Sierra's cabin table.
Rex occupied the doorway.
Mira attempted to eat one of my copied sheets.
Balthazar rescued it.
"You allow this animal near historical evidence?"
"She outranks you."
"I regret coming."
Elisabeth found page 266.
"Here."
The surviving page discussed navigation.
Not geographical navigation.
Marduk was describing how magical phenomena distorted perception during high-density mana events.
Page 271:
an alchemical note.
Body regulation.
Pulse intervals.
Page 274:
a story.
Of course.
Marduk wrote about a sailor who insisted his clock was broken because noon arrived before his shadow.
Three completely different subjects.
Navigation.
Body rhythm.
Time.
Balthazar frowned.
"These aren't connected."
"They are," Elisabeth said.
"How?"
"No idea."
Excellent.
I placed the Saint-Patrick code beside the book.
17 → 42 → 88
D.D. I — 266 / 271 / 274
Not location. Order.
Elisabeth read it three times.
Then:
"The fourth transcript page."
"We don't have it."
"What did Bismelda describe?"
I reproduced the symbols.
Seven strokes around empty center.
Three vertical marks.
Slash.
Two circles.
Slash.
Angular mark.
Eulalie added:
"The circles were not identical."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"One was open."
I had missed that.
Bismelda's drawing correction.
I checked my second copy.
Yes.
One circle broken.
Good.
Balthazar leaned closer.
"Old alchemical notation?"
Elisabeth shook her head.
"Not exactly."
"Medical?"
Eulalie:
"No."
I let Chessmaster compare.
Nothing conclusive.
Then Elisabeth turned the book sideways.
"What are you doing?"
"Stop."
She placed page 266 beside my copied symbol.
Then page 271.
Her finger tapped the first line of each.
Navigation.
Pulse.
Clock.
"No."
She moved to the last paragraphs.
Nothing.
Then margins.
Page 266 had one small Marduk mark.
Seven strokes.
Faded enough I had ignored it as decoration.
My body became still.
Page 271.
Three vertical scratches near a formula.
Page 274.
Two circles.
One incomplete.
Eulalie whispered:
"He marked them."
Yes.
Not the transcript giving us the symbol.
Marduk had copied the transcript's notation into his book.
Years later—or perhaps before.
Chronology unknown.
But the correspondence at Saint-Patrick told us how to arrange them.
Elisabeth looked at me.
"Not location. Order."
I understood.
"Symbols determine the order."
Balthazar said:
"Then 266, 271, 274 aren't the extraction order."
"Maybe."
I hated maybe.
We arranged them according to the symbol sequence.
Seven strokes.
Page 266.
Three marks.
Two circles.
Same as numerical order.
Useless.
I frowned.
Elisabeth stared at the slash marks between symbols.
"They're separators."
"Probably."
"No."
She touched the angular final mark.
"This one isn't on any of the three pages."
We searched.
Page 266.
No.
No.
No.
Meaning the sequence required a fourth page.
I checked Marduk's half-note.
Only three page numbers.
Why a fourth symbol?
Unless—
Not a page marker.
Instruction.
Balthazar said:
"Could be reverse."
Elisabeth looked at him.
"What?"
"The final symbol could mean reverse order."
"Why?"
"Old Quell auction shorthand uses a similar angle for recto-verso."
Not same system.
But possibility.
We reversed.
Read the marked sentences.
Page 274:
A clock is most convincing when it lies consistently.
Page 271:
Recovery occurs not when the reservoir fills, but when rhythm returns.
Page 266:
Never trust the map until the distortion has been measured.
Three sentences.
Time.
Rhythm.
Map.
I felt something.
Pattern.
Not answer.
Elisabeth read them again.
Then pulled a blank sheet closer.
"Clock. Rhythm. Distortion."
She wrote:
TIME — INTERVAL — POSITION
Eulalie looked at her.
"That matches what Bismelda said about the transcript."
"What?"
"Environmental exposure measurements."
Balthazar leaned forward.
"So the fourth folio may contain measurement intervals."
"And page 88 of C-17 may contain a table," I said.
Elisabeth looked at the note.
17 → 42 → 88.
Not merely catalog.
Collection 17. Item 42. Page 88.
The missing expedition record.
We still needed that page.
Everything stopped there.
Good.
Real obstacle.
Balthazar sat back.
"Founder Reserve?"
"Legacy Repository Section Four," I said. "C-17/42 was transferred there before the public index vanished."
"And access?"
"No."
"Abraham?"
"Also no."
Eulalie folded her arms.
"So we're stuck."
I smiled.
"No."
She groaned.
"What?"
"Stuck is merely a door with excellent public relations."
Elisabeth closed Devil's Deceptions.
"No stealing it."
"I said nothing."
"You smiled."
Tyrants.
All of them.
Balthazar examined the Saint-Patrick note.
"There's another route."
We looked at him.
"Copies."
Of course.
Vesper had taught us the lesson twice.
The expedition record had circulated enough for Alaric Venn to cite exact pages.
Therefore someone, somewhere, had possessed access to page 88 outside the current locked archive.
Maybe not a full copy.
Maybe excerpts.
Citation notes.
Auction appraisal.
Private research.
"Vesper?" I asked.
Balthazar shook his head.
"Not necessarily."
He pointed at the designation.
"Arcane Geography / Expedition Records."
"Guild archives," Elisabeth said.
"Explorers," Eulalie added.
"Cartographers," I said.
Balthazar nodded.
"Private collectors."
There.
The next search expanded.
Dangerously.
I opened the Blacklist ledger.
Not to declare suspects.
To map institutions.
C-17 / 42 / PAGE 88
Possible surviving derivative sources:
— Nexus Legacy Repository.
— Vesper historical appraisal/cross-reference.
— Saint-Patrick physician notes.
— expedition guilds.
— cartographers/geographers.
— private collections.
Then I stopped.
Too many.
Chapter Fifty-Three did not exist in my mind.
Only the next decision.
Which source had the best probability with the lowest exposure?
Vesper had already supplied cross-reference.
Saint-Patrick exhausted without violating patient archive rules.
Nexus blocked.
Guild records were public enough to query.
Good.
"Elisabeth."
"Yes?"
"Was there a guild seal anywhere in Marduk's notes around 266?"
She reopened the book.
Searched.
Nothing.
Balthazar checked his copied catalog record.
Nothing.
Eulalie studied the Saint-Patrick commentary.
Then froze.
"What?"
She turned the paper.
At the bottom of Alaric Venn's citation list was a tiny stamp we had treated as archive administration.
A compass.
Broken north point.
Text around it:
CATINGTON SOCIETY OF EXTERNAL CARTOGRAPHY
Balthazar stared.
Elisabeth stared.
I stared.
Then Eulalie looked at me.
"You're smiling."
"Yes."
"Don't."
"I haven't done anything."
"That is usually the dangerous phase."
Fair.
I closed the ledger.
We did not have page 88.
We did not have the location.
We did not have the time.
We did not have the missing page from Devil's Deceptions.
But for the first time, we knew exactly what piece was absent from the decoding chain.
And more importantly—
we knew someone outside Nexus had once been allowed to read it.
The Catington Society of External Cartography.
An institution created to preserve maps of places respectable people apparently preferred to remove from libraries.
Marduk's final warning sat beside my hand.
If you read the place before the time, you will go early and die.
I had spent most of my life ignoring the advice of dead men.
Marduk remained the irritating exception.
So tomorrow, we would not ask them where the expedition had gone.
Not first.
We would ask them for page eighty-eight.
And then we would discover why Marduk believed knowing a place could kill you before you ever reached it.