The Conjurer's Riddle

by Andrea Cremer

  “I understand,” Charlotte said, though her mother’s proclamation made Charlotte’s heart stutter with uncertainty, as did the hard cast of her mother’s face. Something about her expression was unyielding to the point of severity.

  “I’ve asked your brother to take charge of introducing your companions to the world, and rules, of the Resistance and our operations here,” Caroline said. “But I’d like you to accompany me to the Daedalus Tower.”

  The burst of surprise and delight made Charlotte almost giddy. Her mother wanted to take Charlotte, and only Charlotte, to . . .

  “The Daedalus Tower?” Charlotte didn’t want to appear ignorant of anything, so pleased was she with her mother’s approval, but she knew better than to pretend knowledge.

  Caroline touched Charlotte’s cheek, and for the first time her smile emanated warmth. “Where we spend all our days and many of our nights. The home of the Resistance.”

  Despite wanting to give a little shriek of excitement, Charlotte managed to retain her composure. She felt a tentative tug on her sleeve. Pip had snuck up beside her. The green-haired girl had wide eyes, and an uncharacteristically timid demeanor.

  “Who have we here?” Caroline asked.

  Pip’s cheeks went rosy. With her own reticence so fresh in her mind, Charlotte put her arm around Pip’s shoulders to encourage her.

  “This is Pip,” Charlotte said. “Pip, this is my mother, Caroline.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Marshall,” Pip’s voice squeaked out.

  “Pip.” Caroline tilted her head, assessing Pip’s face and hair. “Cressida and Lark’s daughter?”

  Shedding her trepidation like a husk, Pip skipped forward at the sound of her parents’ names. “Yes! Yes! You know them? Are they here?”

  The corners of Caroline’s mouth tightened ever so slightly. “Of course. But I’m afraid they aren’t in New Orleans at present. A mission required them in the field.”

  “Oh.” Pip’s face fell.

  Charlotte drew Pip back to her side. “It’s all right, Pip. Why don’t you see how Birch is coming with your mask’s wings?”

  “I think it’s going to work!” Birch called to Pip.

  Though her eyes still shone with disappointment, Pip joined the tinker on the sofa. Caroline watched the pair, then laughed.

  “Are your experiments as incendiary as your aunt’s, Birch?” Caroline asked.

  Birch startled at her question, but Pip caught the mask he dropped before it hit the ground. “Aunt Io?”

  “The very same,” Caroline replied.

  He cast a guilt-ridden glance at Pip before he asked, “And . . . is she here?”

  Caroline nodded, then laughed again. “She oversees the Daedalus Tower workshop. Your aunt is brilliant at design, but can be a bit careless when it comes to execution. When we put her in charge, we continued to benefit from her exceptional mind, but significantly reduced the number of accidents in the workshop.”

  Birch wore a lopsided smile. “That sounds like Auntie Io.”

  “Ash can bring you to her office,” Caroline told him. “She’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  She looked at Pip, who was fidgeting with the mask in her hands, her eyes downcast.

  “And I know she’ll want to meet your young protégée,” Caroline added.

  Pip’s head bobbed up, a little color and a tiny smile returning to her face. She glanced at Birch. “Do you think so, too?”

  “Without a doubt.” Birch patted her green hair.

  Caroline’s gaze moved from the pair on the couch to the solitary figure who sat in the chair beside them.

  “Another introduction is needed, I think.”

  Charlotte’s mother was looking at Grave. Surely, Ash had told their mother about him. He must have. Charlotte turned her head, looking to Ashley for guidance. Her brother gave a brief nod.

  “Mother . . .” Charlotte walked to stand behind Grave’s chair. “This is Grave. Our friend.”

  Caroline stayed where she stood, her eyes searching Grave’s face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you . . . Grave.”

  “Hello,” Grave said.

  “We should be on our way,” Caroline said to Charlotte, but her focus remained on Grave. “Don’t forget to choose a different mask than the one you wore earlier today. Ott should have left a variety for you. Pick one for me as well.”

  Charlotte went to the bedroom that housed the trunks Lord Ott had sent to them. Scoff was sprawled on the bed, snoring. Charlotte quietly retrieved two masks, one composed of rose petals and the other in the likeness of a bear. When she returned to the sitting room, she offered the flower mask to her mother.

  “Lovely,” Caroline murmured.

  While her mother put on the mask, Charlotte went to hug Ash once more.

  “I wish we could talk,” she whispered to him. “I have so many questions. And so much to tell you.”

  “We’ll talk soon,” Ash replied. “But you should go with Mother.”

  “Ash.” Charlotte held on to him a moment longer. “Where is Father?”

  She hadn’t wanted to ask her mother in front of the others. It was a question to which there were more grievous possible answers than happy ones.

  “She’ll tell you,” Ash said.

  Charlotte wished his reply had been more reassuring.

  • • •

  The walk from Le Poisson Noir to the Daedalus Tower didn’t afford Charlotte the opportunity to share an intimate conversation with her mother. Caroline moved at a swift clip along the Domicile walkway, without so much as looking toward Charlotte. Charlotte resigned herself to waiting until they’d arrived at their destination before trying to ask about her father, or anything else.

  They crossed the covered metal bridge that linked the Domicile with the Market. While the Domicile didn’t lack for activity, the Market was a riot by comparison. Tents and booths crowded with vendors and shoppers lined the sides of the walkway, while behind the transient sellers of crops and small crafts, buildings housed all manner of goods. The shops boasted sparkling windows, polished to give browsers an unimpeded view of the wares within.

  Charlotte had been impressed by the variety of shops she’d seen in East Moirai, but those shops offered a mere pittance compared to the grand displays of New Orleans’ Market. A grand purveyor of furnishings displayed pieces with slender, curving legs crafted from exotic woods of all shades. Ladies in delicate masks and pastel bustled skirts stepped primly through the doors of a dressmaker. Automatons waved and twirled behind the store windows, their metal bodies bedecked in velvet, silk, and lace. There were stores that Charlotte couldn’t believe existed: a shop that sold only toys, another stocked treasures of spun sugar and sculpted chocolate whose scents made her mouth water, and yet another offered musical instruments—Charlotte lagged behind her mother to watch the fiddler who stood on the store’s broad porch, luring customers with his intricate melodies.

  Hurrying to catch up with her mother, Charlotte resisted the dazzling sights of the storefronts with a pang of regret. She wondered if there would be time to explore the city, to wander at her leisure. She followed Caroline around a corner and discovered that, unlike the single walkway through the main thoroughfare of the Domicile, the center of the Market quadrant had a second row of buildings and an accompanying walkway. The most vibrant and fanciful stores occupied the first row, while the stores residing behind had purposes more familiar and practical. Butcher, baker, tanner, cooper. Tinker, alchemist, gunsmith, clockmaker.

  Caroline turned off the walkway when they reached a long building bearing the sign The Sintians’ Warehouse. This store had no bright windows. The small openings in its walls were caked with dust. Charlotte followed her mother into the store. Inside, the air smelled of oil and metal. Tall shelves and squat crates filled the store, loaded with parts of all kinds. The only order Charlotte
could discern was that the goods appeared to have been sorted by type of metal. There were shelves laden with bronze gadgets and tubes. Others were overburdened by copper, brass, silver, and gold. It was a maze of broken-down machines and half-assembled weapons.

  Birch would call it heaven, Charlotte thought.

  They passed the rows of shelves, heading for the back of the store, where a man stood behind a simple counter. He looked up at Caroline and nodded. She walked past him without a word, going through a door behind the counter. The door led to a room stacked with empty crates. Charlotte watched her mother go to one of the crates on the floor and reach inside it. When she lifted her hand, the bottom of the crate came with it. A trapdoor.

  “Go ahead,” she told Charlotte.

  When Charlotte looked into the opening, she saw a wooden ladder descending to a cellar. She climbed down quickly as she could. Caroline followed, closing the trapdoor behind them. The cellar was empty except for one wall covered with hooks from which an array of masks hung. When Caroline reached the bottom of the ladder, she untied her rose mask and placed it on one of the hooks. Charlotte did likewise.

  Caroline crouched down and turned the lowest hook on the right side. A panel on the opposite wall slid open, revealing a long metal corridor, round in shape like a large drainage pipe. Charlotte surmised that it probably was, or had once been, a real drainage pipe.

  Leading the way, Caroline stepped into the corridor. When Charlotte joined her, Caroline said, “There’s a wood handle hanging from a chain on your left. When you pull it, the panel will close behind us.”

  Charlotte took that description as a direction as well, and tugged on the chain. The wall panel slid back into place. A string of glass globes ran along the top of the corridor. Inside the spheres, clumps of moss gave off a blue-green light that reminded Charlotte of the glowing fungi that grew in the Catacombs. Their footsteps echoed along the metal tube, but Charlotte’s mother didn’t pause to speak to her. Charlotte wondered when the appropriate time might be to ask her mother questions. Caroline’s bearing and purposeful stride didn’t invite conversation, but Charlotte was beginning to grow frustrated by her mother’s silence.

  She was working up the courage to speak, when they reached the other end of the tube. Caroline turned a wheel to open a round brass door. Natural light poured in from the other side of the door, as well as a rush of fresh air tinged with brine. Charlotte stepped out of the pipe and found herself in another corridor, but this one was wide. To either side of her, four staircases built of metal grating climbed up each of the corridor walls, and above her, walkways connected the opposite landings as far as she could see, up and down its length.

  “Welcome to the Daedalus Tower,” Caroline said. Charlotte heard pride in her mother’s voice.

  Charlotte turned in a slow circle, trying to make sense of this place. “Where are we?”

  “In the wall,” her mother replied.

  “The Iron Wall?” Charlotte asked in disbelief.

  With a smile, Caroline said, “Yes. It takes some adjustment to orient yourself to this space, since the interior of the wall has no defining features. Take note of where you came in.”

  She pointed at the brass door. The image of a hammer had been stamped onto its face.

  “There are other entrances?” Charlotte wasn’t only thinking about getting in, but about getting out. What came as a surprising comfort were the similarities of the narrow passageways and cavernous spaces in the Daedalus Tower to those of the Catacombs. With bolstered confidence, Charlotte waited eagerly for further details from her mother.

  “Of course,” Caroline replied, starting down the corridor. “Some are known to all members of the Resistance; others are hidden from all but a few.”

  They passed other doors on both sides of the wall. These were numbered.

  “Do people live here?” Charlotte asked.

  “We do have living quarters available. Most are on this level, in the interior wall,” Caroline said. “But they serve as temporary homes for Resistance members who frequently move to and from field operations. Those of us who serve indefinitely in the city have residences in the Domicile.”

  Charlotte seized the opportunity to query her mother. “Do you and Father have a home there?”

  “I keep a modest apartment,” Caroline answered stiffly.

  “And Father?” Charlotte had to ask, no matter how awful the answer.

  Caroline stopped and faced her daughter. “Your father is gone, Charlotte.”

  “But . . . how?” Her mother’s answer had been not only abrupt, but so stark, so empty. “What happened?”

  Charlotte’s breath became shaky. Though she had few memories of her father, those she’d retained were full of warmth and comfort, glimpses of walks among tall pines, and laughter while riding high atop his shoulders and pretending she could fly into the treetops. She knew these images were what little she remembered of her father’s visits to his children while they lived at the crèche, but she couldn’t keep a firm hold on the past. Each memory slipped through her fingers as soon as she touched it. Those elusive, ghostly moments would be all she ever knew of her father.

  Caroline gazed at Charlotte for a long moment, then gathered her daughter into a careful embrace. “Sorrow is an indulgence. I know it seems cruel, but a long mourning period is something we cannot afford.”

  Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Charlotte shed a few tears, but kept the rest at bay—though doing so was no easy task.

  Was she right? Her mother had seen years of war, had somehow lost her husband, and this was the conclusion she’d arrived at. There must be truth in what she’d said, even if it flouted convention.

  Charlotte’s mind continued to accept the finality of her mother’s declaration, but it couldn’t stop Charlotte from feeling sick. Like she’d eaten something rotten and her body was desperate to purge the toxins.

  Caroline’s fingers loosened and her next words were gentle. She gathered Charlotte into a brief embrace. “Forgive me, Charlotte. It appears in the time we’ve been apart the war has hardened me and I’ve forgotten what it is to be a mother. I should have found a better way to tell you. But give me your trust, and believe that it’s a mistake to linger in the past, on things that can’t be changed. Put your heart into what you can change. And Charlotte, you can make an incredible difference.”

  Charlotte still felt unsteady, but she let her mother lead her up two staircases and through a door in the exterior wall. A large square table was in the center of the room. A map was unfurled on its surface with markers of iron, brass, and copper situated at different points.

  “Iron for the Resistance, brass for the Empire, and copper for the French.” Caroline walked up to the table. “This is where the officers gather and determine every move that must be made.”

  Charlotte buried the quivering bits of her heart as far from her present mind as possible. Her mother stood over the map, her eyes sweeping across the figures and narrowing as she assessed their positions. Her bearing was one of absolute authority.

  “Mother, are you one of the officers?” Charlotte asked.

  “I’m Commander of Special Operations,” Caroline said. “And, yes, that means I have a place at this table.”

  This news sparked pride in Charlotte’s chest, which helped to chase off some of the sorrow that lingered after raising the subject of her father.

  “Then may I . . .” Charlotte hesitated, awash with excitement yet a bit overwhelmed. “May I ask for an assignment? I want to do my part here.”

  Caroline smiled at her, and Charlotte lifted her chin, ready to receive what orders her mother was ready to give.

  “Since you’ve only just arrived, I should take some time to consider a formal appointment for you in the Tower,” Caroline said. “But I do have a task in mind for you. An important one.”

  “Yes?�
� Charlotte clasped her hands at the small of her back to keep herself from fidgeting with excitement.

  “You know your companions better than anyone,” Caroline told her. “Having undertaken the journey you just did, you’ve seen how each of them responds to challenging situations. Within the Resistance, we believe it imperative that each person play the role best suited to their talent and their character. I’d like you to provide me with a detailed assessment of each member of your party and make recommendations as to how they might best serve our cause.”

  Charlotte’s eyes widened slightly, which prompted her mother to smile again.

  “I’m glad to see you understand what an important task this is,” she said. “And, Charlotte, don’t hesitate to include any conclusions you come to regarding the limitations of your peers. You shouldn’t think of your critiques as passing judgment on your friends, but as the means for ensuring they end up in the right place within the Resistance.”

  “I can do that.” Charlotte had already begun to catalog the variety of skills her companions might bring to the cause.

  “I know you can,” her mother replied.

  Caroline walked around to the other side of the table, trailing her fingertips over one of the maps.

  “There’s another matter I’d like to discuss with you,” she said, looking at Charlotte. “I need to know more about the stranger you found in the wilds. The boy.”

  “Grave,” Charlotte said. “His name is Grave.”

  “Yes.” Caroline nodded. “Ashley said Grave’s origins are something of a mystery. His father was an inventor?”

  “Hackett Bromley.” Charlotte’s skin prickled. She wished she knew exactly what Ash had told their mother. Does she know everything? It bothered Charlotte that she was reluctant to share the story of Grave’s past. Her mother was an officer of the Resistance who had just entrusted her with an assignment she was honored to undertake. She knew her mother wouldn’t ask about Grave if it wasn’t important, but she found it difficult to resist the impulse to shelter Grave from scrutiny.